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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Do Trump's Debts Threaten National Security?; COVID Rates Rising; Interview With Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD); Report: Trump Paid Just $750 in Federal Taxes in 2016 and 2017. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired September 28, 2020 - 15:00   ET

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

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DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hopefully, crews will begin to make some progress, but, right now, this fire is zero percent contained -- Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Dan Simon, thank you.

And our special coverage continues now with Pamela Brown.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

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

And we begin with the bombshell investigation in our politics lead, "The New York Times" revealing President Trump paid zero federal income tax for 11 of the 18 years that the paper examined. Now, the year he was elected and his first year in office, 2016 and 2017, he paid just $750 each year.

And "The Times" also reports, while President Trump sold himself to the American public as a successful businessman, his companies have been bleeding money.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins is in Cleveland, where the president will debate Joe Biden for the first time tomorrow night.

So, Kaitlan, how is President Trump responding to this?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, naturally, Pam, we are seeing the president lash out about this.

His aides are trying to frame it as this kind of hit job coming before this first debate, given that this published less than 48 hours before the president is going to take the stage here behind me with Joe Biden for the first time.

And this is obviously going to be a topic that you are going to see the former vice president bring up, because this has been one of the most sensitive subjects for the president over the years, as he's claimed repeatedly that he's under audit, and that's why he can't release his tax information, something that even the IRS commissioner has said isn't true.

But, really, also, this comes down as a question of what voters believe when they see the president, because, for years, Pam, you know that the president has portrayed himself as this successful businessman who stepped away from making money to go and be president.

That's something that you still hear from voters today. And this extensive report in "The New York Times" not only goes to show how the president tried to pay no taxes at all for several years of the documents that they obtained, but, when he did pay taxes, he paid very little, including $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 or 2017.

But when he did pay taxes, he also got a big refund from the federal government, something that we are now learning from this "New York Times" report, this "New York Times" expose, is even under IRS audit as well.

So, really changing this narrative that the president has tried to portray not just since he's been running for president, Pam, but really for his entire life as a business mogul in New York.

BROWN: Right.

It's a fascinating look. And, also, it does confirm that his taxes are under audit. The president had been saying this for a while, but it still doesn't take away the fact you can release your taxes even if they're under audit, as you pointed out, Kaitlan.

And it's also what the president wrote off on his taxes that is raising eyebrows. Tell us about that.

COLLINS: Yes, it's things that the president considered to be business expenses, apparently, but most people would consider them to be personal expenses, including even $70,000 in hairstyling while he was the host of "The Apprentice."

But that's not the only part of this that's raising eyebrows. You also see here he paid almost a million dollars, $747,000, in consulting fees to his daughter, Ivanka Trump, who, of course, Pam, as you know, was a senior executive for the Trump Organization. She was already being paid half-a-million dollars.

But by charging -- by saying that these were consulting fees, the president was also able to lower his taxes and use deductions in that way. So, really, the question is -- and this defense that you have already seen coming out of the White House is, well, if the president could pay less taxes, why not? What's the problem with that?

But, of course, this is a president -- and past presidents have long been scrutinized for their taxes and for what they were paying to make sure they were paying know what hardworking Americans were also paying.

So, of course, a lot more questions are being raised by this. And also, Pam, of course, it's what's to come, because also in this report, it says that the president has millions of dollars in loans that he is personally responsible for that are going to be due within the next four years.

So, it's not just what's in the past, Pam. It's also what's in the future for the president.

BROWN: All right, Kaitlan Collins breaking it down for us there in Cleveland.

Thanks so much, Kaitlan.

And joining me now is Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.

Nice to see you, Senator.

I want to go off what Kaitlan just said, that, look, the White House says, the president says he is using the tax code in a way every American can.

Your response?

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD): Well, Pamela, it's good to be with you.

And, of course, we don't know the answer to that question, because the president refuses to disclose his taxes, like every other presidential candidate has done since Ronald Reagan.

As you just reported, the president can do that. He claims he's not because of an audit, but that's just a smokescreen. And so, if you look at what "The New York Times" has reported, like that $70,000 deduction for hairstyling,I mean, that's just one of many examples that suggests the president played fast and loose with the IRS code.

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And this is, again, why he's so determined to hide this from the American people.

BROWN: So, you say the president -- it's an example of the president playing fast and loose with the IRS code.

