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U.S. Coronavirus Case Count Nears 3.5 Million; 54 Florida Hospital Intensive Care Units Already at Capacity; Dr. Jen Kates, Kaiser Family Foundation Sr Vice President, Discusses Rising U.S. Coronavirus Case Count, Trump Administration Ordering Hospitals to Send Data to Washington, Bypassing CDC; Official: White House Did Not Sign Off on Navarro Op-Ed Slamming Fauci; Trump's Niece: President Trump Is "Utterly Incapable of Leading this Country"; Reopening Restrictions in Georgia to Expire as Cases Soar; Jason Esteves, Atlanta Board of Education Chairman, Discusses Atlanta Public Schools Begin School Year Online Only, Pushing Back School Start Date. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired July 15, 2020 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Another daily record in the coronavirus case count. And this is what you get from your government, a fight over who to believe and who on the president's team can be trusted.

A top economic adviser to the president says Dr. Anthony Fauci is just about always wrong and that you shouldn't listen to his advice.

That, as Dr. Fauci tells us the current pandemic may, in his view, approach the horror of the 1918 flu epidemic. And as the Trump White House also sidelines another key science-based agency, the CDC.

The pattern here is crystal clear. The president wants you to listen to him, not to the experts.

But he can't hide the numbers and the numbers are troubling. Period. Take a look. Another 60,000-plus new coronavirus cases confirmed. And that runs the American total to 3,431,000 infections.

The death number the president has been insisting is low, well, look again. It's starting to rise.

Florida reported a single-day high for deaths, as did Alabama, Oregon and Utah. And 14 states reporting record hospitalizations, which almost always, sadly then, sends the death count up still more.

The president cheering this morning what might be a glimmer of hope in this dark coronavirus summer. Moderna's vaccine candidate produced immune responses in all who volunteered to take it, according to the results published in the "New England Journal of Medicine." That is a good sign. But let's be clear, a fully vetted and readily available vaccine is still a good ways off. The Coronavirus Task Force meets today in private. And with the

soaring summer case count, come new warnings about whether it's safe to reopen schools and new debates about whether the only way to stop the spread now is to roll back some of the economic reopening.

The moment is urgent. The issue is quite complicated and very consequential.

But from the president, another simplistic and, not to mention, a ridiculous attempt to explain it all away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Frankly, if we didn't test, you wouldn't have all of the headlines.

Think of this. If we didn't do testing, instead of testing over 40 million people, if we did half the testing, we'd have half the cases. If we did another -- you cut that in half, we'd have, yet again, half of that. But the headlines are always testing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The headline, the president says, is always testing. That's not the only headline. But the testing is critical because it gives us the numbers that feed this map. And this map at the moment, I'm sorry, Mr. President, is quite troubling.

Let's take a look. You don't have to be a scientist to know 38 states heading in the wrong direction, meaning a higher case count this week than last week, is bad, five-plus months into the crisis. Again, 38 states.

And 33 in the light orange, going up. Their cases this week 10 to 50 percent higher than last week. Five states in the danger zone. Their cases this week 50 percent or more higher than last week.

And 38 states going up. That is simply the wrong direction. You have nine states holding steady. That's the beige. Only three states heading down, Maine, Delaware, and out in the west there, Arizona starting to go down a bit after having a tough stretch. But 38 states heading up is bad news for the country.

The same five states, again, with the highest positivity rate. Yes, Mr. President there's more testing. The key when you get that testing is to have the positivity rate coming low. That means you're stopping the community spread.

In South Carolina, it's more than 18 percent coming back positive. In Florida, nearly 19 percent back positive. Alabama, 17 percent. Texas 17 percent. And Arizona is actually down, but it's almost still 25 percent in Arizona. That is a troubling number for the positivity rate.

Hospitalizations, this was the peak in April 21st. Remember back in April when we thought we were at the peak of the coronavirus crisis? The goal is to come down the hill. Now we're going back up. And right now, just shy of the peak on April 21st in terms of people hospitalized across the country with coronavirus cases.

