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Football's Season Hangs in the Balance; Ford CEO Jim Hackett is Interviewed about the Stimulus Stalemate; Biden Campaign Assembles Staff for Running Mate. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired August 11, 2020 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:30:00]
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TREVOR LAWRENCE, CLEMSON QUARTERBACK: We feel safe here. We feel safer here than anywhere else, honestly, you know. When you go outside of these walls and you go get food, you go do anything, you're at -- you're at just as much, if not more risk.
DABO SWINNEY, CLEMSON HEAD COACH: If we cancel football, the virus isn't going to away. And it is -- it is fully my belief that these guys are safer here than without us. Not only are they safer here, mentally it's better for them.
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ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Now SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey was on "Good Morning America" earlier this morning and he says he isn't in any hurry to decide whether to play football or not.
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GREG SANKEY, SEC COMMISSIONER: Our timeline is really based on the advice of a biostatistician way back in April said to me, listen, this is a new virus. We have not been through this before. So the longer you take to make decisions, the better information you'll have available to make those decisions. And that has been wise counsel and counsel we've heeded every step along the way.
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SCHOLES: All right, in the meantime, Michigan Head Coach Jim Harbaugh and Ohio State's Ryan Day, they are among the Big Ten coaches saying they want to play football this fall. And Nebraska head coach Scott Frost says his Cornhuskers are going to play this fall, even in the Big Ten decides not to.
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SCOTT FROST, NEBRASKA HEAD COACH: Our university's committed to playing no matter what. No matter what that looks like and how -- how that looks. We want to play no matter who it is or where it is. So we'll see how all those chips fall. We certainly hope it's in the Big Ten. If it isn't, I think we're prepared to look for other options.
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SCHOLES: And President Trump was on Fox Sports Radio with Clay Travis earlier this morning. He said he thinks schools that don't play football would be making a tragic mistake. President Trump was also asked about what he thought about the NFL opening its season.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I would say this, if they don't stand for the national anthem, I hope they don't open. But, other than that, I'd love to see them open. And we're doing everything possible for getting them open. And they can protest in other ways. They shouldn't protest our flag or our country.
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SCHOLES: Yes, and, Jim and Poppy, President Trump also criticizing the way the NBA handled their peaceful protests, kneeling during the national anthem.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: I think you proved me wrong, Andy. I'm going to be waiting with bated breath for the season to start. We'll see what happen. Let's hope it's safe for everyone.
SCHOLES: All right.
HARLOW: Thank you.
Next, an exclusive interview with the CEO of Ford. What does it mean for the American consumer if Congress does not reach a deal for more stimulus, ahead?
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[09:36:48]
HARLOW: Welcome back.
JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon sat down with our Christine Romans and made it very clear that the stock market right now does not reflect the economic pain of so many Americans.
Watch this.
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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Can you explain to our viewers the difference between what we're seeing in Washington on Wall Street and what regular people are feeling right now with 13 million people out of work?
JAMIE DIMON, CEO, JP MORGAN CHASE: Well, I -- and I think it's far more important. So, literally, I mean, when you have 13 million people out of work and you've got people suffering and small business suffering, that's far more important than, you know, the vicissitudes of Wall Street. And, you know, I think -- so I'm much more sympathetic there. That's what we should worry about.
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HARLOW: You can see Christine's entire interview. It's fascinating. Just go to cnnbusiness.com.
All right, no sign that the stalemate on Capitol Hill is letting up. This as tens of millions of unemployed Americans, hit hard by the coronavirus recession, await a new round of relief. And there are major questions about the legality of the president's executive action on unemployment benefits and payroll taxes. So what does this mean for the American consumer moving forward?
One of the best people to ask is someone who runs one of the biggest, most iconic companies in America, and that is Ford Motor. Jim Hackett, the outgoing CEO, joins me.
And it's a big day for you guys. You're launching the Bronco, as we all see -- see behind you. So talk about that in the context of where we are in this economy. I mean, you know, it doesn't look like any deal's coming, Jim. And if it doesn't, I wonder what that means for -- for the strength or the weakness of the American consumer and the ability of buying new cars, like you guys are trying to sell.
JIM HACKETT, CEO, FORD: Hi, Poppy.
Well, you know, this is a big day for us. And you can see the setting that I'm in. We didn't have an auto show, so we built a place where people can come and test the Bronco today, the media. And the excitement for this product's unprecedented. We've had over 150,000 reservations. I think it says a lot about two things, that the economy still has vitality in it. It is challenged. But also there's a desire by people to want to experience something other than being sheltered in place. And so this notion of outdoors is -- is really helping fuel the success of this.
HARLOW: Jim, you know, when you look at the overall numbers, second quarter Ford U.S. vehicle sales were down 33 percent, but yesterday we heard the president say this.
Listen.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: An automobile boom. We've rarely seen anything like it and it's going on right now in America.
