Return to Transcripts main page

The Lead with Jake Tapper

U.S. Coronavirus Testing Still Behind?; California Rolls Back Reopening Plans; Trump Claims to Have a Good Relationship With Fauci But Doesn't Always Agree with Him; Los Angeles & San Diego to Restart School Online Only in Fall. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired July 13, 2020 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:10]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

We have breaking news in our health lead. California is shutting down again.

Governor Gavin Newsom just announced that he's closing down indoor dining, bars and more starting today, a major return to stricter restrictions, as that state sees the number of new cases skyrocketing.

Cases are surging across a huge swathe of the United States, in fact. The number of daily new cases nationwide is now almost twice the rate of the peak in April, the previous peak. It's hovering around 60,000 new infections a day.

And yet, despite the alarming escalation, there is no new national strategy for testing or contact tracing, nothing new to try to get a handle on all this.

More effort appears to be going into White House attempts to anonymously trash Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert, who had committed the unthinkable by telling the American public the truth about how bad things are currently, so bad, in fact, that now even President Trump's former acting chief of staff is criticizing the nation's handling of the virus, writing in an op-ed for CNBC -- quote -- "I know it isn't popular to talk about in some Republican circles, but we still have a testing problem in this country."

Mick Mulvaney then related the difficulties his son and daughter have had getting tests. And he called it -- quote -- "simply inexcusable at this point in the pandemic."

You might recall, Mr. Mulvaney in February said that the media was only covering the coronavirus pandemic because -- quote -- "They think this is going to be what brings down the president" -- unquote.

That was false then, of course. He has now apparently come to see the seriousness of this pandemic, now that it has impacted him and his family personally. If only this revelation had occurred before July.

CNN's Nick Watt starts off our live coverage today from Los Angeles.

And, Nick, this is a massive backtrack for California, which started easing some of those restrictions in May, only to see another spike.

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jake, California did pretty well flattening that curve when we were closed. Not so much since we reopened, as the governor says the virus is spreading.

So, as you mentioned, he is now -- by the way, remember he used to do things county by county, recognizing small counties were different than L.A.? Not anymore. Now, across the whole of California, no more indoor bars, restaurants, movie theaters.

And in the counties that are on his watch list, the ones that he thinks are doing the worst, including Los Angeles, also, hair salons will be closed again and a few other things.

Now, in Florida, where the numbers are arguably even worse, we are expecting to hear from the governor within the next few minutes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WATT (voice-over): Florida is smashing records, more than 15,000 new COVID cases Sunday, the most logged in any state any day ever.

FRANCIS SUAREZ (R), MAYOR OF MIAMI, FLORIDA: We have to get control of these numbers. These numbers are out of control.

WATT: The number of COVID patients in Miami-Dade hospitals is up 65 percent in just two weeks. The number in the ICU is up 67 percent, those on ventilators up 129 percent. Miami might have to reverse reopening.

SUAREZ: If we get to a point where we don't feel that we can care for the people that are getting sick, that's something that we're going to have to strongly look at.

WATT: Disney World just open two parks, but, if you don't wear a mask, you won't get the photo from your ride. Seriously, that's part of the enforcement. The NBA is planning to play in a bubble in Florida, but among the players who've now tested positive, Russell Westbrook.

NHL teams started training today, but nine Pittsburgh Penguins pulled after possible explosive.

GARY BETTMAN, COMMISSIONER, NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE: But we believe, as we go through this screening process and we actually get to work to bubbles in places that don't have a lot of COVID-19, we should be OK.

WATT: Those NHL bubbles are in Canada, where they have just over a quarter of the cases per capita that we have south of the border.

DR. JEROME ADAMS, SURGEON GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES: We can turn this thing around in two to three weeks if we can get a critical mass of people wearing face coverings. WATT: But there's no federal mandate.

Meanwhile, in Texas, the average daily death toll just doubled in a week. Harvard researchers say these eight states should roll back reopening.

THOMAS TSAI, HARVARD UNIVERSITY'S T.H. CHAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: What we need to do is reinstitute measures to flatten the curve.

WATT: Georgia's governor is resistant, but Atlanta already rolled back to phase one, the mayor and her family recovering.

KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS (D), MAYOR OF ATLANTA, GEORGIA: We are a textbook example of how quickly this virus spreads. We had one child in the house who was asymptomatic. I was also asymptomatic, and my husband doesn't have any underlying health conditions, and this has hit him really hard.

