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Dramatic Surge in U.S. COVID-19 Cases; Kushner Brags Trump Taking U.S. "Back from Doctors"; Arizona: Biden and Trump in Dead Heat; One-Third of Registered U.S. Voters Have Cast Ballots; "Anonymous" Comes Forward; Turkey Opens Legal Investigation into French Magazine. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired October 29, 2020 - 02:00   ET

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

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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Kim Brunhuber, live from CNN's world headquarters in Atlanta. This is CNN Newsroom.

The cost of coronavirus, two of Europe's largest economies announced new lockdowns to slow the second wave of the pandemic.

Five days before Election Day in the U.S., candidates are making their closing arguments as a record numbers of voters turn out and cast their ballots early.

Another powerful hurricane strikes the U.S. Gulf Coast, making a direct hit on the city of New Orleans.

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BRUNHUBER: With coronavirus cases soaring to record highs in Europe, the leaders of France and Germany, two of Europe's biggest economies, are taking drastic actions to try and contain the spread.

They once again ordered nationwide lockdowns, asking people to stay indoors, limit their movement and close down nonessential business. CNN's Jim Bittermann is in Paris with the details.

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JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's Lockdown 2.0. In France and Germany, citizens must hunker down once again as the country's leaders announce sweeping new coronavirus restrictions.

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EMMANUEL MACRON, PRESIDENT, FRANCE (through translator): The virus is circulating at a speed faster than even the most pessimistic forecasts had anticipated.

Like all our neighbors we are submerged by the sudden acceleration of virus.

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BITTERMAN: In France's month-long lockdown people will need a certificate to leave their home. Non-essential businesses, restaurants and bars will be closed but schools will remain open.

The new rules come after curfews across much of the country failed to contain a surge of new cases, officially averaging 40,000 a day. But experts suggest that the real number could be as high as 100,000 a day.

In Germany, a similar trend of soaring infections met by a similar response. Starting November 2nd, Germany will shut bars, restaurants and theaters. Shops can operate with strict limits on access. Schools will stay open.

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ANGELA MERKEL, CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY (through translator): What makes the current pandemic situation so serious is the speed at which the virus is spreading.

Our health system can still cope with this challenge today but at this speed of infections, it will reach the limits of capacity within weeks.

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BITTERMANN: The sweeping new restrictions in two of Europe's largest economies sent world markets into a tumble though as harsh as spring lockdowns.

They follow an effort across the Continent to control a startling rise of new cases. From Russia to Italy, Spain to Poland, record jumps in infections have led to new restrictions on public life.

Not all have been easy to enforce. Protesters in Spain and Italy demonstrate a growing discontent at the economic and emotional impact of controlling the virus.

Meanwhile, medical workers also voiced their frustration as some hospitals begin to buckle.

Leaders across Europe struggling to strike a balance in the battle against a resurging coronavirus pandemic -- Jim Bittermann. CNN, Paris.

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BRUNHUBER: They're now 5 days of Election Day in the U.S., more than 227,000 people dead from coronavirus and the U.S. president is still continuing to hold likely superspreader campaign events.

But though Donald Trump may wish COVID-19 would disappear, the data shows a completely different story, at least 41 states are seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases. CNN's Nick Watt has the details.

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TRUMP: We're rounding the curve. We're rounding the corner. It's happening.

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What actually happened yesterday in Wisconsin where the President said those words, more people were killed by COVID-19 in a single day than ever before and record numbers in the hospital.

DR. NASIA SAFDAR, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, INFECTION CONTROL UNIV. OF WISCONSIN HOSPITAL AND CLINICS: It's a trajectory continues the way it is now. It's almost certain that we will find ourselves in a place where we will have to decide who gets the care.

WATT: Staff shortages for cost and feared.

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.

WATT: Right now 40 states are seeing their average daily case counts rise. Nationwide, we just added more than a half million new cases in a week. The President still says it's just more testing. His own testing czar, once again, says he's wrong.

