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Biden Goes on Offense in Georgia, Trump Targets Midwest; U.S. Supreme Court Rules on Deadline for When Election Ballots Can be Received in Wisconsin; Coronavirus Cases Rising in States Across U.S.; New Study Indicates Fall in Coronavirus Antibodies in Those Exposed over Months. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired October 27, 2020 - 08:00   ET

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


[08:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: New cases a day.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: One week left to cast your vote in the 2020 election. Incredibly, more than 62 million people already have. And this is the moment of the campaign where you can tell what is happening by where it is happening. As we were just speaking about, Joe Biden is going to Georgia today, a state no Democrat has won since 1992. It's a state he doesn't need to win the election. He's also going to Iowa later this week, another state he doesn't need. He is clearly on Electoral College offense. The president heads to the Midwest today for events that includes a stop in Nebraska. Really, in Nebraska, there is only a single electoral vote up for grab that hangs in the balance. That tells you the president very much on defense.

And breaking overnight, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively shortened the deadline for when ballots can be received in the crucial swing state of Wisconsin. The court affirmed the decision that ballots must arrive by Election Day, not post-marked on Election Day, but they have to arrive by that date, sooner. Many other states allowed ballots to arrive for days after as long as they are post-marked up until Election Day.

CAMEROTA: Joining us to talk about all of this, we have CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and CNN's chief political correspondent Dana Bash.

So Dana, let's talk about that breaking news out of Wisconsin. How does that change the presidential race?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, let's just talk about what it means for Wisconsin first, and that is Democrats are scrambling to make sure that every single potential voter who is mailing in an absentee ballot has to do it by today. That is the assumption that they have to get in the mailbox by October 27th to get it counted by Election Day as the Supreme Court ruled.

Whether or not this is going to be make a difference, leave a lot of absentee ballots not usable, is an open question. And more importantly, it is an open question whether or not it is going to be a tight enough race for any of that to make a difference. It certainly was four years ago. The president won by like 20,000 votes, barely.

But I think, more importantly, the question is what it means for the election more broadly, and when we get to Election Day, whether or not the Supreme Court is going to get involved in challenges to results across the battleground states, and some of the writings from president's appointed justices, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, give us hints in the way that suggest that they are going to be very conservative, no put intended.

For example, Kavanaugh says that he believes that the Constitution makes the political leaders accountable and the state legislators, not the judges in those states. So that is a hint as to where they are going to potentially go, if, and it is a big if, whether any of this will matter depending how lopsided the vote is or how tight it is across the country.

BERMAN: Yes, Brett Kavanaugh also makes a historically specious claim that there is some kind of reason why ballots need to be in by the final Election Day. Not necessarily a historical precedent for that, so it was odd to see an originalist make such a claim. We'll leave that there and see as these ballots come in. I know there's a big effort to get people to vote as soon as they can now in Wisconsin.

Sanjay, the pandemic. We are clearly at this new level. Dr. Anthony Fauci says it may just be an extended first wave. Some people are calling it a third wave. The fact is it's a bad, bad wave -- 42,000 people now hospitalized. That number clearly on a steep rise. The number of new cases clearly rising. And we are now seeing the impact on hospitals across the country. I want to talk to the mayor of El Paso coming up. They are having to take major action in order to treat all the patients they can, opening up new wards in children's hospitals that weren't open. So talk to us about the strain that you're concerned about.

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. In fact, if you look at places like El Paso, they are even already protectively saying new patients that are coming in, if we can find hospitals outside the region, outside this area at least, we are going to sending patients over there because we anticipate that we're going to start getting filled up.

The hospital system, one thing to keep in mind is that per capita we probably fewer ICU beds now than we did 10, 20 years ago. This is not a system that is really built for significant surge capacity. We typically have flu season, that's one of the busiest times in terms of overall care in hospitals both in general care floors and ICUs. But now, as everybody knows, we are talking about this twin-demic, both flu and coronavirus happening at the same time, worsening at the same time. And that's a huge concern. It is going to vary from city-to- city, from state-to-state in terms of what their capabilities are. But that is the most worrisome thing, John. I've been following lots of different metrics over the past several months.

[08:05:01]

Hospitalizations, I think, is the truest, most consistent, and most concerning metric because, look, at some point if hospital directors are going to the elected leaders and saying we've got no room, we've got no space left, we don't have enough resources, what are you going to do in that situation? They're going to try and adopt regional approaches, but after a while if that starts to break down, you may be in a situation where people don't have enough care available to them. So that is what we have to avoid right now.

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, I want to stick with El Paso for a second there, because the mayor there did this two-week analysis trying to contact trace of where people became exposed. And I just want to know if it surprises you because it says that what they are found looking at 2,400 cases, 37 percent of them, the mayor believes from this analysis, got it from visiting big box stores, 22.5 percent from restaurants -- I don't know if that is indoors or outdoors -- 19 percent travel to Mexico, 10 percent parties and reunions, 7.5 percent gyms, and then four percent large gatherings. Are you surprised by those findings?

