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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Intel Officials: Russia, China & Iran Trying to Interfere in Election; Trump Seizes on Biden's Comments on Black and Latino Diversity; U.S. Adds 1.8M Jobs in July, Unemployment Falls to 10.2 Percent; Cuomo: All New York School Districts Are Authorized to Open. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired August 07, 2020 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: And welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Pamela Brown, in for Jake Tapper.

The death toll in the United States is now more than 160,000 people. Take that in, more than 160,000 people, the number of infections nearing five million, the World Health Organization warning, cases of coronavirus are soaring among younger people.

And, sadly, we now know of a 7-year-old little boy with no known underlying conditions who has died from coronavirus.

As CNN's Sara Sidner reports, it comes as the governor of New York is given the green light for schools to hold in-person classes, and California just topped 10,000 total coronavirus deaths.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Virtually no masks in sight as 250,000 people are expected to descend this weekend on Sturgis, South Dakota, a town of about 7,000, for the 80th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

One rally-goer saying masks impede his freedom.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't mean to make light of it, but I mean to be dangerous serious about the freedom aspect of that. And these are freedom-loving people. They're not going to give it up.

SIDNER: This as a scientific model shows 70,000 American lives could be saved from COVID by December if masks are worn, during a CNN town hall, experts saying it's so easy.

DR. CHRISTOPHER MURRAY, DIRECTOR OF HEALTH METRICS, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON: It's rare that you see something so simple, so inexpensive, so easy for everybody to participate.

SIDNER: Across the country, the number of coronavirus cases are trending down, that ray of hope darkened because the number of deaths are rising, the death toll topping 160,000, now projected to nearly double by the end of the year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Attention on the beach. Attention on the beach.

SIDNER: Hawaii is now the hottest of hot spots, beaches in popular Oahu closing once again, as cases jump 85 percent from the past week.

In Maryland, a different story, Baltimore restarting indoor dining, but the city's health director says:

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I wouldn't advise it.

SIDNER: The World Health Organization revealing a new trend. People fueling the spread are skewing younger, more than 60 percent of the newly infected between the ages of 25 and 64. The share of cases among teens and young adults has gone up sixfold, this as some children head back to school.

The New York governor today announcing the country's largest school district will begin in-person classes. The Department of Education chancellor making this promise:

RICHARD CARRANZA, CHANCELLOR, NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS: We will be able to maintain the social distancing and all of the medically advised requirements.

SIDNER: In Georgia's largest school system, in-person learning has already started, and already dozens of students have had to be quarantined due to positive tests, sparking protests from some teachers.

AIREANE MONTGOMERY, TEACHER: They are worried about their selves. They're worried about the students. And it has been a catastrophe.

SIDNER: In an Alabama school district:

QUENTIN LEE, PRINCIPAL, CHILDERSBURG HIGH SCHOOL (singing): My, my coronavirus hits me so hard. All the teachers say, oh, my lord, COVID is stressing me, all the updates from the CDC.

SIDNER: The principal going viral for using humor to hammer home an important lesson.

LEE: We wanted to do something to enforce the CDC guidelines that we were following on our campus to help keep the students safe, but, at the same time, who doesn't love M.C. Hammer?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: It is hard to have a little fun right now, so good for that principle.

And, by the way, M.C. Hammer says he loves, absolutely loves the new version of his song.

But I want to take you back to Sturgis, North Dakota, just real quickly here, because we're now hearing information. The mayor saying he was disappointed that that rally is still going on there, bringing some 250,000 people, they believe, who will descend there for the weekend.

We're also hearing that the hospital system there is adding a bunch of beds, 172 coronavirus beds, just in case, as well as 1,300 tests, in case people are asymptomatic, but worry, after it is over, that they need to get tested just in case -- Pam.

BROWN: All right, Sara Sidner, thanks so much for that report.

And let's discuss with CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, I want to talk about what we just heard from Sara Sidner. This motorcycle rally, thousands of people are expected to come, 250,000. You heard the person in her piece there saying, I'm not going to wear a mask. I love my freedom too much. We're freedom-loving people.

But, essentially, the science shows that, if you don't wear a mask, you could essentially kill someone, because you could pass the virus to someone else. And if that person doesn't die from it, someone else could that they pass it to you.

I mean, is that not what we're dealing with here? Is that not what the science shows?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

I mean, we're dealing with a very contagious, potentially lethal virus. I mean, Pamela, that's been the one constant in all of this. That hasn't changed since the beginning. We have obviously learned more specifics about who is most vulnerable and how better to treat these infections, but yes.

