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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Trump Continues Large Rallies; First Lady Reveals That Barron Trump Tested Positive For COVID-19. Aired 4-4:30 p ET

Aired October 14, 2020 - 16:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Biden will take questions in Philadelphia, while Trump's town hall in Miami was contingent on him testing negative for coronavirus using an independent test done by the National Institutes of Health and reviewed by Dr. Anthony Fauci and his deputy.

[16:00:10]

Both doctors confirming all evidence indicates that the president is not infectious for anyone else. Side effects from the president's illness appeared to linger today, as he virtually addressed the Economic Club of New York.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I ended the NAFTA nightmare and signed a brand-new U.S./Mexico/Canada agreement into law.

COLLINS: Last night in Pennsylvania, Trump addressed his diagnosis and struck a rare sympathetic tone about the pandemic.

TRUMP: And to everyone fighting to recover from the virus, I feel your pain because I felt your pain.

COLLINS: Eight months into the pandemic, Trump now makes a point of tossing out masks at the beginning of his rallies, something he did not do before he got COVID-19.

The president's packed schedule reflects the uphill battle he is facing three weeks out from the election, as he tries to directly appeal to voters whose support he is losing.

TRUMP: Suburban women, will you please like me?

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Please. Please. I saved your damn neighborhood, OK?

COLLINS: The president's standing with seniors has also slipped away at a historic rate.

TRUMP: I will not rest, and I will not relent until all American seniors are safe. That is my sacred obligation. I love our seniors.

COLLINS: That affectionate message coming only hours after the president tweeted a meme mocking Biden as elderly and disabled.

The White House approach to the pandemic is also raising concerns after officials appeared receptive to an idea pushed by some scientists to let the virus spread among younger populations, while protecting the vulnerable and elderly.

That approach would rely on herd immunity being achieved through infections, rather than a vaccine, which other scientists have said is dangerous.

DR. WILLIAM HASELTINE, INFECTIOUS DISEASE EXPERT: Herd immunity is another word for mass murder.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Now, Jake, we just got some breaking news from the first lady, who just posted a lengthy statement on her Twitter account, announcing that Barron Trump actually had tested positive for coronavirus when she did, and, of course, President Trump did. She says he has since tested negative.

But, in this lengthy statement, she's talking about what it's like for all three of them to go through COVID-19 at the same time, including the symptoms she had, which she says were mild, but describes having them all at once, talking about -- she said it was a roller coaster of symptoms in the days after her positive diagnosis, body aches, a cough, headaches, extremely tired most of the time.

She says she chose to go a more natural route in terms of medicine, opting for vitamins and healthy food. So it's not clear if she received any kind of a treatment similar to what President Trump got.

But, Jake, this is the first time that we are learning that another member of the first family actually had coronavirus, though judging by this statement and what she said in it -- it's pretty long -- she says that Barron Trump has since tested negative for coronavirus.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Well, that's great news that Barron is no longer positive and that he survived this. Barron's fathers should stop hosting super-spreader events.

Kaitlan Collins, thanks so much for that news.

CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, joins me now.

Sanjay, let's start with this announcement.

Barron Trump tested positive for coronavirus. Thankfully, he has since tested negative.

What do you make of this?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, this is obviously a very contagious virus. We have known that for months now. I think it raises this question. I think, Jake. If you are --

regardless of whether you're the president and the first lady, if you are a person who's tested positive, and you're spending time with your family, what's the likelihood you're going to spread this virus to them? That's the question.

And, as it turns out, Jake, it's actually not that high. I mean, some studies have said 60 percent of the time, you don't spread the virus to other family members.

And I think the case that they make is that it's typically -- as you point out, it's when you bring people closely clustered together sitting for long durations of time, that that's when you can potentially have these super-spreader events.

It's not to say you shouldn't isolate within your own home as much as possible. But what we're learning about this virus, it's contagious. Lots of people together, you're putting a lot of virus into the air, and it's more likely to spread.

So not surprising he got it. Glad he's doing well. He's 14, I believe. So statistics, odds very much on his side for having a good recovery.

TAPPER: Yes. And the first lady says -- quote -- "Luckily, he is a strong teenager and exhibited no symptoms."

So that's good news. But let's talk about these super-spreader events that his father, the president, continues to hold. Take a look at these images from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, last night. This week, Trump has traveled to Florida, Pennsylvania.

