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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Reason For Pause in Some Vaccine Trials?; COVID-19 Pandemic Escalating; Trump Continues Attacking Dr. Fauci. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired October 19, 2020 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:07]

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

We begin with breaking news. Just moments ago, in the midst of a worsening pandemic, President Trump just attacked the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, for the third time today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think, really, Dr. Fauci is a very nice man, but we let him do what he wants to do. He gets a lot of television. He loves being on television, and we let him do it.

Sometimes, he says things that are a little bit off, and they get built up, unfortunately. But he's a nice guy. I like him. But he's called a lot of bad calls.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Called a lot of bad calls.

On the contrary, a long list of health experts say that the truly bad calls, downplaying the virus in February and March, pushing unproven drugs, undermining the wearing of masks as recently as last week, holding rally after rally in the middle of a pandemic, those bad calls are entirely President Trump's.

But Trump's latest broadside against the leading infectious disease expert in the nation comes after President Trump earlier attack Fauci on Twitter, and then also on a call with campaign staffers.

On the call, President Trump stunningly calling Dr. Anthony Fauci a disaster, and making a completely baseless claim that there would be more than half-a-million deaths if the president had listened to Dr. Fauci's advice on handling the pandemic.

To be clear, this claim is nonsense, based on nothing, other than the president's sense of grievance. The president also telling campaign staffers today people are -- quote

-- "tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots."

You know, idiots like the doctors and scientists who are trying to keep the ship steady and save American lives.

As President Trump himself continues to not only acknowledge the reality -- not only deny the reality of the pandemic, refusing to get the U.S. to a safer place with widespread testing and contact tracing, so as to identify and isolate the virus, not only is the president refusing to do that; he's actually doing the exact opposite of what health officials say we should all be doing.

He is recklessly holding mass gatherings and rallies, mostly maskless, no distancing. We already know of Trump campaign events where people have caught the virus.

At any moment, President Trump will kick off more of these potential super-spreader events, two of them in Arizona today, despite the fact that new coronavirus cases in Arizona are up 15 percent.

And across the United States, more concerning science. The three-day total of new cases over the weekend was the highest from Friday to Sunday total since July.

Let's get right to CNN's Kaitlan Collins,

Kaitlan, this pandemic is getting worse and worse again in the United States, and yet President Trump, instead of focusing his energy on attacking the virus, attacking Dr. Fauci multiple times today.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake, with 15 days to go before the election, the president's most consistent messaging today has been these sustained attacks on Dr. Anthony Fauci, which are not new, but the president has revived them today after that "60 Minutes" appearance last night, where Dr. Fauci disputed a lot of the president's claims about coronavirus, including when it comes to wearing a mask, things like that.

And so the president was on this call today with campaign staff in the headquarters here outside Washington and across the U.S. It was supposed to be a call to rally these campaign staffers in the 15 days before the election. But CNN had access to the call.

And the president, unprompted, went after the nation's top infectious disease expert.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

TRUMP: Every time he goes on television, there's always a bomb, but there's a bigger bomb if you fire him.

But Fauci is a disaster. This guy is -- if I listened to him, we'd have 500,000 deaths.

(END AUDIO CLIP) COLLINS: So, that was the first time today that the president attacked Dr. Fauci. Then he did so on Twitter, even criticizing what kind of mask he wears.

And then he just did so again, as he landed in Arizona ahead of this rally, Jake, continuously going after Dr. Fauci. And some Republicans, Republican senators, are sticking up for Dr. Anthony Fauci, including Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who, of course, we should note is retiring at the end of his term.

But he just tweeted a few moments ago, calling Fauci one of the nation's distinguished public servants. He says: "He has served six presidents starting with Ronald Reagan. If more Americans paid attention to his advice, we'd have fewer cases of COVID-19 and it would be safer to go back to school and back to work and out to eat."

So, he's saying, if more people paid attention to Fauci's advice, that would be the situation. Instead, what the president is arguing, claiming, if we listened to Dr. Fauci, there would be hundreds of thousands more deaths, a statement the president is making, Jake, with, of course, nothing to back it up.

TAPPER: It's zero. It's just invented. It makes no sense at all.

I will say, as an observation. Dr. Fauci is a symbol too many Americans have knowledge, of facts, of science, of empathy, of decency. So, I guess, in that sense, it's not a surprise that Trump would come out against him, given that President Trump is at odds with many of those values.

