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Robert Redfield Warns Fall Could be Worst in Public Health History; Trump Calls for Increased Water Pressure; Trump's Public Conduct Out of Step With Contemporary America. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired August 13, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:44]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST, NEWSROOM: I'm Brianna Keilar, and I want to welcome viewers here in the United States and around the world.

More families are without their loved ones today after the deadliest day of the summer so far, 1,499 Americans lives lost Wednesday to the coronavirus. In fact, it's the 17th consecutive day that the U.S. has averaged more than 1,000 deaths per day, and it's a stark reminder that the U.S. does not have this pandemic under control.

While deaths are rising, testing is decreasing including in major hotspots. Right now, 35 states are reporting an increase in test positivity, and that is something that Dr. Anthony Fauci addressed just a short time ago.

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ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: When you look at other parts of the country, this is the thing that's disturbing to me is that we're starting to see the inkling of the upticks in the percent of the tests that are positive, which we know now from sad past experience that that's a predictor that you're going to have more surges.

So unless we all pull together to get that down, and we don't have disparities in some states are doing this, and some states are doing that, we're going to continue to have this up-and-down. So that's the thing that I'm concerned about because I believe we can -- we have it within our power -- to be able to get that down. Bottom line is, I'm not pleased with how things are going.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Those comments, following a dire new warning from the head of the CDC: Act now, or it will be the worst fall in U.S. public health history.

I'm joined now by Dr. Roshini Raj, associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health. Doctor, thank you so much for being with us today. I want to begin with your reaction to these comments from Dr. Redfield. Can we get back on track or are we destined to have a really terrible fall that might even eclipse what we've been going through?

ROSHINI RAJ, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, NYU LANGONE HEALTH: Well, I think that, you know, that terrible fall is a possibility if we don't all really, you know, hunker down and do our part. And the steps to take are fairly simple, and Dr. Redfield laid them out. And it really comes down to wearing the mask, social distancing, washing our hands, being vigilant.

You know, these are measures that we've been talking about for a while. And I understand that people are getting tired of it, it's been several months now, it's not easy to still adhere with that same vigilance, but this threat of a second wave or an awful fall is very real, and we have to realize that. And really, every individual do our part.

Even if you're in an area of the country -- I'm in New York City, which -- where we feel like we really beat this thing. It can absolutely come back. And of course in other parts of the country, they're really still struggling a lot.

It's really up to us. I mean, when you think about it, if we all -- and not that this is a realistic scenario, but -- if we all stayed in our homes for the next three weeks, this thing would die out, you know what I mean? So there is a way to control it, it just is up to us.

KEILAR: And Dr. Redfield, he admitted today, he said that the U.S. was underprepared for the pandemic. I mean, we all knew this, but we'd been hearing from the administration, especially the president, this downplaying of what the response has been. You know, he basically says that it's been great, we know it hasn't been great.

What does it mean to have the CDC director just admit reality so that maybe it can instill some faith in folks to believe what he's saying?

RAJ: Yes. I mean, I think authenticity and honesty is extremely important right now. You know, this COVID situation has become such a political issue, which I think is unfortunate. But there's a lot of mistrust in what we're hearing either from the government or from health officials.

I think it's very important that that trust is restored because we do have things coming up that could potentially help a lot, like vaccines for example, if the trust in those vaccines or the messages that people are getting from the government or the CDC isn't there, people may not take the vaccine. And that would be a disaster because that is a potential to really take control of what could be a very dire situation.

KEILAR: And finally, I want to ask you about this new report out from the CDC, and it shows that there's a rise in mental health conditions during the pandemic.

RAJ: Yes.

KEILAR: I think that's another thing that we all knew was going on, right? Everyone, I think, is struggling more than they normally do. [14:05:07]

RAJ: Yes.

KEILAR: And some people, we are learning, are struggling a lot. So how much does this concern you?

RAJ: I think it's very concerning. I think you have people who have underlying mental health issues to begin with, and when you add something like this pandemic, it's just completely overwhelming. So those people are really suffering.

And then you have people who maybe didn't have issues like that before, but are undergoing relationship stress, job stress, economic stress, you know, worried about their children, worried about their own health. So it's a tremendous issue.

And then you have the COVID people themselves, the survivors, who went through COVID, actually survived from a medical standpoint but have lingering symptoms and some mental symptoms also. So there are so many factors involved here and I think we're going to see -- you know, people are sort of calling that the second wave, which is the mental health kind of outlook coming out of this.

