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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Trump Criticizes U.S. Military Generals; Trump Blasts Doubters of Early Coronavirus Vaccine; Labor Day Crowds Drive Fears of New Virus Spikes. Aired 4-4:30p ET
Aired September 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]
(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 and would destroy this economy, should immediately apologize for the reckless anti-vaccine rhetoric that they are talking right now, talking about endangering lives.
And it undermines science.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Well, all of this is happening as fallout continues over that "Atlantic" article, which claimed President Trump had called fallen U.S. service members suckers and losers, as CNN's Jeremy Diamond reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Today, President Trump seizing on Senator Kamala Harris' vaccine comments, calling on Harris and Joe Biden to apologize.
TRUMP: Biden and his very liberal running mate should immediately apologize for the reckless anti-vaccine rhetoric that they are talking right now. It undermines science.
DIAMOND: But Trump is mischaracterizing Harris' answer when asked if she would trust a vaccine touted by Trump.
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump. I would trust the word of public health experts and scientists, but not Donald Trump.
DIAMOND: Trump, who has repeatedly undermined public health experts and pressured government agencies to rush a vaccine, insisting Harris is playing politics.
TRUMP: She's talking about disparaging a vaccine, so that people don't think the achievement was a great achievement.
DIAMOND: Even as he continues to suggest, without any evidence, that a vaccine could be ready by Election Day.
TRUMP: We're going to have a vaccine very soon, maybe even before a very special date. You know what date I'm talking about.
DIAMOND: Trump is also still defending himself from an "Atlantic" magazine bombshell, insisting he never referred to fallen service members as suckers and losers and touting a new denial by a former aide.
TRUMP: I was very happy to see Zach Fuentes came out. And so I was happy to see that Zach came out and said it's not true. He just came out. And it's a disgrace. Who would say a thing like that? Only an animal would say a thing like that.
DIAMOND: Fuentes saying in a statement he -- quote -- "did not hear POTUS call anyone losers" when he told Trump he could not fly to a World War I ceremony because of weather.
But Fuentes also suggesting Trump may have made similar comments another time, saying sources may be -- quote -- "conflating stories."
Even if Trump insisted he would never disparage the military, he attacked the military brass.
TRUMP: I'm not saying the military is in love with me. The soldiers are. The top people in the Pentagon probably aren't, because they want to do nothing but fight wars, so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.
DIAMOND: Trump taking questions today after delivering charged political attacks on the front steps of the White House.
TRUMP: Biden's a stupid person. You know that.
DIAMOND: And falsely claiming the U.S. is leading the world in suppressing the coronavirus.
TRUMP: We're hopefully rounding the final turn in the pandemic. We are an absolute leader in every way.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DIAMOND: And Pam on this Labor Day, schools across the country are preparing to reopen amid a pandemic.
But they don't have the funding needed to reopen safely. That's because negotiations on Capitol Hill have stalled amid gridlock between the president and Democratic negotiators. The president, of course, has refused to sit down with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
And he insisted again today when he was pressed on it that nothing would change if he did sit down with them. He said, instead, he's taking the -- quote -- "high road" by not sitting down and negotiating directly -- Pam.
BROWN: All right, Jeremy Diamond, thanks so much.
And any minute now, presidential candidate Joe Biden will join a virtual event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He spent Labor Day visiting the largest federation of unions in the United States, and he met with AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka.
CNN's Jessica Dean joins us live now.
So, Jessica, let's start with those comments from President Trump. He said Biden and Harris should apologize for their -- quote -- "anti- vaccine rhetoric."
JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What has Biden said today?
Well, he did talk about it today briefly on the campaign trail. Pam. He is in that critical battleground state of Pennsylvania. And when asked by a reporter if he would take a COVID vaccine if it was made available before Election Day, here's what Joe Biden said earlier today:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSEPH BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's said so many things that aren't true.
I'm worried, if we do have a really good vaccine, people are going to be reluctant to take it. And so he's undermining public confidence.
