Return to Transcripts main page
Don Lemon Tonight
Record Shows 75-Plus Million Americans Have Already Voted; Joe Biden Slamming President Trump On His Handling Of The Coronavirus Pandemic; CNN National Poll: Biden Leads Trump; Trump Holds Two Rallies Which He Won In 2016; Stock Market Tumble Complicates Trump's Economic Pitch; COVID Cases Rising In Deadly Fall Surge Despite Trump Claims Of Rounding The Turn; Jared Kushner Bragged In April That Trump Was Taking the Country Back From The Doctors. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired October 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: Well, every day I get to count down, right. This is six days, six days until Election Day. As of tonight, we're breaking records here. More than 75 million Americans have already cast their ballots in early voting. That's about 56 percent of all the votes cast in the 2016 presidential election.
President Trump holding two outdoor rallies today in Arizona, a key battleground state that he won in 2016 and that Joe Biden is hoping to win in this election. And a new CNN national poll gives Biden a comfortable 12-point lead over Trump.
I want to bring in now CNN's White House Correspondent, Mr. John Harwood, our Senior Political Analyst, Mr. John Avlon and Republican Strategist, Ms. Alice Stewart. Hello, everybody, so good to see you. Alice, it's been a while. Good to have you on. These two other guys I get to see all the time.
ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I know. Great to see you.
LEMON: But I'm going to start with John -- great to see you as well. Six days until Election Day, John, more than 75 million Americans already cast their ballots. Poll after poll shows that this has been a very, very stable race. The clock is running out.
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, look, I mean this is stunning to see this kind of turnout. I mean, 2016 was the lowest turnout in two decades. And this year we are seeing records being broken every day. You've got not folks waiting in line. They have mail-in ballot time as Rick Cason told you a little while ago is probably passed.
But the motivation is incredible, even in deep red states typically like Texas, you're seeing records broken all over the place. It speaks to the enthusiasm that exists. Enthusiasm on both sides, but it is CNN's projections that a lot of the early votes and the early ballot request in cast are trending Democrat. But that is not a done deal, nothing is a done deal until Election
Day. But it is a sign of people really straightening up their civic back bone, because they know democracy is on the ballot this time.
LEMON: Two things, John, I want you to fix your collar in your left side --
AVLON: Which one. It's a look I'm going for.
LEMON: Just tuck it in. There you go.
AVLON: It's a look.
LEMON: The other thing -- we live near each other and we were talking about voting. Did you make it? Did you make it to the polls yet?
AVLON: I'm doing it this Friday. I tried to go earlier and it was one of those early days.
LEMON: I hear that the lines are a lot shorter now.
AVLON: Good.
LEMON: You know, things are good. I cleared the way for you.
AVLON: Thank you.
LEMON: One less person in line. So, John, listen, coronavirus cases spiking all across the country. Here's what Joe Biden said about the pandemic today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Refusal of the Trump administration to recognize the reality we're living through at a time when almost a thousand Americans a day are dying every single day is an insult to every single person suffering from COVID-19 and every family who's lost a loved one. The longer he's in charge, the more reckless he gets. It's enough. It's time to change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So Biden is focusing his campaign on the pandemic. Trump is pretending it is over. Is this what this race is going to come down to, what is going on, the reality versus fiction when it comes to the coronavirus?
JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, coronavirus is the number one issue in the race, and that's the contrast between the two men. But it's also revealing of the character contrast between the two men. Joe Biden is not the greatest thinker or speaker or campaigner in the Democratic Party. He's lost a few steps at age 77. But he is fundamentally a decent, honest person who cares about others and wants to try to help them.
Donald Trump is none of those things. Donald Trump does not care about other people. He cares about helping himself. And he doesn't care who is hurt or what is broken along the way. The American people have seen that, and that's why Joe Biden has got that healthy lead in the polls and we've got just a few days left for the president to try to turn that around. The signs are not promising for him.
LEMON: So, look, Alice, man, we've known each other for a while. I think what?
STEWART: A long time.
LEMON: The (inaudible) days, but you were here for 2016, remember? I mean, it was, Trump pulled off an unbelievable come back in '16. We may have been on the air together, I don't remember, the night of the Access Hollywood tape. But, I mean we've seen him pull himself out of a lot of things. But that was a different race in, Alice. There were many more undecided voters. Trump didn't have a record in office. What are you going to be watching for in the final days here?
