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White House Mulls Executive Action on Mail-In Voting; Inside Colorado's Mail-In Voting System; Top U.S. Health Official Meets Taiwan's Foreign Minister; Video Shows George Floyd's Deadly Encounter with Police; Putin Says Russia has Developed First Coronavirus Vaccine; Fears Grow Motorcycle Rally Could Be Superspreading Event. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired August 11, 2020 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everyone. Well, the White House is mulling over the idea of a symbolic executive action on mail- in voting. That is according to a source that spoke to CNN. It has been a favorite topic of President Trump's for weeks now, and he was speaking about it again at Monday's press briefing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'll tell you who's meddling in our elections, the Democrats are meddling by wanting and insisting on sending mail-in ballots where there's corruption all over the place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: And with all the talk of mail-in ballots, it is a good idea to actually see how the system works on the ground and that's what our Lucy Kafanov did. She went to a county in Colorado that's been using them for a number of years now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GEORGE STERN, CLERK AND RECORDER, JEFFERSON COUNTY, COLORADO: This machine here processes 20,000 ballots an hour. It's really loud. We would not be able to be talking this closely right now to it.
LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): George Stern is an Elections Administrator for Jefferson, Colorado's fourth-largest county, located in the Western suburbs of Denver.
(on camera): So, everything here is out in the open?
STERN: Everything is out in the open.
KAFANOV (voice-over): He's invited the President and CNN to tour the County's mail ballot processing facility. His message? STERN: There's no massive fraud, that our elections are secure as much as they are accessible.
KAFANOV: All registered Colorado voters automatically receive a ballot in the mail. You can still vote in-person. But an overwhelming majority of ballots, including 99.3 percent in this year's State primary have consistently been returned by mail or Ballot Drop Box.
TRUMP: Everyone knows mail-in ballots are a disaster.
KAFANOV: This week, the President sued Nevada to contest the expansion of mail-in voting. Tweeting in July, mail-in ballots will lead to massive electoral fraud and a rigged 2020 election.
STERN: We've been doing universal vote by mail in Colorado for seven years, and we can say with certainty that that is not the case.
KAFANOV: That's because of what Stern says is a rigorous system of checks and balances. For a mail-in ballot to be counted, the envelope must be signed. A bipartisan team of election judges, trained by FBI handwriting analysts, then compares the envelope signature to those stored on file.
STERN: If there isn't a signature that matches, that's getting pushed off to the side, and it's going to be investigated by the District Attorney's Office.
KAFANOV: Data from the conservative Heritage Foundation shows nine instances of voter fraud out of millions of ballots cast, since Colorado began voting by mail in 2013.
STERN: Nine's too many, right? We want that number zero. But that's nine out of 16 million, that's literally less than one in a million.
KAFANOV: In June, the President falsely claimed that millions of mail- in ballots will be printed by foreign countries and others.
But Colorado election officials say that's also not a concern. An adversary would have to mimic everything perfectly, from a signature on file, to the ballot size, style, paper weight, and even the envelope it's mailed in, all of which differ from county to county, and change in each election cycle.
Another bonus --
STERN: Everything is paper, right? When you have mail ballots, you got paper ballots. And we've got a paper trail, and we store that paper trail for two years after the elections.
Our voting equipment, our voting machines, never connected to the internet. They never have been. They never will be. Our County equipment never connected to the internet.
KAFANOV: Which helps prevent hacking.
TRUMP: It would be a total joke. KAFANOV: Another false claim by the President that mail- in voting benefits Democrats.
[04:35:00]
Tweeting, Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to statewide mail-in voting. Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn't work out well for Republicans.
SEN. CORY GARDNER (R-CO): Tonight, we shook up the Senate.
KAFANOV: In the 2014 general election, the first election after Colorado switched to mail-in voting, Republicans flipped a U.S. Senate seat, won a majority in the State Senate, gained seats in the State House, and won three of four statewide offices.
STERN: We've seen that there is no partisan advantage. We've seen record voter turnout from Democrats and Republicans and unaffiliated voters in our elections.
KAFANOV: The President has also suggested that election results could be delayed for months.
STERN: We actually deliver most of our results on election night every time because of this vote by mail system.
KAFANOV (on camera): So, in some ways, the mail-in voting actually makes the process faster.
STERN: In Colorado, unquestionably makes it faster.