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HARLOW: Is that what we're seeing? I mean would you agree with the White House when they say, look, you've got a v-shaped recovery. They paint a really rosy picture for the American consumer. Are you that optimistic? HACKETT: Well, you know, I'm wondering myself why the car sales have
actually rebounded as strongly as they have. This happened all over the world, by the way. It's happening in Europe and China as well. And I think there was pent-up demand.
But I also think that a lot of the unemployment that we were able to continue, companies didn't totally downsize. Ford didn't. So people were getting paychecks. They continue to spend. And then what Jamie was talking about is this disaffected part of the economy, which is tragic.
[09:40:02]
That group will have an effect on the economy down the road. So we need to get all of these people back to work for sure.
HARLOW: Yes. It sounds like you're saying there is more pain for the economy down the road that we're not seeing right now.
HACKETT: I think that Jamie has spoken about this and I would concur that because of the CARES Act and because of corporations being able to sustain employment, even though things like Ford factories were shut down for ten weeks, it kept the economy with momentum. But if we do not get all these folks back to work, that's going to have an effect.
HARLOW: Yes.
HACKETT: So I'm -- you know, I'm cautiously optimistic that we can bridge those two periods.
HARLOW: Yes. Well, look, you use the word cautiously too, right? And the question becomes, if Congress does not reach a big deal and get something done here on stimulus, is -- could this be a bigger crisis for the auto industry down the road than 2008?
HACKETT: I'm not projecting that, Poppy. But I will tell you, from '08 to '10, and, remember, Ford didn't take a bailout in that period.
HARLOW: Yes.
HACKETT: I think the Federal Reserve has done masterful work here in keeping all the right things in place for the economy to recover from this damage. And it looks like it may affect 15 percent of the world's GDP eventually, the cost of the pandemic.
HARLOW: Yes.
HACKETT: So it's not a trivial effect. But the way that -- the way the banking system's responding around the world, that's reasons for optimism.
HARLOW: Yes, let's hope, right? There's only so much the Fed can do, and they've done a lot.
Let's talk about reopening your plants, because the last time you were on the program with us back in May, you were just reopening U.S. plants. And you had to subsequently shut some of them, you know, thousands of people that were working there, because of Covid. We just, saw in the last two weeks, 32 employees at one of your -- your plants in Louisville, Kentucky, tested positive.
I guess the broader question is, Jim, with all of the efforts you guys are doing, social distancing, cleaning, deep cleaning, what would meaningful, rapid testing mean for you guys? And what does it mean that the country doesn't have it yet for every single employee at every single company so that this is happening?
HACKETT: Well, you're on the right attribute of how to fix this. It's one of two big things. Testing quickly, we are doing that, but not as fast as we'd like it to be, and masks that we're delivering to our employees.
In fact, Poppy, the safety inside the plants are so high that we're outperforming, you know, the overall environment in terms of infection rates. Everywhere in the world, Ford factories are safer than where people leave and they go to wherever they go. So I know these practices are paying dividends.
HARLOW: Yes.
HACKETT: And so masking is now the big thing that we've got to ensure we continue.
HARLOW: Yes. But is it a failure -- I mean, Jim, just candidly, of the U.S. government, that you can't, for example, have those rapid 15 minute tests in every single one of your Ford plants right now?
HACKETT: Well, I don't know who to point the -- you know, the criticism at. I know, in listening to a lot of smart people --
HARLOW: Yes.
HACKETT: That the challenge with the testing is to get rid of the falses, false positive, false negatives, because that -- you tee off of that, right? And so it's not that we don't have rapid testing, it's that we've got to make the accuracy higher.
HARLOW: And we -- and we just -- we don't have -- we don't have enough on it.
I want to spend a little bit of time talking about diversity. Given the reckoning that this country is importantly having, albeit pretty late on race, you guys are auditing 188,000 Ford employers and you've been having a real companywide conversation on race. This at a company where, as you know, since Henry Ford, every single CEO of Ford, including you and your successor, has been a white man. Talk about that and why is it that there has been such an issue with elevating black men and women to lead America's biggest companies.
HACKETT: I'm excited about what this tragedy brought in terms of reflection. I've never seen anything like it in my business career. Henry Ford created really the middle class wage when he changed the hourly wage, Poppy, in factories. And so there was a black flight from the south to the north. So the history of the company in this is profound.
What I've learned from the Black Lives Matter movement is that companies need to design the acceptance of why black lives matter. And it not only includes promotions and opportunity, it's of -- in the recruitment, in the development.
[09:45:04]
And so that's what we've done in a stem to stern review. I'm on a nightly call where we look at ideas that we're going to institute. So there's a lot of momentum now behind this. And I don't think the issue of a diverse leader of Ford is too far-fetched. By the way, Jack Nasser, you know, he was Lebanese.
HARLOW: Yes, I do.
HACKETT: And so we've -- we've had -- we've had -- yes, we've had -- we've had diversity in the company. In fact, when I was running Steelcase (ph), I, from afar, I thought Ford had one of the best programs in supplier and dealer development, and it still does.
