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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Do Trump Rallies Leads to COVID-19 Spikes?; Pandemic Worsening; Biden, Trump Campaign in Florida. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired October 29, 2020 - 16:00   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Trump and Biden today making their closing arguments to American voters during a surge across the nation in new coronavirus cases.

[16:00:03]

The difference in the candidates' events today reflecting the deep divide over coronavirus and whether or not it's important to heed the advice of medical and health professionals, Biden holding drive-in events.

And Trump, who ignores what his own health experts say is prudent and safe, is holding packed rallies, with no masks required, no distancing, and continued evidence that his rallies spread the virus.

And, as CNN's Ryan Nobles reports for us now, more than seven million ballots have already been cast in Florida's early voting.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Florida, President Trump facing a battleground on two fronts.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm thrilled to be here in my, our home state, Florida.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

NOBLES: Florida is a pivotal swing state, where polls show a neck-and- neck race and 29 electoral votes up for grabs.

TRUMP: When we win, Florida wins and America wins. It's very simple.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

NOBLES: And a state where coronavirus cases are surging, with both federal and state government leaders giving mixed messages on how to handle the virus.

MARK MEADOWS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: As we try to make sure that we come into contact with other people, making sure that we socially distance as much as possible, wearing those masks when we can. We strongly encourage that.

NOBLES: White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows continuing to encourage Americans to wear masks and social distance.

But, at the same time, the Trump team continues to ignore the threat posed by the campaign's massive rallies, with no attempt to social distance and few people wearing masks, Sending Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany out in a campaign capacity to tout the White House response to the virus.

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: You can vote on Joe Biden, where you will be locked down, your schools will be closed, your churches will be closed, you won't have social gatherings. It will be a lockdown, vs. President Trump, where we are safely reopening this country.

NOBLES: Meanwhile, the president himself, seemingly ignoring the rising case count, is still downplaying the threat and blaming the media and Democrats for hyping the reality of more than 200,000 Americans who have died.

TRUMP: It would have been two million lives. It's incredible, the job that we have done and that the American people have done.

NOBLES: But it is Florida where top COVID adviser Dr. Scott Atlas was pushing Governor Ron DeSantis to slow down testing as cases surged here. Governor DeSantis recently lifted all statewide restrictions related to coronavirus, this as President Trump continues to promise a new vaccine will be ready soon.

TRUMP: A safe vaccine is coming very quickly. You're going to have it momentarily that eradicates the virus. And we're rounding the turn regardless.

NOBLES: But the president's optimism is not shared by many experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has a dim view of the country's effort to contain the virus.

QUESTION: Where are we, Tony?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: Howard, we are not in a good place.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBLES: And as become practice with the president at these rallies, he is once again touting his administration's response to the pandemic, telling the crowd here in Florida that the country is rounding the corner.

But the stark reality of the coronavirus pandemic could be seen just a few hundred yards from where the president was standing here in Tampa Bay, on the campus at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers stadium, a COVID testing drive-up site, this as Florida recorded 4,000 new cases of the virus for the third day in a row -- Jake.

TAPPER: Yes, there's no health official, no respected health official that says we're turning the corner, none at all. We're actually heading in the wrong direction, as you noted.

Ryan, thank you so much.

This afternoon, Joe Biden rallied in the Democratic stronghold of Broward County, Florida. He promised the crowd that if he can win Florida next week, he will win the presidential election.

CNN's Arlette Saenz is in Tampa for us now, where Joe Biden will speak in just a few hours.

Arlette, we heard Biden gave a very targeted speech earlier this afternoon, clearly tailored to the voters he still thinks he can sway in Florida. Tell us more.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, Jake, Joe Biden really targeting that Democratic stronghold of Broward County, but also trying to appeal to Latino voters, a critical voting bloc in this battleground state that he's trying to improve his standing with.

And, in fact, his campaign is planning on holding about 40 events between today and Election Day geared towards Latino voter turnout. Biden in some polls has underperformed where Hillary Clinton was with Latinos here in the state, and that is something that his campaign is trying to work on in this final stretch.

You heard him in Broward County appealing directly to Cuban and Venezuelan voters, saying that he is someone who will fight for democracy across the board. And Biden also there in that Democratic stronghold really focused on driving up that voter turnout, trying to run up the score in an area like Broward County.

And he talked about how important Florida will be in this year's election. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Ladies and gentlemen, the heart and soul of this country is at stake right here in Florida. It's up to you. You hold the key.

