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New Day

Trump and Biden Face Off Tonight; Jobless Claims Drop; Restaurants in Dire Straits as Pandemic Worsens; Children Still Separated at Border. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired October 22, 2020 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: But, Axe, what advice would you give Joe Biden for when President Trump invariably brings up Hunter Biden. I mean I know that Joe Biden, obviously, feels very personal about that, but what I think President Trump tries to do is make it seem like he's bringing up corruption and that somehow Joe Biden himself is smeared to that.

How's he supposed to respond to that?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's a really good question, Alisyn, because this is a very tender spot for Biden, not because there are real vulnerabilities there, but because he feels so strongly about his kids. We saw it in the last debate. He handled it very well there, partly because the president chose to make it about drug use and Biden, I think, really turned that on him.

But he can't be so reactive that it throws him off his game. He needs to dismiss the charges, which are, you know, based on dubious information that even Fox News turned down. And if the president keeps returning to it, I think the president's going to miss his opportunity to push issues that may actually benefit him. So -- but if Biden overreacts, if he becomes unsettled by it, then it could be a better night for the president.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It may be that what Joe Biden should do, as you're saying, is try to portray himself as the grown up, as this return to normalcy, which was, to an extent, the very same message we heard from former President Obama last night.

Listen to one more part of what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: You might be able to have a Thanksgiving dinner without having an argument. You'll be able to go about your lives knowing that the president is not going to retweet conspiracy theories about secret cabals running the world or that Navy SEALs didn't actually kill bin Laden. Think about that. The president of the United States retweeted that. Imagine. What -- what?

(END VIDEO CLIP) BERMAN: So the former president was into this last night. There's just no question.

AXELROD: Yes, he was feeling it.

BERMAN: He absolutely was. And, Axe, you look at this and one of the things that jumps out to you is the timing of it all.

AXELROD: Yes.

BERMAN: Why now and how will he be used the next 12 days?

AXELROD: Yes, I think that he and the Biden campaign were very smart to wait until 12 days out to roll him out because what you didn't want to make this was a kind of extended surrogate battle between the former president and the president. You didn't want him to take center stage and you wanted Biden to establish himself as a solid front runner, not a guy who was calling his buddy in to bail him out. And so last night was the right time for him to appear.

But he has a specific mission. And a lot of the subtext of his speech was aimed at younger voters, voters of color, because, as you remember, these were the constituencies that did not turn out for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and it made a critical difference in that election.

Barack Obama has a connection to these voters. He's a motivating factor for these voters. And I think he's going to spend the next 12 or 11 days now speaking directly to those young people. And not just in these public appearances, but he's been a heavy presence in digital on social media in -- on channels that are -- that speak directly to these constituencies. That is his best value to Joe Biden right now, get out young people, get out people of color, make sure that that turnout is what Joe Biden needs.

CAMEROTA: You know, David, what was very interesting is that minutes after President Obama spoke, the top intel chiefs of the country came out with an announcement. So it was the DNI, it was FBI director and they came out to announce that Iran and Russia were once again trying to interfere with all of this disinformation. They're already seeing evidence of it.

And what the DNI started the -- his speech with was he -- that basically he was there at the behest of President Trump. President Trump wanted him to do this.

And, you know, President Trump is a master counter programmer, as we have seen for the past four years. And so every time President Obama speaks, should we expect -- I mean you know nothing gets his goat, nothing gets President Trump's goat like President Obama. And so the Biden camp -- should they be prepared for what team Trump will do to counter Obama?

AXELROD: Yes, well, first of all, let me say, Obama also gets -- knows how to get his goat and ratings was one of the ways that he did it, bringing up ratings. Yes, look, I think that Trump will -- I think we're going to see, like

the grand finale of a fireworks show, we're going to see a lot of that stuff in the next 11 days.

Let me just say one thing about that, though, about Ratcliffe coming out with the FBI director, making the point that he made.

This is the reason why it's important not to politicize intelligent and not to appoint political apparatchiks into intelligence positions because there is a real question as to the emphasis that Ratcliffe put on whether Iran was trying to go after President Trump.

[08:35:10]

And Trump, I should point out, retweeted a headline from "Breitbart" about that moments after Ratcliffe spoke. And it just makes the whole exercise seem political.

President Obama was attacked after the fact in 2016 because he didn't make more of what Russia was doing. And one of the reasons that he didn't was because he was worried about seeming as if he, as president of the United States, was putting his finger on the scale politically. He had a sensitivity to that.

Trump has no such inhibition. And Ratcliffe is an instrument for that, or could be. And it's -- and that is very dangerous for the country because I have no doubt Iran is trying to unsettle our electorate, I have no doubt Russia is trying to sow chaos. And just as with health and everything else, you want straight information, you want to give the American people the facts they need. And if they can't trust the source, it becomes a very dangerous situation.

CAMEROTA: David Axelrod, thank you. Great to talk to you.

AXELROD: Good to see you guys.

