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Joe Biden Picks Kamala Harris as Vice Presidential Running Mate; Hundreds of Georgia Students and School Staff Quarantined; Florida Sets Daily Record With 276 New Coronavirus Deaths; Biden and Harris to Make First Appearance Today in Delaware. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired August 12, 2020 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:30]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Very good Wednesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Poppy Harlow.

Well, an unprecedented moment, that is for sure, in American politics. We are just hours away from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris appearing for the first time together as running mates on the Democratic presidential ticket. Senator Harris will join Biden for a speech today. It will happen in his home state of Delaware and she will do so as the first black and South Asian woman to be on a major party's presidential ticket.

SCIUTTO: She is the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants. Those were her parents there. That's her mother. The California senator has broken barriers her entire political life. She's only the second black woman to serve in the U.S. Senate. Remarkable in the year 2020. And the first woman and first black woman to serve as California's top law enforcement official. Attorney general there.

This morning, we're learning new details about how Biden decided to make this pick, to pick Harris. Let's go to Arlette Saenz. She's in Wilmington, Delaware. She's been covering the campaign since the beginning.

So what made the difference for the former vice president?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, after a month long search process, Joe Biden finally landed on his decision, choosing Kamala Harris as his running mate. We're actually told that Biden interviewed 11 of the women that he was considering for this spot. Some of those interviews done in person. Some done virtually. But ultimately, he decided to go with his former rival, Harris, to join him on the Democratic ticket.

Now Biden informed Harris of his decision yesterday over a video call from his Delaware home. Both Biden and Harris have actually tweeted out a video that features a little bit of a snippet of that conversation when he asked her if he was ready to join her and take on this job.

And as you mentioned, Harris is a historic choice. She's the first black woman and woman of South Asian descent to be on a major party ticket as a vice presidential nominee. She also had a close relationship with Beau Biden. They served together as state attorneys general back when he was serving as the attorney general here in Delaware. Biden said that he has always valued his late son Beau's opinion and that that factored into his decision to choose Harris.

Now we will see Harris and Biden for the first time together as the Democratic ticket here in Wilmington, Delaware. They are slated to deliver remarks later today. We'll see what the format of that event is like as many of Joe Biden's recent events in the age of coronavirus have been more socially distant. He usually walks in wearing a mask. We'll see if that is something that the two of them do together today.

After that event, they are holding a grassroots virtual fundraiser with their supporters as they are trying to drum up and energize their supporters heading into the fall election.

HARLOW: Arlette Saenz, thank you very much.

Let's discuss, Abby Phillip is with us, CNN political correspondent, Errol Louis, political anchor from Spectrum News, also the host of a fantastic podcast, and Molly Ball, national political correspondent for "TIME."

Good morning, one and all.

Abby, let me begin with you. And let's look back if we could to February, to what Joe Biden said then about who he might like as his running mate. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I very much like my administration to look like the country. Like Barack and our administration looked like. Black, brown, women, men, gay, straight. Across the board to look like the country.

As vice president, I think it would be wonderful to have a woman or a person of color as vice president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: And he has chosen both. Not only the historic moment that this is, Abby, but what it does for this ticket.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I do think that this really doubles down on something that Biden has been very up front about really from the beginning which is that he understands that he is not the future of the Democratic Party. If he were to be elected president, he would be the oldest president ever elected in this country's history. And as a result, he has to think about in this first moment, this first big decision, how to pass the baton. And that's what that message seemed to largely be about. It's one of

the reasons why there was so much pressure from Democratic activists and strategists and surrogates to pick a black woman because there was a feeling among Democrats that there was a need to make that point clear, that Democratic women, black women in particular, have been the cornerstone of the Democratic Party.

[09:05:12]

They have been a reliable constituency. They have been there when other constituencies haven't been there and they have been there for Joe Biden, and so to pass the baton to a black woman is very important for that reason. And to pass it to someone who is 55 years old. She is a young -- has been seen as a rising star for many years now, it sends a very strong signal of who he thinks and what he thinks the future of the Democratic Party looks like.

