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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Florida Judge To Rule Next Week on In-Person Classes; Biden Accepts Democratic Nomination in Career-Defining Speech. Aired 4:30-5p ET.

Aired August 21, 2020 - 16:30   ET

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

[16:30:01]

RICHARD CORCORAN, FLORIDA EDUCATION COMMISSIONER: Well, you've said a lot, Jake, but let me -- I'll try to break it down. Number one is, there's two paradigms. There's the paradigm of sending kids back in the risk of COVID, which we know for a fact is less than seasonal flu for this population.

The other risk and we just had Dr. Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford, one of the preeminent epidemiologists in the world, let alone the country, and the risks that are known are certain, are profound on not sending kids back. Child case abuses, suicide deaths, over -- drug overdoses, achievement gap exacerbation, food insecurities, those are on this side. It's far greater than the low, low risk of even less than seasonal flu.

And so, then you look at the facts. We're on -- we're on a massive decline in Florida. If you look at our last four weeks, we're in decline. Our cases are down to 6.8.

And then if you look at our transmission rate, Governor DeSantis has done a fantastic job. Our transmission rate is 0.93. It is the lowest of any big state. California, New York, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, we are an absolutely -- yesterday we were in the top 13. I think we're in the top 15. It is an absolutely better path to take for our schoolchildren to be in school.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: So you're talking about the risk to students. And, really, honestly, we should be talking about different groups of students. There's 11 and under and then 12 and older. But the risk of spreading the virus throughout the state is what I'm talking about, not just the risks to students.

And, look, I understand, remote learning sucks. I'm a dad. I get it. It's horrible. But my question is if the virus rate is still 6.8 percent, is there still not a risk here that lives are going to be lost because of this decision?

CORCORAN: No, and multiple reasons. Number one is these criteria, you should look at your transmission rate. Three weeks ago they were saying you need to be below 10 percent when we were up in the 18 percent range. Now we're down to 6 percent and now it's 5 percent. I don't even think it's a good metric. We have small counties, as you

know in Florida, like Baker County --

TAPPER: Uh-huh.

CORCORAN: -- well, that's where some of our larger prisons are. So, they an outbreak in the prison has no effect on the schoolchildren. But because their rate goes up a little bit now we're going to say shutter the schools and have the kids suffer? Now, they're doing a great job. They've been open.

If you look at right now, we have 28 districts open, Jake. We have about 65 percent in face-to-face instruction. We have over 95 percent of the teachers who wanted to come back, they want to be with their students and they want to teach. We're having great success.

The reality is what Governor DeSantis said was give that choice to parents. He didn't mandate schools be open. He said give choice to parents.

If you feel like you would like to have distance learning, have that option. I'm a father of six children. All of them public school students, elementary, middle, high school and college, all of them going back because that's what my wife and I have decided. And the governor said let that choice be there and let's move forward as a state giving people the opportunity, knowing that we cannot -- we have to recognize that the consequences of not allowing those kids back in school is so much more grave than the risk of COVID.

TAPPER: Again, I'm not discounting the consequences of not allowing in person school, I get it, I really do. But I also know that re- opening schools as we've seen in other countries has set the table for a greater spread that has affected other people.

I want you to take a listen to this Florida student talking to his school board just a few days ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KYLE RAMOS, SOUTH FORK HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: There is one thing that I value even more than in-person education. And that is human life. Therefore, I pose this question to you. How much is one life worth?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So those lines, teachers, administrators, parents, grandparents maybe even some children, a 6-year-old little girl in Florida just died. Will you feel any responsibility if this decision to reopen schools, and during a pandemic when people are still dying where this disease is still spreading out of control all over the country, will you feel any responsibility if any lives are lost as a result?

CORCORAN: I -- listen. I have six children. I'm a father first and foremost, as you are. Of course we care about our children's lives. And we also recognize there's nothing that's 100 percent certain in any aspect of our children's lives. Giving them an aspirin, there could be consequences.

What we have to do is look at the science. And to your point, Jake, if you talk to the experts, I don't care what country you choose, there has been nothing that has shown that children-to-children spreading is real. It's either de minimis or none at all. Every single country, I don't care which one you choose, Germany, England, Denmark, Iceland, Greece, it doesn't matter. There isn't a spread.

The biggest threat that we tell are the adults coming into the school system, if you're sick, or you feel sick or have symptoms, stay home and get checked. Don't come into the school system. And when you look at those different places around the world like Israel, it was because of a super spreader adult who went into the school system.

[16:35:00]

Listen, we didn't shut down schools last year and we had over 20 deaths because of the seasonal flu. We're not even close to that. We're 200 percent below that with COVID.

