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New Day

73,240 New Coronavirus Cases in U.S., Fourth Highest Day in Pandemic; Trump Ignores Pandemic, Biden Pushes Unity in Final Days of Campaign; Philadelphia Victim's Family Sought Ambulance, Not Police. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired October 28, 2020 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: We appreciate both your time. It's great to see both of you. Thank you.

New Day Continues right now.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN NEW DAY: And we want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is New Day.

Election Day just six days away, and we are setting a record in terms of early voting and in terms of a surge in coronavirus, more than 73,000 new cases just yesterday.

In the last week, a new record of more than half a million Americans have tested positive. 40 states are seeing cases rise, that's another record, and 14 states reporting their highest level of hospitalizations. Some are near capacity.

The virus spread in Wisconsin is prompting the governor there to warn residents of an urgent crisis and imminent risk to families.

BERMAN: The pandemic is clearly getting worse, evidently getting worse. Hospitalizations rising, cases rising, it is crystal clear, yet the White House science policy office lists, quote, ending the COVID- 19 pandemic as one of what it calls the top accomplishments of the president's first term. This isn't just laughable, it's offensively false. This is, up is down, black is white-type stuff. It is Orwellian. They haven't ended the pandemic. They claim they're ending the pandemic at the very moment where we're seeing the most cases.

And there's evidence this morning, not only is it a public health lie and public health threat, but it might be backfiring on them politically. There's a brand new Washington Post/ABC News poll that shows that Joe Biden has a 17-point lead over President Trump in Wisconsin. Why does this matter? As we just said, Wisconsin is one of the states that is seeing the worst of the coronavirus pandemic. So, suggesting it's over to people in Wisconsin might very well have an adverse political effect.

By the way, we will speak to advisers from both campaigns over the next several minutes. CAMEROTA: Joining us now, we have CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and CNN Political Analyst, Astead Herndon, he's a National Political Reporter for The New York Times.

Sanjay, we start a lot of shows lately, unfortunately, by saying the virus is getting worse, the cases are going up, cases are surging, the death toll is going up. But this morning, I was really struck by something Professor Haseltine just told us, which is, this one looks different. This wave, or whatever you want to call it, this surge is really alarming to people like you, to doctors, because younger people are getting hit. We're learning more about the virus. And one of the things we're learning is the long-term consequences of getting sick.

There used to be a feeling of, well, younger people, they won't be hit as hard. Maybe they can shake it off. No, there are lasting consequences, as we're learning to being exposed to this.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, you know, we've had this sort of -- these indications of these long- hauling type symptoms for some time, but we are starting to see it more and more. We're seeing it in younger people. There doesn't seem to be a correlation between how sick you were initially and how likely you are to develop long-hauling symptoms, which is significant, right? You think, well, I was very sick, therefore I'm more likely to develop long-hauling symptoms. When you talk to people at Mt. Sinai, you realize even people who are sometimes younger, people who had kind of mild or moderate symptoms, those symptoms can linger for a long time.

But when you do look at that trend line, and I know you've shown this graph comparing the United States to the E.U., you sort of see that we, over the last few days, have had this very average overall of newly diagnosed infections. It's not only that the numbers are going up, but the pace at which these numbers are going up is also increasing, if that makes sense. There's have been about a half a million people diagnosed just over the last week alone, which means that that blue line, which is the United States, is going into that same sort of same exponential growth there that we see with the European Union.

That's one of the big concerns, no matter what, even if younger people are less likely to get sick, which they still are, far less likely to get sick. After a while, the absolute numbers become so high that people, you know, regardless of your age, are starting to fill up the hospitals.

BERMAN: Look, I can't get past the headline, Sanjay. We can put up the map so people can see it. We've never seen so much orange and red on the map. We have never seen cases rising this much in as many places. We're averaging 73,000 a day. It is worse than it has ever been in those terms. Hospitalizations are on the rise, okay?

And to see this and to see this and to see the White House science policy office make the claim that one of its accomplishments is ending the pandemic, at the very time when it's at its, perhaps, worst point, how does that strike you?

GUPTA: Yes. I mean, this is the mission accomplished sort of thing at the moment, again, here.

[07:05:01]

We're nowhere near to being done with this. As you point out, whatever you want to call it, the second wave, third wave, peaks, whatever it is, if you look historically and you think about this respiratory viruses, in general, this is, as you point out, the worst time.

