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New Day
Trump & Biden Spar in Dueling, Distant Town Halls. Aired 6- 6:30a ET
Aired October 16, 2020 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No second presidential debate. Instead, dueling town halls.
[05:59:28]
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The voters did not get a lot of straight answers from President Trump.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, HOST, NBC'S "TODAY": Did you take a test on the day of the debate, bottom line?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I probably did.
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: It's just decency to be able to determine whether or not you are clear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nearly 60,000 new COVID-19 infections across America yesterday.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE; As we enter the cooler season of the fall, you don't want to be in that compromised position.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is now unconscionable this late into the outbreak.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Friday, October 16, 6 a.m. here in New York.
The stark differences between Joe Biden and President Trump were on display last night in dueling town halls. If viewers could switch back and forth, they saw the contrast in tone and substance on key issues like the pandemic.
Biden did more of a deep dive into issues like taxes and criminal justice reform. President Trump sparred more with the moderator, refusing to denounce this fringe conspiracy that the FBI calls a domestic terror threat, and passing on the opportunity to reject their offensive claims about the killing of Osama bin Laden.
The president also admits that he may not have taken a coronavirus test before the first debate. And he claimed the science is still out on masks, despite the near-universal view that it is one of the best weapons we have to get the pandemic under control.
BERMAN: Yes. You know, it's quite a thing when the president goes on national TV and praises the group the FBI says is likely to motivate domestic extremists.
It's quite a thing when the president goes on TV to specifically spread misinformation about masks, when wearing masks could save 100,000 lives by February. Quite a thing when the U.S. is clearly, clearly now facing this new phase of the coronavirus crisis.
You can argue whether it's a second wave or a third wave. Either one, the very danger we have all been warned about for fall and winter, it is here.
Nearly 64,000 new coronavirus cases were reported overnight. That's the highest total in two months. Look at the curve. At least nine states are reporting the most new cases in one day ever.
Right now, seven states are seeing record hospitalizations, and if there's one thing we know, more hospitalizations leads to more deaths.
So that is the backdrop, as we go to the White House right now. Joe Johns is there.
Two town halls, Joe, but one message from one president, a message that could cost Americans their lives.
JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: John, that's true. These dueling town halls really summed up the state of the race. We had that dangerous misinformation from the president about wearing masks. We had news about his own experience with coronavirus. And then there were the conspiracy theories.
All of this raising questions about whether the president did himself any favors at all by backing out of that debate with Joe Biden.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHNS (voice-over): President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden faced off in dueling town halls, scheduled after Trump refused to participate in a virtual debate following his coronavirus diagnosis, a topic he tried to avoid, like when asked whether he was tested the day of the first debate.
TRUMP: If you ask the doctor, they'll give you a perfect answer.
GUTHRIE: Yes.
TRUMP: But you take a test, and I leave and go about your business.
GUTHRIE: Did you take a test on the day of the debate, I guess, is the bottom line?
TRUMP: I probably did, and I took a test the day before and the day before.
JOHNS: Trump in Miami also downplaying the Rose Garden event that may have infected him, White House staff members and others.
TRUMP: Well, they do a lot of testing in the White House. They test everybody, including me. But they test everybody. I tell people wear masks, but just the other day they came out with a statement that 85 percent of the people that wear masks catch it.
JOHNS: Meanwhile in Philadelphia, Biden slammed Trump's handling of the pandemic.
BIDEN: He missed enormous opportunities and kept saying things that weren't true. It's all going to go away like a miracle. He's still saying those things.
JOHNS: The Democratic nominee also criticized Trump's messaging as harmful to the coronavirus response.
BIDEN: The words of a president matter.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely.
BIDEN: No matter whether they're good, bad, or indifferent, they matter. And when a president doesn't wear a mask or makes fun of folks like me when I was wearing a mask for a long time, then you know, people say, Well, it mustn't be that important.
JOHNS: For most of the night, Trump was combative, including when pressed on his refusal to condemn white supremacy in the first debate.
TRUMP: I denounced white supremacy, OK?
GUTHRIE: You did, two days later.
TRUMP: I denounced white supremacy for years. But you always do it. You always start off with a question.
GUTHRIE: Well --
TRUMP: You didn't ask Joe Biden whether or not he denounces Antifa.
JOHNS: This time around, the president declined to condemn QAnon conspiracy theories.
TRUMP: I know nothing about QAnon.
GUTHRIE: I just told you.
TRUMP: I know very little. You told me, but what you tell me doesn't necessarily make it fact. I hate to say that.
I know nothing about it. I do know they are very much against pedophilia. They fight it very hard. But I know nothing about it.
GUTHRIE: They believe it is a satanic cult run by the DNC.