But there is a difference between illegally evading taxes and taking advantage of the tax code. Do you see anything that's actually illegal in the reporting?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, I have been listening to all the analysts, and looking into the reports, and there do seem to be some sketchy things as to what the president has claimed as deductions.

We also see these transfers of money to people like other family members, where they took a business deduction.

So, look, there's lots of sketchy stuff. But this certainly undermines the president's whole narrative that he was a successful businessman, because he can't have it both ways. Either he took huge losses on his businesses, despite all his puffery, or he's playing fast and loose, and possibly very illegally, with the tax code.

You really can't have it both ways. And so I think this is going to show the American people what a disconnect there is between the president's rhetoric about how he's looking out for everyday Americans and what he's doing himself.

After all--

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: So, do you think this will move the needle for Americans who are right now in the midst of voting, and, of course, the election right around the corner? You think that this will move the needle?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, I do think this can have an impact. I think this can hurt the president, because he goes out of his way to pretend that he's the guy that's looking after everybody else, when, in fact, he's paying $750 per year, taking $70,000 deductions for hairstyling, while the typical American family earning $60,000 is paying more taxes than Donald Trump.

And teachers who use their own money to buy books for their kids are capped at an annual deduction of $250. So, for a president who pretends to be looking out for the little guy, all this shows how disconnected he really is.

BROWN: But it is the problem here President Trump, or the problem the tax code that allows the wealthy to take advantage of the system?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, there's no doubt that, if he did this in a legal manner, there are huge problems with the tax code. And many of us have been trying to plug those loopholes for many, many years.

The president, of course, in his 2017 tax proposal, opened up even more loopholes for folks who do real estate deals and so many others, people who want to hide their assets overseas.

And, as we learned, the president is paying foreign governments some more taxes than he's paying to the U.S. government and the American people.

But, absolutely, we need to be closing these big loopholes in the tax code. The president has done nothing to do that, despite what he said in the 2016--

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: But do you blame the president for taking care -- taking advantage of some of these loopholes that you're pointing out?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, again, we don't know to what extent he was taking advantage of them legally and to what extent he was skirting the law.

That's why it's so important to see--

(CROSSTALK) BROWN: To get more information. And, clearly, you're not going to let up on that.

I just really want to ask you quickly, the president has, as we know, nominated Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. You have said you will -- quote -- "use every legal tool available to stop the abuse of power."

How can you do that, at the end of the day, when the Constitution allows the president to do what he did?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, there are a couple things here.

One, of course, is the precedent that was established by Mitch McConnell himself in 2016. And now he wants to apply one set of rules to Democratic presidents, like Barack Obama, and different ones to Donald Trump.

But we will use all the rules at our disposal to try to block this nomination. I would also point out that, in 2017, when everybody thought that the Republicans would succeed in their legislative effort to overturn the Affordable Care Act, the American public rallied, and they helped us defeat that effort by one vote.

People thought that it would go through, their effort to undo it. But, in the end, it didn't. We have two Republican senators so far. We need two more. And it is absolutely the case that the future the Affordable Care Act and protections for people with preexisting conditions is what this vote is all about, together with protecting women's reproductive rights, workers' rights, and so much else.

BROWN: All right, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, thank you for coming on.

VAN HOLLEN: Pamela, good to be with you.

And you don't want to miss President Trump and Joe Biden facing off in their first presidential debate. That's tomorrow night. You can see it all live right here on CNN starting at 7:00 p.m. Eastern time.

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BROWN: Well, kids return to the classroom in the nation's largest public school system at the same time that the city is seeing a spike in new coronavirus cases.

And then why President Trump's reported personal debt may pose a national security risk. It's all about who he owes.

We will be back.

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BROWN: And turning to our health lead now.

The White House is responding to the CDC director's comments about the president's COVID adviser Dr. Scott Atlas, after an NBC reporter overheard Dr. Redfield say -- quote -- "Everything he says is false."

Now, Atlas, who had no background in infectious diseases, has frequently given misleading information about masks, social distancing and herd immunity.

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But Trump says he consults with many experts who don't always agree with each other. Now 21 states are seeing a rise in new cases, and hospitalization rates have stopped declining, as CNN's Alexandra Field reports.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It honestly looks like it's business as usual.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Pre-COVID Florida in a post-COVID world, packed bars and restaurants all weekend in South Florida just days after Republican Governor Ron DeSantis dropped virtually all coronavirus restrictions.

