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New Day

Trump Mocks Coronavirus as Pandemic in U.S. Worsens; Johnson & Johnson Pauses Vaccine Trial over unexplained Illness; Georgia Sees Record Turnout on First Day of Early Voting. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired October 13, 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]

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

And this morning, the fall resurgence of coronavirus that so many doctors and experts feared has arrived. Cases are rising in 33 states across the country. You can see that on the swath of orange and red on your screen. Five states are reporting record hospitalizations this morning. 13 states have a positivity rate above 10 percent, and that means the community transmission is accelerating.

One of those states is Florida. That's where President Trump had a rally, this rally on Monday. You can see that the crowd was packed, mostly unmasked. He hopes to hold a rally every day this week.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, just one of the experts trying to grab us all by the shoulders and tell us this is dangerous.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We know that that is asking for trouble when you do that. We've seen that when you have situations of congregate settings where there are a lot of people without masks, the data speak for themselves. It happens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: Joe Biden heads to Florida today for a drive-in voter mobilization event. Supporters, we are told there, will be socially distanced. And 46 states and in Washington, D.C., there are zero days until Election Day. Voting is now, it is on, 21 days until it's over, three weeks from today. Millions of votes have already been cast. Georgia set records on the first day of early voting. People had to wait in line for hours.

CAMEROTA: look at this. I mean, we had to speed it up or we would have never have gotten through the show.

BERMAN: I mean, obviously, in some cases, they had to work out some glitch there, you shouldn't have to wait that long, but enthusiasm incredibly high. And breaking overnight, Johnson & Johnson announced it is pausing its face phase three vaccine trial because of an unexplained illness in one of the study (ph) volunteers. We'll have much more on that in just a moment.

CAMEROTA: Okay. Joining us now, CNN Washington Correspondent Ryan Nobles, CNN Political Analyst David Gregory and CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Rochelle Walensky, she is the Chief of Massachusetts General Hospital's Division of Infectious Diseases. Great to have all of you here this morning.

Dr. Walensky, I think that we start many mornings by showing the map. We start many mornings by giving the death count. We start many mornings by saying what the cases are up to. And I think that for viewers, it can all blur together, somewhat.

And so I just want to take a moment to say that something different is happening. Something different is happening in the country. It's what you and so many doctors that we talked to predicted. This is the moment that it's time for to us have different conversations in places like the northeast where we had let our guard down, it's time to start adjusting our behavior.

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Alisyn. Yes, it's time. I mean, we see this map, 33 states all going up. We see the numbers, you know, just about a month ago we were at 30,000, 35,000 new infections a day. We're now at about 50,000 new infections a day. We see more people heading indoors. I am so very worried that we are in for a cold, dark, winter that is really riddled with death.

So, yes, I am worried. Now is the time to act. Now is the time do something about it. We still have it in our power. We continue to have it in our power and we just need to distance and wear masks.

BERMAN: Well, given what Dr. Walensky is saying, given what you just said, Alisyn, it's farcical that the president held a packed rally in Florida last night with thousands of people there not socially distanced. It's farcical. It's completely antithetical to what Dr. Walensky is saying needs to happen.

And, again, this isn't a bug of what the president is offering. It's the feature, it's the non-socially distanced feature of the message he's promoting. I also think we haven't seen this yet. We have video of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. So, again, Ron DeSantis gets to this event. And if we can play that so people can see --

CAMEROTA: He takes it a step further.

BERMAN: Here he is.

CAMEROTA: He's high-fiving people, you know, a mini little handshake there.

BERMAN: There you go. There you go. Touch me please with your hands and I will touch you with mine. There's a pandemic on, a positivity rate of about 10 percent in Florida. Again, David Gregory, this isn't a bug. It seems to be the feature of the message that the president is sending.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALST: Well, and what it does is it amplifies such a reckless attitude.

[07:05:00]

You have the president of the United States, you have these rallies that project a picture of what the doctor is talking about. If people beyond letting their guard down, just refusing to follow the rules. But I do think it can be distorted.

Look, I traveled over the weekend. And one of the things that I found is that most people do follow the rules in the airports, on airplanes, in public spaces. If they're dining outdoors, I think we have to remember that most people are following the rules and doing all they can. We've also seen a big spike in people getting their flu vaccines, trying to take seriously the idea that we have a more dangerous flu season ahead, potentially. Maybe we don't, according to a lot of experts as well.

So the difficulty, I think, is people who are going through that fatigue or on the other side, the economic ruin that we're seeing that people are saying, look, I can't live in isolation forever, how do they live but do it safely by continuing to follow the rules? And as Dr. Fauci says are not complicated. Don't go to those rallies or even if they're outdoors, unless you're wearing a mask and you should stay away regardless. That's what I think gets lost in all of this is that the rules are still simple enough to follow.

