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Don Lemon Tonight

Presidential Campaigns Battling for Key States; Georgia GOP Senator Perdue Willfully Mispronounces Senator Kamala Harris's Name at Trump Rally; President Trump to Hit Campaign Rally in Wisconsin; United States Passes Eight Million Coronavirus Cases with More Than 218,000 Deaths; A Young Voter Called Out 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden; Atlanta Falcons Become Latest NFL Team to Shut Down Facilities After Positive COVID Test; Schwarzenegger and Holder Talk About Voter Suppression; Music Mends Minds; A CNN Hero's Mission Finds a New Need During the Pandemic. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired October 16, 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: We got 18 days until the election. President Trump and Joe Biden are fighting it out in key battleground states.

Trump is holding packed campaign rallies in Florida and Georgia, potential super-spreader events with little social distancing and few people wearing masks. Trump is falsely claiming that the U.S. is rounding the turn on the virus. That as the nation passes eight million confirmed cases, 68,000 new cases just today.

Biden is campaigning in Michigan, slamming Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its severe impact on the economy.

Let's discuss now with Kirsten Powers, CNN's senior political analyst, and Max Boot, global affairs analyst and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Good evening to both of you. Good to see you.

Kirsten, I want you to take a look, these are the closing arguments that we heard from Trump and Biden on the coronavirus pandemic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: More than 250 -- I think now 217,000 dead Americans because of COVID-19. And experts say we will lose nearly 200,000 more lives in the next few months. All because this president cares more about his Park Avenue perspective on the world and the stock market than he does about you, because he refused to follow the science.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The light at the end of the tunnel is near. We are rounding the turn.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: We are rounding the turn. Don't listen to the cynics and angry partisans and professional pessimists.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, Kirsten, polar opposites on a life or death issue. Is this what the election comes down to now?

KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think for a lot of people who -- that Biden is trying to reach and that Trump seems to be ignoring, it is what it comes down to.

I mean, what I think is making a lot of -- certainly a lot of Republican, suburban women think about crossing over to Joe Biden, what is -- swinging a lot of seniors, you know, who were previously with Donald Trump over to the Biden's side, is the coronavirus epidemic, the pandemic.

And so the president is still just talking to his base. He's obviously at a rally. He's talking to his base but his words carry farther than that. And people know what's happening.

The people who are in his base, who are happy to follow him along with this short of fanciful story about we are turning a corner when everybody can see clearly that we are not, I think are going to pay attention to this closing argument and say this is not reality that the president is presenting, and what Biden is hitting on is exactly what people are worried about.

LEMON: Max, I want to talk about some of Jake Tapper's new reporting. He has this new reporting that friends of the president's former chief of staff, John Kelly, they say that Kelly has said this about Trump. He says, "The depth of his dishonesty is just astounding to me. The dishonesty, the transactional nature of every relationship, though it's more pathetic than anything else. He is the most flawed person I have ever met in my life."

So, in any administration, it would be astounding to hear something like that from a former chief of staff but -- Max?

MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes, yes. You know, it's something that we've gotten used to, Don, with this particular president, that so many people who love the administration have such a low opinion of him.

Some of them are willing to express it out loud like John Bolton, his former national security adviser. Others like John Kelly are saying it off the record. I wish John Kelly would go on the record and make clear to the American public his very low assessment of President Trump's character.

But it's pretty obvious that those who have seen President Trump up close are appalled and horrified by what they've seen. This is extremely unusual. We have never seen another administration like this where people have left the highest level post in the government to say that the president is flatly unfit and unqualified to serve.

That has never happened before, Don. So, we should not get used to it. This is extremely unusual and it's because Trump is such an awful president.

LEMON: Yeah. Listen, we often -- not often, all the time pretty much, we hear this coming from people after they have left the administration. He worked very hard to help implement many of the policies, a number of the policies that are in place right now, and some that did not go in place, bans and all kinds of things like that.