DAN GELBER (D), MAYOR OF MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA: Everybody was surprised. I don't know anybody who got a heads-up.

FRANCIS SUAREZ (R), MAYOR OF MIAMI, FLORIDA: I think it's going to have a huge impact.

FIELD: No more fines for people who refuse to wear a mask. The state's new daily case count has been well below its July peak for more than a month, but the positivity rate remains over 10 percent.

GELBER: The mask thing is what is so confusing, because we -- last time he reopened, we had a surge that killed thousands of people in Florida and in our county.

FIELD: Across the country, new cases are on the rise in 21 states. In just the last few days, seven states and one U.S. territory saw their highest weekly averages for new cases, with Wisconsin recording its highest single-day increase over the weekend.

JOE PARISI, DANE COUNTY, WISCONSIN, EXECUTIVE: One of the biggest challenges we have is that some people just don't believe that this is a serious disease even to this day.

FIELD: In New York, more than 1,000 new cases on Saturday, the most since June. A major cluster in Brooklyn is partly to blame.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): It is very targeted and very focused in those clusters.

FIELD: Health officials are trying to slow the spread with in-person learning and part of the nation's largest school district set to start tomorrow. New York City's teachers union is insisting they still need up to 2,500 more teachers to do the job safely. The governor saying the state will track COVID testing numbers every day, in case there's an issue. CUOMO: If there's a problem, there is a problem. And the numbers will

show if there's a problem, and then we will act accordingly.

FIELD: All this as the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says the White House is pivoting away from the Coronavirus Task Force meetings and as new task force member and top virus adviser to the president Dr. Scott Atlas was reportedly criticized by another top official.

NBC News reporting that CDC Director Robert Redfield was overheard on the phone speaking about Dr. Atlas on a commercial flight, saying -- quote -- "Everything he says is false" and going to suggest that Atlas has provided the president with misleading data.

The CDC has responded with a statement saying, Redfield and Atlas have different positions on those issues and agree on many other issues.

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FIELD: And the CDC goes on to say that Atlas and Redfield have differing opinions when it comes to the value of wearing masks, herd immunity, and youth infection.

The White House is also responding to this by saying that the president consults with a number of experts who offer varying opinions. He uses all of those opinions to inform his policy.

And, Pamela, the White House goes on to say that everyone, including the president, recommends wearing a face mask when you cannot social distance. At least, that is what they are saying today.

BROWN: That is what they're saying.

All right, thanks so much, Alex Field.

And joining me now to discuss, former CDC disease detective Dr. Seema Yasmin.

Thanks so much for coming on. Nice to see you.

I first want to get your reaction to what we're seeing with the cases. New cases are ticking up in 21 states. And the CDC director is heard saying the president is getting bad information about the virus.

How concerning is this?

DR. SEEMA YASMIN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: This is exactly what we were worried would happen, Pamela, when states started to reopen too early, when there weren't widespread mask mandates, when there was a rush to send kids and young people back to school.

The experts, myself included, have been saying, hey, we're doing this too quickly. We're not letting cases go down to a much lower level before we lift these shelter-in-place policies.

What you worry about then isn't that there'll be an immediate uptick in cases, deaths and hospitalizations, because there's nearly always a lag, right, two weeks to four weeks to six weeks. It can look like things are great once things reopen, because you don't see that immediate hit.

But it doesn't take that long until it kicks in. And that's what we're seeing here. So, even as some states are reporting some good news, some declines, there are other whole regions of the country, including the Midwest, I'm thinking of, for example, where things are going in the wrong direction.

And it's very easy for states even like Florida to get complacent. The governor there lifted some coronavirus rules on Friday, or at least alluded to doing so. It's easy to get arrogant, to think that things are under control, to say things, as DeSantis has said, that we won't see a second wave, that hospitals are doing great, and for things to very quickly turn ugly, and for all those trends to head in the wrong and very dangerous direction.

BROWN: As you look at the overall picture in the United States, what direction is the country headed in right now?

YASMIN: Not the right direction.

And Dr. Fauci was just saying this late last week as well. Things are not headed where we want them to go. We want to see big declines in cases. We want to see big increases in testing.

