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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Biden Speaks as President Trump is Treated for COVID, Has Fever. Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired October 02, 2020 - 16:30   ET

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

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean, these are serious things. And obviously again you layer on top, he's 74 years old, he has this history of these pre-existing conditions that put him at higher risk.

[16:30:04]

They've got to be very judicious here and not in any way sort of blow this off, Jake.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And, Abby, just to talk about the political consequences of this, which sounds cold, obviously, and again I speak for everybody at THE LEAD and everybody on this panel that we hope that everybody suffering from this horrible illness has a full and speedy recover, including, of course, the president of the United States and his wife.

But the idea that the president has at, at various times, not taken this pandemic as seriously as he needed to, and you can point to Operation Warp Speed to find a vaccine and advances in therapeutics. But as a general tone and tenor, he has not.

Hold on one second, Abby. Here is former Vice President Joe Biden speaking in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Before I start, let me explain the delay. We wanted to make sure that we were doing everything by the numbers. And so I got two -- two COVID tests this morning, one in Delaware and one by the former White House doc who came up, and everything is clear. We wanted to make sure everything was clear before I came.

And we were supposed to have an event after this at a -- at a headquarters. But based on the crowd size and indoors, it was concluded by the docs that it's best not to do it.

But I want to thank all of you. I want to thank Matt.

And, Matt, you're dead right. You were putting yourself on the line and a lot of other people did all across this country in your union.

And I want to thank David Way, secretary-treasurer of local 951, for having me here today. Look, this -- I'd like to start by acknowledging, which I'm sure all

of you do as well, sending my prayers for the health and safety of the first lady and the president -- the president of the United States after they tested positive for COVID-19. My wife Jill and I pray that they'll make a quick and full recovery.

This is not a matter of politics. It's a bracing reminder to all of us that we have to take this virus seriously. It's not going away automatically. We have to do our part to be responsible. It means following the science, listening to the experts, washing our hands, social distancing.

It means wearing a mask in public. It means encouraging others to do so as well. It means having masking mandates nationwide.

The director of the CDC, Center for Disease Control, Dr. Redfield said and I quote, and he held up a mask and he said, these face masks are the most important powerful public health tool we have. Then he held a mask up again and said this face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than a vaccine, end of quote.

Leading scientists from the University of Washington tell us that we can save more than 100,000 American lives in the next hundred days alone if everyone wore a mask in public.

So let me repeat that because it's so important. We can save 100,000 lives in the next 100 days according to the head of the CDC if everyone wears a mask in public.

So be patriotic. It's not about being a tough guy. It's about doing your part.

Wearing a mask is not only going to protect you but it also protects those around you -- your mom, your dad, your brother, your sister, husband, wife, neighbor, co-worker. Don't just do it for yourself. Do it for the people you love, the people you work with.

The seriousness of this virus also underscores that we need regular testing with results turned around rapidly and that's available to everyone. It's not just the folks in the White House or who travel with me that deserve regular testing. It's folks in the meatpacking and food processing plants, grocery store workers, every single American deserves safety and peace of mind.

And it means we need transparency. Those who test positive need to participate in contact tracing so that everyone who they may have exposed can get tested themselves. That's how you stop transmission for any epidemic. It's basic.

We need to take the science of fighting this disease seriously if we're going to save lives. And above all, the news is a reminder that we as a nation need to do better in dealing with this pandemic. Taking these steps is how we'll protect ourself. And just as important is how we will protect one another.

[16:35:01] I hope that all those who are fighting this virus, including the first family, and so many Americans today recover and recover soon. My prayers are with the families of the more than 200 -- I think it's 7 now -- 207,000 Americans who've died from this virus. Many of them got up this morning at the breakfast table with an empty chair of someone they lost and they loved. We understand.

And there's more than 7 million Americans who are now infected, have been infected. That includes folks here in Grand Rapids and all across Michigan, especially all of you with the UF -- with UFCW who are on the front lines of this pandemic and on the front lines of this economic crisis. UFCW workers who have always been on the frontlines of fighting for the dignity and respect you deserve.

