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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Harris Meets Jacob Blake's Family in Wisconsin; Jacob Blake from Hospital Bed, It's Nothing but Pain; Biden Gets Emotional Talking About Son Beau in Documentary; Russian Opposition Leader Out of Coma After Poisoning; Biden, Harris, Pence Make Labor Day Visits to Battleground States. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired September 07, 2020 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: And welcome back to a special edition of THE LEAD. Turning to our NATIONAL LEAD, the vice presidential contenders are both visiting Wisconsin today in the wake of protests sparked by the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

Kamala Harris met with Blake's family and legal team when she landed there. Blake called into the meeting from the hospital bed where he told Harris he was proud of her.

And as Vice President Pence, toured an energy utility company, he said the Trump administration stands with law enforcement and he condemned rioting and looting.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz joins me now from Kenosha, Wisconsin. So, Shimon, what are you learning about the Harris/Blake meeting there?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes, so according to the attorney for Jacob Blake, this was an hour long meeting. There were seven altogether that took part in this meeting. You had Jacob Blake Sr., you had his sister was present, and then his mother was on the phone and several other people were on the phone.

And then as you said, Jacob Blake Jr. called in and there was this moment, according to the lawyers, between Kamala Harris and Jacob Blake Jr. where he told her that he was proud of her and she told him how proud she was of him for working through his pain. And she also told the family that they should use their pain to help America progress to end systemic racism.

And as we know, Jacob Blake Jr. just over the weekend putting out a video describing about all of the pain that he has been in, all of the pain that he's been enduring. And then to have this moment with Senator Harris, you know, talking about the pain and talking about how proud she is of him and then him in turn talking about how proud he is of her. And as I said, that was a meeting that took place for about an hour in Milwaukee after the Senator landed there -- Pam.

BROWN: Let's talk about what we heard from Jacob Blake. Because we heard from him from his hospital bed for the first time since the shooting. Tell us what he said.

PROKUPECZ: Yes, he put out this video. He was in his gown laying in his hospital bed. And he talked about the pain that he has been suffering through. And here it is in his own words -- Pam.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACOB BLAKE JR., VICTIM OF POLICE SHOOTING: Well, life and not only just your life, your legs, something that you need to move around and move forward in life, could be taken from you like this, man. It's normal pain. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to sleep. It hurts to move from side to side. It hurts to eat. Please, I'm telling you, change our lives, out there. We can stick together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PROKUPECZ: And there is Jacob Blake offering words of unity telling people to stick together to continue on doing what they're doing but most importantly unity and that has been the message today from, it would seem, Senator Harris telling the family to keep fighting.

[15:35:03]

And then we have it there from Jacob Blake from his own mouth, from his hospital bed talking about all of the pain that he's been through -- Pam.

BROWN: All right, Shimon Prokupecz live for us in Kenosha, Wisconsin, thanks, Shimon.

And up next the one item that belonged to his late son Beau that Joe Biden carries with him everywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In our POLITICS LEAD now, it seems no one person has had a more profound impact on Joe Biden than his son Beau who tragically died from brain cancer in 2015. CNN's Gloria Borger sat down with the presidential candidate as he emotionally recalled their special bond as part of the new CNN documentary "BIDEN'S LONG JOURNEY."

[15:40:02]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): While the vice president tried to help his son, the son tried to help his father.

TED KAUFMAN, FRIEND AND LONGTIME POLITICAL ADVISER: I absolutely believe, and I'll believe it to the day that I die that the thing that Beau was most afraid of was not dying. What he was most afraid is the impact it would have on his dad. That would really take his dad out.

BORGER (on camera): Did he tell you that?

KAUFMAN: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. All of the time.

BORGER (voice-over): It's something that the Vice President wrote about in 2017 in his book "Promise Me, Dad."

JOE BIDEN, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Beau just made me promise, this is just before he died. He said, dad, you got to promise me you're going to be OK. I said, Beau, I'll be. He said, dad, look at me, look me in the eye,

dad, you're going to be OK.