STEWART: I'll be watching those -- certainly those undecided voters. Look, the momentum is certainly on Joe Biden's side. And he has run a tremendous race being in the lead. But what we're seeing out of this early voting numbers and these massive early voting turnout, the Trump campaign is seeing a large momentum and tremendous support from their analytics in Pennsylvania, in Michigan, in Florida, in key states that he must win.
[23:05:00]
But also just as important, we're talking about the voter turnout. When these Trump campaign rallies pulled this event, the data from these, we're seeing people that are about 20 percent on each of these are not Republicans and about the same number, 20 percent in all these rallies, did not vote in 2016.
They're not standing in line for hours to come out and see President Trump if they're not going to vote. And more than likely will be voting for him. So, I think the numbers look good on paper for Joe Biden, but there is still a strong undercurrent of people that may not speak up to the pollsters and may not have gone on record yet. But there is still that Trump factor that we'll only know after we get the polls and the true poll only really matters on Election Day.
LEMON: That's Election Day. Yes. Listen, John is agreeing and I'm agreeing. Everything Alice just said was completely true about the analytics and internal polling and everything. Joe Biden has a huge lead when it comes to early voting, but in many of those key, those battleground states, Republicans are coming in and they are voting and starting to catch up.
John, listen, I just want to play -- do you want to weigh in on that before I play something for you John?
AVLON: Only that that's exactly what you're hearing from the Trump team. And some folks can say its argument by anecdote. But it's real. Because remember, he's defending his states he won last time. But Donald Trump has never tried to win the popular vote in this race. He is playing a state race game. And so if he can get folks to come in who aren't getting caught, whether to shy Trump voter something else that's the kind of thing that can disrupt models. People should be wide awake.
STEWART: I think that -- that's the key, Don. This is not a popularity contest. This is a presidential race that is won by the Electoral College. And that's how he won last time. And that's how they are -- they're doing well now. Who knows what will happen, but that's the game they're playing this time as well.
LEMON: Let me play this for you. This is something Jared Kushner said to Bob Woodward. This was on April 18th when more than 38,000 Americans had already died from COVID. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JARED KUSHNER, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: So, we're testing now. What he's been saying is, don't fall into the same trap that we fell in to the first time. The states have to own the testing. The federal government should not own the testing. And the federal government should not own kind of the rules. It's got to be up to the governors. Because that's the way the federalist system works.
But the president also is very smart politically with the way he did that fight with the governors that basically says, no, no, no, I own the opening because, again, the opening is going to be very popular. People want this country open. But if it opens in the wrong way, the question will be did the Governors follow the guidelines we set out or not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Wow, well, that's completely the opposite of what you hear in public, John Harwood. I mean, it seems to sum up the Trump administration perfectly. They want all the credit if things go well, none of the blame if they don't.
HARWOOD: Don, it shows that Jared Kushner is cut from the same moral cloth as his father-in-law. He's sitting there gaming it out as to how can benefit the president politically, not how it's going to help the American people. And he also has the same level of competence as his father-in-law because he was exactly wrong on his prescription.
If there's anything that requires the use of federal power and federal coordination, it is a pandemic that does not respect state boundaries of any kind. This is not the case to do state by state experimentation. This is the case to have a national response.
And it shows that Jared Kushner was right in one other thing that he said on that tape that we've heard today, he said the biggest problem the president had was overconfident idiots around him. Overconfident idiots is something that Jared Kushner is very intimately familiar with.
LEMON: Wow. That was a burn right there.
(LAUGHTER)
That was some high level shade right there. Alice, listen, I want to get your reaction to this moment. This is a moment the president called Senator Martha McSally to the podium at his rally in Arizona today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Martha, come up, just fast, quickly. Fast, fast. Come on, quick. You've got one minute. One minute. Martha. They don't want to hear this, Martha. Come on, let's go. Quick, quick, quick, quick, come on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: I mean, all right. Look. OK. Come on, don't say he was joking at a rally because if he was, he wasn't doing her any favors no?
STEWART: Well, he's spent a lot of time in Arizona. He'll continue to dedicate resources and giving her his full support. I think I saw that. I thought it was, you know, not the greatest way to treat the Senator in her state. But I didn't read too much into it.
Look, there's so much going on at these rallies, I know that they've certainly had a lot of conversations outside this rally, so I didn't read a whole lot into it other than there's lot of people that he wanted to have on that stage and a lot of folks that wanted to have an opportunity to address the people of Arizona and I didn't read anything into it.