I know it's been tough. This morning, September jobs report came out, the last one before Election Day. I'm grateful for all those who were able to get their jobs back to work again. But there are fewer jobs than we had hoped for, and millions of families, millions, are still wondering when it will be their turn to come back from the brink, and the signs according to national press, are not encouraging.

Once again, the pace of job gains is slowing down. Once again, we're seeing temporary layoffs turn permanent. This month marked the largest single-month increase in long-term unemployment since we started keeping records in 1948.

There are now an additional 781,000 Americans who have been trying to find work for at least six months. They've been looking for work for at least six months and haven't found it. And in the past, that's a sign for permanency for them.

We're still down 647,000 manufacturing jobs nationwide since the crisis started. All told, we are now 30 million workers who have either lost hours, lost paychecks, or lost their jobs entirely. Participating in a labor force, participation fell last month and remains sharply down since this crisis began, especially for women.

There's another roughly 700,000 people who have dropped out of the labor force, stopped looking for a job. The vast majority were women, demonstrating once again how this economic crisis has been especially tough on women and families in this country.

This will be the first presidency in modern history to leave office with fewer jobs than when it came into office. Michigan has lost more than 361,000 jobs since the beginning of 2017. In fact, factories were already closing before COVID, like the Knoll plant here in Grand Rapids. They announced back in January they were shutting down and cutting 210 local jobs.

Manufacturing has already slipped into a recession last year. The net loss of auto manufacturing jobs you saw here in Michigan.

And that economic pain was only amplified by the pandemic. Your schools and local businesses are closed, like all places around America. More than 26 million unemployment claims were filed by Americans last

month. Forty-six million Americans have exhausted their emergency savings. And essential workers here in Grand Rapids won't forget how the UFCW members saw their jobs turned suddenly into a life and death task.

Folks, today, today's report reinforces another painful trend, the continuing of what economists call a K-shaped recovery. And K means, the letter going up, that's those who -- on the top, it keeps going up. While everyone else in the middle is going down and below, we're seeing things get worse.

It means essential workers, UFCW workers who sacrificed to keep us going through the pandemic and continue it are being left behind by the most unequal recovery in modern history, because while workers are struggling, this is a fact, the top 100 billionaires in America have done pretty well, just the top 100 of them. They've made up more than $30 billion this year, in the last nine months.

[16:40:09]

And everyone else, though you get, you keep hoping you get the bottom of that K-shaped recovery. You get the downward slide. You'll have to figure out how you're going to pay the bills and put food on the table, how to balance doing your job with being a teacher to your kids because their school has gone remote. You're asked to risk your neck because you can't work from home while the risks of COVID are kept outside, because you work at a meat packing plant or an assembly line or the checkout counter.

You know, I do understand this is a scary time, an uncertain time. I understand it and I see you because I see the world from where I grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a lot like Grand Rapids. There are still an awful lot of good people busting their neck every day, do the right thing for their families.

In Scranton, my mom used to have an expression. She said -- not just in Scranton, but from the time we left there -- that, Joey, nobody's better than you, Joey, but everybody's your equal.

My dad's constant refrain after he lost a job in Scranton where there was no more work and he had to move to Delaware. He moved away for a little over a year and come back every weekend to see us, until the time we finally a couple of years down the road in Delaware, got to finally be able to buy a home.

My dad used to use this expression, he said, Joey, a job's about a lot more than a paycheck. It's about your dignity. It's about respect. It's about your place in the community.

These are the values that shaped my growing up, and I suspect most of you. It shaped my whole life. So I know and understood from the very beginning of consciousness about this that Wall Street and CEOs didn't build this country. The middle class built this country, and unions built the middle class. That's why I've laid out a comprehensive agenda not just to rebuild

our communities but to make bold investments so we can build back and build back better.

An independent analysis actually from Wall Street, Moody's, projected that my plan will create 18.6 million jobs, 7 million more than the administration's economic plan. And $1 trillion more in economic growth than the president's plan. That's not coming from a liberal think tank. That's coming from Moody's.