[16:05:05]

If Florida goes blue, it's over. It's over.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: It's time to stand up, take back our democracy. We can do this. We can be better than what we have been. We can be who we are at our best, as I said, the United States of America. There's nothing beyond our capacity, I promise you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: Now, Biden will be here in Tampa in just a short while, about a little over 10 miles from where President Trump held his rally earlier today.

These events are starkly different in how they are held. The president has those not socially distanced, maskless rallies. Here in Tampa, Biden will be holding one of those drive-in-style events, as he is once again trying to president that contrast when it comes to the coronavirus pandemic.

But, here in Florida, this is a state that Joe Biden doesn't necessarily need to win, but a win for Biden here in Florida would make it much more difficult for President Trump to get reelection in November -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Arlette Saenz in Tampa, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Let's bring in some journalists to talk about this, Seung Min Kim and Melanie Zanona.

Right now -- Seung Min, let me start with you -- Florida going through a surge of coronavirus cases, along with the vast majority of the entire United States.

Monmouth is out with a new Florida poll this afternoon saying that 48 percent say they trust Biden better to handle the pandemic, 38 percent, Trump 10 percent equally. Might this be a determining factor as to who wins the state?

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Oh, certainly not only this day, but so many other states throughout the nation that are these key battlegrounds.

We know that the coronavirus pandemic is particularly -- the president's handling of it has been the major issue of the campaign. It is why it has been hard for the president to turn this into kind of a dueling campaign of two campaign visions, because so much of this campaign season has been a referendum on his handling of the pandemic.

And what's interesting too about the Florida polling is that Biden has kept a pretty steady lead with seniors in the state. We know that the senior demographic, particularly in Florida, is something that has broken for President Trump in the past.

But his Florida -- Biden's strength in Florida is helped, is being buoyed by the senior support. And you have to imagine that the coronavirus, which we know disproportionately affects the elder -- older population, may have something to do with that.

TAPPER: That's right. But Biden also has some struggles, Melanie, with Latino voters in Florida. He's underperforming in polls where Hillary Clinton was. Now, Hillary Clinton did better with Latino voters and still lost Florida, and Biden is doing better with seniors, as Seung Min notes.

But this is a real area of concern for his campaign.

MELANIE ZANONA, POLITICO: It absolutely is. I mean, Democrats on and off Capitol Hill have privately been expressing a lot of these concerns, saying, was the outreach a little bit too late? There's a Telemundo poll that just came out today, actually, that

shows, yes, Trump is behind the polls with Hispanic voters when it comes to Biden, but Biden is underperforming when it comes to Hillary Clinton. And that is a huge problem for him.

Trump is trying to eat into his margins. He's not necessarily trying to win the Hispanic vote in Florida, but the president is just trying to take away those votes from Biden. So, it's really crucial here that he can juice out turnout, bring out the vote, and hunt for every vote he can, especially because Hispanic voters make up about 20 percent of the electorate in Florida.

TAPPER: Yes, and they're all over the map in terms of their ideology in terms of..

ZANONA: Very.

TAPPER: You have the Cuban American voters in the South and Venezuelan American voters. And then you have the Puerto Rican voters in the center of the state.

Seung Min, Biden is running an ad in Florida and other states in which he promises to sign an executive order to form a task force focused on reuniting the more than 500 migrant children who were separated from their families and have not been reunited with them.

This seems to be trying to play into this message of empathy.

KIM: Definitely.

And we saw how this has been -- I mean, this has been one of the biggest dark marks of the Trump administration, the child separation policy that was roundly denounced, and this inspector's general report noting more than 500 children still have not been reunited with their parents.

And Biden is pointing out something that he can do on day one. You can't repeal a law on day one. You can't pass a law on day one. But you can issue some executive orders. So you see how the vice -- former vice president is really prioritizing this issue.

And this came up in the debate, in the final debate between Biden and Trump, where Vice President Biden really went after the Trump administration on the child separation policy.

And what was interesting, too, to me, too, in that same debate, Biden acknowledged -- or acknowledged the shortcoming of the Obama administration. He acknowledged that they did not get immigration reform done.

[16:10:04]

He has come under criticism from Latino activists for Obama being the so called deporter in chief. So, you do see like in all these little places where Biden has had to make up ground with that critical Latino vote. TAPPER: And, Melanie, a Democratic super PAC funded by former New York

City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is pouring $10 million into Texas and Ohio.

Now, a week ago, a top adviser to this group said they had no plans to invest money into either state, either Texas or Ohio, saying they're all about Florida.

