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Supreme Court Extends Absentee Ballot Window In Pennsylvania And North Carolina; Biden Slams Trump On Handling Of Pandemic, Trump Packs Rallies With Few Masks And No Distancing; At Least Two Dead As Zeta Slams Gulf Coast. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired October 29, 2020 - 05:30   ET

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

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[05:30:57]

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Big wins for Democrats at the U.S. Supreme Court. Two battleground states will be able to count their absentee ballots even if they arrive after Election Day.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And the president and Joe Biden with dramatically different approaches to the pandemic in the waning days of the campaign. What Dr. Fauci says now that he has never said before.

Good morning, this is EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

JARRETT: And I'm Laura Jarrett, about 31 minutes past the hour here in New York.

Nearly 76 million Americans have voted so far in this election. That's more than a third of all registered voters nationwide.

And overnight, two major decisions from the Supreme Court allowing absentee ballots to be accepted after Election Day in two key battleground states. Pennsylvania can receive ballots three days after Election Day, and votes in North Carolina will be counted up to nine days later as long as they're postmarked by November third.

Now, both states are at peak pandemic case levels, exactly the reason more people are voting by mail this time around.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court Tuesday and was expected to cast a deciding vote, but she did not participate in either case.

ROMANS: The road to 270 Electoral College votes runs through Tampa today. Both Joe Biden and President Trump making appearances in the battleground state of Florida. Trump also has a stop in North Carolina.

A worsening pandemic hangs over the final days of this bitterly contentious race. Biden keeps hammering home the contrast between the candidates as the reality of a dark COVID winter sets in. Another 79,000 coronavirus cases reported yesterday in the U.S. The

three worst days of the entire pandemic have all come in the past week. Forty-one states are heading in the wrong direction. Zero -- not a single state seeing a decline in cases.

JARRETT: Dr. Fauci now warning the U.S. may not be back to some version of normal until 2022. And he went further than he's ever gone, advocating for a national mask mandate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHEPARD SMITH, CNBC HOST, "THE NEWS WITH SHEPHERD SMITH": Do we need a national mandate or not?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: Yes -- you know, yes. Yes -- well, we do. If we don't get one then I would hope that the governors and the mayors do it locally if it's not done nationally.

SMITH: But, Dr. --

FAUCI: As we get through the fall and into winter with the holiday season going, we've got to do something different. We can't just let this happen. We're going to have many more hospitalizations and that will inevitably lead to more deaths, so this is an untenable situation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: With the changing weather a major factor here, the White House Coronavirus Task Force warns of, quote, "...unrelenting, broad community spread in the Midwest, Upper Midwest, and West. This will require aggressive mitigation to control both the silent, asymptomatic spread and symptomatic spread."

Joe Biden acknowledges this pandemic will not be over quickly for all the wrong reasons.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The White House science office -- and this stunned me -- put out a statement listing ending the COVID-19 pandemic as a top accomplishment of President Trump's first term. Top accomplishment of Trump's first term at the very moment when infection rates are going up in almost every state in our union.

The 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 is an insult to every single person suffering from COVID-19 and every family who has lost a loved one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Now, President Trump is campaigning as if the pandemic is over, holding multiple rallies per day with thousands of maskless supporters. On Wednesday, he stopped in Arizona, a state Republicans are desperate to hold onto.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Usually, we (INAUDIBLE). We don't call them rallies anymore, we call them friendly protests because you're allowed to protest but you're not allowed to go to church, you're not allowed to have dinner with your friends. You can't do anything.

With Sleepy Joe, there'd be no graduations, no weddings, no Thanksgiving. They're already talking about no Thanksgiving.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[05:35:00]

ROMANS: It may be a painful winter but it's also the responsible way to get the virus under control.

The president spoke as new audio emerged of his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner boasting in mid-April about how the president had cut out the doctors and scientists advising him on the pandemic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JARED KUSHNER, SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: The last thing was kind of doing the guidelines, which was interesting. And that, in my mind, was almost like -- you know, it was almost like Trump getting the country back from the doctors, right, in the sense that what he now did was -- you know, he's going to own the open-up.

There were three phases. There was the panic phase, the pain phase, and then the comeback phase. That doesn't mean there's not still a lot of pain and there won't be pain for a while, but that basically was we've now put out rules to get back to work.

Trump's now back in charge, it's not the doctors. They've kind of -- we have like a negotiated settlement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: A negotiated settlement with the doctors, as if the doctors are not on the side of the American people.

The death toll at that time was 40,000 -- now it's almost 228,000 people. Overnight, Dr. Anthony Fauci said there has been, quote, "a pivot away from public health."

So with five days to the election, it's time for three questions in three minutes. Let's bring in CNN's senior political analyst, John Avlon.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.

