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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Number of Company That Charters Biden's Plane Tests Positive, Campaign Says Biden Wasn't in Close Contact; Trump Losing Support Among Florida Seniors Over Administration's Botched Pandemic Response. Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired October 15, 2020 - 16:30   ET

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

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[16:30:14]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Some breaking news now. The Biden campaign has just released saying that an employee of the charter plane company used by Joe Biden has tested for coronavirus.

This employee was on a plane with Biden for two flights Monday and Tuesday, though the campaign says that, quote, Vice President Biden was not in close contact as defined by the CDC with this individual at any time, unquote. That they were more than 50 feet away, they wore masks, et cetera. Biden's doctor and medical advisors say there is no need for Joe Biden to quarantine.

In our 2020 lead, both the Trump and Biden campaigns are stepping up their fight to win the support of older voters, a crucial voting bloc in many states including Florida. They favored President Trump in 2016, but that support seems to be slipping.

Nationally, though, the latest CNN poll shows Biden well ahead of President Trump with 60 percent of the vote among those aged 65 and older. When you take a closer look at Florida, there is a shift and it's statistically even.

And as CNN's Jeff Zeleny report, it's the Trump administration's handling or mishandling of the pandemic that could cost the president this critical support.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWD: Let's vote Joe! Let's vote Joe!

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These Florida seniors are fired up for Joe Biden.

(CHEERS)

ZELENY: But it's not only Democrats taking their stand. A bigger threat to President Trump's re-elections may come from voters like Tommye and Rody Johnson. They are lifelong Republicans who supported him four years ago, but won't again.

TOMMYE JOHNSON, REPUBLICAN BIDEN SUPPORTER: I feel he's responsible for thousands and thousands of deaths because of his attitude about it. He's still dishonest about it. He keeps saying it's getting better and it never is. It's getting worse.

ZELENY: Their frustration that the president turned to fury with his handling of coronavirus.

RODY JOHNSON, REPUBLICAN BIDEN SUPPORTER: Damn it, we voted for him and of course, the virus, COVID has been terrible.

ZELENY: Three weeks ago, his son tested positive for COVID-19.

R. JOHNSON: I was mad because he had it, and it was, you know -- and I kept thinking that's Mr. Trump's fault because this thing should never have gotten as far as it had.

ZELENY: Seniors were key to Trump's victory in 2016. Yet falloffs from this critical voting bloc have the president sounding the alarm this week at a rally here.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Biden's agenda would be a catastrophe for Florida seniors.

ZELENY: During his own Florida visit, Biden turned the subject back to coronavirus.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: So many lives have been lost unnecessarily because this president cares more about the stock market than he does about, you know, the well-being of seniors.

ZELENY: Tobi Schelin is a nurse who is going door to door for Biden where she hears the stories.

TOBI SCHELIN, BIDEN SUPPORTER, VOLUNTEER: They can't hug their grandkids. So it's been huge. That's been a huge factor.

ZELENY: The pandemic and the fear of a close election drives these senior volunteers.

MARY MCBEE, BIDEN SUPPORTER, VOLUNTEER: My precinct went to Trump by four votes. Four, only four votes, that's maybe two houses, three houses. I don't want to wake up this year the day after election and say, what more could I have done?

ZELENY: Signs of an exceedingly tight race are plentiful here, with passionate support for Trump on display from flags to front yards.

ANN ALEKSINAS, TRUMP SUPPORTER: There's more people out supporting him now because he's had so many people going against him, and I don't feel he's been treated fairly by the Democrats at all.

ZELENY: The question is how many Trump voters have soured on the president. The Johnsons live in a county that's still deep red, but they're no longer shy about showing their affirmative support for Biden.

R. JOHNSON: Mr. Biden is a nice man, and there was a time I didn't like him at all. I love him.

ZELENY: But it's Trump that's driving them in this race.

T. JOHNSON: He is so dishonest, and the worst is that whenever he is caught in a lie, he blames it on somebody else. It's always somebody else. He's -- he's impossible.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY: Now, President Trump is arriving in Florida tonight. He'll be holding a campaign rally again tomorrow night. So by the end of the week, that's three appearances in five days. So, Jake, certainly underscoring the importance of Florida.

Now, there are also millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars actually flooding the TV airwaves on common issues like Social Security and taxes, but it's this new issue of coronavirus that indeed could turn this campaign one bright spot for Republicans, they've certainly increased their registered voters here since this pandemic began, almost twice as many as registered Democrats, at least in terms of new voters -- Jake.