CAMEROTA: Yes, but I take your point, David, but I think, Ryan, that what we've learned is that people will follow the rules if they know the rules, if they get the rules. But so we're so divided, so many people are getting their information in places that are not talking about the rules.

And, you know, I think another thing we've learned is that people like to follow their leader. They believe in their leader. If the leader models something, people, I would say a majority of Americans, will mimic that.

But, Gary Tuchman, our Gary Tuchman, went to one of these rallies and talked to people about just explain to me why you're not wearing a mask. And it was pretty revealing. I think we have that. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A mask can honestly do more harm than good to individuals.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It can do more harm?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It can. Because people can faint because there's too much carbon dioxide going back into their system.

TUCHMAN: You think people are fainting all over the country from masks and dropping dead?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, just enough. Enough people are getting ill because they're wearing a mask. So, yes.

TUCHMAN: Where'd that come from?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Common sense.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've also seen the numbers drop every single day.

TUCHMAN: The numbers are going up now though.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here?

TUCHMAN: And Mr. Trump says it's disappearing, but it's not. That's not the truth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I'm debating on what the truth is for that because of what I can see. It's -- all the numbers that I've read have been down and I'm seeing that the flu is taking more people.

TUCHAMN: So, that's what you believe?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

TUCHMAN: Let me ask you this. If President Trump at the rally said everyone put on their masks --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would put it on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Okay, let's just -- let me just remind what she just said. Ryan, he said if President Trump wore a mask, she said I would put it on. I mean, that's so telling listening to voters from yesterday.

RYAN NOBLES, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, having been to many of these rallies, what I heard there in that peace room, Gary, is not surprising at all. They are taking their cues from President Trump. President Trump mocks people who wear masks on a regular basis. He picks on Joe Biden for wearing a mask at these rallies and it's often some of the biggest applause line he gets at the rallies when he picks on people for wearing masks.

I've had a similar experience because often at these rallies, the only group of people wearing masks are those in the press pen. And I've had Trump Supporters actually scream at us, telling us that we are fools for wearing masks and the masks are actually detrimental to our health as opposed to protecting ourselves and those around us.

And, you know, Alisyn, my own experience say good one in terms of how effective they have been. I've been to a dozen Donald Trump rallies. We've seen many reports of levels of infections that come as a direct result of these events and I have yet to test positive for coronavirus. Now, that could change at any moment, but I never enter one of those events without a KN95 mask to make sure that I'm protecting myself and others around me, and so far it's been okay. And this is a direct result of the president's message himself, if his supporters heard a message from the president that were different, they would act differently.

And what I always go back to that I think is so mind-boggling is that if the president had encouraged his supporters to wear masks back in March, we may be in a different situation. The economy may be better. He himself may have not contracted coronavirus. It seems to be hurting his own effort in terms of defeating the virus and his own effort politically, but yet he chose to go a different path.

CAMEROTA: And all the models do show that 100,000 lives would have been saved if we had done that early. Thank you for that.

BERMAN: I mean, again, at this point, it's just so clear he doesn't want people to wear masks. Mark Meadows in a crowded hallway in the Capitol yesterday, I mean, small hallway, refused to speak to reporters with his mask on. Again, this is not a bug. It is the feature of the policy we're getting from the top levels of the government right now.

[07:10:04]

Dr. Walensky, Jake Tapper had an remarkable interview with Anthony Fauci yesterday that covered a wide range of things. Dr. Fauci is talking about this rally, the likes of which we saw last night. And let me just play one bit of sound so we can hear Dr. Fauci.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FAUCI: We know that that is asking for trouble when you do that. We've seen that when you have situations of congregate settings where there are a lot of people without masks, the data speak for themselves. It happens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: You also heard Dr. Fauci express frustration that he has appeared in a Trump campaign ad out of context and he warned that if it happens again there will be -- it will backfire. It's almost as if he's threatening the Trump campaign, don't do this again.

But there is -- I sensed with Dr. Fauci there exasperation, Dr. Walensky, and I'm wondering why you think that is at this point.

WALENSKY: Well, I think many of us are exasperated because we are sending this message and it certainly is not being heard. With regard to the rallies, on June 20th, the president had an indoor rally in Oklahoma, and three weeks later, Oklahoma surged. Their cases went up six times what they were a few months prior. Two weeks ago, we saw an event in the Rose Garden with 200 people, you know, two weeks later we have at least 34 cases from that event. One thing is very clear from these events of gathering, and the president has said he feels so powerful. He has the power to protect his people. And what I think is clear is every time there is an event, he is leaving a lot of COVID in his wake.