SCIUTTO: Errol Louis, let's talk about how this plays out in November. You know better than me that this is going to be fought out among independent voters. Senator Harris is someone who actually had a very centrist record but has moved to the left as the party has moved left, and I wonder what your view is of how this pick will play among swing voters in swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, to be sure, the states that you just mentioned, Joe Biden himself is going to do the heavy lifting. I think where Kamala Harris comes in is reversing the mistake of four years ago from the Democratic Party's standpoint. As we know, we've said it many, many times on this program, it was fewer than 80,000 votes spread across those three states that cost the Democrats victory.

And so robust turnout in Detroit and in Milwaukee and in Philadelphia could actually turn it around. Clearly the campaign aims to do that and that's why they base their headquarters in Philadelphia. That's why they wanted the convention to be in Milwaukee. That's why they selected Kamala Harris who is going to do a phenomenal job I think in boosting black turnout.

Keep in mind, four years ago it wasn't just the fact that Obama wasn't on the ticket. Black voter turnout had been rising and it fell to a 20-year low just a few years ago. Percentage wise. And so they've got to rebuild the coalition, they've got to get out and get to the base, and that's going to be the job of Kamala Harris.

HARLOW: Molly Ball, let's talk about the way that the Trump campaign is already attacking her. But it doesn't seem like, at least from the outside, that they can really figure out which way go here. I mean, if you look at the very brief initial statement they put out when she was named yesterday, in the same sentence they contradicted themselves, going after her record as a prosecutor and then calling her, you know, anti-police or appeasing anti-police extremist.

So -- and then all sorts of things from the president, not to mention his tweet this morning about suburban housewives, which is a whole other thing we need to talk about. But what's their play here? MOLLY BALL, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: They seem to be figuring that out

on the fly and we have seen some reporting from inside Trump world that this was not the pick that they were hoping for their own political purposes but I think what you saw in that statement was the sort of -- the conflicting messages that the Trump campaign has been also putting out about Joe Biden suddenly colliding, coming into one place in a way that really made it obvious how contradictory and sort of nonsensical it was.

They have been messaging for a while now on the one hand to the African-American community saying, you know, Joe Biden was too tough on crime with the crime bill and so forth, but on the other hand, trying to message to white voters that he and conservative-leaning voters that he's some kind of scary radical who's in bed with, you know, the Black Lives Matter movement which they also depict as scary.

And so having to put those two messages in one sentence really shows you how contradictory they are. And I think also it was telling that, you know, they had to -- that they were accusing Kamala Harris more than anything of flip-flopping, of being politically malleable, of being a, quote-unquote, "phony" and then trying to associate her with figures like Bernie Sanders and AOC.

It's clear that they don't think that Kamala Harris on her own strikes people as a scary left-wing radical. They feel like, as they've done with Joe Biden, they have to put her in the frame with other people to make that case.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Yes.

BALL: So that clearly signals that it's going to be an uphill battle, that they will try to brand her as, you know, a scary left winger, but it's going to be something of an uphill battle considering the public image she's already carved out.

LOUIS: Right.

SCIUTTO: Abby Phillip, Kamala Harris in the primary underperformed among black voters. Sometimes coming behind not just Biden and Sanders but also even Elizabeth Warren. And there's some reporting that the Biden campaign's own internal polling showed something of a lack of enthusiasm among black voters for her.

Is that something they believe they can overcome? They're not worried about it? What's the campaign's view of this?

PHILLIP: Well, you make a really good point that Kamala Harris was one of several black candidates who ran in the primary and they all lost to Joe Biden. So black voters were in the primary very pragmatic in a certain way, where they were looking at different -- different priorities for them, most importantly who they thought could beat Donald Trump and in the primary they made the decision pretty early on that that person was Joe Biden.