GUPTA: I am a little surprised by that. I would have guessed restaurants to sort of be at the top of the list because those are places where, as you mentioned, you might be outdoors, but if you're indoors and if you're sitting close to people and you can't wear a mask because you're eating or drinking, that's what is you'd expect to be top of the list. What this means to me people is that people aren't really wearing masks. That's what it comes down to, regardless of where you are. Indoors, obviously more concerning than outdoors, smaller spaces, more concerning. So box stores, I guess, if people are not wearing masks inside, that's really going to drive this.

I've got to point out, I was talking to the CEO of the Northwell Health System a couple of months ago up in the northeast. They took care of more COVID patients than any other system in the country, 70,000 patients they took care of over a couple of months. What was interesting to me was that the incidents of COVID among their health care workers was actually lower than the general population. So in that case they are indoors, they are taking care of COVID patients. There's presumably a lot of virus in the air, and yet they have a lower incident of infection as compared to the general population. Why? Masks. Masks do work.

So Alisyn, I'm surprised by this because I would have thought restaurants would be the place where people aren't wearing masks, but it turns out, seemingly from what you just showed, that they are not wearing masks in any of those situations.

BERMAN: I'm not sure it's as surprising as all of that. People I think are looking for ways to get around the rules, permission to do things as opposed to understanding maybe why they shouldn't. And Dana, you know who is going around the country upset that people aren't wearing masks is Deborah Birx, who used to be a daily household name, someone with an enormous amount of influence in the Coronavirus Task Force up until about two months ago. She just went to Bismarck, North Dakota, and gave them a talking to, and told the people there that they are not wearing the masks to the extent that they should. She said "Over the last 24 hours, we were here and we were in your grocery stores and your restaurant and, frankly, even in your hotels. This is the least use of masks we have seen in retail establishments in any place we have been, and we find that deeply unfortunate because you don't know if you're infected and you don't know if you are infected yourself."

She is speaking to the people in Bismarck, North Dakota, but it's also a message that probably needs to be heard within the White House as well. And imagine, Dana, what would happen if the president was delivering that message around the country.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That is exactly what I was just thinking. Imagine, imagine, in Bismarck, North Dakota in particular, which is, North Dakota is a red state on the presidential level. There are lot of people there who really like the president and hang on his words. So imagine if he said what the person who is or had been one of his most trusted medical advisers is trying to tell them?

Look, she has been going around the country doing this kind of thing for months and months and months, and CNN has reported her frustration that she doesn't have the influence that she once had in the White House. And the president has Scott Atlas. The president also has an agenda and that is a political agenda, which is understandable for any president running for reelection. What is not understandable is why it is -- he thinks it is acceptable as a president to not communicate basic health standards in the middle of a pandemic. It is something that nobody like Sanjay Gupta will ever understand.

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, you can comment on that if you want, but I also want you to comment on this new British study that we're seeing about immunity. And what they found in a big, I believe it was a very large study, at the beginning of the study in June, six percent of those who took the took had the antibodies. That was their response to having had coronavirus.

[08:10:02]

By September, only 4.4 percent of them did. In other words, three months later the antibodies had gone down that much. This is why the herd immunity is such a fallacy, that even if you are exposed, you might have antibody protection for, what, three months?

GUPTA: Right, right. First of all, let me just say, I always agree with Dana Bash. So just to make sure we put that out there.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: Good policy. Very good policy.

GUPTA: Yes. But with regard to the study, it's an interesting study. And you're right, they basically were doing a random sampling of nearly 400,000 people. They weren't testing the same person necessarily over time and saying your antibodies have dropped. They're saying here is the percentage of people who had antibodies in the beginning and here is what it was like a few months later.

And you're absolutely right. They found that the antibody levels dropped among that population. It's more likely to drop among older versus younger people. But I think there's two major takeaways here. First of all, even if you do get the infection, you're probably still going to need to get vaccinated. In fact, not probably. You will still need to get vaccinated because we know your immunity from the infection doesn't last forever.

Having said that, I think it is important to point out that we don't know all of the things that make up immunity still with this infection. Antibodies do drop, but we're still not seeing these crazy high reinfection rates either. So people who may have been infected, who may have been exposed to these virus, even if their antibodies have dropped, are they still protected in other ways. Do their bodies still quickly generate antibodies in response to an exposure to the virus. We're still learning about that.

But I think if there is some good news here, it is that while we have seen reinfections, we are not seeing a ton of them. We are eight months, nine months into this now. We should have started seeing more of this. So definitely everyone is going to need the vaccine, and there's probably more to this immunity picture than we are still fully realizing.

