Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Mortgage Delinquencies Hit Highest Rate Since 2011; Ten States Record Seven-Day Average Of New Infections; Trump Aides Debate Size And Look Of Rallies After Tulsa Debacle; Official: CDC To Update Its Mask Recommendations "Soon"; Ford Restarts Full Production Today, Two Weeks Ahead Of Schedule. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 22, 2020 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Serious delinquencies. These are homeowners who are 90 days more past due that serious delinquency number jumped 50 percent over the past 2 months.

These numbers are big but Black Knight notes that so far in June the rise in delinquencies may be leveling off. Now these delinquency accounts include people who are in forbearance programs meaning they have an agreement with their lender to halt payments during the pandemic.

4.6 million Homeowners are in these plans just 15 percent of homeowners and forbearance made payments as of a week ago that's down from about 46 percent in April. These numbers crystallized just how much the pandemic the lockdowns and historic job losses have disrupted Americans personal finances, John.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Hello to our viewers in the United States around the world top of the hour. I'm John King in Washington. Thank you so much for sharing your day with us.

The United States now approaching a truly shocking coronavirus milestone, 120,000 American dead experts call the current rate of growth of forest fire threatening to burn out of control. The President of United States trying to convince you things are not as bad as they seem this of course as we head into reelection summer.

Globally the virus spreading faster than ever single day high of 183,000 new cases reported by the World Health Organization just yesterday here at home the daily new infections finished north of 30000 on Saturday that's the highest single day case count in 7 weeks.

Florida crossing the 100,000 case mark just last hour who data show 10 states Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Utah now seeing their highest 7 day average of new cases since the beginning of this pandemic.

But the White House signaling this morning it's taking the virus and less seriously and wants you to believe the numbers aren't really as bad as they look. At the White House today were to scale back temperature checks for personnel as they head into the White House complex.

And the White House Economic Adviser again says "There is no second wave coming even a scientist say look at the data" tells a different story.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: The challenge with exponential growth as everything looks okay until suddenly it doesn't. And so this is something that has to be a concern of everyone that's been watching this.

LARRY KUDLOW, WHITE HOUSE ECONOMIC ADVISER: We now have to deal with this stuff now it's come a long way since last winter and there is no second wave coming. All in all I think it's pretty good situation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Also some new reporting this hour about a giant rethinking of how the President of the United States campaigns the reason for the recalculation, empty seats, a lot of empty seats at the President's weekend rally in Tulsa now causing the President to be more than a little bit angry. Let's get straight to CNN, White House and CNN'S White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins. Kaitlan, the Press Secretary says all is fine our reporting suggests all is not.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kayleigh McEnany said this morning that she spoke with the President that he was not angry. John that is not what multiple people who spoke with Trump since he got back to Washington from Tulsa on Saturday night have said instead they described a President who is seething over the fact that there were so many empty rows in that arena on Saturday night.

After expectations had been high the President had been told that nearly a million people have requested tickets. They were expecting it to be a full arena and then of course it wasn't. And we know very well this is a President who pays very close attention to crowd sizes and often mocks others people like Joe Biden when they do not have substantial ones.

So it is not gone over well. Of course this has raised a lot of questions about whether or not the President is going to fire someone over this. He's fired people in the past over abysmal crowd sizes. And of course people naturally look at the Campaign Manager Brad Parscale but there are several other officials I'm told who could also be under fire here.

Michael Glassner who was the campaign's official that organizes these rallies even White House officials potentially because yesterday we were told the President was basically lashing out at everybody over this.

And so of course as they figure out how the President's going to respond? A lot of that John depends on the coverage and how long this stays in the headlines? But aides are preparing a way to maybe not had this happen again not have a repeat maybe hold some of these rallies outside hold them in smaller venues so that they can fill them up.

But clearly what we saw from Saturday is that the President's own supporters are still concerned about coronavirus and being in a closed space so closely with so many other people and you know that is something that the White House is taking into consideration.

So was the campaign, but we should note that those concerns from his own supporters about coronavirus come as today the White House has eliminated those temperature checks that they were having outside for anyone who is entering complex for the last several months.

They sent an email to staff yesterday saying it's now going to be voluntary according to what someone told me someone who saw this email and said if you want one you can go to the building next door and get one but they are no longer going to be required to enter the White House grounds.

And John they say that's because D.C. is moving into different phases of reopening but that's a notable admission from the White House because we've seen several health experts say that temperature checks and testing and other measures should be factored into your reopening as we are moving through of course the coronavirus pandemic.