[09:10:10] Now, secondly, I mean, as someone who covered Kamala Harris I can tell you that she has had some real challenges particularly with black men on the issue of her criminal justice record. And it's something that they had struggled with, to try to explain her evolution on that issue. That's how they described it as both talking about the nuances of her record, she had some reforms but there were other parts that were tougher on crime in the era that she was a prosecutor.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

PHILLIP: That's something that they worked on considerably in the primary. However, when you look at Kamala Harris' supporters and her crowds, there is an enthusiasm there among black women in particular who came out to see her, who were enthusiasm about her. Many of them, however, when you talk to them, would say we think that she is great, we think that she could be a great president someday.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

PHILLIP: In this particular election, they wanted Joe Biden.

SCIUTTO: Abby Phillip, Errol Louis, Molly Ball, thanks to all of you.

Still to come this hour, South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn, he's going to join us. His endorsement, you may remember, of Joe Biden in the primary particularly in South Carolina made a huge impact on the campaign. What this now choice for vice president means to him.

HARLOW: Also the largest district in Georgia starts the school year today with an all online program. More schools that opened for in- person learning in the state are closing their doors because of more COVID-19 cases. We'll take you live there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:00]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back. This sad fact has not changed. The U.S. remains the global epicenter of the ongoing pandemic surpassing now more than a 1,000 deaths per day several times over the past month. Yesterday, both Florida and Georgia recorded a record-breaking number of deaths for those states.

HARLOW: Meanwhile, a new study shows 80 percent of Americans would have been infected with the virus if not for physical distancing measures. Let's go straight to our colleague Nick Valencia, he joins us in Georgia. Nick, well, one of the school districts there has more than 900 of those students and their staff quarantined, and at least one high school is closing. Is that right?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Cherokee County about an hour north of Atlanta, Jim and Poppy, are having a lot of trouble with their reopening. Parents are terrified, Etowah High School, the latest school to close in Cherokee County, the superintendent saying 12 percent of the student body or about 200 students had been asked to quarantine, and because of that they closed the doors and they're reverting to virtual learning.

Look, the superintendents says the majority of those 900 students and teachers that have been asked to quarantine are coming from the county high schools. But even parents of elementary age school kids are nervous, and they include a woman named Brandy Heath. She's immunocompromised, she has two young children attending schools in Cherokee County, she is worried about what these rising numbers could mean for the rest of the area.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRANDY HEATH, PARENT OF STUDENT IN CHEROKEE COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT IN GEORGIA: So I sent my son to face-to-face learning because as any parent knows, school is the best place for our children. The teachers are educated and they can teach our kids things that we can't. However, the second day of school, my son sent me, mom, I don't feel safe. We're not social distancing. We're not -- there's no, you know, precautions being taken to keep us safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: We reached out to the superintendent of Cherokee County, Brian Hightower. He declined an interview with CNN, but he did release a letter to parents yesterday, defending the decision to reopen schools, saying a survey showed 77 percent of the parents in the district supported the decision. About 30,000 of the 42,000 students in the district chose to go back to school. I talked to parents though yesterday, who said if you surveyed them today, that number would be a lot lower.

And just real quick here to wrap it up, guys. The superintendent has not taken off the table, closing down more schools if these numbers continue to rise. Jim, Poppy?

SCIUTTO: Nick Valencia, thanks very much. Florida now, it has set a new record, reporting 276 coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, that is the most in that state for a single day.

HARLOW: Wow. It also breaks a previous high of 257 deaths that was set just about two weeks ago. Florida is also reporting more than 5,800 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the state's infection rate way up to over 540,000 total.

SCIUTTO: Let's get now to CNN's Ed Lavandera in Texas where health officials there are reminding people to wear masks and social distance as that states surpassed 500,000 coronavirus infections. Ed, so how are officials tying this new directive if you want to call it that to the state's surge in cases?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the case numbers continue to go up some 9,000 cases reported roughly. And the governor once again making his pitch to get Texans to wear their masks, stopping in the southeast Texas town of Beaumont, Texas, to urge people to continue wearing their masks. The problem here in this state is that this is not been kind of a uniform practice of how people are carrying out the masks, wearing masks. It really depends on where you live. This is a very diverse state in

terms of, you know, big cities, rural areas and that sort of thing. So it has not been consistent in how people have been following the suggestions to wear masks here in public. But this comes at a time where the infection rate is now close to 24 percent. That has roughly doubled in the last two weeks alone.

