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Trump Ignores Pandemic, Biden Pushes Unity in Final Sprint; Wisconsin Shatters Records for New COVID-19 Cases; Dodgers Win World Series, Star Pulled from Game after Positive Test; New Poll: Biden Has 17-Point Lead Over Trump in Wisconsin. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired October 28, 2020 - 06:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Six days now until the final voting next week on election day.

[05:59:51]

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: This election is about who we are as a nation. I run to unite this nation, to heal this nation.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: COVID, you turn on the news. COVID. COVID. You know when they're going to stop talking about it so much? November 4, you're right! November 4!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's showing up at these reckless rallies, and not only is he spreading misinformation, he's also spreading the virus.

NICK WATT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This country is now averaging nearly 70,000 new infections every day.

JANEL HEINRICH, DIRECTOR, PUBLIC HEALTH, MADISON AND DANE COUNTY, WISCONSIN: We cannot keep up. We are struggling with the constant and unending rise in cases.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Wednesday, October 28. It is 6 a.m. here in New York.

And as of this moment, you have seven full days left to cast your ballot, including today. One week from now, it is quite possible we will not yet know who won the election, and that's OK.

What's not OK, where the nation is likely to be with the pandemic by then. In the last seven days, more than half a million Americans have tested positive. That's a record. The U.S. is now averaging nearly 72,000 cases a day. It is getting worse. It is the opposite of ending the pandemic. Forty states are seeing cases increase. There's never been as much

orange and red on this map. It is getting worse. It is the opposite of ending the pandemic.

Fourteen states with record hospitalizations; 985 new deaths reported overnight. Deaths are rising in 27 states. You can see, it is getting worse. It is the opposite of ending the pandemic.

But in a feat of mind-blowing dishonesty and Orwellian-level propaganda, the White House Science Policy Office lists ending the pandemic as one of what it calls the top accomplishments of the president's first term. They haven't ended anything.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: The president, meanwhile, continues to hold large rallies in hot-spot states like Wisconsin, where virus cases and deaths have exploded.

Former President Obama will be at a drive-in rally in Florida -- He was -- blasting President Trump for giving up on the pandemic.

Joe Biden will be off the trail today, in Delaware, but is expected to speak on coronavirus and healthcare. Kamala Harris campaigns in Arizona, as does President Trump, holding two rallies there. Vice President Pence will make stops in Wisconsin and Michigan.

More than 68 million Americans have already cast their votes. That's more than half of the total votes in 2016.

So let's begin our coverage with CNN's Arlette Saenz. She is live in Atlanta -- Arlette.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn and John, good morning.

With less than a book to go until the election, Joe Biden campaigned here in Georgia, a state a Democrat hasn't won since Bill Clinton back in 1992.

Today, Biden is back in Delaware, where he will receive a briefing on COVID-19 from public health experts, which Biden has said would guide his coronavirus response if he's elected president.

Meanwhile, President Trump canvassed the Midwest, including stops in Michigan and Wisconsin. But as the president and his administration claimed they've ended the pandemic, the realities in hospitals and communities there paint a very different picture.

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SAENZ (voice-over): With the countdown to the election quickly winding down, former Vice President Joe Biden made two stops in Georgia, looking to flip the traditionally Republican state blue, with a message of unity.

BIDEN: Something's happening here in Georgia and across America! People of different races, backgrounds, Democrats, Republicans, independents. They're coming together to transcend the old divides and show what's possible.

SAENZ: While in Florida, former President Barack Obama launched another attack against President Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And well, what's his closing argument? That people are too focused on COVID. He said this at one of his rallies. "COVID, COVID, COVID," he's complaining. He's jealous of COVID's media coverage.

SAENZ: And President Trump was apparently watching it in real time, complaining about his predecessor's comments in a tweet, and to supporters, at a campaign rally in Wisconsin, ignoring social distancing guidelines against holding large gatherings, as new coronavirus cases reach record levels across the United States.

TRUMP: Obama has no crowd. We have the opposite. We have so many people. They don't like it.

SAENZ: On his three-state tour of Michigan, Wisconsin and Nebraska.

TRUMP: Now, I've got to say, I'm working my ass off here. This is --

SAENZ: Trump looked to appeal to suburban women voters.

TRUMP: So I'm saving suburbia. I'm getting your kids back to school. We're getting your husbands back to work. And and everybody wants it.

SAENZ: And insisted the coronavirus crisis will soon be over, the same day the White House claimed it ended the pandemic, despite nearly half a million Americans testing positive for COVID-19 in just the last week.