LEMON: You're good Alice, you're good.
AVLON: He's an insult --
LEMON: Come on, come on, John, people don't want to hear that. Come on, come on, hurry up, hurry up.
[23:10:03]
AVLON: It's that fundamental disrespect for other human beings. Look. He's an insult comic who's never really joking. That's the problem with the president's performance.
LEMON: I was thinking about last time when we had that. What is it the insult dog gone?
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
CNN's role in the middle of the night.
AVLON: Potential second term cabinet member.
LEMON: It's so good to see you all.
STEWART: I (inaudible) that dog.
LEMON: Alice, you may have been there for that. Thank you guys. I appreciate it. I'll see you soon.
STEWART: Thanks, Don.
LEMON: Let's bring in now the former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci.
Anthony, how are you doing, sir?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS, FOUNDER/ MANAGING PARTNER, SKY BRIDGE CAPITAL: Good to see you, Don.
LEMON: Good to see you. Listen, you've been on the campaign trail. Tell me what you've got?
SCARAMUCCI: Well, I'm encouraged. And I've been on the campaign trail. I've also been doing local TV and local radio. And frankly I'm very optimistic about the country at the end of the day, particularly in the Midwest, Don. The Midwestern values of this country, the decency are holding, people know that there's something sinister going on.
And I really believe that these guys, these (inaudible), these incompetents, these malicious people that have a callous disregard for human life are going to get kicked out by the American people in five days. And so when that happens, we are going to have to figure out what went wrong in the system. I'm honestly surprised that the president has this much support. It's low (inaudible) support.
LEMON: Let me ask you this.
SCARAMUCCI: And he shouldn't be anywhere near that given the level of incompetence and the maliciousness of itself and his teammates.
LEMON: I get it. I get it. I want to talk to you about the stock market. But just quickly. I don't know if you heard my conversation with Alice when she talked about the internal polling, you know, and the Trump rallies and 20 percent of the people there, first time voters, haven't voted before and some of them are Democrats. What do you say to that?
SCARAMUCCI: Look, I'll use a Joe Biden line. It's a bunch of malarkey. Remember I've been on in the inside. Look, I've listened to all of that non-sense. They thought they were losing last time. They squeaked it out by 78,000 votes in three states. They know for sure they're losing this time. They're throwing hail marries right now. They're in defense everywhere.
The poll numbers in Pennsylvania are horrific. OK. They're super bad in Wisconsin, down 17. But he knows he's close to down double digits in Pennsylvania from his internal polls. So, they can say whatever they want. The news is the news.
And by the way, the stock market being down, Don, that is a direct result of the mishandling of the pandemic. As I've tried to explain to people, the Federal Reserve can't backstop everything. You have to cure the pandemic to heal the economy. And so, once Joe Biden is elected, I expect the markets to recover.
LEMON: Yes, listen, that's how you made your living is through investment, right, and through the markets. So, you know the markets. But you know how he likes to say, well, the markets are great. We have the greatest and biggest stock market records of all time. He's losing both. In the polling as of now, while we have days to go until the election, but especially when it comes to the market and how people feel about these surging cases with the coronavirus.
SCARAMUCCI: Well, first of all, it's a lie. I mean, the Obama stock market is three X what the Trump stock market has been. He mishandled the COVID-19 crisis.
LEMON: Say that again, because isn't that amazing? Because he puts out --
SCARAMUCCI: Yes.
LEMON: He says these things and people buy into it. Go on, Anthony, sorry.
SCARAMUCCI: No, no, I'm just saying -- I mean, by the way, over the last 100 years, Democratic administrations -- I hate to say this as a Republican, but Democratic administrations have had better stock market appreciation, lower unemployment numbers and higher GDP growth. And Mr. Trump is at the lowest end of this stuff.
And you have to remember, he blew the economy by mishandling the pandemic. If he had just taken the advice of the epidemiologists, we would have our case counts down. Go to the numbers, Barack Obama, President Obama said it over the weekend, South Korea, 20 deaths per million.
The United States over 600 deaths per million. Imagine something like Dr. Anthony Fauci sitting there knowing that we could have done better. We could have been South Korea had the president just listened or had his team been less malicious.