But that adviser says today -- quote -- "Biden has a shot in both places. It's too compelling not to."

Do you agree?

ZANONA: I mean, Democrats have been really putting pressure on the party to spend more in Texas.

And, absolutely, it is in play. Not only is the presidential race tightening, but there's also a Senate seat up for grabs. There's about a dozen House races. Democrats also have a chance to take the Texas House, which would be a major deal.

And the state really has been going under -- undergoing a political evolution over the last few years, not just because of changing demographics, but also a distaste for Trump in the suburbs. There's also been an influx from states like California and other states moving into Texas.

And so Democrats really see their political fortunes improving. But, that being said, I think there's still a lot of reluctance by some Democrats to invest too heavily in there. You know, you will see Biden's not campaigning there in the final stretch.

I think a lot of Democrats are still haunted by 2016. And they don't want to take those critical must-win states like Michigan and Wisconsin for granted.

TAPPER: That's right.

Seung Min and Melanie Zanona, thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.

No masks, no social distancing, and a whole lot of cheering and yelling. Do all those Trump rallies really put people at greater risk for coronavirus? A CNN investigation with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, that's up next.

Plus: U.S. hospitals at a breaking point, with doctors in one state preparing to start rationing care.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:16:15]

TAPPER: In our national lead today: The United States is facing an increasingly dire situation regarding the coronavirus pandemic. The country added nearly 80,000 new infections just yesterday, the third highest number of the pandemic.

The virus killed nearly 1,000 Americans yesterday, nearly 1,000, as the average number of deaths begins to creep back up, all this as the White House Coronavirus Task Force warns of unrelenting broad community spread, as CNN's Nick Watt reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: There's going to be a whole lot of pain in this country with regard to additional cases and hospitalizations and deaths. We are on a very difficult trajectory. We are going in the wrong direction.

DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: This is the hardest point in this pandemic right now, the next two months. We will cross 100,000 infections at some point in the next couple of weeks probably. We might do it this week.

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He's talking 100,000 new infections a day.

Here's the graph, spring surge, summer surge, now this, the country averaging well over 70,000 new cases every day right now, record territory, and climbing even higher.

DR. CRAIG SPENCER, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: It's true that testing has gone up since October 1 by 14 percent, which is great, but new cases have gone up by over 60 percent. So it's not just testing. It's a lot more virus, and this virus is everywhere.

WATT: We continue to see unrelenting broad community spread in the Midwest, Upper Midwest and West, says the White House Coronavirus Task Force's latest report.

Kansas and South Dakota just logged record daily case counts. And four days in a row, Wisconsin has broken its record for most COVID patients in the hospital, now forced to use overflow facilities.

TOM BARRETT (D), MAYOR OF MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN: The hospitalizations have more than doubled in the last month. We have got this situation that is clearly out of control right now in the state of Wisconsin.

WATT: Better news? Immunity post-infection might last at least five months, according to a new study, which found that 90 percent of the recovered maintain a stable antibody response. This is essential for effective vaccine development, says the author of that study.

And now we're told Medicare and Medicaid will cover the cost of the vaccine, if and when we get one.

Meanwhile, unrelenting spread of the virus and a president still not taking it seriously.

TRUMP: You have to eat through the mask. It's a -- right?

(LAUGHTER) DR. ALI KHAN, FORMER CDC OFFICIAL: This is the greatest political failure since the Vietnam War, probably. And we have killed five times as many people. I mean, it's unbelievable. The virus is no longer the enemy. We are the enemy, our friends, our neighbors, our politicians.

WATT: Right now, not a single state in the nation has fewer new cases this week than last. Not even one is headed in the right direction.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT: I mean, take Florida.

About a month ago, it was doing great. The governor was saying, we expect to do a full Super Bowl in February. Not anymore. Now the NFL is looking at perhaps just 20 percent capacity in that stadium in Tampa and masks all around -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Nick Watt, thank you so much.

Joining me now is the chief medical officer at the University of Utah Hospital, Dr. Tom Miller.

Dr. Miller, thanks for joining us.

Utah just reported its highest weekly average of new cases. What are you seeing in the hospital?

DR. TOM MILLER, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH HOSPITAL: We were seeing rising cases in the hospital, about double the rate that we saw at our last peak.

Thanks for having me back on again.

When we last spoke, we were at our first peak back in July. And it's double where we were then. So, we expect rates to continue to rise over the next couple of weeks. But we are safe, and we have enough beds and staff to manage the patients currently. Very busy.