[23:05:01]

LEMON: He doesn't get off scot-free though, does he?

BOOT: No, absolutely not. I mean, I think there's an element of complicity for anybody who is at a high level of this administration, although I think that's offset to a certain extent by whether they did something to block some of Trump's worst impulses.

I suspect that John Kelly did that, as well as H.R. McMaster and others who served in the White House. I think Jim Mattis at the defense and so forth. So I think we do owe them a depth of gratitude. But yes, there is also a certain amount of complicity.

I think they do have an obligation to come clean, and with so little time before the election, to tell the American people what they saw and heard so that Trump cannot dismissed this as fake news.

LEMON: Kirsten, there's going to be more, and I want to mention more of John Kelly's comments in Jake Tapper's special report. It airs on Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. Make sure you tune in because Kelly made these comments to friends. Why won't he come out and tell the country what he thinks his former boss, that he thinks his former boss is unfit for office? Why won't he say anything, Kirsten?

POWERS: I don't know. I don't know why you would only tell your friends that when the ramifications obviously of people not hearing this information could be serious. But he also may have just drawn the conclusion that he thinks it is not going to make much of a difference. I don't actually think that's the right conclusion to draw, though.

I think it is right that it won't make a difference with the hard-core Trump supporters, but I think it could make a difference for people who are thinking about crossing over, for example, a small number of people but could make a difference and who are looking for permission from somebody that they respect, you know, a leader that they look up to, somebody like John Kelly and somebody who has first-hand information.

So, it's been a mystery to me all along, why so many people -- I mean, we've covered, you know, Senator Ben Sasse, the things that he said about the president on a conference call with supporters or voters, and why not say all this stuff out, you know, more broadly in the public where everybody can hear it and why not a long time ago.

You know, so many people have just put their career ahead of what they obviously think is good for the country.

LEMON: Mm-hmm. Let me -- I want to get something to you. Let me see. So, the president is declaring next week, national character counts week, writing in a proclamation that every opportunity to show consideration for another person is also an opportunity to build habits of kindness. And throughout this week, we recommit to being more kind, loving, understanding, and virtuous.

POWERS: OK. I think that's the problem with the connection because --

(LAUGHTER)

POWERS: I mean the president is doing that?

LEMON: Yes. You know --

BOOT: The Trump's superpower is that he has no sense of self-awareness --

(LAUGHTER)

BOOT: -- with no idea how other people perceive him. I mean, it is stunning.

LEMON: Oh --

(LAUGHTER)

BOOT: I mean, the line between reality and --

POWERS: It's kind of taking gaslighting to a new level.

(LAUGHTER)

BOOT: The line between reality and --

LEMON: Is this happening?

BOOT: -- parity has been punctured. There's no difference anymore.

(LAUGHTER)

POWERS: I honestly thought I could --

LEMON: Wait a minute. Hold on. I got to -- seriously -- OK --

POWERS: Yeah.

LEMON: I just - I have to put my glasses on and make sure I read it. President Trump is making next week national character counts week --

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Every opportunity shows consideration for another person. Whew!

POWERS: I think this is a prank, honestly, like --

LEMON: Honestly, we need to check our sources on that.

POWERS: Yeah, I think we need to double check this.

LEMON: Thank you both.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Oh, boy, thank you. Wow! OK, I want to turn to something that happened at one of the president's campaign rallies tonight that is not funny. Republican Senator David Perdue is wilfully mispronouncing the name of his colleague on the Senate Budget Committee, Senator Kamala Harris.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DAVID PERDUE (R-GA): Kamar -- Kamalar -- mala -- mala -- I don't know.

(LAUGHTER)

PERDUE: Whatever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Let's talk about it now. Jon Ossoff, he is a Democratic candidate running to replace Senator Perdue. Thank you, Jon. I appreciate you joining us.

JON OSSOFF, DEMOCRATIC GEORGIA SENATE CANDIDATE: Thanks, Don.