[09:20:00]

But it also comes at a time where there's a lot of questions surrounding exactly what's going on with testing here in this state. Testing levels had been -- several weeks ago were close to around 70,000 tests being reported per day, that has dropped dramatically around 40,000, 45,000 per day now.

We've reached out to the Health Department here in the state to figure out exactly what's going on. Health officials say they are trying to investigate what -- is it a reporting problem? Is it people not wanting to wait for the test that in some cases have been taking two weeks to get the results back from?

So exactly what is going on with the testing here in this state remains a big question mark. But the overall issue here is that, you know, the positive infection rate, Jim and Poppy, continues to soar to dangerous levels. Jim and Poppy?

HARLOW: Ed Lavandera, thank you for that reporting. With college football on the brink, we'll see what happens. Will it make it to opening kickoff? It's a huge question this morning, more conferences are saying no, several others are suggesting the game could go on.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:25:00]

HARLOW: Well, welcome back as Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris prepare to hit the trail as running mates for the first time this afternoon, you'll hear them live at 2 O'clock Eastern. We're getting a little bit of an inside look at their conversation yesterday. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA): Hi, sorry to keep you.

JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That's all right. You ready to go to work?

HARRIS: Oh, my God, I'm so ready to go to work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Ready to go to work she says. Senator Harris tweeting that out just this morning. She is not only the first black woman on a major party ticket, she's also the first to represent the south Asian community. Joining us now, South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn. You may remember his endorsement gave Joe Biden a big boost ahead of

the South Carolina primary back in February, perhaps made all the difference in him winning the nomination. Congressman, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC): Well, thank you very much for having me.

SCIUTTO: The vice president said that he wanted his vice president choice to look like America. So, here you have Senator Harris, first black woman, also of south Asian descent, daughter of immigrants to this country. Who made it, right? Tell us what that means to you and what it means to the country today?

CLYBURN: Well, it means a great deal to me. It means a great deal to African-Americans all over this country, and it means a great deal to women, southeast Asians, immigrants. He really as Barack Obama said he nailed this. When you look at all that he had to choose from, and it was a difficult job. I told him that I was glad that I did not have to make the choice.

There were about 12 people that he could not have gone wrong with, but when you look at what he talked about, all he needed to do was to resolve the problem of what he calls simpatico. And so I think that if that -- he's satisfied with that, I think I'll agree with Barack Obama that he nailed it.

HARLOW: Congressman Clyburn, we heard your colleague, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee last night on this network, talk about how Senator Harris is -- in the worlds of the late great Dr. King, helping black women reach the mountain top, right? His famous words the day before he was assassinated. And I wonder if you could speak to that from your position in Congress, but also as a black man in America, you know, as a father for your family, for the African-American community this moment.

CLYBURN: Well, thanks for mentioning that. I am the father of three African-American women.

HARLOW: Yes --

CLYBURN: And I talk with them all day, every day. Hardly a day goes by that I don't talk to all three of them and sometimes all through the day. And I know about their dreams and aspirations. My wife passed last September, and I learned a lot about her dreams and aspirations. Now, another thing. When you are around people whose backgrounds are so much different from yours, it gives you some insight, some perspective on how to conduct yourself.

I believe that this candidate exemplifies that. She had some difficulties growing up. Now, I came from a two-parent home. She came -- grew up with a single mother. She knows about those kinds of challenges. She knows what it is to be different or to be the other.

SCIUTTO: Yes --

CLYBURN: And bringing that in with the success that she's had, breaking through in areas that no woman had broken into before, I think all of that gives Joe Biden the kind of aura around his campaign that will endear him to the vast majority of the American people. So I look --

SCIUTTO: OK --

CLYBURN: For this team to bring this country back, and do it better.

SCIUTTO: You know better than us that this is an election that's going to be fought out in large part among independent voters, swing voters in swing states.