We'll continue to watch this number. You want it to go down and you can see in recent days it is heading up.

Hospitalizations, 14 states, as we noted. And you see them here on the map. Many of them here in the south and the southeast and the others out west. And 14 states yesterday reporting record hospitalizations. That is not a trend headed in the wrong direction.

Again, you see this happening and you see the numbers. You see politicians and scientists and everyone trying to explain we're do OK.

Here's something to see. Remember this. The United States and the European Union went up the coronavirus hill at about the same time. The population is roughly comparable. We have 50 states. They have a mix of countries. Up the hill at the same time.

Here's where the European Union is today. The United States started to come down. There's where we go right now.

And as we watch this curve -- and it is troubling -- Florida is the hottest of America's coronavirus hot spots right now. The Miami area in there hit the hardest, as well. Hospitalizations up. ICU problems across the state of Florida.

And let's go straight down to Rosa Flores on the ground in Miami.

Rosa, new numbers from today from Florida yet?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. The Florida Department of Health just reporting more than 10,000 cases. This means that the state of Florida has surpassed more than 300,000 cases.

[11:05:00]

Look, here in Miami-Dade County, the mayors had a roundtable discussion with Governor Ron DeSantis yesterday. They asked for more resources, for more contact tracers, for a unified message. They asked for more data so that they can have the information necessary to make decisions, to save lives.

Here is the reality on the ground. City of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez put it like this. He says he's being pressured to shut down the economy in the next one to two weeks because they need to turn this around, he says, in the next week to four weeks.

The reality in Miami-Dade County, the positivity rate is 31 percent. And this according to Miami-Dade. And the hospitalization in the past 13 days, according to the county, are up 56 percent. When it comes to ICU beds, 65 percent and also ventilators, 92 percent.

Jackson Health reports that in the past month, they've seen a 226 percent increase in COVID-19 patients.

Here is Jackson Health CEO Carlos Migoya.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLOS MIGOYA, CEO, JACKSON HEALTH SYSTEM: We have a lot of aggressive, non-compliant people, people that do not believe that masking is the right thing to do and they don't believe it.

And frankly, a lot of young people are saying, so what if I get it? If I get it, it doesn't mean anything.

But the challenges that we have in Miami, like in other places, is we are a very diverse community and we have a lot of multigenerational families.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: John, as we look across the state, 54 ICU hospitals are at capacity. Ten of those are right here in Miami-Dade -- John?

KING: Rosa Flores on the ground for us. Grateful for your reporting in Miami. I hope, hopefully, one of these days, it turns more optimistic.

Rosa, thank you so much.

And with us to share her expertise and her insights is Dr. Jen Kates, who is the director of global health and HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

It's good to see you again, Dr. Kates.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Again, I wish we were having a more positive conversation.

I just want to pick up Florida. Florida is the hottest of the hot spots right now. When you hear 31 percent positivity in Miami-Dade -- we are five-plus months into this.

If you are still in a major American urban area, getting a 31 percent positivity rate -- and I showed the numbers in South Carolina, Alabama, Texas and so on -- when your positivity rate is in double digits and, in some cases, above 20 percent, 30 percent, what does that tell you about where we are?

DR. JEN KATES, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT & DIRECTOR, GLOBAL HEALTH AND HIV POLICY, KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION: That means, in Florida, it's a major hot spot in the U.S. And the positivity rate that high means widespread community transmission and the epidemic is not being controlled.

It's really a big red flag. You want to see that number coming down while testing is going up. That's not what's happening. It's getting worse.

KING: So one of the things that some people in the Trump administration are, quote, unquote, "celebrating" this day is this, what I want to play you. First, we saw the president over the weekend finally in public wearing a mask at one event.

And this is the CDC director, Robert Redfield. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT REDFIELD, CDC DIRECTOR: I'm glad to see the president wear a mask this week and the vice president. We need them to set the example.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Should we be celebrating that now or should we have had the president setting that example maybe weeks and months ago?