LEMON: So, Perdue knows how to pronounce Senator Harris's name. They have served in the Senate together since 2017. Both sit on the budget committee. So why is he willfully mispronouncing it, trying to make it a joke, like, whatever, mala, mala, mala, whatever. Why is he doing that?

OSSOFF: This is what President Trump has done to Republicans in the Senate.

[23:10:01]

OSSOFF: I mean, this is a performative bigotry. My opponent, Senator Perdue, he doesn't want to talk about how tens of thousands of Americans have died due to the gross negligence of the Trump administration and Republicans in the Senate during this pandemic.

He doesn't want to talk about how they are rushing right now to rip health insurance protections away from people in the middle of a pandemic.

Instead what he wants to do is laugh at the first name of the Democratic nominee for vice president because it's an immigrant name. It's low, it's bigoted, it's wrong, and it's pathetic.

He needs to apologize, not just to Senator Harris, but also to the Indian-American community in Georgia and across the country. LEMON: There was an incident with you, like, drawing your nose or

making your nose bigger, I don't know if it was a photo shop. Can you remind our viewers about that?

OSSOFF: Yeah. Well, Senator Perdue has really shown his true colors during this campaign. I mean, he was running an anti-Semitic Facebook ad against me that lengthened my nose, refused to take any responsibility for it, refused to apologize even after Jewish community leaders here in Georgia explained to him that he needed to apologize for using this age-old, anti-Semitic trope and attack ads.

Now, he is out here mocking Kamala Harris's name. It is pathetic. It is disgusting. It debased what politics has become under Donald Trump's leadership.

We need to heal this country and unite this country, to fight a virus that is the most significant threat to public health and to our prosperity in generations. Instead, it's these schoolyard insults. These racist jokes. It's just so out of touch, with what the overwhelming majority of Americans want and expect from leaders right now.

LEMON: So this is what the senator's press secretary, Sabrina Singh, called it. She said it is incredibly racist. The spokesman for the Perdue campaign is defending the senator's remarks tonight. Here's part of their statement.

It said, "Senator Perdue simply mispronounced Senator Harris's name, and he didn't mean anything by it. He was making an argument against the radical socialist agenda that she and her endorsed candidate Jon Ossoff are pushing."

Listen. It's obvious that Senator Perdue wasn't simply mispronouncing. That was kind of a Trumpy Fox News thing to do. What does that have to do with her on your policy agenda? That is my question.

OSSOFF: Well, this is all they have, racist jokes and these outlandish allegations, mischaracterizing the policy platform of the Biden-Harris ticket, and mischaracterizing my agenda to try to make people afraid. This is about fear and division. This is the stock in trade of the president of the United States and his acolytes.

There's a reason that Senator Perdue is called Trump's favorite senator. And by the way, this whole yes sir, no sir, three bags full routine (ph) that David Perdue has ran with Donald Trump in the last four years, Georgia hasn't got anything for it. Our farmers still had to wait nearly two years for emergency hurricane relief.

We are not even benefiting from the fact that every single favor that President Trump asks of Senator Perdue, every outrageous statement that the president makes Senator Perdue apologizes for, Senator Perdue was out there saying the same nonsense as the president in the early months of this pandemic, saying that COVID-19 was no deadlier than the flu, saying that the risks to our health was low, saying that the impact on our economy would be little. All the while, Senator Perdue was adjusting his stock portfolio, loading up on shares in manufacturers of vaccines and protective medical equipment. Now, his campaign is baseless allegations against his component and racist jokes at Trump rallies.

Georgia deserves better and there is a young, progressive, diverse electorate that has grown here in Georgia over the last decade that is demanding change. We are seeing overwhelming turnout, but we are also facing voter suppression.

And I need folks to help us fight back and defend the franchise here. They can visit the electjon.com to support this campaign, defeat David Perdue and his bigotry, and turn over a new leaf and open a new chapter in American history.