[15:05:12]

It's also not just Dr. Fauci who's concerned about the advice President Trump is putting out there. Dr. Deborah Birx, tell us more about that, and her concerns about Dr. Scott Atlas, who is not an infectious disease expert, who is on the Coronavirus Task Force.

COLLINS: Yes.

Well, Jake, you will remember, at the beginning of the pandemic, Dr. Birx was someone who was almost always by the president's side. She was at briefings. She was on Air Force One with the president. She was always there. And she was someone who also met privately with the president a lot, and he listened to her when it came to his response to the pandemic at times.

And now she has seen that power taken away from her and really consolidated by Dr. Scott Atlas, of course, the newest member to join the task force, who has backed the president's unscientific claims, including you saw all over the weekend he was talking about mask- wearing, something that Twitter later took down because they said it was misinformation, saying that masks do not work.

And Dr. Birx has been frustrated by that. And according to "The Washington Post," she went to the office of the vice president to complain about Dr. Scott Atlas being on the task force and saying he needs to be removed, because he is now increasingly the person that the president is listening to.

And you can see that in a lot of the president's tweets and public remarks, because they echo things that Dr. Atlas has said, though, of course, the president himself has been saying a lot of these things long before Dr. Atlas joined as well.

TAPPER: A great way to start off National Character Counts Week, President Trump attacking the nation's leading infectious disease expert.

Kaitlan Collins, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Joe Biden may be leading President Trump nationally, according to polls, but his campaign manager is telling donors, activist, voters that Donald Trump can still win this presidential race.

CNN's Arlette Saenz joins us now live from Washington, D.C.

Arlette, Jen O'Malley Dillon, the campaign manager for Biden, is telling supporters to campaign like we're trailing. But Joe Biden isn't even on the campaign trail today. What's the strategy?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: No, Jake, Joe Biden is back in Wilmington, Delaware, keeping a little bit of a lighter schedule at the start of this week, as he is preparing for that next matchup against President Trump.

Biden is expected to be working with his advisers in the coming days as he prepares for that now second presidential debate against the president. Biden is a meticulous preparer for these types of debates.

So, essentially, the Biden campaign is betting that their strategy of focusing on this debate prep at this time, two weeks before the election, will pay off as he prepares to face off against the president.

Now, one thing that the Biden campaign is waiting to hear about is whether the Commission on Presidential Debates will make any changes to the debate rules. That is something that was talked about in the wake of that first chaotic debate. The Biden campaign said that they would welcome any -- some rules changes.

I asked the former vice president about that the day after the debate, and he told me that he wanted -- had hoped that there would be a way to have a civil conversation over the course of the debate.

So, the Debate Commission is meeting this afternoon to determine whether there will be any changes. It's not guaranteed that there will be, but that is something that's under consideration.

And as this campaign is getting into those final two weeks before the election, the campaign is warning its supporters and activists and donors to not become complacent in these final two weeks.

A lot of national polls and some battleground state polls have Joe Biden leading. But they want to ensure that their supporters are remaining active and engaged. The campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon, sending out an e-mail to supporters over the weekend, telling them one thing: "If we learned anything from 2016, it's that we cannot underestimate Donald Trump or his ability to claw his way back into contention in the final days of a campaign."

She added: "We cannot become complacent, because the very searing truth is that Donald Trump can still win this race."

So this is the Biden campaign, really trying to mobilize their supporters in these final two weeks. And pretty soon, they're going to be hearing from one of the biggest surrogates in Democratic politics, with President Obama making the case for his former vice president on Wednesday.

TAPPER: All right, it's absolutely true. I mean, if you look at the polling of key battleground states, Biden's ahead, but it's within the margin of error. Anything really could truly happen.

Arlette Saenz, thanks so much.

Let's discuss now.

Seung Min Kim, let me start with you.

Right now, experts are warning that the pandemic is going to get worse. Every health expert says that. Is there any sense at all, do you have any idea why he would, the president, spend so much time attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci and other doctors and scientists as idiots?

I get that -- well, I don't know. Tell me exactly, like, why. I mean, what is even the purpose of this?

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, they're presenting facts, and they're presenting facts of the situation that the president clearly doesn't like.

[15:10:05]

I mean, he has been, for weeks, if not months, downplaying the severity of the pandemic, especially as the situation gets more severe, as it gets colder and as the pandemic continues to go on. But they are out there presenting facts of -- presenting a reality that the president just simply doesn't like.

