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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Trump Continues Casting Doubt on U.S. Election Systems; COVID- 19 Outbreak Hits NFL Team; Biden Campaigns in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired September 30, 2020 - 16:30   ET

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

[16:30:00]

ELIZABETH NEUMANN, FORMER U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY ASSISTANT SECRETARY: It is a problem that, overwhelmingly, 76 percent of lethal terrorist attacks in the last 10 years have come not from ISIS, not from the left wing. They have come from right-wing violence, predominantly white supremacists.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And, Elizabeth Neumann, I know that one of the reasons that you have condemned President Trump is because of this, even though you are a strong conservative.

Thank you so much for joining us today and for your courage in speaking out. We appreciate it.

NEUMANN: Thanks for having me.

TAPPER: Right now, Joe Biden is riding a train through Trump country with a new line of attack. What is it?

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:35:14]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Last night's debate and this election is supposed to be about you, Tiffany (ph), about you and all the people I grew up with in Scranton and people in Youngstown and Claymont, Delaware.

Does your president understand at all what you're going through?

I think he basically looks down on us. He judges us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Welcome back.

In our 2020 lead, that's Joe Biden speaking directly to the public after that debacle of a debate with President Trump last night. Today, the former vice president launched a multistop train tour through Ohio and Pennsylvania, in which he is attempting to highlight working families.

CNN's Arlette Saenz is live for us in Alliance, Ohio.

And, Arlette, it looks as though Biden is figuratively getting the train back on track after last night went off the rails.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: While, Jake, Joe Biden is chugging along on the campaign trail, as he's taking this roughly 200- mile tour from Cleveland straight into Trump country in Pennsylvania, as he is trying to court some of those Trump voters from back in 2016, as he heads into this November election.

But, earlier today, on one of his train tour stops here in Alliance, Ohio, Biden gave an assessment of last night's debate, saying that the president made it all about himself with his constant interrupting and that he was not speaking directly to the concerns of the American people.

Biden told me that he could understand why Americans might be turned off by politics after what they witnessed last night. Take a listen to a bit more of what he had to say here in Alliance, Ohio.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Last night reinforced for me why I got in this race in the first place.

That the president of the United States conducted himself the way he did, I think, was just a national embarrassment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: Now, Biden also forcefully criticized the president again for his refusal to denounce white supremacy. He talked about the president's comments about that far right extremist group the Proud Boys, when the president told them to stand down and stand by.

Biden said his message to that group is to cease and desist and once again argued that combating groups like that is part of the reason he got into this race that he has framed as a battle for the soul of America.

Biden also told me that he's looking forward to those future debates with the president, but he hopes that the moderators will come up with a way for both of the candidates remain uninterrupted at times, Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Arlette Saenz, thanks so much.

Let's discuss this all with CNN's Abby Phillip and "The Washington Post"'s Philip Bump.

Abby, let me start with you.

So Biden is trying to paint Trump as a fancy Ivy Leaguer from Park Avenue who looks down on blue-collar working-class voters, state school grounds like himself. He's trying to paint himself almost as if he is a member of Trump's base, in a way. What do you think?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think that this is the path, maybe the only path really available to Joe Biden, if he's going to try to do a little bit better than Hillary Clinton did among white voters.

Joe Biden has long relied on his biography, coming from Scranton, talking about his father's words that a job is more than a paycheck. He says that, I mean, I would probably say almost every day. That is a part of his political identity.

And I think that the idea here is to convince those voters that Joe Biden is one of them. I think it's probably more effective that way than trying to convince them that Trump is sort of the kind of Ivy League prince of Park Avenue, because I think people know that Trump is rich, and they don't care. They think that he understands them anyway.

So it's better for Biden probably to just try to say to these voters, I identify with you because I was one of you earlier on in my life.

TAPPER: Phil, obviously, the moment getting a lot of attention, President Trump's refusal to explicitly condemn white supremacists and what he said about the far right neo-fascist group the Proud Boys.

Now he's claiming he doesn't know who they are. But you wrote something very interesting in "The Washington Post" today. You said: "It wasn't just the Proud Boys. Trump refused to dissuade supporters from a violent response to the election."

Explain what you mean.

PHILIP BUMP, "THE WASHINGTON POST": So one of the things that we have seen over the past few weeks is, President Trump has repeatedly refused to say that he will ensure that there's a peaceful transition of power.

Part of that stems from the fact that he doesn't want to admit that there may be a transfer of power at all. He doesn't want to admit that he might lose this election.

But he was asked about that last night in the debate by the moderator very specifically, will you call upon your supporters to wait until the votes are counted and to not engage in any civil unrest? And Trump refused to do that.

He instead put a focus on saying that his supporters should go out to the polls and look for wrongdoing, whatever that looks like. Obviously, there's a subtext there in terms of rooting out people who shouldn't be voting.