LEMON: I should say that the president also attacked Congresswoman Ilhan Omar today, and then earlier in the week, he called Senator Harris a monster, clearly odorizing women of color.

Thank you very much, Jon. I appreciate you joining us. Thank you.

OSSOFF: Thanks for having me.

LEMON: Former Trump administration officials, including John Bolton, Olivia Troye, and Miles Taylor joined Jake Tapper with an urgent message for America. Make sure you watch "The Insiders: A Warning from Former Trump Officials," Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. Make sure you join Jake for that.

So the president hitting the campaign trail in Wisconsin tomorrow where the COVID positivity rate is more than 26 percent.

[23:15:03]

LEMON: Is this another super-spreader in the making? Plus, I am going to talk to the student who asked Joe Biden one of the toughest questions in the town hall last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CEDRIC HUMPHREY, STUDENT: Besides you ain't black, what do you have to say to young black voters who see voting for you as further participation in a system that continually fails to protect them?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Today, the United States hit a grim milestone, passing eight million coronavirus cases, eight million, more cases than any other country, and cases continue to go up. You can see very little green on that map there. That as the president is taking to his campaign, taking his campaign to Wisconsin, a state where coronavirus cases are now at an all-time high.

Here is what the U.S. surgeon general said today. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEROME ADAMS, U.S. GENERAL SURGEON: I want you all to be aware that Wisconsin is currently one of our red states, meaning your positivity rates are over 10 percent and going in the wrong direction.

[23:20:06]

ADAMS: Cases are in the red, going in the wrong direction. It is critical that we actually understand where this virus is circulating so that we can get cases under control and reverse positivity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So let's discuss now. Kara Purviance is the chairwoman of the Wisconsin Rock County Board of Supervisors. Thank you for joining us. I really appreciate it. So --

KARA PURVIANCE, CHAIRWOMAN, ROCK COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS: Thank you for having me.

LEMON: So, let's talk about Wisconsin's corona positivity rate, more than 26 percent tonight. So why is the president holding a rally with hundreds of people there tomorrow?

PURVIANCE: Well, I think what we have seen is definitely some hard work in the last week or so to sort of regain maybe some of the momentum here that was lost. And so I feel that he wants to continue that and come to Wisconsin, which we know is a battleground state. And so, you know, that definitely make sense as to why he would be coming here.

LEMON: The mayor of Milwaukee is warning the president's Wisconsin rally could be another super-spreader event like the White House Rose Garden. Do you think he's right?

PURVIANCE: Yeah. We are definitely concerned in Rock County, specifically, we have seen a record number of positive cases at this time, actually higher than they were at the former highest which was in May, 15 percent back in May, 20 percent now.

You know, we're definitely concerned here with this having an impact on the numbers in the upcoming week. And as we've heard from the report, we are already heading in the wrong direction. We are concerned that this will be a super-spreader event. We don't want to go in that wrong direction.

LEMON: Well, we are going to have you back to discuss this more. Thank you so much, Kara. We really appreciate it. Best of luck to you.

PURVIANCE: Thank you.

LEMON: So, the super-spreader-in-chief is back on the campaign trail, claiming that we are turning a corner in the fight against the coronavirus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The light at the end of the tunnel is near. We are rounding the turn. I say that all the time. Some of the media doesn't like hearing it. But I say it all the time. We are rounding the turn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Dr. Howard K. Koh joins us now. He is a former assistant secretary for health in the Obama administration and professor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Thank you, doctor. I really appreciate you joining us this evening.

You heard the president a moment ago. He keeps bragging that we are supposedly -- we have turned a corner in this pandemic. But nothing could be further from the truth if you actually look at the numbers.

HOWARD K. KOH, PROFESSOR, HARVARD T.H. CHAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: That's right, Don. Unfortunately, all the trends are going in the wrong way right now. In Wisconsin where the president is going tomorrow, across the country, in the north, in the Midwest, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and places like that, we have seen rising cases lately with daily counts now over 60,000.

