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New Day
Trump and Biden Clash in Final Presidential Debate. Aired 6- 6:30a ET
Aired October 23, 2020 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I'm going to shut down the virus, not the country.
[05:58:19]
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: All he does is talk about shutdowns. Democrats -- Democrats, all, they're shut down so tight, and they're dying. We're not going to shut down.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (via phone): Joe Biden won this debate. He didn't win by a little. This was not close.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think Donald Trump was right on his game. I actually think that he completely skewered Joe Biden.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: We are at 11 days until election day. It's an unknown factor if he changed the trajectory of this race here, and so many people have voted. Those votes cannot be changed.
TRUMP: I'm the least racist person in this room.
BIDEN: You know who I am. You know who he is. The character of the country is on the ballot.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
REPORTER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is a special edition of NEW DAY. It's Friday, October 23, 6 a.m. here in New York.
And you know, this morning, we can say we probably won't see Joe Biden and Donald Trump on the same stage again until the inauguration, but whose? That is the question? Who won the final debate, perhaps the less [SIC] best -- last best chance to alter the course of this contest?
Well, according to CNN's post-debate poll, viewers thought it was Joe Biden, by 14 points. Now, this was a decidedly different debate. Fewer interruptions, to be
sure. And you will hear some people, note that President Trump was on better behavior. But remember, the real question here isn't whether second debate Donald Trump beat first debate Donald Trump. It's how he did against Joe Biden and who better articulated a path forward for the country.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: The candidates disagreed on how to fight the coronavirus pandemic. The president played down the pandemic, insisting without proof, that we are rounding the corner, and that it will, quote, "go away."
Biden claims the Trump administration failed America in their response to the pandemic. More than 223,000 Americans have died. Biden says anyone responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president.
Overnight, more than 71,000 new cases reported. That is the fourth worst day since the pandemic began.
More than 41,000 people are hospitalized. That's the most in two months. Eight states reporting record hospitalizations. And deaths increasing in more than half of the country.
But let's begin with CNN's Jessica Dean. She is live in Nashville with the highlights of the last debate.
JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, John and Alisyn.
We're now 11 days away from this election, and last night we heard the closing pitch from Donald Trump and Joe Biden to voters all across America.
And there were far fewer interruptions, as you said. But there were also plenty of jabs.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEAN (voice-over): In the second and final presidential debate, President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden clashed over the major issues. With fewer interruptions, the two candidates offered their final pitches to voters, including how they will combat coronavirus on a day that saw one of the highest numbers of new U.S. cases since the crisis began.
Still, the president repeated lies about the pandemic.
TRUMP: It will go away, and as I say, we're rounding the turn, we're rounding the corner. It's going away.
BIDEN: Two hundred and twenty thousand Americans dead. You hear nothing else I say tonight, hear this. Anyone who's responsible for not taking control, in fact, not saying, I'm -- I take no responsibility, initially; anyone who's responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America.
DEAN: Trump also used his own recent coronavirus diagnosis to downplay the severity of the disease.
TRUMP: I was in for a short period of time, and I got better very fast.
BIDEN: He had nothing he did, virtually nothing. And then he gets out of the hospital, and he talks about, this is -- don't worry! This is all going to be over soon.
Come on! There's not another serious scientist in the world who thinks it's going to be over soon.
KRISTEN WELKER, NBC NEWS: President Trump, your reaction?
TRUMP: I didn't say over soon. I say we're learning to live with it. We have no choice. We can't lock ourselves up in a basement like Joe does.
DEAN: Biden condemning the Trump administration's coronavirus response and looked straight to camera, speaking directly to voters impacted by the pandemic.
BIDEN: You folks home will have an empty chair at the kitchen table this morning. That man or wife going to bed tonight and reaching over and trying over to try to touch their -- out of habit where their wife or husband was, is gone. Learning to live with it. Come on! We're dying with it.
DEAN: The president continued to paint himself as a Washington outsider and Biden as a career politician, while the Democratic nominee aimed to depict Trump as a failed first-term president.
