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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Vice Presidential Debate Set For Tonight; Trump Returns to Oval Office. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired October 07, 2020 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He said that he reason he had such a difficult time with the virus is because he was overweight.

Since then, he's lost 26 pounds and is using his own recovery from the virus as a metaphor for the country's, promising that things will come back stronger than before.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Our special coverage continues now with Jake Tapper. Welcome

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to THE LEAD. Jake Tapper.

And we begin today with the politics lead and a new update, of sorts, from President Trump's physicians, commander Sean Conley.

The note, characteristically brief and vague, does not give any specifics about the president's specific oxygen levels or the condition of his lungs or what medications President Trump may be taking, though, Conley says the president said today -- quote -- "I feel great!" -- with an explanation point.

Conley says the president has been symptom-free for 24 hours as he battles coronavirus. We have not seen the president publicly since his return to the White House on Monday night. And despite the president's active coronavirus infection and a growing White House outbreak, aides are preparing for President Trump to leave the White House residence and return to the Oval Office perhaps as soon as today.

So far, at least 19 people in President Trump's orbit have tested positive for the virus, 19 that we know of, that is. We still do not know when President Trump last tested negative.

Just minutes ago, the White House deputy communications director refused to answer that question. It is significant, given that, if Trump was infected at the White House on Saturday, September 26, as many White House aides are suggesting, we do not know if President Trump had the virus on Air Force One that night, or whether he had the virus at an event for Gold Star families the next day, or whether he had the virus at the debate in Ohio Tuesday, or whether he had the virus in Minnesota on Wednesday, or whether he had the virus in New Jersey on Thursday.

So, when did President Trump last test negative? The White House refuses to answer that question with any specificity. And it's a matter of public health, really. Why won't they tell us?

This outbreak now the backdrop of the first and only vice presidential debate tonight between Vice President Mike Pence, who has not been quarantining, and Senator Kamala Harris, which is set to begin in just a few hours.

CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins joins me live.

And, Kaitlan, we haven't seen the president since Monday, but his doctor says that the president said today -- quote -- "I feel great!"

Walk us through what is in this latest health update, as -- such as it is, and, just as important, what the president's doctor still is refusing to tell us.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake, it's not clear why they quoted the president in what was supposed to be this medical update about his condition.

That's really something that political aides have been doing, updating us on the president's feelings lately. But that is something that Dr. Conley felt the need to include in this very brief statement.

And we have not actually seen Dr. Conley since Monday. He hasn't taken questions from reporters since then. And since the president returned to the White House, he has only issued these written statements instead to give us these updates, where, of course, there are a lot of things that are still going left unsaid.

Like, for example, in this statement today, he talks about how the president now has antibodies detected in his system, but he doesn't say whether or not that's because the president got an antibody cocktail in recent days.

Those are questions we could ask Dr. Conley if he was briefing reporters in-person, just like what those lung scans showed, if the president is still contagious, in his opinion, all of these questions that are critical to what's going on with the president.

But we just are not getting those answers, Jake. And the White House isn't saying if Dr. Conley has got a briefing scheduled. And so, instead, we're relying on political aides that were asking questions, people like Brian Morgenstern, who is a deputy press secretary at the White House, pretty much one of the only people left still going into work because of all the cases and quarantines happening.

And he said last night he did not know the answer to the question of when the president last tested negative. He clearly hasn't learned that in the last several hours.

And, Jake, of course, the assumption is that either they actually genuinely do not know when the president last tested negative for coronavirus, or it's an embarrassing answer, and they don't want to reveal it, which is why they say they don't want to go backwards and look at past records to give us that answer.

TAPPER: It's a basic question. And it's important when it comes to contact tracing, which they claim they're doing and have actually completed.

It's also a question as to whether or not the White House has been honest with us when they say the president was tested every day.

Now, the White House has set up temporary offices for President Trump in order to try to keep him out of the West Wing. But we have heard from members of the president's team. They are making it clear that he wants to get out, he wants to go to the Oval Office, potentially.

How are they preparing for a contagious president to enter the West Wing?

COLLINS: Well, they say they're taking precautions. We have been told by sources they have got this isolation card stationed outside the Oval Office. It's got these yellow hospital gowns, respirators, goggles for people to wear if they do come into contact with the president, though it's not clear if that's only the precautions that they're going to take or what they're going to do about deciding who actually gets to meet with the president.

