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Don Lemon Tonight

Twenty-One States See Rise In COVID-19 Cases; Trump Has $300- Plus Million In Loans Due Within Four Years; First 2020 Presidential Debate Tomorrow; U.S. Passes 205,000 Coronavirus Deaths And 7.1 Million Cases; Democrats Prepare For Post-Election Battle If Trump Tries To Disrupt The Election Or Counting Of Votes; WAPO: Trump Considered His Daughter, Ivanka As His 2016 Running Mate, According To Former Top Aide. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired September 28, 2020 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon. Three hundred -- excuse me -- 36 days, sorry about that, trying to scare you -- 36 days until Election Day, And we're following multiple breaking news stories that could impact how Americans cast their votes.

The New York Times has new reporting tonight calling the man most of America met on the Apprentice, the man who's now president of the United States. The fictional alter ego of the real Donald Trump.

That on top of the reporting that the president has not paid any federal income tax in 10 out of 15 years beginning in 2000. And that he paid only $750 in federal income taxes in both 2016 and 2017. All that certain to come up in tomorrow night's debate, the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. We're going to preview what else we can expect to see. Also tonight, the death toll from COVID-19 in the United States now more than 205,000, 21 states reporting an uptick in the number of cases.

So let's discuss now. CNN's White House correspondent is John Harwood, our political commentator Ana Navarro is here as well and CNN political analyst Carl Bernstein joins us. Good evening, one and all. Good to see you.

I said 300 days. You guys were like, no, we can't take 300 days, 36 days. John, you're first. It is becoming clearer after the latest reporting from The New York Times tonight that this president's biggest business success is selling a bill of goods to the American people. He made $427 million from his TV, reality TV show, The Apprentice, money that he largely just squandered. John?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Oh, yes. I'm sorry. I thought you were playing some sound right there.

LEMON: No, no, no. No, no, no, your turn.

HARWOOD: All right. Well, look, I think this story is damaging on multiple levels. There is the embarrassing stuff. That is $70,000 tax deduction for your hairstyle. $700,000 that you gave your daughter that you took as a business deduction, as a consulting expense, even though she was already on your payroll. There's the damage to his brand.

He told the American people that he was a successful businessman, he could turn around the United States. You see he wasn't so successful. But we also see the extent to which he, like other rich people, finagled the system in order to reduce his tax bill, so that he paid a fraction of what those forgotten people that he campaigned on behalf of, those blue-collar Americans who were hurt by economic change, paid a fraction of what they paid.

The third is the national security risk. That is, the president is hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. Debt that he's personally guaranteed. Does financial pressure explain why he is solicitous to Turkey and to Russia? Does it explain why he's eager to re-open the country, despite the toll of COVID? Because his properties need to be opened to stay afloat financially.

We know that Donald Trump is pathologically transactional, so in any particular situation, if he were re-elected for a second term, he's going to be thinking, what is in it for me as opposed to abstract concepts like what's best for the country, what's right, what is -- what is the thing --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: The right thing for the American people. I think he's already thinking that. I mean, I don't think he needs a second term to think about --

HARWOOD: Right, but.

LEMON: -- what's right for him and the American people.

HARWOOD: But, Don, is this going to strip votes away from him? I doubt that. But that's not the point. We've got five weeks until the election. Donald Trump needs to take votes from Joe Biden. We had a new poll out tonight showing he's down nine points in Pennsylvania, which could be the tipping point state. Every day that goes by without Donald Trump making progress is a bad day for him and Joe Biden certainly going to hammer these points in the debate tomorrow night.

LEMON: So, Ana, I know that you're passionate about this. I'm just going to ask you your reaction to all of it.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Astounding level of fraud. And when you take a look at it, if there's anything he's been consistent about is fraud, scam, gaming the system, being a con. Listen, his draft deferments were a fraud. His SAT scores were a fraud. His loan applications to the banks are a fraud. His deductions in his tax forms are a fraud.