Tonight, he goes to Iowa, later in the week, North Carolina, Wisconsin. He's not contagious anymore, his doctor says, but these events in states that are all seeing rising case numbers, some of them rising hospitalization numbers, high percentages of the virus, it's dangerous.

Is there any way to safely hold these rallies?

[16:05:03]

GUPTA: No.

It's a simple answer, Jake. And I'm glad you asked it that way, because, a lot of people are saying, well, the president, because he's had this, he shouldn't have been holding the rallies even before we were told he wasn't contagious anymore. That is true.

This is not normal, Jake, to hold rallies like this in the middle of a pandemic. It's interesting. You and I have been talking about this for so many months. I remember, back in March, you would see people getting together on the Embarcadero in San Francisco and thinking, look, we are in the middle of a pandemic. This -- that shouldn't be happening, people that closely clustered.

And now we look at a rally and say, well, how you possibly do this safely? You don't. We're in the middle of a pandemic. And, by the way, I'll get 100 e-mails that say, well, what about the protests? Add the protests to the list. Aggregating people together in the middle of a pandemic is a bad idea. It's a contagious virus.

People are close together for long periods of time. The virus is happy. That's how the virus spreads. So, regardless of whether the president is contagious or not, as you point out, the rallies are a bad idea. You can't do those safely. They shouldn't be happening. It's worsening the problem.

TAPPER: Yes, we said that during the protests. We said that people should not be congregating together.

GUPTA: Yes.

TAPPER: We did see a lot of masks at those rallies. But even that wasn't enough. But that's not even the point.

This is the president of the United States, who has sworn an oath to protect and defend the American people, and his behavior is putting his own supporters and the American people who live in those communities at risk.

GUPTA: And he knows this, and he's known it for a long time.

I mean, that's the part that's really, really disturbing, frankly, February 7, going back and saying, we know this is airborne. And the rest of the scientific community didn't even catch up to that for some time. He was obviously getting information from other sources.

We know that it can obviously be deadly in people. We know there was a super-spreader event at the Rose Garden. We're hearing more and more about these numbers of people who've been infected as a result of the rallies.

Jake, it's so hard in this country to even trace, because, if you got 50,000 people becoming newly infected everyday, it would be an entire sector of our society just devoted to contact tracing to even be able to figure it out.

We don't -- it's clear that it's happening. It's a contagious virus. That hasn't changed. You bring people together like that, outside better than inside, that's for sure, maybe 20-fold better, if you look at some of the data, which we have been studying, but it's still a problem.

TAPPER: Yes.

GUPTA: Aggregated together, without masks, longer than 15 minutes, those are the ingredients for a super-spreader event.

TAPPER: It's just incredible. We don't know where Herman Cain got the virus, but the timeline completely matches up with him getting it at that Tulsa event, and he ended up dying.

It's just unbelievable. Iowa specifically has a percent positivity rate close to 20 percent. Fauci says the positivity rate should be closer to 3 percent. And if they rise, it could ultimately mean more deaths.

President Trump heading to a state with 20 percent. Is there anything that can be done at this point to mitigate that?

GUPTA: Well, so again, the rallies, I mean, bringing people together, it's not a small problem, when you're -- when you're having that type of event, and people are not masked, and it sends a message that it's OK, and this is over.

And when you have a positivity rate of 20 percent, that means you're not testing nearly enough to catch how much viral spread is out there. So you really don't have eyes on the problem.

When you look at Iowa, and you see what's happening there, they're building. The numbers have been going up, but they're starting to go up at a faster pace. This is like, again, metaphors that we were using back in March and April, you and I, Jake, having the same conversation back several months ago.

It's like a steam liner. Once it starts to gain momentum and speed, as you're starting to see in Iowa, more and more cases, an increase in hospitalizations, higher positivity rate, you could slam on the brakes right now, and that steam liner is going to keep moving for a while.

That's the problem. That's why you really want to stop that sort of exponential growth from happening. What can be done now, to your question? I mean, you got to break the cycle of transmission. So, besides rallies, like this, one of the things that came out from the CDC just over the past couple of days is the real focus on indoor residential gatherings.

We saw this in California in May. During lockdown, numbers went up for a few weeks. Why? Because a lot of those indoor parties that were happening. People started clustering indoors more. That's the concern, obviously, going into the colder months, over the holidays and things like that.