[16:40:05]

But he refused to say, no, these people should not participate in any sort of unrest, should the results of the election not go the way they want, which is a much -- obviously, much broader group of people to whom he's sending a very specific message.

TAPPER: Yes. And, look, there are ways to have poll watchers organized by campaigns and parties that are approved with states and counties and election boards.

And then there's just the invitation for chaos of having your supporters march into polling places.

Abby, let's play that exchange with Chris Wallace and President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS WALLACE, MODERATOR: will you pledge tonight that you will not declare victory until the election has been independently certified?

President Trump, you go first.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully, because that's what has to happen.

I am urging my people. I hope it's going to be a fair election. If it's a fair election...

WALLACE: You're urging them what?

TRUMP: ... I am 100 percent on board. But if I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated, I can't go along with that. And I will tell you what. From a commonsense...

WALLACE: What does that mean, you can't go along? Does that mean you're going to tell your people to take to the streets?

TRUMP: I will tell you what it means. It means you have a fraudulent election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So much of this is just based on complete falsehoods and conspiracy theories.

But, Abby, I think Phil was actually being nice. I mean, that sounded like a call to arms.

PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, it's -- these are clear scare tactics, because listen carefully to what's going on there.

He's both saying that mail-in ballots, for some reason that he's completely inventing, tens of thousands of them would be tampered with. There's absolutely no evidence of that.

And, at the same time, he's also saying that he wants people to go into the polling places where people are voting in-person and try to find fraud where there is none. I mean, this is the entirety of the electoral system that the

president is trying to undermine with absolutely no evidence. And the fact that he won't acknowledge that every vote that is legal and valid ought to be counted is a really significant thing.

And it fits with everything that he's been doing for the last several months. We cannot take it in isolation, in addition to the fact that we should also add he said he wants law enforcement at the polls. That's the kind of thing that has gotten the Republican Party slapped on the wrist by the courts in the past.

And President Trump is explicitly saying that he wants it to happen again this year.

TAPPER: All right, Abby Phillip, Phil Bump, thank you both. Appreciate it.

Another key issue at last night's debate, the coronavirus. And now the virus is forcing the NFL to postpone one of Sunday's game.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:46:54]

TAPPER: In our health lead today: The NFL is warning teams that, if they don't follow coronavirus guidelines, they could suffer suspensions and even forfeit draft picks, after some coaches have been seen on the sidelines not wearing masks and not practicing social distancing during games.

The NFL postponed the Pittsburgh Steelers-Tennessee Titans game set for Sunday, after the Titans had four players and five staff members test positive for the virus.

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now to discuss.

And, Sanjay, masks were a hot topic of the debate last night, among many other topics.

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

TAPPER: Take a listen to this quick clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: If we just wore a mask between now -- if they're -- everybody wore a mask and social distanced between now and January, we'd probably save up to 100,000 lives. It matters. It matters.

TRUMP: And they've also said the opposite. They've also said the opposite.

BIDEN: And no -- no serious person said the opposite. No serious person ... (CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: So we'll look at -- look at Dr. Fauci -- Dr. Fauci said the opposite.

BIDEN: He did not say the opposite.

WALLACE: I want to ask you ...

TRUMP: He said very strongly ...

WALLACE: ... we've got a little bit longer than a minute left in this segment.

TRUMP: ... masks are not good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: I mean, it's such a -- it's just so insane.

Look, let's be clear. Fauci did advise against wearing masks in the early days of the pandemic, in February and March, when other health experts were saying that same thing. But he, like other health experts, quickly changed course and started strongly advocating for them, once science proved their effectiveness.

But here's Trump trying to muddy the waters. Why even do that? What does that achieve?

GUPTA: I don't know.

The masks are one of the most confusing things about this whole thing, Jake, because shutting down businesses, I get it, the economic sort of impact of that. Wear a mask. I mean, it's really simple.

And the 100,000 number that Vice President Biden was quoting was from the IHME model, a model that the White House uses. That's one of their models that they go to on this.

The effectiveness of the mask, as well as something else that happened in late March, sort of late February, early March, I think, really changed Fauci's mind on this.

And I really want to make this point. Listen to how Dr. Fauci put it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: Back then, we were not aware that 40 to 45 percent of people were asymptomatic. We need to put that nonsense behind us about, well, they keep changing their minds.

Masks work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: So, Jake, I think, typically, when you think of a respiratory virus, someone who's coughing or sneezing and having symptoms, those are the people that are usually contagious.

What became very clear during that early spring time frame, February, March, was that people could spread asymptomatically, and that that was a significant source of the spread.

So the idea that you were the masks so that you're not the spreader, I think, really became the key. That's the important thing, is that you wear it to protect those around you. You have to behave like you have the virus. That's what changed, I think, in Fauci's mind, and that's what the science showed.

TAPPER: But let -- because people are dying of this, I just want to take another beat on this, OK?

