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Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Call for U.S. Mask Mandate; Trump Fuels Fake Birther Theory About Kamala Harris; The Multicultural Background of Kamala Harris; Trump, First Lady Request Mail-In Ballots in Florida; Bipartisan Concerns Raised About Post Office Changes; Democrats Want Probe Into New USPS Postmaster; Many European Nations Report Sharp Rises in COVID-19 Cases; New Zealand Reports 12 New Cases as Testing Ramps Up; Weekly First-Time U.S. Jobless Claims Fall Below One Million. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired August 14, 2020 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome back to you, our viewers in the United States and around the world.
The U.S. Democratic Convention are just a few of days away and Joe Biden and his vice-presidential pick, Kamala Harris are making the coronavirus pandemic a central issue in their campaign. CNN's Jessica Dean has more.
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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Be a patriot. Protect your fellow citizens. Step up. Do the right thing.
JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tonight, Joe Biden calling for governors to implement an immediate mask mandate, saying it could save tens of thousands of lives.
BIDEN: Every single American should be wearing a mask when they're outside for the next three months at a minimum. Every governor should mandate mandatory mask wearing. The estimates by the experts are it will save over 40,000 lives in the next three months.
DEAN: Biden has previously said, if elected, he would consider using his authority to mandate face coverings. Joined by running mate Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee today pushed back on those who oppose such mandates.
BIDEN: It's not about your rights. It's about your responsibilities as an American.
DEAN: A day after their public debut on the Democratic ticket, Biden and Harris were briefed on the coronavirus pandemic and the economy by a host of experts, including former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen and former surgeon general Vivek Murthy. BIDEN: I've been doing these briefings with two of the four docs up there.
DEAN: Today's events aimed at drawing a contrast with the Trump administration, offering a vision of how a Biden-Harris White House would confront the crises facing the country.
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: That's what real leadership looks like.
DEAN: Harris, continuing her indictment of President Trump's handling of the pandemic.
HARRIS: There may be some grand gestures offered by the current president about a vaccine, but it really doesn't matter until you can answer the question, when am I going to get vaccinated?
DEAN: The campaign's focus on policy today comes as it announced bringing in big money since Biden announced Harris as his vice- presidential pick, raising $34 million on Tuesday and Wednesday.
(on camera): Biden and Harris did not take questions on Thursday. But on Wednesday, they told my colleague Arlette Saenz that they would campaign together in the fall if science allows. Going back to the scene that we have seen from the Biden campaign that they really want science to lead their decisions.
Jessica Dean, CNN, Wilmington Delaware.
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BRUNHUBER: President Trump is fueling yet another birther conspiracy. He is praising a controversial lawyer who falsely claims, Kamala Harris isn't a U.S. citizen and is in eligible to be U.S. vice president. Sounds familiar. Harris of course is American and is fully eligible to serve in office alongside Joe Biden. The lawyer wrongly argued that Harris isn't eligible because her immigrant parents weren't naturalized U.S. citizens when she was born in California. But the President didn't dismiss the allegation.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: there are claims circulating in social media that Kamala Harris is not eligible to run for vice president because she was an anchor baby, I quote.
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Do you, or can you definitively say whether or not Kamala Harris is eligible, meets the legal requirements to run as vice president.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So I just heard that. I heard it today that she doesn't meet the requirements. And by the way, the lawyer that wrote that piece is a very highly qualified, very talented lawyer. I have no idea if that's right. I would have assumed the Democrats would have checked that out before she gets chosen to run for vice president.
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BRUNHUBER: Independent fact checkers call the lawyer's argument racist nonsense. Now CNN's Nic Robertson takes a look deeper look at Harris' multicultural background and how it influenced the Democratic vice- presidential candidate.
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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice-over): Kamala Harris speaks passionately of her heritage.
HARRIS: You know, my mother and father, they came from opposite sides of the world to arrive in America. One from India, and the other from Jamaica.
ROBERTSON: A daughter shaped by the world.
HARRIS: My grandparents were phenomenal. We would go back to India like every other year.
ROBERTSON: Her grandfather, an accomplished diplomat. A young Kamala Harris would walk the beach with him and his buddies.
HARRIS: They would talk about the importance of fighting for democracy, and the importance of fighting for civil rights and that people would be treated equally regardless of where they were born or the circumstances of their birth.
ROBERTSON: Values Kamala's mother, Shyamala Gopalan, embraced and her parents indulged.
Her brother, Harris' uncle, awed by her drive.
GOPALAN BALACHANDRAN, SEN. KAMALA HARRIS' UNCLE: Can you imagine 1959, a 19-year-old girl who has done home science and B.A. in Lady Irwin College. Going to a PhD program in biochemistry at University of California at Berkeley all by herself.
ROBERTSON: She met Kamala's father, Donald Harris, an economic student, together becoming civil rights activists, and marrying. They had two girls, Kamala, then Maya, divorcing when Kamala was 7. Those early years, spending time with Jamaican grandparents too. Her father, well-regarded in Jamaica.