[23:05:10] Does anybody think he spent $70,000 on hairstyling? Only if he's

getting charged by the hair. I mean, it's just, you know, his conservative creditas, fraud. His Christian Creditas, fraud. Everything about this guy. Trump University, Trump charitable foundation, a fraud. And I'll tell you what drives me crazy.

When I think of all the people who scrape and work hard, all the honest people who pay their taxes, who have a really hard time making ends meet. You know who pays more taxes than Donald Trump? The undocumented immigrants at his golf courses that he fired when reporters found out he had undocumented immigrants. They pay more taxes than Donald Trump.

Abraham Lincoln in 1864 paid more taxes than Donald Trump. 151 years ago. He paid more in hush money to Stormy Daniels than he pays in taxes. It is disgusting. It is hypocritical. It is unacceptable. And, look, I know it's not going to change the mind of his base.

I know that, but I hope that the very small sliver of undecided voters take a look at this and realize we cannot have a guy in the presidency who uses the presidency and the bully pulpit to promote and sell memberships in his club and at his golf courses and to drive the, you know, government business to his properties in order to save his brand. We cannot afford that as a country. He's nothing but a scam.

LEMON: Carl, I want to bring you in here because the Times shows that President Trump has more than $300 million in loans that will come due over the next four years. And we know nothing of who he owes that debt to. So, could he be compromised?

CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Of course, he can be compromised. Let's start at the beginning, though, about what these tax revelations by The New York Times are. They are a smoking gun that proves definitively that we have a grifter president of the United States and that he and his grifter family have taken advantage of every aspect of the tax code. That they have taken advantage of the American people, and that they are, as Ana has said, a fraud.

They -- we know that Donald Trump is a con man. This has been evident for a long time. And now what The New York Times' revelations show is, that it's been a house of cards definitively and that this con man has now gotten into the area where we're now seeing serious questions about how he might have compromised or be subject to compromising the national security of the United States.

But there's also -- with e need to take another deep breath to see and put some people on the air and find out, is this tax behavior of Donald Trump actually criminal or is it deliberate, taking advantage of the tax code so egregiously that once again, he has done an outrageous con on the American people and the IRS and might get away with it because it comes under civil penalty, not necessarily criminal. And that remains to be seen.

LEMON: Even after he's out of office, Carl, he's going to know, you know, incredibly secret high -- top-secret information about the United States. Including sensitive national security information. That is a scary thought.

BERNSTEIN: That's right. That is a scary thought. And what we need to think back to is the fact that all of his closest national security advisers from Mattis to Tillerson, to Kelly, to Bolton, they all concluded that Donald Trump is the first president in the history of the United States to actually be a danger to the national security of the United States.

And what this shows, once again, these revelations, is the potential, particularly given his adoration and subservience to these oligarchs and Putin and Erdogan and other -- MBS -- all of these authoritarian leaders. Donald Trump is clear, we can see from what the Times has done, he will take money from anyone for any purpose. That is an extreme con man.

NAVARRO: Listen, Carl --

BERNSTEIN: But whether or not --

NAVARRO: Carl, I think -- Carl, the ghost of Leona Helmsley can tell you if it's criminal or not to lie in your taxes. Listen, when you're telling the IRS that you're poor and have huge losses but you are telling the banks you're seeking loans from that your assets are worth much more than they are.

[23:10:09]

You -- I mean, it does not take being a tax attorney to know that there is a real legal problem there and it explains why he has gone to such length, why he has gone to some of the highest points in the land, to try to keep his tax returns hidden. It explains why he will not release these tax returns. I mean, listen, if he wants to prove all of us wrong, all he's got to do is show the receipts.

LEMON: Yes.

BERNSTEIN: I agree with you.

LEMON: Listen, guys, I've got move onto the next segment. And I'm glad you mentioned that. You mentioned what it means legally. Thank you. Thank you all, because I want to bring in someone who knows.

