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Wisconsin Urges Self-Imposed Lockdown; Former Felons Vote in Florida; Presidential Election Polls; Supreme Court Ruling on Early Voting in Wisconsin. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired October 28, 2020 - 08:30   ET

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


[08:30:00]

DR. JEFF POTHOF, CHIEF QUALITY OFFICER, UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: Very high and even more worrisome, about 30 percent of those people who require hospitalization are requiring ICU level care. It's just a really bad situation in Wisconsin right now.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And what's going to happen, Dr. Pothof? I mean what's -- what -- when you get to that level, what's next?

POTHOF: You know, we start to get creative. We try to create more ICU space. We try to find ways to spread our critical care staff even thinner. We start looking at other procedures, other health care that's needed in this community and say, you know what, maybe this one has to wait a week. Maybe we have to think about, you know, turning the dial back down on normal medical care because we're doing everything we can to take care of people who are suffering from COVID- 19.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Dr. Spivak, I want you to build off of something Dr. Pothof said. You're an infectious disease doctor. You are -- you are made of tough stuff. And you've said no disease has ever scared you before because it's what you do, yet this scares you.

Why?

DR. EMILY SPIVAK, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH: Because I -- at the beginning of this pandemic we saw people my age getting very sick. People with no known past medical history, otherwise healthy, kids the age of my kids getting sick, very sick and going into our intensive care unit. And the pace with which this is spreading, specifically now in Utah, is -- is like nothing I've ever seen before. And so it's very alarming. And I think as I've said before, there's a large disconnect between what we see in the medical community and what the community is seeing. And I think if they saw the same things that we did, they would be scared.

And I'm not trying to scare anybody, but just let people know what is really happening. It is spreading at an alarming rate. And then people, I think, would maybe take this a little bit more seriously.

BERMAN: What kinds of things are you seeing that the community needs to know about? SPIVAK: Well, they don't -- I think, you know, there's a broad range

of symptoms and severity of infection and you hear a lot of people, and I've known some myself, who have gotten sick with this and it's just like a cold or its just like the flu or allergies, but they need to realize that not only can people be several ill acutely in the seven to ten days after they get infected and require hospitalization, sometimes supplementary oxygen, sometimes a ventilator or ICU-level care, but also there are really significant, long-term side effects and the short-term risk of blood clots and strokes and people that, you know, have long-term fuzziness or difficulty thinking, mental problems, some, you know, neuropathies and nerve problems.

You know, we talk -- and I heard on the last segment a lot about deaths. This is not just about deaths. There are some real long-term morbidity and complications from this that I think people don't see that we see in the medical community.

CAMEROTA: That is such an important warning. I mean I totally agree with you. We don't -- deaths are so dramatic and the numbers are -- continue to climb and so that does get a lot of attention, but this morning we have been talking a lot about the next level and what patients who get this, even if you think that you just have a cold might have to deal with for a long time, Dr. Pothof, we just -- we just don't know. And I know that you're saying that a lot -- a big percentage of the people coming into your hospitals now, which are close to capacity, are having to be treated in the ICU.

Has anything changed with that? Are you able to get your arms around that or is this sort of a hair on fire moment?

POTHOF: You know, it's a bit of a hair on fire moment. You know, the silver lining is, back in the spring we saw what happened to New York. We had the gift of time to plan on how we could escalate our services. But, you know, no plan is indefinite. And it's really hard to create increased numbers of critical care physicians and critical care nurses. So it's crunch time here in Wisconsin. And you know we're doing the best that we can, but we hear that a lot of the health systems in Wisconsin are really, you know, struggling right now.

BERMAN: Well, how close are you, Dr. Pothof, to the breaking point? How close are you and in what direction is it headed?

POTHOF: Yes, you know, it -- I don't think it's so much where all of a sudden we'd reach the breaking point and we couldn't take care of patients. But what happens is the quality of care that we can deliver starts to diminish every time we enact a new way to care for patients that isn't as good as being in our COVID-19 unit with people who know how to treat this disease, who have been doing it for nine months.

So the thing that worries me is, is I don't really see a great solution on the horizon for Wisconsin as to how we're going to turn this around.

