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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Study Shows Anti-Inflammatory Drug Can Reduce Risk of Death in Critically ill COVID Patients; Government Officials Alarmed Over White House Push for Pentagon Deal Worth Billions; Former Twitter Executive Says It's Time for Social Media Platforms to Mute Trump; Biden Looks to Rust Belt to Rebuild Blue Wall. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired October 20, 2020 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's not as reliable as a clinical trial but it certainly does sort of, you know, keep some hope that maybe this drug is useful in certain patients.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Elizabeth, another new study finds that blood from the very sickest COVID patients might make for the most effective convalescent plasma treatment. Why?

COHEN: You know what, because the sicker you get, the strongest response your body has to form. If you're very sick, your immune system really has to kick into gear.

So, let's take a look at what this study found, because this has been a big question, is convalescent plasma the same from person to person? And it's apparently not. They looked at 126 survivors. 80 percent had detectible, neutralizing antibodies. That's what they're looking for. So, in other words, 20 percent weren't even useful, and that's good to know. The patients who were the best were older, male and hospitalized. And that is sort of a way of saying the patients who were the best were the ones that were the most sick.

TAPPER: All right, Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much. Important information.

What if you wake up on November 4th with no clear winner in the presidential contest and a category 5 tweet storm from President Trump?

Well, the man who run political advertising for Twitter says it might be time to mute the President for democracy's sake. We'll talk to him. Plus, breaking news in our POLITICS LEAD. Stick around and I'll tell you what it is.

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TAPPER: And we are back with some breaking news in our POLITICS LEAD. I'm bringing you now some brand-new reporting.

Senior administration officials are sounding the alarm, warning of something that one official calls really fishy and what could be, quote, the biggest handoff of economic power to a single entity in history.

Senior administration officials tell me that they're concerned about White House pressure on the Pentagon to lease premium real estate on spectrum for the lucrative 5G market to lease it to one company, a company that prominent Republicans and supporters of President Trump are investors in. It's a company called Rivada.

Tens of billions of dollars are at stake here. Now 5G, or fifth generation, is the next generation of wireless network technology. It's expected to change how we live and work enabling a whole new wave of tech products. Sources tell me that the White House pressure campaign to fast track a contract for Rivada without a competitive process intensified in September.

They say it's been led by White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows after President Trump began pushing Meadows to tell the Pentagon to ask Rivada to submit a request for proposal or RFP, under special rules to lease the Pentagon's own 350 megahertz of mid-band spectrum and bypass the normal competitive bidding process.

The Pentagon leaders I'm told are resisting the move that's according to sources. Pentagon lawyers argue that the Department of Defense has no authority to issue an RFP for such a deal, and officials are unsure if Rivada even has the ability or technology to do what the company claims it will be able to do. The Pentagon offered no comment as to my reporting.

President Trump's interest in helping this private company, Rivada, is said to have been encouraged by Fox commentator and Republican strategist, Karl Rove. He's a lobbyist for and investor in Rivada. Officials at the Federal Communications Commission have also been stunned by the White House push sources tell me. Rivada's 5G competitors include more traditional telecommunications companies such as AT&T, which we should point out is CNN's parent company. Though no one has affiliated with this story has communicated with anyone at AT&T about this story in any way.

When asked for a comment today, a White House official told CNN that Chief of Staff Meadow's goal is to get 5G deployed across the company as quickly and safely as possible. The official says that Meadows is agnostic about which company should ultimately get the contract though he believes Rivada has made a compelling argument.

And a Rivada spokesman and Karl Rove both deny that they want a non- competitive deal in any way. Yet informed sources tell me that the White House is unquestionably pressuring the Pentagon. And as one official puts it, if this contract is rewarded to Rivada it would be a, quote, absolute gold mine.

Craig Moffett, a highly regarded Wall Street analyst of the telecommunication sector concluded in an October 7th research paper, quote, the whole story smacks of cronyism at best and reeks of the swamp at worst.

In our TECH LEAD today, as President Trump continues to use Twitter as a platform for all sorts of wild charges and deranged conspiracy theories and misinformation about voting, one former tech executive is now saying that it's time for social media platforms to mute President Trump, at least until after the election.

Joining us now is that former tech exec, Peter Greenberger. Peter launched and led the political advertising teams at both Google and Twitter.

Peter, good to see you. You say Trump should be silenced on both platforms until the winner in the election is determined. That's a pretty extreme suggestion. Why do you say that?