I want to bring in now Daniel Goldman, the former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He was also the lead counsel for the Democrats during the impeachment inquiry. And you used to be a frequent guest here on CNN, but then, you know, he did something else. It's good to see you again. How are you?

DANIEL GOLDMAN, NBC NEWS LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: Good, Don, how are you? Good to see you.

LEMON: Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. You know, when I spoke with Catherine Rampell, she said that this reporting means the president is a bad businessman, a cheat or both. The Times has said he used his chronic losses to avoid paying taxes. Knowing what we know now, did he cheat on his taxes?

GOLDMAN: I think it's hard for us to tell just from reading these -- these articles, from the Times one yesterday and the one that just came out tonight. I do think it validates the theory that he's a bad businessman. He squandered money from his father.

He squandered money from The Apprentice and all the licensing deals and, frankly, he hasn't really been a real estate developer for quite some time. He has bought golf courses and he's poured a tremendous amount of money into those golf courses that continue to lose money in their operating costs.

And then he just licenses his name to real estate developments all over the world. He doesn't actually run them in any meaningful way. And the big question that -- (inaudible) even his tax returns are insufficient to show whether or not he is lying. You would need the backup documents, you need the bank records to show ins and outs. You need to compare to other financial statements, sworn declarations, and we have some of his disclosures.

I would just caution one thing, though, Don, before everyone jumps to conclusions. The value of an asset does -- is unrelated to what the expenses are to operate that asset. And those expenses for business assets can be deducted, even if the value of that asset keeps going up. So if he's pouring money into Trump Doral, which he is, he is spending a lot of money, some of which may be able to be deducted, and in theory the value of the property is going up.

So, that in and of itself does not necessarily mean that he's cheating. What we do know is that this is a hyper aggressive way of manipulating the tax code and there are some -- some yellow flags at a minimum in there, paying Ivanka Trump consulting fees when she is a full-time employee of the Trump organization. You can't double dip that way. So that's one thing.

But it will be very interesting for the Manhattan D.A. to compare these tax records with other documents that they will get from Mazars once that court case is resolved now that it's back in the court of appeals. It will soon be resolved. And the D.A.'s office will be able to compare the tax returns to his other financial statements, sworn financial statements, and they'll be able to figure out what is legitimate and what is not.

LEMON: OK. So, listen, I spoke to a very good friend who is a developer, I'll just tell you what he said. He said, you know, the leverage thing, how highly leveraged it was, you know, that's to be determined. Right? Once they figure out how much the depreciation is and so on and so forth, right.

OK, but then he says, but the stuff like paying his daughter as a consultant, writing off expenses that are not legitimate business expenses on the upstate house, they are -- that they use personally, that stuff is fraudulent, if that, indeed, occurred and then as Michael Cohen says about how he inflates his assets.

So, the question is, does he provide false information to get the loans? That was a question that my friend says, if he provides false information to get the loans by inflating the value of an asset, is that illegal? Is that fraudulent?

GOLDMAN: Absolutely, yes, that's a material misrepresentation to a bank to obtain a loan, and that is, you know, that's carbon copy bank fraud. That's what it is. And, so, you know, but I think we do need to be a little careful. What Michael Cohen --

[23:15:10]

LEMON: I am. I'm saying if, if, if, if that's the case. Not saying --

GOLDMAN: If Michael Cohen describes is that he's inflating his assets to get loans and, yet, what he's reporting the value of those assets to be a lot lower, which he did with the Westchester property, that's inconsistent. And so he's either lying to the banks or he's lying to the IRS. Both of which are crimes. So, either way, he's committing a crime, if that is true.

LEMON: If that is true.

GOLDMAN: And so that -- that is -- that's the big question. You know, some of this stuff is fungible. It's hard to figure out exactly what the value is of something. And having done some of these prosecutions, these fraud prosecutions, sometimes it's very hard to prove that it's overvalued, et cetera. What's not hard to prove, though, is when the person that you are looking at assigns two very different values to the same thing because both of them cannot be true.