TRUMP: If you'd like me to study the subject. I'll tell you what I know about. I know about Antifa, and I know about the radical left, and I know how violent they are.
JOHNS: Biden mostly provided long answers, laying out his policy plans and said this about his involvement in a crime bill as a senator.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: Was it a mistake to support it?
BIDEN: Yes, it was. But here's where the mistake came. The mistake came in terms of what the states did locally.
JOHNS: The former VP dodged a question about whether he's looking to expand the Supreme Court in the wake of Senate Republicans' move to rush the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett.
[06:05:08]
STEPHANOPOULOS: But don't voters have a right to know where you stand?
BIDEN: They do have a right to know where I stand. And they'll have a right to know where I stand before I vote.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So you'll come out with a clear position before election day?
BIDEN: Yes, depending on how they handle this.
JOHNS: Trump did little to deny "The New York Times" reporting about his tax returns.
GUTHRIE: Are you confirming that, yes, you do owe some $400 million?
TRUMP: What I'm saying is that it's a tiny percentage of my net worth.
When you look at vast properties like I have. And they're big, and they're beautiful, and they're well-located. When you look at that, the amount of money -- $400 million is a peanut.
JOHNS: When asked what a Biden loss would mean for the country, the former vice president said this.
BIDEN: Well, it could say that I'm a lousy candidate and I didn't do a good job, but I think, I hope that it doesn't say that we are as racially, ethnically, and religiously at odds with one another as it appears the president wants us to be.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JOHNS: The president wakes up today at his Doral resort outside Miami. He's got a couple more campaign stops in Florida. Then it's on to Macon, Georgia, for another rally. The president late in the race continuing to try to shore up support at a time when millions of Americans have already voted -- John.
BERMAN: All right. Joe Johns at the White House. Joe, thank you very much for that.
Joining us now, CNN national political reporter Maeve Reston. And CNN political commentator, Errol Louis. He's the political anchor of Spectrum News.
Friends, look, when a president of the United States praises a group that the FBI says can motivate domestic terror; when a president of the United States throws shade on masks, which all kinds of people say could save 100,000 lives by February, it's hard to step back and take a bigger view than that. It's hard to say there are other headlines.
But Maeve, I want you to try. I mean, you -- you wrote an in-depth analysis of these two events last night. And if you were an alien and teleported to earth last night and were able to watch both events at the same time and process what the biggest takeaway was, what would you say?
MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think it showed voters exactly what they were choosing between in this November election. I mean, you had serious whiplash if you were going back and forth between the two events, but that was largely because, you know, President Trump, every time he gets into one of these settings, it's immediately contentious, because he interrupts. He interjects. He threads his answers with inaccuracies and mistruths.
And so it created this really contentious dynamic with Savannah Guthrie, who did a great job of cutting him off, fact checking him in the moment. And -- and so it felt like this high-speed, rapid-fire back and forth in that event, which is the kind of volcanic energy that Trump creates that many voters are so tired of. They're exhausted by those kinds of tactics that he takes.
Whereas if you switched over to the Biden event, it really showed you, you know, since in this moment, he wasn't having to deal with, like, the Trump effect of cutting him off, he would pause. He would give, you know, a long and sometimes winding answer. But showed that he was trying to be thoughtful and connect with the questioner.
And I think that, you know, some people tuning into that, particularly independents who have been turned off by Trump's style, might say, OK, maybe I'd rather have the next four years look like this than continue listening to, you know, what Trump does on a daily basis, John.
CAMEROTA: And Errol, before we get to the medical implications of all of this, if you were an alien just getting out of your spaceship, would you understand what QAnon was and why the president seems to buy their conspiracy theories?
ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, if I were an alien, I'd look at both town halls and see them pretty much the way I saw them last night, which -- which is that there's one person who seems to be desperate, kind of throwing these "hail Mary" passes, desperately trying to change the conversation and refusing to answer very direct questions, including around QAnon.
The notion that this -- this conspiracy theory, which has been written about, which has been identified as a domestic terrorist threat, that the president of the United States doesn't know anything about it. I mean, this is -- it is shocking. Just as John said. Any other day you'd say, how is it that the president doesn't know about something that his own FBI has identified as a terrorist threat?
And so, you know, you've got somebody in the form of President Trump, who doesn't appear to act like an incumbent. He's running, in many ways, against his own government. He's misusing health statistics. He's kind of denouncing or distancing himself from the FBI's findings. He's running against reality to a great extent, because plain facts that are put before him such as, You owe $400 million to somebody, who is that somebody? And he kind of talks all around it.