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PETER GREENBERGER, FOUNDER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF FOREST HILLS CONSULTING: I agree it is, and I think extreme times demand extreme suggestions. I did not come to this opinion lightly. I believe that the tech companies generally have a responsibility to be neutral. And I think in the case of Twitter specifically it has been a great champion of the democratization of information as well as a strong supporter of freedom of expression.

However, we are in a unique and I believe a fraught moment in time with a President who is desperate and he's facing a very difficult situation. I think the time is to mute the President temporarily while votes are being cast right now and until the winner is decided.

TAPPER: Well, in President Trump's defense, he's been pushing all sorts of lies and smears and conspiracy theories for years. I mean, literally he burst on the political scene pushing the racist birther theory, and the American people elected him. It was an electoral vote victory, not a popular vote, but he still won fair and square.

Does that not suggest a certain desire of the American people to allow this kind of unhinged nonsense and lies and deranged conspiracy theories, that they're OK with it?

GREENBERGER: As you say, he has been a reckless poster on Twitter, on Facebook and other platforms for the duration of his time in office and ever since he came down the golden escalator at Trump Tower.

However, it's time, I believe, that Twitter hold him accountable to the same terms and conditions, the same rules of the road that every other user is subject to. They have been wrestling with and tying themselves up in pretzels in an effort to try to accommodate the President.

They've taken some very laudable steps. They were the first in fact to start labeling some of the President's tweets as misinformation. I think that was a very bold important move. And they've gone so far as starting today I believe turning some of

the key engagement features of the platform in order to slow down the cause of this misinformation.

However, what I would note is that according to a recent Harvard study, the leading promulgaters of false information come from the top. It's coming from Donald Trump and some of the leading conservative voices that echo him. It that's where the misinformation's coming from, this is not coming from the dark corners of the dark web or social media, it's coming from the President.

TAPPER: Right.

GREENBERGER: So perhaps it's time to mute the President while we're in this sensitive time.

TAPPER: Well, President Trump has warned tech companies he is, quote, watching them very closely during this election cycle as his administration has proposed stripping platforms of long held legal protections such as liability for the content they publish or block. If Trump wins re-election, do you think he might actually go forward with that?

GREENBERGER: This is not an easy decision, and I agree. Certainly, the eyes of Trump are on Twitter as are his most ardent supporters, but so is history. I think this is something that Twitter and some of the other platforms have to consider very carefully.

This is again not a normal situation. They have terms and conditions in place. This is a reason they have these terms and conditions, so they can make these calls more easily.

TAPPER: All right, Peter Greenberger, big tech exec from Google and Twitter in the past. Thank you so much. Appreciate your time.

Coming up next, the states shaping up to be big wins for both President Trump and Joe Biden as this 2020 race hits the final two- week stretch. Stay with us.

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TAPPER: With just two weeks to go until election day, what do the paths -- the possible paths to victory look like for Joe Biden or for President Trump?

Joining me now to discuss, CNN's Gloria Borger and "The Atlantic's" Ron Brownstein. Ron, let me start with you, you call winning back the Rust Belt, Joe Biden's shortest path to the White House, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan.

But President Trump I have to say he was trailing in polls in those same three states, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan in 2016 and he ended up winning

all three. Now, he was within the margin of error and he is today within the margin of error, but do you think Biden can win those states back?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I mean I think that is the core proposition of the Biden candidacy from the beginning. I mean Joe Biden is a 77-year-old white guy who has been around Washington for 50 years. He's not the candidate you would draw up in the lab to try solve the Democrats' problem of increasing turnout among younger, black and Hispanic voters across Sun Belt whether it's North Carolina or Arizona or Texas.

I mean the core selling proposition of Biden from the beginning was that he was someone who could bring back white voters, particularly white voters without a college education, in the three critical Rust Belt states that Trump dislodged from the blue wall, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Whatever else you can say about Joe Biden, he has not lost sight of that mission. I mean he has treated it as Ford would say, as job one. A lot of advertising, a lot of tine there, a lot of time in front of blue-collar audiences.

Right now, Jake, he is polling in at around 40 percent among noncollege whites across all of these states including Ohio, Iowa and Minnesota, not a great number by any means, but significantly better than Clinton, and right now when combined with growth among college whites and solid performance at least there among African-Americans, it's enough to put him in the lead.

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But as you say, Trump overcame that last time which is why Democrats can't sleep easy on it.

TAPPER: Yes, Gloria, I don't think, that the campaign manager for Biden, Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, I don't think she's faking it when she says, don't get complacent, who knows what's going to happen, 2016 happened, unexpected things can happen. Do you see a viable path to victory for both Trump and Biden?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I think there is. I think the path to victory is a little wider for Joe Biden. There's lots of places he can go to and lose and still win. And I think what even, you know, the President's campaign manager Bill Stepien is telling reporters is, you know, there are a few paths we have but it seems that more has to go right in every single case for the President.

