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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Trump And Biden Face Off Tonight In Final Presidential Debate; FBI Say Russia And Iran Using U.S. Voter Information To Interfere In Election; Pope Francis Endorses Same-Sex Civil Unions. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired October 22, 2020 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[05:31:04]
LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Laura Jarrett.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Christine Romans. It is exactly 31 minutes past the hour on this debate day.
If either presidential candidate hopes to change the course of the race, tonight is the last chance. Joe Biden and Donald Trump gearing up for their final face-off after their train wreck first debate. President Trump is running behind Biden in national polls but within striking range in several key battleground states.
The debate comes after national security officials reveal the most concrete details yet about interference in this election. More on that in a moment.
JARRETT: A big topic tonight, of course, will be the pandemic that the president failed to bring under control and shows dangerous signs of it spiraling out of control. More than 1,100 American lives lost yesterday. That's the most since September 15th.
The incumbent president still playing the role of the underdog but his advisers hope he will show some signs of restraint tonight.
We get more from CNN's Jim Acosta at the debate hall in Nashville.
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JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Laura, President Trump and Democrat Joe Biden will meet later on this evening for their final presidential debate.
In the meantime, President Trump is back to his old tricks of manufacturing bright, shiny objects when he's in big political trouble. The president is on the attack against a slew of targets from the media to Dr. Anthony Fauci. But the president is defending his record on the coronavirus, saying there's, quote, "not much he would change" in terms of his handling of the pandemic. Here's more of what he had to say.
ERIC BOLLING, HOST, "AMERICA THIS WEEK": With COVID, is there anything that you think you could have done differently? If you have a mulligan or a do-over on one aspect of the way you handled it, what would it be?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Not much. Look, it's all over the world. You have a lot of great leaders and a lot of smart people. It's all over the world. It came out of China and China should have stopped it.
ACOSTA: Now, Trump advisers are hopeful the president will do less interrupting than he did at the last presidential debate. That's because they think that the president turned off some voters out there as they watched all of that unfold.
They also are hopeful the president will allow Democratic Joe Biden to talk more in the hopes that the former vice president will have some sort of gaffe that will shake up the race -- Christine and Laura.
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JARRETT: All right, Jim Acosta. Thank you so much for that.
So how does Joe Biden plan to counter the unpredictable President Trump in their final debate tonight?
CNN's Arlette Saenz is with the Biden campaign.
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ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Laura and Christine, the former vice president spent the past three days off the campaign trail meeting with his advisers as he prepared for this final matchup. Biden's advisers say he will focus on talking about COVID-19 and his plan to build back the economy, once again stressing that Scranton versus Park Avenue messaging that Biden has tried to frame this campaign around in these closing weeks.
Now, Biden's advisers say that the former vice president is preparing for President Trump to bully and deflect his way through this upcoming debate. They expect that the president will not just attack Joe Biden but also go after his family. And Biden's deputy campaign manager said that ultimately, these debates are a test of presidential temperament.
Biden has said that he plans on turning this debate back to the issues at hand -- what matters most to voters in these final 12 days before the election as voters will gauge whether they're going to vote for Biden or President Trump -- Laura and Christine.
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JARRETT: All right. As Arlette said, 12 days to the election.
It's time for three questions in three minutes. Let's bring in CNN senior political analyst John Avlon. John, great to see you. Thanks for getting up --
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.
JARRETT: -- with us.
It is debate night -- probably the last chance, one might think, for a president to change the trajectory in this race, although I'm not sure that that's true with 40 million people already having voted.
AVLON: It's also 2020, so kind of balance those two things, you know.
JARRETT: It's also 2020. There's always the chance for another October surprise.
AVLON: Yes.
JARRETT: What do you think? Can the president change anyone's mind tonight?
AVLON: Look, this is his last best chance. I mean, he really had a ton of self-inflicted wounds in the first debate. Second debates are where presidents tend to come back.
And -- but look, he's going to be told by his folks don't be quite as aggressive. As you just heard, let Joe Biden speak for himself and the gaffes will come.
[05:35:05]
The problem is Trump's going to trump. He's not going to change even those he's got his mic muted at the top of the first two minutes, his strategy is to try to get Joe Biden off base.
Now, where things are going to get ugly is if he goes after his family and his son, as he almost certainly will. That's playing dangerous ball because the chance of backlash, the Trump team must know, is significant.
ROMANS: Yes, absolutely, and they're ready for it. I think they must be ready for it --
AVLON: Yes.
ROMANS: -- this time in this debate prep.