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We're still not doing enough testing. We're doing about 849,000 tests per-day average. We should be doing more than a million if we really want to stop this virus spreading. So, that's not there.

And also, Pamela, what keeps happening is this debate about, should we have another lockdown, are lockdowns good, are they bad? It's a really pointless debate in some cases, because lockdowns are helpful as a short-term measure. You're asking people to really upend their lives, make a big sacrifice.

But the whole point of doing that is to buy governments time, so that they can institute mass testing, get results quickly, do contact tracing and isolating.

We saw the government here squander that very golden opportunity earlier this year, when all of us were doing shelter in place. Maybe we might need another lockdown. I don't know if that's going to happen. But, again, the problem is, you need to not just have short- term measures like that, but really long-term planning to getting this pandemic under control.

BROWN: But then we're at this point in the virus where people, a lot of people have fatigue, including myself, frankly.

YASMIN: Sure.

BROWN: I mean, it's hard to have the momentum to just keep going and keep going, when it's still very unclear when a vaccine is going to be widely available.

And you talk about the lockdown. Look at countries in Europe that did lock down. Everything dipped down very low, the infection rates, and now they're going way back up again. So, when people see that, they may feel sort of deflated. Like, what's the point of the lockdown again, if this is just going to happen anyway once we raise the lock -- the hold on the lockdown?

YASMIN: Yes, I'm with you.

I am so fed up. I want to go back to normalcy. But we can't do that unless we have these long-term plans to really get the virus in check. Those countries in Europe that are seeing surges after lockdown, they made that same mistake of not using that precious time in lockdown to institute those long-term plans.

That's what we need to get this under control. And I know, as someone who's also just fed up of physical distancing and wants to hug my friends, to be honest, that we can't do that until governments take control of this, and they're really not doing that.

And so, again, gets easy to blame individuals, to blame people, to say they're not physical distancing, they're not wearing a mask, but a lot of that comes from the top down. It comes from governments giving very mixed and confusing messaging, not modeling the right behavior in the first place, and not doing their job in terms of a pandemic response and effective leadership.

BROWN: So, let's talk about that, because now we're learning that there is a lot of disagreement among the leadership, those advisers to the president on coronavirus.

The CDC says that Redfield, Dr. Redfield, head of the CDC, and Atlas, this adviser to the president, have different opinions on three issues. And these are core issues, masks, youth infections and herd immunity.

What is alarming to you about that? I mean, the White House says it's important for the president to hear differing views. Do you agree?

YASMIN: What's alarming to me, Pamela, is that, as a politician who doesn't necessarily have a scientific background, what you can do, very conveniently, is speak to 100 doctors and scientists, until you find that one that tells you what you want to hear, until you find that one that shares your world view.

And that's what we're seeing here. It's not just the president. It's happening at state levels, too. Again, Governor DeSantis in Florida had a roundtable with scientists last week. These are scientists who are massive outliers from the rest of us.

These are scientists who are credible in some ways in their particular area, and who work at very credible Ivy League or Ivy-plus institutions, but who the rest of their colleagues are saying, hey, don't listen to them, they may work where we work, but they don't hold credible scientific views that are guided by the best available evidence.

So, it becomes really, really dangerous when leaders are not listening to the consensus in science and medicine, and they're finding those outspoken outlier scientists who are giving them bad advice.

BROWN: And, from what we can tell, Dr. Atlas is an outlier, compared to what we have heard from others that are on that task force.

All right, Dr. Seema Yasmin, thank you so much.

YASMIN: Thank you.

BROWN: Well, why the new reporting about President Trump's taxes could mean he's not eligible for a basic national security clearance.

We will be back.

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BROWN: In our world lead, "The New York Times" getting ahold of the president's taxes, revealing that, in 2016 and 2017, he only paid $750 in taxes.

And on top of that, these documents show the president from is $421 million in debt, most of it due in the next four years. But what we don't know is who President Trump owes that money to, leading some critics to argue that the president is a national security threat to Americans.

I want to bring in CNN's Alex Marquardt for more on this.

So, Alex, help us understand, what are the broader national security implications if the president has hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, like we're learning now?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Pam, as you said, $421 million.

And that means he owes it to someone, he's beholden to someone or to a group of people or too many groups of people. And that raises massive security concerns, because the thinking goes that it could affect the decision-making that he's -- he's carrying out on foreign policy, on military affairs, on intelligence.