So, what they're looking at, for example, is first of all winning states like Florida, Georgia, Iowa and Ohio. Now Ohio has Republican DNA. You can see that happening pretty easily. Florida is Florida. So, you're always going to say that's a toss-up state.

But Iowa right now, for example very close. Georgia very close. And then even if they were to win all of those, they still have to move on to other states like Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan where it could be more problematic for them. TAPPER: And Ron, the Supreme Court essentially just ruled, it was a 4

to 4 tie, so it deferred to the earlier ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that the state of Pennsylvania -- sorry, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania can count late ballots as long as those ballots arrive by three days after election day.

The latest poll shows that Pennsylvania, it remains close. I mean the margin is thin. Biden is over 50 percent in these polls, but the margin is thin within

the margin of error. So, this is more information that could make it more likely that we will not know on election night who won.

BROWNSTEIN: And if you look, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, you know, they do not have a big experience with large numbers of absentee ballots, it's going to take them a while.

Look, we have inner tier and outer tier of swing states. I mean the inner tier are those 3 Rust Belt states, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, then Arizona, North Carolina, Florida across the Sun Belt. Then you've got the outer tier, Democrats targeting Ohio, Iowa in the Rust Belt, also hoping for Georgia, maybe Texas in the Sun Belt and Trump trying to but Nevada and Minnesota in play.

The problem the President has if Biden holds everything Clinton won, the 20 states that she won, and just adds the 3 big Rust Belt states, that's it. Or if he adds 2 of them and Arizona where he is strong, that's it.

You know, North Carolina and Florida, as Gloria was saying, there's lot of, you know, Democrats who are never going to rely entirely on those states, but they don't have to win them.

The challenge President has is every place his path, Jake, is the same. Turning out more noncollege and nonurban white voters than pollsters expects. And it really is the same equation for him whether we're talking about Florida, Wisconsin, Arizona or North Carolina. He's got to change the electorate in order to win.

TAPPER: And Gloria, Republican lawyers are already claiming that the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court would let voters cast ballots after the election. Obviously, that would be illegal.

But that clearly makes it -- is a signal that they're preparing to challenge the results in Pennsylvania. Do you think that it's 100 percent that the Trump lawyers are going to challenge whatever happens in Pennsylvania, there's going to be a post-election fight?

BORGER: Yes, I think there are lawyers waiting to pounce all over the country, Pennsylvania included. And what you're going to see is people saying, oh, well look at these, these postmarks are smudged, we can't read them, obviously they were sent before election day.

The problem with that reasoning is that in order for this to make a huge difference and to disqualify or decertify an election in an entire state is, you'd have to have that done in the thousands, in the tens of thousands of ballots. It would have to be well organized.

And as everyone knows who has studied this going back to Bush/Gore that just doesn't happen on that large a level. But in order to answer your question, sure, the lawyers are there. They are going to challenge everything. They are going to try to delay vote counts and that's what we have to be prepared for on election night. We have to be prepared to be patient and wait. And I keep on reminding everyone that in the year 2000 in Bush v. Gore, it took 36 days until the Supreme Court actually decided that election.

TAPPER: And not only that, in 2004 we didn't have a clear winner necessarily that night because of the state of Ohio. It wasn't until the next day that John Kerry conceded to George W. Bush. Gloria Borger, Ron Brownstein, thank you so much.

[15:55:00]

He commanded the raid or was the commander of special ops of the raid when Osama Bin Laden was killed and now, he's made his pick for commander in chief. He's going to tell me why. That's next.

Plus, a new trial launched where dozens of healthy people will willingly be injected with coronavirus to help find a vaccine.

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TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. We are continuing this hour with the 2020 LEAD.

Two weeks ahead of the election, two days out from the final Trump- Biden debate, a key moment for the candidates to make their final pitches to the American public.

Today a Trump adviser tells CNN, the time is running out for the President to make his case calling President Trump's recent, repeated attacks on Dr. Anthony Fauci, quote, not smart. Especially, because they remind the public of the President's failed handling of the deadly coronavirus pandemic.

And even with 220,000 Americans dead because of the coronavirus, tonight President Trump is pushing ahead with yet another reckless rally. The first lady Melania Trump was expected to join the President in Erie, Pennsylvania, today at the rally but she cancelled those plans. Her office is saying she is still recovering from her own battle with the virus.