CAMEROTA: Gosh.

BERMAN: Dr. Pothof, Dr. Spivak, thank you for the work you are both doing. We really appreciate your efforts. We appreciate your time this morning. If there's anything we can do to get the message out, let us know.

SPIVAK: Thank you.

POTHOF: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Six days from Election Day and we have no idea, of course, who's going to win, but we do know something about the people who are voting early, and we tell you that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:39:17]

BERMAN: So we got a new update just in.

As of now, more than 71 million Americans have already cast their vote. We're still tabulating some of the overnight numbers. Nearly 6.5 million people in the state of Florida alone have already voted.

CNN's Drew Griffin live in Tallahassee with the latest.

Obviously, if there's one state people are watching every vote so closely it's Florida, Drew.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: And another half million people voted yesterday. Updated numbers for you just fresh off the press, John, 6.9 million Floridians have voted. That's approaching half of all registered voters in this state. And for the first time that includes convicted felons.

I want you to meet one of them.

[08:40:00]

Her name is Jane Dwyer Lee, convicted in a DUI crash back in the '90s. She served five years in prison, rebuilt her life. She's a professor at Florida State University. But for all those years, she couldn't vote until now. Well, now, she has voted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANE DWYER LEE, TALLAHASSEE VOTER: I woke up that morning, it was like, whoo, I'm going to vote today! And so my husband was sharing my joy. And we came down and I shared it with the people in the -- in the voting -- the voting area. And they just cheered and they were so happy. And it was just -- I mean we were all pumped up because that was the first time that I had voted in -- in 24 years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRIFFIN: Twenty-four years. John and Alisyn, I did ask her. The answer is Biden. She voted for Biden. And those felons who have registered to vote, they are more likely to vote or register as Democrats than Republicans. But it's a very small number of people, just between 30,000 and 40,000 of those convicted felons took advantage of this law.

But like you say, John, in Florida, like nowhere else, every vote counts and that's why this was such a big deal for her.

John.

BERMAN: Forty thousand votes in Florida is a landslide.

GRIFFIN: Right.

CAMEROTA: Yes. And the enthusiasm, I mean, is what we keep seeing and hearing.

Drew, thank you very much.

OK, so new polls this morning from two key battleground states show Joe Biden leading President Trump in both Wisconsin and Michigan.

CNN's senior political writer and analyst Harry Enten joins us now.

OK, Harry, this morning, we, hot off the presses, had this new ABC News/"Washington Post" poll that shows how voters in Wisconsin and Michigan are feeling. So give us the context here.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER AND ANALYST: Sure.

So I think it's important to point out that those polls show Biden well ahead, at least in Wisconsin. Look at that, a 17-point lead in Michigan. It's a little bit closer, a seven-point Biden advantage.

But you know me, Alisyn, I'm all about putting those polls into context. In both Michigan and Wisconsin, the former vice president has an eight-point lead. So those are solid advantages. But in Wisconsin, the race is somewhat tighter than the ABC News/"Washington Post" poll indicates.

BERMAN: Look, yes, it may be an outlier, but the bottom line is we're not seeing shrinkage in Wisconsin, not even close, Harry. And remind us why those states are so important.

ENTEN: Right. They're so important because they are part of Biden's easiest path to 270 electoral votes. If you just look at the states where Biden holds a five-point lead in both the September and October average of polls, you get Biden to 279 electoral votes. That includes the Clinton states plus Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nebraska's second congressional district.

And I'll note on this map, it doesn't include states like North Carolina or Florida or Arizona. So this is a solid path for Biden and the ABC News/"Washington post" polls seem to back up the idea that this is his easiest path.

CAMEROTA: OK. Well, then it makes perfect sense that both campaigns are sending people to Arizona today. So Kamala Harris is going to Arizona. President Trump is as well. So, why there? ENTEN: Yes, I mean, look, it's a fairly tight race in that state at

this particular point, but Biden does have the advantage. He's up by four points. He's near 50 percent. And I should point out, that advantage has been -- tended to be pretty stable over time. A slight Biden lead, but a Biden lead nonetheless.

