Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Kamala Harris: President Donald Trump "Tear-Gassed" People Asking For Support; Biden, Harris To Hold First Joint Event As Running Mate; Kamala Harris Defends Her Record As California Attorney General; Coronavirus Testing Levels Fall, Positivity Rates Up In 34 States; American Medical Colleges Group Issues Guidance On Face Coverings. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 12, 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]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Right for the latest stock market news check out "Markets Now" streaming live at 12:45 pm only at CNN Business. And thank you all for joining us today. I am Kate Bolduan. CNN's coverage continues right now with John King.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Hello everybody. I'm John King in Washington. Thank you so much for sharing this busy news day with us. A hopeful dip in the daily Coronavirus case count but there are still red flags in the data with testing and positivity and cautions from top scientists and a vaccine the President said "Is ready to rock" is actually now when you ready more on that in a moment. First, it is rollout day for the new Democratic ticket.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: First of you, is the answer, yes.

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE PRESIDENTAL CANDIDATE: The answer is absolutely yes, Joe can, and I'm ready to work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: California Senator Kamala Harris, the first black woman, first Asian-American and Democrats first VP nominee from west of the Rockies. Listen to the party's front line and they say the Joe Biden pick is a watershed moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JIM CLYBURN (D-SC): I love it. I love it.

SEN.CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): She's just someone that I'm excited about, about, you know the people in my life who will look at her and get so inspired.

VALERIE JARRETT, FORMER ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: I've seen her on the campaign trail. She is both an advocate and also kind and gentle and wonderful moments of tenderness in. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: You saw that first ad it is already out. Biden and Harris will appear together this afternoon in his home state of Delaware. Senator Harris is a known entity with a benefit of primary campaign vetting. There is a little unhappiness this morning among some progressives.

Harris was not the most liberal option on the Former Vice President's short list. The pick instead cements the Biden Campaigns suburbs strategy and if you look at the President's Twitter feed this morning it seems to be clear he agrees for suburbs will be the big battleground.

"The suburban housewife will be voting for me, the President insists, casting Democrats as a threat to safety and home values". In the White House briefing room yesterday the President called Harris "nasty."

Now let's be clear. This is a Trump/Biden choice and the incumbents handling of the Coronavirus pandemic towards any other elections dynamic right now. But part of the Harris appeal to team Biden is the belief she get under his skin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: In the middle of the pandemic the President is trying to rip away health care. While small businesses close he's given breaks to his wealthy donors, and when the people cried out for support he tear gassed them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Lets gets straight to CNN's Arlette Saenz she is awaiting rollout event in Delaware. Arlette the process started with Kamala Harris viewed as the favorite it ended with her as the pick a lot of twists and turns in between.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, it certainly did. This caps off a months' long process as Joe Biden was trying to find his running mate, and ultimately deciding to go with Kamala Harris. We're told that Biden actually ended up interviewing 11 women who were possible contenders for this job.

He spoke with those women. In the last nine days of the search and a mix of in-person and virtual, remote interviews, but ultimately decided to go with his former rival Harris as his running mate. He actually told her about that decision, asking her to join the ticket during a video chat yesterday from his Delaware home.

And that partially highlights the unique situation that this rollout is coming in. You know, typically, when a Vice Presidential Candidate is announced, there's typically a large rally with thousands or hundreds of supporters gathered there, trying to create that energetic moment. But, this is going to be a little bit different. They're not going to hold a giant rally as Biden and Harris appear together for the first time. It is expected that their rally will adhere to some other similar

standards that Biden has done for his events here in Delaware and in Pennsylvania during the Coronavirus pandemic. They're typically smaller events. Biden typically enters the room wearing a mask before removing it approaching the podium.

So those are all things we will be watching today to see how that event plays out. You know that Biden and Harris spouse Joe Biden and Doug Emhoff also going to attend the event, as their spouses is rolled out in this historic Democratic ticket.