KATES: The evidence has been pretty clear for a while that face coverings are a critical intervention. They've got to replace social distancing and walk six feet apart. And without face coverings, we won't bring down the rates that we're seeing.

The evidence has been there. And it's better late than never to have an example set from the top that this is what people should do. It's really it's about protecting the community around us.

And I think it can make a big difference. We've seen that throughout the world. And we've seen that in places in the U.S.

And the CDC came out with a strong editorial yesterday about this and encouraging the American public to wear face masks. And I hope this will increase the willingness of people to do so.

KING: Help me understand. This is the business of Kaiser. And Kaiser is a great global resource and here in the United States for data. You collect data on health care trends across the United States so you can see, today, how are we today --

KATES: Right.

KING: -- how does it compare to last week, and how does it compare to last month, how does it compare to five years ago, and so on and so forth. And that data is critical as you shape public health policy decisions.

What does it tell you -- and I just read a little bit in the "New York Times" today, that the president is telling the United States, send your data now to a Washington database, bypass the Centers for Disease Control, which, for years, has been the place where you do this.

The Trump administration ordering hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all COVID-19 patient information to a central database in Washington beginning on Wednesday.

Does that trouble you? Have we switched to some new system? Can they convince you it's better than the CDC way?

KATES: I think it raises questions that we do not have answers to. Why is this switch happening? Is it to streamline things, or expedite things? It could be the case.

What will be the role of the CDC? As you mentioned, we, at our organization, rely on data, as do reporters, as do think tanks, as does the American public to try to understand trends. The CDC has been critical for that throughout the history of its existence and certainly during COVID.

[11:10:08]

There are a lot of questions of who will have access to the data. Will it be public? What will be the transparency here?

So right now, I have a lot of questions. I think everyone does.

KING: Jen Kates, the vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, very much appreciate your expertise and insights today, as always. Thank you.

KATES: Thank you. Thank you.

KING: Thank you.

Up next for us, a Trump administration official attacking a colleague, Dr. Anthony Fauci. Mixed messaging from the White House again in the middle of a pandemic.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: White House trade adviser, Peter Navarro, has some explaining to do. Navarro, the author of a scathing op-ed essay published in "USA Today" attacking administration colleague, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

The White House says Navarro did not go through its normal clearance process when he submitted that article for publication.

[11:15:09]

We should note, though, for the record, the White House this week did distribute material attacking Dr. Fauci's credibility. We should also note Navarro was scheduled to appear on CNN this afternoon, but the White House has cancelled that interview.

Joining me Julie Pace, the Washington bureau chief for the Associated Press, and Josh Dawsey, White House reporter for the "Washington Post."

Josh, I want to start with you, because you were first to report over the weekend that the administration had a calculated effort to distribute material discrediting, questioning the credibility of one of its own team members Dr. Anthony Fauci.

So Peter Navarro, maybe they say he didn't go through the communications shop, he didn't say anything in that op-ed that the White House had not already gone on the record raising itself, right?

JOSH DAWSEY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. We spoke to Peter Navarro on Friday, as well, John, and he made the same points to me that he made in the op ed in "USA Today." And we quoted him in the story being critical of Dr. Fauci.

The administration, when they responded to our request for comment on the Fauci story this weekend, distributed a number of times that Dr. Fauci had been wrong, in their estimation, on public health comments. And now they're backing away from this a little bit and saying that Peter Navarro, simply speak to Peter Navarro.

It's important to know that it's part of the broader pattern of the administration, questioning Dr. Fauci. The president has questioned him on a number of occasions, the White House press shop, Peter Navarro. It's hard to say that this is a rogue effort from Peter Navarro.

And Peter Navarro often talks to the president as well. It's difficult to imagine that he would not have done this without thinking or knowing that the president was onboard with it.

KING: And, Julie, we focus on Dr. Fauci and Peter Navarro. But the president is the CEO of the operation. The Coronavirus Task Force meets today. It's in private. The president, we don't believe, will attend that meeting.