Here's how my plan works. I'm going to raise taxes on people only making over 400 -- anyone making less than $400,000 a year won't pay a penny more. I'm going to ask the very big corporations, the Fortune 500 and the wealthy for pay their fair share for a change.

That means raising the corporate tax rate which was in the mid-30s and now is 21 percent back to 28 percent. That means making sure that no big company gets away with paying zero taxes, as 91 Fortune 500 companies do today making billions of dollars. Zero taxes.

How many of you paid zero taxes?

It means making sure the wealthiest Americans don't get to pay at a lower tax rate because they're making money on their investments. But they pay at the same rate that they pay for their salary.

These changes in the tax code will raise the money that will allow me to invest in working people and growing the middle class, which is when I announced I was running I said that's the reason to rebuild the backbone of this country. Hard working folks in the middle class, we're going to invest in creating millions of good-paying jobs, union jobs.

And this is -- by the way, my plan has been thoroughly analyzed by a whole bunch of folks. Take infrastructure, building roads, bridges, highways, ports, airports. We'll put millions of people to work in good-paying union jobs and create the foundation for growth in this country.

Clean energy, just upgrading 4 million buildings and weatherizing 2 million homes will create at least 1 million good paying jobs. Leading the world on electric vehicles and building 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations on our highways will create 1 million new auto jobs here in this state.

The manufacturing and technology, those areas, making sure -- making sure the future is made in America, made in Michigan with good union jobs.

[16:45:05]

You know, the federal government spends $600 billion a year of your tax dollars, $600 billion a year, to purchase everything from military equipment, to steel, to cars, to trucks, to federal fleets, at $600 billion. When I'm president, we're going to make sure we finally make good on a

commitment made a long time ago, that these products, all these contracts that the president of the United States and the federal government can award, make sure those products are made by Americans in America, making sure that that's done.

It's estimated that will create five million new manufacturing jobs and technology jobs.

For small businesses, we're going to make sure small businesses come out on the other side of this terrible circumstance with access to capital and the ability to deal with the debts that have been accumulated during this pandemic. And we will make investments to increase incomes as well, a $15 minimum wage.

No one, no one should be in a position to have to work two jobs just to get above the poverty line. We're going to bring back jobs from America -- from overseas to America, and direct billions of dollars in revitalization funds and competitive grants to help communities, like those in Western Michigan compete for new business start-ups.

For essential workers, we're not just going to praise you. We're going to pay you a good wage to ensure you have strong benefits. We're going to ease the burden of the major cost in your life, health care. We will build on the Affordable Care Act through a new health insurance option, a not-for-profit public option, which will give private insurers a real competitor.

We will increase subsidies for your premiums, so they're lower, so you can afford the plans with lower deductions and lower out-of-pocket expenses. It will cost -- that plan alone will cost over $700 billion over 10 years, but it's paid for by eliminating those tax cuts.

For a 40-year-old making $50,000 a year, your monthly premium will go down by a third. We will take on the pharmaceutical companies, with a plan to slashes the cost of prescription drugs to up to 60 percent. Medicare will be able to negotiate prices for drugs, fundamentally lowering those prices.

And child care, a lot of you are dealing with that now. How do you go to work, if you have work, and take care of your kids, or an aging relative that's in trouble?

We're going to make high-quality child care affordable and accessible. Every 3-year-old and 4-year-old will have access to free quality preschool. We're going to make sure that low- and middle-income families will never have to pay more than 7 percent of their income for caring for a young child.

And education beyond high school, we're going to make sure that four- year college tuitions at a state university is tuition-free for any family making less than $125,000. Community college will be free, and programs for training will be free as well. If you are buy your first home, you will have a $15,000 help to get there.

These are all things that people have been talking about for a while. We're going to protect Social Security and increase the benefits for millions of seniors. The president is talking about giving -- eliminating the withholding tax.

Well, that's wonderful, except for one thing. The actuary at Social Security said, if that plan goes through, Social Security will be bankrupt by 2023.

Folks, I promise you, we can do this.

Let me close by saying this. I know -- I know a lot of people around here are tired of feeling overlooked and disrespected. I get that.

