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White House Chief of Staff Says, We Are Not Going to Control the Pandemic; Biden Says, Trump Can Win Because of How He Plays; Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Jaime Harrison Battle for South Carolina Senate Seat. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired October 26, 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: Moving average of new cases of coronavirus in the United States is at its highest level yet, its highest level yet.

[07:00:09]

It has not been this bad in the United States before today. More than 60,000 new cases reported in the U.S. overnight. This follows back-to- back days of 83,000 cases. Cases are increasing in 37 states. No green on this map, no green at all. That means every state is seeing either an increase in new cases or maintaining the status quo.

The status quo is bad right now, hospitalizations also growing nationwide. More than 225,000 Americans are now dead from coronavirus.

And in actions and now in words, the White House is basically saying it's no longer fighting coronavirus, no longer fighting the spread. I want you listen to what the chief of staff, Mark Meadows, told Jake Tapper.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK MEADOWS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: We're not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation --

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Why aren't we going to get control of the pandemic?

MEADOWS: Because it is a contagious virus, just like the flu --

TAPPER: Yes, but why not make efforts to contain it?

MEADOWS: Well, we are making efforts to contain it --

TAPPER: By running all over the country and not wearing a mask?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALISYN CAMEROTA: Joining us now, CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen. She is an emergency room physician and the former Baltimore City Health Commissioner. Also with us, Dr. Paul Offit. He is the director of the Vaccine Education Center and Pediatrics Professor at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, And CNN Political Commentator, Errol Louis, he is the political anchor for Spectrum News.

Dr. Wen, I want to start with you and what we've just reported in terms of the vice president. You say by the vice president ignoring the CDC guidelines, the ones that all Americans are told to look at if they've been exposed, he's been exposed, the guidelines are clear, he's supposed to stay home for 14 days. He's not doing that. He's going back out to interact with voters. You say that is making doctors' jobs harder. How?

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, Alisyn, the vice president's actions are irresponsible and they're dangerous. We have CDC guidelines for a reason, because we know that the incubation period for COVID-19 is up to 14 days. And before that, you could be testing negative and have no symptoms, but you could actually be harboring the virus and be able to transmit it to others.

So I worry about the vice president spreading it to others. I also worry about his inner circle. The other people in the White House that are probably also not following the restrictions and the guidelines to quarantine.

For us as physicians, it's hard enough to convince our patients to quarantine, to forego a paycheck, potentially, for 14 days. Many people live in crowded housing, where they have to separate from their families. It's difficult enough to do. And it makes our job that much harder when the vice president, who is the head of the coronavirus task force in the White House, doesn't follow these very same restrictions.

BERMAN: He is not doing what he should to stop the spread of coronavirus, period, full stop. He just isn't doing it. The CDC guidelines are crystal clear, quarantine for 14 days. He's not doing it.

So, Dr. Offit, I want you to overlay that with the statement from Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, who said, we're not going control the pandemic. A statement out of the White House, we're not going to control it. And he said that with one week plus a day left to vote.

DR. PAUL OFFIT, DIRECTOR, VACCINE EDUCATION CENTER, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: Well, certainly, other countries have done a much better job of controlling it than we have. So the issue isn't whether or not it's controllable, at some level, it is controllable. I mean, we're the worst country in the world in terms of number of cases and deaths proportioned to our population.

So we're not helpless here. I mean, it's been shown redundantly, not surprisingly, if you maintain social distance, if you wear a mask, if you wash hands, you can dramatically reduce the chance that you or those who come in contact with you get sick.

It is remarkable to me the sort of cult of denialism. I mean, maybe it would help if instead of these virus particles were submicroscopic, they were actually little purple dots and everybody could see. And then if you see a picture of that Rose Garden ceremony, you see all of these purple dots around as people are hugging each other, shaking hands, et cetera, maybe that would help, because right now it's just simple denialism that is just impossible to imagine.

CAMEROTA: Yes, it would help if the virus was visible. I wish for those little purple dots. I mean, that would change everything.

But as you heard Mark Meadows say, they're not going to change anything, Errol. They, I guess, feel impotent to stop anything. I mean, there could be a national mask mandate. That doesn't require any work. That doesn't require any taxpayer money. They could do that.

So, the fact that Vice President Biden -- sorry, Vice President Pence is not going to following the CDC guidelines, he wants to be back on the campaign trail, that tells you what about these next eight days?