KING: We'll continue to watch that play out as well. Showing you those pictures because there was a tent, they're just not all that long ago now that tent has gone. Kaitlan Collins live at the White House, I appreciate the reporting on several fronts.

[12:05:00]

KING: With me now to share the reporting and their insights CNN's Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash, NPR's White House Correspondent Tamara Keith. Dana, Kaitlan was just speaking and she spoke a line we have heard before the President yesterday was lashing out it basically just about everyone.

We have heard that line before but we have not heard at 19 weeks before the election which does make it significant. This is not a time to have doubts about your campaign team and your campaign plan and the President clearly does?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It's not but it is very much in character and in keeping with Donald Trump the politician. It was 4 years ago this weekend but he fired Corey Lewandowski his Campaign Manager and then he had you know Paul Manafort is this Campaign Chairman and then he had Kellyanne Conway and that was in that that small window of time.

And so it is - to hear these things is classic Donald Trump. The other thing that is classic Donald Trump is the fact that the campaign felt the need to promote these huge numbers in the first place John. I mean it is - you've been covering politics a long time. I have as well. Anybody who just kind of knows the basics of it knows that there's an expectation game.

You keep expectations low and then you deliver them higher. You can't do that when you're talking about the issue that drives the President more than anything else on these rallies and that is the crowd size which is why his aides were sort of popping it up so aggressively.

And now we know privately I'm told they realized that was a mistake and that's probably captain obvious talking air.

KING: Yes, it looks at - it is a risk but we also know Tamara they do this because they say it boosts the President's spirits that you literally say why you're doing this? Well, it makes the President feel better. It makes the President happy. He wants to know these things.

So now you just heard Kaitlan we can look at the Campaign Manager Brad Parscale, Michael Glassner is the Campaign's Chief Operating Officer Bill Stepien Deputy Campaign Manager one of the political guys involved. Jason Miller just brought back into the campaign he was with the campaign last time around.

Jared Kushner the President's son in law is vital to this. The White House Chief of Staff you would think would be vital to this. So you hear all this the President's mad at everybody normally he does not - that does not get to the finish line he cools off.

The question is again back to the theme of this is not the time what did they do to get him to calm down?

TAMARA KEITH, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NPR: Well, I've been talking to advisers who say what they really need to do is find a way to change the story. You know 1 rally they say it does not a trend make but I'm hearing people saying you know they need to get out.

They need to get in an aircraft hangar somewhere holding something that looks like a big rally but hey would be - noticeably different and that it would be outdoors and would be more isolated. People on the campaign and people close to the campaign say that you know there were a couple of challenges that they maybe didn't fully anticipate how significant they would be?

One is at the coronavirus that people really truly are concerned about the coronavirus in about the idea of being indoors for hours for a rally. And the other thing is that people were concerned about protests. President Trump has been pushing this message that black lives matter protesters and others are some sort of like unruly mob.

Well, there were protesters around the rally and you know who believe the President about how dangerous the protesters are his supporters that you maybe didn't show up.

KING: They say clearly didn't show up for whatever reason. And I think you're right to say it's a number of reasons some of them just simply deciding it's doesn't make sense to get back myself into the arena. And yet Dana, the bigger issue here is not that the President's team you got it wrong. They had an outdoor venue set up in to speak to an overflow crowd there was no overflow crowds.

So they embarrassingly had to break that down. The President backstage was mad because you could see so many empty seats inside the arena and space on the floor. That's embarrassing, that's not the bigger problem. The bigger problem is with 19 weeks ago his numbers are in the tank.

If you look at the national numbers, you look his job approval, you look at his rating on the coronavirus, you look at his ratings on race relations, you look at his ratings on the big issues for the country right now the President is struggling and yet and yet this is priceless.

This is Chris Coons Senator from Delaware very close friend of Joe Biden the Presumptive Democratic Nominee telling this to "POLITICO" today. I'm not confident at all. I think the easiest way to ensure Trump's reelection is to be overconfident too many Democrats are looking at national polls and finding them encouraging many Democrats assume that Hillary Clinton was a shoo in and didn't vote or didn't work.

It is remarkable and it's smart of the Democrats although the way they say it with this 2016 almost paralysis is quite stunning because they have lived this movie before?

BASH: Yes, it's definitely its posttraumatic stress. I mean there's no question about it for Democrats but look I mean what when you look at this past weekend and what the Trump Campaign had intended it to be?

[12:10:00]

BASH: If you strip away whether the numbers were high or whether he rally the base and just look at what they wanted which was just a reset away for him to get back out there and say I'm here. I'm the guy you elected 4 years ago. And I'm going to you know and you know pick your message point whether it's I'm better than Joe Biden, whether it's I'm going to bring the economy back.