KAFANOV: And how easy is it to fake a ballot from someone who is deceased.
STERN: So, dead people cannot vote. And they do not vote in Colorado. We regularly update our voter registration lists.
TRUMP: Somebody got a ballot for a dog.
STERN: Well my dog walks to vote with me every single election, but he's yet to get a ballot or turn one in himself.
KAFANOV (voice-over): Lucy Kafanov, CNN, Golden, Colorado.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Well, U.S. Health Secretary, Alex Azar, the most senior U.S. official to visit Taiwan in decades has met with the territory's foreign minister. Earlier Azar praised Taiwan for its response to the coronavirus pandemic but he says the island has been unfairly excluded from the global conversation. The Health Secretary talked about that in an exclusive interview with CNN's Paula Hancocks.
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ALEX AZAR, U.S. SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: It is a call to action that Taiwan needs to be appropriately represented in international (INAUDIBLE) so that its expertise, it's data, it's evidence can be fully integrated by the international public health community. Something that has been denied to it by the Communist Party of China. Especially working through the World Health Organization and the World Health Assembly.
The way Taiwan has been treated and the undue influence of Beijing at the World Health Organization are exactly part of the reason why President Trump has determined that the United States needs to leave the World Health Organization.
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Just before you went to meet President Tsai Ing-wen this morning, Chinese fighter jets did cross the median line in the Taiwan strait, with the waters between China and Taiwan which Taiwan sees as harassment. But of course, China sees Taiwan as part of its territory. So they're making a point. What's your response to that? I mean, obviously, they know that you are here. They are unhappy that this visit is taking place.
AZAR: It seems to be a continued politization by Beijing of public health relationships. This should be about sharing information, recognizing the need for transparent open communication about an unprecedented public health crisis. And instead they seem to want to play political games as they have done at the World Health Organization.
When this disease had its outbreak in China. Because China did not reveal the rapid human to human spread of the disease, did not reveal what they were learning about asymptomatic transmission, did not share the initial first-generation viral isolates with other countries. Shut down travel within China out of Wuhan and Hubei province even as they allowed Chinese to travel throughout the world, they seeded Europe. And what spread to the United States was actually the disease burden that China had allowed to seed into Europe which then spread into many different parts of the United States.
HANCOCKS: So what would you say to critics of the Trump administration who say your visit here three months before an election is political.
AZAR: My visit here is about supporting Taiwan and supporting Taiwan in the international public health community. My visit is about health. It's about the health of the people of Taiwan. It's about the health of the American people and it's about the health of the people of the world. And the way we protect that is by entities around the world being transparent, cooperative, collaborative, compliant with the international health regulations and Taiwan has been a model of that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Well, long awaited bodycam video has been released from the arrest of George Floyd. It reveals in greater detail what happened in the minutes leading up to his death at the hands of police. And we will have that when we come back.
[04:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHURCH: A Minneapolis court has released more than an hour's worth of footage from two body cameras worn by former officers involved in the arrest of George Floyd. The video shows more of the officer's actions and the response from paramedics. Portions have been leaked to the "Daily Mail" previously and are under investigation. CNN's Sara Sidner has more on the video and we must warn you it is very disturbing to watch.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The encounter between George Floyd and police begins with a tap on Floyd's window. It appears to startle him.
THOMAS LANE, POLICE OFFICER: Let me see your hands.
GEORGE FLOYD, DIED AFTER BEING ARRESTED BY POLICE: Dang man.
LANE: Stay in the car. Let me see your other hand.
FLOYD: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
LANE: Let me see your other hand.
SIDNER: Fourteen seconds after approaching Floyd's car, Officer Thomas Lane pulls his gun on Floyd, when he doesn't fully comply.
LANE: Both hands.
FLOYD: Please. Please. I didn't do nothing.
LANE: Put your (BLEEP) hands up right now. Let me see your other hand.
FLOYD: All right. What did I do though? What would we do?
LANE: Put your hand up there.
FLOYD: God man.
LANE: Put your (BLEEP) hand up there.
SIDNER: Floyd tells the officer multiple times, he has been shot before, and begins to cry.
FLOYD: Last time I got shot, Mr. Officer, the same thing.
LANE: Hands on top of your head.
SIDNER: Floyd is soon pulled from the car. He struggles with Officer Lane and Officer J. Alexander Kueng tries to handcuff him.