[16:05:05]

And the flip side of that, I think, to your point, Pamela, is that, as scary as this virus is, it is fairly easily contained by a mask. I mean, you can't always say that about some of these pathogens. I mean, they can be very infectious even with a mask on.

So this one is fairly easily contained by a mask. Look, outdoors is better than indoors exponentially, some say maybe 18 times less likely to transmit if you're outdoors vs. indoors. But if you're closely clustered, and you're closely clustered for long periods of time, you can still transmit the virus.

It's an easy thing to do. And as, again, I think you're alluding to, you're not doing it for yourself. You're doing it for the people around you.

BROWN: That's the point here. I mean, people, they say, look, I'm not going to wear it because I want to protect my personal freedom and I don't want to wear a mask, but then you're essentially -- you could be taking someone else's freedom away by killing them with this virus.

GUPTA: Right.

BROWN: I mean, that's sort of what's at stake here.

And I just want to look at...

(CROSSTALK)

GUPTA: Yes, and can I just say...

BROWN: Yes.

GUPTA: We talked about this yesterday, Pamela, and I thought it was such an important point. You asked me the question yesterday, what does ultimately inspire people?

BROWN: Yes.

GUPTA: I don't know the answer to that. I feel like I have -- my entire medical career, you're trying to get patients to do the right thing.

In this case, I think it really is a question of inspiring empathy in people. If you're -- maybe that works, maybe it doesn't. But you're going to go home to your families. You're going to go home to your community. You're going to spend time with people you love.

Do you really want to infect them, potentially infect them?

BROWN: Yes.

GUPTA: You're not going to have to wear a mask forever. But if you do it now, you're much more likely to keep them safe.

BROWN: Mm-hmm.

And the hard thing is, though, unless someone's directly impacted, it's like, oh, it's over there. That's over there. Those -- you hear the numbers, and it's like, people don't really -- it seems like some people don't want to take it as seriously, unless they're directly impacted.

And I guess, when you look at the big picture here, Sanjay, to your point about empathy, Dr. Fauci has made it clear, in order to contain this virus, to control this virus, we all have to come together, right? We all have to come together and do these mitigation -- follow these mitigation steps, wearing masks, social distance, and so forth.

But, I mean, how realistic is that at this point, Sanjay? And is there any end in sight if this country doesn't come together?

GUPTA: Well, so, I think it's very realistic, first of all.

I mean, we are human beings. We have seen human beings behave in this way, quite diligently in, frankly, many places, most places around the planet. I mean, we are a bit of an outlier in terms of not doing this at this point. So, just taking into account we're all humans, I think it is

realistic. So then you superimpose all the things that are going on here in the United States. I think what Dr. Fauci has said -- and he's been very careful here -- he's not saying we need to go back into lockdown mode again.

BROWN: Exactly. Right.

GUPTA: I will be honest, I was surprised, if you go back to March, that we were able to even have this tremendous shift in human behavior. We didn't lock down fully in this country, but if you would have asked me in January that more than half the country would essentially be in lockdown by end of March, I thought there's no way that's going to happen in this country.

And yet we did. So, kudos to us on some parts of this.

But now we're saying, we don't need to go on lockdown. The numbers have increased tremendously since that time in mid-March, when we started to lock down. And, clearly, the numbers are getting worse.

So, now we're saying, just keep your distance. Separate yourselves. Wear a mask. This virus can't actually jump that far. It's easily contained by a mask. It doesn't like being outside. It's not even alive. It needs a host. Don't be such a willing host.

BROWN: Yes. Right.

GUPTA: At least for the next several weeks.

And it's not in perpetuity. I mean, I think it's a short time, relatively.

BROWN: Right.

I mean, even on a country that prides itself on individualism, as the United States does, like you said, there is a way for the whole country to come together and follow these mitigation steps, without locking down, like we have seen in the past.

And you mentioned the numbers. The cases are declining across most of the country, but deaths are rising in 15 states, at last check. What story do the numbers tell you today about where we are in this pandemic?

GUPTA: Yes, we can see where the overall death rates have been increasing.

And what we know, Pamela, is that this is what's called a lagging indicator. And I hate to use that term, even, because it sounds like a financial term. But we know that people are exposed. And then, if they're going to get sick, that usually happens a few weeks later.

And if they're, sadly, going to die, that happens a few weeks after that. So, those spikes that we saw several weeks ago, we're now seeing the ramifications of that. There's something else happening as well. I mean, the overall numbers

of the testing has gone down a bit. If you -- we -- I think we have a graph to show. We were going up and up and up in terms of the testing that we were doing. And it started to come down a little bit over the last few weeks.

In part, that's probably due to -- there were some storms that may have affected that. There's been some I.T. issues in certain parts of the country. And there's still, obviously, a lot of demand for tests, and not enough supply.

