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The Lead with Jake Tapper

COVID-19 Pandemic Escalating; Trump Continues Attacks on Dr. Fauci; Biden to Trump: Americans are "Tired Of Your Lies About This Virus". Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired October 19, 2020 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:30]

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

We are continuing with the 2020 lead, today, the United States nearing 220,000 deaths from coronavirus, the highest number in the world. And the number of new daily cases of the virus is on the rise once again in the U.S.

Yet President Trump today has been trashing the nation's top infectious disease expert on Twitter, to reporters, and on a campaign call. The president called Dr. Anthony Fauci a -- quote -- "disaster." And he wildly, falsely claims that the nation would have more than double the number of deaths if he had listened to Fauci advice.

It's not true. And it's a stunning, yet, sadly, not surprising attack, given the president's clear disregard for the science on controlling this pandemic and his own reckless attitude toward the virus, as can be seen in the rallies he's holding all over the country. He holds two more big rallies again today in Arizona.

Let's bring in CNN's Kaitlan Collins.

Kaitlan, it'd be great if the president attacked the virus with the same energy he's attacking Dr. Fauci.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, two weeks to go, Jake, and the president's main message to voters today, at least, is attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci.

He just went after him for the fourth time today. And let's remind viewers, the president is currently on Mountain time, because he's in Arizona, but he's already gone after Dr. Fauci four times today, starting with that call this morning, but just again a few moments ago at this rally in Arizona, criticizing the nation's top infectious disease expert and criticizing Joe Biden by saying he will listen to Dr. Fauci.

That's a criticism against Joe Biden in the president's eyes. And he's going after him. Of course, it started with that unprompted comment from him this morning on a call that was meant to rally campaign staff in the last few days before the election.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS (voice-over): With 15 days to go until the election, President Trump is attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci and dismissing the pandemic, as infections are rising in multiple states.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: People are saying, whatever. Just leave us alone. They're tired of it. People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots, these people, these people that have gotten it wrong. Fauci is a nice guy. He's been here for 500 years.

COLLINS: In a call meant to rally his campaign staff, the president went after the nation's top infectious disease expert, calling Dr. Fauci a disaster.

TRUMP: Fauci is a disaster. If I listened to him, we'd have 500,000 deaths. We have 700,000 800,000 deaths right now. If there's a reporter on, you can have just done it. I couldn't care less.

COLLINS: Reporters were on the call, and the president's onslaught against Fauci came one day after Fauci appeared on "60 Minutes," where he disputed Trump's coronavirus claims.

ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: He sometimes equates wearing a mask with weakness.

QUESTION: Does that make sense to you?

FAUCI: No, it doesn't. Of course not.

COLLINS: Fauci told CBS News he thinks, deep down, Trump believes in science, though, this weekend, the president mocked Joe Biden for listening to scientists.

TRUMP: He's going to lock down. This guy wants to lock down. He will listen to the scientists.

If I listened totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression, instead of we're like a rocket ship.

COLLINS: While Trump was attacking him today, Dr. Fauci was accepting a leadership award from the National Academy of Medicine, where he said this:

FAUCI: We have a lot of challenges ahead of us. And I can't help thinking that we're really going through a time that's disturbingly anti-science in certain segments of our society.

COLLINS: Tension between Trump and Fauci has been building for months. But Fauci isn't alone. "The Washington Post" reports that Dr. Deborah Birx is also frustrated because the newest member of the Coronavirus Task Force, Dr. Scott Atlas, has consolidated power by backing the president's unscientific views. Atlas was rebuked by Twitter this weekend after he posted, masks don't work, which the social media site labeled misinformation. Trump is ignoring his own administration's guidelines and holding two large rallies outdoors and Arizona today, after offering an upbeat assessment to his campaign staff about the state of the race.

TRUMP: Today is the best single day I have ever felt on either campaign. We're going to win. I wouldn't have said that three weeks ago. Three weeks ago, two weeks ago, I don't know, I wouldn't have said it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[16:05:01]

COLLINS: Now, Jake, the president's attacks on Dr. Fauci have caused another Republican to try to distance themselves from the president today.

That's Lamar Alexander, the senator from Tennessee, who was tweeting about Dr. Fauci, praising him as a distinguished public servant and noting that he has served under presidents from both parties. And Lamar Alexander said in this tweet that, if more people listened to Dr. Fauci, there would be fewer cases of COVID-19 in the country.

Of course, we do not expect the president to stop these attacks on Dr. Fauci, even as his campaign is currently airing ads using Dr. Fauci in an attempt to appeal to voters -- Jake.

