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U.S. Averages 1,000+ Deaths Per Day for 18th Consecutive Day; Trump Admits He's Blocking Postal Funding to Stop Mail-In Votes; Obama Says, Trump more Concerned About Suppressing Vote than Virus. Aired 1- 1:30p ET

Aired August 14, 2020 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

JOHN KING, CNN INSIDE POLITICS: Stay with us. Brianna Keilar picks up our coverage right now. Have a good day.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN RIGHT NOW: I am Brianna Keilar and I want welcome viewers here in the United States and around the world.

America is burning and Washington goes home. In another tragic and deadly week from the coronavirus, there is still no uniform federal response. And as millions of Americans go without relief and face evictions, the Senate goes home for August without a stimulus deal.

And in moments, the president is expected to take questions from reporters inside the White House briefing room.

And we should be clear, the coronavirus crisis is still killing far too many Americans, 1,076 lives lost just Thursday. Take a look at this, deaths from coronavirus over the last month, too many days with hundreds and hundreds of Americans dying. For the 18th consecutive day, the U.S. averaged more than 1,000 deaths from COVID.

And while Americans are dying, the White House coronavirus testing czar says that testing is sufficient to reduce spread and save lives.

A reality check here, over the last week, the U.S. has reported more than 365,000 known coronavirus cases. That's enough to fill up a stadium in Atlanta, this stadium in Atlanta over five times, California leading the country in the number of infections, becoming the first state to surpass 600,000 Covid cases.

And a new warning from the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci says the consequences will be devastating if the U.S. does not get coronavirus under control and reopen safely.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: You will never get a good marching back economically back unless you control the biologic. You have to be able to control it. And one of the problems is, in your understandable zeal to quickly get back to normal and revive the economy, you can do it if you do it in a measured, prudent way.

The lesion that we've seen was the jumping over the benchmarks and the guideposts that have been put forth. So, to think that you can ignore the biologic and get the economy back is not going to happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Another warning this time from the White House, The Atlanta Journal Constitution obtaining recommendations from the White House coronavirus task force for the State of Georgia saying that current policies in the state are not enough.

The report found Georgia's rate of spread was nearly double the national average and strongly recommended a mask mandate, which is something that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has so far refused to do.

Dr. Fauci says scientists are working on a possible plan D in the race for a coronavirus vaccine. This an approach that involves vaccinating healthy volunteers and then intentionally infecting them with a strain COVID that researchers created.

I want to bring in CNN's Senior Medical Correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, who is with me now. And, you know, Elizabeth, as you see, the fact that recommendations are ignored, this might just be the direction that things end up going. But tell us how exactly this would work.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I got to tell you, I was on the phone with Dr. Fauci earlier today, and he could not emphasize enough that this is -- what we are doing now is for a contingency of a preliminary, of a maybe plan. He does not want to do challenge trials. And, frankly, not many people do want to do them. But what they want to do is to be prepared if we end up doing them.

So a challenge trial, as you mentioned, Brianna, is where you intentionally -- you vaccinate someone and then intentionally put the virus literally up their noses and you see how well the vaccine works. Now, in order to do that, you have to create a special strain.

You don't want to just put any strain up someone's nose. You want to create a strain that is same from person to person to person in your study. So they need to create that strain. And that takes a while. They want to have it sitting in the freezer in case we need to do challenge trials.

But, again, I can't emphasize enough that Dr. Fauci says he does not think we will ever get to this point but sort of no harm in having it in the freezer just in case. Brianna?

KEILAR: And yet, it is a just in case, which brings us to the question of is that -- I mean, is this something that's ethical? It sounds like it's been determined to be ethical but I think just normal people would have that question.

COHEN: Well, it is ethical if you design the study right and if you fully inform people, hey, do you want to do this? No one would ever be forced to do this. People would volunteer for it. And already, there are groups of people who have volunteered so they know what risks they're taking. And they're doing it.

Some people, they are very young and they say -- I mean, not children, obviously, but they're young adults and they say, look, in order to help the world, here I am. Use me, challenge me with this virus. I know that if I did get sick and the vaccine doesn't work, I will likely be okay.