But what we do know is suicide deaths are up. We do know drug overdoses last month hit 60,000. We've never seen that kind of number.

TAPPER: Right.

CORCORAN: Those are the real consequences of not giving that safe haven for those children.

TAPPER: When you talk about looking for symptoms, I mean, this is a disease where 45 percent of the cases they say are asymptomatic. So that's problematic. But let me just ask you because we're running out of time, would you like it if the federal government and the state government had it so that your students could get tested at least half as often as people walking into the White House or professional athletes?

I mean, would that not be helpful for there to be testing at a level where kids and teachers had at least some sort of comfort that they just got tested, they got results within a few hours? And we know this week we think we're doing okay that there isn't any COVID in the schools?

CORCORAN: Well, first of all, I mean, the science is out there. So I would tell them feel comfortable with the science. It's better than the science of last year when all we were fearing was the seasonal flu.

But the second thing is, we have 67 great superintendents. They're doing just that, Jake. In Pasco County, just north of Tampa, they've got a deal, worked out with the Department of Health. They'll be on site and the second someone has symptoms, they can get them tested right away. All of that is going to take place --

TAPPER: Forty-five percent of people are asymptomatic, 45 percent of people are asymptomatic. CORCORAN: No, no, but -- not only are they asymptomatic, but, again,

science out there is saying that if you're asymptomatic, your likelihood of spreading is de minimis. You're not a real spreader, and so -- or a de minimis spreader.

So, all of that stuff is out there and all of the precautions are taking place. We're still having six feet of distance. We're still having kids walk down the hall way in one direction. We're keeping them separated during lunch and during different events.

And the proof is in the pudding. We've been open for two weeks. Ultimately, we'll probably have 1.5 million in face-to-face instruction. We'll have 95, 99 percent of our teachers there and we will be delivering a great education. And when we have a case, we'll deal with it.

And you're right, we'll be surgical. We don't have to be sweeping because we know the underlying facts.

TAPPER: Commissioner Corcoran, just a yes-or-no answer would suffice. Do you -- would you like it if kids and teachers were able to get tested as frequently as professional athletes and White House staff?

CORCORAN: I think that any time you can do something that puts parents at ease, puts teachers at ease, puts administrators at ease and it's effective then it works, then, yeah, sure, absolutely.

TAPPER: Richard Corcoran, thank you so much. And from the bottom of my heart I hope it goes well in Florida. I really do.

CORCORAN: I appreciate it, Jake. Thank you.

TAPPER: President Trump wants next week's Republican national convention to look nothing like what we saw from Democrats. We're getting a preview of his lines of attack. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:42:15]

TAPPER: In our 2020 lead today, Joe Biden is now the official Democratic presidential nominee. He formally accepted his nomination at the close of the convention in a career-shaping speech. Biden emphasized the importance of what he called a life-changing election. He promised to be a president for all Americans, not just for members of his party or his base, in a not so subtle dig at President Trump.

CNN's MJ Lee joins us now.

MJ, the Trump campaign made what now appears to be a mistake by setting expectations really low for Joe Biden after the success of last night. Is the Biden campaign shifting their strategy at all?

MJ LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, Republicans had not only lowered expectations for Biden's speech last night, but really the entire convention. I'll tell you speaking to Biden allies and supporters over the last couple of days, they could not be happier about how the convention went. They knew that they were setting out to try to pull off an unprecedented convention that was almost entirely virtual, and after last night, they feel as though they more than pulled it off.

They are pointing to some of the very powerful speeches that we saw throughout the week, the compelling testimonials that we saw about Joe Biden, and also that they feel like they were able to rally some of Joe Biden's die-hard fans. And for everybody else who might've been on the fence or unsure about who Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are, that they were able to introduce them in a new way to a broader audience.

Now, as you know very well, even before the Democratic National Convention, Joe Biden was not doing a lot of in-person events, and now that there are some 70 plus days left until election day, it is just entirely not clear that we are ever going to see either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris participate in a traditional campaign rally -- Jake.

TAPPER: And, MJ, one of the major events of the Democratic convention was Biden getting Republican endorsements. Is he going to continue doing that?

LEE: Well, this was such a big theme throughout the Democratic National Convention, trying to show that Joe Biden is somebody with broad appeal that, the voters that they can get are not just traditional Democratic voters but people who are former Republicans, maybe Republicans who have never voted for a Democrat in their entire lives. This is why we saw string after string of testimonials from everyday Republicans, everyday voters and also from public figures like Colin Powell or Cindy McCain, the wife of a late GOP Senator John McCain.