And we should talk a little also about Harris' unique, diverse viewpoint and background that she brings to this ticket. She is the first black woman, the first woman of South Asian descent to appear on a major party Ticket. She is the child of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, and that is something that Biden even leading up to this event promoted in a tweet just a short time ago.

And we expect that the two of them will stand there as we make their case why they are best positioned to beat President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

Now, one thing Biden was part of a historic administration with President Obama as he served alongside the first African-American President. Now Biden is hoping to make history another time, if he is elected, with the first woman and the first woman of color at his side as Vice President should they make it to the White House. John?

[12:05:00]

KING: Arlette Saenz for us live in Delaware just an hour or so or a little bit more away from the first joint appearance. With us to continue the conversation, to share their reporting and their insights CNN's M.J. Lee and Kaitlan Collins and Astead Herndon of "The New York Times".

M.J. let me start with you give us a little bit more. Arlette took us inside 11 interviews. In the end a conversation over a video chat with Kamala Harris part of which is now being used as a campaign video. Take us more what you believe are the key details of vetting and the selection process.

M.J. LEE CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well John, now that this process is finally behind us and we have the answer to who Joe Biden ended up choosing as his running mate, you know looking back, and when you talk to some other people who were close to the process they were almost describe this, as though this was a job for Kamala Harris to lose.

We know, that there is no question, that even from the very get-go she was seen as one of the strongest contenders for the job. She checked a lot of the right boxes, right? She'd already been through a rigorous national vetting process, because she ran herself in the 2020 primaries.

She was seen as somebody in the party who wasn't skewing too far to the left. That clearly works well for Joe Biden and she got criticized even during primaries for not being too progressive on some of these key issues. And certainly her ethnic background as Arlette was talking about that is a very powerful force especially at this particular moment and this moment in history, for the country.

So, really, during this vetting process I think a key question that folks around Biden and clearly the Former Vice President himself were asking was, you know, is there somebody else who is being presented to me who sort of brings in terms of the whole package more than what Kamala Harris can bring? When you look at some of the other finalists Gretchen Whitmer for example.

She is not a person of color. If you look at Karen Bass for example she had not been nationally vetted in the same way that Kamala Harris had been. These were all potential risks and vulnerabilities that Kamala Harris just did not have in the end.

KING: And so instead, the challenge now is going forward into the campaign, 80 days to Election Day, people start voting in half that time. M.J. just made an important point. The Trump Campaign wants to say Joe Biden is a puppet of the radical left and Kamala Harris part of the radical left. But one of the issues she has and I would say the feedback from progressives has been mostly positive.

One of the issues that Trump Campaign wants to say well, she is so far to the left. Listen to her. She had to defend her record at a prosecutor in the campaign because at this moment. Post post-George Floyd's murder, the reckoning across the United States a lot people are saying prosecutor is not the word they want to hear. Listen to Senator Harris.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: I am proud of my record. I had a process when I was Attorney General of not weighing in on bills and initiatives. There are some people who just believe that prosecutors shouldn't exist and I don't think I'm ever going to satisfy them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Her biography is interesting in two ways. Number one, what's the Trump Campaign's choice? How do they try to cast her? Do they try to say she is out of touch with the energy in the African-American street right now? And how does the Biden Campaign sell her to progressives who are already skeptical of some of his record especially back in the '80s?

ASTEAD HERNDON, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Exactly. The kind of two sides to that coin you're laying out there is partly why she was such, such an easy pick for the Biden Campaign as M.J. was laying out. This not as if she's someone who has been kind of cast by the far left.

And as you mentioned, they have highly critical of her during the primary process. I remember a number of interviews and when she rolled out her criminal justice plan where she was being pushed on questions of why did she not go further into kind of structural reform that folks are asking for again in this protest moment after the killing of George Floyd?