GIROIR: We do assess that the cases are actually going up. They're real, because hospitalizations and deaths are starting to go up. WATT: The average daily death toll just topped 800 for the first time in more than a month.

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DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: If we continue our current behavior, you know, by the time we start to go down the other side of the curve, a half a million people will be dead.

WATT: Reintroducing restrictions now a very real possibility in many places.

GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D-NJ): Now it's pretty much up and down the state. I continue to think it's more likely scalpel community focused, surging of capacities and enforcement. But we have to leave all options on the table.

WATT: Record COVID-19 hospitalization is now in 13 states. Ohio, among them.

GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): The current increase in utilization is noticeably sharper, steeper than the increase we saw during the summer peak.

WATT: This is life, but not as we knew it.

FAUCI: I think it will be easily by the end of 2021 and perhaps even into the next year before we start having some semblances of normality. WATT: This baseball season was very far from normality. To the Dodgers, a 32-year wait for a World Series is over but COVID tinged, there's third baseman Justin Turner celebrating postgame. In the seventh inning, the team learned he's tested positive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Obviously incredibly unfortunate, but you know, kind of speaks to you know what all of us are going through in 2020.

WATT (voice-over): Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.

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BRUNHUBER: And CNN medical analyst Dr. Esther Choo is a professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health and Science University and joins me from Seattle.

Thanks for being with us, today. Let's talk about the U.S. Here on average of 70,000 new cases, the death rate going up, some hospitals issuing warnings, that they're nearing capacity. We're hearing Walmart CEO among others reporting that we're starting to see people stockpiling.

Are we here in the U.S. well on our way back to the bad old days?

DR. ESTHER CHOO, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I think we are, this is starting to feel grimly familiar. Unfortunately, familiar and even worse.

As you know, we are starting to surpass our former highest peak rates in July. And yet, we're not seeing people curb their behaviors at all, so we're kind of back where we were. And yet people are tired of being asked to stay home and not socializing in big groups. I'm just seeing a lot of fatigue around behavior change.

It just feels like, headed into the winter months, where we're all forced inside at close quarters, it's going to be very tough to make our way through this peak.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, that's what I want to ask, I mean, some top health officials have openly contemplated a national mask mandate.

But when you see countries like France, which had a national mandate, fines dealing with some hundred thousand cases daily, going back into lockdown because the president says other measures haven't worked.

So seeing that, is it effectively too late for the U.S.?

It's never too late to act.

But have we already gone too far, to stem the problem with masks and social distancing alone?

Will we need more, drastic measures?

CHOO: Certainly drastic measures are on the table, at the same time there are some simple things that we haven't done. We haven't yet had an administration that's had a consistent, steady and strong message around masks.

So something simple like that, coming from the very top, still gives us potential to move. I also think that, on a state by state level, communities can really decide that this is going to be something that they all socially enforce.

So I hate to say that it's too late. I think there's a lot of potential for change. Hopefully the numbers as they translate from cases to hospitalizations to deaths will make people really stop and think and recommit themselves to this effort.

I think it's tremendously difficult to enforce things like mandates, none of us want to go there. But I doo think everything is on the table, if that's what we need to do to stop this so that we don't get to some of those really grim projections about where we could go from here.

BRUNHUBER: As if things weren't dire enough, the FBI and two federal agencies warn they have credible information that cyber criminals are planning a wave of extortion attempts, which could cripple possible information systems.

A couple hospitals already have been hit. If it were more widespread, it would be disastrous, given the spike in coronavirus cases.

How worried should we be about this?

CHOO: Yes, hopefully, that will not become a widespread thing. We know our information systems are so critical to our response, in states like Oregon, the way that we coordinate statewide is through, our I.T. infrastructure. So it could really put a dent in how well we're able to respond quickly to the needs of related to the pandemic.

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CHOO: At the same, time I will say hospitals have a lot of contingency plans for things like, shutdowns. We do routine maintenance shutdowns, we have backup systems in place, go to good old pen and paper. So we wouldn't be completely debilitated.