TAPPER: Yes, Lamar Alexander not even mentioning, however, why he's tweeting that, not mentioning Trump, not mentioning Trump's attacks on Dr. Fauci, what passes for courage in today's GOP, I suppose.

Kaitlan Collins, thanks so much.

I want to bring in CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, today, President Trump called Dr. Anthony Fauci a disaster, which he obviously is not. He said, people are tired of hearing from Fauci and -- quote -- "all these idiots."

Yesterday, Health Secretary Azar suggested there's -- quote -- "mitigation fatigue." People are getting tired of giving so much.

Trump's language is obviously harsh, inappropriate, politically ridiculous. But what message are you hearing from the administration? I mean, the idea that Azar is talking about fatigue when it comes to dealing with this virus, is that helpful?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: No, I mean, it's not at all helpful.

Obviously, there's a complete loss of civility here. We have been talking for months about the bright line that's been drawn between science and politics, that people keep entangling them. But there's science and anti-science clearly now in this country, more than I have ever seen in 20 years of doing this job.

I mean, in terms of giving, what people have had to give up, this idea that the virus spread to the point that it did in this country because simple things weren't done initially, and we have been being been playing catchup for so long, I mean, that's the real issue here.

What are the things that people need to do in order to bring this curve downward? I mean, Fauci, others keep saying you don't need to shut things down again. It's five things. It's masks. It's social distancing. It's avoiding bars and large crowds, and it's washing your hands.

I mean, is that too much to ask in terms of people have to give so much in order to start returning things to some sense of normalcy? That's not going to do it right away, Jake. And we hope there's the vaccine, and there's some promising therapeutics.

But the idea that basic public health behaviors, without shutting things down -- the same people who say we can't shut things down aren't willing to do the basic things to prevent that from happening. That's the problem here.

TAPPER: Yes.

GUPTA: And it's infuriating.

TAPPER: And it's so odd, because we ask -- we're asking a lot of some people. We're asking a lot of our front-line health care workers. We're asking a lot of our first responders. We're asking a lot of our children who have to do remote education.

We're not actually asking all that much from adults, although I have never heard so much whining in my life.

GUPTA: I know. It's really tough.

And I realize, fully realize, as you're saying, that there are people who they don't have the luxury of being able to work from home and do Zoom calls and stuff like that.

TAPPER: Right.

GUPTA: But we did not need to be in this position.

I have tried very hard on your program over the last several months to not look in the rearview mirror, because I just find, as a doctor, that's not really helpful. We have got to fix the problem at hand.

But you can't whine -- it's like a patient who says I refuse to do the treatment, and then gets upset several months later when the disease has progressed. What's the doctor to do at this point? Well, you probably need more aggressive treatment, OK? Well, I'm not going to do that either. And I'm upset at you for even suggesting it.

What am I to do at this point as a--

TAPPER: Right.

GUPTA: If the country were a patient, what is the doctor to do at that point?

That's the situation that we're in.

TAPPER: And, comparatively, I mean, we're just in a worse place than any other Western or wealthy nation.

Today, you spoke to Dr. Fauci. You asked him about vaccines. You asked him who should be taking a vaccine, when and if they're shown to be safe and effective. What did Fauci have to say?

GUPTA: Well, this question really came about because this idea that there's going to be more than one vaccine, right, and which ones come out first? Will the second, third generation be better?

That's what I really wanted to get out with him. I asked him, look, is this going to be like iPhones, like, I will wait for the iPhone 12, not get the iPhone 11?

Here's how he answered.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FAUCI: We will see a hierarchy of recommendations of who should get the vaccine. And I think you have to factor into that how effective it is, and what risk category you as an individual are in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: So, I mean, basically, Jake, no surprise there.

If you are considered a high risk, health care workers, people who are elderly, people who have particular preexisting condition are going to be first in line. They probably shouldn't wait.

As time goes on -- and we will keep an eye on this, obviously, through the beginning of next year into the summer -- there will likely be other vaccine candidates that come out. And some may be better for different reasons.

[16:10:08]

I will give you a quick example. Some vaccines may be very, very good at preventing disease, preventing illness, I should say, in people who are predisposed to that.

But, for children, the goal is to prevent disease, obviously, but to also really make it so they have lower virus counts in their nose and their mouth, so they don't spread as much.

TAPPER: Right.

GUPTA: So, there may be different options for different people depending on the situation. TAPPER: Dr. Scott Atlas is a neuroradiologist. He is not an expert on

infectious diseases.

But President Trump saw him on FOX spewing his nonsense that the president likes, and so he's now on the Coronavirus Task Force, alienating all the other actual doctors on the force, doctors who are experts on infectious disease.

I can't think of anything more emblematic of this era that Twitter had to remove a tweet from Dr. Atlas because it was false. It was against masks.