So -- but, listen, this is -- this is a wake-up moment for all CEOs. We have to be better at this.
HARLOW: Yes. For sure, right? It goes to the board. You guys have one blackboard member, but there are 13 members. It goes to the board. It goes to leadership. And -- and I appreciate you taking that question, Jim Hackett, and congratulations on your three years at Ford. We wish you luck. I hope you get to go to an island and relax for a little bit after all of this. Thanks very much.
HACKETT: Yes, 26 years -- thank you, Poppy. Twenty-six years doing this. I'm looking forward to a little break.
HARLOW: I bet. Thank you, Jim.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Who will Joe Biden choose as his running mate? It's getting close and might we learn the answer to that question as soon as today? The latest on the highly anticipated decision, next.
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HARLOW: Well, we are just learning that Joe Biden's campaign has assembled the staff for his future running mate, we just don't know who that is yet. The question is, when are we going to find out.
Do you know, Jim?
SCIUTTO: I don't. I've got some smart people here who we're going to ask about it. Arlette Saenz, she's been covering the campaign from the beginning, MJ Lee as well. Arlette, let's begin with you.
So they've assembled the team for that pick. Should we assume, then, that they've made the choice?
ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we still don't have that definitive answer if Joe Biden has made up his final decision about his running mate, but we do expect that decision really to come any day now. Biden spent the weekend at his beach house in Rohobith (ph) and returned to Wilmington, Delaware, here, his hometown, yesterday, as he is in that final stretch of deliberations.
And taking a look at the women who are kind of in that top tier of contenders right now, Kamala Harris, she is a well-known commodity, the senator from California who ran against Biden during the Democratic primary. She has been on that list for quite some time. There's also former national security adviser Susan Rice, who worked alongside Biden in the Obama administration. And then there's Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. She actually flew here to Delaware within the last week and a half to meet one-on-one with the former vice president to talk about that job. And there are certainly some other women who are in the mix as well.
But as you mentioned, while we don't know who that running mate will be just yet, the Biden team has started to assemble the staff who will help out this running mate in these first few weeks and months heading into the general election.
One of those members is Karine Jean-Pierre. She was a senior adviser to the Biden campaign. She will be the chief of staff to the running mate. There is also two women who worked for Biden in the Obama-Biden administration in the White House, Liz Allen, who will serve as communications director, and also Sheila Nix, who was actually Biden's chief of staff for his re-election campaign back in 2012. So they have some experience with the vice presidency that they can kind of impart upon the running mate choice.
Now, we are still waiting to find out when exactly Biden will be making that announcement. His team has stressed that they are hoping to make that announcement first in a text message to supporters. So I guarantee people are going to be checking their cell phones quite often over for the next few days.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
HARLOW: I was thinking about that this morning. You know, like, how does it work, MJ, does Joe Biden just pick up the phone and, you know, call them? I don't know.
Anyway, how does it happen in a pandemic? Whoever it is, what are their next few weeks going to be like?
MJ LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's going to be a very busy couple of weeks for whoever this running mate is going to be, and much of it we expect to be virtual. First the announcement is going to come and it's going to be any day now, as Arlette said, and we already know from the campaign that the first time that we see Joe Biden with his future running mate is going to be in the form of a virtual fundraiser. And we are told that the campaign is already planning other virtual fundraisers for this future running mate to attend in the coming weeks.
And then, of course, next week she, whoever she is, is going to have a big speech to make at the Democratic National Convention. But as you said, Poppy, we are in the middle of a pandemic and what we don't know the answer to right now is what campaigning is going to look like for Joe Biden's running mate. We don't know if she is going to be traveling more than Joe Biden has been.
As you all know very well, he has been pretty limited in sort of the in-person events that he has been doing, averaging about a week, one event, one speech per week. We don't know if this running mate is going to be willing to do a little bit more in terms of in-person campaign events and speeches.
And, of course, one of the big questions heading into this week is whether or not Joe Biden is going to choose a woman of color. This has been such a big discussion over the last couple of months. And he has faced tremendous pressure from all sorts of people to choose a black woman in particular. And we know, as Arlette said, several of the women who have been very seriously considered in these final days include several black women, including Kamala Harris, including Susan Rice, including Karen Bass.
[09:55:09]
So the question of whether or not Joe Biden chooses a person of color, that is going to be a huge story line coming out of this week.
SCIUTTO: MJ Lee, Arlette Saenz, we'll be watching it very closely. Thanks very much.
And getting ready for political conventions really unlike any we've ever seen. Democrats and Joe Biden, they're going to take center stage starting Monday night, just a few days away. Then, the Republicans and Donald Trump, they're going to start Monday, August 24th. CNN will have special live coverage every night of the conventions starting at 8:00 Eastern Time.
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SCIUTTO: Good Tuesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.
HARLOW: And I'm Poppy Harlow.
[10:00:00]
This morning, new, troubling data on the rise of infections, Covid-19 infections, among some American children.