But pray God we have it. If I could get a vaccine tomorrow, I would do it. If it cost me the election, I would do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEAN: Biden also-called for full transparency around the vaccine process and also added, as we have heard him say time and time again -- we also heard Kamala Harris earlier in the show talking about it -- that they must listen to the scientists, that they're going to be guided by scientists, and what they say is correct and safe when it comes to a vaccine -- Pam.
BROWN: All right, Jessica Dean, thank you so much for that.
[16:05:02]
And joining us now, CNN's John Harwood and "Washington Post" White House reporter Toluse Olorunnipa.
Thanks so much for coming on this Labor Day, gentlemen. Great to have you here.
John, I want to start with you. Today, President Trump said Biden and Harris are casting a possible
vaccine in a negative light for political reasons. But then, when asked if Trump is pushing a vaccine for political reasons, here's what he said:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: No, I'm saying that because we want to save a lot of lives.
The fast -- with me, it's the faster, the better. With somebody else, maybe they would say it politically. But I'm saying it in terms of, this is what we need. We have to have -- if we get the vaccine early, that's a great thing, whether it's politics or not.
Now, do benefits inure if you're able to get something years ahead of schedule? I guess maybe they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: So, John, how much weight does this potential vaccine really have on the election?
JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think it would be a significant effect, Pam, on the mood of the country if people had the credible news that a vaccine was on the way and try to lift this cloud that has shrouded the entire country for the last six months.
Look, I think, if you discount for the fact that everything any presidential candidate says during the homestretch of the campaign, they hope for political effects, the president is projecting. Here has injected himself, as Jeremy said in his piece, into the scientific process multiple times, shunted aside public health advice.
He is the one who has undermined confidence in what his administration is doing on coronavirus. That's why the polls show about a third or maybe 40 percent of Americans approve of the administration's response and a substantial majority disapprove.
It is the president who is concerned about his trailing position in the election, trying to push this forward as rapidly as possible. It's also why he's pushed unproven treatments like hydroxychloroquine. He is accusing Biden of what -- precisely what he is doing.
BROWN: Yes, that was striking, that he was accusing them of politicizing the vaccine, when he made clear today that he would like this vaccine before the election.
And we also heard Harris say that she would not trust President Trump alone on a vaccine, and that health experts would likely be muzzled or suppressed under this administration.
Toluse, are those comments going to hurt the Biden/Harris campaign if people choose to not get a vaccine?
TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I do think they have tried to clean up their comments over the past 24 to 48 hours to try to clarify that they make a difference between trusting the president, President Trump, and trusting the health experts.
Obviously, they have talked about the things that President Trump has said over the past several months, in which he's talked about injecting disinfecting and U.V. light and hydroxychloroquine.
So, the president has done himself no favors in this argument. But they have tried to make a very clear distinction, saying that, if someone like Dr. Fauci or the public health experts within the government said that the vaccine was safe and effective, then they would take it.
But we have heard from the Trump campaign trying to push back against this narrative, sort of describing Biden and Harris as anti-vaxxers, saying that they are pushing disinformation, pushing conspiracy theories. I think that's part of the reason they have tried to be more clear in their answers over the past 24 hours.
But this is an issue that I think voters are looking at very closely, especially as the president talks about a vaccine before Election Day. That's something that you don't hear very many respected public health experts predicting. And the fact that the president is getting ahead of his public health experts by saying a vaccine could be ready just in the next few weeks gives Biden and Harris an argument to make a distinction between trusting the president and trusting the public health experts.
BROWN: And this is the time John.
Look, it's Labor Day. This is the time that the campaigns really ramp up before the election, just a couple of months away.
And let's look back, right? Today, Joe Biden's in Pennsylvania. Before 2016, Pennsylvania has voted for Democrats in six straight presidential elections. How important is this state for both contenders?
HARWOOD: It's very important, Pam.
And if the president can somehow come back, overcome the deficit that he's looking at, and win it, that would cut off one of Joe Biden's path to 270 electoral votes. Donald Trump became president because he narrowly defeated Hillary Clinton in three Midwestern states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
The shortest path for Joe Biden to win the White House back is to take those states. He's got leads in all three. We have had polls showing different size of leads in Pennsylvania.