[16:10:05]

So, what I would like to see, just because I have been following the story for so long, and I talked to some sources about that this morning, we need to wait at least 14 days, probably, maybe even a little longer, to try and figure out if we're seeing actual trends here, or we're seeing blips.

It's just you can't follow this day to day or even week to week. We need a little bit of a longer time frame, a little wider aperture to know what's really going on here.

BROWN: And just really quickly, as we wrap up, I want to get your reaction to the president.

He was asked, look, were there any federal missteps? And he said, no, look at the governors, some have done a good job, some haven't.

But is this not also a federal issue? Because it seems like, if one state is struggling, no state is safe.

GUPTA: It's absolutely a federal issue, Pamela.

I mean, this is not even a question anymore. We are the United States of America. And we're also a mobile nation. People are moving around place to place. So, if you have places that are doing a good job, unfortunately, they're still vulnerable, because you have people that may come from states that are not doing as well, don't have the virus controlled as well.

And you can get super-spreader events. If one person is spreading it to two or three, within a few cycles of that spread, tens of thousands of people could be infected. And we see that happening.

BROWN: Yes.

GUPTA: So, we need a national plan. And we need a consistent message.

How many -- I'm sure you're getting lots of calls, Pamela. I'm getting tons of calls from people saying, what do we do?

BROWN: Yes.

GUPTA: Schools, businesses, living life? They're calling me because I have been talking about this on television for a long time. And every state has a different sort of plan here.

BROWN: Yes. People don't know where to get tested or how long it's going to take. I mean, the messaging is all over the place.

So, thank goodness for people like you, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, to bring us some of these really important answers. Thank you so much.

GUPTA: You got it, Pamela. Thank you.

BROWN: Well, the top intelligence official just shared what China and Russia are both doing to mess with the U.S. election, who they want to win, up next.

After attacking his faith, President Trump goes after Joe Biden on an issue which could determine the election. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:16:26]

BROWN: Breaking news. Top intelligence officials say multiple countries are attempting to interfere in the upcoming presidential election.

I want to go to CNN's senior justice correspondent Evan Perez.

Evan, tell us abut the statement that was just released from the top election security official in the intelligence community, really going further than we've ever heard from him about these other countries trying to influence the election.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Pam. This is an unusual statement from Bill Evanina, who is a top official at the office of the Director of National Intelligence who is in charge, as you pointed out, of helping prepare the government for the 2020 election and trying to thwart some of the efforts of these foreign countries.

And the three countries he identifies as trying to essentially pick favorites in the 2020 election, Russia, China, and Iran. And I'll go through what the assessments are on each.

On China, Evanina says that we assess that China prefers President Trump, who Beijing sees as predictable, does not win reelection, and he talks about how the Chinese essentially are trying to undermine anyone who is criticizing the Chinese, everything from the COVID pandemic to obviously some of the more recent battles over TikTok.

With regard to Russia, we are seeing the same thing that we saw in 2016. According to Evanina, we assess that Russia is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia establishment. That is an active effort, Pamela, to not only undermine his campaign but also some people associated with the Kremlin according to Evanina are also trying to help Donald Trump's campaign, trying to at least use online influences to prop up his campaign.

As far as Iran goes, what Evanina says is essentially they are trying to undermine confidence in the U.S. system trying to divide Americans. This is a highly unusual statement to be coming just about a hundred days before Americans go to the polls. And it's interesting, obviously, you see that the Russians are doing pretty much what we all know they did in 2016.

The Chinese seem to be using a lot of things that the intelligence community either can't tell us all about or they're still trying to figure out exactly what the Chinese are doing. It does say, however, that the Chinese want to make sure President Trump is not re-elected and they are trying to -- and the Russians are trying to help his re- election efforts.

BROWN: All right. Evan Perez, thanks for laying it out for us. We appreciate it.

And with the election just three months away, President Trump looking to seize on any opening, is trying to play up Joe Biden's comments about diversity and black and Latino communities. The vice president took to Twitter to clarify. And it comes as Biden is set to announce his running mate, which may very well be an African-American woman, as CNN's Jeremy Diamond reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Joe Biden this morning totally disparaged and insulted the black community.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sensing an opening, President Trump is making his latest play to discourage black Americans from voting for Joe Biden after the presumptive Democratic nominee said this.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Unlike the African- American community with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community, with incredibly different attitudes about different things. You go to Florida, you find a very different attitude about immigration than when you do in when you're in Arizona.

DIAMOND: Biden cleaned up his comments hours later, tweeting: In no way did I mean to suggest the African-American community is a monolith, not by identity, not on issues, not at all.