J. ALEXANDER KUENG, POLICE OFFICER: Stop resisting, man.
FLOYD: I'm not. SIDNER: The officers have not yet told Floyd why he is being detained. The public has seen the surveillance video at this point. But now, they can hear the officers' frustration and Floyd's desperation.
FLOYD: Ouch. Ouch, man.
LANE: Are you on something right now?
FLOYD: No, nothing.
KUENG: Because you are acting a littler erratic.
FLOYD: I'm scared, man.
LANE: Let's go. Let's go.
SIDNER: Floyd is taken across the street, crying the whole time. At the squad car, a second bigger struggle ensues as officers try to put Floyd inside.
KUENG: Stand up, stop falling down.
FLOYD: I'm claustrophobic, man.
KUENG: Stand up.
FLOYD: I'm claustrophobic.
KUENG: Stay on your feet and face the car door.
FLOYD: Please.
SIDNER: This is what the public couldn't see well from surveillance or bystander videos. Floyd, initially, resisting getting into the police vehicle, and then being pushed from one side by Kueng.
KUENG: Listen.
FLOYD: Dang, man. I'm not that kind of guy.
KUENG: I'll roll the windows down if you pull your legs in, all right?
FLOYD: Please, man.
[04:45:00]
SIDNER: Then, pulled in on the other side by Officer Lane. This is the first time you hear Mr. Floyd utter the words I can't breathe.
FLOYD: I can't breathe.
KUENG: Take a seat.
FLOYD: Please, man. Please. No, no.
KUENG: Take a seat. FLOYD: I can't. I can't choke. I can't breathe. Mr. Officer, please. Please.
SIDNER: Soon, you can see officers Tou Thao and Derek Chauvin on camera. About nine minutes into the encounter, Floyd finally hears what he is being arrested for.
DEREK CHAUVIN, POLICE OFFICER: You're under arrest right now for forgery.
SIDNER: Chauvin and Kueng then pulled Floyd to the ground. You can see Chauvin's knee go down on Floyd's neck. Floyd calls out for his deceased mother.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop moving.
FLOYD: Mama. Mama. Mama.
SIDNER: The cell phone video that the world saw picks up from here. But in the body cam video, the sound is crystal clear, revealing more details.
FLOYD: I can't breathe. I can't breathe, man. Mama I love you. Reece, I love you.
LANE: You got hobble. Grabbing it.
FLOYD: Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead.
SIDNER: Floyd keeps crying and Officer Chauvin responds to his cries.
FLOYD: I can't breathe for nothing man. It's cold blooded man.
CHAUVIN: You're doing a lot of talking, man.
FLOYD: Mama, I love you.
FLOYD: I can't do nothing.
KUENG: EMS is on their way.
FLOYD: My face is gone.
SIDNER: Kueng says an ambulance has been called. Floyd asks to stand up. Chauvin's knee has been on Floyd's neck for a little over a minute when Officer Lane asks a question about moving Floyd.
FLOYD: Please, please let me stand.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
FLOYD: Please, man, I can't breathe. My face is getting bad.
LANE: Should we get his legs up, or is this good?
CHAUVIN: Leave him. KUENG: Just leave him, yep.
SIDNER: Officer Lane complies and Floyd continues to beg for his breath. He is told to stop talking.
FLOYD: I can't breathe, officer.
CHAUVIN: You're doing a lot of talking, a lot of yelling.
FLOYD: They're going to kill me man.
CHAUVIN: It takes a heck of oxygen to say that.
SIDNER: After Officer Chauvin's knee has been on Floyd's neck for nearly five minutes, Officer Lane asks whether to move Floyd a second time. Floyd's voice begins to weaken.
The world has seen how this ends because of a bystander's cell phone video. But they couldn't hear what the body camera reveals. It is something lawyers for former Officer Lane are seizing on, trying to exonerate him.
LANE: Roll him on his side.
CHAUVIN: No, he's staying where we got him.
LANE: I just worry about excited delirium or whatever.
CHAUVIN: Well that's why we got the ambulance coming.
LANE: OK.
SIDNER: But the ambulance was of no use. Floyd lost consciousness and was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Sara Sidner, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: This just into CNN. Russian President Vladimir Putin says his country has developed the first coronavirus vaccine. CNN's Matthew Chance joins us now from Moscow. And Matthew, how is this even possible?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's been definitely developed at break-neck speed. And of course, that's led to all sorts of criticism about whether this vaccine is safe or even whether it's effective. But within the past few minutes really Vladimir Putin has appeared on national television in a sort of televised video conference with senior officials of his cabinet effectively in Russia.
