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New Day

U.S. Supreme Court Allows Pennsylvania to Count Late-Arriving Ballots; Coronavirus Cases Soar Across U.S., Trump Attacks Dr. Fauci. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired October 20, 2020 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: Just trot all upon the rules and speaking time in the first debate.

[07:00:04]

And now, the Trump campaign says they don't like these new rules. Still he will show up Thursday night to debate Joe Biden.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN NEW DAY: Okay, now to the coronavirus. Doctors say we've entered a new and more deadly phase in the pandemic. More than 58,000 new coronavirus cases were reported overnight, and that is a very high number for a Monday when counts tend to be lower.

31 states are seeing a rise in cases this morning. Only one state, you can barely see it on our map, but it's Hawaii down at the bottom there, that's the only one in green this morning that's heading in the right direction. 14 states have a record number of hospitalizations this morning. More than 220,000 Americans have died.

President Trump is not talking about any of that. Instead, he's attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci, arguably the most respected authority on infectious diseases we have in this country. Public health expert William Haseltine equates this to attacking the fire department when the house is burning down.

But we begin with the breaking Supreme Court news and what it means for Pennsylvania and the entire presidential election. Joining us now is Pennsylvania's attorney general, Josh Shapiro. Good morning, Mr. Attorney General.

JOSH SHAPIRO (D), PENNSYLVANIA ATTORNEY GENERAL: Good morning. Good to be with you.

CAMEROTA: Good to have you.

Okay. So the Supreme Court rejected the Republican push to require all ballots be received in Pennsylvania by Election Day. So tell us what this means for Pennsylvania and your reaction when you heard it.

SHAPIRO: Look, I'm pleased with the reaction because the voters here in Pennsylvania deserve clarity and confidence in an election that's already under way, where we've had more than a million Pennsylvanians already go to the polls and exercise their right to vote. Look, time and time again, the president and his enablers have tried to make it actually harder for people to vote here in Pennsylvania. And time and time again, I've told the people of Pennsylvania that I would secure and protect their vote and we've beaten them in court just to be able to do that. They haven't won a single case.

And now, the rules are set. Voting is under way. We're deep in the fourth quarter. And I'm pleased that the people can now have confidence and trust the process going forward.

CAMEROTA: But, practically speaking, what does it mean? Because in Pennsylvania, you can't start counting the votes, as I understand it, until 7:00 A.M. on Election Day. And so, is it highly possible that we won't have an answer in Pennsylvania on election night?

SHAPIRO: Well, practically speaking, what this really means is essentially two things. Donald Trump and his enablers sued to try and do away with, eliminate the drop boxes where people are returning their ballots in seemingly record numbers. And they also tried to unwind a state supreme court decision that said, look, as long as your balance slot post marked by 8:00 P.M. on Election Day and received by friday at 5:00 P.M., you know, three days later, it would be counted. And the Supreme Court of the United States essentially reaffirmed that with their ruling.

Look, we should want all votes to count, not fewer. But Donald Trump has recklessly been trying to sow doubt in this process and limit the voices of the people of Pennsylvania. And what this assures is that they'll count.

As for when we'll know results, I think you're going to have a real good sense of where Pennsylvania is going in the early, early hours of Wednesday morning between the precinct votes and the overall trends of the votes by mail. I think there you're going to have a real good sense statewide. You won't have the precise number, certainly, for a few days, but I think you're going to have a real good sense of where things are going.

CAMEROTA: Let me redo a different opinion. This is your top election official, the secretary of the commonwealth, who said she thinks the overwhelming majority of Pennsylvania's votes will be counted by the Friday after Election Day. And, you know, I mean, I just -- this is critical, obviously, because if Pennsylvania is the deciding factor in the presidential race, as some pundits think it will be, that's a long time to wait.

SHAPIRO: Right. And I think, technically, she is correct. I mean, obviously, you will still have ballots coming in that were properly post marked in the days after the election. What I'm saying though is you will have a very good sense based on trends at the precincts and the trends on who's voting by mail. They'll have a develop good sense of who won Pennsylvania before Friday.

CAMEROTA: As I understand it, this presidential election will also be the first general election in Pennsylvania where there will be this many mail-in ballots, where there's been a rule change and where they will be allowed people no longer need to come up with an excuse or whatever, present an excuse for why they would use a mail-in ballot.

So given that, how can you be confident today that it will go smoothly?