[06:05:03]

TRUMP: Right now, it's -- it's COVID, COVID, COVID, no matter what happens. COVID, COVID. No, we're rounding the turn. We're rounding that beautiful turn, and it's going to be very good.

SAENZ: Biden accusing the president of giving up on fighting the coronavirus.

BIDEN: We can and we will control this virus. As president, I will never wave the white flag of surrender. Imagine where we'd be today with a president who practiced social distancing instead of holding super-spreader events.

SAENZ: While Trump targets swing states and looks to hang onto those he won in 2016, the Biden campaign is aiming beyond traditionally blue and battleground states. Both Trump and Biden's running mate, Kamala Harris, will hold dueling events in Arizona later today.

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Joe and I feel very strongly. Nobody is supposed to vote for us. We need to earn their vote. And that's why we are traveling around the country.

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SAENZ: Now, Vice President Mike Pence will hold rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin today, and we will see Joe Biden next on the campaign trail tomorrow in Florida, one of those critically important battleground states that always has very tight races.

The Biden campaign putting quite a bit of emphasis there, sending President Obama in twice this week. And there's still a possibility that Biden and Obama could appear together in those waning days before the election -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Arlette, thank you very much.

So overnight, the U.S. reporting more than 73,000 new coronavirus cases. That is the fourth highest day ever. Fourteen states reported record hospitalizations on Tuesday, including Wisconsin, where hospitals are close to capacity. Wisconsin is also reporting a record number of deaths and new cases.

CNN's Adrienne Broaddus is live at a field hospital in Wisconsin with more. What's happening on the ground, Adrienne?

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, there. The top message from the governor here is clear: stay home now if you want to enjoy your family later. Not only in Wisconsin, but across the state, hospitalizations continue to climb, and so do new cases.

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BROADDUS (voice-over): A warning from Wisconsin's governor.

GOV. TONY EVERS (D-WI): There's no way to sugarcoat it. We are facing an urgent crisis, and there is an imminent risk to you, your family members, your friends, your neighbors, and the people you care about.

BROADDUS: Wisconsin seeing more than 5,000 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday and a positivity rate of 28 percent. The state also recording its highest number of hospitalized coronavirus patients, with the governor saying ICU beds are at 87 percent capacity.

This field hospital in the state started accepting patients last week, due to that limited space.

HEINRICH: Right now, we cannot keep up. We are struggling with the constant and unending rise in cases, just as everyone else in the state is.

BROADDUS: This comes as the country recorded more than 73,000 new infections and has reported more than half a million cases over the past week. Forty states have seen an increase in new cases over the last week. And 14 saw record hospitalizations on Tuesday.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even though testing is up, this is a real increase in cases. We know that not only because the case numbers are up and we can calculate that, but we know that hospitalizations are going up. We are tenuous now. We really have to reengage the public health measures that we know works, or those hospitalizations can go up substantially.

BROADDUS: Throughout the rest of the Midwest, the situation remains alarming. Illinois reported 4,000 cases on Tuesday. Chicago reported a seven-day rolling average of nearly 800 cases per day and an average positivity rate over 7 percent.

Starting Friday, indoor dining in bars and restaurants in the city will be suspended, and gatherings will be limited to no more than 25 people.

And in Ohio, hospitalizations are rising, prompting this warning from the governor.

GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): We have no indication that we've plateaued out at all. If we don't fight this battle county by county, city by city, village by village, if we do not fight in that way, we will, one way or the other, be shut down. And we will be shut down because the spread will be so bad.

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BROADDUS: This field hospital is on the state fairgrounds. They've treated five people so far, but doctors here say they have the capacity to treat more, up to 500.

And daily, we hear from health experts. They tell us how many people have died across the state.

But sometimes hearing isn't enough. Some people need to see. And the mayor of Milwaukee has created this dynamic visual representation. Take a look. This lawn holds 600 empty chairs. Each chair represents one person who has died in this county from COVID-19 -- John.

[06:10:19]

BERMAN: Chilling. Just chilling. Adrienne Broaddus for us.

And obviously, this has a huge public health impact. It's having a political impact, as well. A new poll out moments ago, which we'll get to in just a moment. So stand by for that.

In the meantime, the Los Angeles Dodgers won their first World Series in 32 years. But -- and if this isn't a microcosm of the current situation in the country, I don't know what is -- one of their star players was pulled from the game after a positive coronavirus test.

Andy Scholes joins us now with the very latest -- Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, John.

So Major League baseball finishing this World Series, I mean, just in time. They hadn't had a player test positive for COVID-19 during the entire post-season, but it happened to one of the Dodgers' star players on the night they clinched the World Series title.