[13:05:02]

So there are people who are willing to do this and it is ethical if you properly inform them, if there's true informed consent.

KEILAR: Okay. I want to turn to testing now. Let's listen to what Admiral Brett Giroir had to say on the current state of testing in the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADM. BRETT GIROIR, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TESTING CZAR: You beat the virus by smart policies supplemented by strategic testing. You do not beat the virus by shotgun testing everyone all the time.

It is just a false narrative and I'm really tired of hearing it by people not involved in the system that we need millions of tests every day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: The U.S. is averaging, I think, about 700,000 tests a day and experts say that that's not nearly enough. So what do you make of his remarks there?

COHEN: Well, he sounded quite upset and I think that he maybe overstepped when he said there are people who want us to test everyone. I've never heard anyone say, let's test everyone every day. I mean, that is not the case at all.

Now, there are people who say, we need to be doing much more, as you mentioned, Brianna. So we're doing about 700,000 to 800,000. People like, for example, Dr. Ashish Jha at Harvard, he's saying saying we should be doing more like 4 to 5 million a day. That gives us a better idea of who's infected, where we need to implement our public health strategies, all of that.

So he is not saying that. No one is saying test everyone every day. What they're saying is we need to be doing more than what we are currently doing.

KEILAR: Yes, that would be hundreds of millions of tests per day, right? We're hearing no one call for that. Elizabeth, thank you so much. We always love you explaining it to us.

President Trump and the first lady requesting their mail-in ballots for Florida's primary despite the fact that he continues to attack mail-in voting altogether. Florida, of course, led by Republicans and deemed a must win in November. It is the only state that President Trump claims is safe and secure, tried and true when it comes to mail- in voting.

That is not true along with many other claims about mail-in ballots.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: President Donald Trump has made many baseless and misleading claims, casting doubt on mail-in voting. Here is one.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: So, we have a new phenomenon. It's called mail-in voting.

KEILAR: Not true.

DAVID BECKER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND CO-FOUNDER, CENTER FOR ELECTION INNOVATION AND RESEARCH: Mail-in voting has been in the United States since the civil war. We have been doing it for hundreds of years. There are many states that have actually had a majority of their votes cast by mail for decades.

KEILAR: Let's begin here. Five states conduct elections almost entirely by mail. By CNN's count, 37 states and the District of Columbia allow you to vote by mail without giving an excuse or using the pandemic as your reason. These remaining eight states, like Texas and New York do not allow voters to use the pandemic as an excuse to vote for mail.

How you get your ballot depends on where you live too. In light of the pandemic, Vermont, California, the District of Columbia and New Jersey have joined the original five universal mail-in voting states, sending ballots to every registered voter. Others send absentee ballot request forms to voters in the mail but most Americans must request a ballot be sent to them.

TRUMP: What they're going to do is blanket the state, anybody that ever walked, frankly, will get one.

KEILAR: Nope. Registered voters, just registered voters get ballots and non-citizens are not permitted to register to vote in federal elections. Next.

TRUMP: You look at some of the corruption having to do with universal mail-in voting, absentee voting is okay. You have to apply, you have to go through a process.

JONATHAN SWAN, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: You have to apply for mail-in. It's the same thing.

MICHAEL KANG, WILLIAM AND VIRGINIA KARNES RESEARCH PROFESSOR: Absentee voting is done by mail, so it's mail voting.

Basically, you have similar procedural checks in both cases.

KEILAR: Pause. And now, let's rewind the President Trump's most dangerous claim about mail-in voting.

TRUMP: You look at the corruption having to do universal mail-in voting. There is no way you can go through a mail-in vote without massive cheating.

BECKER: What election officials will tell you of both parties is that voter fraud is extremely rare. It might be counted in dozens or hundreds of cases out of 150 million ballots cast. It's extremely rare.

TRUMP: Mail-in ballots, you're going to have foreign countries -- you talked about foreign countries. They're going to be printing their own ballots.

BECKER: If foreign governments or anyone else trying to flood the system with fake mail ballots would be detected immediately. They would be segregated. They would not be counted.