CAMEROTA: David Gregory, let's talk about --

GREGORY: Can I just point out --

CAMEROTA: Yes, quickly.

GREGORY: All you need to do -- and I always say this. All you need to do to understand the potency this virus is look at the case numbers on college campuses. Who are the most reckless among us are teenagers who are around 20 years old who want to go and party and don't care about the rules. And you're seeing the impact of that.

You look at Georgia, Alabama, around 3,000 cases on each of those campuses. You can just see how easily it is for the virus to spread.

CAMEROTA: You could also look at the White House outbreak, I mean, how fast that spread like wildfire.

David, I want to talk about what former V.P. Joe Biden has been doing as well. So on the campaign trail, he -- again, hit his message of how different his roots are, he's trying to say, from Donald Trump's. So, listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Like a lot of you, I spent a lot of my time with guys like Trump looking down on me, the Irish Catholic kid in the neighborhood. Guys who thought they were better than me because they had a lot of money, guys who inherited everything they ever got and still managed to squander it.

I still have a little bit of chip on my shoulder about guys like him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: The polls suggest at the moment, I know they're just a snapshot, that Joe Biden is doing very well. Is that because, David, he's not Trump or is he doing something that is particularly effective on the campaign trail?

GREGORY: Well, I mean, think there's a lot of being not Trump that's helping right now because there's so much focus on the virus, the response to the virus, and people, older Americans, women, suburban voters are making a judgment about that.

I think this is a particularly good appeal that Biden has to working class voters, particularly in the upper Midwest where he's leading right now in a lot of those state polls in addition to the national lead.

I think there's the idea of Trump fatigue overall. I think that one of the things that Biden is benefitting from is that people would like to calm things down a bit. I think we've seen this before in our recent political history. It's my sense that there's a desire for that now. And then even people who liked Trump shaking up the system and all the rest might be tired of it by now.

And a key difference, I just think that Biden doesn't have the negatives that Hillary Clinton did. You may think he's not up for the job, you may think he might be too liberal, but I don't think there's the kind of animus toward Biden. And here, he's a guy who's appealing to voters with the idea that, hey, I'm like you in so many ways and I can paint this contrast as kind of a little guy that's getting looked down on. And he thinks that's got a particular reach right now.

BERMAN: But, David Gregory, he said two things we have coming up. Number one, Harry Enten will be on a little bit showing us the numbers of how 2020 is different than 2016. It illustrates exactly what David is talking. And later, Kate Bolduan, went to Pennsylvania and spoke to some women who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and finds out where they are now. And it is so revealing along the lines of what David just said.

David Gregory, Ryan Nobles, Dr. Walensky, thank you all very much for being with us.

Breaking overnight, Johnson & Johnson announced it has paused its phase three trial of a coronavirus vaccine. Theirs is a single-dose vaccine because of an unexplained illness with one of the volunteers.

[07:15:04]

CNN's Elizabeth Cohen now joins us with the detail of this. This isn't the FDA stepping in, it was Johnson & Johnson doing itself. Still, it's on pause.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. So, Johnson & Johnson apparently had a study participant who got sick. And, John, this is the really important part, got sick with something where there was enough of a concern that it might be because of the vaccine. And I emphasize the word, might, that they decided to put the trial on pause.

Let's take a look at a statement that Johnson & Johnson put out. They said, serious adverse events, which is a fancy way of saying a participant getting sick, are not uncommon in clinical trials and the number of serious adverse events can reasonably be expected to increase in trials involving large numbers of participants.

So let's unpack that a little bit. Essentially, what Johnson & Johnson is saying, look, when you start vaccinating or including in your trial tens of thousands of people, somebody is going to get sick. It's just a numbers game. You're pretty much including in your trial kind of like a small town, somebody is going to get sick.

But to be clear, these trials only get paused when there's a concern that that illness might be related to the vaccine. If somebody, for example, gets breast cancer, you don't pause the trial, the breast cancer wasn't cause of the vaccine. So this is something where there's enough concern that it might be related to the vaccine that they decided to pause the trial.

Now, this is not the first trial that's been paused. Let's take a look at what's happening with other clinical trials in the United States for a coronavirus vaccine. Johnson & Johnson, as we've just said, has paused. AstraZeneca also paused. They actually had two participants who had adverse events and it's been paused in this country for more than a month while they try to figure this all out. Moderna is still up and running. They started on July 27th. Pfizer also started on July 27th.

