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U.S. Army Confirms Oleandrin Shows no Efficacy in Lab; Interview with Former Ebola Czar Ron Klain; Laura Loomer Wins Republican Congressional Primary. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired August 19, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, NEWSROOM: A new development in the unproven therapeutic that the MyPillow CEO is pushing President Trump to endorse -- it's called oleandrin, there's no legitimate study showing it works in coronavirus patients, it's never been tested in coronavirus patients, never been tested in animals. Yet the MyPillow CEO is falsely calling it a cure, as you may have seen yesterday in my interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE LINDELL, CEO, MYPILLOW: This thing works, it's the miracle of all time.

COOPER: You said -- sir, you said you've seen this test. Where is it?

LINDELL: The tests are out there, the thousand people, phase one, phase two --

COOPER: Where is the test? Show it to us.

LINDELL: I don't have the test on me.

COOPER: Name where it's from. Who did the test? What university, what doctors?

LINDELL: Well, you'd have to talk to -- I guess you'd have to have Dr. Carson and then the company, all the tests that were done, on your show.

COOPER: You said you saw the test, you read the test. So tell me about the test. How -- where was it done?

LINDELL: The test, it was done on over a thousand people, it's for safety --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Where was it --

LINDELL: -- they did it --

COOPER: -- done? And what were the procedures for the test? You read this, let's hear it.

LINDELL: The procedures are, it was used against cancer so they did -- when you do a safety test of phase one and phase two, it's to see if there's any --

COOPER: There's been no phase one and phase two on this drug, sir.

LINDELL: What's that?

COOPER: There's been no phase one and phase two on this drug, sir.

LINDELL: Yes, absolutely, there has. The FDA has had it since April, a hundred percent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: He sits on the board of his biotech company that gains to benefit financially. I want to go to Barbara Starr at the Pentagon.

Barbara, one of the places where the company claims oleandrin is being tested is at an Army lab. That is no longer the case. Explain what's gone on.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, I talked to officials at the Army lab and here's what they are very happy to have the public know. They were very open about it.

They did look at testing oleandrin extract. In fact, they did it in a laboratory. They put it in a culture dish and tried to see if it had any impact against the virus, any ability to kill cells. And the results were inconclusive is the polite way of putting it, they could not make any conclusion that it had any impact whatsoever, we are told.

And so they rapidly moved on. Because right now in the U.S. military research, civilian research, medical research community, they are moving very rapidly to what they think might have some efficacy to what might work.

And when they looked at oleandrin and they tell me they conducted multiple tests within the government and with contractors, they could find no conclusive evidence that it had any benefit whatsoever. Inconclusive results is the word we got from the U.S. Army today.

And you have to keep in mind, the U.S. Army has decades and decades of research, experts in infectious disease around the world. Because, of course, the military deploys around the world. So they are very expert in looking at this and they are working really very closely with the civilian sector right now on trying to find therapeutics that actually do factually work.

The Army, very aware of this other research, very aware that there's been some tests in monkeys for example, but no verified human tests that this has any impact on coronavirus --

COOPER: Right, they didn't actually test monkeys, they used monkey cells in a test tube. And that is what they claim -- it's an unpublished study, it's not peer reviewed. They're -- you know, it's never been published, so it's not really a legitimate study. That's the one study that's out there. And two of the people who wrote the study are actually -- have a financial stake in this little company that is pushing this unproven substance, so.

Great -- I'm glad you were able to -- that they were so forthcoming and said that, you know, they looked at it, no proof and they moved on to things that actually have some --

STARR: YEs, they --

COOPER: -- future.

STARR: Quickly, Anderson, the U.S. Military was very happy to tell me they have moved on.

COOPER: Barbara Starr, appreciate it. Thanks.

I want to reset our coverage. With nearly 5.5 million people infected, more than 170,000 dead from the coronavirus, more than half of Americans think the U.S. is not on the right track. That's according to a new CNN poll, which found that 55 percent of people believe the worst of the pandemic is yet to come; 40 percent believe the worst is behind us.

[14:05:04]

That's even as the number of new cases, on the decline in 20 states -- that's the good news, when compared to a week ago -- for those pinning their hopes on a vaccine and a return to pre-pandemic life as a result, Dr. Anthony Fauci is urging some caution as the race to develop one continues.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Having a vaccine is very different from proving that a vaccine is safe and effective. For that matter, Frank (ph), we have six vaccines now. We haven't proven them yet to be safe and effective.

When we do, then we can accurately say we feel comfortable with distributing a vaccine to hundreds of millions of people. But before and until you prove it's safe and effective, you really don't want to be talking about having a vaccine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: "The New York Times" reports that Dr. Fauci and other federal health officials have stepped in to halt an FDA authorization for an emergency use treatment. It involved using blood plasma donated by COVID survivors. Our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is here.

So we talked about this in the last hour. Explain what is the sticking point here? Because a lot of people had put a lot of hope in this blood plasma idea.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So much hope. There's so much emotion behind this treatment: people who have survived from coronavirus give their plasma to people who are sick, and then they see if it works. And sometimes, those people do get better and everyone's happy and it's such a warm, encouraging story.

But you need to know, is there data behind it? Were they going to get better anyway or did they get better because of the plasma? According to "New York Times" reporting, there is some concern that this data is murky, that it's not really clear if this treatment works. And that's why there's been a hold put on any kind of FDA authorization for plasma treatments.