BIDEN: Look, this isn't about -- there's a reason why he's bringing up all this malarkey. There's a reason for it. He doesn't want to talk about the substance of issues. It's not about his family and my family. It's about your family. And your family is hurting badly.
WELKER: Ten seconds.
TRUMP: That's a typical political statement. Let's get off this China thing, and then he looks, the family, around the table, everything. Just a typical politician when I see that.
WELKER: Let's talk about North Korea now.
TRUMP: I'm not a typical politician.
WELKER: OK.
TRUMP: That's why I got elected.
DEAN: Trump criticized Biden's stance on fossil fuels in a move aimed to hurt the former vice president in key swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio.
BIDEN: I would transition from the oil industry, yes.
TRUMP: Oh, that's a big statement.
BIDEN: I would transition. That is a big statement. Because the oil industry pollutes significantly.
TRUMP: Oh, I see. That's a big statement.
BIDEN: Here's the deal -- Well, if you would let me finish the statement, because it has to be released by renewable energy over time. Over time. And I'd stop giving to the oil industry. I'd stop giving them federal subsidies.
DEAN: On immigration, Biden called out the president on the 545 migrant children who've been separated from their parents.
BIDEN: What happened? Parents were ripped -- their kids were ripped from their arms and separated. And now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents, and those kids are alone. Nowhere to go! Nowhere to go! It's criminal.
TRUMP: They are so well taken care of. They're in facilities that were so clean --
WELKER: But some of them haven't been reunited with their families.
TRUMP: But just ask one question. Who built the cages?
DEAN: And when pressed on his record on race, Trump made this claim.
TRUMP: I am the least racist person. I can't even see the audience, because it's so dark, but I don't care who's in the audience. I'm the least racist person in this room.
BIDEN: Abraham Lincoln here is one of the most racist presidents we've had in modern history. He pours fuel on every single racist fire, every single one.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[06:05:12]
DEAN: That's it for the presidential debates of the 2020 election. Now it's back to the campaign trail. President Trump will be in Florida today for a pair of rallies. Vice President Biden heads to Delaware. He's going to give remarks on the coronavirus pandemic and his plan to get the nation out of that crisis.
Meantime, Biden's most prominent surrogate, his biggest surrogate, President Obama, heads to Florida on Saturday -- John.
BERMAN: All right. Jessica Dean in Nashville for us, Jessica, thank you very much.
Joining us now, CNN national political reporter, Maeve Reston, and CNN political analyst, Toluse Olorunnipa. He's a White House reporter for "The Washington Post." Both of you wrote the debate wraps for your respective news
organizations. And you haven't suffered as a journalist until you have to write up an entire debate and publish it within minutes of it being over. So hats off to both of you.
Maeve, I want to start with you. Top line, takeaway, last set piece of this campaign, the debate, is over. The major takeaway?
MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I just think that President Trump went into this debate having to have some kind of a major game-changing moment. He is continuing to slide with -- with seniors, with female voters. And he is -- he's needing to shore up his base of non-educated -- non-college-educated white voters.
And there just was no major moment last night where he seemed to address any -- any one of those audiences in a really compelling way that would change the race.
He seemed to miss, once again, these key moments where he could sort of express empathy or a sense of understanding of what the rest of the country has been going through in terms of the coronavirus pandemic.
And there were a lot of times where you were reminded of how risky his strategy was in painting Joe Biden as this person who couldn't finish a sentence or couldn't, you know, couldn't get his points across, because Joe Biden did that over and over again. And sometimes got the better of Trump on several exchanges, when Trump went at him hard on things like corruption, and Biden circled back and hit Trump on his taxes.
So it was a much more substantiative debate. Donald Trump certainly will get points for being more restrained, but I don't think that he changed the trajectory of the race last night, John.
CAMEROTA: OK, Toluse, what jumped out at you?
TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, Maeve covered a lot of ground and actually took a lot of my talking points.
CAMEROTA: How dare she?
OLORUNNIPA: Good job.
