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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Coronavirus Spreading Across 17 States, 200+ Infected; Pence Gets First-Hand Look at Supplies to Combat Coronavirus; Airlines, Big Tech Take Action to Reduce Risk of Coronavirus. Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired March 05, 2020 - 16:30   ET

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

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D) NEW YORK: Eight of the new cases are connected to the attorney from Westchester, New Rochelle area, two are in New York City, and one is on Long Island.

[16:30:12]

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Meanwhile, Nevada and Tennessee reporting their first cases.

LISA PIERCEY, TENNESSEE HEALTH COMMISSIONER: The patient is an adult male in middle Tennessee with recent history of out of state travel.

WATT: Monday morning, there were 89 known cases across ten states. Now, we're at 205 in 17 states.

Is that number even close to accurate?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think we're seeing the tip of the iceberg with people that are sick and coming forward. And until we define the bottom of that iceberg, we really can't say.

WATT: Yesterday, a California man died. He took a cruise aboard the Grand Princess last month. That ship now held off the California coast. Nearly 3,500 on board. Some showing symptoms.

SHARON LANE, GRAND PRINCESS CRUISE SHIP PASSENGER: Spirits onboard are starting to get quite low.

WATT: Coronavirus test kits were choppered out to the ship.

LANE: The majority of people on board are like over 70. So there's a lot of concern there because a lot of them they suffer with ill health anyway.

DR. PETER HOTEZ, SCIENTIST: So, this is like the angel of death for older individuals.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT: Now, since we made that graphic saying 205 cases, we've had ten more confirmed. So, we're now at 215. Jake, that is how quickly this number is ticking up. Now, right now,

there are no plans for restrictions on domestic travel within the U.S., but many airlines report demand for tickets is way down. So, it seems that some of us at least are imposing travel restrictions upon ourselves -- Jake.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: All right. Nick Watt in California, thanks so much.

Joining me now is CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, there are now hundreds of confirmed cases of coronavirus across more than a dozen states. At least 12 have died in the United States. There's now a cruise ship held off the coast to test passengers for the virus.

Is this what you expected? Is this worse than you expected?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think that public health officials have known for some time this was going to start spreading in the United States. I mean, there was plenty of evidence from other countries around the world.

So, it does fall in line with what we've expected. I think the fact that we have not tested, Jake, we talked about this a lot, that this testing has not been done as robustly as other places, we still don't have clear vision on exactly how widespread this is in the United States. But what we've seen so far does fall -- does fit the pattern.

TAPPER: The assistant secretary of health and human services said today that because there is not a vaccine or sufficient testing kits in the United States, quote, quite frankly right now, the only thing we have is kind of 18th century public health, 18th century public health.

Do you agree with that?

GUPTA: I certainly don't want to disagree with the assistant secretary. Look, we don't have those things as he mentioned, but we have hospitals, intensive care units, ventilator machines, we have -- you know, sometimes people develop secondary bacterial infections, we have certain types of antibiotics.

I do think, to be fair, I think we're better equipped, even without a vaccine or some of this therapeutics. In the 18th century, they didn't have these things. A lot of times, we compare what's happening now to that time frame. To be fair, we are -- we are in a better position than we were then.

TAPPER: All right. I guess that's some small measure of comfort. We're better off than the 1700s.

GUPTA: Yes.

TAPPER: Sanjay, Vice President Pence acknowledged there are not enough coronavirus tests. And there seems to be confusion because the head of the FDA said a million tests will be available by end of the week.

Can you help us understand this discrepancy?

GUPTA: I spent time with the vice president yesterday at the White House, really drilled down on this issue in his office. And, you know, this idea that these tests are still being sent out, that is true. This idea that state hospitals and university hospitals may ultimately get FDA clearance to do these tests, aside from these kits that are being sent out, that is true. And even commercial labs like Quest, for example.

The problem is, Jake, none of this is really available now and so, maybe it's going to start ramping up by the end of this week which is tomorrow, but I'm still getting calls from my friends who are physicians saying, hey, look, we know we're allowed to test now which is great but we don't have the tests. So, practically speaking, it's not really translating into something for patients out there.

TAPPER: President Trump has been saying things last night, in the last few days, about the coronavirus that are either false, just abjectly false, or confusing. I know you don't like to intrude in politics. As a medical professional, how concerning is that for you? Is it making your life more difficult?

GUPTA: I think it's challenging because, you know, you want to continue to represent what we do know, the data, as opposed to trying to play catch up on a regular basis. What I would say, Jake, is that we focus a lot on numbers in the beginning of a story like this, numbers of infected, numbers who've died, the fatality ratio. The reality is we all know these numbers are going to change.

[16:35:01]

They're going to change as we get more data. So, I don't know that we should get that caught up in it.

There's a couple things we do know. This pathogen is serious. It appears more serious than the flu, and the flu is serious.

The other thing, and I mean this in terms of looking at the population of people, we know who the vulnerable populations are, the elderly, for example. We should -- I think it is not so important that 80 percent are not going to get any illness, that's good to know. But that also means that, you know, 15, 20 percent are going to be vulnerable.