[16:20:08]

TAPPER: There are some Utah hospitals that warned this week that, if COVID hospitalizations continue to rise at the rate they're rising, they may have to start rationing care.

Your hospital hit ICU capacity almost two weeks ago, I think. How is capacity now?

MILLER: We are at about 90 percent capacity. We have never run out of ICU beds.

And I would make the point that an ICU bed is only as good as the staff, doctors and nurses that are helping the patients. And so we have enough doctors and nurses. We're doing OK. We're managing right now. We are not at the level of crisis standards of care.

We would need to have another doubling of our case rate now. So, we have prepared. We have plenty of equipment. We have bed space available with -- staffed up to make new ICU beds, so we're doing OK.

But if we get beyond double where we are now, then we're going to be in a little bit more trouble. But that's down the road. We're OK right now.

TAPPER: We're over seven months into this pandemic. And, obviously, most models have predicted that there would be a second wave about right now.

Do you think your hospital and local leadership, your governor, the president, did you -- do you have enough to prepare you? Was enough done to prepare you and other front-line workers for the surge?

MILLER: Jake, we did. We took it very seriously back in March, when this started, and we saw all the things that were happening on the East Coast.

So we collected and prepared by making -- having enough protective equipment. We actually even built protective equipment on campus here. We have a great, innovative medical team that helps us build equipment. So we are staffed, and we have enough equipment and enough beds and enough ventilators and enough nurses and physicians to get us through to about double where we are now, before we really have to start bringing in the other health care providers from other settings, outside settings and...

(CROSSTALK)

MILLER: ... settings.

Sorry.

TAPPER: Dr. Miller, what do you want -- what do you want Utahans and the American people and any political leaders who are listening, what do you want them to know, what do you want them to do, so that things don't keep getting as bad as they're getting?

MILLER: So, as I'd said on our last interview, basically, if people will take the masking seriously, especially when indoors, when together in groups, when going out to do things, shopping, whatever we need to do to fulfill our lives, to stay at work, to stay employed, wear masks.

Being employed, being out in the public is not contraindicated at this point. If we wear our masks, we will cut the rate of infection, and we will get through this. If we are not wearing masks, we will continue to see these cases rise and our hospitals reach capacity.

But I'm confident that the citizens of Utah and the United States, working together, can enforce each other's willpower to wear masks and protective equipment, and we will get through this. That's the message that we continue to push.

So...

TAPPER: All right, that's an optimistic message. I think we can. I don't know that -- I don't know that we will.

Dr. Tom Miller, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Coming up next: a CNN investigation. Coronavirus and President Trump's rallies, do these rallies lead to a greater risk of infection?

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:27:52]

TAPPER: Some breaking news for you: Two people who attended President Trump's rally in North Carolina last Wednesday have tested positive for coronavirus.

President Trump has, of course, been holding campaign rallies in COVID hot spots, as if the virus didn't exist, with large crowds and no masks required.

This week alone, President Trump has gathered supporters in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Arizona, and today in Florida.

And, as CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports for us now, these new cases in North Carolina are hardly an isolated event.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: All you hear is COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At rallies like this, Dr. Tom Inglesby is less focused on the speaking and more on the crowds of people listening.

DR. TOM INGLESBY, DIRECTOR, JOHNS HOPKINS CENTER FOR HEALTH SECURITY: There seem to be hundreds or thousands of people closely standing together for a prolonged period of time, without masks, lots of yelling and shouting.

GUPTA: Inglesby is director for the Center of Health Security at Johns Hopkins. And he's concerned about the rallies.

INGLESBY: The rallies really do pose high risks for transmission.

GUPTA: But I wanted to better understand what that meant.

So, CNN investigated what happened at 17 recent Trump rallies, specifically looking at infection rates in the counties where the rallies took place four weeks before and four weeks after, and then also comparing them to the corresponding rates at the state level.

The results were startling; 82 percent of the time, the rate of new cases in the county jumped after President Trump's visit. More than half the time, the county rate of new cases grew faster than the state's rate. For example, September 12, Minden, Nevada. In the month going into

that rally, cases had begun to fall. But fast-forward four weeks, and the rate of new cases in the county skyrocketed by 225 percent, far outpacing the 74 percent increase the state experienced.

Or September 18, Bemidji, Minnesota. Rates of infection were already climbing in the month before the rally. By the day of the rally, the rate of infection was 6.36 for every 100,000 people in the county, about half the rate of Minnesota.