[16:05:03]

WATT: Internal CDC documents uncovered by "The New York Times" suggest fully opening K-12 schools and colleges would be the highest- risk option. And that's what the Trump administration wants.

BETSY DEVOS, U.S. EDUCATION SECRETARY: The rule should be that kids go back to school this fall.

WATT: There is a way out of all this. New York City opened slowly, mandated masks, and just reported no deaths from COVID-19 in a day, zero.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT: And the Los Angeles School District, the second biggest in the country, more than 600,000 students, Jake, they have just said that when they go back in August, it will be online only, nothing in person.

As the governor of California said, listen, there are two things that are non-negotiable, our children's health and their education. It's not either/or. It is both -- Jake.

TAPPER: And we're going to talk more about education later in the show with a former CDC director.

Nick Watt, thank you so much.

Let's bring in CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta right now to talk about all of the breaking news about the pandemic.

And, Sanjay, you see all these changes announced in California today, including the governor ordering bars to close, no more indoor dining at restaurants. Do you think other states need to follow this example and roll back some of these reopening plans until the virus is under control, until, at the very least, they're adhering by the White House Coronavirus Task Force's guidelines, which, as you and I have talked about for months, no state strictly adhered to before reopening?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, that that's the bottom line.

I mean, the guidelines were pretty clear that, look, get the 14-day downward trend. If you do that, you're going to have a low enough absolute number of cases that you can get a handle on it.

Jake, I think the question now becomes, do some of these states need to go into a sort of complete lockdown mode, which would be the most aggressive treatment, or can they do sort of more of these minimally invasive type procedures, if you will, closing down bars and restaurants?

I think there's a lot to be said. We know what the biggest sort of source of spread likely is in this situation. It's indoor settings, lots of people clustered together. And, typically, bars and restaurants, people don't wear masks. They're eating. They're drinking. So those are going to be the biggest challenges.

And if you can make a significant impact in terms of reducing spreading events there, I think goes a long way. Compound that with face mask laws, face mask requirements, I think you start to at least see the numbers not growing, the pace of the numbers not growing as fast as they are and hopefully starting to slow down.

So I think that's going to be the decision tree. Status quo, as we see, Jake, in many places isn't working.

TAPPER: Indeed. Cases are increasing not just in California, but in 34 other states.

The U.S. now averaging 60,000 new cases a day. How much worse do you think this is going to get before steps are taken to start to flatten the curve again?

GUPTA: I don't know, Jake. I mean, this is almost a philosophical question at this point.

You and I have been talking about this for months now. How bad does it need to get in order for people to start making the changes that we know need to be made? I think there's no question that eventually we're going to make these changes. The question is, how bad will we let the problem get before we do so?

I mean, this is -- it's ridiculous, obviously, at this point. I mean, if this were a patient, it's like the patient's refusing all sorts of treatment until the patient is getting to the point of going into some sort of crisis, and then allowing the intervention to take place.

What point that's going to be, I don't know. We know what needs to be done. I think the hospitals and the surge capacity being exceeded, that will probably drive the decisions. At some point, Jake, the thing is that I don't know that we -- or leaders, really anybody, any human is going to be in charge of the decision anymore.

It's going to be the virus that dictates that decision.

TAPPER: And I can't overstate how much of the rest of the world is looking at the United States and not understanding why we can't get our act together, why we can't come up with one cohesive national plan, as they have been able to.

The fact that the NHL is going to Canada because it's safe there says it all.

Former acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, who was an early skeptic of the coverage of coronavirus -- he was wrong, of course -- but he wrote in a new op-ed today -- quote -- "I know it is unpopular to talk about in some Republican circles, but we still have a testing problem in this country. My son was tested recently. We had to wait five to seven days for results. My daughter wanted to get tested before visiting her grandparents, but was told she didn't qualify. That is simply inexcusable at this point in the pandemic."

Again, let's set aside the fact that Mulvaney belittled the threat of the coronavirus in February. Isn't he right? Testing is nowhere near where it needs to be.

[16:10:02]

GUPTA: It isn't, Jake. And I will take it a step further. I think this is the original sin, the lack of testing. I think everything else, every other thing that we talked about, in some ways derives from this, because we did not have adequate testing, partly -- and, as we know, that there was a flawed test near the beginning of this, and that caused a lot of problems.