Let's look at this map. This all about the road to 270 electoral votes. You know, not a lot of undecideds left -- only 12 days. Even if you give the president all of these states in yellow -- he won them all, by the way, in 2016 -- he still can't top Biden.
What swing state can Trump bring into his column at this point?
AVLON: Such a great question and it's really the key question. Remember, these are state races they're trying to cobble together 270.
Look, I think any southern states that are within the margin of error remain very much in Donald Trump's possibility if he doesn't have a lot of unforced errors. So, Georgia, North Carolina -- those are places he could bring them in. These are all classic swing states, by the way.
ROMANS: Yes.
AVLON: I think Arizona, he can make a real push. The Senate race has been trending Democrat but, you know, you shouldn't count Donald Trump out. Some folks will start talking about districts in -- you know, the main two in Nebraska one and Nebraska two.
But he's got to -- this is a game that enters at this point. It's a cliche because it's true. But he should not -- his team can't afford to give up some particularly southern states within the margin of error.
Here's the bigger problem. He's running out of money and that gives Biden a big advantage to prosecute that case with ads in the final days of the race.
JARRETT: Yes, they have blown through a serious amount of cash.
John, finally, some odd deja vu last night. As I thought it was safe to go to sleep, we see a hastily arranged FBI news conference just two weeks before the election, once again about e-mails. Although this time it's different.
National security officials are accusing Iran and also Russia of obtaining U.S. voter registration data to obviously interfere and meddle in the election. But given the role of John Ratcliffe here, the head of the -- the director of the national --
AVLON: Yes.
JARRETT: -- national intelligence, I should say, it's being viewed with skepticism I think. And this is where the erosion of trust --
AVLON: Yes.
JARRETT: -- we're seeing in government matters.
So how should we receive -- how should voters receive what they learned last night?
AVLON: Look, you're absolutely right to point out that John Ratcliffe has a massive credibility gap because he promised to leave politics out of it during his confirmation hearings and he's been the most political DNI we've seen to date -- no surprise.
Look, even the order of these two countries and how it was presented -- Iran and Russia -- wreaks of politics. That said, getting voter registration data is potentially a big deal. We know Russia was trying to do it last time around.
It upon itself doesn't prove anything, but the danger of elections being thrown into chaos because of voter roll confusion or incursion is a very big deal. This administration has not taken that danger seriously enough. They've tried to deflect away from Russia repeatedly.
The fact is Russia's in this game and we should not be like generals fighting the last war.
ROMANS: Yes.
AVLON: Pay attention to these swing states in these swing districts.
As a former prime minister of Estonia, oddly enough, once told me -- it's not that you need to change the results of an election entirely, you need to raise doubt about key districts.
JARRETT: Well -- and I think Ratcliffe raised a lot of questions because he said that the effort was to hurt the president by putting out these e-mails from the Proud Boys ostensibly --
AVLON: Yes.
JARRETT: -- but he didn't quite explain it. And then an intelligence official later had to clean it up and say it's because of the relationship or the at least assumed relationship between the Proud Boys and the president that it would be seen as hurting the president. But, Ratcliffe didn't really explain that connection at the time.
So I guess we'll have to see how this all plays out tonight at the debate.
AVLON: Let's pay eagle-eyed attention.
JARRETT: Yes, sure to come up.
ROMANS: All right.
JARRETT: Thanks so much, John.
AVLON: Thanks, guys.
JARRETT: Appreciate it. Nice to see you.
All right. CNN has learned that both campaigns are prepared to deploy thousands of poll watchers on Election Day. Each party is training people to document, record, and pass along incidents to their respective legal teams, which could be used as evidence in future legal disputes.
Forty million Americans, as we mentioned, have now voted nationwide but efforts to suppress the vote are ongoing.
The Supreme Court, last night, blocked curbside voting in Alabama despite the pandemic.
And in battleground Iowa, the state Supreme Court sides with the GOP, saying county officials cannot use the state's database to fill in missing information on ballot applications, as they have in prior elections. The deadline to request an absentee ballot in Iowa is on Saturday, so time to fix errors is very short right now.
ROMANS: In Indiana, a federal appeals court overturned a lower court order extending the state's absentee ballot deadline. Ballots are now back to being due by noon on Election Day.
And, North Carolina Republicans signaling they may appeal to the Supreme Court after a lower court ruled ballots mailed by Election Day can still be counted as long as they are received by November 12th.
[05:40:02]
Bottom line, check it out with your state and local election authorities and act early here, right?
All right, a major change from the CDC. The agency updating how it defines a close contact with a COVID-19 patient.
It used to be thought that you needed 15 continuous minutes of exposure. That's changed. Now it can also be a series of multiple brief exposures after a Vermont prison worker appears to have been infected that way.