We're going to see the effects of that, not just in the short term but I believe in the long term as well.

KEILAR: Yes. Dr. Raj, thank you so much for walking us through that, we appreciate it.

RAJ: Thank you.

KEILAR: And a reminder to our viewers that help is available through the National Suicide Prevention Hotline, 1-800-273-8255 on your screen.

In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis is likening the obstacles to opening schools in his state to the same challenges faced by the U.S. Navy SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.

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GOV. RON DESANTIS (R), FLORIDA: Martin County Superintendent Laurie Gaylord told me today that she viewed reopening her schools as a mission akin to a Navy SEAL operation. Just as the SEALs surmounted obstacles to bring Osama bin Laden, to justice, so too would the Martin County school system find a way to provide parents with a meaningful choice of in-person instruction or continued distance learning. All in, all the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: DeSantis and Florida's education commissioner have pushed districts to reopen, threatening to withhold state funding from those districts that offer only remote learning without permission. In fact, Florida pressured Hillsborough County to reopen according to the district superintendent there. We'll have much more on that, ahead.

But first, a look at some other headlines from across the country.

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Brynn Gingras in New York. Check out this video that's been circulating on Twitter. It's of a New York City bus and a crowd of people on that bus, partying.

The MTA confirms this is one of their buses, and that group jumped on board as the driver, while on their route, was attempting to navigate a block in the street.

Now, according to the MTA, that crowd stayed on board for about 15 minutes, but put the driver -- and, really, each other -- at risk. In a statement, the agency's president saying in this egregious situation -- they're crowded in there, no one was wearing masks and it's important to keep that in mind as we take the next steps in working with law enforcement.

The bus was disinfected.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Jean Casarez in Pennsylvania. Police are trying to find the identities of two guests at a children's theme park outside of Philadelphia, Sesame Place, after they say the two aggressively punched in the face a teen employee who was only trying to enforce the park's mask policy.

CNN affiliate WPVI is saying police are combing through video at the park as well as reservations that can give them a tentative ID. The 17-year-old employee required facial and jaw surgery. He is expected to recover.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: I'm Coy Wire in Atlanta. After a third straight week of zero positive tests in the NBA's bubble setup in Orlando, players will soon be allowed to have guests join them with some limitations.

In a memo obtained by CNN, players can only invite up to four people, and they must either be family or friends with, quote, "longstanding relationships." However, that does not include someone, quote, "known by the player only through social media or an intermediary," unquote.

Visitors can start arriving at Disney World on August 24th, and anyone who joins the bubble must quarantine for seven days upon arrival.

KEILAR: Ahead, I'll be speaking live with two parents who lost their 32-year-old son to the virus. What they want you to know about their last FaceTime call with him.

Plus, the president saying the quiet part out loud when it comes to mail-in voting. What he admits about the Post Office.

[14:09:27]

And today alone, he also uses several sexist tropes to describe women in power including Senator Kamala Harris, Joe Biden's running mate.

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KEILAR: Despite the nation facing an unprecedented health and economic crisis, the Trump administration is spending time on the president's shower habits. The Energy Department, calling to roll back water efficiency standards for shower heads after this complaint.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You go into a new home, you turn on the faucet, no water comes out. You turn on the shower -- if you're like me -- you can't wash your beautiful hair properly.

(LAUGHTER)

You waste 20 minutes longer. Please, come out, the water. It drips, right? You know what I'm talking? They put restrictors on it. I got rid of that, I signed it out.

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KEILAR: Joining us now is CNN chief climate correspondent Bill Weir. I mean, Bill, this is one of the weirder ones. Tell us what this is all about.

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BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: It's -- you have to laugh to keep from crying, Brianna, because the president has made no secret of leaning into his vanity, especially on the stump. He talks about how fluorescent lights make him look a strange color, he talks about this low-flow toilets, dishwashers. And he has made this his personal mission -- despite everything else that's going in the world.

[14:15:02]

But just for context, back in '92, then-President George H.W. Bush put in a new law that limited a showerhead to 2.5 gallons a minute. Sensible, enough to wash, enough to conserve for a country of our size.

The president then would take showerheads like these and make 2.5 gallons come out of all of them. The Obama administration said it had to be 2.5 gallons total, he wants 2.5 gallons to come out of five, 10, 20 showerheads because he's not getting wet enough.