And so, this is something that we are going to continue to see Democrats continue to push again to try to make the case that Joe Biden is somebody with broad appeal.

TAPPER: All right. MJ Lee, thanks so much.

The bar is now set even higher for President Trump, and details of next week's Republican National Convention remain fluid as CNN's Kaitlan Collins reports with Steve Bannon, the latest in his orbit to face criminal charges, the president has yet another dark cloud over his head as he takes the stage next week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Trump is firing back after Joe Biden condemned his chaotic presidency at the close of the Democratic Convention.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Democrats held the darkest and angriest and gloomiest convention in American history.

COLLINS: Speaking to a conservative group today, Trump rejected Biden's characterization that America was in -- quote -- "a season of darkness" and measured Biden against his last opponent, Hillary Clinton.

TRUMP: Well, Clinton's much smarter, but not a likable person. Joe is not nearly as smart, but he's more likable. So, I don't know. Maybe I'd rather have the smarter person.

COLLINS: Phoning into FOX News Thursday night, President Trump assailed mail-in voting and pledged to send law enforcement to polling places to monitor voters, something he doesn't have the authority to do.

TRUMP: We're going to have everything. We're going to have sheriffs and we're going to have law enforcement and we're going to have hopefully U.S. attorneys, and we're going to have everybody.

COLLINS: Federal law prohibits intimidation at polls and makes it illegal for a civil or military federal officer to order armed men to polling places.

The Trump campaign is preparing to send tens of thousands of election monitors to battleground states, which has prompted criticism from Democrats.

TRUMP: And they all think I'm trying to steal an election. Just the opposite. I want the fair results of an election.

COLLINS: The Republican National Convention kicks off in Charlotte on Monday, but, because of COVID-19, most of the speeches will happen in Washington.

After closely watching the Democratic Convention, Trump urged aides to put an emphasis on live speeches vs. taped ones.

TRUMP: Yes, I think we're going to have more of it as live than what they did. I think it's pretty boring when you do tapes.

COLLINS: In multiple television interviews this morning, Vice President Mike Pence was pressed on the arrest of former White House strategist Steve Bannon, who has pleaded not guilty to charges he defrauded donors who thought they were helping build the wall.

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Steve Bannon certainly deserves his day in court.

COLLINS: Bannon called the arrest a political hit job.

STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: This is to stop and intimidate people that have President Trump's back on building the wall.

COLLINS: Prosecutors say the group's founder, Brian Kolfage, secretly used donations on home renovations, cosmetic surgery and boat payments, something he appeared to joke about with Bannon in a resurfaced video from 2019.

BANNON: Welcome back. This is Steven K. Bannon, and we're off the coast of Saint-Tropez in Southern France in the Mediterranean. We're on the million-dollar yacht, Brian Kolfage.

(LAUGHTER)

BANNON: And Brian Kolfage, he took all that money from Build the Wall.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Now, Jake, you may have noticed last night in Joe Biden's speech, he did not mention President Trump by name, not even once.

I asked a staffer with Trump today if they think that he is going to take a similar approach next Thursday. They said it's not likely.

TAPPER: Yes, I think that's probably fair.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: Kaitlan Collins, thanks so much.

The contrast in messaging that is already emerging from the Republican National Convention, we will talk about that next, as we gear up for CNN's special coverage Monday night.

But, first, in our Earth Matters series: Scientists are keeping close watch on this, two tropical systems threatening the Gulf Coast. The one closer to Florida strengthened to become Tropical Storm Laura today.

While it's too early to blame climate change for this, scientists do blame climate change for a higher rate of stronger storms in recent years, and other extreme weather, such as worsening wildfires, particularly in Western states.

A heat wave and lightning strikes have fueled clusters of fires burning right now in California. They have scorched more land this week than in all of 2019 total.

As for those storms in the Gulf right now, it has been 61 years since the Gulf has had two tropical storms simultaneously.

We're back with more in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:53:47]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here tonight, as love and hope and light join in the battle for the soul of the nation.

TRUMP: Over the last week, the Democrats held the darkest and angriest and gloomiest convention in American history. (END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: President Trump today reacting to Joe Biden's pitch to the American people. Biden contrasted light and darkness in a convention that was squarely aimed at rebuking President Trump and trying to offer a brighter, more empathetic alternative.

Back with me to discuss, CNN's Abby Phillip, and joining us as well, CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein.

Abby, let me start with you.

The DNC focusing pretty clear, contrast with President Trump, drive home Biden's empathy. What did you make of that approach?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I thought that that was the central reason of being for Joe Biden's candidacy from the beginning.