The ballots that go out differ by state. They all use special, different paper. They use special different ink. They are usually coded on the outside of the envelope to be masked (ph) through a particular voter that they've been sent to. These things will be detected almost instantaneously.

It would be one of the clumsiest attempts to interfere with our election. And we know that the foreign governments are much more sophisticated than that.

KEILAR: Once the ballot arrives, is filled out and signed and sealed it is usually mailed or hand-delivered to local election officials. And while the process varies, a team verifies identification envelopes and secures the ballot until it's time to be counted.

[13:10:02]

Generally, votes are counted by a voting machine while some maybe counted by hand.

KANG: You have people from different parties or you have at least two people doing the counting and kind of checking each other. So it's hard to kind of run away and just commit blatant fraud.

KEILAR: Last but not least --

TRUMP: I also don't want to have to wait for three months and then find out that the ballots are all missing and the election doesn't mean anything. That's what's going to happen, Steve. That's common sense.

BECKER: Not, it is not going to take three months to count the ballots, particularly in a presidential race. In fact, the term ends in January, which is less than three months after the election. And by the Constitution, a new president would have to take office January 20th unless President Trump is re-elected.

KEILAR: President Trump is right about one thing. The volume of mail- in ballots is going to be far higher than in any previous election in history.

BECKER: Many states haven't seen more than 5 percent of their ballots cast by mail in the past elections. Everything you hear on election night is unofficial. It is a partial count. It could take several days to count all of that, those ballots. That is normal. That means the process is working.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: And the president is fully admitting that he's pulling funding from the postal service in the lead-up to November's election. Former President Obama weighing, tweeting in part, the postal service can't be collateral damage for an administration more concerned with suppressing the vote than suppressing a virus, this as states scramble to ensure that every vote is still counted. California, for example, is ramping up its poll worker recruitment efforts as a way to shore up staffing for Election Day.

Alex Padilla is the Secretary of State for California and is joining me now. Secretary, thank you for coming on. And tell us when you announced this statewide initiative this week, you had warned the younger generation that they need to step up given the pandemic. Are they stepping up?

ALEX PADILLA (D), CALIFORNIA SECRETARY OF STATE: So far, we are off to a good start. 81 days until Tuesday, November 3rd, which I should ask us not to refer to as Election Day but simply the last day to vote because of the multiple options that there will be to vote early, whether it's safely by mail or safely in person.

But I think it's common sense just as COVID has impacted all aspects of our daily lives, elections are no different. And a lot of the individuals who have volunteered in prior elections, think of all the senior citizens and retirees, that have helped administer elections, they're not going to be available this November for obvious reasons. So we are trying to recruit the next generation of poll workers for this, November's election and beyond.

KEILAR: How many do you need and how many do you have so far?

PADILLA: I don't have a hard count but I can tell you there's been at least 100,000 hits on the site since it went live. And what we're doing is just trying to serve as a centralized statewide portal and connect people interested and willing to serve poll workers with their county elections office. So, for people who are committed, yes, we want to push out the registration message. We want to remind people to make a plan and vote early.

But if you're willing to serve as a poll worker, we need your help and know that you will have both the proper training to serve as a poll worker and all the proper protective equipment to keep you and voters safe, for integrating physical distancing, PPE, masks, gloves, sanitizers, et cetera, into the in-person voting experience.

KEILAR: Secretary, I want you to listen to something that the president said on Fox about funding for the U.S. Postal Service. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They want $25 billion, billion, for the post office. Now, they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots.

Now, in the meantime, they aren't getting there. By the way, those are just two items. But if they don't get those two items, that means you can't have universal mail-in voting because they're not equipped to have it.

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 VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: I mean, he is saying that he doesn't want to fund what the postal service needs to handle an election with a lot of mail-in voting during a pandemic. What's your reaction to that?

PADILLA: It's -- I mean, there he goes again, attacks and outright lies. And it's not just our democracy that's on the line with the postal service, it's also the economy, which we know matters to him and matters especially to voters as we prepare to vote this November.