Now, the Appliance Standard Awareness Project, consumer groups, even "Consumer Reports" says this is ludicrous. We've tested showerheads, you can get a good shower within the government limits. This will just cause so much waste when it comes to hot water, the fuel that goes into heating that as well, and especially out West.

And just for perspective globally, to back off, he's obsessed with this at a moment when, you know, hundreds of millions of people around the world don't even have access to clean drinkable water, about a third of humanity doesn't have the kind of plumbing we're used to for sanitation in this country. And especially in the American West, mayors, governors encouraging

water conservation as the West goes (ph) in a two-decade megadrought which is only going to get worse as 80 million people need to live off of a trickle that is going to be the Colorado River, if the scientists are right.

So amid all of this, it seems like the metaphor is, the hotel is on fire, and President Trump is the guy who calls down, as people are evacuating and the alarm is sounding, he's the guy who calls the front desk and complains about water pressure.

KEILAR: Yes, that's what it's like. Bill, thank you for just giving us that overview. It's so important to remember all the water challenges in our country and abroad as well, thank you.

And President Trump is facing an out-of-control pandemic that has killed nearly 170,000 Americans, abysmal poll numbers and an economic recession. And yet instead of trying to provide some stability, the president made a series of media appearances this week where he appeared deflated and resorted to fear-mongering as he took a hammer to the institutions that Americans should be able to trust right now.

First, elections. He and his administration seem unconcerned by China, Russia and Iran trying to undermine the U.S. electoral process, and he's lobbing his own attacks, trying to sow doubt about whether votes will count, or if Americans can trust election results.

As you are well aware, there's a pandemic happening right now and it will still be happening in November. In fact, experts say that it's possible it's going to be worse. People need options to vote safely. For many, that will mean voting by mail instead of in-person. And the president is dead-set against mail voting unless it's in the must-win Republican-led state of Florida.

So, knowing that, listen to what he said this morning.

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TRUMP (via telephone): Now, if we don't make a deal that means they don't get the money. That means they can't have universal mail-in voting.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now, he just admitted he doesn't want to fund the government because he doesn't want to make voting easily accessible and safe. He'll say it's because mail-in voting is ripe for voter fraud, but it's not. His own intel officials in charge of election security refuse his other claim, that foreign nations will interfere on some mass scale with mail-in votes. They say that can't happen.

There is no widespread fraud in America's elections, and that is according to data kept by the conservative Heritage Foundation. But the postmaster general, a Trump donor, has proposed cuts to his own Postal Service even though the Post Office will play a pivotal role in the coming months. And I should mention that the postmaster general has behaved in a way

that has raised questions about his ethical credentials. CNN reports that he continues to hold a multimillion-dollar stake in a postal service contractor, which is an obvious conflict of interest according to experts.

In the meantime, Republican operatives in at least one swing state are openly trying to get Kanye West on the ballot for the general election. They're hoping to peel off votes from Joe Biden to help President Trump. Kanye West's wife, mind you, publicly says that he's going through a mental health crisis right now. But what is more, West says he's been talking to Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior advisor.

From elections to the law, the president is once again openly interfering with the Justice Department, making comments about Bill Barr's active and controversial investigation of the Russia probe. This was Trump's warning this morning.

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TRUMP (via telephone): Bill Barr has a chance to be the greatest of all time. But if he wants to be politically correct, he'll be just another guy.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KEILAR: He's pressuring the attorney general, who has already done him quite a few favors. But he doesn't stop at the DOJ. Listen to how he describes FBI Director Christopher Wray in regards to this particular investigation.

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TRUMP (via telephone): So Christopher Wray was put there. We have an election coming up -- I wish he was more forthcoming, he certainly hasn't been -- he was put there for a good reason... He was chosen by a certain person, and I said, 'Go ahead, put whoever you want.' I'm so honest that I said you could put anybody you want. Let's see how Wray turns out. He's going to either turn out one way or the other.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KEILAR: Wray is the person that Trump hand-picked. The FBI says that it's cooperated with multiple investigations into the bureau's handling of the Russia investigation, even assigning agents to come of Barr's efforts.

As the president dismisses the severity of this pandemic constantly, from pushing unproven treatments to lying about how testing works, his own CDC director is breaking from him.