[07:05:01]

SHAPIRO: Yes. Let me break this down for you. There were about 6 million people who voted in the presidential election in 2016. Nearly 3 million, about 2.8 million Pennsylvanians have requested their ballots through the mail and more than a million have already returned those ballots. We're seeing a record level enthusiasm. And it's going smoothly.

While there have been some clerical issues here and there, people are getting their ballots, they're filling them out quickly and returning them. They're dropping them off in drop boxes. I've said all along that I would go to court to secure and protect your vote to stop the attacks from Donald Trump and his enablers, and that's exactly what we've done.

And what I keep telling folks is this, ignore the noise coming from the president. Ignore all the legal back and forth. And just make your plan to vote. And now more than ever, we've got opportunities to vote in Pennsylvania from home, in-person, and in other ways. And so I'm confident that this process is going to go forward. What people need to do right now is to make a plan to vote.

CAMEROTA: This Supreme Court decision last night was a 4-4 vote. Is it your sense that if and when Amy Coney Barrett is seated or if she had been seated that this would have gone differently?

SHAPIRO: Well, look, I took two things out of -- out of this ruling last night from the court. Number one, that the chief justice cares deeply about the credibility of this court and protecting the election and giving the American people confidence in the election process. I think that's a good thing.

But I think it's also clear in a 4-4 case like this that would there be a Justice Barrett, that would be a pivotal vote, obviously. She would have to go one way or the other.

Bottom line here is this. We are deep in the fourth quarter of this game. It would be really reckless and irresponsible for any court, let alone the Supreme Court of the United States, to change the rules of the game while people are already voting. Why should we change the rules and make it harder for people to participate in our democracy? We need all legal, eligible votes to count and every time I've gone to court, we've won to protect that right.

CAMEROTA: Attorney General Josh Shapiro, thank you very much for being on New Day.

SHAPIRO: Thank you. Stay safe.

CAMEROTA: You too.

BERMAN: All right. Joining us now, CNN Political Correspondent Abby Phillip. Abby, thank you so much for being with us.

I just want to make sure people fully understand the immediate impact of this ruling and what it might mean for the presidential election and the road to 270. There is probably no state that is more important than Pennsylvania. It is the swingiest of swing states, as we like to say.

And what this ruling does is it allows more mail-in ballots to be counted for longer. And we know that Democrats are voting by mail at way, way higher rates in Pennsylvania than Republicans. So, this has got to help Democrats, right?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it absolutely does. I mean, I was getting messages from Democratic lawyers who were saying this is hugely significant for them. And a lot of it is just because of how critically important Pennsylvania is to Biden's chances of getting to 270. Pennsylvania is all most like a linchpin state, as you laid out, if people were watching earlier with Harry, it is a critically important linchpin state for both Biden and for Trump. And allowing more votes to be counted is going to give that state more leeway that they really are going to need.

This is a state that has only recently had this robust mail-in voting program, they also have new voting machines this year. So a lot of election officials I've been speaking to all year have been very concerned about Pennsylvania and how they would be able to handle this influx. And I think this court ruling gives them some leeway, but it also settles the issue critically before Election Day. People that I'm speaking to say, once these issues are decided before Election Day, it gets harder to change them after the fact. Not impossible, but certainly harder.

CAMEROTA: Abby, let's talk about what we think is going to happen this Thursday night, and that is the next presidential debate. It looks like both candidates at the moment are going to show up. And there are these -- it will look and sound different than the last presidential debate, because the Debate Commission has decided to enforce these new rules whereby each candidate will get two minutes solid to answer a question without interruption. The other person's mic will be muted during those two minutes.

President Trump's campaign doesn't like this rule but has said that they will abide, I guess, by it or at least show up. And, again, I mean, just why do you think that they wouldn't like the rule if they won't be interrupted for two minutes and they won't be able to interrupt? Why is that?

[07:10:00]

Why would that be, you know, a sign of lack of impartiality, as they're saying?

PHILLIP: I mean, first of all, I feel like we have to say if you're working the refs in a situation like this, it's definitely a sign that you're coming into this situation from a place of weakness. And that's what the president and his campaign has been doing all along, criticizing the topics, criticizing this change, criticizing the format constantly, even well before the coronavirus. So there's that.

But I also think the president wants to be able to do exactly what he did the last time at the last debate. And he also wants to -- I think it's one of the strategies here is to accuse the debate commission of favoring Biden so that if he doesn't perform as well, there's sort of a built-in excuse there.