So, these are super bad guys, Don, and I'm proud of people like Miles Taylor and Olivia Troye actually speaking out about it. I'm concerned that Republicans that are elected officials that took an oath to the constitution to protect the American people have not spoken out about it. But the American people are about to speak out about it, Don Lemon, and they're going to vote this guy and his team out of office next week.
LEMON: Anthony Scaramucci, Anthony thank you. I'll see you soon, OK?
SCARAMUCCI: It's good to be on. I'll be fighting again tomorrow.
LEMON: I'll see you then.
SCARAMUCCI: I just want to make sure you know.
LEMON: Trust me, I know. I got it, buddy. All right.
[23:15:03]
So, Joe Biden has a lead in some of the states the president is desperate to hang on to. Just how narrow is his road to 270? Plus, how long will it take for this country to get back to something like normal maybe? Maybe longer than you think.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE: I think it will be easily by the end of 2021 and perhaps even into the next year before we start having some semblances of normality.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Six days till Election Day and CNN's new national poll gives Joe Biden a 12-point lead over President Trump, 54 percent to 42 percent. What about the road to 270? Let's go to CNN's John King who is at the magic wall. John?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Don, we're five days out. This is where I would normally be saying pay no attention to the national polls. But pay attention to this national polls. It's our brand-new CNN poll, it is out tonight. I just want to bring up the numbers for you here. And let's start right here with the baseline choice for president.
[23:20:06]
Joe Biden has a 12-point lead -- a 12-point lead with five days left. That is a big deal. He's above 50. The president is stuck just above 40. That's a big deal as well. Now, for all the Trump supporters that say yes, but Hillary Clinton was ahead, she was. But she was ahead about four points at this point in the race. She went on to win the national vote, lose the Electoral College, but she was up four points at this point.
Joe Biden is up three times that. So, even if you discount the polls, cut that in half, that's still enough for Joe Biden if that holds to have a national victory. Now, why is this happening? Let take a look deeper. One of the reasons is that Donald Trump has been unable to impugn Joe Biden's character. He's thrown the kitchen sink at him.
Career politician, Hunter Biden, stays in his basement. Won't have big crowds in his campaign rallies. Everything he can Donald Trump throws. 55 percent of the American people right now likely voters view Joe Biden favorably. Only four in 10 likely voters say that about the president of the United States.
So, questions of honesty, personal character, favorability, likability, Joe Biden is winning the race handedly. So, if you're the president and you can't beat him on character, then you got to beat him on policy. Well, let's take a look at that as well. You look at the report card. Look at all these issues, all the big issues facing the country right now. Yes, the president does win on the economy. But in our new poll, Don, just barely. A slight edge on the economy.
On the coronavirus. On crime and justice. On health care, on race relations, on Supreme Court nominations, Joe Biden wins. Has the edge on all pf these issues and now many of them, Don, by a wide margin. That is why Joe Biden is winning this race. People like him more and they trust his positions on the issues more. Very hard for the president.
So, what do we do every day? We've been talking about this in the final week. You look for any signs of Trump momentum. We all live through 2016. So, if you look at the national poll you don't see it, right? Well, brand-new polls out today. We lean Michigan and Wisconsin. Blue for a reason. Joe Biden has a healthy steady lead.
New polls out today show even bigger. Its double digits in both of those states. And within those states let me show you something. The coronavirus is the defining issue in this campaign. And in Michigan and in Wisconsin, 42 percent approve in Michigan, 39 percent of voters in Wisconsin approve of how the president is handling the biggest issue, he's way under water, 55 percent disapproved here, nearly 60 percent disapprove there.
No evidence of Trump momentum in states that are dealing again with a COVID surge. Plus, brand-new polls, we still have Georgia as a toss- up. Joe Biden was there yesterday. One more quick footnote here. Look, again, you're looking to the red states. If Donald Trump is going to come back, certainly places like Georgia would trend back, right? Republican DNA.
Not right now. That doesn't mean Donald Trump we can't win Georgia. That's a three-point lead out in our polar polls. A new poll out today reenforce this. It doesn't mean Donald Trump can't win. It just means there's no evidence, Don, of a late surge, which is why we stay here. Joe Biden across the finish line, advantage Biden, Donald Trump with a chance, but Joe Biden competitive in every one of those. Five days to go.
LEMON: John King. Thank you, sir. Now, I want to bring in Ron Brownstein, CNN's senior political analyst and Sarah Longwell, strategic director and founder of Republican Voters Against Trump. Good evening to both of you. Doing OK?
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey -- yes.