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Because, Jake, if they do go into the Oval wearing full PPE, it looks a lot different than what aides have been doing, where, just a week ago, they were not even wearing just a mask, a cloth mask inside the West wing.

So, they say these precautions are being taken, though it's raising questions about whether or not that's enough, whether the president should be in the Oval Office. But they have made clear that the president is eager to get back into the West wing because there was actually some confusion this morning about whether or not he had gone into the Oval yesterday, with Larry Kudlow telling CNBC that he actually had gone down.

But we were told Larry Kudlow is not at the White House, he did not know the answer to that. And the chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said he was not in the Oval Office yesterday, but they were preparing for him to be there today -- Jake.

TAPPER: And, Kaitlan, and what's this about a video that President Trump apparently recorded? It was recorded yesterday. It hasn't been made public.

And, also, we haven't seen the president since Monday. Do we have any idea if that's going to change? COLLINS: No, because we actually just asked the press secretary that,

and they did not give us an indication of whether or not he's actually going to be appearing in front of us, whether live or tape, in the next few hours or days or so, because we haven't seen him since he climbed those steps to go back to the White House.

And my colleague Jeff Zeleny was told that he did record a video that they were going to release yesterday. But, Jake, they never released it. And so it's not really clear why.

They had kind of been their tactic while he was at Walter Reed to release these videos show that he was OK. But we have not actually laid eyes on the president since he went back to the White House two days ago.

TAPPER: All right, Kaitlan Collins, thanks so much. Keep us posted, please.

Joining us now to discuss, the associate dean of global health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Dr. Michael Saag.

Dr. Saag, thanks for joining us.

First, can I just say, does it make any sense to you as to why President Trump and the White House would not disclose when he last tested negative, given the fact that they believe, the White House believes he was maybe infected on Saturday, September 26, and, since then, has been an event with reporters, has been an event with Gold Star families, has traveled to Ohio, has traveled to Minnesota, has traveled to New Jersey?

It would seem like it's a matter of public health that the country needs to know.

DR. MIKE SAAG, INFECTIOUS DISEASE EXPERT, UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM: Well, I agree. And I'm not sure. Your guess is as good as mine as to why they're not releasing it.

In addition to the public health issues, there's also estimates of how long he will remain infectious, which is important in terms of debate planning and all that, but also just in terms of the natural course of infection.

Once somebody gets infected, it's two to five days to develop symptoms. And then, from that point forward, there's a lot of things that we would expect in terms of symptoms, signs, degree of illness.

So, all those things would add up if we knew the date of infection.

TAPPER: So the president's doctor issued this letter saying that the president has been fever-free for four days, symptom-free for 24 hours, has not needed additional oxygen since he was hospitalized at Walter Reed.

What do you make of the information? SAAG: Well, trying to add this together, if he had symptoms bad

enough, let's say, Thursday, Friday to bring him to Walter Reed, and also get those three medicines that he got, the two antivirals and the dexamethasone, that implies to me that he was moderately ill, and that fits.

When I watched him walk up the stairs to the Truman Balcony on Monday night, I saw him short-winded, I saw him suppressing a cough. That added up.

To say that he's symptom-free completely today doesn't add up, at least in my experience, having had the infection. I also had moderate disease. It took me eight days, maybe 10 for the symptoms to begin to resolve. Now, maybe those medicines made a difference. But I have never seen a patient get that well that fast.

The fact that we're not seeing him out in public, where we can look for ourselves and see how he looks, tells me that he may not be totally symptom-free.

But what I would expect is that he does have some lingering symptoms and the fever could be gone. That adds up.

TAPPER: What do you make of these letters from Commander Conley in terms of what they do not disclose?

For instance, we still do not know how low his oxygen count got. We don't know what medications he is taking today. He told us a few days ago, but there hasn't been an update. Really, it's a lot more questions than answers I have after reading these documents over and over.

SAAG: Yes, the right way, in my opinion, to do this is to have a face-to-face with the press, answer questions, be forthcoming.

The occult sort of messaging doesn't really tell us much, and it leaves us using almost divining rods to determine what's going on.

But, in my view, the fact that they're not coming out with information is -- no news is not good news, in my opinion, that we -- if there was great news, we'd hear the data, what -- his blood pressure, his respiratory rate, his oxygen levels, a little bit more detail, and be able to answer questions.

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So, we're left just sitting here guessing at this point.

TAPPER: Yes, and that's your responses as a physician.