But come middle of July still, we still don't have a national testing program. I talked to the head of the CDC last week. He says, you know what? We should probably think about having a national testing program. He's offering that up as a suggestion now in the middle of July.

It really -- it really boggles the mind. I mean, Jake, the idea that you can have simple, ready, quick-response testing that's widely available that could get people back to a sense of normalcy, let them know, A, they don't have the virus, at least at that point in time, B, the people that they're going to be coming in contact with at their workplace or wherever they're going also don't have the virus, is so significant.

Not only would it give people the physical confidence to start being able to isolate and trace and all that, but also the psychological confidence. I think we have not probably -- that's more of a subjective thing. So we haven't talked as much about that.

I can't get my own family tested. I had the same problem Mulvaney had. It was hours to try and get tested, days before we can get results back, not qualifying, despite having even minimal symptoms.

I mean, it is ridiculous still at this point in this pandemic in this country that testing is still where it is. Ambassador Birx talked about two-and-a-half months ago we're going to have a breakthrough in testing.

Well, where is it? We still haven't seen any kind of breakthrough in testing.

TAPPER: No, not at all.

And a new study -- I want to ask you about this, Sanjay, because it's potentially troubling news. There is a new study that finds that a person's coronavirus antibodies after they have already been exposed to the disease and they have developed antibodies, that those antibodies start to decline somewhere 20 to 30 days after they first show symptoms.

Does that mean, if somebody's antibodies can decline, and ultimately even possibly go away, does that mean that people can get this illness more than once?

GUPTA: Well, I think the answer to that question for the time being is, we don't know for sure.

I will say this, Jake. And we follow this very closely, been doing a lot of reporting in this area. At this point, middle of July, we haven't seen case reports of people becoming reinfected in this country, OK? There was some discussion about that in South Korea. That was probably not actually true reinfections.

If it were true that the antibodies and protection were only lasting 20 to 30 days, I think we would have started to see some significant amounts of reinfection. We haven't.

Number two is that the idea that people who have minimal symptoms vs. people who have significant symptoms, they do seem to have different amounts of antibodies that they're producing. This is borne out in two studies, one out of China, one out of Italy now.

So people who are relatively asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic may be producing less antibodies and maybe possibly less strong antibodies as well. Again, the data is still coming in on this.

So we will have to see about that. I think that the big question going forward is, how protective is it, ultimately, if you get exposed to this virus? And I think the answer is still that you do have some protection for a period of time. It may not be the antibodies specifically. It may be these other cells that quickly turn on in the body to make antibodies when you're exposed to the virus.

We don't know yet. But I do believe, Jake, based on all the reporting, that, at least for a period of time, you do have protection after you have been exposed to this virus.

TAPPER: All right. And the hunt for a vaccine goes on as well.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

President Trump apparently values the opinion of the guy who once hosted "Love Connection" more than he does the nation's top infectious disease expert. What the president just said about Dr. Fauci, that's next.

Plus, the forming acting CDC director will join me to talk about the battle to -- on whether or not students should go back to school, after the nation's second largest school district just announced kids will not return to the physical classroom in the fall.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:18:16]

TAPPER: In our politics lead, the split between the president of the United States and his top doctors seems to have cracked wide open. President Trump this morning re-tweeting a former game show host and conspiracy theorist who accused the CDC and doctors of lying about the coronavirus in order to keep the economy closed and hurt Trump politically, a rather deranged accusation.

Meanwhile, the White House is trying to undermine the nation's leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, disseminating what essentially amounts to opposition research against Fauci, taking quotes of his out of context, trashing him anonymously to reporters, a clear, coordinated effort to undermine Dr. Fauci.

So, yes, just to sum up, I want to make sure you heard me correctly. The president in the middle of a pandemic is promoting the views of the virus of Chuck Woolery while his White House is attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Moments ago, President Trump talked about this as CNN's Kaitlan Collins reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After multiple attempts to undercut him, the White House insisted today that President Trump isn't trying to discredit Dr. Anthony Fauci.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I find him to be a very nice person. I don't always agree with him.

COLLINS: Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany denied having anonymous officials distribute opposition-style research to reporters after they did just that over the weekend.

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There is no opposition research being dumped to reporters. Simply provided a direct answer to what was a direct question.

COLLINS: Though Trump has criticized anonymous sources in the past, an anonymous administration official claimed aides were concerned about the times Fauci had been wrong and circulated a list of bullet points of statements like this from early March.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: There's no reason to be walking around with a mask.