[06:10:22]
I mean, you know, this -- this is not something that lends a sense of comfort. It was one thing to run as a chaos candidate four years ago, around issues that, frankly, were either not that important, like Hillary's e-mails, or were kind of off in the distance, like, are you going to build a wall?
Now we're running against reality. And these are hard realities that are affecting lots of people's lives, like mass unemployment and like mass death. And chaos doesn't appear to work. I mean, it's very jarring to see it on a small screen like that.
BERMAN: Playing against mass death.
On that note, also with us, CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner. He's a professor of medicine at George Washington University and the cardiologist for former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Dr. Reiner, it looks like we caught you, you know, on the way to the O.R.
There are models that project that, if all of us wore masks, it could save 100,000 lives by the winter. That's a lot. That's a lot of lives saved. Dr. Fauci's practically begging us to wear masks all the time.
Yet the president goes on TV, did it at a rally yesterday -- and I just couldn't believe that he did it in this town hall setting, in this town hall forum, and threw shade at the idea of wearing masks. I actually don't want to play the sound, because it's misleading. It will mislead the American people. Misrepresenting a study, the president did last night.
What was your takeaway?
DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Disgraceful. You know, the president misrepresented a study to try and suggest that somehow masks don't work or that most of the people who got the virus were wearing masks. He completely misrepresented it. We've known since very early on in this pandemic that this is an
airborne virus; that it's incredibly contagious; and that it's lethal. And we've had a recommendation since April 3 that all Americans should wear masks. Yet, this president has consistently undercut it.
He -- he told the public that he would not wear a mask in the office. He told the public that he didn't need to wear a mask to protect other people, because he was tested every day. That turns out to be a lie. He prevented the U.S. Postal Service from sending masks to every American, which would have saved, again, tens of thousands of lives.
There was a recent story that suggested that the CDC wanted to require masks on all modes of public transit in the United States. The White House blocked -- blocked that.
I have no idea why they took the 180-degree wrong side of this issue, but the net result is probably the deaths -- the unneeded death now of maybe 150,000 people and 100,000 people going forward before the end of the year.
CAMEROTA: And Dr. Reiner, I just want to stick with you, because we're luckily keeping Maeve and Errol for our next segment, but Chris Christie has had a come-to-Jesus about masks because of his scare with COVID.
You know, he was sicker than we knew. We didn't know much about it, other than that he was in the hospital. It turns out he was in the ICU.
And now when he came out, here's what he said: "I believe that, when I entered the White House grounds, that I had entered a safe zone due to the testing that I and many others underwent every day. I was wrong. I was wrong to not wear a mask at the Amy Coney Barrett announcement, and I was wrong not to wear a mask at my multiple debate prep sessions with the president and the rest of the team."
I mean, he just couldn't say it any more clearly.
REINER: Right. I think he was both humbled by his illness, and a lot of patients are humbled by being in the ICU for seven days. Just being in the ICU for one day -- he was there for seven days, and I'm sure at some point, he wasn't sure which way it was going to go.
And he sounded angry also. He sounded angry that he sort of had been deceived about the safety of being at the White House and their -- and their protocol for protecting people there.
But I was glad to see his statement. I thought it was -- he did a public service by urging the public to wear masks and to do the right thing. And this is the statement that all of us had hoped the president would have made at any time this year, particularly after his recent illness.
Imagine if the president had made that similar statement live, you know, from Walter Reed, urging America to mask up. We'd be on our way to a different place right now. But he's not -- he's not the person to do that.
So I was glad to see Governor Christie do that. I think it was the right thing to do.
BERMAN: Dr. Reiner, we appreciate you being with us. And I just want to tell people, again, this is happening in the context of more new cases reported in one day than we have seen in two months.
It is just crystal-clear. I don't know whether it's a second wave or a third wave, but we are in this new wave of the pandemic right now, where things are getting worse by the day. And this is what you and other doctors have warned us about for so long.
[06:15:09]
So Dr. Reiner, we'll let you get back to work saving lives, and we'll see you again very soon.
Errol, Maeve, stick around. We have a lot more to discuss. The high points, the low points, the major news from these town halls, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAMEROTA: If you had a hard time switching back and forth last night, flipping channels between both town halls, don't worry. We've got all of the highlights covered for you. And we're back with Maeve Reston and Errol Louis, whose job it was to flip back and forth and analyze.
So Maeve, let's talk about the Biden town hall. He's really struggling with this court-packing question, which seems like it should be an easier question than he's making it. He's building in this tease that nobody can quite figure out what the strategy is, but here's this moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[06:20:05]
BIDEN: I'm not a fan. I didn't say -- it depends on how this turns out. I'm open to considering what happens from that point on.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, you've said so many times during the campaign, all through the course of your career, it's important to level with the American people.