LEMON: Got it. OK. So, I want to talk about the president's debt, Daniel. A lot of it will be due over the next few years. What happens if Donald Trump is president and he can't pay these debts? Is this the same -- is it the same as being a private citizen? Do we know what will happen? Have we ever been in this situation?

GOLDMAN: We've not been in this situation, and certainly it's incredibly dangerous to have the leader of our country be under such financial constraints. And I'll explain one way why that is. We know that there are foreign sources of income at his hotels, at his golf courses, the Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C. is hotbed for foreigners to stay. Saudi Arabia bought blocks and blocks of rooms around the inauguration in January 2017.

If Donald Trump is relying on this foreign -- these foreign sources of income at his own properties in order to fund his debt, in order to be able to go to the banks, and say, I am generating this much income so we can refinance this, that's an incredible national security risk where he is compromised, and what that basically means is that he needs these foreign countries for his personal benefit and, therefore, that is a direct conflict of interest as he enacts or executes our foreign policy around the world.

That would be disqualifying for a security clearance for anyone in this country to get a security clearance, but he's the president of the United States. He doesn't need a security clearance, but it is incredibly worrisome, nonetheless. LEMON: Daniel, I could go on for the entire hour with you, but

unfortunately, we're out of time. We should have talk about (inaudible)

GOLDMAN: Me, too.

LEMON: I know. It's good to see you. You're doing well. Right? And your family and everybody's safe?

GOLDMAN: I am, I'm doing very well. Everybody's good.

LEMON: Good.

GOLDMAN: It's been wild, but we're good. And hopefully we can get this under control.

LEMON: Good. Well, please come back and be well. Thanks again.

GOLDMAN: Thanks, Don.

LEMON: The first presidential debate is just a matter of hours away now and we've got new reporting on how Joe Biden is preparing.

Plus, the president announcing a plan today to distribute millions of rapid COVID-19 tests. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:20:00]

LEMON: So in a matter of hours Donald Trump and Joe Biden will face off in the first of three presidential debates and we've got new reporting tonight on Biden's debate prep.

So let's discuss now with Mark McKinnon, a former adviser to George W. Bush, John McCain and the executive producer of ShowTime's The Circus.

Mark, good to see you. A lot to talk about. So let's start at the beginning. Donald Trump and Joe Biden finally meet face to face on the debate stage. If you're Joe Biden, what do you do?

MARK MCKINNON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, you want to be prepared. You want to anticipate everything that's coming at you and with Donald Trump, that's a pretty tough equation because he doesn't play by the rules.

So that's one of the things they're prepping him for, Don, is to make sure he understands that Donald Trump -- Joe Biden has a tendency to want to be a good student and you can see it when he stops his questions early. You got to anticipate that Donald Trump will be coming after him hard and also coming after him in places that he knows he's vulnerable like his family.

So, for example, they got to get Joe Biden to be very careful he doesn't come off the leash, doesn't lose his temper, and I'm sure he'll be well prepped for that. The stakes are big for Donald Trump because he's the guy that's actually in the hole.

All Joe -- by the way, he's lowered the expectations for Joe Biden. This is all an expectations game in presidential debates, and by talking about how Biden, you know, is senile, Sleepy Joe, all Joe Biden has to do is get on the stage and complete sentences for two hours and that could be a win for Joe Biden.

LEMON: Well, listen, I'm not just an anchor. I'm also a reporter. Remember, that's how I started. So I have some reporting tonight. A source familiar with Biden's debate preparation says this to me, Mark, he says, he is prepared for asymmetric warfare. They've done scenarios planning on different things that Trump might do.

So, they believe it's unlikely that Biden will be surprised by anything, but he is also determined not to get thrown off his own message because he and the campaign believe that Americans mostly care about the fact that they can't send their kids to regular school and their health care is threatened.