The problem is this actually might be somewhat beneficial to the president. It might be better for him to not actually interrupt as much because, as we saw after the first debate, viewers, particularly women in our focus groups and in others, in some of these polls afterwards, they really responded very negatively to the president's behavior.

So while his instincts are do it again, obviously, voters don't agree and it would probably be better for him to just take a completely different strategy this time around. Though I think we can agree that that's probably unlikely.

BERMAN: All right. Maybe the biggest development over the last 24 hours in terms of the election and the public health of the nation is the president directly attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci, the most respected infectious disease doctor in the country. He's really taken it to a whole new level criticizing Dr. Fauci.

This morning, we have a fresh response from the doctor. First, I want to give people a taste of what the president has said and then I'll play for you Dr. Fauci's response. First, let's listen to the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: People are tired of COVID. I have the biggest rallies I've ever had and we have COVID. People are saying whatever. Just leave us alone. They're tired of it.

People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots, these people, these people that have gotten it wrong. Fauci is a nice guy. He's been here for 500 years. He called every one of them wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. And this just in is Anthony Fauci's rather ice cold response. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: It's like in The Godfather, nothing personal, strictly business. As far as I'm concerned, you know, I just want to do my job and take care of the people of this country. That's all I want to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BERMAN: And The Godfather, when you say it's strictly business, Abby, you're about to whack someone.

So, Dr. Fauci here is saying, I'm just going to lay it out. This pandemic is bad. We are at a bad place in this country and not headed in the right direction. And if president doesn't like that, I don't care.

PHILLIP: Yes, he seems like he's had enough, frankly. I mean, what a waste of an opportunity on the president's part. Dr. Fauci spent so much of this pandemic really trying to not step on President Trump's toes, avoiding criticism of the president pretty religiously.

And now he has no choice because he is being publicly attacked by the president and by his campaign to stick up for himself and stick up for science, frankly, because that's really what the president is attacking. He is lumping Fauci in with other scientists who he doesn't want to listen to.

So, you know, this is such bad politics for this president at a time when he is not viewed as handling this pandemic well, and also at a time when he's trying to use Fauci's words and likeness in a campaign ad to his advantage. It makes absolutely no sense.

And it also tees this up really easily for Joe Biden as we head into this debate. There's a reason the president doesn't want to talk about things other than foreign policy on Thursday, it's because he doesn't want to talk about the coronavirus.

And now, there's going to be all of this fresh ammunition from Biden to basically say, yes, the president has explicitly said it, he doesn't want to listen to the scientists, he doesn't want to listen to Dr. Fauci.

BERMAN: Abby Phillip, as always, thank you very much for being with us.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump face-off one last time, the final presidential debate CNN's special live coverage begins Thursday night at 7:00 P.M. Eastern.

The numbers on the pandemic this morning getting much worse, they are alarming. CNN has just learned that all 62 residents of one Kansas nursing home have been infected. Ten of them have died. Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us next.

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[07:15:00]

BERMAN: We heard Dr. Peter Hotez a little while ago tell us we are heading into the darkest -- one of the darkest periods this country has ever seen. He's talking about the coronavirus pandemic and the numbers are bleak. 31 states are seeing an increase in new cases. All the states there in orange and red, the beige states are static right now but at a very bad place. 14 states have hit record hospitalizations in the last week.

CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta joins us now. And it's those hospitalizations, Sanjay, I know, which have you the most concerned. Why?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, I mean, it's one of these things where you've got people who become sick and, you know, in this country in particular, high-resource countries, you really don't want to go to the hospital but you have this ability to be able to call an ambulance, go to the hospital.

You're running into situations now in several these states where their capacity in terms of what they can tolerate, their surge capacity, is very questionable. They're already sort of getting high and we're sort of mid-October at this point as flu season starts to begin, those hospital beds are going to start to fill up. You add coronavirus on top of it, it's going to be a real problem.

So you mentioned 14 states are seeing their peaks in terms of overall hospitalizations. 42 states now are going up overall in terms of hospitalizations.

[07:20:01]

So that's -- that's a real concern. I mean, because we talk about the virus itself, how contagious it is, how lethal it is, but the practicality of caring for patients who get sick, I think, is going to be the sort of biggest concern. People won't be able to get the care that they need.

CAMEROTA: Yes, that's very concerning. I mean, we're just -- it's deja vu all over again in the worst possible way. We remember that happening in the spring.