TAPPER: Yeah, the Republican Party in Florida has their act together, I think it's fair to say.

Jeff Zeleny, thanks so much.

Let's discuss with Sabrina Siddiqui of "The Wall Street Journal" and "Politico's" Laura Barron-Lopez.

[16:35:05]

Sabrina, let me start with you.

Tonight, Biden, Trump doing separate town halls, one on ABC, one on NBC instead of a debate because Trump pulled out of the debate because he refused to do it remotely even though he had coronavirus at the time.

Obviously, the dynamic is going to be different. The last debate was tough to watch, of course, with all of the interruptions and bickering. Might these separate town halls be more effective in some ways?

SABRINA SIDDIQUI, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, certainly, it's an opportunity for both candidates to speak directly with American voters. Now, it's worth pointing out that this is a format where President Trump has struggled in the past, in part because he does have a challenge when it comes to showing empathy and connecting directly with voters addressing their concerns.

The last time he participated in a town hall with ABC, he often didn't answer the question he was asked and once again, defended his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

I think we're at a stage in this race where there are less than three weeks to go, millions of Americans have already cast their ballots and there is a much smaller percentage of undecided voters compared with this stage in the race four years ago and polling shows Vice President Joe Biden not only has a double-digit lead and national polls, but he also is ahead of Trump in several key battlegrounds including some swing states that President Trump carried four years ago.

So I think the stakes are certainly higher for President Trump, and I really think that once again, the town halls will be dominated by the issue that has been at the center of this campaign and that is not just the coronavirus pandemic, but President Trump's handling of the virus.

TAPPER: And, Laura, I mean, what happened, of course, is the president tested positive for the virus. It wasn't clear if he had it when he was at the first debate, the debate commission said, OK, we need to do this remotely. President Trump pulled out and then Biden scheduled his town hall on ABC.

Do you think it's a mistake that NBC scheduled their Trump town hall at the exact same time? Doesn't that do a disservice to the American people?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it certainly makes it harder for voters to decide whether or not they want to spend time watching one or if they want to attempt to flip between the channels.

My colleagues would have reported that there is an internal, you know, upset right now at NBC, that the head of MSNBC is frustrated that NBC decided to hold this town hall at the same time as the Biden town hall was already scheduled and NBC is saying that they hired a third party independent firm to vet voters to make sure that these are voters that are potentially very undecided. But it certainly raises questions about what -- if this benefits the American public at all and also it makes me think about a lot of undecided voters that I've been interacting with in the last few weeks.

I was in a focus group watching some undecided women who voted for Trump in 2016. They don't know how they're going to vote this time and they appear to be leaning towards Biden, and so, I would assume that they would tune in actually more to the Biden town hall versus the Trump one.

TAPPER: I've seen some people suggest on social media, Sabrina, that Savannah Guthrie or one of the attendees of the town hall this evening of the NBC town hall with Trump should ask him about the fact that he's been pushing this nonsense, deranged conspiracy theory that SEAL Team 6, the heroes who killed Osama bin Laden didn't actually kill Osama bin Laden. It's this bizarre and ludicrous conspiracy theory that the president has twice re-tweeted.

I know it probably won't be asked, but what do you think of that subject in itself? I mean, is that something that you think you would press him on? SIDDIQUI: Well, absolutely, and I think -- first of all, as you point

out it's a baseless conspiracy theory. It's coming after another conspiracy theory touted by Trump was in essence blown up when the Justice Department concluded investigation into the unmasking of Michael Flynn and other Trump associates without any criminal charges, and not even a report really to substantiate claims that the president had long pushed a Biden conspiracy against him.

So, you know, he seems to move on to now another theory. I think the real question is what exactly is his strategy at this point? Who is he appealing to with these conspiracy theories?

This is a president who has a base but he doesn't have a coalition. And four years ago, he was propelled to victory in part because enough independents and suburban voters swung in his favor, certainly especially in the final weeks of the race. I think this time around, he's losing support not just from those two constituencies but also from seniors.

[16:40:03]

And you even see a dip in his numbers with white working class men and women, of course, representing his core constituencies. So, I think the broader question to ask is what is really the president doing with pushing conspiracy theories, with just less than three weeks remaining, in an election that again has been entirely about the coronavirus pandemic --

TAPPER: Yeah.

SIDDIQUI: -- racial justice protests, the direction of the economy in the country under his stewardship and not about conspiracy theories.

TAPPER: Yeah, I think the answer is he's flailing. But I don't think there is a strategy.

Laura Barron-Lopez and Sabrina Siddiqui, thanks so much to both of you. Appreciate it.