BORGER (on camera): Are you OK?

BIDEN: I am. Because it is still emotional. But I knew what he meant. He was worried I'd walk away from everything I worked in my whole life, the things I carried about. He knew I'd take care of the family. He never wondered about that, but he didn't want me walking away.

BORGER (voice-over): Beau Biden died on May 30th, 2015. He was 46 years old.

(on camera): Is it true you keep Beau's rosary with you?

BIDEN: Got it in my pocket.

BORGER: All of the time?

BIDEN: I keep it all of the time. He had it when he passed away. It was more gold. You can see it's worn.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And CNN's Gloria Borger joins me now. Wow, Gloria, as we saw Biden, he got emotional talking to you about Beau, understandably. Based on your work on this documentary, how is Beau a driving force for this campaign?

BORGER: Well, I think Beau kind of seems to be in a way overseeing everything. Biden talks an awful lot about finding purpose after suffering through something like he suffered through with Beau. And you heard him talk about his conversation with Beau.

And in many ways, you know, I think, you know, when he sometimes jokes about it, you know, what would Beau do, and what would Beau think about this?

And we heard him after he chose Kamala Harris, one of the things he pointed out, Pamela, was of course that Beau was friends with Kamala Harris. And that seemed to be a big point on her resume in terms of how he decided. So, I think that in a way Biden thinks Beau is the more perfect Biden. And will always consider him that way.

BROWN: And he showed us the rosary, the rosary that he carries with him. Biden also credits faith to keep him going.

BORGER: Yes, he's a very devout Catholic. And he was throughout Beau's illness and I remember talking to Jill Biden about this. I said to her, did you ever lose faith when Beau was so sick and diagnosed with this deadly brain tumor? And she said, I did lose faith. But my husband never did. And I think you see that in Biden in a lot of ways. In carrying the rosary.

I talked to people who told me while Beau was sick, that Biden would just take out a rosary, it wasn't Beau's at that time. But just take out a rosary and they could tell he was praying while Beau was sick.

So, it's been inculcated in him since he was a young kid, they were an Irish catholic family and I think he carries it with him.

BROWN: And Beau's military service is also something that we know that drives Biden's reaction like what we saw last week after that "Atlantic" article, right.

BORGER: Oh right. I haven't seen Biden that angry in a very, very long time. And when he came out it was clear to me that he was coming out as the father of someone who has served. And that he took those insults that were quoted in "The Atlantic" very personally. As the parent of a soldier.

And I think he -- you know, I could see that anger in him and I think everybody else could too as you're watching it, and he said, my son served and clearly believes his son was not a loser and his son was not a sucker.

BROWN: So, this documentary is a very personal look at Biden. And I know that we're going to learn more about him that we didn't already know even though he's been in the public eye for so long. What do you think people will walk away with from watching this documentary?

[15:45:00]

BORGER: Well, I hope they'll get a whole sense of his entire career. We know about him as Vice President. But you have to go back to the days when he ran in 1972 for the Senate at the age of 29, Pamela, before you could even serve. You have to be 30 to serve in the Senate. So, his birthday was after he won the election.

And take him through his years in the Senate, where he was Chairman of The Judiciary Committee for the Bork hearings and the Clarence Thomas hearings with Anita Hill. And then Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee where he was involved in awful lot of foreign policy decisions, of course and to the vice presidency with Barack Obama.

It's a public serve career that spanned almost five decades. So, I think there's a lot to go over. And a lot of things I thought I knew, but I didn't really know until I started doing the reporting on it.

BROWN: Well, I have to say I cannot wait to watch this, Gloria.

BORGER: Thank you.