JARRETT: Good morning, John.

ROMANS: Hi, John. AVLON: How are you guys doing?

JARRETT: All right, the road to 270 -- that magic number.

AVLON: Yes.

JARRETT: Look at this map and the message I think is a little bit contradictory. We've been warning people, I think rightly, don't expect a result on election night because of all the absentee ballots.

AVLON: Yes.

JARRETT: They can take a while -- even up to, you know, three to nine days now. But the CNN map shows that Biden is already crossing the threshold to 270 to win.

And so I wonder, in your view, is the map too generous for Biden, or are people just still in so much shock of 2016 that they're a little bit skittish about all this?

AVLON: Look, so all things can be true. Let's take a look at it.

First of all, after 2016, I think people understand that you can't anything for granted. You can't rely on polls because the old cliche is true, the only poll that counts is Election Day.

Two, this is CNN's best estimate of the state of the race and it involves a combination of public polls, private polls. Look at ad spending -- where surrogates are spending their time in conversations with people on both campaigns. So it's the lean states that end up pushing Biden beyond 270 in this.

You see what I think are the consensus battlegrounds -- Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, and Iowa. Some of those are classic -- Florida. The others are states that Republicans didn't think they'd have to defend.

But obviously, candidates are also campaigning in Wisconsin -- which has leaned blue, and polls seem to indicate that fairly clearly -- Pennsylvania, and as you said, Arizona.

I think the bottom line what this map shows and what the president's travel shows is that he is playing defense in states he won last time around.

ROMANS: Yes.

AVLON: States where Joe Biden seems to be winning fairly consistently. And they are pushing even into states that could have seemed out of reach at the beginning of this cycle --

ROMANS: Yes.

AVLON: -- Texas and Ohio.

So look, take a look at the state of the race. Understand that's where the best information is.

JARRETT: Yes.

AVLON: But the only thing that matters is the votes coming in and being fairly counted. So take nothing for granted, anyone.

ROMANS: John, what's the strategy in those battleground states?

I mean, you know, the president, for months, has been trying to say that the economy is his strongest suit and you're better off because of him. And the stock market is the bellwether, right, for his job, and the stock market has been falling apart the past few days.

We heard from Jared Kushner in that audio that there was a real strategy here to ignore the science. But now, people are getting really sick and they're going to the hospital and people are dying.

AVLON: Yes.

ROMANS: What is the strategy in those battleground states there? What is his message?

AVLON: Don't believe what you see, don't believe what you hear, listen to me. Because at this point, it is Trump versus the truth, as it has been, and it is Trump versus science and that's a dangerous place to be.

But I think Jared Kushner gave away kind of the game in that toy (ph) businessman segmentation of his strategy where all of the sudden, he said we have a negotiated settlement with the doctors. It's Trump versus the doctors. This is what happens when you choose individuals who go by their gut against the overwhelming opinion of science.

In those states, you see COVID rates rising.

The stock market may or may not have an impact given its calamitous fall the last two days on people voting. Obviously, people's early voting means that none of that matters.

ROMANS: Right.

AVLON: But it's the rising COVID rates in a lot of these key states that I think just indelibly shows, no matter what the president says, that the administration's trying -- attempts to control this virus -- and now they're waving the white flag -- has been an utter historic failure compared to other parts of our history and compared to any other country in the world right now.

ROMANS: Worse than waving the white flag, they're waving the victory flag, right? I mean -- I mean, they said that solved it.

AVLON: Well, they're trying to pretend -- yes, they're trying to pretend a white surrender flag is a flag of victory --

ROMANS: Right.

AVLON: -- that says mission accomplished in invisible ink. It's nonsense.

JARRETT: But they had to walk that back yesterday, too --

ROMANS: Yes, they did.

JARRETT: -- because they knew that wasn't right.

AVLON: Oh, yes, the one -- the one -- well, the statement they put out instinctively, yes.

[05:40:00]

JARRETT: Ending the pandemic. Exactly right.

All right, John, before we let you go, it could be a really busy period at the Supreme Court. Democrats managed to snag --

AVLON: Yes.

JARRETT: -- two victories last night getting more days to receive absentee ballots both in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, now two battleground states. At the same time, they lost in Wisconsin earlier this week. And, Justice Kavanaugh said he wants all votes counted by Election Day even though we know that actually does not happen.

It seems to me that the integrity of the court is really on the line here. They typically -- at least they say they don't intervene too close to the election to change a state rule, but I think people have tremors from Bush v. Gore still.

AVLON: Well, I can't imagine why, counselor.

ROMANS: (Laughing).

AVLON: I mean, look, you know, Kavanaugh's concurrence was a hot mess. I mean, Vermont -- the Secretary of State -- had to get him to change --

ROMANS: Right.