RICHARD BERNAL, FORMER JAMAICAN AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: Professor Harris is a very thoughtful, calm person.
ROBERTSON: Although Ambassador Bernal never met his friend's daughters, he's sure they benefitted from his country's qualities.
BERNAL: It is this quality of self-confidence. And I'm sure that the children would have imbibed some of that from Jamaican, born in Jamaica.
ROBERTSON: But it was her mother who would raise her and influence her the most.
HARRIS: She was a brown woman. She was a woman with a heavy accent. She was a woman who many times people would overlook her or not take her seriously, or because of her accent assume things about her intelligence. Now, every time, my mother proved them wrong.
ROBERTSON: Like mother, like daughter, a trailblazer, and maybe all the way to the White House.
Nic Robertson, CNN, London.
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BRUNHUBER: For weeks President Trump has been railing against voting by mail. But now he and first lady Melania Trump have requested mail- in ballots for the Florida primary. Records from the Palm Beach County supervisor of elections website shows there ballots were mailed Wednesday to Trump's Mar-a-Largo resorts. But it comes even as the president now admits he's holding up funding for the post office because he believes balloting by mail encourages fraud. Even though there's no evidence for that. CNN's Kristen Holmes has more.
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KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Trump admitting he's opposed to funding for the Postal Service for political reasons.
TRUMP: They want $3.5 billion for something that'll turn out to be fraudulent. That's election money basically. 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, those two items. That means you can't have universal mail-in voting because they're not equipped to have it.
HOLMES: Fueling outrage over the Trump administration's attempts to use the postal service to meddle in the election.
BIDEN: (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE).
Biden: He won't want an election.
HOLMES: With more people than ever expected to vote by mail in an election held in the middle of a pandemic, President Trump has spent months making false claims about widespread fraud.
TRUMP: This is a thing that will be a disaster like never before.
HOLMES: Meanwhile, both the Democrats and Republicans raising concerns over changes made to the agency by the new Postmaster General, a Trump fundraiser and ally, including major shakeups in leadership and cost cuts that some workers say have slow delivery.
SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): Now is not the time to be cutting back services.
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HOLMES: All this as postal workers across the country are sounding alarms this week over the removal of hundreds of mail processing machines from postal facilities. Documents obtained by CNN outline the plan to remove nearly 700 machines used for organizing letters and other mail.
Well, a spokesperson for the service describes the removal as a cost saving measure, postal union leaders warned that something like this just months before the election could cause delays.
In a statement, the Postal Service saying it quote, routinely moves equipment around its network as necessary to match changing mail and package volumes.
S. DAVID FINEMAN, FORMER CHAIRMAN, U.S. POST OFFICE BOARD OF GOVERNORS: I don't understand why they were taken out. I heard someone report that they might have been taking out to use for spare parts made little sense to me.
HOLMES: And new revelations over the Postal Service's urging that states use more expensive first-class mail to make sure the ballots are prioritized or risk that voters will not receive their ballots in time to return them by mail. The influx of mail-in voting causing some states already financially unstable during a pandemic to bulk at the cost.
Now, Democrats are asking for a new USPS inspector general investigation. This time to look into Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's finances. New financial disclosures obtained by CNN showed DeJoy apparently did not divest millions in stock from his former company, a current Postal Service contractor, and that DeJoy holds stock options in a major USPS customer, Amazon.
The Postal Service says he has followed all of the ethics requirements.
(on camera): So just to recap here, we have a President who is now openly undermining the system. You have not only Democratic and Republican lawmakers raising concern, but also postal workers, state officials. All sounding the alarm and we are just three months out from this election. And we have to be clear. This is the integrity of the election. And right now it remains unclear whether or not this is going to change ahead of November.
Kristen Holmes, CNN, Washington.
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BRUNHUBER: The coronavirus pandemic has already hit European tourism hard. Now with new cases surging across Europe, there are new restrictions on movement, on travel. So we'll have more on that coming up after the break. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: French authorities have just declared Paris and Marseille to be active circulation zones of coronavirus. Which means further restrictions on movement and activities. Weeks after previous lockdowns restrictions were lifted many European countries are now scrambling to head off a second wave. CNN's Scott McLean has more from London.
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SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As the summer heats up in Spain, so has the coronavirus pandemic, daily new infections the highs they've been in months. Some of the worst spikes have come in Madrid, Barcelona, and Zaragoza. Where the Spanish air force is building a brand-new field hospital to deal with the surge of new patients.
ARANCHA GONZALEZ LAYA, SPANISH FOREIGN MINISTER: So the situation is under control. Outbreaks are the new normal. The important thing is to manage them in a responsible manner to prevent them from becoming a sanitary crisis.
MCLEAN: Spain has had the most confirmed cases in Western Europe, and once had one of the strictest lockdowns, too. But as restrictions eased, cases have risen, many linked to young people and nightlife.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Because we do not take care or take precautions or pay attention to the health ministry.
MCLEAN: It's a similar trend across Europe, where overall infections are rising.