People will either be satisfied or dissatisfied, but he's not going to respond to every crazy thing Trump says. He can certainly throw a punch, but the source doesn't think the American people want to see him sink as low as Trump. They're tired of Donald Trump's antics. They also say that Biden is going to pick and choose when to stay focused on his message versus reacting to Trump on every point attack, and he will do that, he will decide that in the moment. What do you think?

[23:25:06]

MCKINNON: Very smart. He's got a very, very good team around him and that's the kind of counsel that I think he ought to be getting.

LEMON: You think that's smart, the way -- just what I said here, he should not get down in the dirt --

MCKINNON: No, no. No. That would be playing Donald Trump's game. He wants to play Joe Biden's game. He wants to be cool, calm, collected. He wants to -- he wants to show that he is the consoler in chief. That he is the competent one. That it's not about chaos.

Look, people are asking for competency and they're asking for character back in the White House. So all he's got to do, Don, is just maintain his composure, show that he's credible, and that he can carry on a debate for a couple of hours and that's going to be a win for him.

LEMON: He can be tough and a decent person, I think will probably go a long way in the debate. Listen, as I said, he's going to choose, he's going to stay focused on message versus responding to everything that Trump, you know, every crazy thing that Trump says. So we have seen how relentless Donald Trump can be in attacking people. Is it important for Biden to stay on that message or do you think people need to see at some point him defend himself? I mean, think about how his Republican primary opponents handled him in 2016.

MCKINNON: Sure. I mean, they don't want him to roll over by any means, Don, but they don't want him see -- I mean, Donald Trump's strategy is to distract Biden, to get him to chase a bunch of crazy attacks, and that will be playing Donald Trump's game.

He just has to act like a president, Don. He just wants to show that he wants to return decency and character to the office of the White House. He's been there before. He knows how to do this. He can keep the country safe and secure. And that people want a break from the chaos.

And if he can get through two hours and not lose his composure. That's how he lose. He loses if he has a meltdown. So, that's what he has to concentrate on, it is just being cooled and composed because he just has to get through it without losing it, Don.

LEMON: So, on those taxes, Mark, this is how Hillary Clinton dealt with the issue in 2016.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Maybe he doesn't want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes because the only years that anybody has ever seen were a couple year years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax. So --

TRUMP: That makes me smart.

CLINTON: -- if he's paid zero, that means zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools or health.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Wow. That makes me -- that makes me smart. Back then. I don't know if it's going to matter after this New York Times report -- reporting, that seems just so out of touch. Is that a model for Biden?

MCKINNON: Well, Don, there's a historical parallel here I thought a lot about. I was in Texas and worked for Ann Richards in her Governor's race in 1990. She ran against a billionaire named Clayton Williams.

LEMON: I thought you were going to say George Bush was born with a silver foot in his mouth, but go on.

MCKINNON: No, no, this is a very applicable example. Because Clayton Williams had a ton of money. He was running well ahead of Richards. In the spring of that year there was big flap over a remark he made about rake (ph), comparing it to weather, just sit back and relax and enjoy it. It's inevitable. Everybody thought that would blow the race over, but it didn't.

And just like the Access Hollywood tapes didn't have much impact, people just said, he's a good old boys, just boys being boys. So, he maintain a lead throughout the summer, but Richards kept hitting him and asking to turn over his taxes. And just like Trump he refused. He refused. He refused, but Richards was a great candidate and finally made him crack in October.

And what we learned in October was just what we are learning about Donald Trump was that, in 1986, during a rough year in the oil pads, Clayton Williams paid zero taxes. And that's what turned the race. And he dropped like a rock overnight, because people said, wait a minute, that's just a fairness issue. I'm a schoolteacher, a firefighter, I pay taxes and you paid nothing, I don't buy it. I don't like it.

LEMON: So you think it will have an effect, you're saying. This is Donald Trump.