And he made that announcement. He said that this vaccine that has been developed in Russia has gone through all of the necessary checks and has now been approved for use with the Russian public. It makes it the first ever, regardless of the efficacy. It makes it the first vaccine that's gone to market essentially and has been approved for use by any government anywhere in the world in the middle of this coronavirus pandemic.
There was word as well from the Russian health minister. He was sort of also in that panel of cabinet ministers speaking on national television. He said it was a huge contribution -- this is the health minister -- to the victory over coronavirus. There was another development as well which is quite stunning. Vladimir Putin revealed during that video conference that one of his own daughters, who we don't see very much of at all, nothing of, in fact, has been vaccinated with this Russian-developed vaccine. He said that she had a slight temperature at first but now she feels well. He didn't say which daughter it was. He's got two that we know of, Maria and Katerina for Katia.
But you know clearly, this is something that if this is the case, Vladimir Putin and the Russian state has a great deal of confidence in. And if Vladimir Putin is prepared to allow his own daughter to be vaccinated with this Russian created vaccine. That doesn't detract though from the criticism that's been leveled at Russia, even from within Russia, about, you know, the kind of tests that have been done on this vaccine. The crucial third phase of human trials on this vaccine have not been carried out. They're supposed to be carried out strangely in parallel with the administering of this vaccine to the general public.
[04:50:02]
We're told by the Russian health minister that before it can begin today, that it's front line health workers and teachers in the country that will get the vaccinations first. And, of course, we also understand from other Russian officials that mass production of this vaccine is now going to be stepped up and they hope to produce up to 170 million doses both in Russia and in other countries as well. Which have agreed, apparently, to produce this vaccine by the end of the year. So look, whether or not this vaccine is effective or safe, it does look like it is going to be widely distributed and administered to millions of people around the world in the months ahead -- Rosemary.
CHURCH: People are so desperate. But as you point out, phase three human trials have not been completed. That makes a lot of people very uneasy. Matthew Chance, many thanks for bringing us up to date on that breaking news.
And still to come on CNN NEWSROOM, a massive motorcycle is underway in America's Hartland despite the pandemic and objections from residents. We will hear from those attending the event. That's next.
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CHURCH: And that is rock band Smash Mouth performing there. Pretty quiet aren't they.
[04:55:00] Part of the entertainment for the massive biker rally currently underway in South Dakota. The event has drawn scrutiny this year with the pandemic raging in many states. Over the weekend South Dakota reported more than 200 new COVID-19 cases. The surge in infections comes amid growing fears the annual motorcycle rally could become a super spreader event. And CNN's Ryan Young spoke with some people about their decision to attend.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm in Sturgis, South Dakota. You can see all the motorcycles that are here in the streets. This is a town of 7,000 but it swelled to over 250,000 they believe for this event. This has to be one of the largest events since the pandemic started. And a lot of people here tell me they are so glad this event wasn't canceled.
Know when you think about South Dakota it has less than 10,000 COVID- 19 cases. A lot of people are citing that's the reason why they feel comfortable not wearing mask. You don't see a lot here. The same way they say they don't wear helmets. They don't believe they need to wear masks. Take a listen to some of the people that we talked to over the last 24 hours.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm trying to keep everybody safe but at the same time, you know, we're here to do what we're here to do. In the world's going to go on no matter what. You know, and it seems like everyone else has the same opinion. I just hope that it doesn't end up causing, you know, mass breakout.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not worried about it at all. We're from California. So you got to wear masks everywhere you go. So honestly, it's kind of refreshing coming out and not have to worry about it.
YOUNG: No matter where you look and if you look down the street here, there are just thousands of bikes here. Some people are staying at hotels. Some people are staying in RV parks. They feel comfortable. A lot of them feel like the pandemic numbers are not real. So they feel like they're not worried about this being a super spreading event. Health officials do have some concerns. We'll have to see what happens over the next few days.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Yes, and two to three weeks from now we'll be watching.
Thanks so much for your company. I'm Rosemary Church. "EARLY START" is up next. You're watching CNN. Have yourselves a great day.
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