But it's not the first time Biden has suggested just that.

[16:20:01]

BIDEN: If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black.

DIAMOND: He walked back those comments too. Trump, who has a long history of racist and racially charged comments

took to Twitter arguing, Sleepy Joe Biden is no longer worthy of the black vote, amplifying a concerted push by his campaign to win over black voters or, more importantly, dissuade them from turning out for Biden.

TRUMP: You're living in poverty. Your schools are no good. You have no jobs. What the hell do you have to lose?

DIAMOND: It's a play Trump made in 2016, too, when black turnout dropped to pre-2008 levels. This time, some GOP operatives with ties to Trump's campaign are also working to boost rapper Kanye West, helping him to get on the ballot in several states like Wisconsin, where an effort to siphon votes from Biden could swing what is expected to be a tight contest.

TRUMP: I like Kanye very much. No, I have nothing to do with him getting on the ballot.

DIAMOND: Trump's attacks on Biden are also getting more outlandish.

TRUMP: No religion, no anything, hurt the bible, hurt God, he's against God.

DIAMOND: Biden, a devout Catholic, fired back, calling the bizarre attack shameful.

All of this as Trump continues to trail Biden by a wide margin. The latest Ipsos/Reuters poll showing Trump down ten points.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And that was our Jeremy Diamond reporting there.

I want to turn now to our money lead. Today, we learned the United States economy added another 1.8 million jobs in July. Now, that is a small improvement after months of losses. But nearly 13 million people are still out of work since the pandemic started. And the unemployment rate is still over 10 percent.

And if you thought those tragic numbers would motivate lawmakers so quickly to pass another economic relief bill, well, you'd be wrong. Democrats and top White House officials said moments ago they said they have made no progress today and they are still at a standstill with no more negotiation talks scheduled.

The hardest-hit city in the nation will now have students attend classes in person. We'll discuss the risks with a top doctor, up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:27:03]

BROWN: And welcome back.

In our health lead, New York schools have the green light to reopen this fall. Now it's up to each school district to submit its plans to the state and decide what's best for students.

Joining me now to discuss is Dr. Ashish Jha, director of Harvard's Global Health Institute.

Thanks for coming on, Dr. Jha.

There are so many questions from parents right now as they try to figure out whether to send their kids to schools. You look at district by district, Chicago and Los Angeles decided school will be exclusively online. Then you have New York state leaving it up to each school district to open. New York is citing the low positivity rate across the state.

What do you think about this district-by-district approach when it comes to opening schools?

DR. ASHISH JHA, DIRECTOR, HARVARD GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE: Yeah. So thank you for having me on. I think it is unfortunate consequence of the fact that we have no national plan on the pandemic, we have no real national plan on schools. And so we've left all of the pandemic fighting to individual states, and states are leaving this all up to individual school districts. Now, obviously --

BROWN: Everyone's trying to pass the buck, it seems.

JHA: You know, that's right. And there is a large element of that. I mean, obviously, you want to customize policies for local conditions.

But the problem is that there is not a lot of -- like, school superintendents don't have a lot of training in how to deal with pandemics. And so the idea that everybody figures it out on their own really is a pretty tough way to go.

BROWN: But the administration, as we know, released guidelines from the CDC on two different occasions at least. So, what do you say to that though? They say, look, we released these guidelines for all schools to follow across the country.

JHA: So, I think -- I think that the guidelines are wholly inadequate. But it's not my opinion that matters. It's the opinion of school superintendents. And they think it's largely inadequate.

You know, just the guidelines have not been helpful. They don't really tell you when you can open up safely or not. There's one guideline that says everybody should just open, which of course is irresponsible.

And so I think the CDC has not been, you know, at its finest in this outbreak here.

BROWN: Yeah, and it's still really murky about like the specific scenarios. Like if one student tests positive for COVID, do you shut down the whole school, just the classroom? Does everyone go into quarantine? I mean, there -- it's -- and we're already seeing this play out in some schools are having to confront those challenges. Let's look at New York state. The state said it still needs to sign

off on the district's plans. They've made clear that masks would be mandatory as well as social distancing and contact tracing if these schools open. But how practical is that, especially for little kids to follow those measures?

JHA: So, I think it is practical. And I think a place like New York, which has brought its infection numbers way down has a 1 percent test positivity rate.

One of the bonuses of getting your virus under control is you do get to open up school safety. So, I think there are a lot of 5 and 6 and 7-year-olds who can wear a mask for a good chunk of the day and we should try to do that. And I think that given the cost of keeping everybody at home for the whole next year, New York -- places like New York should really be giving it a shot in trying to get kids back in.

[16:30:00]