GUPTA: Look, it -- right.

It was false. He wrote "Masks? No."

Unbelievable. The guy who has the presidency around coronavirus, one of the most basic public health measures we can and should take, data shows that it could save tens of thousands of lives, and he's saying, masks, no.

So he's not helpful. He's harmful at this point. And I can tell you this as well, Jake. Members of the task force called me over the weekend. They don't -- they don't want to be named because everything's a fight nowadays.

But you probably saw some of the response tweets to Dr. Atlas' tweets, even from the members of the task force. Masks? Yes.

I mean, it's ludicrous. No wonder the country has whiplash on this sort of thing. But I think we can definitively say, Dr. Atlas may be a smart guy. We should not be listening to him at this point. It is harmful. It is dangerous at this point.

He's going to be upset that I have said this, but how can he possibly -- the science around masks decreasing transmission at this point is very clear. When you wear a mask, you decrease transmission roughly six-fold. That's according to literature that came out in April.

In the beginning, it wasn't clear that asymptomatic people would spread this as much. Once that became clear, masks became a necessity. There were 69 percent roughly -- and that's self-reporting. I mean, the numbers may be lower than that.

But look at that Jake, 74,000 deaths if we increase mask-wearing to 95 percent. Everyone watching could be part of a movement that could save 74,000 lives just by putting two ear loops on your ear. And a third of the country is still saying, no thanks, I will pass. Ain't going to do it.

TAPPER: Yes.

GUPTA: Dr. Atlas does not help this.

TAPPER: Well, it's worse than that, right? I mean, the AMA should get involved. He is violating his Hippocratic oath. First, do no harm. He is doing harm.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Coming up next, breaking news: what Joe Biden just said about Dr. Anthony Fauci, after the president's repeated, bizarre attacks on Fauci today.

Plus: why one health expert says our darkest days of the pandemic are yet to come.

Stay with us.

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[16:17:33]

TAPPER: Breaking news, in our 2020 lead, Democratic nominee Joe Biden is slamming President Trump's handling of the pandemic in the wake of President Trump's repeated attacks on Dr. Anthony Fauci today -- bizarre, out of control attacks.

CNN's MJ Lee is live for us in Wilmington, Delaware.

MJ, what does Biden have to stay in the statement?

MJ LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, everything of course this week is leading up to Thursday night's debate, and I will tell you Joe Biden is off the campaign trail tonight. He is here in Wilmington, Delaware, doing debate prep. So, we'll see if they add any public events going into Thursday.

But when you talk to the Biden campaign, the one thing they will consistently to say is what they feel good about is the continued contrast that you see between the president and Biden and how they have talked about COVID-19.

Obviously, as you have been talking about all day today, the president going after Anthony Fauci and continuing to say that the country is turning the corner when it come to the coronavirus pandemic. A very different tone of a message we have seen from Joe Biden. And, in fact, he just released a new statement, and I just want to read a part of it.

It says -- Mr. President you're right about one thing: the American people are tired. They're tired of your lies about this virus, they're tired of watching more Americans die and more people lose their jobs because you refuse to take this pandemic seriously.

So, again, just honing in on that contrast the Biden campaign believes. It's critical heading into Thursday night. I should just note, even though this sounds obvious, one of the areas where we also continue to see that contrast is the campaign rallies that the president and Biden's campaign are holding. Obviously, the president continue to hold these crowded, not socially distance events. Whereas the Biden campaign is talking about the protocols and the precautions that they're taking at their events. And one more important thing, of course, they're continuing to be forthcoming when it comes to the test results for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on all the COVID-19 tests that they have been taking recently, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. MJ Lee, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Let's discuss with Jeff Zeleny and Abby Phillip.

So, Abby, I have to say, it's obviously stunning and indecent that President Trump continues to attack in personal terms and with smears and lies Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert.

Is there any strategy to it, or is it just his sense of grievance and his unhinged nature as we get closer to Election Day?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think if you talk to Trump advisers, they would always -- they always come back to Trump being the counterpuncher.

[16:20:06]

And in this case, he's counterpunching against Dr. Fauci just simply saying, leave me out of this political debate. The problem for the president's campaign is that they are trying to use Fauci as a source of credibility in their campaign ads while the president is also attacking him.

That's the part where there seems to be really not much political strategy at all and it just seems to be the president giving into his own instincts and his own grievances when it comes to wanting to downplay what -- how Fauci is respected, frankly, by the American public in general.

TAPPER: And, Jeff, the Biden campaign is warning Democrats to not be complacent, that this race is closer than public polls suggest, and there is a real fear among Democrats there could be a repeat of 2016. They're going to election night thinking they got it in the bag and he knows what's going to happen.