But certainly, certainly to be operating at our max capacity, which we may need to do, many hospitals already are entering surge conditions. We need to guard against those things. So really the last thing we need going into the winter.

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BRUNHUBER: That was exactly what I was going to say, the last thing we need. Listen, thank you so much for being with us, Dr. Esther Choo, in Seattle. Appreciate it.

CHOO: Thank you.

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(MUSIC PLAYING) BRUNHUBER: With only five days left until the U.S. election, candidates are fighting for every vote in battleground states. For the Democrat Joe Biden, it's all about the pandemic. He's not letting up on attacks on President Trump's response. He's conducting his own public briefings with public health experts. MJ Lee will have that in a moment.

But first President Trump is still downplaying the virus at rallies and taking aim at a former member of his administration. Jim Acosta has details from Arizona.

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JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Trump made a mad dash to the reliably Republican state of Arizona, trying to hold onto the state that he won four years ago.

And during a rowdy rally in the Phoenix area, the president went after Miles Taylor, the ex Department of Homeland Security official who once penned an op-ed in "The New York Times," calling him self Anonymous and declaring himself an opponent of the president's agenda.

At this rally, the president said Taylor should be prosecuted for what he's had to say about Mr. Trump and here is more of what he had to say.

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TRUMP: It was just revealed that, you know Anonymous, this anonymous that everyone's been looking for?

That law enforcement could've found early, if they wanted to. But everybody was looking for Anonymous. Turned out to be a low level staffer, a sleaze bag who's never worked in the White House.

Anonymous was a nobody, a disgruntled employee, who was quickly removed from his job a long time ago for, they tell me, incompetence. I don't know what for but they tell me incompetence.

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ACOSTA: Earlier today, the president was once again mocking the use of masks, even though it is the one public health measure that experts agree can help stop the spread of the coronavirus until a vaccine is developed -- Jim Acosta, CNN, traveling with the president in Goodyear, Arizona.

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MJ LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Joe Biden is sticking to a consistent strategy in this final stretch of the 2020 election and that is to go all in on the coronavirus pandemic.

On Wednesday we saw the former vice president spend the day in his home state of Delaware, where he met again with public health officials in Wilmington. These experts telling Biden that they're worried about the spread of the virus and what they see as a wave in cases across the country.

And Biden again, seizing on this moment to go after President Trump and criticize him for his handling of this pandemic. He has mentioned recently White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, saying that the U.S. cannot control this virus.

Biden has also gone after President Trump for continuing to hold crowded campaign rallies. And yesterday he also took issue with the White House science office, saying that, ending the pandemic is one of its top accomplishments.

Biden coming out and saying this is an offensive thing for the Trump White House to say, given how many deaths we have seen across the country. Here he is.

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JOE BIDEN (D-DE), FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: At the very moment, when infection rates are going up in almost every state in our union, refusal of the Trump administration to recognize the reality we're living through, at a time when almost 1,000 Americans a day are dying, every single day, it's an insult to every single person, suffering from COVID-19 and every family who's lost a loved one.

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LEE: Biden also saying that if he does win next, week it is going to be very, very difficult for him to turn things around, that this is not the type of thing that is going to happen overnight. A very different tone from what we have been hearing from President Trump -- MJ Lee, CNN, Wilmington, Delaware.

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BRUNHUBER: For more on all this, let's bring in CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein, who's in Los Angeles.

Ron, thanks for coming on, I just want to start with Jared Kushner's contents to Bob Woodward in April, that Trump is now back in charge and that he was getting the country back from the doctors.

So if Donald Trump loses the election, was that the fatal mistake?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: I think that confirmed the result. It's striking, that if you go back to the polling averages last October, they look basically the same. Donald Trump was losing to Joe Biden by about 8 points on October and November and December even before this happened.

[02:15:00] BROWNSTEIN: He had alienated so many of the white collar voters, who were doing well in the economy, with his behavior and the way he's conducted himself as president, that he kind of put himself in this deep hole.