Third baseman Justin Turner had to leave this game in the eighth inning after Major League baseball learned he had tested positive in the latest round of testing.

ESPN's Jeff Passan reports that they got the results of Monday's tests in the second inning, and those came back inconclusive. Samples taken from Tuesday then arrived and were run. Sources telling ESPN those showed up positive.

The Dodgers were leading 3-1 when Turner left the game in the eighth. Julio Urias striking out Willy Adames to get that final out and clinch the elusive World Series title for L.A.

Corey Seager was the World Series MVP. Dodgers champs for the first time since 1988.

Now, Turner tweeting after the game that he is asymptomatic and couldn't believe he couldn't be out there to celebrate with his guys. Now Turner did eventually return to the field wearing a mask. He hugged some of his teammates and then sat next to his manager, Dave Roberts, for a team photo. He even took off his mask several times during that photo op.

Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said the entire team is going to be tested once they got back to that hotel. And John, he said, you know, not sure when the team is going to be able to fly back to Los Angeles. Of course, waiting for those results.

BERMAN: Well, congratulations to the Dodgers and Mookie Betts, former Red Sox player. And we hope Justin Turner stays well. Andy, thank you very much for that.

SCHOLES: All right.

BERMAN: So a brand-new poll out of Wisconsin, just released with some eye-popping numbers, but more than anything, it shows the political impact that the coronavirus is having. We'll bring you the numbers and tell you what it means, next.

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[06:16:53]

BERMAN: So brand-new this morning, ABC News and "The Washington Post" just released a new poll from the state of Wisconsin. Remember, this is a key swing state that Donald Trump won in 2016. And in the state of Wisconsin, this poll shows Joe Biden with a 17-point lead. That is statistically significant, to say the least.

Now, this may be a bit of an outlier, but it does tell us a couple of things. No. 1, Joe Biden's lead certainly isn't shrinking. If anything, it appears to be growing. No. 2, we are seeing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic directly here, because cases are exploding in the state of Wisconsin.

Joining us now, CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny, who has been following President Trump, who just finished a rally overnight in Nebraska. And Arlette Saenz is with us, as well. Jeff, this ABC News poll is going to get a lot of attention this

morning. Seventeen points is an extraordinary spread and, as I said, probably is a bit of an outlier.

But inside this poll, voters in Wisconsin disapprove of the president's handling of the pandemic by 20 points. They favor Joe Biden on addressing the pandemic by 20 points. And Wisconsin is a state where cases are exploding, and it's also a state where the president went yesterday and the vice president is going today.

And I think it reframes this entire notion of presidential travel during a coronavirus pandemic. What do you see here?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: John, it absolutely does. And the Biden campaign and the former vice president himself have been happy to draw this contrast with the Trump campaign in terms of how they are campaigning in the final week here. Not holding big rallies, not holding big events. And that is exactly what the president did in Salem, Wisconsin, just yesterday.

You know, there's no question Wisconsin is a critical piece of the president's march to 270. He needs Wisconsin, as well. It's part of the blue wall with Michigan and Pennsylvania. And these states generally act in a -- if not in unison, at least in likeminded ways.

So I'm agreeing with you. I think this -- the numbers here -- let's not focus on the fact that this is a 17-point race in that new ABC News/"Washington Post" poll. There's no one on either side who probably believes that that margin is true.

But what this is telling us is that people are, indeed, concerned about the coronavirus. They are living it every day in their lives. This is not some abstract thing, although the president, you know, says that every campaign stop, you know, it's moving forward. We're rounding the corner from this. People know that's not true, because they are seeing this. They know people who are getting sick or dying.

So this is the dynamic going into, now, the -- the next six days of this campaign. And it is a worrisome trend for the Trump campaign, no doubt.

CAMEROTA: Arlette, what do you see in this poll? And is this, do you think, people's personal experience, as Jeff was saying, or is -- has the Biden campaign done some effective messaging on this?

SAENZ: Well, I think this, in part, reflects the messaging that the Biden campaign has really stuck to for the past few months. It backs up their belief that the coronavirus pandemic is the defining issue of this campaign. You haven't heard Joe Biden waver from that messaging throughout the course of this pandemic.

[06:20:09]

And as you guys mentioned, that poll says that voters in Wisconsin disapproved of President Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic by 20 points, but then it's the opposite for Joe Biden. Twenty -- people support the way that he would respond to the coronavirus by 20 points.