[07:05:02]

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it tells you they're going to try and sprint to the finish and go into full denialism and pretend that this is not happening. They want to tell the public that it's all about turning the corner and we're going to have therapeutics and vaccines and some magical escape from this crisis sometime in the coming months, but please vote for us next week. That's basically what they're trying to do, is get out of this conversation right now.

The problem with that, of course, is that we've seen what this all means. Even if you wanted to accept the president's oft-repeated explanation that this is all about testing and that's why numbers are going up. Well, hospitalizations, people check in themselves into a hospital, that's not testing, that's not a statistical flu. That's people who are in real trouble. And, by the way, that's local news in every market where it's happening, in states like Wisconsin, where the medical system is being stretched to the breaking point.

And so to the extent as we know that a public health crisis is also a communications crisis, they are trying basically to communicate in a fantasy world rather than the real lived experience that a lot of people are going through right now. It is, I guess, a version, politically, of a Hail Mary play. Just hoping beyond hope, they can run with some shoddy information and get over the finish line next Tuesday.

BERMAN: Look, by not quarantining, what he's showing to me is that the vice president cares more about winning votes than he does about protecting lives, period. That's just what it shows at this point. He would be following the CDC guidelines if his priority was protecting lives. He is showing that it's not.

And, Dr. Wen, we are in this situation right now where the seven-day moving average of new coronavirus cases is at its highest level yet. Hospitalizations are rising, 42,000 and rising. Errol was just talking about the situation in Wisconsin, El Paso, Texas, they're talking about having to airlift people from hospitals there. They're instituting a new curfew there. Talk to me about the strain right now on some of the systems in the country.

WEN: We've seen what happened earlier in this pandemic when hospitals become overwhelmed and patients end up not receiving care. Not only patients with coronavirus, but also patients with heart attacks and strokes and in car accidents who may find it difficult to access health care. That potential could be occurring all over the country, as our hospitals become overwhelmed.

And unlike last time where it was only certain parts of the country that were experiencing this, now we have virus hot spots that are occurring everywhere. And that's what makes the comments from Mark Meadows and others so troubling, because this is not inevitable.

We actually have a narrow window of opportunity right now to stop the explosive spread that is coming. There is a tidal wave that's coming, but we have this window to take action now that includes things like national mask mandates, that includes other targeted policies. This is not an all or nothing. President Trump tends to frame this as either we shut down completely or we literally do nothing.

Actually, there's a lot that we can do that will both save lives and also keep our economy going. We should be implementing those policies now.

CAMEROTA: Right. But the Trump administration has decided not to do that. I mean, they decided if they were going to set up this impossible decision of herd immunity versus complete shutdown. And for some reason, they have advocated any control of anything that could have been done to mitigate it in the middle. I mean, of all of the things you're talking about, Dr. Wen, all of those things in the middle, they're not modeling, they're not suggesting.

And so, Dr. Offit, when Mark Meadows say, well, we're not going to control this pandemic, are they forcing herd immunity on us? Right now, today is the worst day of the pandemic that we have seen in this country in terms of cases. So are we all being subjected to herd immunity? Is that what's happening?

OFFITT: Well, again, the -- there has never been an example in the history of medicine where immunity induced by natural infection has severely limited the spread of a virus. I mean, if you want the perfect virus, it would have done that, it would have been measles. I mean, if you're infected with measles, you're protected for the rest of your life. You're protected against all manner of disease, in other words, not just moderate to severe disease, but mild disease or even asymptomatic infection. That virus will bounce off of you for the rest of your life. And it was highly contagious, about ten times more contagious than this virus.

Nonetheless, despite that, every year, 1 to 2 million people would get measles, about 50,000 would be hospitalized and 500 would die. The notion that you can stop a virus spread by just letting the population become naturally immune has never happened, I mean, you know, were the virus has been eliminated. So it's made up. It's basically taking an administration that doesn't have a policy and trying to make it a policy by saying, we're trying to induce herd immunity from natural infection, something that's never happened.

BERMAN: And, really, it's instructive what's happening at every level here.

[07:10:02]

At the highest macro level, we're talking about the number of new coronavirus cases and how it's affecting the entire country. The smaller level is the president and his political rallies, which in some ways a microcosm of the overall national policy, Errol.

And I want to play for you what the president said on 60 Minutes. 60 Minutes aired it finally last night itself. This is the president defending these rallies, which may very well be super-spreader events to Lesley Stahl. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Lesley, we hand out thousands of masks.