But certainly, the coronavirus confirmed that and it added a new problem that wasn't really present until the virus, which is an erosion among seniors who had voted Republican in every presidential race since 2000 in the U.S.

So, obviously the president's decision to ignore this, to basically say that he wanted to assert normalcy at all times, regardless of what was actually happening, regardless of what it meant for public health, I think that kind of created a huge headwind for him. I don't think it set the basic parameters of the race.

BRUNHUBER: All right, so you mentioned the polls. Looking at our Poll of Polls, they consistently show Biden up in Michigan, Wisconsin; to a lesser extent, Pennsylvania.

Do you think Biden has a chance of rebuilding that blue wall as far as the Great Lakes states are concerned?

You know, what are we seeing there?

Is it just as simple as Trump, you know, hasn't delivered on jobs and the economy as he kind of promised?

Or is it the Democrats putting up a candidate in Biden who resonates more with the voters there because of his, you know, blue collar background and maybe his gender?

BROWNSTEIN: I think it's more of the latter. By the way, I posted today on Twitter my original story from 2009 that coined the phrase "the blue wall."

BRUNHUBER: I saw that, yes.

BROWNSTEIN: Although, the blue wall -- essentially some of the blue wall in the three states that Trump is watching, of course, the blue wall was the 18 states that voted Democratic in every state in presidential race from '92 to 2012. Trump dislodged Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by a combined total of 77,000 votes.

I think it's partially economy, but I really do think it's much more the way he has behaved as president. And also, the effort, interestingly, to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

I mean, if you look at those states, at those three states, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and for that matter, Iowa, Ohio, Minnesota, there's extraordinary unanimity in the polls across all six of those states.

I mean, Biden is winning in all of them, roughly 55 percent or more of college educated white voters, which would be the best performance for a Democrat ever. In the states, in that group, which is Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio, that have a large African American population, Wisconsin a lesser state, he's winning about 80 percent to 85 percent of them.

And then perhaps most critically of all and consistently across those states, he's winning about 40 percent of those whites without a college degree.

Now, that doesn't sound like a lot. But Hillary Clinton was stuck at 35 percent or below among them in all of those states. And Biden is improving just enough among those voters to put him in the driver's seat in those critical states.

And I do think it is what you say. I mean, he is culturally more compatible with them. Some of the seniors are moving away, the older blue collar whites are moving away from Trump over the coronavirus.

And then there are the blue collar white women, who simply don't want to have to explain to their kids why they can't tell a classmate to go back where they came from or some of the other things that Trump has said.

So, I would say that Joe Biden is doing the job he was hired to do, which is win back just enough blue collar whites in the Rust Belt to give the Democrats a chance to recapture those states and putting them back on the blue wall.

BRUNHUBER: Last question, I didn't want to let you get away before I asked you this.

Trump and Kamala Harris were in Arizona. I'm interested in your take on that state. We've done some reporting on how, among the swing states, this could be absolutely crucial to the Electoral College map. We talked about changing demographics there, especially in the suburbs.

Thing is, I was, in 2016, reporting from Maricopa County, doing that very story and how it's become purple and Hillary Clinton had a good chance of taking it -- while she didn't.

What's more likely to have changed, if anything, the demographic forces that we are talking about back then or the state's response to the president or nothing and he keeps Arizona?

BROWNSTEIN: Really in the last 30 years, the states that have flipped from red to blue, have all had two elements, whether it's California, Illinois or New Jersey in the '90s, Virginia and Colorado and to a lesser extent North Carolina in this century, they've all combined two things: growing minority populations and improving Democratic performance among college educated white suburbanites.

You really need both. One is not enough. That's what's happening in Georgia, in Texas and, above all, in Arizona. Obviously the Hispanic share of the vote is growing. A majority of the population under 30 I believe in the state, at this point is nonwhite. But getting those voters out has always been tougher for Democrats, as

you know. You were there. The other piece is the Democrats are doing better among college educated white voters.