I think the average of polls is right around four, four to five points. That is not an overwhelming advantage. The president still has a chance. He's trying to rally that white working-class base.
But one of the things that we have seen, Pam, in this race is that both, nationally in the battleground states, the lead, the advantages for Biden have been pretty stable, larger national lead, smaller lead in the battleground states. [16:10:08]
But they haven't moved all that much. Certainly, the two conventions didn't do anything fundamental to this race. So, the burden is on President Trump to try to reverse that.
BROWN: Right.
Of course, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, these, Toluse, used to be what was considered the blue wall until 2016. When you look at how things are shaping up in these key states, what do you assess? How do you think things are going for the confirmed Trump and Biden?
OLORUNNIPA: Well, I think John hit the nail on the head in terms of the importance of these states and how these various campaigns are looking at these states as critical in their paths to try to get to 270.
I do think that the race is relatively close, in part because there are some voters who have not made up their mind. While the vast majority of have already made up their mind, I think the fight right now is over the next 10 to 15 percent of Americans specifically in those key states who are still making up (AUDIO GAP) deciding whether or not they want to go with President Trump because they like some of his policies, like what happened with the economy, to the extent that polls show that President Trump is more trusted on the economy.
Maybe they don't like his personality as much. And (AUDIO GAP) about voting for Joe Biden, in part because they think it's time to turn the page on a divisive era in which President Trump has really fanned the flames of division in the country.
So I do think that those states will be incredibly important. And you see the two campaigns taking completely different arguments to those different voters who are yet to make up their minds, President Trump focusing on law and order, Joe Biden focusing on healing the country.
BROWN: All right, Toluse, John, great to have you on. Happy Labor Day.
OLORUNNIPA: Happy Labor Day.
HARWOOD: You too.
BROWN: And now I want to bring in my colleague Barbara Starr, because we heard, Barbara, the president today at this press conference at the White House.
He was insisting that top military brass don't like him because he wants to end U.S. wars. What's been the reaction?
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Oh, well, Pamela, he started out, as he has for last several days, trying to push back against all these comments that allege he has made disparaging remarks about the U.S. military, all coming from the article in "Atlantic" magazine. He's trying to push back, trying to say that is not accurate, that
it's essentially not true. But then out of the clear blue sky, he launches this attack on his own military command.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The military is in love with me. The soldiers are. The top people in the Pentagon probably aren't, because they want to do nothing but fight wars, so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.
But we're getting out of the endless wars.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STARR: So, he says the troops love them, but the commanders don't, because they want to fight wars, that that's what they want to do to support defense contractors.
Look, that -- to say that is an allegation without proof or -- would be an overstatement. There is no proof that.
As our own analyst John Kirby points out, military commanders fight the wars that presidents tell them to fight. Wars are -- decisions to go to war are made by a president of the United States, not the generals, not the admirals.
So he's launching this attack against his own top military commanders. How this we will go over that with the troops, we simply don't know. But it also comes, very importantly, as there's increasing chatter around Washington that Mr. Trump could be getting ready to replace his own defense secretary, Mark Esper, another indication that he's just looking for some changes he wants to make.
We do not know what will happen next with that -- Pamela.
BROWN: And I know you will keep us posted, if anything does on that front.
Barbara Starr, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
Why scenes like this from around the country this Labor Day weekend are especially troubling doctors as we head into the fall.
Plus, we talk to one teacher going above and beyond to make sure her students and their families have access to food during this pandemic.
We will be back.
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PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: In the health lead today, we expect to see packed beaches and large parties on a normal Labor Day weekend. But scenes like this right here in the middle of a global pandemic are driving fears of another spike in new cases. We saw it after Memorial Day and after the Fourth of July.
And as CNN's Nick Watt reports, top health experts say these massive gatherings combined with students returning to school could lead to a disastrous fall and winter.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Is this the spark for another surge? Or this or this? We'll find out in a few weeks.