SARAH LONGWELL, STRATEGIC DIRECTOR/FOUNDER, REPUBLICAN VOTERS AGAINST TRUMP: Yes.
BROWNSTEIN: I hope my collar's OK here. I'm a little nervous. Avlon got smack down.
LEMON: I got you. No, no, no, I was trying -- I was helping a brother out. I was helping a brother out. I would let you know.
BROWNSTEIN: All right. That's good.
LEMON: OK, so here we go. Ron, you first since you want to be, you know, smart, you know what tonight. A smart (inaudible). CNN polar polls show that Biden has a lead in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Which of these states do you think that Trump -- that he needs to win to have a shot at 270, at least a shot at it?
BROWNSTEIN: Pennsylvania. I think Pennsylvania is clearly, you know, the kind of the keystone state as it were for Trump. But what is striking to me -- and I'm really interested to hear from Sarah because she's done a lot of focus groups -- is that, Don, there is a Biden coalition in these Rust Belt states. And if you look at the polling in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and for that matter Minnesota, Ohio, and Iowa, it is remarkably similar from state to state.
Joe Biden is winning 55 percent or more of college educated whites. Trump is really eroding there. He's winning in those states that have a large African-American population. He's winning somewhere around 85 percent of them. And then perhaps most important of all, he's winning in all of these states, in all of these polls about 40 percent of whites without a college degree.
Now, that may not sound like much, but Hillary Clinton was down to about a third or 35 percent of those voters in all of those states in 2016. And so I kind of look at that and I say that at the moment, Joe Biden is doing the job the Democrats hired him to do. You don't nominate a 77-year-old white guy who has been in politics for 50 years to solve the problem of turning out more younger non-white voters in the Sun Belt.
You hire him to win back some of those white voters who defected from the Party in the Rust Belt and right now he's doing just enough of that to have the clear upper hand in those states.
LEMON: Sarah, he wanted to hear from you, so go for it. What do you have to say?
[23:25:00]
LONGWELL: Yes, I mean, everything that I'm seeing is totally consistent with that. I am watching these women and I'm mostly talking to college educated and non-college educated women in the swing states. These are the suburban voters. And the trend is just absolutely moving away from the president. In the last two focus groups I have done, there was only one, and they were all 2016 Trump voters. There was only one who was committed to voting for him again.
And what's interesting is that, you know, most of them are going to vote for Biden but there are still several of them would say that they're undecided. But they're not undecided between Trump and Biden. They're undecided between Biden and a third party or between writing somebody in. You know for some of them they just can't get there on voting for a Democrat but will absolutely close the door on voting for Donald Trump again.
LEMON: Interesting. Sarah, another question for you. This is our poll, CNN poll shows that Biden has a major lead among women, 61 percent to Trump's 37 percent. Over the past two months, you have been following nine women voters who voted for Trump in 2016. They were undecided when you met them. Who are they supporting now? Does this include the one you just talked about with the one person?
LONGWELL: It does, yes. Sorry, I've been tracking this group of nine undecided voters. Last night, the final tally was one Trump voter, four Biden voters, one-third party voter, and three undecideds. And you know, it's interesting, like I said, the undecideds are really leaning more toward just -- what am I going to do? I don't know if I can vote for a Democrat because I'm really pro-life. But that's the thing that's really holding them back.
But they don't say they're going to vote for Trump. It really is do I write someone in, so I vote third party, should I leave it blank. And that's what they're you know sort of wrestling with. There's the idea that like how could somebody potentially be undecided. You know just imagine you always voted Republican. You always voted for the candidate who was pro-life.
Now your choice of a Democrat is not pro-life and Donald Trump and you think -- this is tough (inaudible). So, that's where some of these women are leaning. But the key is, these are people who voted for him in '16 and they're not going to vote for him again.
LEMON: What did you have to say, Ron? You want to get in?
BROWNSTEIN: Yes, I was going to say, you know, as John was talking about, the CNN poll really kind of underscores this. I mean, not only in this poll -- the polling it would run some numbers so not only in the poll is Biden winning 60 percent plus, 60 percent of college educated white women which you would expect.
But Biden is now even among the non-college white women who gave Trump a big advantage in 2016, particularly in those Rust Belt states. They're probably the biggest single reason he is president is because he won so many of them in 2016.