We know the president hasn't talked to Dr. Redfield or Dr. Fauci in quite some time. It could have been two months in the case of Dr. Fauci. We're in the middle of a pandemic, setting a record for a state count, 14 states setting hospitalization records.

The president came into the Rose Garden yesterday and he was supposed to talk about China.

I just want to show the headline of a great analysis piece by our friend, Peter Baker, of the "New York Times." "White House called a news conference. Trump turned it into a meandering monologue. The president spoke in the Rose Garden for 63 minutes and spent only six minutes answering questions from reporters."

So when we talk about sort of the White House mixed messaging and backstabbing and in fighting, this is the president's operation, and yet, he seems to not want to confront the reality of the moment.

JULIE PACE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It often seems like the president is having one conversation and the rest of the country is having a very different conversation.

I would add to the list of examples that you just pointed on. He's traveling to Atlanta today, home of the CDC, and is not planning to make a stop there, as well. This underscores the disconnect between where the president's head is and where public health officials are.

As Josh noted, what we saw from Peter Navarro is not actually unique. We've seen everyone up to the president himself questioning Dr. Fauci.

The reality that the president does have to come to grips here is that the rest of the country is having that other conversation. He can try to criticize Fauci. He can try to talk about all manner of

other issues, China, infrastructure, environmental regulations like what he is today, but much of the country is still dealing with this pandemic in a very real way and wants to.

And it should expect to be able to hear from their president on this.

KING: They should expect to be able to hear from their president. It would be nice if they could trust what they heard from the president on this.

This, Josh, is Senator Mitch McConnell. This is an interesting dynamic to me. Republicans counting the days until the election are starting -- we know they're nervous privately but, publicly, you start to hear them saying things.

I'm going to read you this, it might sound like it's nothing new. This is Mitch McConnell. "I think the straight talk here is that everyone needs to understand is this is not going away.

That's the Senate majority leader about the coronavirus. You might look at that and say, OK, that's pretty obvious, but that's not what we hear from the president of the United States.

So when leaders of his own party, they're trying -- if you just read that in a vacuum, that's not Mitch McConnell trying to say, hey, I'm not him, but that's exactly what that is.

DAWSEY: McConnell and a lot of the other Senate Republicans know that the coronavirus is going to be a preeminent issue in the election and how the administration responds to it, how Republican Senators respond to it, what's happening in states, whether the economy can come back, whether things can open, whether there's football in the fall, whether there's schools.

All of these things will factor into the election, whether the president wants to say that or not.

The president's strategy has been to talk about coronavirus less, to talk about -- have fewer news conferences about it, have a few events about it, have a few tweets about it, do less messaging on it.

And a lot of other Republicans know that, regardless what the president does or doesn't do, voters will have this near the top of their mind when they cast a ballot in November.

KING: Julie, we know the president sometimes gets mad about this and gets obsessive about those things.

One of the things front and center that has to aggravate -- that's a kind word, I think -- the president, is this new book by his niece, Mary Trump, who is a clinical psychologist who documents behavior back to his childhood that she explains as reprehensible. She explains his relationship with his father.

[11:20:06] But listen to her in this interview with ABC. She's just beginning to do a media tour about this book.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARY TRUMP, NIECE OF PRESIDENT TRUMP, PSYCHOLOGIST & AUTHOR: He's utterly incapable of leading this country. And it's dangerous to allow him to do so.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: Based on what you see now or what you saw then?

M. TRUMP: Based on what I've seen my entire adult life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: There have been other books about this, but this is a woman named Trump, a family member, his niece. We're 100 days or so from the election. This has to get under his skin.

PACE: Certainly. This one cuts pretty personally because it's not just from somebody who can be dismissed as a disgruntled former adviser, somebody from the West Wing. It's from a family member.

And we do know that the president is pretty sensitive about a conversation about his family, his relationship with his father, things that happened in his life before he became president of the United States.