And that's why you hear him go and attack the messenger so much. You have heard him on the campaign call attack Dr. Fauci earlier today. You also heard him attack the media. And that's kind of his -- weirdly, his closing message for the last couple of weeks.

I will point out, as Kaitlan pointed earlier, the pushback coming from Senate Republicans, with Senator Lamar Alexander weighing in, and saying, if more Americans paid attention to Dr. Fauci, the situation would be a little bit better at this point.

And you know, if you put Senator Alexander on truth serum, he would be talking directly about Donald Trump himself when he talks about if more Americans listened to Dr. Fauci.

TAPPER: Yes.

No, and that's one of the odd things about this era, is, I mean, I get that passes for courage, that statement from Senator Lamar Alexander, who's not up for reelection and can really honestly say whatever he wants. He has plenty of money. He's a respected figure.

Why not just say, President Trump, stop attacking Anthony Fauci, stop lying about Anthony Fauci? I mean, what is the reason? I get like -- I get that some members and Republicans on the Hill are just complete sycophants, like Congressman Gaetz or whatever. But there are others who know better, Lamar Alexander among them.

Why not just say, stop attacking Anthony Fauci, Donald Trump?

KIM: That's a really good question and something that we have been asking for the last four years.

I mean, talking to Republicans on Capitol Hill who had to navigate Donald Trump for the first term of his office, I mean, they have kind of -- first of all, they don't want to become the target of his attacks. You have seen what has happened to Senate Republicans who have been pretty blunt and aggressive against the president, Bob Corker and Jeff Flake being some of the examples of--

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Former Senator Bob Corker, former Senator Jeff Flake.

KIM: Exactly.

And if you do want some sort of I mean, not even necessarily a career in Republican politics after Trump, but just some sort of a legacy or some sort of a history, I mean, it's hard to kind of navigate a president who -- a president of your own party who's so willing to attack you with a tweet or with a comment so easily, and has -- feels no guilt over it.

TAPPER: It's perhaps no surprise that the president's remarks about Fauci come after Fauci sat for an interview on "60 Minutes" last night.

I want you to take a listen to part of his answer about the president getting coronavirus himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Were you surprised that President Trump got sick?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: Absolutely not. I was worried that he was going to get sick when I saw him in a completely precarious situation of crowded, no separation between people, and almost nobody wearing a mask.

When I saw that on TV, I said, oh, my goodness. Nothing good can come out of that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: We saw just their images of the Rose Garden event in which individuals who later got the coronavirus, including former Governor Chris Christie, who is in the ICU because of it, are featured with no masks on, holding hands, touching hands, hugging each other.

The president, Seung Min, he must know his behavior, he must know holding these big rallies is reckless for his supporters. So what is the idea here? Is it just his ego needs it, he needs to hear the roar of the crowd, it doesn't matter if people in front of him get the virus?

KIM: Well, a lot of it is part of his underlying campaign strategy.

I made, if you figure that his rallies are kind -- are his signature a way to campaign and energize his base and collect key data by his campaign of these people who show up to his rallies, is such a critical part of his reelection campaign and a critical part of how he won the presidency in 2016, that it was difficult for him to give that up once the pandemic started raging on.

I mean, you saw the campaign try to figure out some alternative ways, like holding tele-rallies, holding smaller events, and it just didn't work. So that's why he is so willing to shun these public health guidelines to try to replicate that magic of four years ago.

TAPPER: All right, Seung Min Kim, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Why one expert warns the next few weeks could be the -- quote -- "darkest period" yet for the pandemic in the United States.

Plus, 15 days out, more than 28 million votes in. The early voting figures that now rival totals from 2016, that's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:19:10]

TAPPER: In our health lead, while President Trump attacks with laser- like focus, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, one scientist is warning that the next six to 12 weeks are going to be the -- quote -- "darkest of the entire pandemic."

Today, 27 states are showing an upward trend, and 12 saw their highest seven day average for new daily cases. Just yesterday, hospitalizations also on the rise. Alaska, Oklahoma, Montana reported record high number, Iowa, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Utah, South Dakota, and Nebraska at or near record highs.

I want to bring in Dr. Seema Yasmin, former CDC disease detective.

Before I get into the pandemic, Dr. Yasmin, I can't help but just want to know what you think about the fact that President Trump is attacking and undermining the nation's leading infectious disease experts in the middle of a deadly pandemic, and what you make of that.