BERMAN: So go negative. That's what you do in a debate.
OLORUNNIPA: Exactly.
Well, one thing -- one reason President Trump was not able to change the trajectory of the debate was that a lot of the things that came up had to do with his own record.
Four years ago, he was just, as he said, a businessman. He was not a politician. He did not have a record. Now he has a record. And as much as he likes to talk about the first three years of that record, looking at the economy and whatnot, especially over the past year, and if you look at previous years, when it comes to things like immigration, he has a lot of questions that he has to answer about his record.
Family separations is a scar on his record. He tried to, you know, downplay that. But that was something that not only caused Democrats to be outraged, but it caused a lot of Republicans to really question his willingness to show empathy.
When it comes to the coronavirus pandemic, he had to face a lot of questions about how he's handled it, how he's downplayed it, how he has not listened to scientists, how he has mocked people for wearing masks. You saw Joe Biden waving his mask around, walked in with a mask on while Trump did not and did not encourage Americans to wear a mask or take any kinds of public health measures, other -- other than saying, you know, we have to learn to live with this disease that's killing hundreds of Americans every day.
So the fact that President Trump has a record, and he has to try to defend it made it much harder for him to prosecute the case against Joe Biden, use all of these corruption allegations. Every time he tried to raise questions about corruption, he found himself, you know, having to explain why he hadn't released his tax returns; having to explain why he had a secret bank account in China.
And he ended up defending and explaining a lot rather than going on the attack. And you know, when you're explaining a lot of times, it means you're losing.
BERMAN: Look, 71,000 new coronavirus cases overnight. More than 41,000 people hospitalized. Both of those numbers heading steeply upwards. By the middle of next week, it may very well be that's all Americans are thinking about. They won't even remember what happened on that debate stage last night.
Maeve, it's interesting, because the full 90-plus minutes of the debate painted a whole picture, including the very, very end. The closing statements. The question from Kristen Welker about what will you say to the American people on the inauguration, I know you found that very telling how they responded, so let's play that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[06:10:00]
WELKER: Imagine this is your inauguration day, what will you say in your address to -- to Americans who did not vote for you?
TRUMP: I'm cutting taxes, and he wants to raise everybody's taxes. And he wants to put new regulations on everything. He will kill it. If he gets in, you will have a depression the likes of which you've never seen. Your 401(k)s will go to hell, and it will be a very, very sad day for this country.
BIDEN : I will say, I'm an American president. I represent all of you, whether you voted for me or against me. And I'm going to make sure that you're represented. I'm going to give you hope. We're going to move. We're going to choose science over fiction. We're going to choose hope over fear. We're going to choose to move forward, because we have enormous opportunities, enormous opportunities to make things better.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: So why did that land for you?
RESTON: So I just think that that was -- that was such a moment where Joe Biden seized the opportunity to really speak to all Americans and to underscore the things that they're tired of about Donald Trump, which is, you know, these slashing attacks and the -- the blaming of blue states and, you know, championing red states. This -- the politics of division that so many voters, but particularly independents, are really tired of.
And Joe Biden took that moment to speak to them and say, I will be a president of all people, no matter what your political persuasion is.
And it was such a contrast to President Trump's answer, where he did go, again, with the slashing attacks and claiming that -- that we're going to plunge into a depression, you know, as soon as Joe Biden walks into the White House, which to a lot of people just sounds like a -- like an exaggeration and something that doesn't really comport with the person that they know in the former vice president.
And so I think it was a missed opportunity for Trump and a moment where Joe Biden really was able to kind of broaden his audience and -- and try to broaden his coalition. And that's, of course, what's so important in these final days, John.
CAMEROTA: Toluse, how about some moments where it seemed that President Trump scored some points on Joe Biden, including the one of, you had your chance. You were there for eight years. You had your chance. You could have done all of this then. Here are these moments.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Excuse me --
WELKER: Your response?
TRUMP: He was there for 47 years. He didn't do it. It was just a little while ago, right, less than four years ago. He didn't do anything. He had eight years he was vice president. He did nothing there. You guys did nothing.