So Joe Biden was making the argument, everybody should wear masks, and Trump makes fun of them, he belittles them.

Now, Trump knows that the health experts say people should wear masks. His family showed up at this debate wearing masks, the first lady, his daughters, et cetera. They were wearing masks.

[16:50:08]

And yet, instead of saying, I do support wearing masks, everybody should wear a mask, just like my family is wearing tonight, he muddies the waters to score a political point, as if Joe Biden is wrong about masks. That's dangerous.

GUPTA: Yes.

TAPPER: That is continuing to put out information that confuses people.

GUPTA: There's there's no question about it.

And like I said, this will be one of the mysteries. I guess probably it's exactly what you say, Jake. It's just political points, because it doesn't make sense.

We know the president's worried about the virus. People around him are tested. He may have said it was a hoax, but he's certainly worried about it.

Why he doesn't encourage people who are his supporters to wear masks, why he'd belittles it, I guess it's just -- I have not been able to say that something was purely political. Politics entangles into all these matters of science that we talk about.

But this issue on masks sounds like it's just purely political.

TAPPER: Yes. And it's misinformation. And it's dangerous.

GUPTA: Yes.

TAPPER: The president also said, the vaccine will be ready in a few weeks. Is that possible? GUPTA: It's not going to be ready for you and me and the general

public. I mean, that's the perception that I think people take away from that, ready, we're ready to go, the pandemic is over.

As you know, even after the vaccine comes out, it's going to take some time to distribute it and to actually have it take effect. And we're talking next summer, possibly, for that -- a lot of that major distribution to take place.

What strikes me though, Jake, again, to your earlier point is, he's at odds, contradicting the very people that he hired. He brought in Moncef Slaoui to be the chief adviser to Operation Warp Speed, which is doing an incredible job.

I mean, they're moving along really fast. But even he doesn't believe that you're going to have that much vaccine ready.

I talked to him about it. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MONCEF SLAOUI, CHIEF ADVISER TO VACCINE EFFORT: If it's shown efficacious in November or in December, we don't have enough vaccine doses.

We'd have a few million in November and maybe 10, 20 million of each in December. That will be enough to vaccinate certain populations, start vaccinating certain populations, but not the whole population.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: He said he disagreed with Moncef Slaoui last night at the debate.

So, what are we to do, Jake? I mean, these are the world experts. That's what they're saying. And then you hear what the president says.

TAPPER: Yes.

And, look, the president should be praised for Operation Warp Speed. It's great. But then he undermines his own experts. It's befuddling.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much.

We don't know the president's COVID response plan, but we now have an idea of his three-pronged plan to win reelection. And that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:57:22]

TAPPER: Thirty-four days out from the election, some state officials are lining up to set the record straight after hearing this from President Trump last night:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: I'm urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very

carefully, because that's what has to happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Today, the secretary of state in Nevada and other states stressed this: "Voter intimidation is illegal."

The president seems to be campaigning not only against Joe Biden, but against the election itself.

And, as CNN's Pamela Brown reports, that's not the only statement now needing clarification.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Trump seemingly outlining at the debate a three-pronged strategy to win reelection. Disinformation.

TRUMP: It's a disaster.

BROWN: Intimidation.

TRUMP: Watch very carefully.

BROWN: And relying on realigned courts.

TRUMP: I think I'm counting on them to look at the ballots, definitely.

BROWN: Trump calling on supporters to watch people out the polls, not always in an official capacity, which Democrats fear could intimidate voters, something the Nevada attorney general said will not be allowed in his state, warning in a tweet: "You will be prosecuted."

Trump also is magnifying minor mail-in ballot issues, wrongly calling them:

TRUMP: Fraud like you have never seen.

BROWN: Pointing to his allies being denied entering an early voting site in Pennsylvania, which state rules don't allow, and railing against mail-in voting with more misinformation.

TRUMP: Take a look at West Virginia, mailman selling the ballots. They're being sold. They're being dumped in rivers.

BROWN: A false claim prompting West Virginia's Republican secretary of state to clarify in the statement: "A postal carrier altered absentee ballot applications, not ballots."

TRUMP: This is a horrible thing for our country.

BIDEN: There is no -- there is no evidence of that.

TRUMP: This is not going to end well.

BROWN: Trump also made clear his hope that pushing through his Supreme Court justice nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, will tip the scales at the high court and his favor.

TRUMP: I hope we don't need them in terms of the election itself. But for the ballots, I think so.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And Barrett has been back on Capitol Hill today. She's been meeting with GOP senators. And she has avoided saying that she would recuse herself over election matters.

Meantime, Jake, we are learning that more than 1.2 million ballots have already been cast this year so far, showing the intense interest in early voting -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Pamela Brown, thank you so much.

You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter @JakeTapper. You can tweet the show @THELEADCNN.

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

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