We're going to -- this year might be one to sit it out in terms of getting together with extended family, because of that very reason. That could create a lot of smaller clusters.

TAPPER: And the Trump White House pushing this herd immunity idea, which some people, including President Trump earlier this year, said could lead to two million American deaths.

Dr. Haseltine, I think it was, said, it's mass murder. What's your take on herd immunity?

GUPTA: I just can't believe we keep having to reinvent the wheel on this discussion. There's so many important things to do with the vaccines and the antibodies.

[16:10:00] Herd immunity is a terrible strategy. Every public health figure that I have spoken to about this agrees that it's a terrible figure. The Barrington Project says that they have 36,000 signatories. In fact, it's just 38. Looked at their Web site. Everybody else, they say, well, after this is adopted, we will publicly endorse it.

That means that they're not willing to put their names on it now. We will show you the numbers, Jake. So, just do the math, 10 percent of the country roughly infected, now 210,000 deaths. To get to 60 percent, OK, which is a rough estimate of what it would require people -- the infection rate to get herd immunity, you would be at 1.2 million deaths, roughly, in this country alone, tens of millions, I think 15 million or so, around the world.

So, hospitals would become overwhelmed. You're already in situations, Jake, in so many states where ICU bed capacity is over 70 percent in the country. We haven't even gotten into the bulk of flu season.

Can you imagine, like, the same conversations we were talking about in New York and Italy? I got to bring my loved one to the hospital. We're sorry. We don't have any beds here right now.

I don't want to unnecessarily frighten people, but that could be a real concern over the next couple of months.

TAPPER: All right, Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

A warning from the CDC that could have a major impact on your holiday celebrations.

Plus, we will have some breaking news on a secret investigation involving the president's campaign and foreign money.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:15:58]

TAPPER: In our national lead, Wisconsin is shattering records as coronavirus rages across the state. The number of people hospitalized with COVID has nearly tripled since the beginning of September, according to the governor.

And today, health officials there are opening a field hospital to help treat the massive spike in patients.

Let's go now to the site of the new field hospital in Wisconsin.

CNN's Adrienne Broaddus joins us now live.

Adrienne, give us a sense of what you're seeing there.

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, I can tell you we haven't seen any patients here today and in the last hour, we learned from the executive there aren't any patients here because the staff at the field hospital is communicating with hospital representatives throughout the state trying to determine the need. They are trying to figure out who will be transferred here to this field hospital.

The executive doctor who says she came out of retirement to help with this cause says this field hospital will treat people between the ages of 18 and 70. We are talking about people who are near the end of their hospitalization. For example, folks she says who may need oxygen therapy, rest, or extra medication. The facility can hold more than 500 beds -- 530 beds to be exact.

And the executive director told us today, Wisconsin is in a crisis. This after the state saw those record breaking numbers.

Yesterday, 3,000, more than 3,000 new coronavirus cases and 34 people died in 24 hours -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Adrienne, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Joining us now, is Dr. William Schaffner. He's professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Dr. Schaffner, when you look at the map of cases today, there is no green, meaning there's no state in the United States trending in the right direction. Why?

DR. WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, PROFESSOR, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: Well, it's because lots of people are out there being casual instead of being careful. We see so many people going about without masks, going into large groups and not social distancing.

And as Sanjay said in the previous segment, we have not even seen the flu yet. Wisconsin is the point of the sphere. We are going to be seeing more cases of COVID all the time. This virus is not going to disappear. We really have to get together.

Masks are very important, social distancing, very important. Do not go, please, to large group events. The virus statistically will be in that group and spreading among you and then you'll take it home and spread it to other people in your neighborhood and in your own family. Nobody wants to be a dreaded spreader.

TAPPER: The World Health Organization says that most COVID transmission is happening in households. With these colder months approaching, is it safe to have a small number of friends and family come to your home for thanksgiving or Christmas?

SCHAFFNER: Well, let's have a conversation before then.

What are the ground rules? Have we all been very safe for the last two weeks? Have people gotten tested? When we get together, are we going to wear masks indoors or are we going to separate?