CAMEROTA: OK.

We're getting a snapshot, a new snapshot, of America's unemployment crisis. So we have the breaking details for you, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:40:47]

CAMEROTA: New this morning, historically high layoffs continue 31 weeks into this pandemic, but fewer people were laid off last week than the week before.

CNN's chief business correspondent Christine Romans joins us now with the breaking news.

What do you have, Christine?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: So every Thursday morning we get this look of the last -- you know, the last week of unemployment benefits, the first time people file for jobless benefits at their state unemployment offices. And we see 787,000 new filings for unemployment benefits.

Look very carefully at that curve. It's more a plateau than a curve, but at least these are not above a million anymore.

When you look at continuing claim, 8.3 million people continuing to get a jobless check from the state, that's down by a million. You want to see these numbers going in that direction. But we do have these pandemic unemployment benefits that people keep filing for, 342,000, 345,000 people filed for pandemic relief programs. It just still paints a picture of a lot of people hurting every single people and a lot of people still out of work.

And it's interesting, you know, in the "60 Minutes" interview that the president had with Lesley Stahl, he continues to paint this false picture that he created the best economy in the history of the world before the pandemic.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We created the greatest economy in the history of our country. And the other side was coming in --

LESLEY STAHL, "60 MINUTES": You know that -- you know that's not true.

TRUMP: It is totally true.

STAHL: No.

TRUMP: Virtually every number was the best. We had the best economy ever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: It's not true now, obviously. He's down 3.9 million jobs as president. That's never happened for a presidency before. And it wasn't true before the pandemic. In fact, before the pandemic even hit, Alisyn and John, we know that jobs growth was slower in the first 44 months of the -- the first months of the Trump administration than it was in the Obama administration and he never got that super charged economic growth that he had promised because the tax cuts and deregulation. It just never happened.

BERMAN: You have kept us on the facts this entire time, Christine Romans, so, thank you so much for that and thanks for being with us this morning.

So as the pandemic worsens fall and winter, small restaurants face this troubling future.

CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich has that story. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It's been seven long, grueling months for restaurants in the U.S. More than 100,000 have already closed. Thousands more will likely face that same fate.

JOHN DOHERTY, OWNER, PLAYWRIGHTS IRISH PUB: We are back where we started in March. We really are.

YURKEVICH: John Doherty owns the Playwright Irish Pub in midtown Manhattan. His PPP loan is used up. And even with outdoor and 25 percent indoor dining, it's simply not enough.

DOHERTY: There's nobody here. There's no --

YURKEVICH (on camera): Is this typical?

DOHERTY: Well, yes (ph).

YURKEVICH (voice over): This area, normally bustling with tourists and after work crowds, is deserted. Without new federal aid, Doherty says he will be forced to close his doors next month.

DOHERTY: We're begging for help. We really need help. We feel like that we're at the bottom of the mountain and we're trying to climb. There's no rope to help us.

YURKEVICH: And 2.3 million restaurant workers remain out of work. Doherty laid off nearly all of his 25 employees, the most painful part.

DOHERTY: They've all families. They have kids. My staff is probably 29 to like 40 years old. And I feel sorry for them.

YURKEVICH: Nearly half of the 660,000 U.S. restaurants say they won't make it another six months. While some big chains are even turning profits during the pandemic, many independent restaurants don't have the money to survive.

DOHERTY: What people are used to is the mom and pops (INAUDIBLE) we have, that will be gone. The chain restaurants, they will last. They are the big money players.

YURKEVICH: One restaurant closure has a domino effect.

Ivan Mendez, who used to print menus and signs for the Playwright and 30 other restaurants, now has just three clients. He was forced to lay off half his staff.

IVAN MENDEZ, OWNER, NAVI PRINTING: If they're not open, I have no work. I had to actually dig into my 401(k) savings and take money out to keep up with the rent.

YURKEVICH: Mendez applied for a PPP loan, twice, and didn't get it. He will now almost certainly close his doors. MENDEZ: They said, we're going to bounce back and it's just taking a

little too long and it's not there.

It's going to hurt because this is my baby.

[08:45:01]

YURKEVICH: The Midwest is seeing a surge of COVID-19 cases, so many Chicago area restaurants plan to roll back indoor dining, yet another setback for Kevin O'Brien, an out of work executive pastry chef behind on his bills.

KEVIN O'BRIEN, FURLOUGHED PASTRY CHEF: I have tried looking for jobs and since March I have not seen one job posting for an executive pastry chef in the city of Chicago. Not one.

This has absolutely been the worst time in my life.

YURKEVICH: Yet despite the bleak outlook, John Doherty takes on another day, serving the few patrons he has.

YURKEVICH (on camera): You're investing thousands of dollars in enclosing this space for winter, but you don't think you'll have any business. So why are you doing that?