That's as high as we have seen ever through this pandemic response in numbers that we had in mid-July. We are seeing rising hospitalizations and overwhelmed hospital staff in places like Wisconsin where a field hospital was set up. Test positivity rates are rising, as well.

So all this reflects, Don, the fact that thousands and millions of Americans individually sacrificing over many months. We need to have a united national action to promote prevention and public health in the way we should to get this pandemic behind us.

LEMON: You know, the rallies that we are seeing with little to no mask wearing and people packed and close together, some even being held indoors, is setting a terrible example and it's very dangerous, especially going into winter when people are going to be, you know, Thanksgiving and the holidays. This is a bad example for what's coming in the colder temperatures.

KOH: It's so difficult to see those images right now. It is hard to reconcile those images with what we know is necessary to save lives. We need to follow the guidelines that we've heard about for months, to practice social distancing, to not be part of large crowds, to wear masks, from coast to coast here.

We still have inconsistent mask requirements across the country. That's all leading to preventable transmission, infection, and death.

One thing I have learned from my patients in caring for them over the years is that when a loved one dies, it's a tragedy. When a loved one dies and you know that death was preventable, that's a tragedy that haunts you forever. Unfortunately, thousands of families are going through that right now.

[23:25:00] KOH: We don't need this to continue in the future. We need to double down on public health.

LEMON: The president keeps talking about cures. There is no cure. Today, CNN is reporting that the antibody cocktail that Trump credits for helping him recover is one that he has pitched directly by the company that made it last spring.

I mean, too bad the president was quickly distracted by other unproven treatments like, you know, hydroxychloroquine. So many lives could have been saved if they had focused on the right treatment.

KOH: You are right, Don. We dot no have a cure. We have a lot of research going on and therapeutics. So that monoclonal antibody cocktail is promising approach but we should stress it is completely experimental and unproven.

In fact, the president received that product outside of clinical trial. So that is not a cure. We don't have a cure yet. We need to continue the research. In the meantime, we have the public health at our disposal that we can maximize right now until a vaccine and a cure comes hopefully sooner rather than later.

LEMON: And even remdesivir, the study out now, saying that it has no effect on mortality.

KOH: Yes. That was a very important announcement by the WHO today. Previously, remdesivir has been carefully studied in -- that came out just last week. About a thousand patients showed that remdesivir decreased recovery time for about 15 to 10 days but did not show mortality benefit.

So we thought there was a minor contribution to the care of people covered but an important one. But then today, the WHO study came out showing no decrease in recovery time, as well as no mortality benefit.

Now, I should stress that WHO announcement came out through a paper that has not been reviewed and has not in the (INAUDIBLE) yet.

LEMON: Mm-hmm.

KOH: So we need to critique that carefully. But these are all very important studies that we have to follow in order to develop a science and help people better in the future.

LEMON: Thank you very much, doctor. Have a great weekend. I appreciate you joining.

KOH: Thank you, Don.

LEMON: Ahead, the Big Ten is starting up this weekend, but the states they're playing are all surging with coronavirus cases. Next, did he get the answer he needed from Joe Biden at last night's town hall?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): He said great. Did you hear what you needed to hear?

BIDEN: I am sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Did you hear what you needed to hear?

HUMPHREY: I think so.

BIDEN: There is a lot more if you want -- if you can hang around afterwards, I will tell you more.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So, one of the questions at Joe Biden's town hall last night was Cedric Humphrey. Cedric Humphrey is a student from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania who was, no doubt, speaking for a lot of concerned young African-American voters. Here is his question to Joe Biden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUMPHREY: Many people believe that the true swing demographic in this election will be black voters under the age of 30, not because they will be voting for Trump, but because they won't vote at all.

I myself have had this exact same conflict. So my question for you then, is, besides you ain't black, what do you have to say to young black voters who see voting for you as further participation in a system that continually fails to protect them?