BIDEN: It is. But George, if I -- if I say, no matter what answer I gave you, if I say it, that's the headline tomorrow. It won't be about what's going on now, the improper way they're proceeding.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But don't voters have a right to know where you stand?
BIDEN: They do have a right to know where I stand, and they'll have a right to know where I stand when I they vote.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So you'll come out with a clear answer before election day? BIDEN: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Maeve, I'm so confused. His non-answer is a headline, it turns out.
RESTON: Totally.
CAMEROTA: So -- so what do we take from that?
RESTON: Well, I think it was funny how he -- he actually kind of, like, said his strategy out loud or why he couldn't say it right now, is because he didn't want to basically distract from the other headlines of the night, which would be Trump's response to the pandemic or, you know, wild conspiracy theories. You know, whatever Joe Biden was expecting Trump to do in that.
But it was such a dodge. And one that he keeps making, even though in the past, during his career, he said, you know, at various points that he doesn't think that court packing is -- is a good thing to do.
But he can't, right now, alienate those voters, you know, on the far left, who are so angry about the Barrett nomination and the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the way this has all been handled. And so he keeps making this dodge.
And so I guess it gives him, like, another week or so before he actually has to answer the question. And as we know, you know, some 17 million people have cast their ballots already. So -- but it just came off as dodgy, Alisyn.
BERMAN: You know, actually, if he had been giving this answer for the last three weeks, it wouldn't be the predicament it is for the Biden campaign. I think he gave more of an answer last night, which is, it depends on what we see out of the Republicans in the Senate.
The new thing last night that complicates things for him is he told the American people that he will give a definitive answer --
RESTON: Right.
BERMAN: -- before election day. But it was interesting. You're right. It was interesting to see the sort of mental evolution of it all right there.
Errol -- and I don't know if we have this sound. Joe Johns played it at the end of his piece. It has to do -- both candidates were asked about what happens if you don't win the election.
President Trump gave the same kind of mealy-mouthed answer about the peaceful transfer of power. Ultimately, he sort of half said he would accept it, even though he didn't really.
And Joe Biden had a different approach to the idea of what it would mean and how he would handle it if he lost. Listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Well, you could say that I'm a lousy candidate, and I didn't do a good job. But I think, I hope that it doesn't say that we are as racially, ethnically, and religiously at odds with one another as it appears the president wants us to be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: One of the things that was interesting there is that was humility, which is something that we don't see that much in politics, it seems.
LOUIS: Well, it's been absent from -- from the White House for the last four years, for sure.
Joe Biden often tells little self-deprecating jokes, and he did it in last night's town hall meeting, and he did it a little bit, really, even in that answer.
But that larger question, that goes directly to his brand. It also helps explain, by the way, why Joe Biden doesn't necessarily want to throw any kind of radical proposals into the mix when it comes to changing U.S. institutions like the Supreme Court.
The Joe Biden brand, his value proposition, his argument to the voters in these closing weeks, is that he wants to bring the country together. That he wants to give us some relief from some of the chaos we've seen over the last four years.
And it cuts against that argument to -- to sort of jump out there and say, We're going to do this and we're going to do that.
And there was also, by the way, John, a little bit of sadness there, I think. This notion, as he thought about it and tried to process the question, you know, what if this is what the country wants? What if what the country wants is a lot of strange and wrong information coming from their commander in chief, vague and disturbing answers about conspiracy theories and terrorist threats? Unanswered questions about foreign influence in our democracy?
I mean, you know, there is something that I think that, you know, you talk to your Democratic friends. A lot of them, I think, in the end, are a little bit scared that, you know what? Maybe this is where we're going. Maybe this is where the country ends up.
That's what I heard Joe Biden saying, and of course, he's offering himself as an answer. And if the polls are right, it seems like a lot of Americans do agree with him.
[06:25:03]
BERMAN: You know, it's interesting, though. You had the Biden campaign manager stressing -- stressing yesterday that they think this race is a lot closer than the polls may be showing.
CAMEROTA: I look forward to asking Symone Sanders about that later in the program.
But I also think that, to Errol's point, that Joe Biden's style, because it can sound halting, and because we're not used to sort of a thoughtful beat, you know, taking a thoughtful few beats of, like, what would that mean for the country. It -- it's -- it was just -- it was interesting on many levels, to hear him -- to hear how he answered that.
Errol, Maeve, thank both very much.
RESTON: Thank you.
LOUIS: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: There's nearly 64,000 new coronavirus cases reported in the U.S. overnight. The governor of New Mexico says it's the most serious emergency the state has ever faced. We have an update on the crisis, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAMEROTA: Overnight, nearly 64,000 new coronavirus cases were reported. That's the highest total in two months. At least nine states are reporting the most.