Kyrsten Sinema won Maricopa County in her 2018 Senate race, that is the reason why she is the senator and not Martha McSally. No Democratic presidential candidate has won Maricopa since Harry Truman in 1948. But in the polling this, year all year, Biden has been ahead, narrowly, usually, but consistently.

[02:20:00]

BROWNSTEIN: And it is a combination of demographic change, improving performance among those white collar whites and then the secret ingredient, a lot of older people, a lot of retirees in parts of Maricopa. Biden has a chance to run better among seniors than any Democrat since Al Gore in 2000, largely because of the way the president has handled the virus.

BRUNHUBER: All right, I'll believe when I see, it. Thanks so much for coming on, Ron Brownstein in Los Angeles, appreciate it.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

BRUNHUBER: And do stay with, CNN for special coverage of Election Night starting in Tuesday 9 pm, in London, 1 am Wednesday in Abu Dhabi.

Another major selloff on Wall Street with the latest jobless numbers and earnings reports coming out soon, we'll see how the markets are shaping up.

Plus tropical storm Zeta is weakening as it comes in on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Which U.S. states are in its path, we'll tell you that coming up next, stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: It was another brutal day on Wall Street. Investors worried over the surge in coronavirus cases, renewed restrictions and election uncertainty led to a big selloff. The Dow plunged 943 points. Most of the Asia markets followed New York's lead. U.S. futures regained some ground overnight, in overnight trading. John Defterios is with us in Abu Dhabi.

Let's talk about all this. All of those factors have been around for a, while so are investors waking up late, to the fact that there's so much uncertainty?

JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: That's a great way of putting it, the mood has changed dramatically on Wall Street. I think it's also the way that what's been presented in the last week alone. Starting in Europe, at the core of Europe, Germany, France, Italy and other countries have seen record spikes up.

That means the growth is going to slow down and require more stimulus going into 2021. That's not a good thing as we hit a recovery in the third quarter, that's fading fast. Ditto in the United States, in the core states for Donald Trump by the way. The Midwest in the South, again we don't have a stimulus package from the U.S. Congress.

At the same time I think it's important to note. This is not a global sell-off. Let's take a look at the Asia markets where we have 3 down and one up. But no dramatic swings because we have falls of 3.5 percent in Europe and the United States to my point.

Oil prices were hit very hard, because of concerns about consumer demand and driving and airplanes of course. Today they are stable but they are at a much lower level, below $40 a barrel for North Sea Brent.

There is a political risk here, people wondering if the United States election will still be contested despite the polls we are seeing today. Before the opening bell, 2 key numbers coming, out today. Jobless benefits are still above 700,000, that's the expectation, with nearly 8 million people still asking for unemployment benefits.

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DEFTERIOS: That second number, here on GDP, I'll promise you you'll never see it again a lifetime, up around 36 percent, but that brings America level peg for all of 2020. Because we lost that level, 36 percent in the first half of the year.

Doesn't mean Donald Trump doesn't brag about, saying we're roaring back. No, he will. But the indicators are that we're actually slowing down into the holiday season, because of the spike in COVID cases.

BRUNHUBER: More pain yet ahead. Thanks so much, John Defterios in Abu Dhabi appreciate it.

What used to be hurricane Zeta is quickly moving inland from the U.S. Gulf Coast .It was downgraded to a tropical storm but it still has intense winds and heavy rains. So far one person has died and more than 1 million homes and businesses across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are without electricity.

The hurricane made landfall in Louisiana Wednesday afternoon, forcing this barge loose from its moorings, as it nearly collided with another vessel. This is the 5th named storm to hit Louisiana this season, a record for any state.

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BRUNHUBER: Still to come, India's coronavirus numbers have been rising at a slower than expected pace but the country has just passed another milestone, we'll have the details from New Delhi, coming up live next.