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ROBERT REDFIELD, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: This is the greatest public health crisis to hit this nation in a century, that we were underprepared.

I'm asking you to do four simple things: wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands and be smart about crowds.

If we don't do that, as I said last April, this could be the worst fall, from a public health perspective, we've ever had.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: The briefings that the president has been holding recently provide no real information, no national strategy for testing or tracing or containment. Instead, they often devolve into political rants. And if you take a look at our resident CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale's Twitter feed every night, you'll see how he's been saying the president is being more and more dishonest.

And Daniel says that he's often just copying and pasting his CNN fact- checks because the president tells the same lies over and over and over, including the one about the timetable of the vaccine.

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GERALDO RIVERA, WTAM HOST, GERALDO IN CLEVELAND: What's the earliest we could see that, a vaccine?

TRUMP (via telephone): Sooner than the end of the year, could be much sooner. These three (ph)...

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: Sooner than November 3rd?

TRUMP (via telephone): ... companies are fantastic.

Oh, I think in some cases, yes, possible before, but right around that time.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KEILAR: That's not true. Even by the most optimistic of timetables, a vaccine won't be ready until the end of the year or the beginning of next. It would take months for the majority of Americans to have access to it. Keep in mind, scientists and doctors around the country have publicly said they worry the vaccine will be rushed before it's ready for political purposes.

And he's also making promises about the next round of stimulus relief.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you permanently rescind the payroll tax, how do you pay for Social Security?

TRUMP: We're taking it out of the general fund...

(CROSSTALK) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But that would incur (ph) huge deficits.

TRUMP: ... and what we'll do -- yes, what we'll be doing is, if we do that, we'll get it approved in that case by Congress, and we'll take the money from other places other than -- we will not take it from Social Security in any way, shape or form.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right, but how do you fund it from the general fund when the general fund just incurred a debt of $2.8 trillion?

TRUMP: You're right, but we're going to have tremendous growth, we have tremendous growth. You take a look at what's happening here? Next year, unless somebody comes in --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: That's a con. The payroll tax funds Social Security. If you take it away without a realistic plan to fund it, you could bankrupt not only Social Security, but Medicare as well. Doing this would, in the short term, put more money in people's pockets just before the election, but it would have dire long-term consequences.

And his explanation to pay for it? It's magic, magical growth in an uncertain economy, during a once-in-a-century pandemic.

Separately, the president said, quote, "The suburban housewife will be voting for me. They want safety and are thrilled that I ended the long running program where low income housing would invade their neighborhood. Biden would reinstall it in a bigger form, with Cory Booker in charge."

That's both racist and sexist. First of all, that word, "invade," it is a very loud dog whistle he uses when he's talking about non-white people coming to where white people are. And second, doesn't it seem like he's still living in an era where Elvis and "Great Balls of Fire" top the charts, where women are just June Cleaver caricatures?

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TRUMP: I don't want to sound too much like a chauvinist. But when I come home and dinner's not ready, I'll go through the roof.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: On top of all that, in that tweet, he not-so-randomly picks an African-American Democratic senator to lead Biden's, quote, "low- income housing invasion." Here's how he tried to explain it.

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TRUMP: They're going to, in my opinion, destroy suburbia. And just so you understand, 30 percent-plus of the people living in suburbia are minorities. They want to change zoning so that you have lots of problems where they want to build low-income housing. You want something where people can aspire to be there, not something where it gets hurt badly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Again, he is saying the quiet part out loud there. It is not the 1950s. The suburbs have become more and more diverse. Most middle- class homes have two working parents, including women who work.

And speaking of women who work, today alone, the president trotted out a number of sexist tropes. He called Nancy Pelosi "stone cold crazy;" Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez "not even smart," Mika Brzezinski, "a ditzy airhead."

[14:25:01]

And this is how he described Senator Kamala Harris, who is now a candidate for vice president of the United States.

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TRUMP (via telephone): And now you have a sort of a madwoman -- I'd call her -- because she was so angry --

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KEILAR: The angry black woman trope, from the mouth of the president of the United States of America, a reminder, as he focuses on suburban women, that many suburban women, they're actually black. It's 2020, not 1950.

Still ahead, a Philadelphia judge refuses to obey a mask mandate that is posted on his own courtroom door.

Plus, I'll be speaking live with the parents who lost their 32-year- old son to the virus: why they want their last conversation with him to be a message for everyone.

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