MCKINNON: No, it could have an effect, Don. You know, the question is will Donald Trump supporters hear that? And but they, you know, this is going to be an historic debate audience tomorrow night. It's being sponsored by Fox. So, I think a lot of Fox supporters will watch it. And I think Chris Wallace is a very good reporter and I think he will ask very tough questions on this issue. So, we'll see.

LEMON: Mr. McKinnon, thank you, good to see you.

MCKINNON: Thank you, Don.

LEMON: All right. Thank you.

MCKINNON: Thank you.

LEMON: Donald Trump and Joe Biden face off in the first presidential debate. You can watch it all play out live on CNN, special coverage tomorrow starting at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. And you have to stay up late to watch me and Chris.

So, she has been sick for over a month, OK. Doctors diagnosed her with coronavirus. So why is she repeatedly testing negative? So Julia Ioffe started reporting on this next story while she had COVID. We're going to talk about that next.

[23:30:01]

And ahead, guess who the president wanted to be his VP? Guess. I'm not even going to say. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So President Trump announcing the plan today to distribute 150 million rapid COVID-19 tests. That is as the death toll from the virus is now -- in the U.S. is now more than 205,000 and 21 states are reporting an increase in cases. More from CNN's Alexandra Field.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): It honestly looks like it's business as usual.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Pre- COVID Florida in a post-COVID world, packed bars and restaurants all weekend in South Florida, just days after Republican Governor Ron DeSantis dropped virtually all coronavirus restrictions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's going to have a huge impact.

FIELD (voice-over): No more fines for people who refuse to wear a mask.

[23:35:00]

FIELD (voice-over): The state's new daily case count has been well below its July peak for more than a month, but the positivity rate remains over 10 percent.

Across the country, new cases are on the rise in 21 states. In just the last few days, at least seven states saw their highest weekly averages for new cases, with Wisconsin recording its highest single- day increase over the weekend.

JOE PARISI, COUNTY EXECUTIVE, DANE COUNTY, WISCONSIN: One of the biggest challenges we have is that some people just don't believe that this is a serious disease even to this day.

FIELD (voice-over): In New York, more than a thousand new cases on Saturday, the most since June. A major cluster in Brooklyn and Queens is forcing the city to decide whether to bring back restrictions in impacted neighborhoods.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY) (voice-over): It is very targeted and very focused in those clusters.

FIELD (voice-over): All this as the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says the White House is pivoting away from daily coronavirus task force meetings and as new task force member and top virus adviser to the president, Dr. Scott Atlas, was reportedly criticized by another top official.

NBC News is reporting that CDC Director Robert Redfield was overheard on the phone speaking about Dr. Atlas on a commercial flight, saying -- quote -- "Everything he says is false," and going on to suggest that Atlas has provided the president with misleading data.

The CDC has responded with a statement saying Redfield and Atlas have "differing positions" on those issues and agree on many other issues.

Dr. Fauci weighed in with this.

ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Most are working together. I think, you know, what the outlier is.

FIELD (voice-over): Alexandra Field, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Thank you, Alexandra. I want to bring in now Julia Ioffe. Julia is a correspondent for GQ magazine. And despite being young and healthy, she has been through a rough battle with COVID-19, kept reporting on the virus even when she was ill. Julia, thank you so much. I really appreciate you joining us. How are you doing?

JULIA IOFFE, CORRESPONDENT, GQ MAGAZINE: JULIE IOFFE: Getting better. Still not fully better.

LEMON: Yeah.

IOFFE: Excuse me, as you can hear.

LEMON: Yeah.

IOFFE: It's a slog.

LEMON: Yeah. It's been a while since we spoke. So, very confusing thing about your story, OK, that everyone should know. If you tested negative for coronavirus not once, not twice, not even three but four times, can you explain that to me and to the audience? What happened?

IOFFE: Well, I got tested during various points of my illness and the first three tests were when I was actively sick and they were just nasal swabs. So they didn't do the thing where, you know, they go all the way back and it feels like they're tickling your brain. They just kind of went inside my nostrils a little bit. And those tests are far less sensitive than the ones that go all the way back. That's one thing.