My response, as a journalist, is, when you're not providing information, there's a reason you're not providing information. The information is information you don't want the public to know.

The doctor also said that President Trump tested positive for antibodies. The company that makes the experimental antibody treatment that Trump was on said that the treatment could have affected the blood test. What does that mean for his recovery?

SAAG: Well, that's a great point.

The antibody that -- there's actually two antibodies in the product that he received on Friday, the Regeneron product, and it has antibodies precisely against the spike protein of the virus. And that's what you look for when you do the antibody test.

Normally, what we would expect is that, by about day 10 to 14 after infection, we can start to detect natural antibodies. So, my guess is that, if his antibody test is positive, OK, he had the Regeneron product.

Plus, it doesn't mean anything in terms of clinical recovery necessarily for antibody to turn positive, even under the natural immunity responses.

TAPPER: So, there's all this information that Commander Conley is not giving us, but he did give us the information that Trump said -- quote -- "I feel great!" not the kind of thing normally you see in a letter from a physician, especially the exclamation point, if I might add.

You have had coronavirus. You have treated patients with coronavirus. Trump is less than a week into testing positive, as far as we know. From your experience, do you think that the worst of it is over for the president?

SAAG: It's hard to say.

But, in my case, in the case of a lot of patients that I take care of, the first seven days are kind of mild, relatively speaking. Day 10 is when things start to turn south, eight to 10.

And so that's -- he's right at about that point right now. And so, ordinarily, assume he got no therapy, he should be feeling worse today, according to natural history, turning the corner at about day 14.

So the question remains, what did the antibody treatment, the remdesivir that he got, and the steroids -- they are known to shorten the course of infection, so I wouldn't be surprised that he would get better by now.

I wouldn't expect him at all to be well, and perhaps not even into the weekend. So he's still got a lot to fight in terms of this infection, based on its natural course.

TAPPER: Well, I know we all hope that he's feeling better and that he gets better. We also would like more information and more transparency.

Dr. Michael Saag, thank you so much for your time today and your expertise.

One person just called the White House in the most dangerous place in the country. That's next. And has any industry taken it on the chin harder than air travel? An inside look at how thousands are struggling because millions are not flying anywhere, as Trump teases possible new aid.

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TAPPER: And we are back with the politics lead.

President Trump's physician releasing a new update, kind of, on the president's health, though, in typical style, it's leaving more questions and answers.

Commander Conley's update does not have many specifics. It does note that President Trump said today that he feels -- quote -- "great!" -- with an exclamation point.

Here to discuss the lack of transparency coming from the White House about the president's health, CNN's Dana Bash and Jeff Zeleny.

Dana, let me just start with the basic. We still don't know when President Trump tested negative last. And that is important, because, if he tested negative, it's important for -- or if he tested positive, it's important for all the people he came in contact with.

We were -- had originally been told he was tested every day. I don't think that's the case. And there are a lot of people that President Trump was in touch with after potentially getting infected, Gold Star families, reporters, underlings. He flew to Ohio. He flew to Minnesota. He flew to New Jersey.

Why won't they just answer this question?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Who knows?

Well, we do know. We do know, because it seems as though the answer is not something that is a positive point of view from what -- based on what he has done or not done, Jake.

And what I mean by that is, you just talked about some of the people that president could have come in contact with who could be positive or could have gotten coronavirus without even knowing it, because they trusted that the system that the White House said that it had in place to test everybody who's around the president included the president of the United States.

But it doesn't seem like that is -- that we can bank on that. I mean, we just can't right now. And if you just look at where the president is in the kind of the length of the coronavirus and how he feels, if it is true that he is feeling much better -- I mean, I'm not a doctor, you're not a doctor, but we have been covering this a long time.

It sounds as though he could have gotten it a lot sooner than they have told us. And it is reprehensible. And people who have come in contact with him are angry. TAPPER: Yes.

And I talked to an elected official from one of the states I just mentioned, Ohio, Minnesota, New Jersey, and said, the White House claims that the contact tracing is over. And the official said, they don't know that to be true because they still don't know when President Trump last tested negative.

BASH: Exactly.

TAPPER: Jeff, even though Commander Conley says President Trump claims to feel great, exclamation point, we haven't seen President Trump since Monday night.

What are you learning about when we might actually hear or see him?

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JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: And, Jake, I think you are right about the hearing. We haven't seen him, which isn't all that surprising, given he was just arriving back to the White House.