I think that that is in line where Biden himself is on this issue. Remember, when there was energy around defunding police or pushing on this kind of progressive grass roots movement, Joe Biden was saying that he wanted to invest $300 million to community policing. That was not what the kind of grass roots was looking for but a, that is in alignment with kind of where Harris has been on this issue?

Kind of ways that they want to restructure the Department of Justice to look at offenses by police departments; it's a kind of mind meld between them. So, I actually think that's a commonality for them. It's going to be difficult for the Trump Campaign to cast Senator Harris as someone who is a radical, as they said, in their kind of campaign text message today, simply because the Bernie Sanders wing of the party has been openly critical of her for the last year and a half.

They did not embrace her in that same way. I think that is a kind of power of the choice of Harris. Both have those representation qualities, at the same time the very things she got criticized for in the primary make her a good complement to Joe Biden as we move ahead to ahead

KING: And as we move ahead to the general Kaitlan, the Trump Campaign will adjust. They had their first reaction yesterday they have more reaction today. The President called her nasty yesterday. He was reading from notes during part of his response.

[12:10:00]

But today we get a true glimpse of the President from his Twitter feed. First he tweets about the suburbs we showed that at the top of program. We know that will be a battleground. We also know the suburbs have revolted against this President. Look at the 2018 results. Nancy Pelosi as Speaker, because suburban America said no thank you to President Trump.

But moments after he sends a tweet, saying let's fight for the suburbs, he sends another tweet congratulating what he calls future Republican star Marchary Taylor Greene on big congressional primary win in Georgia against a very tough and smart opponent.

He calls her a real winner. She is a racist and an anti-Semite and an Islamophobia who ascribes to this - Quack Pod Conspiracy theory. This is the new Republican Party; the President calls her a real winner. Can he sell that in American suburbs?

COLLINS: I mean, that's the question here is this is the candidate that the President has chosen to now endorse here. She basically won her primary, she hasn't won a primary. She is all but basically now ensured that she will be a member of the next Congress.

And it shows who the President is embracing. These candidates have to have these far right views that believe and embrace conspiracy theories. There's a plethora of videos of this candidate specifically making these comments that Republicans do not think is going to help them win back those middle of the road voters. So that's the question is how the President really navigates this going forward? And you saw him responding to the concern that maybe having Senator Kamala Harris on the ticket is going to take away from those women voters that of course helped him get into the White House in 2016.

With this sweet tweet, saying that he is going to win suburban housewives, now that's a reference that he made before even though the suburban housewives reference was not even in the article that the President had been tweeting.

But it is a real concern for his campaign it is a real concern for the President because now they're looking at their ticket. And the question that may be you heard from some Trump Advisers is does this change their thinking on Vice President Mike Pence at all?

Because of course, that's been this pervasive line of thinking throughout the four years since Donald Trump has been in the White House. And yesterday he said he likes Mike Pence. He thinks he is a great opponent to have against to, really put up next to Senator Kamala Harris. But the question is how do they make that argument going forward?

KING: If you were to move on Mike Pence right now, he'd be moving on the Chairman of his White House Coronavirus Task Force. So that would be - he would be essentially conceding the point of the Democrat's election strategy if he move Mike Pence right now.

M.J. I want to come back to you. There was a photo released by the Biden Campaign yesterday of the videoconference that we've all heard about as part of vetting process. The hay that some conservatives are making about, this is underneath the phone there, there is a bit of a script.

Now some of this is already appeared in a campaign ad so that Biden team says well, they're scripting a campaign ad, but there's a question. This did not leak out. They rolled it out the way they wanted to. For most of this rollout went well. Do they regret having the script that allows the critics of Biden to say see he needs typed notes even to pick his running mate?

LEE: Well look, I don't know that this is going to be a story for more than even 24 hours. The truth of the matter is, as you said this was one moment that the campaign clearly wanted to capture the moment of Joe Biden officially informing Kamala Harris as she was his pick and use it to try to galvanize the base.