This is when the numbers tend to get the worse, because the virus -- we have not really done anything to slow down the spread of this virus and now this third, again, peak wave or whatever is starting at a base line as high as the previous peak. So it's a real concern as people go into the winter months and they're clustering and we know this virus is more likely to spread.

The hospitalization thing is a thing we've been spreading the most. The numbers, it's harder for people to process, to understand, what does it mean, if it's younger people, maybe not so bad, whatever. The hospitalizations, I think, here tell the real story.

And, look, some of these places, they just don't have the hospital capacity. I think if North Dakota, they've got 20 ICU beds total for the state, right? So you're going to run into situations already. It's already happening where right now if you are in one of these places, the hospital may tell you, we're going to send your loved one outside the region right now. We cannot fill up this region. We know we're going to be in danger of becoming overwhelmed. So, protectively, we're starting to send patients out of the region or out of the state.

That's what's happening. And, again, flu season, coronavirus worsening at the same time, that problem is going to get worse.

CAMEROTA: And, Astead, you're seeing this reflected in the polls. I mean, the polls out this morning, ABC News has a new poll that we'll just start with Wisconsin, okay? So, Wisconsin, cases are spiking, hospitals are near capacity, their choice for president right now, 57 percent for Biden, 40 percent for Trump. That's obviously -- the gap has widened since they last did this September 13th. And in terms of President Trump's handling of coronavirus, 59 percent now disapprove. In mid-September, it was 54. Only 39 percent of people, registered Wisconsin voters, approve.

And so, look, we don't know the outcome of the election. We won't know until maybe next week. However, the snapshot of how people are feeling right now is that they're not in good hands.

ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. I mean, I don't know anyone who thinks that Wisconsin was maybe is 17 points, but everyone who I've known, from experts or folks who have been on the ground like myself, knows that the coronavirus has reshaped the political landscape, particularly in these states, in which Republicans led by the president have just refused to acknowledge its existence.

I was reading in Politico, Nancy Cook wrote a story that quoted, a former administration official saying, if you think that COVID is bad, you're probably not going to be voting for the president or something to that effect. And it struck me as just kind of a stunning admission from this White House that once that Joe Biden is resting his campaign on, they think that a lot of Americans are really motivated by this virus and wanting to see the end of this virus. And that's something that the president and the White House had frankly just not grappled with.

I was in Iowa, another place that is seeing a spike in cases recently, and there was so much attention that was turned to the Republican governor, to the Republican senator, who's up for re-election, saying that they had been too closely following the president and they have not stepped up on basic issues, like wearing masks or embracing social distancing or a comment from Joni Ernst that speculated that the death numbers were overinflated.

Following the Republican president has put the party at wide, at risk in this election cycle because they refuse to acknowledge the severity and reality of the coronavirus.

BERMAN: I want you to extend that a little bit, Astead. And, again, I don't want people to focus necessarily on the margin that ABC News/Washington Post has in Wisconsin, because it's probably an outlier, but it's clearly not moving closer, the race there, right now. And it's the pandemic that is driving this number.

And when you see this, and when you see what people in Wisconsin know about the pandemic, how it's affecting them, and you see the president going there in a rally yesterday, the vice president going there today, there is this notion, look how hard they're working. They're doing rallies all over the country. It's perfectly reasonable to wonder whether or not this might be backfiring on them.

HERNDON: Absolutely. And I think there is so much talk about who's in the bubble in this campaign, right? Is Joe Biden listening too much to Twitter? Are progressives forcing the party too much to the left? Look, in my opinion, there has been one candidate who has not acknowledged the reality of where the country is, who has listened too much to the fringe, who needed to distance himself from the kind of most radical figures of the party and has not done so, and it's the president.

The coronavirus is a reality for a lot of Americans across the country. The way it's reshaped our lives, the way it has taken loved ones, the way it's trying to fundamentally transform how basic interactions are happening is something that this White House just does not seem to get or refuses to get about where the country is right now, and this kind of walking into a political firestorm because of that.

[07:10:15]

I think back to the rally in Tulsa that I was in, when the president first restarted his rallies this year, and there was a sense that that really fell flat, because the White House did not recognize that even some of its own supporters were nervous about being in an enclosed space with no mask. I remember seeing Herman Cain at that rally. I mean, these are things that a normal campaign and president would have taken as signs to re-shift and to re-shift that strategy. And this is not something they have decided to do. And they may pay the electoral price for it.

CAMEROTA: Right. I mean, Herman Cain's death could also have been taken as a sign of something, but it wasn't. Astead, thank you very much. Sanjay Gupta, thank you. We'll talk to you next hour.