LESLEY STAHL, CBS NEWS HOST: But you look out and they're not wearing them. You don't get up there and say, look, you know? Come on, I don't want you to get sick.

TRUMP: Okay, go ahead. What's your next question, Lesley? We're outside, the rallies are bigger than they have ever been, there is more enthusiasm than we've ever had. There has never been anything like what you're witnessing now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: He's right about that, there's never been anything like what you're witnessing right now, this many people at risk, Errol. And Alisyn was asking a good question last hour, which is the president is going all in on these campaign stops. He's holding as many of these rallies as he possibly can. And it may energize his supporters.

But there is a flipside of that, politically speaking. There is a risk that people see the president, in a way, ignoring the public health guidelines. How do you, Errol, consider and weigh these risks?

LOUIS: Yes. Well, I mean, look, the president is living in a world where he can sort of replay the 2016 campaign, which ended up with big enthusiastic rallies. And so he's going back to that. He's not a lifelong politician. It's the only way he knows how to win. So he's doing this, but at the same time, people are getting conflicting messages.

They know that after, say, the Tulsa rally that he held a couple of months ago. A lot of people got sick and some people died. We know that after the super-spreader event at the White House. A lot of people got sick and were hospitalized. And some came away like Chris Christie saying, I wish I had never done that. So it's going to be a mixed message.

What he is hoping is going to be a local headline saying, hey, the president came to Erie, Pennsylvania, or the president came to Wisconsin or came to Minnesota and he's hoping that that's going to give him a lot of exposure and get voters to the polls for him. At the same time, right behind that, there's going to be the local newspaper saying, the hospital is overwhelmed, spreading is increasing, problems are real and people have to wear masks.

And so, you know, look, it's going to be up to the voters, obviously, to sort all of this out. But the president is telling people something that I think if public health information is really good at a local level, they know it's really not true.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Wen, Dr. Offit, Errol, thank you all very much for all the information.

Our next guest spent two weeks observing 13 Trump rallies. What he learned about the president's closing message, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I'm one of those folks, competitors, where it's not over until the bell rings, and I feel superstitious when I predict anything other than it's going to be a hard fight. We feel good about where we are, but I don't underestimate how he plays.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That was Joe Biden on 60 Minutes last night. The president was also on 60 Minutes, until he walked out of the interview. Both candidates spreading out across the country with extensive campaign travel. You can see, the president's itinerary right there. He'll be in Pennsylvania today.

Former Vice President Joe Biden goes to Georgia tomorrow. When I look at this map, that's what jumps out at me, is that Joe Biden is going to Georgia.

You'll also notice that President Trump is going to Omaha, Nebraska, to fight for one single electoral vote. That's how hard he is working right now.

Joining us, CNN Senior Political Analyst Ryan Lizza, he is the Chief Washington Correspondent at Politico. Also with us, Kirsten Powers, a Columnist at USA Today.

And, Ryan, you've been on the trail with President Trump. I guess, what, 13 different rallies all over the country. I've been following your tweets and dispatches. Is there a coherent or what is the coherent closing argument that you've detected from President Trump?

RYAN LIZZA, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: There is no single coherent closing argument. It depends on the day, the hour, the minute. Most of these events, as you know, from watching them, are pretty stream of consciousness, whatever is on his mind. For instance, at one event recently, he spent 15 minutes just talking about plumbing restrictions on toilets, showers and sinks, So, classic Trump.

When he talks about Biden, he goes into, obviously, this very exaggerated, incorrect, false account of his relationship with his son and foreign influence and China.

You know, I think one thing I am struck by is the number of false statements at these rallies. I know we all know this. I know we all know that he has a problem telling the truth, but I think watching rally after rally and then re-reading the transcripts, you're just sort of struck by this misinformation campaign that, you know, there's a false statement at the heart of almost everything he says at these rallies, John.

I know that sounds -- you know, that sounds like I'm exaggerating, but that's the big takeaway, when you kind of immerse yourself in Trump world right now, is he has built this sealed information bubble, where his supporters absolutely adore him. One of the main chants at a Trump rally these days is just simply, we love you. You know, no content, just, we love you.

But he set out in 2015 to discredit the media and create his own information environment, where he is the source of information. And for a lot of his people, he has done that. And I think that is just one of the major stories in American politics right now, that it is hard to wrap our heads around, because we're sort of witnessing it in real-time and we're sort of used to it.