Second thing is we know the virus enters through the nose and the mouth, but then it drops down to the lungs pretty fast. So you might not have any virus in your nose, but you might have a ton of it in your lungs.

So, in my reporting I talked to a lot of doctors who said that they had many patients who tested negative on the nose and the nasopharyngeal swab, but when they were intubated, their lung fluid was steaming with coronavirus.

Now, if you're mildly ill like I was at it first, nobody is going to test your lung fluid. You have to be hospitalized and intubated for that.

LEMON: Mm-hmm.

IOFFE: The fourth test I got when I was probably no longer infectious. So, that explains out one. But, yeah, it has been a psychological rollercoaster.

LEMON: I can only imagine that. That is why it is called novel because it is new and there is a lot to learn about it, a lot that we don't know.

So, this is -- listen. I am asking because I'm sure people at home are wondering. If you had that many tests and they were all negative, how were your doctors so sure because you said that you had COVID because you said it was probably in your lungs and they didn't test that because you weren't sick enough. How are they so sure?

IOFFE: So I talked to numerous doctors about this, both in my reporting and, you know, the doctors who treated me, including my primary care physician, including the doctors who saw me in the emergency room where I had to go because I could not breathe and my oxygen levels started dropping and this was the second time that it happened, including the pulmonologist who saw me for, you know, the reactive airway disease I have after the virus and for my now partially-collapsed lungs.

Basically, doctors say the tests are not perfect. You know, the CDC put out a faulty testing kit back in February and March of this year. And we had nothing to test with. So the FDA said, look, everybody, develop your own tests, we're going to give you, like, a temporary authorization. Now, there are 165 of these tests. Some are very good. Some are not.

But even the very good tests are not 100 percent. So doctor -- you know, whether the symptoms in front of them, you know, I had all the classic symptoms including a loss of taste, a loss of smell.

[23:40:02]

IOFFE: By the end, I couldn't breathe. My oxygen levels were tanking. You know, and doctors said that I don't know what else it could be other than COVID.

LEMON: Well, that's -- I wanted to -- because you were going on with that, I just wanted to get this in because I think it will help you make the point here. While you were still sick, you began reporting on the accuracy of tests and here are some of things that you found.

You said the tests have a wide range of accuracy. You said PCR tests have become more accurate but there is a higher chance of false negative than false positive. Accuracy can depend on how good a sample the swab gets and even the patient's physiology. There is no perfect test, you say.

So, what is the biggest impact of all that in terms of the spread of this virus that you found in your reporting and what you're going through?

IOFFE: Well, there were a number or papers that were put out by this in the New England Journal of Medicine. The Mayo Clinic also put out a paper about this. They ran the math.

You know, even if a test is 98 percent accurate, which is pretty good for a test, there's no 100 percent test, that's still, you know, if you test 100 people with COVID -- who definitely have COVID and you missed two of them, right, like, if you're doing it in massive scale, millions and millions of tests, that can be thousands of infections that you missed, and each one of those can snare many more people and create whole new chains of transmission.

So, we have to understand that the tests aren't perfect. We want black-and-white clear answers as a society. We do not have them and we probably never will. So I guess my message is, you know, if you're still having symptoms of COVID and you're not feeling well, but your test comes back negative, you should quarantine instead of, you know, cherry picking the information. You should quarantine and try not to be around other people so you don't unintentionally spread the disease.

LEMON: Mm-hmm. Julia, thank you so much. And I hope that you -- I'm glad you're doing better but I hope that you get back to 100 percent. We appreciate you coming on. Take care of yourself.

IOFFE: Thank you so much, Don. Thank you.

LEMON: The president won't commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses. And now, Democrats are preparing for a post-election battle. Plus, Trump reportedly floated someone other than Mike Pence for his vice president back in 2016. We'll tell you.

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[23:45:00]

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LEMON: Thirty-six days until Election Day and voters in some states around the country are already casting their ballots through early voting or mail-in voting.