He might have said some of that but it got totally overshadowed by everything else and that is the real challenge. And to Chris Coons' point, you know yes, there is spin coming from the Trump Campaign that they still have - there's still an enthusiasm gap between Trump and Biden.

But there is something to that, I mean, you know they didn't have the numbers they wanted but they had a lot more people and then Joe Biden has. And to be fair that's because Joe Biden isn't asking those people to come to a rally right now.

KING: Right. But if they hadn't hype the numbers before looked quite a bit better. Dana Bash and Tamara Keith I appreciate your insights. Up next we head live to Texas, the case count is rising the Mayor of Fort Worth joins us to discuss whether she's worried?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

KING: We're told to expect the CDC to update its recommendations on masks soon. An official telling CNN the agency currently taking a second look at the science, the question of course, will the CDC be stronger in its recommendations and the other question just how effective our mass in preventing the spread of the coronavirus?

Let's take a look at some of the numbers and let's just start by reminding you of the national trends at the moment. The mask debate, the politicization of mask is the big deal because the numbers are going up. 23 states have case counts that are going up 11 of them reporting 50 percent higher rate of cases this week compared to last week.

So what about masks? Well 15 states and the District of Columbia you see them highlighted here in batch. 15 states mandate masks in public when you're out in close proximity to other people. Recommendations in other places but 15 states and D.C. have a mandate. Do they work well?

Experts say they do. Experts say 230 to 450,000 cases perhaps evade avoided excuse me because of mandates. They say the longer you go if you're wearing a mask the more the spread of the virus drops down. One study we've talked about before by the British Medical Journal Lancet says without a mask the transmission rate is about 17.4 percent if you were a mass transit your transmission 3.1 percent.

So those numbers say a mask is helpful but there's been a big political debate about this. Listen to the Mayor of Miami here Miami Beach saying it would really be helpful if the experts the CDC would give us clear guidance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR DON GELBER, MIAMI BEACH, FL: Let's see the day the CDC said we're there we entered an order directing people to inside and outside when they couldn't physically distanced at parks and on our beaches. We've been following the guidelines. CDC has been late and then hasn't given us a great playbook if one at all, frankly. So we've sort of been on our own trying to write this thing as we go along.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's discuss the debate about masks and the rising case kind of the State of Texas. The Fort Worth Mayor is with us, Betsy Price.

Madam Mayor, thank you so much for your time. If you look at the front page of the Fort Worth Star Telegram it's very catchy front page and this is on Sunday. Put on a mask, hey Fort Worth put on a mask. Your position is you don't want to mandate it but you find it helpful is that right?

MAYOR BETSY PRICE (R), FORT WORTH, TEXAS: That's correct. I do believe masks are very helpful. I think there was a lot of confusion about the message early on but I think now it's pretty clear that they are helpful. But this is about local control about letting people take personal responsibility.

There haven't been any studies it said mandatory is better than voluntary. And we're strongly recommended it and pushing it in our businesses are strongly recommended it and we're seeing decent compliance.

KING: Decent compliance, okay. Well, I hope people watching would boost it up a little bit for decent listen either Mayor right now. If you look right now help us. Help us under - were your assessment of where you are in the sense that Texas was among the early states to reopen and you do see the case count going up right now going up quite significant in some ways.

If you look just at Terrain County occupied hospital beds 4046, available beds 1929. So it looks from that tell me if you agree your hospitalization you're not under extreme stress right now? You've got a good number of beds still available to you but when you see the rising case count what's the right word? Are you just watching it with no? Are you concerned? Are you worried?

PRICE: Watching it with note and we're growing a little bit concerned because this particular seems to be a rising count among our younger people between 21 and about 45. I'm not concerned about our hospitals because I have plenty of backup space. They also have additional overflow that can be activated quickly.

And I've been a lighter usage is going down and our RC usage is down. So it seems that the cases aren't as severe as they were early on but there are more people being hospitalized. But everybody needs to take personal responsibility.

Think about the social distancing let's not do these big parties. Just wash your hands and wear your mask when you go out.

KING: It's especially important because you know it Governor of Florida saying the same thing right now. I'm seeing a dramatic increase in the new cases are among younger people which in and of itself is not too much cause for alarm in that they're healthy. They presumably will be that the question is do they go home? Do they see their parents? Do they see their grandparents and then you get into the spiral again?