So how does the new poll in Wisconsin change the strategy in the final week of the race? We're going to talk to a top adviser for the Biden campaign first. Later, we will speak to the Trump side. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00]

BERMAN: This morning, coronavirus cases are surging across the country, record numbers of new cases. It is clearly not over. Yet, the White House lists, quote, ending the COVID-19 pandemic as one of its top accomplishments.

Joining us now is Symone Sanders, she is a senior adviser to the Biden campaign. Symone, what about that? What about this claim from the White House science policy office listing ending the pandemic as an accomplishment?

SYMONE SANDERS, SENIOR ADVISER, BIDEN CAMPAIGN: Well, good morning, John. I am -- I -- you know, it pains me to think about the callousness of this White House. Obviously, the pandemic is not over. More than 220,000 Americans are dead. And now we know from a new study from Columbia University, at least 210,000 of those American lives could have been saved.

So, what we have been saying from the onset, frankly, of this pandemic, is that you have to take this seriously, that the White House has to put measures in place to mitigate this virus. And, frankly, Donald Trump and the Trump administration have failed the American people on this.

BERMAN: I want to ask you about election night, November 3rd. We've had reports this morning talking about how Pennsylvania will process the ballots. They're not going to start opening ballots until November 3rd, even though they have more than a million in their pockets right now. So I want to know what your plans are for reacting to the returns as they are made public that night? And if, for instance, President Trump comes out and declares victory, says, hey, based on the count now at 11:59 P.M. November 3rd, I've won. How are you going to handle that?

SANDERS: Well, John, frankly, I don't think the American people will stand for that. Look, I don't have any new news to break for you this morning on our process yet, just for Election Day, but this is what I can tell you. I can tell you that over the next couple of days, Vice President Biden, Senator Harris, Dr. Biden, Doug Emhoff and our entire campaign are really working to get out the vote. We view Election Day as the deadline, because people are voting right now all across this country.

And when Election Day comes, you know, we are buckling down and we're looking forward to seeing those returns come in. We know that millions of people, I believe, more than 70 million people have already voted across this country. We believe the American people will be heard, John. And I think it's incumbent upon all of us, especially the news media to ensure that that is, in fact, the case.

BERMAN: But isn't there a messaging thing if you, as well? Doesn't it make sense or to what extent does it make sense to start warning voters now that the results may not be available next Tuesday night?

SANDERS: Well, look, I think what we have been saying throughout the last couple of weeks have been consistent. We've been saying is that, look, the American people shall be heard. The president is trying to scare people about this election. The president has actively been engaged in voter suppression efforts, trying to undermine this election. And so it should be no surprise to folks that the president is floating things, such as, well, we have to know on election night.

I believe that in 2016, we didn't have a definitive answer on the election until the wee hours of Wednesday morning. So the American people have to be vigilant.

But to be clear, if folks come out and make their voices heard all across this country, if they come out and they vote for protection of pre-existing conditions, if they vote for an economy that works for everyone, they will be heard. And I think that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be victorious, if we do the work. So we're working on doing the work over the next couple of days.

BERMAN: All right. You know Democrats, right? You're a Democrat. You know how Democrats like to panic --

SANDERS: Just a little bit.

BERMAN: -- or like to be nervous, sometimes appropriately, sometimes just because it's what they do. So I want to put up a headline from the Boston Globe for you from late October of 2016. This is the Boston Globe. I think the date was like October 21st. Clinton leads Democratic charge into red states. This is as Hillary Clinton went to Arizona.

So Vice President Biden went to Georgia yesterday. He's going to Iowa on Friday. Both of those states are states that Donald Trump won by a lot last time, and there are Democrats who are saying, hey, wait a minute, maybe that time would be better spent fighting in the blue wall in Pennsylvania every day, just planting in Pennsylvania and not leaving. So why or why not is 2020 similar or different than 2016?

SANDERS: Well, John, look, I'll say this. I think that we have been very clear about where our priorities are as a campaign. Now, we're also -- we've been very clear that we want as many paths to 270 as possible. But we have invested real resources in Pennsylvania, in Wisconsin, in Michigan.

[07:20:01]

Vice President Biden and our entire campaign have been to Florida a number of times. I do believe earlier this week, Vice President Biden was, in fact, in Chester, Pennsylvania.