BIDEN: As my buddy John Lewis said, it's a sacred opportunity, the right to vote, you can make a difference. If young black women and men vote, you can determine the outcome of this election. Not a joke. You can do that.

In addition to dealing with the criminal justice system to make it fair and make it more decent, we have to be able to put Black Americans in positions to gain wealth, generate wealth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, Cedric Humphrey joins me now. Hello, sir.

HUMPHREY: Hi, how are you doing?

LEMON: I'm doing great. Thank you so much for joining. Listen, even though Joe Biden's full answer was quite lengthy, you say that a large part of your question went unanswered. What do you feel he didn't address for you?

HUMPHREY: Well, he did answer a decent amount of it, but I think the main root of my question, which was, what do you say to young voters, young black voters, but young voters general, who feel that they are voting into a system that continually and continually doesn't promote change for them?

And I don't think that was really addressed. So, I was kind of disappointed about that. But it is what it is.

LEMON: OK. Well --

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Well, listen, I thought that -- it took a lot of courage to get up there on national television and ask the person who could be the next president and a former vice president of the United States that question. I thought it was a very bold question, a good question. Again, it took a lot of courage to do that.

You represent, Cedric, a particular kind of undecided voter. You knew you couldn't vote for Trump. But you weren't sure if you are on board with Biden either. So, what do you do as an undecided voter in that position? What happens now?

HUMPHREY: I think you need to have a hard conversation with yourself and reconcile your decision. I would not consider myself an undecided voter at this point. I would consider myself a Joe Biden voter. I will be voting for Joe Biden.

LEMON: OK. I was going to ask you, I mean, honestly, at this point, who is really undecided? I say that because it is surprising to me, considering that Donald Trump has been president for almost four years, he has a record, we know what he's done, Joe Biden has been in politics forever, we know that he was the former vice president for Barack Obama, we have seen him. So, frankly, I can't understand who is undecided at this point. Go on, sorry.

HUMPHREY: No, it's OK. Yeah, I am definitely voting for Joe Biden. I just wish that there was a candidate I was more excited to vote for. I really had like hoping for change. But at this point, you know, the mission is clear. We have to get Donald Trump out of office.

[23:34:58]

HUMPHREY: We can't allow a demagogue and a fascist to stay in office any longer than he has. I hope everyone does vote for Joe Biden because we have to get Trump out of office. That is the decision I had to make.

LEMON: Do you think -- this is -- don't get mad at me, OK, because I sound like -- I know because I tell my nieces who are young ladies, we talk about these things, they say I sound like, get off my lawn. You guys know you don't have to fall in love with someone. They don't have to say everything you want them to say in order to vote for them, right?

HUMPHREY: Oh, 100 percent.

LEMON: Yeah. HUMPHREY: I think, you know, a lot of my frustration and I feel like a lot of young voters' frustration, Joe Biden takes the brunt of it publicly, but I think that frustration lies in deeper problems. I think a lot of it lies with the Democratic Party as a whole.

LEMON: Yeah.

HUMPHREY: And with Joe Biden being the newly-crowned head of the Democratic Party, I guess that is what criticism (INAUDIBLE).

LEMON: Yeah. Hey, quickly, I know you gonna get to talk to him tomorrow. Are you ready for that?

HUMPHREY: Yes. I spoke with the Biden campaign last night. They're going to reach out to me tomorrow. I am very excited to have a conversation with former Vice President Biden. That will be interesting.

LEMON: I want you to come back. Thank you. You're an incredible young man. Best of luck to you. Good luck in school and good luck tomorrow. Thank you.

Well, next, games postponed. New concerns over travel. Why the NFL and college football are seeing coronavirus outbreaks that the NBA didn't have? Plus, Joe Biden is hauling in the cash right before the election, a lot of it, inside the strategy to win over battleground states.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So here is what University of Alabama is announcing tonight, that after initially testing positive on Wednesday, the head coach, Nick Saban, tested negative on Thursday. Players are tested positive on team throughout college football and many games have already been rescheduled or cancelled.