COLLINS: The list did not include statements from other officials who have also been wrong like the surgeon general.

[16:20:03]

And it didn't include any of the president's false claims either.

TRUMP: Anybody that needs a test gets a test.

COLLINS: Instead when it comes to medical advice, the president appears to now be turning to the former "Love Connection" game show host Chuck Woolery.

CHUCK WOOLERY, FORMER TV GAME SHOW HOST: What does it take for you to fall in love, Francie?

COLLINS: Trump re-tweeted Woolery after he claimed everyone including the CDC, media, Democrats, and most doctors are lying about COVID-19 in an attempt to hurt Trump politically. McEnany said the tweet was directed to rogue individuals inside the CDC who had leaked draft documents of re-opening guidance.

MCENANY: When we use science, we have to use it in a way that is not political.

COLLINS: It's a similar sentiment to the one once echoed by Trump's former chief of staff.

MICK MULVANEY, TRUMP'S FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF: They think this is going to be what brings down the president. That's what this is all about.

COLLINS: But Mick Mulvaney appears to have reversed course. In a new op-ed today, Mulvaney cites first-hand experience that the U.S. has a testing problem, saying his own son waited five to seven days for results, while his daughter was denied a test altogether.

Asked to respond to Mulvaney's criticism, the White House cited the number of tests conducted, but ignored the long delays in getting results.

MCENANY: Our reaction is that we tested -- we lead the world in testing. We've done more than 40 million tests. That's an extraordinary number.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Now, Jake, when the president was speaking with reporters today, he did not acknowledge the delays in getting test results that we are seeing across the country. Instead, only talking about how testing has increased over the last several months and repeated his own claims that that's the reason we're seeing more cases here in the U.S.

And when it comes to Fauci and Trump, we do want to note that Fauci has worked in the government since 1984. It's incredibly difficult to fire him. It would have to be for cause, and it would likely have to be someone like the HHS secretary would actually have to fire Dr. Fauci. And we should note that the president has been warned and advised that doing so, trying to remove him from his position could be damaging politically.

TAPPER: All right. Kaitlan Collins at the White House for us, thank you so much.

The battle over back to school plans. The former acting CDC director joins me next as more school districts announce students will not physically return to the classroom in the fall.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:27:20]

TAPPER: In our national lead, this afternoon, California's two biggest school systems, Los Angeles County and San Diego, both announced that students will not physically return to class when school starts next month. Instead, classes will be online only. Both districts called federal guidelines on re-opening vague and contradictory.

The Trump administration insists that all U.S. schools should reopen in the fall, but the administration will not spell out exactly how to do so safely. And, in fact, has undermined the CDC guidelines on the matter.

Let's bring in Dr. Richard Besser, former acting CDC director.

Dr. Besser, thanks for joining us.

What's your reaction to the Los Angeles and San Diego school districts' decision not to bring students physically back to class when the school starts -- when school starts in August?

DR. RICHARD BESSER, FORMER CDC DIRECTOR: Jake, as you know, I'm a pediatrician and a parent. And the place for students is in school learning. But you have to do it in a way that's safe. And one of the things that's clear is if you have widespread transmission of COVID in the community, there's absolutely no way to safely open the schools. It has to be a decision that schools are doing in conjunction with local public health, with teachers, with staff, groups with parents, so that it can be done safely.

TAPPER: My colleague Dana Bash tried to get specifics on what federal school re-opening plan there is when she interviewed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos yesterday. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you have a plan for what -- BETSY DEVOS, EDUCATION SECRETARY: The plan --

BASH: -- for what schools should do?

(CROSSTALK)

DEVOS: Schools should do what's right on the ground at that time for their students and for their situation. There is no one uniform approach that we can take -- or should take nationwide.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What's your reaction to that, Dr. Besser?

BESSER: Well, you know, I think part of that is on target in that you need to respond to the situation that's happening locally. So in a place with widespread disease, you can't think about opening the schools.

But in a place that has the pandemic under control where numbers have been going down, where you're slowly opening the economy, then the other half isn't right. You have to have the same approach. And that means configuring schools in ways that are going to be safer -- safer for children. That means fewer children in the classroom, checking air flow so that air flow is turning over more so the kids aren't exposed to whatever's in the air as much, putting up barriers.

You know, the upside of this pandemic, Jake, is that most children who get this will do fine. Not all, but most will do fine. But that's not true for staff.

[16:30:00]