Tonight, Democrats are girding for a battle if the president disputes those votes. Here's CNN's Abby Phillip.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As the president continues to cast doubt over the legitimacy of an election that is just over a month away --

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is going to be a disaster.

PHILLIP (voice-over): Democratic officials tell CNN an army of lawyers are preparing for a wide range of obscure election scenarios that Trump himself has floated from sending law enforcement to monitor polls to having the election decided in Congress.

TRUMP: We have an advantage if we go back to Congress. Does everyone understand that?

PHILLIP (voice-over): A disputed Electoral College result could put the fate of the election in the hands of the new House of Representatives elected in November. With each state delegation getting one vote, Republicans currently have a 26-22 advantage. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ready for this possibility.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: I have been working on this for a while. I've been working on almost every scheme he might have to steal the election.

PHILLIP (voice-over): Sending a letter to her caucus, urging them to focus on winning a majority of state delegations in November and flipping the Senate, writing, "We must achieve that majority of delegations or keep the Republicans from doing so."

Trump has also floated the idea of an election that's decided in the Supreme Court, like Bush v. Gore in 2000.

TRUMP: I think this will end up in the Supreme Court, and think it's very important that we have nine justices.

PHILLIP (voice-over): One of the Florida judges at the center of that recount who sided with Bush to stop the count and has since retired making his fears of Trump clear in a rare letter to colleagues, saying Trump is a threat to democracy and giving only one real solution.

CHARLES WELLS, FORMER CHIEF OF JUSTICE, FLORIDA SUPREME COURT: There will not be a problem if the Democrats win the Senate and Biden wins the presidency. The problem will result if there is continued to be a divide between the House and the Senate.

PHILLIP: Trump falsely claiming that voter fraud is rampant, tweeting this morning, "The ballots being returned to states cannot be accurately counted. Many things are already going very wrong."

But the president has been building the case against absentee ballots or mail-in voting for months. None of which is based on facts. Widespread voter fraud is largely non-existent in the United States.

TRUMP: You can forget about November 3rd because you're going to be counting those things forever, and it's very dangerous for our country.

PHILLIP (voice-over): But there are real risks for the election. The FBI is issuing its latest election warning, this time about fake cyberattacks. They caution the public to be wary of internet claims of hacked voter data and compromised election infrastructure, things that manipulate public opinion and discredit the electoral process.

[23:50:03]

PHILLIP (voice-over): Today, courts in New York and Pennsylvania ordered the post office to stop policy changes that would slow down the mail, echoing last week's settlement with the post office, forcing it to prioritize election mail.

PHILLIP (on camera): And we're also learning tonight that there has been a new cyberattack also known as a ransomware attack against one of the nation's leading software companies.

Tyler Technology has provided software to some U.S. election officials and this is all raising new concerns that state and local government IT systems may not be as secure as they need to be ahead of this election. Don?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: All right. Abby, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Back in 2016, the Trump campaign was tossing around ideas for who his running mate might be. And take this. The president suggested -- after the break.

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[23:55:00]

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LEMON: So take this. President Trump wanted his daughter, Ivanka, as his vice presidential running mate in 2016. That is according to The Washington Post, which cites an upcoming book by Rick Gates, Trump's former deputy campaign manager.

Gate writes that in June of 2016, as the Trump campaign was preparing for the republican convention later that summer, top aides were tossing around names for Trump's running mate, and Trump, reportedly, chimed in that it should be Ivanka Trump, who is now a senior adviser to the president.

According to Gates, Trump told his aides that Ivanka was bright, smart and beautiful, and that the people would love her. And apparently Trump wasn't joking.

"The Post" reports that Gates says Trump repeatedly brought up the idea of a Trump-Trump ticket. Gates says that in the book, that it was Ivanka Trump who took herself off the VP short list, telling her father that it wasn't a good idea. What do you think?

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Thanks for watching. Our coverage continues.

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