And we know, of course, was there an effort to try to stop this book from being published.

And certainly the fact that Mary Trump will be out there very publicly at this moment where the president is already feeling defensive, where he's already feeling like the political wins have been moving against him less than four months from Election Day.

I would say aggravation is, as you said, a pretty gentle way to describe how he's going to be feeling about this.

KING: We will watch as it plays out in a number of fronts.

Julie Pace and Josh Dawsey, appreciate your reporting and insights today. Great to see you both. Thank you.

DAWSEY: Thank you.

KING: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg remains hospitalized in Baltimore today with a possible infection. The 87-year-old Supreme Court justice underwent a procedure yesterday at Johns Hopkins Hospital to clean out a bile duct stent she received last August following treatment for her pancreatic cancer.

The justice is reportedly resting comfortably. We're told she'll stay in the hospital for two days to receive I.V.s and antibiotics. Yesterday, President Trump said he hopes Ginsberg is feeling better.

Even praised the justice for, quote, "actually giving me some good rulings."

Up next for us, the coronavirus cases rising in Georgia just as the governor's social distancing orders set to expire tonight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:27:07]

KING: Georgia's governor today saying he's working on a new plan to create surge capacity for the state's hospital system. And the governor says residents should wear masks and practice social distancing.

Georgia, yet another of the southern states that reopened early now experiencing a sharp rise in coronavirus cases.

The impact is being seen beyond the hospital stress. The city of Atlanta this week saying it will begin the school year with students at home.

Dianne Gallagher is live in Atlanta.

Dianne, the governor talks about this hospital surge need, the capacity need on a day when some of the remaining coronavirus restrictions in Georgia expire, right?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. Some of those remaining restrictions include prohibitions on crowds of 50 and more gathering in public. Restrictions on businesses, restrictions at assisted living facilities and for the medically fragile community. All of those set to expire at midnight tonight.

The governor's office, speaking with us today, said that we should be on the lookout for some kind of announcement that he can expand on a little bit later today. When we asked about this yesterday, they would simply acknowledge the fact that the expiration was due to happen at midnight.

He did tell CNN affiliate, WSB-TV, when asked about the expiration of these restrictions, that, obviously, I don't think we'll be moving forward or opening up in any way, I think.

Look, when you look at the numbers in Georgia, it makes complete sense. The mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, has recommended that her city go back to phase one of reopening. And she issued a mask mandate, something that the governor said is unenforceable.

John, he does show up in masks. He encourages Georgians to wear masks. Event went on a tour of this state, seven different cities, and asking people to wear masks.

But he has said that he does not think at any point he will actually issue a mandate forcing people to do so. KING: Dianne Gallagher, live in Atlanta. And we'll keep an eye on the

numbers in Georgia and we'll see how it plays out.

As we mentioned at the top of that conversation, Atlanta public schools will begin the coming school year, which starts next month, online only for at least the first nine weeks. This district is has also pushed back its start date.

Joining me now, Jason Esteves, the chair of the Atlanta Board of Education.

Sir, thank you so much for being with us.

Online for nine weeks, is that a hard line or is it online for nine weeks and then we'll see where this case count goes?

JASON ESTEVES, CHAIRMAN, ATLANTA BOARD OF EDUCATION: Good morning, John. And thanks for having me.

It's nine weeks and we'll see how it goes. We'll continue to monitor the situation on the ground here in Atlanta. As you all just reported, we are in substantial spread in Fulton County. And the safety of our employees and our students is top of mind. And we will make decisions that place them first and make sure that they are safe and that we can reopen schools safely.

[11:29:57]

KING: This is the conversation everywhere, not just in Fulton County, but all across Georgia and all across the country and all across economic perspectives and livelihoods in the sense.

If you have a child -- I have a rising fourth grader and she's dealing with this.

In the "Atlanta Constitution," there's a piece today about a school board member saying she's received hundreds of e-mails from parents with questions about the reopening plan.