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DR. PETER HOTEZ, DEAN, NATIONAL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE: And it's a reminder that we don't have a lot of tools in our -- in our (INAUDIBLE) to fight this virus right now until vaccines come along next year. And it's just another reminder of how easy this virus is to transmit. And if you let your guard down, unfortunately, you can get caught and get COVID-19.
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JARRETT: The U.S. suffered nearly 62,000 cases yesterday. The seven- day average is on the verge of surpassing 60,000 for the first time since August third.
And a volunteer in Brazil's trial of the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine has died, but authorities say that's no reason to stop the trial entirely. Thousands of people are enrolled in it and they say there's no reason to assume that it was the vaccine that killed this particular volunteer who may have received the placebo anyway.
Well, a rise in coronavirus cases forcing a big city school district to rethink plans to bring students back into the classroom.
CNN has the pandemic covered coast-to-coast for you.
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BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I'm Bianna Golodryga in New York.
Boston Public Schools announced Wednesday that due to a rising COVId- 19 infection rate in the city, all students will shift to remote learning effective today. The city's seven-day average COVID-19 positivity test rate was reported at 5.7 percent. That's an increase from 4.5 percent last week.
Students will remain in remote learning until there are two full weeks of falling infection rates.
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: I'm Pete Muntean in Washington.
International Travel is suffering because of COVID restrictions. Now, airlines are trying out a new mobile health pass app.
United Airlines is trying something called CommonPass. It stores your coronavirus health status, including the results of a recent coronavirus test that you may have taken for airlines and governments to see while protecting your private health data.
United Airlines passengers tried it for the first time on Wednesday -- the route from Newark to London. And the idea, United says, could be expanded soon.
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Omar Jimenez.
And in multiple states across the Midwest we have seen rising coronavirus numbers, but especially so in Wisconsin. The state set a single-day death record Wednesday of 48. The state built a field hospital just to try and keep up with the pace and Wednesday, it admitted its first patient.
Now, all of this comes as the state's positivity rate has soared to more than 22 percent as early in-person voting begins for Wisconsin that has already seen people show up to the polls in the tens of thousands.
BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Brynn Gingras.
Halloween in New York City is happening. It will be a bit different this year, of course, because of the pandemic, but the mayor of this city says that it can go on safely. So what does that mean?
Well, trick-or-treaters need to stay outdoors. No trick-or-treating in those big, tall apartment buildings. Treats -- they should be placed in baskets rather than handed out, and hand sanitizer should be at the ready. The mayor is reminding trick-or-treaters also that costume masks cannot replace a proper face mask.
And his blessing to celebrate Halloween comes as health officials say hotspot areas in New York City are leveling off in cases.
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ROMANS: All right, thanks to our reporters for all of those.
Now, as the pandemic drags into its eighth month now, a growing number of Americans are running out of their state unemployment benefits and shifting now to extended payments funded by the federal government. That was part of the CARES Act and that extra cushion won't last much longer.
The 13-week benefit extension runs out at the end of the year and an extended benefit program triggers when state jobless rates soar. That's winding down in some states as their economies recover.
All this could leave millions without a financial lifeline as the jobs recovery stalls. In one week, 372,000 people filed for special pandemic relief programs. Altogether, 25.5 million people are getting some sort of jobless assistance.
These are the people who need stimulus, right? Sources say passing another deal through both chambers will most likely have to wait until the lame-duck session.
We'll be right back.
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ROMANS: A stunning shift at the Vatican. Pope Francis becoming the first-ever pontiff to endorse same-sex civil unions.
CNN's Delia Gallagher live in Rome with the details. Tell us about the thinking. This was in a documentary that debuted. It would signal a shift, really, in church thinking.
DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right, absolutely.
This came out last night in a documentary that premiered here in Rome. Let's take a look at what the Pope said in that documentary, according to the Catholic News Agency.
He said, "Homosexual people have a right to be in a family. They're children of God and have a right to a family. What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered."
Now, as you can imagine, this has been met with both praise and criticism by some Christine because it is a change from the position of the Pope's predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who were against legalizing same-sex unions.
However, Francis, in the past, has expressed an openness to legal protections for same-sex couples even though he's made a distinction between that and marriage, which he says should be between a man and a woman.
[05:50:01]
Nonetheless, these are really important comments coming from the Pope because it's the first time he's directly supporting legalization of same-sex unions. We should mention that these were comments, of course, made in a film so we don't have yet any official document from the Pope or the Vatican on this topic. So we'll have to wait and see how this develops -- Christine.
ROMANS: All right, Delia Gallagher for us in Rome. Fascinating -- thanks.