BIDEN: We did --
TRUMP: You know, Joe, I ran because of you. You're all talk and no action, Joe.
BIDEN: We got a lot of it done. We released thirty-eight --
TRUMP: You didn't get anything done!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Was that effective, Toluse? OLORUNNIPA: That was probably one of the few things the president did
last night that was consistent and relatively effective in terms of pushing the message that his campaign aides want him to push.
He has repeatedly referred to Joe Biden as someone who's been in Washington for a half decade and has not been able to get accomplished a lot of the things that he wanted to get accomplished now. Every time Joe Biden, you know, laid out his policy prescriptions or talked about what he was going to do, President Trump was quick to say, Why didn't you do it when you were vice president? Why didn't you do it when you were a senator for six terms? And that does -- that does have some resonance with a large number of American people who put Trump in office in part because he was an outsider, he wasn't a traditional Washington politician. And even though he's an incumbent president, it allows him to still run as sort of an insurgent candidate, an outsider.
That was effective, and I think Joe Biden had a number of times where he sort of tried to shrug off those questions and didn't necessarily directly answer why he hadn't done some of the things that he wants to do now when he was in office. It is an effective political attack line, and I would expect the president to continue using it on the campaign trail over the next 13 days.
BERMAN: Yes. The challenge, though, as you noted before, is he's the incumbent. It's often hard to make that case when you yourself are running on your record. It doesn't mean he won't try. It doesn't mean he didn't have some effective moments doing it last night. It's just more difficult.
Toluse, Maeve, thank you both. Thank you both for your service. And I mean it. I know how hard it is to write up these debates, you know, publish, and then come on TV, like, 35 minutes later. So thank you for being with us this morning.
RESTON: Thank you.
BERMAN: Big question now is what do the candidates do next with this? How do they move forward out of this debate? How do Republicans feel? How do Democrats feel? 11 days left to go. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:18:54]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: What happened? Parents were ripped -- their kids were ripped from their arms and separated. And now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. It's criminal.
TRUMP: They are so well taken care of. They're in facilities that were so clean.
(END VIDEO CLIP) CAMEROTA: OK. Let's get the perspective from both the Democratic and
the Republican side.
Joining us now, we have CNN senior political commentator and former Republican senator, Rick Santorum. Also with us, CNN political commentator Terry McAuliffe. He's the former governor of Virginia and the former chairman of the DNC. Gentlemen, thank you for getting up early. Great to have both of you.
Rick, one thing that President Trump did after that exchange was talk about the horrible optics of kids in cages and say that started under Obama/Biden. So he pivoted that -- he seemed to be able to pivot that moment of the horrid policy of separating kids from their parents, which happened under the Trump administration, to the cage thing, which started with the Obama administration. How do you think Trump did?
[06:20:06]
RICK SANTORUM, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I thought he did well on that, because he did turn it back to Biden, which is, you know, they're the ones that constructed the cages, not -- not -- not Trump. And -- and as far as separating kids, again, I think he could have done a better job. You know, he did try to say that, you know, these are -- he had to identify which is true. You have to identify whether -- whether these are actually their parents, because in a lot of cases, you know, kids being taken over are taken over by coyotes and others who are --
CAMEROTA: Yes. But it's been three years. I mean, it's been three years.
SANTORUM: And yes, if someone is arrested, you don't keep your kids with them, even in the United States. If the parents are arrested, the kids don't come with them. So -- so there's -- there's a lot of -- lot of things he could have said even more than that.
But I thought it was an effective counter that, you know, these horrible cages were actually an Obama creation, not a Trump creation.
CAMEROTA: But I mean, in general, do you think that Trump won the night?
SANTORUM: Yes, I thought he -- I thought he was much stronger. I think everybody has sort of -- in the media has sort of discounted that the Joe bobbles -- and I thought he looked very shaky at times. He was -- he was slurring his words. He was mispronouncing words. He was -- he looked a little, you know, off his game, for sure, throughout the -- throughout the course, particularly at the end when he was looking at his watch.