BERMAN: So, Harry, as you well know, because it's personal for you, so many people have been wounded, I think incorrectly, by the notion that polls were wrong or way off in 2016. To an extent, Arizona is a bit of a salve for that wound. Why?

ENTEN: Yes, look -- look at the polling averages in both 2016 in the presidential race and 2018 in that Senate race and look at this, what do you see? You see that the final polls were actually fairly close to the result. They were just off by one point in 2016. President Trump did a slight bit better. In 2018, the polls actually underestimated the Democratic candidate, Kyrsten Sinema. So Arizona is a place where if you're going to trust the polls, it would be there. And, if anything, the polls in the southwest have a history of underestimating Democratic candidates. So I do think that that polling average that has Biden ahead there, if it holds to Election Day, will most likely hold for Biden.

CAMEROTA: But, Harry, correct me if I'm wrong, a Democratic president has not won there in 70 years.

ENTEN: No, it's one Democratic candidate has won there in the last 70 years. Bill Clinton won there in 1996. But that just gives you an idea of the movement that we've been seeing in Arizona, that that is a state that has been shifting to the left. And the polling average right now indicates that.

BERMAN: And, Harry, Arizona is a bit of a backup for Joe Biden, right, if things don't go well. Explain.

ENTEN: Yes. So, essentially, let's just say that there is that polling error in the Midwestern and there's a Midwestern state that Biden doesn't win, say Pennsylvania, where he's ahead right now. If he still were to win in Wisconsin, Michigan, Nebraska's second congressional district and Arizona, that would, in fact, get Biden to exactly 270 electoral votes, even if he lost in places like Florida and North Carolina.

BERMAN: All right, Harry, let's close on one of my favorite subjects, when will we know who won the election?

[08:45:00]

When all the votes are counted. And sometimes that's not on the final election day and you have still more on this subject for us.

ENTEN: Right. I mean just look at the state of Arizona, which we were talking about. Why not round it out with that.

Four years ago the president won in Arizona by 3.5 points, 48 to 45 percent. He was not declared the winner according to most projections until the Thursday after the election. So this just gives you another indication that sometimes even in races that aren't that tight it takes a little bit of time to declare a winner

BERMAN: Did he -- did he object? Did he say, no, no, no, no, you didn't declare me the winner on Tuesday, you declared it on Thursday, so it can't possibly count. Did he object to that?

ENTEN: I don't really recall that to be perfectly honest with you. I think he took the win as it was.

CAMEROTA: Strange.

ENTEN: Strange.

CAMEROTA: All right, Harry, things that make you go hmm.

Thank you, Harry, very much.

ENTEN: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Great to see you.

BERMAN: All right, we've been talking a lot about Wisconsin. Obviously the pandemic there is rampant, running out of control. There's a Supreme Court ruling that affects the voting there and coming up we're going to talk to the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party on how they now are trying to work around that Supreme Court decision, work around the pandemic and get their voters to the polls.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:50:17]

BERMAN: So to an extent this morning, Wisconsin is the center of the universe. It's where every story is coming together in one place. The pandemic is out of control there. A surge in cases and hospitalizations.

The president was there yesterday. The vice president is going today. There's a new poll out which shows Joe Biden with a big lead there. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week that if your mail-in ballots in Wisconsin arrive after Election Day, after November 3rd in that state, they won't count. Every day is Election Day. You can vote for seven more days, including today in Wisconsin and around the country.

Joining me now is Ben Wikler, he is the chair of Wisconsin's Democratic Party.

Ben, thank you so much for being with us.

This Supreme Court ruling, which means that all ballots have to be in by November 3rd, how are you now dealing with that? What are you doing to get your voters to the polls?

BEN WIKLER, CHAIR, DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF WISCONSIN: Wisconsin is in a sprint to the finish line and the voters in Wisconsin have this super power to potentially determine the future of American democracy and shape history. So our message to voters is get your absentee ballot in right now. And we are phone making, friend banking, text banking, making chalk art, pulling banners over Milwaukee, driving sound trucks around major cities, putting door hangers on doors. Everything we can possibly do that doesn't risk exposing someone to coronavirus, but gets the word out that the time is now. Get those ballots in.