Dr. Anthony Fauci's new warning about Thanksgiving that every American should hear.

Stay with us.

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TAPPER: In the health lead today, given the recent surge in coronavirus cases, Dr. Anthony Fauci is out with this warning to Americans starting to think about their Thanksgiving plans:

[16:45:08]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: Understanding that everyone has this traditional emotional, understandable, warm feeling about the holidays, we really have to be careful this time, and each individual family evaluate the risk/benefit of doing that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Let's bring in Dr. Seema Yasmin, former CDC disease detective.

Dr. Yasmin, you and other officials have been warning for months now that coronavirus cases would spike in the fall, and Thanksgiving, of course, would be right in the middle of that.

How do we get people to listen to the warnings? How do we get people to rethink this Thanksgiving?

DR. SEEMA YASMIN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It's increasingly difficult, Jake, when we found out that the single biggest driver of COVID-19 misinformation is the president of the U.S.

And that's according to a Cornell University analysis of more than 38 million English-language newspapers. So, as scientists and physicians, for months now, we just feel like we have been screaming into the void.

And it's really hard for the public, who I don't really blame, to differentiate between what scientists are saying and what some officials are saying, including their discrediting of the science.

But here's what it comes down to. Look, Jewish people have had to do this with some of the High Holidays. Muslims have had to live through two pandemic Eids this year. It requires modification. It requires making these really big sacrifices of knowing that it's person-to- person contact that's the biggest driver for infection with coronavirus.

And you have to be even careful, as Dr. Fauci and others have said, about even what you think might be safe small gatherings. Look, if someone gets tested yesterday, they get their result even quickly today, and it's negative, what happened to them since they had the test, since they had the swab? What other exposures have they had?

So it's not as easy as saying, well, I had a negative test a day or a few days ago. You have to be really, really calculated and careful about your risk of exposure and what that might mean to other people.

TAPPER: The CDC already says that, even now, small gatherings are largely the problem, as you note, for more coronavirus cases.

YASMIN: Yes.

TAPPER: North and South Dakota reported their highest case counts yet.

Do you think the entire country needs to go back into quarantine mode to reverse the trend? What's the solution here?

YASMIN: So, we're seeing a patchwork pandemic. Early on, it was the Northeast, it was Detroit and New Orleans that were hit, then the Southwest and the South. You can almost just predict this kind of cyclical movement of the hot spots. Now it's the Midwestern states. And now it's the Northern Plains.

In parts of North Dakota, they have one ICU bed remaining per city because of COVID-19. So, we saw that 60,000 new people were infected yesterday. That's going to result in more hospital beds being occupied by COVID patients. And, eventually, it could also mean an uptick in the number of deaths.

It's very hard to say we need to go into lockdown when it just feels like a bit of a moot point, to be honest. Scientists will say one thing and then the officials discredit that, don't follow the science.

It really falls on members of the public, Jake, to remember that we live in a country that's not mandating masks, even though we know mask mandates have been shown to work. A study from the University of Washington finds, if 95 percent of Americans were to wear masks for the next few months only, we'd save 80,000 lives here in the U.S.

So, wear a mask, get your flu shot, really limit gatherings, and think very carefully about who you have been exposed to and who you could be exposing. It comes down to these simple measures. We haven't got a vaccine. We don't have good governance, so we're going to have to take very calculated, careful decisions on our own.

TAPPER: And you talked about the president being the single largest source of misinformation about this pandemic.

And, today, he's out there misrepresenting the CDC study and suggesting that wearing a mask is not effective. Either he doesn't understand the study or he's lying about the study. It doesn't even really matter. But it must be so frustrating for scientists such as yourself to hear the president say things that are just completely not true, like 85 percent of people who wear masks get the virus.

That's not true.

YASMIN: It's absolutely not true.

And, like I said, it just feels like screaming into a void. It's so hard to sometimes counter that misinformation and disinformation that comes from officials, comes from people with really big platforms. People listen to the president. Wherever you may think of him, whatever some of our viewers may think of him, people listen. They take what he says to heart. They follow his example.

It's so dangerous that he's telling lies about the science. The evidence shows wearing a mask drastically reduces your likelihood of infecting others and being exposed yourself.

Wearing a mask is a really important public health prevention measure right now in terms of preventing you from becoming infected and infecting others. Same goes for physical distancing.

[16:50:00]

I just feel like screaming, and I can't, obviously, but it just comes down to people having to make these good decisions themselves, which becomes harder and harder when you're hearing 10 different messages from 10 different officials.