BROWN: Gloria, thank you so much. Everyone be sure to watch this CNN documentary, "BIDEN'S LONG JOURNEY" airing tonight at 8:00 p.m. right here on CNN. A vocal critic of Vladimir Putin just came out of a coma after doctors

say he was poisoned by the same substance Russia has been accused of using before.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:50:00]

BROWN: In our WORLD LEAD, Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny is out of a coma weeks after German doctors found that he was poisoned with a Soviet-era chemical agent. And with the Putin critic now awake, we could learn more about how and who poisoned him. CNN's Matthew Chance brings us the mystery from Moscow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They're calling it the mysterious poisoning of Alexey Navalny. Russian state television trying to sow doubts among its viewers that the Kremlin's loudest critic was silenced on purpose, a target.

We sent Navalny to Germany with no poisons in his body, the anchor says, the suggestion if he was poisoned it was by another's hand.

UNIDENTIFIED RUSSIAN TV ANCHOR (through translator): Everything looks like a special services operation in which a poisoned Navalny is needed more than a non-poisoned one. The poisoned Navalny is an excellent playing card in the hands of the Americans.

CHANCE: You think the poisoning in Russia theory would be hard to deny given these disturbing images of Navalny writhing in agony as he was stretchered off a plane in Siberia last month. Even the testimony of German officials who say the nerve agent Novichok is the cause hasn't convinced everyone. Apparently not even the U.S. President.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't know exactly what happened. I think it's tragic, it's terrible. It shouldn't happen. We haven't had any proof yet, but I will take a look.

CHANCE: But doubts in the U.S. add credence to conspiracy theories over here. These were the scenes this weekend in Belarus where popular anti-government protests stoked fears that Russian forces could intervene according to the embattled Belorussian President who wants Moscow support. The Navalny poisoning was a distraction fabricated by foreigners to keep the Kremlin out.

He even released what he said was an intercepted phone call between unidentified figures in Germany and Poland discussing the plot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I agree we need to discourage Putin from poking his nose in the affairs of Belarus. The most effective way is to drown him in Russia's problems.

CHANCE: Russia has form when it comes to making stuff up to explain what looks like overwhelming evidence against it. Back in 2018 after another Novichok poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain, the two suspects, Russian military intelligence, according to British authorities, appeared on state television with an extraordinary tale of two men with a shared love of architecture on a short break together.

Unfairly accusing the couple of close friends or silencing a Kremlin critic at home. For Russian TV, there are no lengths its enemies won't go to, to make Russia look bad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE: Well, Pam, tonight there's a bit of good news for Alexey Navalny. Apparently according to the clinic in Berlin where he's being treated, his condition has been improved. He's been woken up from his medically induced coma. He's being gradually weaned off the ventilator he's been on for some weeks now. And he's responding apparently to verbal stimuli according to the clinic.

But the doctors there say they still can't assess at this stage what long-term damage may have been done by what they describe as a serious poisoning -- Pam.

BROWN: And the U.K. has summoned its Russian ambassador because of the poisoning. Is that right?

CHANCE: It has. I mean the British government has been expressing its outrage to the Russians that this could have happened. Dominic Raab who's the British Foreign Secretary summoned the Russian ambassador today to register what they say is their deep concern about the poisoning of Alexey Navalny.

It is completely unacceptable, the British Foreign Secretary said that a banned chemical weapon has been used and Russia must hold a full transparent investigation. That's in stark contrast, of course, to the words that we heard in that report from President Trump who still has not publicly accepted the evidence that Alexey Navalny was actually poisoned.

BROWN: All right, Matthew Chance, live for us in Moscow, thanks so much, Matthew.

And coming up, a massive wildfire is burning over 7,000 acres because of a baby gender reveal party that went terribly wrong. And that is not the only fire burning out of control. We'll be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:55:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROWN: And welcome to the special edition of THE LEAD. I'm Pamela Brown in for Jake Tapper today.

And we begin with our 2020 LEAD. It's now the final stretch of the presidential campaign. And Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Mike Pence, the Vice President, are all in battleground states today. President Trump is here in Washington defending his record on

coronavirus and attacking comments Kamala Harris and Joe Biden made about a coronavirus vaccine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: His very liberal running mate, the most liberal person in Congress, by the way, is not a competent person, in my opinion, would destroy this country, it would destroy this economy.