So yes, this is appeared to be an orchestrated moment and is not unusual. Especially in moments like that, for candidates to have notes in front of them. So I don't know that this is going to be a big line of attack against Joe Biden.

I will just say quickly since we were talking about Mike Pence, I think there is, if there is one thing that President Trump might be concerned about when it comes to Kamala Harris, it is that the Democratic Party and Joe Biden's Campaign will surely try to use Kamala Harris as sort of their go-to attack dog on all things related to Donald Trump and Mike Pence.

Certainly that is going to be the case when Kamala Harris actually faces Mike Pence in the one debate that they will have coming up in the fall. She is somebody who is known for having this particular kind of flare in that kind of setting.

We know that her prosecutorial background allows her to land these kinds of lines, as we saw between Kamala Harris and Joe Biden when they were rivals. So this is going to be something that I think Donald Trump and people in the campaign are going to be very sort of wary of because they know that that is an asset that Joe Biden certainly sees her as having.

KING: M.J. Lee, Kaitlan Collins and Astead Herndon I appreciate your reporting and insights. And Astead before we go I just want to hope they're paying you extra this week. You're in the newspaper every time I look and online as well. Working extra hard this week, my friend?

HERNDON: I appreciate it.

KING: Give the man a bonus. The papers today capture a history making nature of this Harris choice. Senator Harris's home town paper "The San Francisco Chronicle," "The Chicago Sun-Times" "The New York Times" all highlighting this barrier breaking moment.

Flash back to 12 years ago "The Times" capturing another Sarah Palin's elevation to the Republican ticket. And let's go back a generation.

[12:15:00]

KING: The 1984 race, Geraldine Ferraro front page treatment after she was selected as the first ever female Vice Presidential Nominee. Up next for us, dos and don'ts of face masks a new data showing how much they do help to stop the Coronavirus spread?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: The governments announcing another $1 billion deal today to secure 100 million doses of a vaccine candidate as part of the latest government effort to push the fight for the Coronavirus. The President says a vaccine is "Ready to rock." in fact though none at the moment likely won't be ready until end of the year.

Fresh evidence today Coronavirus testing remains a national problem. Daily tests are down again. Positivity remains dangerously high rising in 34 states compared to last week. But there is some progress, if that's the right word, in the case trajectory Tuesday, marked the third consecutive day where new infections came in under 50,000.

Let's take a closer look. It's some of those trends first we'll start with out 50-state map relatively encouraging has been throughout the week.

[12:20:00]

KING: Six states trending up meaning more cases now compared to last week, six states pointing out you can see two in the Midwest they're scattered otherwise 22 states that's yellow or beige holding steady. 22 states in green meaning the case count is going down.

Down in Florida, down in Texas and down in Arizona those were three states pushing the summer surge, holding steady in California another big driver of the surge. This map as we say repeatedly lags cases. This is deaths across America.

And you see 16 states, Coronavirus deaths are up this week compared to last week. So this map still troubling a lot of pain and sadness. Keep the case count down in a week or two this map changes. We'll see 14 states holding steady 20 states trending down meaning fewer deaths reported this week than the week before.

If you were to go just on Tuesday I just noted, there has been some progress in Florida one of the states spiking up the summer surge. Florida, though continuing to lead the country the darkest red is the highest death toll leading the country in terms of death, as you look across the country you see big number there's more than 5 million cases approaching 165,000 deaths.

The new trend in cases if you look at the line here it is important to note. Here's where we were. Not all that long ago middle of July, yes, some trend down, right? You see the seven-day average. What the public health experts would say is, the question the country should be asking, why did that happen? Why couldn't you hold it where it was back there?

But it is coming down at the moment which is somewhat encouraging. If you look at the last three days, 46,000, 46,000 and 49,000 over the past three days, three consecutive days where the daily case count of new infection under 50,000.

Again, it was around 20,000 in June this is a problem the hope is, that it is beginning to come down and you can push it down some more.