We want to ask you, Sanjay, about what's going on with Dr. Fauci and President Trump. There seemed to be behind the scenes simmering tension for a long time, certainly from President Trump towards Dr. Fauci. But now it's spilled into the public and he has said insulting things about Dr. Fauci. I know you talk to him regularly. What's your take?

BERMAN: Well, you know, it's pretty vile stuff, Alisyn. I mean, he's getting called an idiot. He's getting called a disaster, you know, by the president. I mean, as you point out, it's not the first time he's been attacked this way. But I will tell you it has real ramifications, as you know, and Dr. Fauci has talked about this, he gets death threats. He travels with security. His daughters, he has three daughters, they get harassed. So it's really -- I think it's quite infuriating for him.

And keep in mind his primary obligation in the midst of this sort of thing is to oversee the Institute for Infectious Diseases, help shepherd some of these vaccine and therapeutic projects through, all the talking that he does, the educating and stuff like that is more of a public service for him. So, you know, it's -- it's shocking. I will say that I do think Dr. Fauci, but also Dr. Giroir, Dr. Hahn, have also become a little bit more emboldened, I think, over the past few weeks. Remember, Dr. Hahn pushing through the safety guidelines for the vaccine despite the president saying he might not approve that. Dr. Giroir, responded directly to Scott Atlas' tweet. Scott Atlas wrote, masks, question mark, no. And Brett Giroir wrote, masks, yes. There's these battles that are not coming out into the public that we really haven't seen before.

And Dr. Fauci, he is upset, I think, by this. He reacts in a pretty cool way, quoting The Godfather, his favorite book of philosophy, as he calls it, nothing personal, strictly business. So, you know, I mean, he -- I think he is upset but he's continuing to do the job.

BERMAN: It's strictly business. Again, Sanjay, that's what you say before someone gets whacked. So, that is -- it's a loaded statement from Dr. Fauci --

GUPTA: That's true.

BERMAN: -- a statement that Dr. Fauci is saying is, when I'm saying it's strictly business, my business, Fauci is saying, is saving people's lives, President Trump. What's your business here? That's the distinction that's being drawn.

And you bring up Scott Atlas. And there's a really interesting case out of Kansas, and I think it brings Scott Atlast and his theories into question. This has to do a nursing home in Kansas, in Norton, which is about halfway up the state right in the middle of the northern border with Nebraska. All 62 residents of a privately-owned nursing home, we have learned overnight, have become infected with coronavirus. Ten residents there have died. So, 62 infected, of those ten have died. This is in a nursing facility in Kansas.

And the reason I bring up Dr. Atlas' name, Sanjay, is because he says, well, we need to protect the vulnerable populations but among younger people, basically, let it rip. They should go about their lives. The vulnerable population are in nursing homes like the one in Norton, Kansas. So how can we protect those populations while letting it rip elsewhere? Doesn't this just show that it isn't really possible?

GUPTA: It absolutely does. You're absolutely right, John. And this is reminiscent, obviously, of what we saw in Washington State at the beginning of this pandemic. And we were still learning about the virus at that point. So think about it now in October when we understand this virus, we understand who the vulnerable populations are. And they're trying to do everything they can to protect vulnerable populations with the types of screening that they're doing, testing to the extent that it's available, and what happens, exactly what you're saying.

So this idea of herd immunity, you know, just letting people who are healthy and young get the virus, protect the vulnerable in these cocoons, nursing homes, whatever, it doesn't work. I mean, that's been the concern. The virus is just too contagious. It will hitch a ride on some unsuspecting person who will give it to somebody else who happens to be a food deliverer for that nursing home, it gets inside. Once it's inside the nursing home, it starts to spread. Very clearly, as you see here everybody essentially becoming infected. Ten people dying. I think another person is hospitalized. I mean, it's tragic.

You can imagine the families who have their loved ones in that nursing home, everyone is getting it there. That's the concern going into the fall and winter. I mean, you cannot, as much as you want to, as much as you try, you cannot cocoon this gigantic population of people in the country.

[07:25:02]

That's why the only solution is to really try and bring down the viral transmission overall. We're not there yet and it's going to get worse before it gets better.

It will get better. It will, you know, spring, you know, summer of next year. But for the next few months, it's -- the numbers are going to continue to go up.

BERMAN: Sanjay, as always, thank you very much. We talked about the public health implications of the attacks on Dr. Fauci, but how on earth does it make political sense? What is President Trump trying to get out of his attacks on Dr. Fauci before Election Day? That's next.

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[07:30:00]