AVLON: -- a fundamental statement of misinformation. And notably, the justices sort of left the door open to further challenges.

JARRETT: Yes.

AVLON: And there is this hangover from Bush v. Gore despite the fact at the time, they tried to say this has no impact on precedent. They've basically been upholding lower courts.

At the end of the day, though, shouldn't we all be able to agree that you want every eligible vote counted? Why is that controversial? We have more time to count in two states, less in Wisconsin.

But if the Supremes get involved in this election after deciding 2000 in effect, that's going to be a real problem not only for their credibility but for our broader country, I think. JARRETT: Well, and they, of course, now have a new justice --

AVLON: Yes.

JARRETT: -- that they did not have before.

AVLON: One hundred percent.

ROMANS: All right, John Avlon, nice to see you. Thank you so much.

AVLON: Take care, guys.

ROMANS: Yes, you, too.

All right, a red flag for the U.S. Postal Service. Court filings reveal processing times for first-class mail are declining in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, all battleground states. In three of those states, ballots need to be received by Election Day.

The ratings were especially bad in Democrat-heavy cities like Philadelphia and Detroit. But despite these slow indicators, a more targeted measure of on-time ballot processing shows significantly better numbers.

JARRETT: Well, it turns out the author behind the anonymous 2018 "The New York Times" op-ed and subsequent book criticizing President Trump is Miles Taylor. Taylor revealed himself on Wednesday. He was chief of staff to Homeland Security Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen. In the op-ed, he declared he was, quote, "part of the resistance."

Today, Taylor is a CNN contributor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "CUOMO PRIME TIME": 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, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, AUTHOR, "A WARNING: ANONYMOUS": I said in the book that if asked, I would strenuously deny I was the author, and here's the reason -- because the things 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: At a rally, the president did not mention Taylor's name but he did call him, quote, "a low-level staffer." ROMANS: All right, lockdowns are returning in two of the biggest economies in Europe. CNN is live on the ground there, next.

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[05:47:25]

JARRETT: We have breaking news for you from France. Two people have now been confirmed dead in what's being called a terror attack in the city of Nice. This happened inside the Notre Dame Basilica according to the mayor there.

There's no confirmed motive yet but this happened just hours after the French president's office had to clarify remarks from Emmanuel Macron about freedom of expression. This, after a teacher was beheaded two weeks ago by a radicalized teenager for showing a controversial cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.

ROMANS: And, deja vu in Europe. New lockdowns are coming as officials warn of a stronger and deadlier second wave of coronavirus there. France is set to begin a nationwide lockdown tomorrow.

CNN's Cyril Vanier is live for us in Paris. And what's this lockdown going to look like, Cyril?

CYRIL VANIER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, Christine, it's going to be the strictest set of measures and restrictions on everyday life that we have seen since the peak of the pandemic in March, April, May.

So starting tomorrow, everybody in this country is going to need an authorization before they step out of their homes whatever it is that they choose to go and do. Whether it's work for those who can go to work or school for those who can go to school, they will need an authorization like we did back in the peak of the pandemic.

Non-essential businesses are going to remain closed. That means retail. That means bars, restaurants, museums, cinemas. That means parts of big cities like here in Paris are going to, once again, look like ghost towns.

The idea is to strictly limit the volume -- the number of human interactions -- in order to bring down the level of the virus. But the government has learned its lessons from the first lockdown and it wants to change a few significant things. In particular, it wants to keep open as much of the economy as it can.

So, Christine, listen to what the French president said when he addressed the nation last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMMANUEL MACRON, PRESIDENT OF FRANCE (via translator): Wherever possible, working from home should again be the norm. But, and this is the second difference from the spring, economic activity will continue with more intensity. This means that public services will stay open. Factories, agricultural operations, building and public construction work will continue to function. The economy should not stop nor crash.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VANIER: And the other big difference, Christine, with the spring lockdown, as I said, schools will remain open, which is going to be a relief for parents.

The French president said he needed to take decisive action now -- otherwise, the French health system risked being overwhelmed, Christine.

ROMANS: All right. Some differences from earlier this spring but still, it's going to look a lot different there in the days and weeks ahead.

[05:50:01]

Thank you, Cyril, for that, in Paris -- Laura.

JARRETT: All right.

Overnight, Germany set a record of nearly 17,000 new cases hours after Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a partial lockdown starting on Monday.

CNN's Scott McLean is live in the neighboring Czech Republic. Nice to see you this morning, Scott. What more can you tell us?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Laura.

So two weeks ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced new restrictions aimed at virus hotspots. Today, it is abundantly clear that those measures have not worked. Germany just reported a record high case count but what's really concerning here is the number of deaths and hospitalizations.