It is not outside the realm of possibility that Trump could end up winning some of these key states where, right now Biden is up, but it's in -- it's within the margin of error.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: It absolutely is within the margin of error. We should start every conversation, really every day for the next 15 days saying most presidents, most sitting presidents win re-election. So, this is still the president's -- a re- election that he has, you know, the whole -- you know, controls of the federal government, and he's using many of them to his extent, the cabinet secretaries are blanketed across the country, the Trump family is blanketed across the country.

And you saw MJ there. Joe Biden is preparing for the debate. So, Democrats are campaigning in a very different way here. So, we should point out the Democrats do believe they're in command of

this race, but there was the campaign manager, Jennifer O'Malley Dillon sending out a message over the weekend, really warning Democrats to not be complacent. They need them to vote. They need them to go out and wait in lines and there is still a worry about litigation, there's a worry about, you know, people getting turned away at the polls.

So, really what all this boils down to, Jake, is the ghost of Hillary Clinton still hangs over this race, particularly the end of this race, the final couple weeks. So, there -- the Democrats do not want the take anything for granted.

But you're right, in these battleground states, it is the a margin of error race. That's why President Trump is talking like he's talking about Dr. Fauci. He's trying to get out his base, bring every single person who may not have voted four years ago, who like him personally to come out and vote.

But what he's also doing, he's motivating the other side as well. Everything he says also motivates Democrats and certainly independents who are just quite frankly disgusted by all of this.

TAPPER: Yeah, it's not tough to think about -- imagine a suburban Republican woman outside Pittsburgh hearing Trump attacking Fauci and saying, ugh, that's it. I'm with Biden.

Abby, President Trump on a campaign call today trying to project confidence. Take a listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As of today, this is the single best I have ever been in any campaign. We're going to win. I wouldn't have said that three weeks ago.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

TAPPER: And we should note, three weeks ago, the president was infected with coronavirus and perhaps battling for his life, so I believe that three weeks ago, he wouldn't have said it. He was probably more focused on trying to breathe.

But what do you make of that?

PHILLIP: Well, I don't think that that jibes with what, you know, we're seeing publicly, but also even what his own campaign is seeing. I mean, three weeks ago, shortly before the president contracted coronavirus, they were going into trying to push a Supreme Court justice, and that actually could have been something that would have been helpful to motivating the conservative base in some ways. It could have been something that potentially changed even the topic of this campaign.

But it was overshadowed by a massive coronavirus outbreak within the White House. So the president is actually in perhaps a more precarious position now than he was then.

But he wants to project confidence to his campaign because of a slew of stories that have indicated that inside the campaign, there's a lot of finger pointing going on, there's a lot of back-biting happening, and a lot of questions about how they can use the little time they have, 15 days and the little money they have most effectively to get as close as they can in some of these key states.

But as Jeff pointed out, this is not in the bag for either candidate.

TAPPER: Yeah.

PHILLIP: There's a lot of time left and a couple of few key swing states could a huge difference in terms of how close the president gets to that critical 270 votes.

TAPPER: Yeah, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, all within the margin of error.

PHILLIP: And Florida.

TAPPER: Yeah, and Florida obviously.

Jeff, one advantage that Biden has going for him is he has a lot of money. The Biden campaign is up with ads during five NFL games, all with this focus on the pandemic and the president's mishandling of it.

Biden's campaign clearly sees it as perhaps the closing message.

ZELENY: They absolutely do, Jake. They see it as the top issue on the minds of voters, and it's just getting worse. This is happening.

[16:25:01]

I mean, as the coronavirus numbers are going up really in states around the country.

So, people are living this in their own lives, as they are seeing the president out there saying it's not a problem. They are not seeing that. So, that is what's so unusual about this campaign. I can't recall a closing message that is so dovetailing with something that's happening in real life here.

So, that's what the Biden campaign is doing.

There's no question, the money advantages that they have is something nobody ever would have expected. So, after all this is over, regardless of who wins, there's going to be examination on how the Trump campaign spent all this money, you know, because they certainly had a big advantage at the beginning.

But Democrats also warned and Jen O'Malley warned in that memo that Republicans can write a check, some big super PAC donors can write to -- you know, basically to put it on parity. So, we don't know how the financial advantage is going to be two weeks from now. But right now, it's advantage Biden. TAPPER: Yeah, and look, the other side from Biden, the Trump side,

they're willing clearly say or do anything to win in terms of the allegations they're willing to make.

Jeff Zeleny, Abby Phillips, thanks so much.

From the president to the pandemic, how an alarming number of new coronavirus cases may forge an entire region of the United States to change rules on who must quarantine.

Stay with us.

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