It has been his pitch since he launched his campaign to make it about his character, his personal character, and the character of the country that he wants to create as president.

And I think that his campaign has been studious about not getting bogged down in these kinds of massive policy fights, even through a very policy-heavy campaign. So that's what we saw last night.

[16:55:05]

And I -- in some ways, it's reflective of what you see in the polling, which is that people in the country are most dissatisfied with President Trump when they think about the response to the coronavirus, for example, which is about a lack of competency or a perception of a lack of competency and also in his response to things like racial injustice, which is about a lack of empathy.

So I think that's why we saw what we saw. And so far, the Biden campaign has been right. I mean, they did come out of the primary the victor, despite long, long, historic odds.

TAPPER: And, Ron, take a listen to how Vice President Pence reacted to the Democratic Convention this morning. He was speaking on FOX.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PENCE: Joe Biden said last night, Ainsley, that, oh, democracy is on the ballot, character is on the ballot.

Well, let me be clear. The economy is on the ballot. Law and order is on the ballot. And the American people know it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: The vice president has a point there, Ron, in the sense that the Republicans will get to reframe the decision, but it is interesting that he seemingly ceded the issues of character and democracy.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it is fascinating, but it is the blind spot I think the convention left.

I mean, they did a lot of things really well. They reimagined the format very effectively. No one's ever going to do a roll call another way again. They showed unity within the party, while expanding the tent, having all those Republicans speak. They gave young people and the diversity of the Democratic Party a tremendous platform.

But I think the one place where they didn't close the circuit was, while they showed Biden as empathetic and a product of the middle class, they didn't spend a lot of time on how he would make the lives of ordinary middle-class families better in a tangible way.

As Abby said, they chose to stick to broader themes of unity and his character. And because they didn't do that, there's a question. There is an opening for the Republicans to speak to voters who may not be moved by the questions of democracy, may not be moved by the questions of racial justice or inclusion.

Some of those economically strained voters in those Rust Belt states, and Biden is going to have to deal with whatever the Republicans try to present his agenda as at their convention next week.

TAPPER: And, Abby, I mean, I think it's pretty clear that they're going to try to take the entire Democratic Party in whatever excesses or caricatures they want to paint and say, Joe Biden is a slave, he's a captive to the extreme left.

PHILLIP: That's going to be the argument.

But, Jake, I mean, you look at -- we have had a whole summer of that argument, of the president making the law and order case against Biden, the president arguing that Biden has been co-opted by the Bernie faction, the progressive faction.

It hasn't had, according to polls -- take them for what they're worth. It hasn't had the kind of effect that the Trump campaign had hoped that it would. The reason for that seems to be that voters fundamentally don't believe that about Joe Biden.

He's been in the public sphere for 48 yours. I think a lot of voters believe that they understand on some level what Joe Biden's about. And it's been very difficult for the Trump campaign to make that argument stick.

TAPPER: So, Ron, the DNC featured a ton of Republicans supporting Biden.

Now, this afternoon, there's a sitting Republican governor, Phil Scott of Vermont, who says he's not voting for Trump, he might vote for Biden.

Scott has been a Trump critic, and he represents very blue Vermont. But is this just a coincidence, you think, or perhaps a sign that's that the strategy worked of making Biden an acceptable alternative to some Republicans?

BROWNSTEIN: It's working.

I mean, Biden has the potential to come in close to 60 percent among college-educated whites, which no Democrat has ever done. In all the national polls over the last week, he was pushing right against that number. And that includes not only the women who moved earlier, but an awful lot of college-educated white men who usually vote Republican.

There is a permission structure being created. On the other hand, I would say it's not clear to me that it's entirely not working what the president is doing, because he's pushing his non-college white number also back up near 60 percent in all of these polls, including the CNN poll.

And if there is -- Biden is in a stronger position than any challenger since Clinton in '92 and Carte in '76, clearly. But if there's any path for the president, it's going back through those Rust Belt states and maxing out among blue-collar white voters.

And I suspect he will focus on that next week, even at the expense of further alienating the kind of voters who would listen to the governor of Vermont, college-educated whites suburbanites.

TAPPER: All right, Ron Brownstein, Abby Phillip, thanks to both of you. Really appreciate it.

Tune in on Sunday. My guests this Sunday on "STATE OF THE UNION" include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, and former Trump White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci.

That's this Sunday morning at 9:00 Eastern and again at noon.

Our coverage on CNN continues right now. I will see you on Sunday morning.

Stay healthy. Stay safe. Try to enjoy the weekend.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.