The same is true in the NFL where at least eight teams have had players test positive since the season began, including 20 members of the Tennessee Titans, 10 players and 10 staffers.

Joining me now is CNN contributor and Hall of Fame broadcaster Mr. Bob Costas. Bob, thank you so much.

BOB COSTAS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Hi, Don.

LEMON: I'm looking forward to this conversation, especially because it is with you. So, COVID is hitting football much harder than it did basketball. The NBA completed their bubble season without a single positive test. So how much of trouble is football experiencing right now? How much is due to the nature of the sport itself? Does it come down to the choices that the NFL has made?

COSTAS: I think it is the nature of the sport, the size of the roster, the intermingling on the field itself, the size of all of the auxiliary personnel. NBA rosters are the smallest of any team sport that we avidly follow in North America. They were able to go into a bubble.

For that matter, the NHL was similarly successful going into two bubbles and then one to finish up their playoffs. They did it in Canada, where the infection rate is low. It was not practical for baseball to do that.

They hit a lot of speed bumps but apparently never drove into a ditch and they're going to be able to make it all the way through to World Series. Not without some problems, but they will make it all the way through.

We know that with 32 teams, there is no way that football could have gone into a bubble, talking about the NFL. And the way they put it is this. We never expected elimination. We only hope for mitigation with the proper protocols.

Now, every team has a buy week within their schedules, so they've been able to slide some games, and they hope to be able to make them all up. But pretty soon, they will run out of buy weeks. If they get into post- Thanksgiving into December and then you have similar numbers of positive tests and games had to be postponed, then they will have a little bit of a problem.

My guess is that they will be hell-bent on getting to the finish line. And if some teams don't play 16 games, some teams won't play 16 games.

That will just be the way it is because there is too much of a television bonanza week after week, then you get to the playoffs, then you get to the Super Bowl, and somehow or other, even if some players and some teams and some since fall by the way side, I don't mean deaths, but I mean being unable to continue to play or missing games, that will just be the cost of doing business.

LEMON: Yeah.

COSTAS: Talking about the NFL. College is an entirely different situation.

LEMON: That's what I want to ask you about when it comes to college football. The Big Ten is beginning their season this weekend. I want you to take a look at this map. Each of one of the highlighted states, it is where a Big Ten school is located. All but one is in the red and trending in the wrong direction. Do you think it is a bad idea for college football to even be happening right now?

COSTAS: I said this couple of months ago or more, it is unconscionable. Not so much because there will be fatalities, the likelihood of that is small, although there might be some long-term effects, especially when you're talking about elite athletes.

If function of one kind or another, lung capacity, whatever it might be is reduced even by a small percentage, that is a price to pay for an elite athlete.

But the whole idea of this shows how out of proportion and out of perspective big time college sports are. It exposes, it if it wasn't already, as a sham. On most of these campuses, kids are not going to class in normal fashion.

[23:45:00]

COSTAS: Some of them are not there at all. We are going to take these players, who unlike NFL players, are well compensated for the risk. They have a union that protects their interests. College players do not have a union. They are not paid. They are being asked to expose themselves to some measure of danger.

Well, blowing apart, the whole sham that in most cases they're college athletes, this is big business, they are unpaid employees of a big business, some of them are, in fact, I don't want to cast too wide a net, some of them are in fact students, but that is really in many cases just incidental.

LEMON: Mm-hmm. Bob, you know, the president has been bragging that he is the responsible for the return of Big Ten. Watch this first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm the one that brought back football. By the way, I brought that Big Ten football. It was me. I am very happy to do it. The people of Ohio are very proud of me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: He surely got involved for political reasons, but these colleges made the decision --

COSTAS: Yeah.

LEMON: -- to play. That was their choice. Was it the right one?

COSTAS: Well, the Big Ten at first blocked at it and that seemed to me to be the responsible choice. But eventually, they were pressured into it by fans, by alumni, by financial considerations.