DOHERTY: Because I think tomorrow has to be a better day than today. I want to show that I have done everything I possibly could to make my business successful. And if I -- if I've exhausted all of my energy and failed, I tried my best.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

YURKEVICH: Now, there is no question that the PPP loans from the federal government did help many small restaurants survive this, but as they're looking towards their future, they really need more. They're looking at a six month, one-year recovery, John. And they're paying very close attention to these stimulus talks. They're hearing that something might not get passed until after the election. John, some restaurants don't have these two weeks to survive until after the election.

John.

BERMAN: You know, Vanessa, I know I speak for a lot of people, I would love -- I would love to be able to go back into a bar like that right now and I hope they're there when this is all over.

Thanks so much for this report. Appreciate it.

SO right now hundreds of children separated from their families at the border remain without their parents. The latest on the search for them, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:50:53] CAMEROTA: Remember the horrible stories of all the children who were separated from their parents at the border by immigration officials at the direction of the Trump administration? Well, if you think that all of those kids have been reunited with their families, you're wrong. Five hundred and forty-five children are still without their parents. It turns out that hundreds of those parents were deported without anyone knowing their address. The American Civil Liberties Union has been trying to reunite these families along with the organization called Justice in Motion.

And joining us now is Cathleen Caron, the founder of -- the executive director of Justice in Motion.

Cathleen, thanks so much for being here.

It got all of our attention when we saw 545 kids still not reunited with their families.

How can that still be the number all these years later?

CATHLEEN CARON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, JUSTICE IN MOTION: Well, there was a huge batch of parents that weren't revealed to the ACLU and the steering committee members that were court appointed, along with Kinds (ph) and Women's Refugee Commission and the law firm Paul Weiss (ph). These numbers and people were not revealed to us. So it wasn't until an internal government report revealed that there were 1,000 more families separated. And then the government refused to hand over the money, the ACLU had to sue and finally get the information and now we're searching.

CAMEROTA: Where have these 545 kids been?

CARON: Well, we're trying to figure that out. I mean we, Justice in Motion, focuses on what we call the unreachables, the hardest of them to find. So once the rest of the steering committee partners have determined we can't find them, they're unreachable, they turn to Justice in Motion and the Justice in Motion Defender Network. We have over 46 organizations and human rights lawyers we collaborate with in Central America and we're deploying them to do arduous searches to find those parents and to figure out what is happening with their children.

CAMEROTA: But, I mean, in terms of these 545 kids, some of whom were under five years old, have they been in shelters? Have they been with relatives? Where have they been since 2017?

CARON: All of the above. We're trying to determine that case by case, family by family. But what we're finding are some are in foster care in the United States, some have been released to family members in the United States and a small amount have been returned. But they're not with their families. And this is why it's so important that we find them all, talk to the parents and figure out if what the parent -- to help the parent gain control over the future of their children, because kids can never be taken away from their parents.

CAMEROTA: Well, what the DHS is suggesting is that these parents don't want to be reunited with their kids. They brought their kids here to the U.S. They were seeking a better life or they -- you know, sometimes the DHS suggests that they were somehow trying to scam the U.S. Either way, they don't want the kids back is what the DHS is suggesting because they made it here to the U.S. and that was their plan. Here's the statement from a spokesperson. The simple fact is, after contact has been made with the parents to reunite them with their children, many parents have refused.

Is that your experience?

CARON: No, it's not. Its' -- the experience is that these parents are making really difficult, desperate decisions to protect their family members. The Trump administration purported to claim that this decision to separate families was to deter migration. If you want to deter migration, you support the rule of law and democracy in these countries. People are fleeing because there's desperate -- they're desperate to protect their families. They had no choice but to go north and that they don't necessarily -- some of these families want the kids to come back because it's too dangerous. They want to be reunited in the United States, which is never their plan to leave them behind.

CAMEROTA: Right, so they -- some of them, most, wanted to apply for asylum because they were coming from violent situations and they still want to be with their kids. And, in fact, I know that you have witnessed some of these reunifications.

CARON: That's exactly right. We had, in January, there were nine parents who the ACLU successfully won the right to return and we accompanied, along with our partners in the steering committee, accompanied these families back and they came into the L.A. airport.

[08:55:04]

And seeing them reunite with their kids, after many, many months, sometimes years being separated, it's, you know, you feel it. It hits you right in the heart because we all know kids, right? And to have kids forcibly taken away from you and then witness the joy of their reunification, I mean, it makes you keep going to keep doing this work, to find these parents. We really know why. We see it, how important it is.

CAMEROTA: Are you going to be able to reunite all of these 545 kids?

CARON: Well, we're doing our best. We're finding them, figuring out where the -- what the situation is, where their kids are, telling the court what should happen, you know, what the parents want to happen with these kids. And we're pushing forward for the ones that we can fight to get back to be reunited in the United States with their families.

CAMEROTA: Cathleen Caron, thank you very much for giving us this update. Obviously, we will stay on this. The -- your organization is Justice in Motion. Please let us know how all of these reunification efforts go.

CARON: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

And CNN's debate coverage continues, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:03]