But not hearing him, I think, is more key. I was actually waiting this morning to see if he was going to call into his favorite morning show, "FOX & Friends." He did not. He routinely does. He spends most of his days, his mornings, at least, in the residence of this White House, and we have seen a pattern for the last three-and-a-half years since he's been in office, watching television and sometimes calling in to these shows.

He did not last evening, as he often does. He did not this morning. I think that is very interesting. We don't know exactly that it means he's not so well. We don't know that at all. But it is a sign that he is not doing what he was doing before all of this. And that was being very engaged.

So, yes, he's sending out messages on Twitter, but we have not heard from him, which I think is significant. And it is that video that was recorded late yesterday afternoon or early evening that's not been released.

We don't know why that is either. Now, there were some circumstances that changed. He, of course, stopped the negotiations on the stimulus bill. And then, later in the evening, he restarted them. So perhaps that video was taped in between that period. We believe it was. And perhaps it wasn't released for that reason.

But, Jake, it still does not add up to how he is doing. And until we see him, we won't know that, necessarily. But as you and Dana were saying, it is important when he tested negative, because that, of course, is something the Biden campaign wants to know as well.

And it is a part of the negotiations going into the next debate next week, if they can trust this president or this White House about any of this, Jake. TAPPER: And, Dana, CNN is reporting the president from remained in the White House residence yesterday. Aides are not sure how long they're going to be able to convince him to stay there and keep him from the Oval Office.

A so-called isolation cart with yellow medical gowns and respirator masks, plastic goggles have been set up for visitors who enter the Oval Office. I mean, I think it's pretty clear that President Trump, in returning to the White House, is putting people in danger. And now there's talk of him doing it even more so.

BASH: It's really remarkable, I guess not surprising, given what we have seen over the past week or so, Jake, but it is still remarkable.

I mean, look, it is the house that he lives in. It is his house above and his office down below. But just as a human who has seen the White House staff have positive case after positive case, especially the people who had direct contact with him, particularly in that debate prep room about a week-and-a-half ago -- I mean, Jake, there are only two people right now, Rudy Giuliani and Jason Miller, out of about eight, eight to 10, who are negative, including the president, from being in that room.

If that is not a lesson that he has to be careful -- and these are with his nearest and dearest, the people who spent hours and hours trying to get him ready for a debate -- I'm not sure what's going to convince him.

TAPPER: Just -- who claim to be negative. We don't know what the actual truth is. I mean, I think we just have to, at this point, given all the obfuscation and lies we have heard, I think we just have to clarify that if -- just because one of these people says they're negative doesn't mean it's a fact.

One of the ways to read the tea leaves about what's going on at the White House, outside -- at the Oval Office is when the president is in the Oval Office, a Marine stands outside.

And right now, there is a Marine standing outside the Oval Office, and we're bringing that image to you live right now. That does not necessarily mean that President Trump is in the Oval Office. It could just be that they're preparing if he decides to go there.

But that's just some interesting tea leaves to try to read, Jeff.

ZELENY: It certainly is, Jake.

I mean, that's something we kept our eye on all the time through any president. I have covered three of them, President Bush, Obama and Trump. You always keep an eye on when that Marine is standing at the West executive entrance there.

And the Marine is there if the president, generally speaking, is in route to the Oval Office, is in the Oval Office, or is just leaving the Oval Office. Now, again, we should caveat everything, that things can indeed change. But that is something that is indeed very interesting.

And we do know, by our reporting, that the president was intent on going to the Oval Office. So, if he were to give some type of an address, that is likely where he would give it from, although not necessarily. But, again, the only way to clear any of this up is for the president or the White House staff to do it themselves.

But one thing we should point out, many of them are not working there. Many of them are working remotely. So that is one of the things going on here as well. It is very difficult to have eyes on what is going on inside there, because most of his advisers are, frankly, not there, Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Jeff Zeleny, Dana Bash, thank you so much.

One Trump tweet sending hope for millions of struggling Americans into a tailspin, and the cleanup has only, frankly, added to the mess. Is help coming or not Mr. President?

Back after this.

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[15:29:45]

TAPPER: And we have some breaking news.

A contagious President Trump is right now inside the Oval Office, the White House is saying, despite being infected with coronavirus. The White House says the president's being briefed on stimulus talks and the hurricane.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins joins us now.

And, Kaitlan, this is something aides were preparing for.

COLLINS: Yes, they knew that the president wanted to go to the Oval Office yesterday, so they started getting it ready.