The people I met this week taking a train through Northeastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, people like the dedicated elementary schoolteacher from Lordstown, Ohio, whose husband, when Lordstown shut down, accepted a transfer in Kentucky eight hours away each direction, in order to be able to keep his health care and his pension after the GM plant closed.

Folks who worry about health care. Will the Affordable Care Act still be there for them? Why? Why, they ask, will I be among the 100 million Americans who could lose the protections for preexisting conditions, like asthma and diabetes, where once again women will be able to -- charged a higher premium just simply because they're a woman, where insurers no longer have to allow you to be able keep your kids on a health care plan until age 26?

[16:50:23]

What will happen to your Medicare benefits, your Social Security? Will they still be there when you retire?

I'm asked many times in recent years, how do we get to the place where people who stock our shelves, pack our food, teach our kids, like my family, take care of my wife, take care of our sick, who race into burning buildings and pick up the garbage off our streets, who did, how do we get to the place where you all don't think we see you anymore or hear them, and, most importantly, respect them?

That has to change. I know it can. I come from those neighborhoods. We can get this pandemic under control, so we can get our economy working again for everyone.

But this cannot be a partisan moment. It must be an American moment. We have to come together as a nation.

I'm running as a Democrat, but I am -- will run and govern as an American president. Whether you voted for me or against me, I will represent you. And those who see each other as fellow Americans who don't just live in red states or blue states, but who live in and love the United States of America, that's who we are.

And there's never been a single, solitary thing that America has been unable to do -- think of this -- not once, not a single thing we have not been able to overcome. And we have done it together.

So, let's get the heck up, remember who in God's name we are. This is the United States of America. There's nothing beyond our capacity.

I want to say, God bless you, and God protect the first family and every family who is dealing with this virus. And may God protect our troops.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

TAPPER: You have been listening to former Vice President Joe Biden speaking live in Grand Rapids in the battleground state of Michigan, after President Trump tested positive for coronavirus, some -- kind of a remarkable speech in many ways.

Biden wished President Trump and the first lady well. He noted he had been tested twice this morning for the virus and was negative, before being cleared to travel. He, of course, had been exposed to the virus by President Trump and members of the Trump team, but no mention of that, the high road completely for Joe Biden.

CNN's Jessica Dean joins me in Grand Rapids.

And, Jessica, in addition to the fact that the president -- I'm sorry -- the vice president took the high road, and did not criticize President Trump at all, only wished him well, two other things struck me.

One, he focused almost entirely on his economic message, and, two, and perhaps speaking louder than anything else, he wore a mask the entire time.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, he did, Jake.

He was wearing his mask. Jill Biden was wearing her mask this afternoon in her travels to New Hampshire as well. We heard him confirm that he took two tests earlier today, one in Delaware, one with a former White House doctor, both of them negative, and saying that this is not a matter of politics.

Instead, this is a reminder that we have to take this virus seriously.

The coronavirus and Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic has been the centerpiece of Biden's campaign since it all started happening back in February and March. And it has been the thing they have come back to again and again.

So, we heard him talking about that mask mandate that he's talked about before. We heard about him talking about the need for a bigger testing program.

But to your point, Jake, he definitely -- Wishing the president and the first family well, saying that there are lots of families out there who are battling the coronavirus, and really trying to draw it back to a unified America.

You heard how he closed that speech. It's something we hear from him again and again on the campaign trail, which is, he doesn't want to be the president for just Democrats, but wants to be president for all Americans -- Jake.

TAPPER: It's really remarkable. I mean, honestly, if anybody could be mad at President Trump this morning, it would be Joe Biden and his family, and yet not a word, not a negative word at all.

Thanks, Jessica Dean. Really appreciate it.

Sanjay, let's go back to President Trump and his condition. Obviously, again, to underline, we all wish him well.

He's had a fever since this morning. He's taking this experimental drug, this antibody cocktail as a precautionary measure. The doctor -- his doctor says he's fatigued.

[16:55:02]

How serious do you think this is for President Trump?

Sanjay?

Oh, we're not -- we're having problems.

GUPTA: Sorry. Can you hear me now?