And now he is only battling to a draw among them. That's significant movement. And the other thing that really jumped out at me from the poll, Don, we talked about this before. I mean, Trump spent -- and you talked about it just a few minutes ago, he has spent so much effort trying to demonize Biden. It is largely irrelevant to his fate. When you have an incumbent president, his fate is determined overwhelmingly primarily by how people assess his own job performance.
In the CNN poll, Biden is winning 95 to two I think it was. Among people who say they disapprove of Trump's job performance. The idea that there were ever been a large number of people who said I don't like the job Trump is doing, but I think Biden is even worse, therefor I'm going to vote for Trump.
There are a few but it's never that many. And it's even less than usual this year because so many of the people disagree with Trump disapproves strongly. His job was to improve perceptions of him, not to tarnished Biden and he really failed to do that I think during this campaign. At least to this point.
LEMON: Ron, Sarah, thank you. I'll see you guys soon. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
BROWNSTEIN: Thank you. Thanks, Don.
LEMON: The president's son-in-law, senior adviser bragging to Bob Woodward that President Trump got the country back from doctors. The problem with that is people trust the doctors more than they trust the president.
Plus, Arizona hasn't gone blue for a president since 1996. But polls show it could this year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's advantage Joe Biden.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is that like -- it's that shocking for you to say still?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is still shocking for me to get those words out of my mouth, yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: This election six days away and the coronavirus is the dominant issue on the campaign trail. Look at what this country is dealing with right now. Only one state is heading in the right direction. Forty- nine are getting worse or holding steady.
The average number of new cases is continuing to climb, over 76,000 new cases today alone. With the positivity rate for coronavirus tests here in the United States at almost seven percent. The number of people hospitalized is likely to climb.
And with all this hard data showing how badly we are failing in this fight against the virus, the president is brazenly claiming that we are rounding the turn.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The safe vaccine is coming very quickly. You're going to have it momentarily. That eradicates the virus. And we're rounding the turn regardless. You know that. We've got the vaccine. I say regardless. They'll say well, maybe you don't. We have it. Great companies. And quickly ends the pandemic.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Snake oil. We aren't rounding the turn. It's not almost over. We won't have a vaccine momentarily. And we do have to follow the basic guidelines to help stop the spread.
Joining me now is CNN's medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner, the director of the Cardiac Catheterization Program at George Washington Hospital -- George Washington University Hospital.
Look, it is not easy for me to say that, but, I mean, everything he just said was bogus. I said it is snake oil. It really is. It's not -- none of it is true, doctor.
JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST, DIRECTOR OF CARDIAC CATHETERIZATION PROGRAM AT GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: None of it is true. And when you perpetuate these falsehoods during a pandemic, you get people do the wrong things like go to mass rallies, like not wearing mask --
(CROSSTALK)
[23:35:00]
LEMON: Get on buses when they're at those rallies. Haul them in and out on buses. Sorry --
REINER: Or not get on buses, right. So, it perpetuates really a destructive behavior. He really does immolate the behavior of an arsonist. He really does. He said -- he continues to set these fires around the country.
Think about the positivity rates and some of the places that he is going. You know, in Iowa, for instance, the positivity rate is 26 percent.
LEMON: Geez.
REINER: Twenty-eight percent -- it is 28 percent in Wisconsin. How can you hold a rally in a place that has 28 percent positivity rate?
LEMON: Mm-hmm.
REINER: It's -- it's -- it's insane.
LEMON: Yeah. But yet, again here we are.
LEMON: At this point, doctor, no matter who wins this election, the country seems not to be rounding the corner, as he said, but more like on cruise control heading over a COVID cliff. How do we get this back on track?
REINER: We -- we -- we need leadership. We need straight talk. We will -- you know, we will have a vaccine at some point in the next couple of months. It's going to take a really long time to vaccinate 330 million people.
LEMON: Can I ask you something? What about the people who say, oh, Don, you know -- someone said to me, Don, we're going to have a vaccine really shortly, so you guys can just stop talking about this virus thing so much.
REINER: Yeah. So, a vaccine isn't like a -- like an antidote when you get bitten by a snake. It just doesn't suddenly go into effect and counteract the venom. A vaccine prevents people from becoming infected. It doesn't eradicate the virus, right? It's not an antiviral -- some sort of magic antiviral medication.
So, what a vaccine does is to create vaccine-induced herd immunity. And to do that, you need an effective vaccine. We'll get a sense the next few weeks more about the Moderna and the Pfizer vaccines, about how effective they are.