I just want to show you the confirmed cases in Texas right now. Texas had several bad days in a row now and again you know the number of cases is not the only metric to look at? You need to look the infection rate. You need to look at hospitalizations. But what you just spoke earlier about what you're saying? So you say it's mostly among younger people.

You think they're being knuckle heads my word not yours but having more of these parties and the like. What can you do about that? And do you get to a point where you say, okay I was trying to be nice recommending a mask but now I'm going to crack down. I'm going to require this and other things.

[12:20:00]

PRICE: I think we have to continue to push the message out that young people and everybody today not just young but it is that's where the problem is? Need to be aware that they're taking this back to people that they love and that they can spread it in it said people that older age group who are really sick.

And that's where our deaths are. We have lost a good many young people to this virus. And I think that having the option to help mandate mask for our businesses is another tool in our toolbox not one that we're prone to use in Fort Worth of Terrain County but we need people to comply and begin to listen to what's going on? And think about whom it is that you're taking this on to?

KING: Betsy Price, the great - Mayor of the great city of Fort Worth. Mayor thank you so much for your time today I appreciate it.

PRICE: Thank you and I appreciate it.

KING: Thank you. Coming up Ford Motor Company returns to full production today the President of Ford joins us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

KING: Ford Motor Company is back at full production in the United States today and getting ready for the rollout of one of its most successful vehicles. The production ramp up is 2 weeks ahead of schedule. All North American plants of course were idled back in March because of the coronavirus pandemic.

With me now Kumar Galhotra, he is Ford's President of Americas and International Markets. Sir thank you so much for being with us today. Let me start on the economics of this. You're fully ramped up two weeks ahead of schedule which suggests to me that you believe there's demand out there?

On Thursday you'll roll out the all new F-150. This is a giant piece of your business so we have high unemployment. We have a lot of questions still about the lasting impacts of this pandemic? Are you seeing consumer demand or consumers still little cautious?

KUMAR GALHOTRA, PRESIDENT, AMERICAS & INTERNATIONAL MARKETS GROUP, FORD MOTOR COMPANY: So first of all thank you for having me John and good afternoon. Yes, the retail demand in the industry and especially for us has held up really, really well through this pandemic. It's not quite at the level same levels as last year but it's held up fairly well.

Its lead is a little bit weaker and that's primarily driven by rental car sales because a lot of the rental car companies are not buying their normal level of vehicles. But overall much better and better than expected. And as you mentioned our F-series of vehicle has a very, very substantial impact with what our company as well as the U.S. economy and we're launching a brand new one in later this week.

KING: And so as we watch that play out take us inside your factories and tell us the success stories in any concerns you have in the context of the coronavirus? As we watch America go back to work, as we watch the world go back to work. The question is you know how safely can you pull this off? It's inevitable you'll have some cases but you see this weather you're looking at sports teams trying to get back together? You see players testing positive? You see in other works that's what has been the experience in your factories? Are you seeing new cases at or are all the safety of things put in place are they protecting?

GALHOTRA: Yes John obviously, the safety of our employees is first and foremost. So one of the plants were shut down, we should honor clans March 19th and we brought - we started bringing them back up on May 18th. So roughly 2 months one of those were down we actually developed a playbook on how we were going to bring the plants back up?

How we're going to create an environment that is safe for our employees? So we do things like that first of all the employees have to do a self certification on an app every day before they come into work. As they enter work there's obviously we have a big facilities were hundreds of people sometimes thousands are coming in.

They also social distance as they're coming in through multiple entry points. As they come into the entry points we have remote cameras that take their temperature. All the employees are provided personal protection equipment.

Indeed there is a case or even sometimes we send the employees home. We do a very thorough cleaning off that area. We then also do very rigorous contact tracing to find out who were the people who were near does those folks? And we - we asked them to sell quarantine for 14 days.

And all of this seems to be actually working quite well. We, like you mention we've had cases that have come into the plant but throughout our contact tracing we haven't found any cases that have been actually transmitted inside the plants.

So a very rigorously playbook put together by our manufacturing team and great cooperation by UAW partners of keeping the employees safe.

KING: You have been apart inside the Ford Company of this - remarkable evolution of global manufacturing in recent years. Some of the lessons we just talked about in the case of the coronavirus. Some of them were temporary some of them were just temporary things you have to do in the heat of the moment.

But as everybody re-imagines the workplace and re-imagines the systems some of these lessons will be lasting. We will learn things to respond the coronavirus they'll be with us for the next 5, 10 or 15 years.

What are those - what are you seeing as you've gone through first to work from home now you're bringing people back in your factories what do you see as the lasting revolutions if you will?