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BRUNHUBER: Next week's U.S. presidential election continues to break records on early voting, about one-third of the total electorate have already voted in person or by mail. That's a far higher number than four, years ago. The actual turnout at the polls could be historic. Pamela Brown has our report.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The word for this election, the key word is action.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): And Americans are taking it, with just 6 days until Election Day, more than 74 million Americans have already voted, according to data from all 50 states and D.C.

Reelection voting has now exceeded half of all ballots cast in 4 years ago, with 23 states crossing their halfway marks for total ballots cast in 2016, including competitive states, like Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Florida, Colorado and Nevada.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody needs to make their voice heard.

BROWN (voice-over): And we continue to see huge lines at some early polling places like Indiana.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I pray that we don't have to stand in line for 4 years from now, like this.

BROWN (voice-over): In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio waited for over 3 hours on Tuesday.

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D-NY), NEW YORK CITY: For all of, us it was an extraordinarily frustrating experience. People waiting 3 hours to vote is unacceptable.

BROWN (voice-over): In North Carolina, voters have cast more than 75 percent of the total votes cast, in the entire 2016 election.

In Pennsylvania, concerns about counting ballots, election officials are not allowed to start processing early ballots until Election Day, by law.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm going to strongly urge, every single county to start pre-canvassing the ballots on Election Day. If it's not 7, am some point on Election Day, because it is going to take a while. And the sooner they start, the sooner they finish.

BROWN (voice-over): But the state's counties, have vastly different plans, for how they will begin processing them Tuesday. Some counties are starting the morning of Election Day, while other areas plan to start later and tally in-person votes first.

The U.S. Postal Service now taking on the most aggressive oversight of its base in its handling of election mail. Tuesday a federal judge ordered immediate action to ensure extra efforts are being made to deliver ballots on time, something the Postal Service insists it's already doing.

And in Michigan the secretary of state is trying to keep guns away from the polls, filing an emergency appeal after a judge reversed her ban on open carry of firearms on Election Day.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've had numerous complaints, there are voters who afraid there are election, workers who are afraid to go to work on Election Day.

BROWN: Also in Michigan, poll challengers can now get within 6 feet of election workers. If they want to make a specific challenge on an issue. This is a loosening of the social distancing requirements, due to the pandemic.

We also want to note and reiterate, that 28 states require you to get your ballot in either before Election Day or on Election Day, in order for it to count. Now election experts are saying, as of today, don't rely on the Postal Service to get your ballot in if you're in one of those states. Either drop it off in the drop box if you have that option or take it to the election office.

For more information on that, go to cnn.com/vote -- Pamela, Brown CNN, Washington.

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BRUNHUBER: The Trump administration insider who triggered controversy, fury and mystery back in 2018, has now revealed himself, Miles Taylor says he is the author Anonymous behind "The New York Times" op-ed and book about being part of a resistance working to soften the president's worst inclinations.

At the time Taylor was chief of staff to the Homeland Security Secretary. He is now a CNN contributor.

Wednesday he wrote, "I am a Republican and I wanted this president to succeed. But too often in times of crisis, Donald Trump has proven he is a man without, character and his personal defects has resulted in leadership failures, so significant that they can be measured in lost American lives."

Taylor denied being Anonymous to CNN's Anderson Cooper just 2 months ago, CNN's Chris Cuomo asked him why.

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CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: You lied to us, Miles, you were asked in August, if you were anonymous here on CNN with Anderson Cooper and you said, no.

Now why should CNN keep you on the payroll, after lying like that?

MILES TAYLOR, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Chris, it's a great question, and I'll just give you the blunt truth, when I published a warning, I said in the book that if asked, I would strenuously deny that I was the author and here's the reason, because the thing I said in that book were ideas that I wanted Donald Trump to challenge on their merits.

We have seen over the course of four years that Donald Trump's preference is to find personal attacks and distractions to pull people away from criticisms of his record.

I wrote that work anonymously, to deprive him of that opportunity and to force him to answer the questions on their merits.