TAPPER: Dr. Seema Yasmin, thank you so much. I share your exhaustion.

YASMIN: Thank you.

TAPPER: Breaking news: We have some brand-new comments from a sitting Republican senator trashing President Trump. What did he say?

That's next.

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[16:55:07]

TAPPER: We have some breaking news in our politics lead.

Republican Senator Ben Sasse has slammed President Trump, saying on a call with constituents -- quote -- "I don't think the way he has led through COVID has been reasonable or responsible or right" -- unquote, among other criticisms.

He described Trump as someone who kisses dictators' butts and has flirted with white supremacists. Those are quotes. He was on a call with constituency. The audio was obtained by David Drucker of "The Washington Examiner."

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

SEN. BEN SASSE (R-NE): The way he kisses dictators' butts, I mean, the way he ignores the Uyghurs are in literal concentration camps in Xinjiang right now. He hasn't lifted a finger on behalf of the Hong Kongers.

I mean, he and I have a very different foreign policy. It isn't just that he fails to lead our allies. It's that we -- the United States now regularly sells out our allies under his leadership, the way he treats women and spends like a drunken sailor.

The ways I criticized President Obama for that kind of spending, I have criticized President Trump for as well. He mocks evangelicals behind closed doors, as his family has treated the presidency like a business opportunity. He flirted with white supremacists.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

TAPPER: I mean, don't hold back, Senator Sasse. Tell us how you really feel.

CNN's Manu Raju joins us.

Now, he's up for reelection. And he's really -- until today really, been holding back some of the criticisms he used to make about President Trump. Quite strong language, though.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Quite strong language. It's something he does not say in the halls of the Capitol when we ask him about a lot of these things, controversies that the president has engaged in.

Oftentimes, when he comes into the Capitol, he quickly votes, he quickly leaves. He may answer a question very briefly, but he doesn't often engage. Here, he's engaging pretty significantly with his constituents and unloading on the president, not just on that, but also on the president's handling of the pandemic.

He said the president careened from curb to curb. First, he ignored COVID, Sasse says about Trump. Then he says that he went into full economic shutdown mode. And then he says that: "I don't think that he's led COVID has -- the way he has led COVID has been reasonable or responsible or right."

Now, I have asked his office about these comments that were reported in "The Washington Examiner." His office has confirmed the authenticity of those comments.

They went on to say in a statement through a spokesman that Ben Sasse is concerned about control the Senate, in his view, is 10 times more important than control of the White House. And, as you mentioned, he's up for reelection. He's already through his primary. And ahead of his primary, President Trump endorsed Ben Sasse.

You didn't hear much criticism from Sasse towards Trump during that primary. Since that primary has been over, though, there's been more criticism from Sasse directed to Trump, but not quite like what we're hearing, what he said in private to his constituents, Jake.

TAPPER: I, quite frankly, would be amazed if that audio doesn't show up pretty quickly in a Joe Biden for president campaign ad.

But, Manu, I want to ask you about something else that happened at the Senate today causing some consternation, a maskless hug, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham and the ranking member, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, hugging today at the end of the Judiciary Committee hearing for Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

Surprising for a couple reasons, one of them being a lot of Democrats don't think Feinstein has been strong enough on this issue.

RAJU: Yes.

And one of the groups, an activist group, Demand Justice that has spent money to oppose Amy Coney Barrett's nomination, actually put out a statement demanding that Feinstein be removed from atop the committee proceedings.

She praised Lindsey Graham through -- at the end of the hearing, before that maskless hug. She said that Graham has been fair. She says: This is one of the best hearings that I have participated in. And this comes as Democrats have tried to portray this process, in their view, as a sham process, something that lacks legitimacy. But they're worried that Feinstein essentially has undercut that argument just weeks before the election here -- Jake.

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

As the United States passes 217,000 coronavirus deaths, the highest in the world, according to official numbers, we want to take a moment to remember just one, just one of those lives lost, Victor Daniel Martinez (ph) of California, just 36 years old.

He spent one month in the hospital. And his doctors say he fought for his life until the very end. Martinez was a safety consultant for California and a deejay on the side. His family describes him as a gentle giant who donated hundreds of hours playing music for events at his son's school and for fund-raisers in his community.

Before getting sick, we're told he would hand out masks and gloves and wipes to those in need. He's remembered as a caring member of his community a devoted husband and father and a gentle soul.

May his memory and the memories of all of those we have lost to this horrible virus be a blessing.

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

Our coverage on CNN continues right now. Thanks for watching.