Part of the reason it is coming down, public health experts say is that more states have imposed mask mandates. 33 states plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, have some form of mask mandate in public or when you're inside businesses.

You see them on the map here. This has been for some reason a political controversy. But 33 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico now with a mask mandate. Why do they matter so much? Here's Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: In general, wearing some kind of a covering was better than nothing at all, but it's funny. We've been making these in our household for some time and typically have four layers of these things which is something my daughter made, and they work really well. This is the surgical mask, you want to wear the right material and make sure you're doing it properly.

KING: With us to share her expertise and her insights, Dr. Atul Grover she is Director of the Association of American Medical Colleges Research and Accident Institute. Dr. Grover, thank you so much for being with us.

I just want to follow up on Sanjay's point there because the organization has put out dos and don'ts if you will when it comes to mask wearing. Somehow this has become a source of political controversy in the country. Let's hope less so as people see the effectiveness of this.

But do take a face mask with you wherever you go. Wear a mask with at least two layers. Wash your mask frequently. Don't touch the front of your mask. Wear the mask under your nose or don't share your mask with others. Common sense, we know it works. Yet your organization is deciding to make a concerted push here. Why? Not enough are listening?

DR. ATUL GROVER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AAMC RESEARCH & ACTION INSTITUTION: Well John, thanks for having us. Yes, because not enough people are following these guidelines, not enough states or municipal localities are actually putting out mandates for this behavior.

But it is also I think to be fair to the American public, a bit confusing when they hear different messaging. So what we've tried to do is get a bunch of people who have some expertise in public health and in clinical care and science and say let's look what's out there?

Let's look out what states are putting out? Let's look at what the CDC is putting out? Let's look at the science and the papers as they come out and see if we can put some simple guidelines together for the average person to follow.

KING: And so I want to just come back to them a little. Take a face mask with you wherever you go. Wear a mask with at least two layers. Wash your mask frequently. On the last points there, at least two layers. Why is that important and why is washing it frequently, keeping it clean, so important?

DR. GROVER: Well, so in terms of the layers we know that from some of the data that Dr. Gupta was just recently referring to came out of a Duke Study last week that published in "Science." We know that there are looser materials ones that aren't as tightly knit together are more likely to let pieces of aerosol through.

That's just through common sense, right? If you think about one layer protection on top of another you're going to be duly protected. As we get to three layers that's probably a pretty great protection that you can get from a cloth mask.

I heard Dr. Gupta saying they're going for four layers, fantastic. Try for two at a minimum. Three is pretty effective and if you do four, even better. So that's just sort of a common sense piece of this. In terms of washing, I'd also think about this in terms of common sense.

The clothes you wear, the things that are closest to you on your skin are going to have the most rubbed off from both inside, most exposure to the outside. You want to get those things off as frequently as possible.

[12:25:00] Dr. GROVER: So Ideally, those of us who are able to will have multiple pairs of masks, just like we have multiple pairs of underwear. We want to wash them regularly, change them regularly and don't share them with anybody else.

KING: It's important to reiterate. We haven't had common sense through a lot of this so it is good to have some put on the table in such a candid, straightforward way. Doctor thank you so much for you insights I appreciate the new report as well. Thank you for your time today, I appreciate it, sir.

I want to move to another story. CNN has just learned a U.S. Air Force helicopter was shot at on Monday. Not overseas not at a combat zone but right there in the Commonwealth of Virginia. An official says the aircraft was about ten miles Northwest of Manassas flying at an altitude of about 1,000 feet when the shooting happened.

The pilot was treated at a hospital and released. The FBI and the Air Force now investigating whether this was deliberate whether the helicopter was shot at deliberately or if it is somehow - someone randomly shooting into the air. Disturbing incident we'll stay on top of it. Up next family celebration or family feud we look at how Joe Biden's choice of Kamala Harris is selling with the Democratic Party's most liberal activist.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)