So we are not taking anything for granted. We don't believe we have anything in the bag. Nothing, quote/unquote, is safe. But what we do believe is that we have to work for every single vote in places all across this country. Today, Senator Harris will be in Arizona. Vice President Biden will be in Delaware, getting a briefing on COVID-19 and speaking to the American people. Just yesterday, Dr. Biden was in Maine with Sara Gideon, campaigning with her in Maine's congressional district.

And so we are not taking everything for granted. We are all about ensuring that we are fighting for every single vote.

BERMAN: Will Joe Biden go back to Pennsylvania before November 3rd?

SANDERS: I think it is safe to say that we believe Pennsylvania is important. And they have seen a lot of our campaign and that won't stop before Election Day.

BERMAN: Former President Barack Obama, our Jeff Zeleny has reported that there will be a joint appearance, some joint campaigning between Joe Biden and Barack Obama perhaps as soon as this weekend. What can you tell us about that?

SANDERS: Well, what I can tell you is that President Obama has been such an effective, just champion for Vice President Biden's campaign and we were so excited to have him on the campaign trail yesterday, giving a very fiery speech. I tuned in. I know folks all across the country were watching. And we're looking forward to, yes, him, too campaigning in the closing --

BERMAN: Together? Together?

SANDERS: I don't have any news on where. I don't have any news for you as to where.

BERMAN: But they are doing it together?

SANDERS: But --

BERMAN: They are going to campaign together?

SANDERS: But -- President Obama will be out on the campaign trail as will Joe Biden.

BERMAN: I want to get your last take on something Jared Kushner said the other day, senior adviser to the president. He was talking about engagement with African-Americans in the country, and this is what Kushner said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JARED KUSHNER, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: One thing we've seen in a lot of the black community, which is mostly Democrat, is that President Trump's policies are the policies that can help people break out of the problems that they're complaining about, but he can't want them to be successful more than they want to be successful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Symone, when you heard that, what did you think?

SANDERS: I thought a couple of things, John. First and foremost, I thought it was ignorant and a trope of black people in America.

But what I also thought when I heard it is that, I don't think -- I don't think requiring the president of the United States to take this virus seriously is complaining.

I do not think black business owners across this country, many of whom have had to shutter their doors are complaining when they are asking for a plan from the federal government to mitigate this virus.

I don't think it's complaining to know that more than 220,000 Americans are dead and disproportionately those folks are black and Latino in this country. I don't think it's complaining.

And so I really think that this is just a further demonstration of how this administration has failed the American people, has failed black Americans in this country.

I'll end with this, John. Since March, 1 in 1,000 black people in this country have died, are dead due to COVID-19. Projections are estimating that as soon as the end of this year, it will be 1 in 500.

As we sit here today, 1 in 8 black Americans in this country are unemployed. That is a failure of the federal government. That, to me, is Donald Trump's policies failing black Americans.

And so I will just say that folks have a choice this election, a choice between the leadership that they've seen and the vision that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have laid out.

And over the next couple of days, we will be actively making a forceful case for why Joe Biden should be the next president of the United States and why his plan is a plan that will benefit all Americans.

BERMAN: Symone Sanders, we appreciate you being with us this morning.

SANDERS: Thank you so much.

BERMAN: So, from the first votes to the critical count, understand what's happening in your state and across the country. CNN's special coverage of election night in America begins Tuesday at 4:00 P.M. Eastern Time.

Protests overnight in Philadelphia after a police shot and killed a black man there. We are now hearing from his family and learning new details about what led to the encounter, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00]

CAMEROTA: We have new details about the moments that led to Philadelphia police shooting and killing Walter Wallace Jr. Tuesday saw a second night of protests, looting and unrest in Philly.

CNN's Brynn Gingras is live in Philadelphia with more. So what have you learned, Brynn?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Alisyn, good morning. The police commissioner, the mayor of Philadelphia, the district attorney, they all agreed that video that has been widely circulated now, there are a lot of questions in there that are concerning that the community deserves answers to.

Now, what you don't see in that video though, the family says, is that their son, 27-year-old Walter Wallace, was going through a bipolar episode, and that they, in fact, called an ambulance and not police to come. However, two officers did arrive on that scene, as we know, and they say that they pleaded for them to not fire any shots.

We've learned from this investigation that seven shots were fired each from those two officers. And we've also learned that neither of them were carrying tasers, according to the police department and this, as there were so many calls for de-escalation in that particular moment.

We've also learned from this investigation that both officers, they were wearing body cameras.

[07:30:01]

The footage was rolling and that is going to be something that is really going to be looked at throughout the entire day with both investigations, one with the district.