And then you need to vaccinate a lot of people. And depending on how effective the vaccine is will tell us what percent of the population we need to vaccinate to get enough people with enough vaccine-induced immunity so that the transmission of this virus ceases. And that process is going to probably require 75 percent of the population to be vaccinated.
LEMON: Mm-hmm.
REINER: We haven't -- we haven't done that with flu, maybe ever with the flu vaccine. And it's going to take a long time to do. We can do it, but we need leadership that guides us safely towards that. Masking up, social distancing, getting people to take care of each other. We can do that. Americans can do that. And I think we will do that. We just -- we just need the right leadership.
LEMON: I want to play, doctor -- this is a voice recording and it's new. It's of Jared Kushner talking to Bob Woodward.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JARED KUSHNER, SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (voice-over): The last thing was kind of doing the -- the guidelines, which was interesting. And that in my mind was almost like -- you know, it was almost like Trump getting the country back from the doctors, right? In the sense that what he now did was, you know, he's going to own the open-up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Own the open-up -- own the open-up? I mean, Dr. Reiner, the priorities here cannot be more upside-down.
REINER: Right. Actually, my favorite quote from that tape is when Kushner says the most dangerous people around the president are overconfident idiots.
LEMON: Idiots, yeah.
REINER: I agree with that. I absolutely agree with that.
LEMON: I know. (LAUGHTER)
LEMON: I know where you're going with this.
(LAUGHTER)
REINER: But -- yeah, own the open-up. But this is -- but this was really one of the major reasons we had this gigantic early summer second spike, was states discarded their carefully written CDC recommendations for opening, which dealt with, you know, a level of positivity and hospital capacity and declining numbers of cases, et cetera.
They abandoned that because the president both overtly and tacitly encouraged states to openly quickly and many governors took his lead and did that. So, we opened before states were ready to open.
If we had waited a while to open some of the states, we wouldn't have had that summer spike nowhere near where we had it. We would have had much more of a normal summer and we would have been in much better position into what was going to be an inevitable fall spike in this virus. But yet the president owned the opening. He's the open president, Kushner calls it.
LEMON: Yeah, really own the open-up there. Thank you, doctor.
REINER: Right.
LEMON: I appreciate it.
REINER: My pleasure.
LEMON: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: The election is just six days away and COVID-19 cases are on the rise during this fall surge. Twenty-nine states set new records this month for the most new daily cases since the pandemic began. On average, more than 70,000 people are being infected with this virus every single day. That's the highest average we have ever seen.
CNN's Nick Watt reports now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TRUMP: We're rounding the curve. We're rounding the corner. It's happening.
[23:44:58]
NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What actually happened yesterday in Wisconsin where the president said those words, more people were killed by COVID-19 in a single day than ever before and record numbers in the hospital.
NASIA SAFDAR, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, INFECTION CONTROL, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN HOSPITAL AND CLINICS: If the trajectory continues the way it is now, it's almost certain that we will find ourselves in a place where we will have to decide who gets the care.
WATT (voice-over): Staff shortages forecast and fear.
GOV. TONY EVERS (D-WI): There is no way to sugar coat it. We are facing an urgent crisis and there is an imminent risk to you, your family members --
WATT (voice-over): Right now, 40 states are seeing their average daily case counts rise. Nationwide, we just added more than a half million new cases in a week. The president still says it's just more testing. His own testing czar, once again, says he's wrong.
BRETT GIROIR, HHS ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH: We do assess that the cases are actually going up. They're real because hospitalizations and deaths are starting to go up.
WATT (voice-over): The average daily death toll just topped 800 for the first time in more than a month.
REINER: If we continue our current behavior, you know, by the time we start to go down the other side of the curve, a half a million people will be dead.
WATT (voice-over): Reintroducing restrictions now a very real possibility many places.
GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D-NJ): Now it's pretty much up and down the state. I continue to think it is more likely scalpel community-focused, surging of capacities and enforcement, but we have to leave all options on the table.
WATT (voice-over): Record COVID-19 hospitalizations now in 13 states, Ohio among them.
GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): The current increase in utilization is noticeably sharper, steeper than the increase we saw during the summer peak.
WATT (voice-over): This is life, but not as we knew it.
ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: I think it will be easily by the end of 2021 and perhaps even into the next year before we start having some semblances of normality.
WATT (voice-over): This baseball season was very far from normality.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Dodgers have won it all.