So starting Monday, schools will stay open -- but as you said, for the next four weeks, restaurants, pubs, gyms, and theaters will all have to shut down. People are being told to stay home and to avoid travel.

The chancellor said that the health care system, right now, is in good shape but if the current trajectory continues, ICUs could be overwhelmed in a matter of weeks.

And, Germany only has to look to its neighbor here in the Czech Republic to see what happens when a country waits too long to act. The Czech Republic was very successful in tamping down the first wave of the virus. But over the summertime, they were resistant to reimpose restrictions until fairly recently and now has the highest infection rate of any major country on earth.

We visited two hospitals here in the eastern part of the country. We found they were jam-packed with patients, doctors were exhausted, and so, so many staff have been infected with the virus that they are appealing for help from volunteers. They've had months to stock up on PPE and to make more bed space, but

the one thing you cannot easily buy in bulk is more staff. Both hospitals have had to shut down departments to divert staff to deal with COVID patients. One of those hospitals, Laura, says that if it does not get more help it will have to start turning away patients by Monday or Tuesday.

JARRETT: Certainly, an ominous sign.

All right, Scott, thanks so much -- appreciate it.

ROMANS: All right, Zeta turning deadly overnight as it slammed into the Gulf Coast. In the New Orleans area, a man died, electrocuted by down powerlines. And in Biloxi, Mississippi, a person was found dead on a marina after the storm rolled through.

One point four million customers are waking up without power in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.

Zeta has weakened now to a tropical storm, turning inland and moving fast, bringing strong winds and heavy rain.

JARRETT: All right.

A sweeping ransomware attack is targeting U.S. hospitals. That warning comes from a joint federal task force. A typical attack encrypts important data, such as patient records and billing information until the hospital agrees to pay digital currency. Ransomware has cost hospitals tens of millions of dollars in recent years.

ROMANS: All right, let's take a look at markets around the world after that really rough sell-off yesterday. It looks like a bounce for European shares, taking back a little bit of what they've lost over recent days.

On Wall Street, futures there also pointing a bit higher -- about half a percent increase for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Wall Street had its worst day in months Wednesday. The Dow lost more than 900 points. The S&P 500 down 3 1/2 percent. That is a big one-day move and the biggest losses for both since June.

It's just a lot for investors here to grapple with. U.S. cases of coronavirus are rising with no federal relief in sight and that could shatter a fragile economic recovery. Now, we'll likely see the U.S. economy grew at a record rate last quarter but the crisis is far from over.

We're going to get the first look at third-quarter GDP out today. We expect growth hit something like a record 31 percent annual rate over the summer as pandemic relief fueled historic consumer spending. But this is a rebound from a record contraction in Q2 and the data here is stale. Right now, in the fourth quarter, coronavirus cases are surging, millions are still unemployed relying on government benefits, and the U.S. has only added back about half the jobs lost during the pandemic. U.S. car companies, though, hitting record profits after a pandemic slump. Ford made $2.6 million last quarter, nearly double from last year. Fiat Chrysler earned a record $1.8 billion.

This rebound follows huge losses in the first half of the year. Americans spent big over the summer on durable goods, like cars.

However, industrial manufacturers, like Boeing, still mounting big losses as airlines cancel orders. So, Boeing says it will lay off another 7,000 workers.

JARRETT: Well, a musical milestone for the late Whitney Houston.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WHITNEY HOUSTON, SINGER-SONGWRITER: Singing "I Wanna Dance With Somebody."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: Houston is now the first black artist to have three diamond- certified albums. The recording industry announcing Wednesday that her 1986 -- '87 record "Whitney" reached diamond status, the equivalent of selling 10 --

ROMANS: Wow.

JARRETT: -- million albums.

It's still hard to believe she's gone.

ROMAN: I know. She really is the voice of a generation. The soundtrack -- you know, the -- oh, gosh, what a voice.

Happy birthday to somebody here. Wait, there you are in the other room. Happy birthday.

[05:55:00]

JARRETT: Christine, as you know, once you have children, really, birthdays mean nothing. But I appreciate it -- thank you.

ROMANS: It's not about you anymore.

JARRETT: It's not about me at all.

ROMANS: Thanks for joining us. I'm Christine Romans.

JARRETT: I'm Laura Jarrett. "NEW DAY" is next.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I'm not running on a false promise of being able to end this pandemic by flipping a switch. We'll let science drive our decisions. TRUMP: A safe vaccine is coming very quickly that eradicates the virus. We're rounding the turn.

FAUCI: If we get a vaccination campaign by the second or third quarter of 2021, it will be easily by the end of 2021 before we start having some semblances of normality.

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The average daily death toll just topped 800 for the first time.