We need to be focused on that. I think some good action was taken this week towards targeting nursing homes, targeting where vulnerable people are to try to protect them now. We know that. That is not -- that's true. It is not going to change.

So, you know, that's something actionable I think that we should be focused on.

TAPPER: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much as always. And for answers to more of your coronavirus questions, tune into CNN

tonight for a global town hall. Dr. Sanjay Gupta will be joined by our own Anderson Cooper separating fact from fiction. That's at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, only on CNN.

Coming up, one relies on the experts, the other sticks to a hunch. The coronavirus divide in the Trump administration. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:40:37]

TAPPER: Vice President Mike Pence visiting 3M today. 3M is, of course, the Minnesota company known for making Scotch Tape and Post- Its, also makes medical equipment which is why Pence is there. Pence, again, turning to the experts on coronavirus, as his boss, President Trump, takes a different approach as CNN's Kaitlan Collins reports for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Vice President Mike Pence took his Coronavirus Task Force on the road today --

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We wanted to be here in Minnesota today.

COLLINS: -- as the administration intensifies its efforts to contain the epidemic.

PENCE: 3M is poised to meet demand of masks and personal protective equipment.

COLLINS: After visiting a company under contract to increase mask production, Pence said the administration is preparing for what's to come, leaning on public health officials for advice.

But while Pence often relies on experts to answer questions about coronavirus --

PENCE: I want to ask the CDC to respond to that. I'm going to ask Dr. Birx to address that. I am going to ask Dr. Fauci to speak to that.

COLLINS: -- the president is relying on his own instincts.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think the 3.4 percent is really a false number. Now, this is just my hunch.

COLLINS: In an interview on Fox News, the president questioned initial figures from the World Health Organization, and suggested some Americans with coronavirus may recover while going about their daily lives, though he denied he was advising that today.

He's also continued to say a vaccine is possibly months away, while his own doctors dispute that. DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY& INFECTIOUS

DISEASES: The whole process is going to take a year, year and a half at least.

COLLINS: The president has a habit of exaggerating the numbers, whether it's the jobs report or his approval rating. But his critics say he is wading into dangerous territory when it comes to a global health crisis.

REP. DAVID CICILLINE (D-RI): In this moment, we need the president to let the scientists and medical professionals and the doctors be giving guidance to the American people.

COLLINS: Today, he tweeted there were only 129 case of coronavirus in the U.S., not counting those infected abroad and brought back to the country.

At the time of his tweet, CNN counted 163 in the U.S., including the 49 who were repatriated.

That number has since hit at least 205 cases, as Trump says he was initially hesitant to let Americans who contracted the virus abroad back in the United States because of the optics.

TRUMP: In one way I hated to do it, statistically, hated to do it from the standpoint of having people coming in, is it going to -- you know, is it going to look bad?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Now, Jake, I heard you talking to Dr. Sanjay Gupta about those testing kits that are going out. We should note, the vice president's office said today that they have sent out 2,500 to hospitals, there are about 500 tests in each kit. Meaning there's a little over a million tests there. Officials say they're going to need a lot more than that in the weeks to come.

TAPPER: Many, many more.

Kaitlan Collins, thanks so much.

Companies worldwide taking drastic measures to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus.

I want to bring in CNN business editor at large, Richard Quest.

Richard, airlines are cancelling flights because people don't want to fly, fears of coronavirus must be running rampant.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR AT LARGE: Absolutely. You saw it today. United Airlines stock was down 13 percent. And the airlines at the forefront of those making measures, cutting international flying by 20 percent, and 10 percent on U.S. flights; JetBlue, smaller network, but 5 percent.

And Lufthansa not only says it's got 7,100 flight cuts, but Lufthansa is increasing the number of planes, Jake, that it keeps on the ground. It's now gotten nearly two dozen planes sitting there doing nothing.

TAPPER: And spring tends to jump start the conference and concert season. South by Southwest in Austin is in just eight days. Major companies such as Twitter and Facebook are not attending because of fears of the virus.

Is the tourism industry writ large in crisis mode?

QUEST: Total crisis. When you bear in mind, the biggest tourism conference, ITB cancelled, Mobile World Congress cancelled, and not entirely sure why South by Southwest hasn't made more effort cancelling yet, bearing in mind it is only eight days away and this crisis is far from being over.

But, Jake, no question. This tourism industry, IATA, the airline association, says that globally airlines could lose $113 billion this year. People are simply not traveling.

TAPPER: What's your take on the Wall Street whiplash going on, the stocks going down almost 1,000 points today? Do you think coronavirus anxiety is mostly to blame for all this?

QUEST: Yes, it's gripped it, because we do not know what the medium -- short-to-medium-term effect is going to be on corporate profits.

You get these occasional days when it's a Sanders effect, for example, but the core feeling in the market at the moment is one of fear and worry.

TAPPER: Richard Quest, thank you so much for your expertise, as always.