WATT (voice-over): For the Dodgers, a 32-year wait for a world series is over, but COVID-tinged. Their third baseman Justin Turner is celebrating postgame. In the seventh inning, the team learned he tested positive.
ANDREW FRIEDMAN, PRESIDENT OF BASEBALL OPERATIONS, LOS ANGELES DODGERS: Incredibly unfortunate but kind of speaks to what all of us are going through in 2020.
WATT (voice-over): Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: All right, Nick. The president is campaigning in Arizona with only six days to go until Election Day, even though he won the state last time around. And polls show he'll need to fight to keep it that way.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: The president is holding two outdoor rallies today in Arizona, a battleground state that he won in 2016. He is desperately trying to hold on to Arizona. But CNN's recent poll of polls gives Joe Biden a slight edge there. So, Biden is hoping to flip Arizona blue, and he may succeed.
More tonight from CNN's Kyung Lah.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Just put (ph) them over here, sweetheart.
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: An election for the ages.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Can you put stickers on these?
LAH (voice-over): All ages for this Phoenix, Arizona family volunteering to flip the state blue.
ELIO, DEMOCRAT, RELOCATED FAMILY TO ARIZONA: There's going to be people who are pissed off that, you know, it used to be a really red state.
LAH (voice-over): But change has arrived, say Elio and his wife, Kat. Like many new Arizonians, they are younger, college-educated, and voting democratic, helping turn their state into a battleground.
KAT, DEMOCRATE, RELOCATED FAMILY TO ARIZONA: There's definitely been a shift, a pretty -- a very noticeable shift. Arizona is growing very rapidly. It's no longer just a place for retirees and it's going to change because there are more families like us.
LAH (voice-over): Families like theirs are part of Maricopa County's population boom. About 200 new residents relocate to Phoenix's most populous and politically powerful county, every single day.
It used to look like that?
KIRK ADAMS, GOP STRATEGIST, CONSILIUM CONSULTING (voice-over): Yes, it used to be cowboys out here.
LAH (voice-over): Now?
ADAMS: It's upper middle income, it's professionals, it's highly educated. It is having a political effect. There's no doubt about it.
LAH (voice-over): Kirk Adams should know. A decade ago, he was one of the top-elected officials in the state. Arizona has voted for Republican presidential candidates since 1952, with the exception of Bill Clinton in 1996. And this year?
ADAMS: It's advantage, Joe Biden.
LAH: Is that hard? Like, is that shocking for you to say?
ADAMS: It is still a bit shocking for me to get those words out of my mouth, yeah. President Trump was sort of like gasoline on that fire. He was the accelerant that has produced sort of the position, the political position that we find this state in today.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): As Joe Biden knows, this moment is not about him.
LAH (voice-over): The Biden campaign and its allies are spending $6.7 million on TV ads in Arizona the week before the election.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): He will continue to fight for you.
LAH (voice-over): About $3 million more than the Trump campaign and Republican groups, according to data from the ad-tracking firm, Kantar Media.
Both President Trump and Joe Biden have made Arizona a top priority, increasing their presence --
(KNOCKING)
LAH (voice-over): -- and ground game as Election Day approaches.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE).
LAH (voice-over): Adding to the changing demographics, about one-third of Maricopa County is now Latino. Maggie Acosta believes new Latino voters and new residents could help Democrats take the state.
[23:55:00]
LAH: Do you feel it's different this year?
MAGGIE ACOSTA, DEMOCRATIC CANVASSER, UNITE HERE LOCAL 11: Yes, it is. As more Latinos are getting out there to vote.
LAH (voice-over): A once reliable red state, now home to opposing views.
If Arizona stays red, will it discourage you?
ELIO: Yes. I mean, she will say no --
KAT: Keep working.
ELIO: But, yeah, we'll -- we'll -- we'll keep working.
LAH: Early voting is underway here in Arizona. You can see there is a small line gathered here at this early voting site in Scottsdale, Arizona.
As far as what the numbers look like, in Maricopa County, the recorder says 1.26 million ballots have already been cast. These are signature- verified ballots. It is a record as far as early ballots. As compared to 2016, more than all of the early votes cast in 2016. A similar story in Pima County. That includes Tucson, Arizona. So, when it comes to records on early ballots, those are being smashed in Arizona.
Kyung Lah, CNN, Scottsdale, Arizona.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: All right. Kyung, thank you so much. And thank you so much for watching. Our coverage continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