And I'll tell you what happened, Chris, the end result is, the president couldn't. He failed to deny what was in that book, and in fact to this day the White House has failed to challenge the narratives that were in that book, where the narratives that I've explain in my own name over the past four months speaking out against the president.

So, when asked by Anderson, whether I was "Anonymous," during that time period, I said what I was going to do. I temporarily denied it. But I've always said I would ultimately come out under my own name.

What I'll say that's more alarming is this President has created a culture of intimidation, where people who speak out against him, he threatens to use the powers of his office to punish them.

When I put out my op-ed, do you know what his first response was?

He tweeted out, "Treason."

To the president of the United States, criticism of him is treacherous and subversive. That's not what our founding fathers said about criticizing the president of the United States.

But what's worse, when people like the Intelligence Community whistleblower, came out against him, the president made comments like, "Well, you know, back in the day, we used to hang people for things like this."

It is chilling to me, and it's one of the reasons I'm speaking out that we have a commander in chief who silences dissent, not just with bullying, but with physical threats, with legal threats to abuse his power.

And we just saw it the other day, in Michigan, with Governor Whitmer, the president downplaying the threats against her life, and in some ways, inciting violence against his political opponents.

CUOMO: He's still doing it.

TAYLOR: This is -- he's still doing it. CUOMO: He's still doing it in Michigan.

TAYLOR: This is the why the man can't be --

CUOMO: Especially with Whitmer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: President Trump tweeted Wednesday, he'd never heard of Taylor and then brought him up at a campaign rally. The White House called Taylor a disgruntled former staffer and a liar who was ineffective on the job.

Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, India has just surpassed another coronavirus milestone, closing in with the U.S. in total cases. We're live in New Delhi, next. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Turkey will reportedly take legal action against French satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo," after it published cartoons mocking the Turkish president.

[02:40:00]

BRUNHUBER: Prosecutors said they started a criminal investigation for insulting the president. Recep Tayyip Erdogan is slamming the caricaturist, claiming that hatred against Muslims is spreading across Europe.

It's the latest public dispute between Turkey and France. Last week President Erdogan criticized the French president for vowing to crack down on radical Islamism after a teacher was killed in a suspected terror attack.

The number of coronavirus cases in India has hit a another milestone, more than 8 million people have now tested, positive in the country, nearly 50,000 of those have been recorded in the last 24 hours. We'll take you to New Delhi where Vedika Sud joins us now, live.

So 8 million clearly, a massive number. But that hides at least some good news, right?

VEDIKA SUD, CNN PRODUCER: It does because when you look at it in September, India was reporting almost 100,000 new cases, in a single day. Today we have half of that. And ever since Tuesday, we've seen these cases actually between 36,400 to about 49,000 plus.

The good news is that the cases are coming down, in fact on Tuesday according to the health ministry of India, we reported the lowest single day rise in 19 days. But this I would say is testing times for India. We've seen a lot of countries across the world go to the first peak,

then the second wave. If we are not vigilant enough right now, we can see things getting from bad to worse. That is why we have spoken to a lot of medical experts. They say with the onset of winter, we need to be more careful.

Remember there a lot of festivals continuing here in India. Tomorrow it is being celebrated here. Then the festival of lights knowing as the Bali coming up in November. So you have the prime minister saying repeatedly to stay indoors, not to go out and celebrate the festivals this year. He's asked them to not be caught off guard, when it comes to COVID-19.

Here in Delhi, this morning, when I went to my windows and stepped into the balcony, the pollution levels remain very high. That's another cause for concern, here. In fact on Wednesday, Delhi reported more than 5,000 new cases of COVID-19.

According to medical experts, with the pollution levels rising as well as the onset of winter, there could be a further rise in the number of cases. So with COVID-19, we're looking at high pollution levels and increased respiratory issues for people in and around India's national capital region.

BRUNHUBER: Thank you so much, Vedika Sud in New Delhi, appreciate it.

I'm Kim Brunhuber, I'll be back with more CNN NEWSROOM in 15 minutes, "WORLD SPORT" is next.

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