When we eat, will we crowd around a table in the traditional way or will we spread ourselves out? Maybe we will invite fewer people? Maybe we will stay for shorter periods of time. Who is going to be there? Older people? Aunt Sally with her diabetes? Uncle Tom who is older and is frail because he has chronic lung disease?

Maybe those folks shouldn't attend even though we would love to have them there. We have to think about this in a new way. We can't just revert to the old normal. That's gone.

TAPPER: Dr. Schaffner, when you see President Trump holding these rallies all over the country.

[16:20:03]

No masks required, no social distancing. Thousands of people packed into a relatively small space. He's had them in Florida, Pennsylvania. He's going to have one in Iowa.

What -- forget -- remove the politics from it. You know, I don't care what you think about him politically. What do you think about him holding these rallies?

SCHAFFNER: My heart weeps because at those rallies, as I've said, the virus is there. These are people who on their own at home are not wearing masks and not obeying social distancing. So, some of those people who go to those rallies will bring the virus with them because the virus can be transmitted even though you don't have symptoms or only have mild symptoms.

I know some of them are outdoors but that's not an all -- all in free (ph). You can still transmit the virus and many of them are indoors, prolonged periods of time. People yelling and getting excited. Good for them, but that's just what the virus likes, to spread.

So these are accelerator events, all of them. Spreading the virus and spreading it more widely in the communities from which these individuals came.

TAPPER: A new national poll finds that African-Americans say they are more reluctant to take any coronavirus vaccine should one be developed. Explain why getting everyone on board with the vaccine is so important to minimize the spread and get control of this pandemic.

SCHAFFNER: Of course, we want everyone to take advantage of the vaccine when and if it does come and it is effective. And we're going to have to transmit our reassurance and our sense of conviction that this vaccine is not only worthwhile, that is effective and exactly how effective it is, and that it's safe.

And this will take some work. We particularly want to reach those populations, people of color, people of lower economic status who have been disproportionately affected by this virus. And if we all get ourselves vaccinated, then this virus will find it harder to be transmitted among us and we can indeed flatten that curve.

TAPPER: And, lastly, Dr. Schaffner, a Yale University study found that child care closures during the pandemic have had little effect on slowing the spread of the virus. Do you think it's safe for child care centers to reopen?

SCHAFFNER: Safe is a word I don't use. It's one of those dangerous four-letter words.

But let's talk about reducing the risks. I think if we do it carefully, have fewer children and try to spread them apart, everybody who can wear the mask, wearing the mask, then I think we can do it with lower risk, lots of good hand hygiene, surface disinfection and doing all of the things together carefully. They all contribute to -- I'm going to say it -- safer environment.

TAPPER: All right. Dr. William Schaffner, thanks so much. Really appreciate it.

It turns out one of the Obamagates was not a gate at all, at least according to President Trump's own Department of Justice. Why the investigation pushed by the president reportedly ended in a whimper.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:28:12]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

TAPPER: Breaking news in the politics lead, a CNN exclusive.

CNN has learned that federal prosecutors, including special counsel Robert Mueller, spent more than three years investigating whether money flowing through an Egyptian state-owned bank could have backed millions of dollars that Donald Trump donated to his own campaign in 2016.

We should point out ultimately, the Mueller team was not able to obtain all of the information it needed for the investigation, nor could the U.S. attorneys in D.C. who continue the investigation until this year and decided ultimately to not pursue charges.

Let's bring in CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez, who is breaking this story.

Evan, this is not something that was publicly known before today.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jake.

This investigation was conducted with utmost secrecy given to sensitivity and it started soon after Trump won the presidency back in 2016, continued until this summer and has never been described publicly. We spoke to more than a dozen sources familiar with the effort in addition to what we learned in newly released documents and hints in public records.

Two of the sources told CNN that FBI investigators first became interested in the case after intelligence, including from an informant suggested that Trump's last-minute $10 million injection in his campaign less than two weeks before the 2016 election could have been backed by money that came from overseas through an Egyptian state- owned bank.

Now, the probe was confirmed to us just this week when we asked the Justice Department to respond to our reporting. It's not clear that investigators ever had concrete evidence of a relevant bank transfer, but multiple sources told us that there was sufficient information to justify seeking a subpoena in court and to keep the investigation open even after the Mueller probe ended.

Now, the investigation of a potential campaign finance law violation began with the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office in Washington before special counsel Robert Mueller took it on.

[16:30:00]