Jared Kushner is about to make some serious cash off a company that profited from one of his father-in-law's policies.

How's that swamp looking today?

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: The president's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is sets make millions.

[16:50:01]

He's selling shares in a company that benefited from tax breaks included in President Trump's 2017 tax overhaul, tax breaks that he and his wife, Ivanka Trump, pushed for in the White House.

And after months of the president railing against Joe Biden's son Hunter for using his father's position for financial gain, allegedly, Kushner's windfall is raising major conflict of interest concerns, to say nothing of hypocrisy.

CNN's Kara Scannell joins me now. Kara, what are Jared and Ivanka's connections to these specific tax breaks that this company received?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, so, Jake, in the White House, Ivanka and Jared were both actively supporting this tax cut program which provided tax cuts.

Ivanka was involved in a White House roundtable with business executives, and she also spoke with some GOP lawmakers to support the tax program. Now, this program would provide tax breaks for any investor who put money into low-income areas that were designated as Opportunity Zones.

Now, there's no evidence that Jared or Ivanka had a role in which areas were deemed these Opportunity Zones. But Jared Kushner has an investment in a real estate company called Cadre. That's the one that he sold his stake in today or earlier this month.

But this was -- this was the source of the controversy here. Now, Kushner, when he entered the White House, his investment in this company, Cadre, was worth about $5 million. Now its investment is worth about $25 million to $50 million.

So, quite a profit for him there -- Jake.

TAPPER: This is why people divest when they join government, so there aren't questions about profiting off of the job that one is doing.

Has Kushner responded to these accusations of conflict of interest?

SCANNELL: Yes.

So Kushner was first approached by the company Cadre to sell his stake. He agreed to do it, at their request. Now his lawyer Abbe Lowell says that he consulted the Office of Government Ethics and the White House Counsel's Office.

And in a statement, he said to us: "From before and after joining the administration, Mr. Kushner has gone to great lengths to seek advice about and fully comply with all ethics rules. This is the latest example of how seriously he takes this responsibility" -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Kara Scannell, thanks.

Twenty million dollar profit, that's quite a nice chunk of change.

Some other medical facts President Trump is contradicting, this time impacting U.S. service members.

That's next.

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[16:56:43]

TAPPER: President Trump continues to contradict top health officials about the coronavirus.

But, as CNN's Barbara Starr reports for us now from the Pentagon, this is not new. This follows a pattern for President Trump. Just last month, he suggested that traumatic brain injuries in service members who were on the military base struck by Iran, those TBIs were simply headaches.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The military is now looking at strengthening these protective bunkers at the Al Asad Air Base in Iraq, where more than 100 U.S. troops suffered traumatic brain injuries after an Iranian ballistic missile attack, bunker improvements to provide better protection against those injuries that President Trump has continuously dismissed.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I can report it is not very serious. Not very serious. I heard that they had headaches.

STARR: But his own defense secretary, Mark Esper, acknowledging it is something more.

MARK ESPER, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: And this was a new challenge to us. It's the first time we have we have seen our service members subject to a ballistic missile attack with 1,000-pound-plus warhead.

STARR: More than 400,000 U.S. troops have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury, or TBI, in the last two decades.

Now the Pentagon is searching for crucial new answers on rapid diagnosis, treatment and protection from the blast pressure of weapons explosions.

For some military families and veterans, the president's continued downplaying of TBI brought fresh grief and a renewed push to bring attention to the seriousness of these injuries.

Ryan Britch survived several blasts in Afghanistan. He still wakes up with headaches a decade later.

RYAN BRITCH, IRAN AND AFGHANISTAN VETERANS OF AMERICA: The public needs to know that traumatic brain injury is a serious injury.

Frank Larkin, a retired Senate sergeant at arms, Navy SEAL, and Secret Service agent, wrote to Trump about the suicide of his son, Ryan, also a former Navy SEAL, after the president's comments.

FRANK LARKIN, FORMER SENATE SERGEANT AT ARMS: It was a hit to the gut.

STARR: Larkin writing, Trump's words were "an undeserved punch felt by every person suffering from a TBI, their shattered families and supporting communities."

LARKIN: Ryan had always, "Something's wrong with my head, but nobody believes me." STARR: On April 23, 2017, Ryan Larkin took his own life. His parents had watched their son deteriorate after years of his brain being subjected to military blasts.

They donated his brain to a military medical study on the relationship of TBI and blast waves.

LARKIN: Three months later, they called us in and said, your son had an undiagnosed severe level of microscopic brain injury directly related to blast exposure.

STARR: Larkin wants to look ahead, hoping his son's death may help others understand, traumatic brain injury is a killer.

LARKIN: He died for his country. And he died from combat injuries. He just didn't die right away.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: And those injured in this latest incident in Iraq are now subject to years of potential monitoring by the military to ensure that their injuries don't grow worse -- Jake.

TAPPER: Barbara Starr at the Pentagon, thank you so much.

Our coverage on CNN continues right now.

Our thanks to the Larkin family for participating in that story.

[17:00:00]