DR. MICHAEL RYAN, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: Call it a second wave. You can call that a second spike. You can call that a flare-up. You can call it anything you like. Take the pressure off this virus. The virus will bounce back.
MCLEAN: Italy, once the epicenter of the pandemic, is now requiring visitors from Spain, Croatia, Malta, and Greece to be tested for the virus.
Greece, which was spared the worst of Europe's first wave, just registered its highest daily increase ever. France is also seeing its sharpest rise in cases since its lockdown ended, and even requiring masks outdoors in some places.
OLIVIER VERAN, FRENCH HEALTH MINISTER (through translator): Patients diagnosed with COVID-19 now are younger, 20 to 14, and less fragile. And because older people continue to protect themselves.
MCLEAN: So far, the number of deaths in Europe is holding steady, but experts warn more deaths will follow if new measures to control the virus aren't taken soon.
Scott McLean, CNN, London.
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BRUNHUBER: New Zealand is scrambling to contain a COVID outbreak as the country reports 12 new cases in response to more than 15,000 people were tested on Thursday. And now the country is extending restrictions in its biggest city, Auckland and elsewhere. CNN's Selina Wang is following developments from Hong Kong. Selena, you know, a dozen new cases, not a lot obviously, but New Zealand is basically using their version of shock and awe to contain this new outbreak, right?
SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Shock and awe is one way of putting it, Kim. The Prime Minister is calling it a strategy of going hard and going early. And she's been praised for that approach. Back in March, if you remember, New Zealand had put in place one of the harshest lockdowns and paired that with aggressive contact tracing and testing and it did work. Up until this week life for people in New Zealand was pretty much back to normal.
Up until Tuesday the country had a 102-day streak of no new logo COVID infections. But now you have these new restrictions back in place. So that means that in Auckland it's some 1.7 million residents have to stay at home except for essential trips. And then the rest of New Zealand faces increased social distancing measures.
A total of 30 new infections have been recorded since Tuesday. And the new cases on Friday include two students any preschooler. But it is still a mystery as to what the origins of this virus are.
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Health officials say that they are investigating a variety of theories, one of which include a low possibility that it could have come from imported frozen food packaging. We know that the virus can survive for longer periods of time in refrigerated environments. And China has reported several instances and detecting the virus on frozen seafood packaging.
Now the Prime Minister has made it clear that they are pursuing this all-out elimination strategy. So all it takes is a few cases for them to say goodbye to normalcy. She said that lifting restrictions now would be the worst thing for Auckland and the New Zealand economy because it could lead to a potential resurgence and explosion of cases.
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BRUNHUBER: Selina Wang, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
And the U.S. unemployment claims dropped below one million for the first time in weeks. So we'll explore what that means for the job market coming up next.
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BRUNHUBER: The U.S. jobs market is showing new signs it's recovering but it still has a long, long way to go. The U.S. Labour Department reports new unemployment claims fell below 1 million last week for the first time since March. A total of 963,000 new claims were filed, a drop of almost a quarter of a million from the week before. But ongoing claims, now there are still more than 15 million of those.
So let's discuss this with CNN's Eleni Giokos. More than 960,000 new unemployment claims. I guess that's good news, sort of.
ELENI GIOKOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I mean, look, and this is going to be a numbers heavy answer because it's important to look at these figures in context. So yes, first time that we've seen a dip below 1 million, for the first time in 20 weeks. It is encouraging. But during the peak of the global financial crisis initial claims came through at around 600,000. So again, 963,000 level for one week is still staggering.
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It shows the pain that is experienced in households in the United States. And importantly, imagine losing your job and the people that are being impacted by the fact that you have enhanced benefits that have expired and other benefits that have expired at the end of July. All of these are going to play a material role. So yes, it's an encouraging sign, it's a downward trajectory. But again, you've got 15.5 million people on continuing claims. You've got 28 million people that are applying for some kind of benefit.
And in the backdrop, you've got stimulus talks that have completely collapsed, Kim. So these are very big issues right now for vulnerable Americans and why you're seeing an improvement in the overall number. It certainly isn't close enough to a true recovery. It's pointing to some kind of relief down the line. But remember, you've got COVID-19 cases that are increasing. Companies are pulling back on opening. Economic activity is definitely not where it should be.
So on a week-by-week basis we take a very close look at these figures. So if we can see a continuous decline in these numbers and momentum picking up here, that would be an encouraging sign. The overall unemployment rate in the U.S. is above 10 percent. Again, it's still above the peak of the global financial crisis. And of course, we've got a complete disconnect from what we're seeing on Wall Street. We've got markets sitting very close to record highs. There's just so much uncertainty here and it's really reflected in the numbers and the way that Wall Street and Main Street are responding.
BRUNHUBER: Absolutely, those numbers, I mean, it shows the scale of the problem that, you know, those grim numbers are seen as encouraging. Thank you so much. Eleni Giokos in Johannesburg, appreciate it.
And thank you for spending your time with me here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. "EARLY START" is up next. Please do stay with us.
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