MAYOR FRANCIS SUAREZ, MIAMI: Things have stabilized, things are much better, but we have seen spikes after long weekends.
WATT: In part due to Memorial Day crowds celebrating the start of summer, new case counts soared from around 20,000 a day mid-May to over 70,000 a little more than a month later. And labor day, we're starting from a much higher base line.
DR. PETER HOTEZ, DEAN, NATIONAL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: I don't think it'll take much to really bring us back up to 70,000 new cases a day.
WATT: This weekend, of course, also marks the unofficial start of fall when people will be moving more indoors, when infection risk rises and --
DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: People are exhausted. That's another challenge trying to keep up our vigilance at a time when we know this could spread more aggressively.
WATT: It's also back to school time. Colleges now in every single state dealing with outbreaks. Eleven Northeastern students just kicked out for the entire semester without refunds after allegedly gathering in a hotel room.
[16:20:03]
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Keep them at the university in a place that is sequestered enough from the other students, but don't have them go home because they could be spreading it in their home state.
WATT: Twenty-nine states right now seeing 5 percent or more tests coming back positive. A bad sign. The past few days, West Virginia and North Dakota seeing record infection rates. Missouri and Puerto Rico seeing record death tolls.
Meanwhile as we near Election Day, the president says we've turned the corner.
TRUMP: We're going to have a vaccine very soon, maybe even before a very special date. You know what date I'm talking about.
GOTTLIEB: I think the likelihood that we're going to have a vaccine for widespread use in 2020 is extremely low.
WATT: At least three potential vaccine producers, rivals, reportedly now preparing a joint statement that they will not seek government approval until they know for sure the vaccine is safe and effective, this according to "The Wall Street Journal."
HOTEZ: The fact that we're seeing the pharmaceutical companies, sort of, protecting the U.S. population from the government is something I've never seen before.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WATT: So, the president wants a vaccine as soon as possible. He wants schools to be open brick and mortar. He wants normality.
Now, we are tracking 101 biggest K-12 districts in the country. Sixteen of them are starting their school year tomorrow morning. Fourteen of the 16 online only, including Chicago, Houston, Dallas, and Baltimore -- Pamela.
BROWN: All right. Nick watt, thanks so much for that.
I want to bring in Dr. Seema Yasmin, a former disease detective for the CDC and a CNN medical analyst.
Great to see you.
Let's start with what we're seeing today across the country as we speak. We're seeing packed beaches, as you see right here, little social distancing. Is it inevitable that we are going to see another spike in coronavirus cases like we did after Memorial Day holiday and Fourth of July holiday?
DR. SEEMA YASMIN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It's really worrying from that perspective, Pamela, because as you said with Memorial Day, we saw those spikes happen and we know there's a lag. It's not like you will see the spike in cases a day or two after. It can take about two weeks.
The concern is that people are fed up. This country has not had the pandemic response that it should have. So we're not in a position like many other countries around the world where we can start to have larger gatherings or start to ease restrictions a little bit. We're not in that position because we're still seeing around 40,000 Americans newly infected every day.
And these kinds of images and just the thought of people getting together for barbecues and pool parties for the long weekend certainly worries us that we will just see more and more new infections and more and more deaths.
BROWN: Is this just a vicious cycle, a pattern that we're going to see happen over and over again until there is a widespread vaccine, cases spikes, cities locked down, cases declined, people go back to normal until another spike? Is this just kind of what we're in for until the vaccine is available? YASMIN: So, it's important to remember that even if we get a safe and
effective vaccine, first, we'll need about 60 or 70 percent of people to get it so that we have that herd level immunity, what we also call community immunity.
But it doesn't mean that just because we have a vaccine, we can let down our guard completely because even at that point we'll still need to be doing some physical distancing in places and still need to be really making sure people observing good hand hygiene, still wearing masks in some cases as well.
So, it's all of that together. It's not like a vaccine comes along and that's our full answer.
BROWN: Right.
YASMIN: We'll gradually get to that, but it will be step-by-step.