I mean, if you recall, the media went crazy on George H.W. Bush way back when, when at the end of -- at the end of the debate with Clinton when he looked at his watch. It's like, you know, gosh, I can't wait until this thing is over. And Biden did the same thing, and nobody says a word. So I think the public recognized Biden for, you know, confirmed some
of the concerns they had about his ability to do this job.
BERMAN: I don't know. I was surprised -- or I thought it was very notable that the CNN poll right after the debate found that Joe Biden won decisively by 14 points.
And then a focus group that we did with Gary Tuchman found that nine of the people who watched thought -- it was seven who watched thought Joe Biden won. Two thought it was a tie. No one said that Donald Trump won.
And one of the moments that was pointed out -- and this has to do with one of the issues that seems to matter to the voters that we're talking to, which is empathy. Who feels what we're going through more?
And there was this exchange that I'm going to play for you where Joe Biden tried to connect, as he has done, with the viewers directly on the issue of the economic pain they're feeling with the pandemic and whatnot. Donald Trump dismissed it. We're going to play that. Then I want to play for you what one of the people in our focus group thought of that moment, Governor McAuliffe. So listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump responded with some mockery of that. And I think, for me, politics are about relationships and people. And this is all about the American family. So that was quite revealing and disturbing for me to hear.
BIDEN: You're sitting at the kitchen table this morning, deciding, Well, we can't get new tires -- they're bald -- because we have to wait another month or so. Or are we going to be able to pay the mortgage? Or who's going to tell her she can't go back to -- to community college? There are the decisions you're making in the middle-class families like I grew up in Scranton and Claymont.
WELKER: Ten seconds.
TRUMP: That's a typical political statement. Let's get off this China thing and then he looks, the family around the kitchen table. Everything. Just a typical politician when I see that.
WELKER: Let's talk about North Korea.
TRUMP: I'm not a typical politician.
WELKER: OK.
TRUMP: That's why I got elected. That was --
WELKER: Let's talk about --
TRUMP: Let's get off the subject of China. Let's talk around sitting around the table.
WELKER: All right.
TRUMP: Come on, Joe, you can do better than that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Now we had it in reverse there, but I thought it was notable, Governor McAuliffe, that that person, who actually voted for Donald Trump in 2016, took away from that moment that Donald Trump was mocking, I guess, to a degree, the suffering that people are going through.
TERRY MCAULIFFE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that's right, John. And I think that's why you saw all of the polls and all -- after the debates that, you know, it was a Biden win.
And it was because, I think, Biden connected to the American public. He kept talking about, this isn't about red states, blue states. This is about the United States.
But you know, you've got President Trump showing no empathy at all. Talking about child separation, people who live in polluted areas, and it was Joe Biden who looked into the camera, talked to those American families.
And I thought, right from the start, when they started talking about COVID, the biggest crisis that every American is facing today, and here is Donald Trump saying, Well, we've rounded the corner. You can live with it.
And I thought Vice President Biden was very effective when he came back and said, No, we can't live with it. We're dying with it.
And here's the biggest crisis, and Donald Trump just cannot face reality that we have 230,000 people who have died, millions who have been affected, and you're in a horrible situation.
That's why, I think, everyone said that Vice President Biden won that debate last night. He talked to the American public. He was empathetic. He showed compassion. And listen, Donald Trump just can't do that.
And comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln? This is a man in Charlottesville who would not condemn neo-Nazis. This is a man who gassed innocent protesters on Lafayette Square.
[06:25:07]
So, you know, it all came through last night. Joe Biden was leading the presidential race substantially. He is leaving that debate substantially leading again. This was a missed opportunity for -- for President Trump to try to do anything.
CAMEROTA: How about that, Rick? How do you think that President Trump did on coronavirus and the pandemic?
SANTORUM: Actually, I thought it was one of his more effective responses to coronavirus. I mean, he pointed out all of the things that he's doing, because you know, he was asked directly, what are you doing?