JARRETT: All right.
Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee plan to boycott a key hearing today expected to advance Judge Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court nomination. They say they'll fill the seats with pictures of people affected by Obamacare to stress that Judge Barrett would be a threat to the law.
The GOP has been accused of rushing to confirm a justice who President Trump has said he hopes would help sway the election if it should end up in court.
Senate Republicans are also defending Barrett against a report about her time on the board of a private Christian school system. The Associated Press reports that the school has anti-LGBTQ policies.
ROMANS: All right.
Purdue Pharma agreeing to a kind of corporate death penalty for its role in creating the country's opioid crisis. The company, which made billions of dollars as the crisis worsened, will plead guilty to federal criminal charges and pay more than $8 billion. The company will shut down.
The DEA says the devastating ripple effect of Purdue's actions left lives lost and others addicted.
Purdue's assets will be used to create a non-profit trust that will continue to make OxyContin and overdose rescue drugs. The earnings will ultimately be used to combat opioid addiction.
JARRETT: Rare to see a company face criminal charges there.
Well, archeologists in Oklahoma searching for the victims of the 1921 Tulsa massacre say they found a mass grave. They also found at least one set of human remains on-site there at the cemetery. So far, they haven't been able to confirm that the remains are actually the massacre victims but the state archaeologist says that she's confident that they're looking in the right place.
Hundreds of African-Americans were killed in the massacre when a white mob looted and burned down what was then known as Black Wall Street.
ROMANS: All right, just about 52 minutes past the hour this Thursday morning.
Losses for markets around the world. You can see Asian shares closed mixed. Europe opened lower. And on Wall Street, looking at futures -- right now, futures are leaning lower.
Stocks closed down Wednesday. The Dow fell 99 points. No stimulus -- 98 points -- no stimulus deal yet and hopes fading there.
Also, this report from the Federal Reserve, known as the Beige Book, found the economic recovery is slowing and said the jobs picture is confusing. On one hand, you have more layoffs by some companies, but other companies report they can't find workers because there's not child care and there are concerns about people's health.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq also closed down.
In just a few hours, we'll get another look at layoffs -- another weekly jobless claims report. Figures expected to show a small decline in claims but still well above pre-pandemic levels.
Tesla thriving during the pandemic and vows to sell half a million cars this year. Tesla reported a net income of $874 million, nearly double its second-quarter profit.
There were doubts, of course, Tesla could achieve its 500,000 goal given its California plant was temporarily shut down when the pandemic began. It has delivered 319,000 cars in the first three quarters of this year.
Tesla's stock, by the way, continues to deliver. It's up an astonishing 405 percent this year.
Much like its content, Quibi didn't last very long. The short-form video app is shutting down just six months after it launched. This was a major initiative backed by some of Hollywood's most powerful people like Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, but the company struggled after launching during the pandemic in a very crowded streaming market.
Quibi plans to return the remaining cash to investors and look for buyers for its assets.
JARRETT: Well, here's an extraordinary move by a pro-sports franchise. The Seattle Storm of the WNBA is endorsing the Biden-Harris ticket.
Now you don't often see sports teams endorse candidates but the Storm has sort of done this before. Over the summer, they backed a Democratic opponent of Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who co-owns the WNBA's Atlanta Dream. The Storm has also supported Black Lives Matter.
By contrast, NFL legend Brett Favre asked President Trump during a town hall how pro sports should promote an anti-racism position without alienating fans and losing ratings.
ROMANS: All right.
Coming to a Sam's Club near you, robot janitors. The big-box chain deploying nearly 400 autonomous floor scrubbers to its stores during the pandemic. Hundreds are already in place at Sam's Club locations but now there will be a robot in every store nationwide.
Walmart, which owns Sam's Club, is partnering with the company Brain Corp on the robot technology.
JARRETT: It makes you wonder what that means for the jobs there, though, right?
ROMANS: Absolutely, but it's -- you know, it's also about the safety of workers as well.
JARRETT: Yes.
ROMANS: You need to deploy people to do other things if you don't have them doing that.
All right, enjoy the debate tonight, everybody. Thanks for joining us. I'm Christine Romans.
JARRETT: I'm Laura Jarrett. "NEW DAY" is next.
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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
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 Thursday, October 22nd, 6:00 here in New York.
And we do begin with breaking news. On the eve of the final presidential debate, the country's top national security officials announcing that Russia and Iran have both obtained voter registration information that could be used to influence the election.
The timing of this announcement raises some questions. It came just minutes after former President Obama delivered a strong rebuke of President Trump.
The director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, says Iran's efforts are intended to damage President Trump.