CAMEROTA: Really interesting. Thank you, Sanjay, for all that.

BERMAN: Dana, I thought you were interesting, too. Thank you.

(LAUGHTER)

BASH: I always think you're interesting, John Berman. We just can keep doing this, and I think it will be really interesting.

BERMAN: That's like half the conversations I tried having in high school. It never worked out.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: But I appreciate you being with us, Dana, Sanjay. Our thanks to you.

So with just 20 days left in the 2020 race, we talk about the final week strategy with the Biden campaign next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:16:04]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: One week to go in the 2020 race. And Joe Biden is making campaign stops in some states that pundits would not have predicted a year ago. They wouldn't have predicted that a Democrat would try to compete in these states, starting today in Georgia.

Joining us now is Kate Bedingfield. She is Joe Biden's deputy campaign manager and communications director.

Good morning, Kate.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER AND COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, BIDEN CAMPAIGN: Hi, good morning, Alisyn. How are you?

CAMEROTA: I'm well.

Before we get to the campaign strategy, can you just tell us what the campaign thinks about Supreme Court's decision last night that decided not to extend Wisconsin's mail-in ballot deadline, so now all ballots must be in by Tuesday?

BEDINGFIELD: Yes. Well, look, we are confident that Wisconsin voters are going to have their ballots in by Election Day. It's something that we have been encouraging people to do from the campaign.

So, we're not concerned. We've been saying from the outset -- get your ballot in by Election Day. We believe that that's what Wisconsin voters are going to do.

CAMEROTA: Okay. Now, let's talk about the choices that you and the candidate, Joe Biden, are making.

So why is Vice President Biden going to places like Georgia and Iowa this week, rather than just redoubling his efforts and parking it along the blue wall, or in -- you know, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, those sorts of traditional battleground states?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, first and foremost, we are focused on getting to 270. We are -- everything we are doing in what we would call these expansion states, like Georgia today, where the vice president, Vice President Biden is going to make a closing argument speak at Warm Springs, Georgia, about unity, about bringing this nation together.

Everything there is additive. We believe we have an expanded opportunity here because people are looking for change. They are looking for a different kind of leadership. They are frustrated with the way that Donald Trump has mishandled this pandemic, has lied to the American people. They're looking for a president who will tell the truth.

So what we're doing in this final week is we are keeping as many paths to 270 open as we possibly can. We're talking to as wide a swath of voters as we can. That doesn't mean that we're abandoning what you're calling the traditional blue line states or the -- you know, priority states to get us to 270, not at all. In fact, we're just talking to a broader swath of the country.

We believe that there's energy for Joe Biden, and we believe that people are looking for a change. So, he is going to be out talking directly. He is going to Georgia today, as you said.

But he's going to Florida. He's going to Michigan. He's going to Wisconsin this week. He is going to Iowa.

So, he's going to be out there hustling for every vote and encouraging people to turn out and make change.

CAMEROTA: So, just to be clear, you're seeing data that he can win Georgia? This isn't just about shoring up down ballot Democrats or Senate races in places like Georgia and Iowa. You're seeing data that he stands a chance of winning in these places?

BEDINGFIELD: Look, we believe that people are looking for a change. We think that voters in Georgia are frustrated with Donald Trump's mishandling of this pandemic. We believe they're tired of having a president who lies about a once in a generation global health crisis.

We believe they're tired of having a president who doesn't say, you know, we should wear masks. We were talking in the last segment about how significant the impact is, in terms of controlling this virus, for people to wear masks.

And yet, we have a president who won't say, you know, this is important. Wear a mask, and won't show leadership.

So, we think voters in Georgia and all over the country are tired of Donald Trump's mishandling of this pandemic. They're ready for a different kind of leadership, and we believe they're ready to vote for Joe Biden.

CAMEROTA: I want to play a little bit of sound for you. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to interview an undecided voter. Yes, still, at this date, an undecided voter in Florida. He is a Cuban-American, and he explained his reservations about voting for a Biden/Harris ticket.

[08:20:04]

So, listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd say it's a difficult thing. I guess I'll make my decision this week. I think Biden -- Biden, since Thursday, made it difficult for me to consider him as a candidate.

CAMEROTA: Why? What happened? What happened at the debate?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I mean, at the debate, the way he kind of flip-flopped on his entire oil thing, and the way he kind of flip- flopped on the fracking and -- you know, he's made a lot of mistakes, you know?

When it comes to dog whistles, you know, as a Cuban-Hispanic, I mean, we have dog whistles that worry us too, about communism and socialism. And when I hear Kamala Harris yesterday kind of laughing it off, it's not a joke to us, man.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Kate, what do you say to voters who believe Joe Biden that ultimately does want to eliminate the oil and fracking industries?

BEDINGFIELD: I -- a simple answer, he does not. He does not. And he did not say that on the debate stage.

