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Coronavirus Cases Increase in U.S.; Philadelphia Victim's Family Speaks Out; Pennsylvania to Count Mail-in Ballots Last. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired October 28, 2020 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

WILLIAM HASELTINE, FORMER PROFESSOR, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL: And this is a really difficult situation because that means more people are getting sick, more people going to the hospital, and eventually many more people dying.

The other thing that we've learned, and this is the third wave is different from the previous two. The majority of people who are infected and now the great majority of people even getting sick are under 50 years old. In Massachusetts, 54 percent of those people who are now infected are under the age of 50. And even a number of people, like 12, 13 percent, from 0 to 19, this is a different epidemic.

In addition, we've also learned something a little bit disturbing about those people who survive serious illness. About 40 percent of those now have a lupus-like disease. That means autoimmunity. That means they're susceptible to other diseases and may have lifelong issues because this virus triggers autoimmunity in about 40 percent of those people who do survive serious disease.

So we're in a lot of trouble right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're in a lot of trouble right now. Professor Haseltine says it is getting worse. We could see 100,000 cases soon, Margaret. And that's the environment where the White House science policy office puts out this list of what they call accomplishments and one of them is headline --

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Number one.

BERMAN: Number one on this list is ending the COVID-19 pandemic. They say from the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the administration has taken decisive action to engage scientists, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. As I said, it's beyond laughable. It is the opposite of true. It is the literal opposite of true. The pandemic is getting markedly worse by the minute. Just listen to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TONY EVERS (D-WI): There's no way to sugar coat 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: And so, Margaret, just the politics of this absurd suggestion, Orwellian suggestion that they're ending the pandemic, to an extent, it seems to be backfiring.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, John, take a look at Wisconsin, of course, where the president was and where the vice president's going to be today. Just yesterday, more than 5,200 cases reported. You're talking about hundreds of people in ICU beds there.

In the last month, that's accounted for half of the cases that they've had since the start. So it is into that environment that you have thousands of people, many of them not wearing masks, gathered together in stadium. A lot of them are young adults who may be college students. A lot of them are children. So it speaks to that other trend that you were talking about there.

There is some polling, Democratics, groups like Priorities (ph), have been touting this polling, which suggests that it's possible that this could be backfiring on President Trump as a political issue. You know, we'll see about that.

Obviously, there's separate public health implications. And we do this weekly poll with our partners at IPSOS to measure the pandemic and how Americans are receiving it. And what we learned yesterday from our latest wave of polling is that they -- we asked Americans about several groups, how do you think your local and state government is handling it? Has it gotten better or worse since March in terms of the ability to handle it? How about your employer? How about your businesses? Every measure, people said that that group's handling had improved in terms of how to handle the coronavirus, except the federal government, where there was a 20 percentage point deficit.

People saying -- and they're not talking about the CDC, they're talking about the political arm of the federal government, saying, the federal government, under the Trump administration, has actually gotten demonstrably worse than it was back in those early days of March and April in terms of the ability to manage this and to handle it and help people.

CAMEROTA: That is remarkably consistent because, doesn't, John, that ABC poll that just came out, also a 20 percent deficit in terms of the president's handling versus Joe Biden's, in that one.

BERMAN: Yes. Precisely.

CAMEROTA: That was their question.

And so, Professor Haseltine, I'm so interested in what you just told us about the third wave and how it is distinct from the others. The fact that now the majority of people are 50 years old or under, does that mean that the death -- the mortality rate is going down, also? Is there some good news that younger people -- it -- that it's hitting younger people rather than older people?

HASELTINE: Well, it's very mixed news because younger people are not immune.

One of the other things that we're now learning is that predispositions are complex. If you're obese and young, you have a problem. If you have any disposition for a lower interferon level, and that is inherited and it's also acquired, you have a higher probability of having a very serious consequence and even dying.

[06:35:06]

So it is hitting younger people. On average, they're not as sensitive as older people, but that doesn't mean the disease burden overall isn't increasing. The long-term impact of this pandemic is rising as many, many more cases appear. The relative resistance of young people is compensated for in terms of the health impact by the very large increase in the number of those young people getting infected. And it's young people, not old people, who are filling up the hospitals right now.

BERMAN: I will tell you, there were 985 new deaths reported overnight. That number is now rising again. It is the opposite of ending the pandemic. The pandemic is surging in America right now.

Professor Haseltine, thank you.

Margaret Talev, thank you very much.

Other news this morning, the family of a black man who was shot and killed by Philadelphia police is speaking out as we learn new details about the deadly encounter. We have a live report, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:40:33]

CAMEROTA: We have new details about the shooting death of 27-year-old Walter Wallace Jr., who was killed by Philadelphia police this week after reportedly walking towards them with a knife. Wallace's family says he was experiencing a mental health crisis and that they had called for an ambulance, not police intervention.