So here is a suggestion that we have for voters. Make a plan. You know, most states do offer a vote by mail opportunity. Ballots will go out and most states are like California where we get ballots out early to voters. Don't sit on it. I don't think there's anybody waiting until two days before the Election Day to decide who they're going to vote for. Fill out your ballot and send it in early.

[13:15:01]

And know the rules in your state. In some states, the ballot has to be back in the county elections office by Election Day. So give it ample time to arrive. Drop it off in person if you'd like, if that's an option in your jurisdiction.

Increasingly, there are states like California that have a postmark policy. As long as the ballot is postmarked on or before Election Day we have extra time after the election for it to arrive and still be counted.

KEILAR: Well, I want to ask you about that, because you do that. We know Nevada does that. Pennsylvania just decided that they're doing that. You get as long as it's postmarked, it's counted three days after the election. So that brings me to the question, is it possible that we do not -- do you foresee a situation where we do not know who is president, who is going to be president on election night?

PADILLA: Yes. So before I answer that, let's me just end the prior question with, for all the times Trump warns about a rigged election, what he's really doing is confessing, because he is the one trying to rig it by undermining postal service and attacking vote by mail. We should be looking for more safe opportunities for people to vote, not less.

California has unique experience when it comes to vote counting. We are such a big state and we go the extra mile to ensure that valid votes are counted, where we have a pretty sense on election night of most contests.

But for close races and final results, it does take a couple of weeks to finish counting. And with so many critical states expanding vote by mail, like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Arizona, it's a possibility that if it's too close to call in several key states, we may not know who won the presidential contest the day after, two days after, three days after.

People should start preparing now to be patient and understand it is the ballot processing, counting and auditing at work. And don't buy into the lies and conspiracy theories that we know are going to come from the Twitter in chief.

KEILAR: All right. Secretary, thank you so much for being with us.

PADILLA: Thank you.

KEILAR: In moments, the president is expected to be asked about this, plus, how he amplified a racist birther lie about Senator Kamala Harris.

Also just in, his predecessor, former President Obama, weighing in moments ago on the attack on the postal service, including how he says the president is kneecapping votes.

This is CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:20:00]

KEILAR: Just in, former President Obama speaking to his own former campaign manager, David Plouffe, on Plouffe's podcast and he calls Joe Biden the right candidate and Kamala Harris an outstanding running mate as he weighs in on election voting during a pandemic and President Trump. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Look, as you said, I worry about everything. But Joe Biden is the right candidate. He's now picked an outstanding running mate. And those are big pieces of the puzzle.

I think the convention will be an important opportunity to describe for the American people his vision for digging us out of the hole that we're in. But let's face it, the fact that it's not a live convention probably alters its impact somewhat. We don't yet know. We have never been in this circumstance before.

All kinds of events can change. There's no possibility of a vaccine for COVID being developed and distributed between now and the election. But it is possible that some of the trials that are being done result in us knowing before the election that a vaccine is on the way.

That might relieve people's anxieties and that's good. We should hope for that. But that also can change the dynamic, particularly when you have a president who takes responsibility for nothing but takes credit for everything. And you don't know how the economy might react to that. So there are a whole bunch of circumstances, most of which Joe Biden can't control.

Here is what Joe Biden and Democrats can control, is making sure that we vote. So if you ask me the single thing that I am most concerned about between now and November, it is that we do everything humanly possible to ensure that everybody who wants a change in administration actually registers that change at the ballot box, whether that is in person or by mail-in voting.

Now, what we've seen in a way that is unique to modern political history is a president who is explicit in trying to discourage people from voting, right? I mean, usually the Republican Party for quite some time has actively tried to discourage people's votes from counting in all kinds of ways, whether it's voter I.D. laws or, you know, blatant gerrymandering, making it difficult for people in certain precincts to find their polling places, right? All that stuff is contrary to American democracy but, you know, I think the Republicans' view has been it's all fair game as long as it helps us gain power.