So you're kind of seeing their messaging get some backup by a poll like this, as Biden has continually stressed over the course of this campaign that the president has mishandled the coronavirus pandemic, that Biden arguing that he is going to listen to the public health experts, if he's elected.

And they've really made this the central focus of the campaign, dating back to March. Not just in this closing week. They have kept to this message, and it is something that they are hoping will pay off, as voters have very real concerns about the pandemic in their lives.

BERMAN: So, Jeff Zeleny, again, I mean, I think this isn't about the lead. It's about the pandemic. Let me just read you one more graph of this poll.

It says, 63 percent of registered voters in Wisconsin are very or somewhat worried that they or someone in their immediate family may catch the coronavirus. Seven percent say it's already happened. Likely voters who were worried about catching the virus support Biden overwhelmingly, 75 to 22 percent.

That's what voters who are in the middle of it think about the pandemic right now. And the messaging from the Trump campaign to the White House is bragging about ending the pandemic. If we can put this up on the screen so people can see it. This comes from the White House Science Policy Office, where they list, as one of the accomplishments of the first term, ending the pandemic. That is laughable. It's offensive. It's Orwellian in its level of propaganda.

And as a campaign message in a state where the coronavirus is out of control, you can see it backfiring.

Now, I know you were in Nebraska right on the border with Iowa. You saw the president's rally overnight there. Talk to us about the messaging he's sending about the pandemic. And also, frankly, what happened after the rally last night.

ZELENY: John, it's the same type of message here. The president is trying to will this to be true, trying to will this, you know, virus to be over. But the reality is, it's not.

So it doesn't matter if his supporters are wearing masks, much -- most of whom decided against it. It doesn't matter if -- if those at his rally believe him. The vast population does not believe him.

Now, some don't blame him. Some are going to vote on the economy, on other issues, entirely. But what the Trump campaign has failed to do in the final weeks of this campaign is change the subject, because the subject is something they are living with in their daily lives.

Now, here at this rally in Nebraska last evening, where the president is coming to chase a single electoral vote. That's how narrow he believes this -- this math is, he was simply talking as though the coronavirus is over. Well, here in Nebraska and in Iowa, across the river from here, they

have seen record numbers of cases, week after week after week. So this is happening everywhere the president is going.

And John, it was extraordinary. After the -- the rally, the president was gone for about an hour and a half or so. Thousands of the president's supporters were stranded on streets, waiting to be taken away in buses. You know, most of them didn't have masks on. Then they were getting onto crowded buses here.

So it just shows how these events can, indeed, be dangerous. Yes, they're having these rallies outside, but that's convenient only for the person flying in on Air Force One. It's not convenient for all the other people who are packed in there for hours and hours.

So that was certainly striking here. But we'll see it again today as the president is traveling out west. You know, he has not changed his message or his strategy. And it could be helping Joe Biden. The president could be driving out turnout for the Biden campaign, as well, here.

BERMAN: Vice President Pence goes to Wisconsin, where the pandemic is certainly not ending.

Jeff, I know you saw reporting that Joe Biden and Barack Obama will appear together this weekend. We'll talk about that a little bit later in the broadcast.

Jeff, Arlette, thank you very much.

So, from the first votes to the critical count, understand what's happening in your state across the country. CNN's special coverage of election night in America begins Tuesday at 4 p.m. Eastern Time.

CAMEROTA: So the number of Americans hospitalized for coronavirus has soared by 50 percent in just the last month. Forty states seeing cases rise this morning. We have more on where this is headed, next.

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[06:28:48]

CAMEROTA: This morning, 40 states are seeing coronavirus cases increase. That's a number we have not seen since the start of the pandemic.

On Tuesday, the U.S. saw more than 73,000 new cases. In the past week alone, half a million new cases were reported here and that's a record. Fourteen states seeing record hospitalizations.

Joining us now with what this trend means, where we're going, CNN political analyst Margaret Talev. She's a politics and White House editor at Axios. And William Haseltine. He is the chair and president of Access Health International and a former Harvard Medical School professor. Great to have both of you. Professor Haseltine, I mean, look. What more can we say? We're seeing

all of this sea of orange on the screen in terms of where cases are going. This is what was predicted. It's happening before our eyes. It's not getting better. Every day, we have record-setting cases, and there are some states where hospitals are near capacity. What's next?

WILLIAM HASELTINE, CHAIR AND PRESIDENT, ACCESS HEALTH INTERNATIONAL: Well, what's next is more of the same, but worse. I think many of us see this -- daily rates going to 100,000 plus. And if we don't have strong central government action to help the states, it could go well above 100,000 a day.

And this is a really difficult situation.