BROWN: And for some, you'll have to have two doses. It's not so clear-cut, so simple. But yet, the president continues to suggest or allude to a vaccine possibly being approved before Election Day.
What is the practical impact of these comments from the president of the United States on those vaccine developers on the vaccine process?
YASMIN: I think it's scaring them. I think it's scaring them to the point that we're seeing these rival competitor, vaccine makers getting together to write this public pledge to all of us, to say, hey, look, we need you to know we're not cutting corners, we're doing this properly, that even saying we think in this pledge, it's forthcoming, that they're not going to prematurely submit any data to federal regulators because they understand that this whole exercise, the whole point of a vaccine, it all hinges on trust, and the president's been chipping away at that.
We've seen how it's impacted scientists even at the FDA, Pamela, there are some top regulators saying that they are thinking of getting together to write their own public pledge as well. That's pretty unprecedent when it comes to federal scientists. So, people are so worried that all of this good, all of this money and effort into developing vaccines could all be undone because of political pressure.
BROWN: And what about finding the necessary volunteers for the trials that are so critical for the necessary data to approve the vaccine?
[16:25:04]
YASMIN: We can't have safe vaccines without those amazing volunteers who sign up for these clinical trials. And this just makes it even more tricky, more challenging, more scary for them as well. People need to know that the scientists are doing their job, that they are being scientists, that they are not being pressured by politicians. They're not speeding things up to the point where it's unsafe.
So, this political pressure, this administration kind of worrying us in terms of potentially springing an October surprise. All of that is so bad for the science at a time when we need public trust in scientists.
BROWN: I want to go to what we just heard from Nick Watt's piece. He mentioned 29 states are seeing a positivity rate above 5 percent, which is the CDC's benchmark. How concerning is that as we see schools restarting across the country as we head into flu season?
YASMIN: It's really worrying because it's not just that we're seeing a spike and then seeing it come down eventually. We're seeing states across the country that are spiking and then consistently having these high case rates. There are about six to ten states where the numbers are going up and they just keep going up. And then there are some states on Pacific territories as well where the numbers have been low historically and they're going up too. So that trend is completely in the wrong direction.
BROWN: OK. So let's look at the big picture here. The pandemic was announced in March, and now we are in September. The president said today at the White House during this press conference if you want to call it that, that the U.S. is a leader in the world on combating coronavirus.
Is that true? Where is the U.S. in the grand scheme of things compared to other countries?
YASMIN: It's not true. And you don't have to have the degrees. I have to say that it's not true. I think so many people with common sense who can look at the charts, look at what's happening in their communities will tell you the U.S. is absolutely not leading the science or the public health response in the way that other countries are.
And I think it's really gaslighting us, to be honest, to keep saying that because on the one hand, the politicians will say things are going great, some politicians at least. On the other hand, we're seeing about a thousand Americans die every day. That is not acceptable. That is not the sign of a competent functioning government or a good pandemic response.
BROWN: Right. And, you know, the fall and the winter could be crucial. I mean, we think it's hard now. It could potentially be even worse then with the confluence of the flu and coronavirus, right? I mean, what could that look like? What do we need to brace ourselves for?
YASMIN: Absolutely. So you remember in the spring when we were talking so much about flattening the curve and the whole point of that was to protect the health care system to prevent the overwhelming of hospitals and clinics. But then think about an average flu season. That can start to overwhelm health care systems just with the flu alone.
Add into that a global pandemic that the U.S. is still not getting under control. You combine those two, the flu and COVID-19, and we really need to make sure that people are getting their flu vaccines, physical distancing, wearing masks and doing those things that will protect them from both viruses, both from influenza and from COVID-19. BROWN: I think it's just -- we have to buckle up. It's going to be a
difficult fall and winter is the bottom line. We have to be prepared for that.
YASMIN: Yeah.
BROWN: All right. Dr. Seema Yasmin, thank you so much for coming on.
YASMIN: Thank you.
BROWN: Well, multiple fires burn out of control, leading firefighters exhausted in California, and Mother Nature is only making the conditions worse.
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