BERMAN: If you have a mail-in ballot, what should you do it with it today?

WIKLER: So, here's the thing, there are now drop boxes all over Wisconsin. And if someone goes to wisdems.org/dropbox, you can actually find the drop box nearest you. There are, you know, dozens and dozens of them in communities across our state, secure, easy, convenient ways to drop your absentee ballot in by hand. And that is the thing to do in the home stretch. You can drop off your ballot, you can early vote in person. The polls are open as we speak. And if you prefer to vote on Election Day, you have that option, too.

But this is a -- this is a no time to wait election. So our message is, hand deliver your ballot and we will be reminding you pretty much every few hours until the polls close if you don't get your ballot in. So save yourself some trouble and get that ballot turned in.

BERMAN: But you're done with the Postal Service, basically? If it were up to you, people would stop putting them in the mail, let's say, correct?

WIKLER: I -- we -- yesterday when folks asked us, you know, should I still mail it, depending on where you are, maybe that's fine. At this point I would say hand deliver that ballot. It feels great. I hand- delivered my own ballot with Representative Sheila Stubbs (ph) here in Madison. We went in to the -- we went to the Madison Municipal Building, gave it to a poll worker there, and walked away knowing that we had done our part, we had cast a ballot for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to end the Trump nightmare. And it's very satisfying. So I would say drop off your ballot now and then get to work recruiting and reminding other people to do the same.

For the next six days, an hour of volunteering will have a bigger impact on the rest of your life than almost anything you do in the rest of your lifetime.

BERMAN: When you read the Supreme Court ruling, particularly what Brett Kavanaugh said about the potentiality, and these are his words, of flipping the election results based on ballots that may have been mailed but arrive after the polls close, what was your reaction?

WIKLER: The idea of democracy is that every vote counts and that every vote counts the same. And voters that follow the step by step instructions and cast their ballots, those voters determine the outcome of the election. And there are more safeguards in place to make absolutely sure that voters' voices are heard in this election than we've ever had before.

Brett Kavanaugh kind of had a choice between democracy and Donald Trump and he sided with Donald Trump. And my reaction was, we kind of saw this coming a mile away. We've been preparing for it and we are going to drive to get every ballot in by 8:00 p.m. on November 3rd, preferably get them in today so that whatever Brett Kavanaugh has in mind, it's not going to matter because we're going to win in a landslide by the closing buzzer.

BERMAN: All right, this -- this next statement is for Tim Albert (ph), a political reporter, if he's watching. It is a matter of fact that Donald Trump, who won Wisconsin, I don't have to tell you that Donald Trump won Wisconsin in 2016, actually got fewer votes than Mitt Romney did in 2012 in losing Wisconsin. So this is about you and your votes turning out more Democratic voters.

So what are you seeing in terms of that? And I will ask you, nothing scares Democrats like a good poll.

[08:55:02]

And this ABC News/"Washington Post" poll, which has you ahead by 17 points today, overlay those two things. How do you get your voters out in the reaction to that poll?

WIKLER: I think every Wisconsinite knows in their bones that you should ignore the polls and act like this race is completely tied. We were up 6.5 points in the average poll on Election Day in 2016 and it came down to less than 1 percentage point. So in these final days you've got to tune out the noise and focus on the things you can do. Download the Vote Joe app on Google or iPhone and contact your friends, contact your neighbors, tell them that their vote could tip this entire presidential race. That is our message and that is, frankly, what we feel in our hearts because we know you just can't count on anything in the final stretch. It's an all-out effort or nothing.

BERMAN: It's Wisconsin.

Ben Wikler, we thank you for being with us this morning. Appreciate your time.

WIKLER: Thank you so much.

BERMAN: All right, obviously we're following a lot of news with these days -- the days waning where you can still vote and the pandemic surging out of control.

CNN's coverage continues, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

It is six days until Election Day 2020 and nearly 72 Americans, imagine that, have already cast their ballots.

[09:00:02]

That is more than half of all ballots cast by Election Day in 2016.