[07:20:07]

CAMEROTA: Right. And, Kirsten, heaven help his supporters if he's their sole source of information. Because what he's telling them, I mean, according to Ryan's reporting, as well as our reporters, is coronavirus is fine. Everything is fine. And then what we learn from contact tracers in these different states is how many dozens of people get sick after going to these rallies.

KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. I mean, it is an alternative universe. And, you know, especially if you read Ryan's piece. I mean, it is truly almost every line that he speaks is untethered to reality. And so, you know, obviously, it's always problematic when people aren't being honest.

But I think when it comes to something like the coronavirus, it adds on a really extra meaning in terms of the effect that it could have on somebody. Because if you're telling somebody that there's nothing to worry about, if, you know, you're obviously not asking people to, you know, wear masks, even though the president keeps insisting, oh, we hand out masks.

But then you look out and, of course, the only people wearing masks are the people who are near the president. And you look at everybody else and most of them aren't wearing masks. And so they're all exposing themselves to a deadly virus just to see the president. BERMAN: Ryan, if we can put the map back up of the planned travel for the coming week, I do think it's somewhat instructive here. Joe Biden is going to Georgia tomorrow, two stops in Georgia. And if you had said to someone two years ago that the Democratic candidate was going to be important, valuable time a week before Election Day or the final day that people can vote in the country, in Georgia, and that the president is going to have to go to Omaha to fight for one electoral vote, it's pretty striking.

LIZZA: Absolutely. And they just announced -- it's not on the map, but they just announced that Trump will also be back in Nevada and Arizona. He didn't win Nevada in 2016, so that is a real long shot for him, and suggests his troubles. Arizona, the fact that he won that, the fact that Biden is very competitive there is a big deal. He probably doesn't a path without Arizona.

I'm here right now in Texas. I'm not here on vacation. I'm here because Texas is -- you know, we don't call it a swing state, but it is a close, close state. It's a lot of pressure on Democrats to send high-profile people here, either Biden or Obama. Jill Biden was just here in Texas. Kamala Harris, it was just announced, is coming to Texas.

Now, look, Biden doesn't need Texas to win, so I doubt they're going to go all-in here in the next week, but the fact that Texas is a competitive state in this last week, the fact that Georgia is a competitive state, that Biden sees a real path there, that shows you that this -- Trump does still a narrow path. He could still win on the low end, in the sort of 280 to 290 Electoral Vote range. That's one possibility.

But on the other possibility, Biden has a 400-plus electoral vote path. This could be a complete blowout. I think it's an unusual election in that those are the range of possibilities, narrow Trump win to absolutely massive Biden blowout.

CAMEROTA: But, I mean, anything is possible, Kirsten, in the next eight days, obviously. And now that President Trump is doing this battleground blitz, do you think, as someone who has studied this and watched this for many different elections, that Biden is at a disadvantage by not doing a battleground blitz?

POWERS: No, not necessarily. I mean, look, the campaign is doing what they -- you know, they're looking at the state of the race, we can assume by the fact that he is in Georgia that they believe that they're in pretty good shape, looking at some of the states, for example, that Hillary Clinton lost. And they also have been spending a lot more time there obviously than Hillary Clinton did.

And so I think that I do think I very much have PTSD from the polls last time. So I see the polls, and if the polls are correct, absolutely, Joe Biden is in much, much better shape than Donald Trump is for a variety of reasons. But definitely, as Ryan was saying, you know, if it is true that Texas is as close as it is, that would suggest very bad terrain for Donald Trump. But I think we still have to wait and see what happens on Election Day.

BERMAN: Kirsten Powers, Ryan Lizza, our thanks to both of you for joining us this morning. I really appreciate it.

Presidential race isn't the only one in the country, not by a long shot, the Senate also up for grabs.

[07:25:00]

And one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country, South Carolina, Lindsey Graham in the race for his life against challenger Jaime Harrison. Jaime Harrison joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: One of the most closely watched Senate races in the country is South Carolina, where incumbent Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican, finds himself in the race of his life against insurgent Democrat Jaime Harrison, who has raised record amounts of money over the last several months. And Jaime Harrison joins me now from South Carolina.

[07:25:01]

Thank you very much for being with us.

If I can ask you about a little bit of news first, it's that Vice President Mike Pence is planning on visiting.