Well, he talked about vaccines. He talked about therapeutics. He talks about -- he talked about, you know, PPE and other things to try to combat this disease. He talked about the lowering death rate. He talked about opening schools and the fact that, you know, kids, 99.998 percent of children, you know, recover from this. That is flu-like or even, you know, better than flu-like.
And that there's no transmission. He talked about that. That there -- there's no evidence of transmission of the 200,000 kids who were surveyed.
And Biden had nothing. He just said, you know, Well, we have to protect people. You know, if we're going to use the science, use the sign.
And -- and so I think Trump did very -- a very effective job in countering and portraying Biden for what he really is, which is looking at these Democratic governors and looking at the states that are shut down, and looking at their higher unemployment rates than the other state that are not shut down, and looking at the human suffering behind that.
I think he articulately talked about, you know, suicide and depression and drug abuse and -- and cancer diagnosis. All these things where people are hurting because the economy and Democrats are shutting down.
And you can say, well, he's dividing. But it's the reality, that the folks that are dividing are the Democratic governors who not opening their economies.
BERMAN: I will say, the coronavirus is five times more deadly than the flu, according to the new CDC study --
SANTORUM: I'm talking about the kids. I'm talking about the kids.
BERMAN: I'm just talking about dead people. I'm just talking about dead people, and it's five times more deadly. It's five times more deadly.
SANTORUM: John, John, we're talking about school --
BERMAN: Hang on, hang on, hang on, I'm talking about -- I'm talking about what's more deadly, and it's the coronavirus. Five times higher mortality rate for people --
SANTORUM: Schools and --
BERMAN: Let me finish, Rick -- let me finish. For people who are hospitalized. And in terms of what Joe Biden talks about what he should do, he talked about mask wearing and how that's important, which is something Chris Christie says also.
I want to play that exchange, Governor McAuliffe, and get your take, again, on the same thing that Rick was just talking about. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: There's not another serious scientist in the world who thinks it's going to be over soon.
WELKER: President Trump, your reaction?
TRUMP: I didn't say over soon. I say, we're learning to live with it. We have no choice. We can't lock ourselves up in a basement like Joe does.
BIDEN: He says we're -- you know, we're learning to live with it. People are learning to die with it. You folks home will have an empty chair at the kitchen table this morning. That man or wife going to bed tonight and reaching over and trying to touch their -- out of habit, where their wife or husband was -- is gone. Learning to live with it? Come on. We're dying with it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: So Governor McAuliffe, who got the better end, in your mind, of the coronavirus exchange?
MCAULIFFE: I thought that was Joe Biden's most powerful moment. The COVID crisis is on everyone's mind. As I say, 223,000 people have died. You see all the states around the country are seeing increased infections. They're not blue states. They're blue states and red states. The United States are seeing an increase in infection.
And Joe Biden laid out what he will do. But it also was a good opportunity to explain why we are in this mess. Because Donald Trump sat around, had the information, didn't want to affect the stock market, and didn't want do anything about it. And there are thousands of people dead today because of Donald Trump's inaction.
The public knows that. And the more we can have a discussion about how we go forward. So I thought it was Biden's best moment. People are concerned about the COVID crisis. Trump was out to lunch on the issue.
And that's the problem we have today. Joe Biden is leading in every battleground state today in America. He went in, Trump's losing badly. He left that debate, he had to have a big win. He didn't do it, because he just can't put it together.
And I can finally say, as it relates to healthcare. His debate preppers, I promise you, said to him a hundred times, Do not attack Dr. Fauci. I promise you. And what did Donald Trump do last night? He attacked Dr. Fauci.
CAMEROTA: OK. Governor Terry McAuliffe, Senator Rick Santorum, thank you both very much --
MCAULIFFE: Thank you, Alisyn. Thank you, John.
CAMEROTA: -- for the perspective. Great to talk to you. SANTORUM: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: The fall surge is here. And it's getting worse. Overnight, the U.S. recording the greatest number of coronavirus cases since the summer. What is the plan to get the outbreak under control? That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