He talked about eliminating subsidies for big oil. That's a conversation that he's happy to have with Donald Trump any day. He believes that your taxpayer dollars should go to, for example, education and not to Exxon.

But he has been very clear. He is not going to eliminate the fossil fuel industry. He is going to eliminate those subsidies.

What he is going to do is invest in a climate plan that is also a jobs plan. It's a plan that makes investment in, for example, carbon capture and sequestration, it makes investment in infrastructure, it's a jobs plan.

The way he thinks about this issue, you know, you hear him say it all the time, Donald Trump thinks about climate change and he thinks hoax. I think about climate change, and I think jobs. That's how he is going to tackle this issue.

He is -- he is going to move us forward to a cleaner energy economy, but he is going to maintain and create jobs while he does it. And that's been -- that's been his position from the outset of this campaign. You know, his climate plan was, I think, the first significant policy that we put out from this campaign back in the primary, almost a year and a half ago. And he's talked about it as a jobs plan ever since.

So I would reassure anybody who was concerned by that or the voter you were talking to there, and say he's been crystal clear, he's not going to end the fossil fuel industry, but he is going to move us forward in a smart way and aggressive ways to tackle the climate crisis, and make sure that we're maintaining and we're creating jobs while we do it.

CAMEROTA: What about the second part of his concern, where he didn't like that Senator Harris laughed off a question about her -- whether or not she had a socialist or progressive agenda.

BEDINGFIELD: She didn't laugh it off. She was saying absolutely, categorically, it's not true. She wasn't laughing it off, she was saying, this is almost an absurd question because it is simply not true. Look at my record. Look what I've done to fight for small businesses, for working families in this country.

This is not true. It is a smear that Donald Trump and the Republicans have tried to push for the last 18 months of this race against every Democrat in the field because they don't have a record to run on. You know, if you're the president of the United States, and you're asking the American people for a second term, and all you have is, my opponent is a socialist, rather than, here is my plan to get the virus under control, here's my plan to get the economy going again, that's not particularly a strong case to make to the American people.

So, we see him, we see them consistently try to land the smears. It hasn't worked. They've tried to smear Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in this way for 18 months. We've seen the American people aren't buying it, and they're looking for change and we think they're going to turn out and vote for change on November.

CAMEROTA: No. I mean, hear you, but that voter is buying it. That voter is -- he says it is like a dog whistle when he hears the laugh. I mean, you know, obviously, he is one voter, but I don't know that you can say no voters are buying these things.

BEDINGFIELD: She said categorically that that is a smear and a misrepresentation of her position. Joe Biden has consistently said that across the course of the campaign. I think we have seen, if you look at, you know, for example, as this race has gone on, Joe Biden's favorability has only gone up. It's gotten higher.

And that's because people trust him. They know he is telling the truth. They see in Donald Trump and in this White House, a White House that's willing to lie, that is willing to say one thing to a journalist on tape privately, and another to the American people when talking about something as significant as a virus that has killed over 220,000 Americans.

And yet, they see in Joe Biden somebody who is willing to tell the truth, who speaks his mind, says it straight. And so, across the course of this campaign, the smears the Trump campaign tried to land, they haven't worked.

But the only way that we can fully reject this smear politics is for people to turn out and vote. You can vote early. You can vote early in person. You can vote on Election Day.

But if you reject the kind of politics that Donald Trump is offering, turn out and vote for change.

CAMEROTA: Kate Bedingfield, we appreciate you being on NEW DAY. Thank you.

BEDINGFIELD: Thank you for having me.

CAMEROTA: After a race like none other, it all ends on Tuesday. Or does it, John?

Join us for special, live coverage, the way only CNN can bring it to you, from the first votes to the critical count.

[08:25:02]

Understand what's happening in your state and across the country. CNN's "ELECTION NIGHT IN AMERICA", special coverage begins next Tuesday at 4:00 p.m.

BERMAN: It begins on Tuesday. It doesn't have to end. It does not have to end on Tuesday. It ends when they count the votes.

CAMEROTA: You've warned me, it ends then. Okay.

The coronavirus surge in El Paso, Texas, has gotten so bad, the local government has taken drastic action. And the mayor of El Paso joins us live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: This morning, parts of Texas facing a new crisis in the coronavirus pandemic. Hospitals struggling to treat patients as families trying to romp financially and business owners dealing with heavy losses.

CNN's Ed Lavandera has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Van Zandt, Blaze Foley, Doug Sahm, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Big names were born on this little stage.

Live music has rattled the walls of the Hole in the Wall bar in Austin, Texas, since 1974 but in March, the COVID pandemic forced owner Will Tanner to unplug the music.

WILL TANNER, OWNER, HOLE IN THE WALL BAR: Oh, it's sad, man.

LAVANDERA (on camera): Do you find yourself getting down?

TANNER: Everybody is a little down.