CNN's Brynn Gingras is live in Philadelphia with more.

Brynn.

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Alisyn, good morning.

There are so many concerning questions in the words of the district attorney, the mayor, the police commissioner of Philadelphia this morning, especially when you look at that video that has been widely circulated.

Now, we want to show you that video and you can see Walter Wallace has a knife in his hand. We're going to pause the video before we actually see the shots fired by two officers and we learned yesterday there was a total of 14 shots fired. Now, what you can't see in that video is Wallace's mother crying out

to her son to drop the knife, as were police, and also crying out to police to not shoot her son. A lot of emotion on that scene that isn't actually visible on that video.

But we have learned from the family who tells CNN that they called an ambulance for help, saying their son was going through a bipolar episode and that they just wanted some de-escalation tactics. And that's one of the questions so many people are asking, even this morning, as why weren't those tactics in place? Why did those two officers not have Tasers on their tool belt, as we learned from the police department?

Now, we also learned from this investigation that both of those officers did have body cameras on them. That the cameras were rolling and that is information that is going to be gleaned as part of two separate investigations that are ongoing this morning, one with the district attorney's office, separate from the internal one that's happening in the police department.

But the family of Walter Wallace, 27 years old. They say he wanted to be a rap artist and they say they want his name to be heard. They don't want it to be connected to any violence that has broken out in the city really for the past two nights. And they are calling for calm.

But, again, another night, a second night, it was anything but calm here in Philadelphia. I can tell you that we were part of protests in the west side of the city, west Philadelphia, where police flooded that area because that's where there was looting, there were concerns, incidents happening the night before. Well, people really took some advantage and there was thousands of looters that attacked a different part of the city. That's not to say, Alisyn, that there were not peaceful protests. Again, we were a part of one where they chanted Walter Wallace's name, calling for peace, calling for change. And I will tell you that now the National Guard is coming into the city to help for any future unrest.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: It's just horrible on so many levels. I mean the family called the police for help. And then all of this unfolded.

GINGRAS: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Brynn, thank you very much. We'll continue to cover it throughout the program.

One week from now, the morning after Election Day, we may not know who won the presidential race. We have new details on when key states are expected to report their results. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:47:42] BERMAN: All right, we are watching this very closely in the Gulf of Mexico. That is Hurricane Zeta right now. It is churning. It's strengthened back to a category one storm overnight. It is headed toward the Gulf Coast. And, at this point, expected to make landfall as a category two hurricane sometime later today.

This is the fifth named storm to hit the region. There is concern about storm surge, all the way from Mobile Bay and some people are suggesting even all the way to Lake Pontchartrain depending on the path of this storm. Again, we're watching it very closely.

So, Pennsylvania may be the most crucial swing state in the country right now. We have new information for you on how they will count their votes starting on November 3rd. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:52:05]

CAMEROTA: As of this morning, more than 68 million votes have already been cast. That is more than half of the total 2016 vote. Some states do not even start counting ballots until Election Day, meaning that it could take days for a winner to be declared.

CNN's Kristen Holmes joins us now with new details on how votes could be counted in Pennsylvania, which is a whole another wrinkle, Kristen.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

Yes, so we've long said that there will likely not be results on election night given the unprecedented nature of this election. And that's particularly true in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania, because they are not allowed to open, process, count any of their more than a million mail-in ballots until 7:00 a.m. on Election Day. And it's not an easy process. It's getting through multiple envelopes, scanning, processing.

So now we're hearing that there are different ways different counties will actually count those mail-in ballots.

So, for example, in Philadelphia, in some of the larger counties, they're going to start counting those mail-in ballots at 7:00 a.m. That way, when the polls close at 8:00 p.m., they have tens of thousands of ballots counted and they will have at least some results before they get to those in-person results and then again a later wave of mail-in ballots.

Now, some of these critical swing counties, like Erie County, Cumberland County, they're telling us they might not start counting mail-in ballots until after the polls close, or even later. Some of them saying they might not start counting mail-in ballots until the next day.

Now, I do want to note something important. Based on the election officials that I have spoken to, these decisions that are being made, many of them are to avoid any sort of allegation of impropriety, whether it be votes not being cast fast enough or counted fast enough, excuse me, or whether it be looking to skewed, based on who they count first.

So things to keep in mind, again, that these election officials are working diligently behind the scenes to make sure every single vote counts.

BERMAN: Yes, one thing that's also important is there have been people pushing to begin processing those ballots before Election Day. Republicans in the Pennsylvania legislature have blocked that. They don't want this system to get started any earlier. Think about that.

Kristen Holmes, thank you so much for being with us.

Joining us now is CNN contributor Ben Ginsberg. He is the preeminent Republican election lawyer over the last at least 20 years. Also with us, CNN analyst Jessica Huseman. She is the preeminent election lawyer in America right now.

CAMEROTA: Reporter.