[13:25:01]

What we've never seen before is a president say, I'm going to try to actively kneecap the postal service to encourage voting and I will be explicit about the reason I'm doing it. That's sort of unheard of, right? And we also have not had an election in the midst of a pandemic. That is still deadly and killing a lot of people and we still don't know the long-term side effects of contracting the illness.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: I want to bring in New Day Anchor John Berman to talk about this with me. It's -- we are sort of starting to see and we have been seeing this now for weeks, I think we saw it crystallize at the John Lewis funeral. We're now seeing the president -- the former president's message here.

This is like his job going into this election is talking about the President Trump sowing doubt, attacks on the postal service, everything that kind of would fall under the umbrella of voter suppression. I mean, he is taking this as his job to get people to vote.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Kneecap the postal service. He says it is unprecedented. They're used to Republicans doing things to impede ballot access. But to do it so openly admitted, he says, is unprecedented. When President Obama left office, he said that one of the things that he would be willing weigh in on is attacks on voter access and ballot access. So this is clearly one of the areas that he is very concerned about. Not that it's campaign time, I think, whatever restraints had been there are now clearly up (ph).

And you're right, I think he is eager to address this and it is interesting, obviously, Democrats don't want their path to the ballot impeded. But by the fact it's happening now, there is a door open for them to focus on it in a much more organized and concerted way starting now, starting at the convention next week, where they make clear, in explicit ways, to Democratic voters what they need to do to make sure their ballot is counted.

I think you're going to see a definite push over the next few weeks for people who do get absentee or mail-in ballots to return them early, extra early, maybe return them in person to a ballot drop-off box. This is something that I think will become part of the Democrats' strategy and maybe, in a backhanded way, an advantage to them going forward.

KEILAR: Yes. We just spoke with the California secretary of state who's a Democrat and he was making that point. He was making that sort of emphasis and call to people, make a plan, he said, and he's walking folks through what that is.

But, John, I also want to talk to you about a CNN special report that is airing tomorrow because you're taking an in-depth look at the way that the Electoral College actually works. Let's look at a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BIRCH BAYH, FORMER DEMOCRATIC U.S. SENATOR, 1969: The present system is dangerous, it's outdated, it's archaic, it's one that needs to be revised.

BERMAN: Born hundreds of years ago --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It really was a Frankenstein's monster of sorts.

BERMAN: Challenged and criticized but fiercely resilient until now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are some issues.

For better or worse, I tried a Hail Mary.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He said, I think we can do something about this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I decided maybe someone should take a stand.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were the bad news bearers of the political world.

BERMAN: Going rogue meant taking risks.

Did you think you were committing a crime? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were fined $1,000.

BERMAN: And the backlash was brutal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Plenty of death threats and hate.

BERMAN: A desperate political plea to try to keep one man from becoming president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it scared people because no one has used the Electoral College this way.

BERMAN: But you thought you had the power to change history.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought we had the power to prevent a demagogue from taking office.

BERMAN: Election 2020.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESUMPTIVE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE: On the path to defeating Donald Trump.

BERMAN: Could it happen again?

TRUMP: America should not take lectures on racial justice from Joe Biden.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are going to be in unchartered territory. This is a Pandora's box.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: And, John, a look at the Electoral College is probably more timely and relevant than ever, but what inspired you to take this project on?

BERMAN: I get so excited when I see that. It gives life to this thing that we all know exists but we know so little about. But what it would drive me into it was just the idea that some mathematicians have been saying for months now that Trump could lose popular vote by even more. He lost that by about 3 million votes in 2016 but still won the Electoral. He could lose that by even more, maybe 5 million votes or more and still win.

And then just to try to understand how we got where we are with the Electoral College. Your heard one of the professors say it's a Frankenstein's monster. It really is. It really is. It is just such a deviation from what the founding fathers ever intended. We have come so far and it's almost impossible to see how what we have ended up with is anywhere near what they intended, namely these electors, these electors who were picked.

Alexander Hamilton wanted these men, and they were all men, at the time to go in and vote for whoever they thought was best no matter what their states decided.

[13:30:00]

And now, clearly, that's not where we are. And legally speaking, most electors can't even do that anymore.

KEILAR: No, that's right.