You know, I think football in general and in this case college football has become in too many instances not a nice, pleasurable pastime --

LEMON: Amen.

COSTAS: -- or an interest of some kind, but a mindless obsession.

LEMON: Right.

COSTAS: And it plays itself out week after week in stadiums, in campuses around the country.

LEMON: Bob, that is why I love you. You tell it like it is. Thank you for saying that. Let's talk about major league baseball playoffs. They are underway right now.

COSTAS: Yeah.

LEMON: They've moved to a bubble atmosphere after a rough season. But they are still allowing some fans to attend. So, you said -- I think you said that they had some hiccups where they didn't completely go in the ditch. I forgot what you said just earlier.

So, do you think they're going to be able to pull this off, making the playoffs with any -- without any more positive tests?

COSTAS: Yes. They are right at the tail end of the two league championship series, on to the World Series they go. It will be in the new ballpark, what would've been the Texas Rangers inaugural season in the new ballpark.

They are allowing 11, 12,000 fans appropriately socially distanced. People can sit together if they come as a group and they are comfortable with that but social distancing and they seem to be comfortable with that.

The players who have played in the Dodgers-Braves series, which is taking place in that ballpark in Arlington, Texas have said that even having less than a full house, hearing some fans, feeling the energy from the fans, has elevated that experience.

The American League Championship Series has been going on at Petco Park in San Diego. There are no fans, just cardboard cut-outs of fans. When they get to the World Series, it will be, as you suggest, a limited number of fans in the new ballpark in Arlington.

LEMON: Bob, I love your fancy new background, but I miss your kitchen. That is all I will say. I got to run.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Thank you, sir. Have a great weekend.

COSTAS: All right. Next time, we will feature the refrigerator for you.

LEMON: See you. We will be right back.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTAS: All right.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So last night, I spoke with Arnold Schwarzenegger about his fight to open more polling places. Well, his race and equity summit kicked off earlier today with former attorney general Eric Holder. They spoke about his efforts to fund more voting locations. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, FORMER CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR: The interesting thing was that in Louisiana, they didn't accept any of our grants. Even though other states like Texas and Alabama and other places, they accepted our grants. But in Louisiana, they said, no, we don't need your money, we just keep them closed. And so it just shows people the real reason behind it is.

ERIC HOLDER, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES: Yeah. And, you know, the things that you and I are fighting for are really just fairness. You know, let's let people decide.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, you can watch it on Twitch all this week, on Twitch all this week. And you can hear much more about the issue and the importance of the black vote on my podcast. It's called "Silence is Not an Option." You can find it on Apple podcasts or your favorite podcast app. You will love it, trust me.

So, while social distancing measures have helped to protect the elderly amid COVID, reduced social interaction has had a devastating effect on their mental and emotional wellbeing.

For seniors, social isolation can increase the risk of developing dementia by 50 percent. And for those already experiencing cognitive decline, it's taking an even greater toll.

Since 2014, CNN hero Carol Rosenstein has been using music to help people battling dementia, Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases.

When COVID hit, she moved her organization's programming online, and their work has become more crucial than ever.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAROL ROSENSTEIN, CNN HERO: COVID just makes this doubly difficult for people to sustain their levels of wellness. Because they've got so much isolation going on, we are going to see people deteriorating faster.

[23:55:05]

(SINGING)

ROSENSTEIN: But we can provide a great substitute that is going to keep us healthy and well during quarantine.

(SINGING)

ROSENSTEIN: Music is medicine for the mind.

(SINGING) ROSENSTEIN: The complexity excites so many senses in our brain. All of that excitement, miraculously, pushes neurotransmitters that help us function.

(SINGING)

ROSENSTEIN: Medicine with a side effect that is pure joy.

Where is my Kleenex?

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: That's why Carol is a hero. To see Anderson Cooper's full story about Carol's work using music to battle the impact of COVID isolation, go to cnnheroes.com right now.

And thank you so much for watching. Our coverage continues.

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