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Now I can. Yes, go ahead, Sanjay. I'm sorry.

How serious do you think this is for President Trump?

GUPTA: OK.

Well, we're having to sort of read into this a bit, Jake, because I still feel like there's a level of opaqueness that is coming from these statements. I -- it's not still clear to me. But I think there is a heightened level of concern that I'm reading now, just even over the last few hours, as we're hearing more about the president's symptoms.

They say it was a precautionary measure to give this experimental therapy. But they did give this antibody therapy, this monoclonal antibody therapy from Regeneron, at the highest dose. It's still experimental.

I mean, the only data that we have around this is 275 patients and that early trial. So it is something that we're understanding was probably given under compassionate use. The president is not part of a trial, obviously, for this.

So these things sort of read into a level of concern here. How is he being monitored at the White House? Is his -- are his symptoms, are they stable? Are they worsening in any way?

Because, if they are -- and, again, I will reiterate that the odds are very much on his side in terms of how he will do through all this. But in terms of the immediate care that the White House medical team needs to be thinking about, I think the decision tree is, does he need to be in a hospital at this point?

Because the White House medical unit can do a lot of things. But we're talking about experimental therapies, things that are brand-new. You may need more resources to be able to just manage all this.

So, we will see. I think that that -- there is -- I'm reading a heightened level of concern here, Jake.

TAPPER: You think that there's a heightened level of concern, based on the experimental therapy alone?

GUPTA: And divulging the new symptoms, things like that.

They -- first, he was fine, now the fever all day. They didn't tell us that the beginning, the fatigue. It's always -- the language is always -- it's the same sort of language that you hear when people are not trying to panic, people, whatever just sort of starting to unfurl these details at you.

And I get it. You don't want to shock people. But I hope that, with regard to this, the key is to make sure that nothing is getting missed with the president, and that he is in the right place for any care that he might need.

And he might be fine at the White House, but again, just having covered the story for so long, listening to these press conferences so carefully, and reading these memorandums over and over again, and then going back and saying, oh, this is what they meant by that, even though they didn't say it, I am sensing a level of concern that's increasing, Jake.

TAPPER: And, Abby, I mean, the president and his team have shown a wanton disregard for human life by -- as soon as they found out that Hope Hicks was infected, and the president had had close contact with her, by going to New Jersey, and exposing other people to it.

And, God, I hope that other people on Air Force One that went to and from the debate with him, especially Alice Johnson, whom the president pardoned, I hope they are fine, and I hope they're getting checked out.

This is really -- I mean, in addition to the shock of the president having this virus and how much everybody, just as fellow Americans, are concerned about him, this is really bad, the behavior of the White House and the president.

As a political matter, it really demonstrates something quite selfish.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there's no question about it.

This is such a serious situation. So many people have been put in danger in the last few days. It is -- it really just defies logic, people who work at the White House reporters, Secret Service agents, people who clean the White House, people who were on the plane as guests of the president, people in that room at the debate earlier this week, because of the refusal of most -- many in the Trump entourage to wear masks in a place where that was one of the requirements for being there.

There is no question about it that this is a serious crisis facing this country right now. The president is sick with a potentially deadly virus. And it happened because the White House, the Trump campaign, and everyone around this president refuses to do the basic things that we know they should do to keep themselves and other people safe.

And I don't think that there can be any overstatement of that. This is the president of the United States. Their job was to keep him safe. And they did not do.

TAPPER: Ron, we only have about 20 seconds, but your thoughts on this historically?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, the polling has been unequivocal from the beginning. And one of the things Americans most worry about is that President Trump is more interested in his own interests than the country's in handling the virus.

And I would just add how remarkable that speech was for Biden, after a pretty lackluster performance at the debate. It really showed how laser-focused he is on the idea that the shortest path back to the White House is winning those three Rust Belt states that Trump dislodged in 2016, and by doing so with an economic message aimed at blue-collar voters.

TAPPER: Yes, and a nonpartisan one, in some ways, as well.

I will see you on Sunday morning on "STATE OF THE UNION."

Our coverage on CNN continues right now.

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