Now, an interesting note here is that AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, the two that are now paused, they used -- their vaccines are similar. They used very similar what are called platforms. It would be interesting to know the nature of this illness at Johnson & Johnson. We don't know, the company hasn't said. John.

BERMAN: I know you're digging. Please keep us posted. I really appreciate the report, Elizabeth.

So, record-breaking turnout on the first day of early voting in Georgia. What does this tell us about what we might expect for the next three weeks of voting? That's next.

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[07:20:00]

CAMEROTA: Zero days until Election Day in Georgia. You can see people waiting in lines for hours to cast their ballots in Georgia yesterday. This was the first day of in-person voting in the state. Right now, some form of early voting either in-person or by mail is under way in 46 states and Washington, D.C., as we said, zero days until Election Day.

Joining us now, CNN Analyst Jessica Huseman, she's a reporter for ProPublica covering voting rights. Jessica, thank you so much for being with us now.

We saw those lines in Georgia and they broke records, I mean, shattered records for the first day of in-person early voting in that state, 120,000 people voted. But we hear that some people had to wait in line for up to 11 hours and there are those who look at it and say, this is horrible, it shows how broken the system is.

And while it's clearly not a good thing that people had to wait that long, you look at it, perhaps with a more sanguine attitude. Why?

JESSICA HUSEMAN, CNN ANALYST: I think that there's a consensus across political science that long lines on the first day of voting are not indicative of problems to come, they're simply indicative of enthusiasm. You know, in the same way that people line up for the opening of a store that they're very excited about and then that store closes in six months. Turnout on the first day is not necessarily indicative of problems going forward or lines being long for the entirety of the election. So I think that if we see long lines on day two and day three, then certainly we have reason to worry.

But, you know, turnout on the first day of early voting, that happens to be on a holiday in major counties is not hugely surprising to me. It is on-face terrible that someone waited 11 hours in line to vote. But that was not the majority, the vast majority of voters Georgia barely waited at all.

BERMAN: So let's wait a few days, see how it goes and count in the meantime how many people are showing up early to do this.

So I need to ask you about what's happening in California, because there's been in discussion about ballot drop boxes across the country in Texas, the state you're in right now, there's a whole separate type of battle where the governor is trying to severely limit the number of them.

But in California, the Republican Party there has put its own ballot drop boxes and made them look like the official ballot drop box. They even say, official ballot drop box. Now, the Democrats who run the state, the secretary of state and the attorney general there, they look at this and they say, this is bad, they think it's illegal. What exactly is going on here? What do you see here?

HUSEMAN: This is the most bizarre I have read in four years of covering elections administration. I genuinely don't understand what the Republican Party in California is trying to do. But they have distributed these boxes, that some of them say official that are specifically to cast -- to gather ballots and they put them at places like churches gun stores convenience stations.

And they argue that it's not illegal because in California, you can collect other people's ballots and turn people for them. But the state, I think, correctly says, no, we also have laws around drop boxes and how secure they must be and how many times a day the ballots are taken out and the type of monitoring that they need to have.

And so they're sort of skating this odd line. And a couple of Republican officials in a couple of counties have already rolled it back and said they're going to be removing some of these boxes.

So we'll see how this plays out. They've been sent a cease and desist letter by the secretary of state and the attorney general.

[07:25:02]

So if they don't remove the boxes soon, I anticipate we'll have some legal action.

BERMAN: One of the things I know you're watching very closely is there's three weeks left until people can finish voting as it were across the country in 46 states and Washington, D.C. they're already voting. In 21 days, the final votes will be cast. But you're watching some of these court cases because these states have to figure out pretty darn soon, if not already, what process they are going use to count the votes. And I think this is what concerns you most as we sit here today. Why? HUSEMAN: Because lawsuits are not -- don't happen in a vacuum, right? In order to accommodate the ruling of a lawsuit, often election administration training has to change, the way that poll workers function have to change and the way that the ballots are counted have to change.

So, overnight, in Texas, the Fifth Circuit overturned an appeal based on the number of drop boxes in Texas, for example. So, overnight, it was maintained that Texas can only have one drop box per county. That dramatically shifts the way that places like Harris County and Dallas County are collecting mail-in ballots.

And the closer and closer we get to Election Day, the more tumultuous those changes will make this election. Right now, we have some time to accommodate for changes, but in just a couple of days, we really won't.

BERMAN: When they can start counting and when they can finish counting, those are two of the major issues in many states, and still in a few states up in the air.

Jessica Huseman, as always, great to have you on. Thank you so much for your expertise.

All right, a Texas man racked with guilt after throwing a party that sickened 14 family members, why he says he still supports President Trump despite what he calls a failure on the pandemic response.

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