[15:20:05]

DR. SEEMA YASMIN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It's dangerous. It's deadly. It's a waste of our time. And that's beyond the fact that it's so disrespectful and offensive of an expert who is really a public servant who has served through six administrations, through the HIV pandemic, Ebola, pandemic flu, Zika, so many more.

It's just completely frustrating. We're setting new records when it comes to COVID-19, and we're seeing not just Trump, but other officials as well, just berate science and scientists. It's extremely frustrating.

TAPPER: No, and there's a -- I mean, there's a body count as a result. I mean, we see it.

Infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm is predicting that the next few weeks will be the darkest period of the pandemic so far. Do you agree?

YASMIN: I do.

And it's because, as an epidemiologist, Jake, I look at the trends and I look at the numbers. And so what I'm seeing is that right now we're seeing a 60 percent increase in new cases compared to mid-September. We just recorded 70,000 Americans newly diagnosed with COVID-19 in a single day. That's the highest daily case count we have seen since July 24.

And the same with hospitalizations. They're higher now than they were since mid-August. So we're hearing about ICUs, whether it's in El Paso, whether it's in the Midwest, in the Northern Plains, being either at capacity or having one ICU bed left.

And so I'm worried about this patchwork pandemic, where the hot spots are kind of almost everywhere, but worse in some regions. If you're looking for good news, only two states are reporting a decrease in cases. Meanwhile, 27 states are showing an increase of cases between 10 percent to 50 percent.

And in the case of Florida and Connecticut, they're seeing an increase of more than 50 percent. So all of that put together, plus the fact that we're not even in the worst part of the flu epidemic yet that normally hits us really hard in January/February time, and if we're seeing this with COVID-19, it means the conditions are ripe for the spread of flu as well, since the same measures, wearing a mask, hand hygiene, physical distancing, are the same things that can prevent us from both coronavirus and influenza.

TAPPER: The NIH director, Dr. Francis Collins, said that, as the number of hospitalizations tick up, an increase in deaths will likely follow.

How do you interpret the hospitalization numbers? YASMIN: So, there's always a lag between when people first get diagnosed, about one to two weeks between that time and then being hospitalized, and then a further lag with the deaths.

We are getting better at decreasing the amount of time people spend in the hospital. We're getting a bit better at treating COVID-19. But we're still averaging almost 1,000 deaths a day in the U.S. And by some estimates, we could see 389,000 reported COVID-19 deaths by the end of this year.

So, we could be seeing about 2,000, 2,500 deaths every single day. That's where we're headed. And so when you look at the case counts go up each day, as I mentioned, and you look at hospitalizations come up, of course, as Dr. Collins said, that just means we need to be prepared for the death count to increase as well.

TAPPER: Avoid crowds, wash your, hands wear masks.

Dr. Seema Yasmin, thank you so much for your time today. We appreciate it.

When will we get an explanation about the unexplained illness that is now holding up the search for a COVID vaccine? What CNN now knows about the pause in trials for the vaccine, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:28:31]

TAPPER: We're back with our health lead now. And it's been one week since Johnson & Johnson paused its coronavirus vaccine trial, and we still do not have detailed information as to why.

We do know that a participant in the trial became ill, but Johnson & Johnson and the FDA refuse to answer questions about the exact nature of that illness.

Joining us now, CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

Elizabeth, transparency is very important. What have you learned?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Jake, not only do we not know those details that you mentioned about what happened to this patient, what kind of illness. There are even more basic and straightforward things that the company isn't telling us and that the FDA says they are legally prohibited from telling us.

For example, we don't know the answer to the basic question, did this recipient get a vaccine or did they get a placebo? We don't know that. Johnson & Johnson says they don't know. But experts I have talked to says that that seems -- that we should know that by now. It's been more than a week.

The second question is, is this the first pause for the trial? It's possible that this is not the first pause. When you ask that question, you don't get an answer. And to talk a little bit about why this pause is so important, I want

to point out that there are only four phase three clinical trials for COVID vaccines going on in the U.S. right now. Let's take a look at them.

Pfizer and Moderna both started July 27. And they have not paused. They are ongoing. AstraZeneca started August 31 and paused September 9, so, as you can see, didn't go on for very long.

The J&J trial started September 23 and paused October 12. So, they also did not go on for very long.