BERMAN: Not lawyer, reporter I should say.

CAMEROTA: Or lawyer.

BERMAN: Reporting for Propublica.

So we have an esteemed panel with us today.

Ben, I just want the facts here. I don't want to play the ridiculous BS the president is saying about ballots that arrive in time and might need to be counted after Election Day. I want to hear it from you, as someone who has the scars, what is the truth about counting ballots after Election Day?

BEN GINSBERG, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: The truth is that the count is never completed on Election Day. That even if you get a preliminary count out of a jurisdiction, there still is an elaborate verification process that does take a number of days.

[06:55:08]

Each state has a particularly specific canvas in which each count from each jurisdiction, each machine is looked at again and retabulated. And it takes several days to do. Always has. Always will.

CAMEROTA: I do want to play the ridiculous BS the Trump -- that the president is saying.

BERMAN: Oh, good.

CAMEROTA: Jessica, I'll give this one to you, because President Trump doesn't seem to understand what Ben just said and he believes, or at least peddles, that everything has to be in by election night.

So, for instance, he tweeted this week, big problems and discrepancies with mail-in ballots all over the USA. No evidence does he offer. Must have final total on November 3rd.

So that's not true legally. It's not true historically. But what does it tell us about what the president and his team are therefore planning?

JESSICA HUSEMAN, CNN ANALYST: You know, I think that they're trying to spread enough misinformation to suggest that they might file a lawsuit or cause other chaos on election night if we don't know results when we -- when we traditionally do. And I continue to be stunned, you know, after reporting on this exact subject for four years, how little elected officials know about the system that elected them. And so I think that he's just showing more of his ignorance on election administration policies and setting America up for a little bit of confusion and chaos as polls close.

BERMAN: The reason I actually don't like, for the record, reading the nonsense, is it creates this notion that there are two sides to this. And this is one of those things there aren't two sides to. There are, as Ben Ginsberg said, one factual basis here about how ballots have always been counted. And I don't know that it serves the purpose to let someone say something that is so blatantly false here.

Ben, a lot of other interesting things are happening in terms of the courts and laws right now. In Michigan there was an effort to keep guns away from polling places. Now a judge there has ruled that you can't ban guns from polling places. The legal issues surrounding this, sir?

GINSBERG: Well, there is a state law that does allow open carry. And the judge says at the end of the day that that state law rules.

You know, there's a tie-in in the Trump rhetoric that we were just talking about, which is, you have to understand that it isn't clear that the president does, that it is not a federal election system. That, in fact, each state and each jurisdiction has control over its own elections. So there may be something like a Michigan gun law that goes into effect, but at the same time, how a state counts its ballots is a matter of state law. You just can't say from the federal level, I'm worried about fraud, therefore anything that comes in later doesn't count. Each state has its law that says that those ballots do count or that you can carry guns into a polling place or not.

CAMEROTA: And just so that you understand my thinking of playing the BS, is because if we were just going to have people say truthful things on this show and not allow false statements, our show would be five minutes, John.

BERMAN: Then the president's winning.

CAMEROTA: But --

BERMAN: I will tell you --

CAMEROTA: We fact check. That's what we do. We fact check --

BERMAN: No, what it does is it presents -- GINSBERG: (INAUDIBLE) --

BERMAN: It presents this issue where you get the claim out there. And all he want is the claim out there. So it floats out there. And enough people hear it and don't hear the facts.

CAMEROTA: But then Ben Ginsberg shoots it down, as does Jessica Huseman, so that they clarify for everybody listening exactly what the rules are.

Ben, this is why you need to be a mediator still to this day.

BERMAN: He's an election lawyer, not a divorce lawyer.

CAMEROTA: OK, good point.

GINSBERG: Thank you for making that clarification.

CAMEROTA: Jessica, what about this Pennsylvania thing? The fact that Erie and Cumberland Counties are not going to start the mail-in, drop- off ballots until that night at 7:00 -- election night at 7:00 p.m.? I mean that might be the preponderance of the voting.

Why are they doing that?

HUSEMAN: You know, it's simply a matter of time. And a matter of the -- this county has decided that these ballots can get counted in a reasonable amount of time. I think that there isn't a clerk in America that wants their county to be the last to call in their state, so I think that we should assume that county election administrators are doing the best that they can.

But if we're being fair, they've been given very few resources by which to do that. The state has not really meaningfully increased the amount of time that they have to process and count absentee ballots. And all of that has to happen on the same day that they're holding an in-person election. So, you know, the number of election volunteers is finite. And you have to work with what you have.

BERMAN: Jessica Huseman, Ben Ginsberg, thank you for being part of this family squabble.

CAMEROTA: Doing double duty.

[07:00:00]

BERMAN: We appreciate both your times. It's great to see both of you. Thank you.

HUSEMAN: Thank you.

BERMAN: NEW DAY continues right now.