COOPER: Now, if a vaccine is approved, a new report shows who's likely to get it first. Who's that?

COHEN: Right. So this new report from Johns Hopkins looks at who should be getting this first, and this report says frontline workers. And I think everyone -- you know, a lot of people agree with that, that the people to get it first should be frontline workers and people at greatest risk for having complications, such as the elderly and people with certain underlying medical conditions.

COOPER: There's also always the question of whether people are going to get vaccinated. CNN has a new poll out, what's the consensus? What does it show?

COHEN: It shows some pretty bad news, and so let's take a look at this because I think this is sobering for anyone who's working on the vaccine.

We asked in a poll -- we polled people August 12th through 15 and asked, would you try to get a coronavirus vaccine if it existed? Only 56 percent said yes, and 40 percent said no. It is going to be very hard, Anderson, as you can imagine, to reach levels of community immunity with just 40 percent of the people taking the vaccine.

And then this actually, this next set of numbers is even worse. We asked the same question in May, would you try to get a coronavirus vaccine? And 66 percent said yes. Now, only 56 percent say yes. So that's a 10-point drop in just a matter of a few months.

And, you know, it's interesting because the anti-vaccine people have been really hard at work -- you just have to turn to your Facebook feed -- sort of filling Facebook with lies about this vaccine. It seems to have been effective. So far there is no organized government pro-vaccine campaign. So in some ways, not shocking that this is happening.

COOPER: Yes. Elizabeth Cohen, thank you very much.

Joining me now is Ron Klain, he's currently an adviser to Joe Biden and formerly served as the Ebola czar in the Obama administration.

Ron, I mean, you see those numbers about people saying, you know, they wouldn't get a vaccine if it was available. I guess -- I mean, it's surprising, perhaps not so surprising given, you know, conspiracy theories and the like. But it's alarming.

RON KLAIN, SENIOR ADVISER TO JOE BIDEN, FORMER EBOLA CZAR: It's very alarming, Anderson, for two reasons. First, as your correspondent just noted, the way vaccines work is obviously we get a shot, we're protected. But no vaccine is perfect. There are some people who can't get a vaccine. So the way we really protect populations is by having very high levels of overall vaccination, snuffing out an epidemic by having, you know, 80, 90 percent vaccination rates.

And so if we can't get that number up significantly higher than today's CNN poll suggests it would be, the vaccine's going to protect a few, not all of us. That's the first point.

The second point is, look, it's not really a surprise. In addition to the existing anti-vaccine movement in this country, we've had just a series of misinformation from the president. You know, he's out there touting hydroxychloroquine. You had Mr. Lindell on yesterday, touting this crazy medicine that you've debunked.

And so I think as people hear about all these false promises, the president stirs the pot, he doubts scientists? It just feeds this existing sentiment and makes public uncertainty about these vaccines even worse.

COOPER: It was interesting, the same CNN poll, Americans were asked if they were proud or embarrassed over the country's coronavirus figures? Sixty-eight percent said they were embarrassed. Other polls show the presidential race tightening. It seems contradictory.

[14:10:06]

KLAIN: Well, I mean, let's put the politics aside for a second, and talk about how people should feel about our response. I mean, yesterday, the five largest countries in Europe had -- which have about the same population as the United States, those five countries combined: Italy, Germany, France, Spain, the U.K. -- they had 60 deaths from COVID, we had 1,300 deaths from COVID.

So if those five countries, if you get it under control, it's understandable that people in the U.S. are embarrassed and horrified by our response. And I think that's how people should feel. There is no reason why Europe, which faced the same crisis we faced in the spring, is now at a handful of deaths and we're still seeing over a thousand deaths a day in the United States.

COOPER: How do you describe Dr. Fauci's role right now? I mean, he seems to be kind of talking more as an observer these days when it comes to the federal response.

KLAIN: Yes. I think it's scary to see that Dr. Fauci appears to be being ignored, largely ignored by President Trump: consulted rarely and kind of having to just offer his views as an outside observer.

He is our nation's best infectious disease expert. When I ran the Ebola response, he was our principal medical adviser. I talked to Tony almost every single day. Five prior presidents relied on Dr. Fauci to fight diseases all over this world and here in the United States. There's no better person to have in that job, but it only works if the president's willing to listen to him. And I hope he does.

Joe Biden, I'm (ph) working for this campaign, he said that the day he's elected president, one of the first phone calls he's going to make is to Tony Fauci, ask him to stay, and tell him his advice will be paramount. I think that would make a lot of Americans feel better.

COOPER: The president criticized the handling of the Swine Flu outbreak while Obama and Biden were in office, calling it a disaster. You've said that this could have been a mass casualty event, but that luck was on your side?

KLAIN: Yes. I think -- well, the point I was making about that was that the vaccine in that case took much longer to develop than we had wanted to. We did, though, put in place testing, we did put in place tracing, we did the things to get it under control.

In the end, what I'll say about H1N1 is this: It's sad that 13,000 Americans died in a 13-month period from H1N1. Obviously, 170,000 deaths in six months is a completely different kind of failure by the Trump administration.

What's more, Anderson, we never had to close down the economy to fight H1N1, we never had to close down schools. Didn't see people going to college, coming back. So we were able to put in place testing, tracing, all these things.

The vaccine did take longer than we wanted it to with H1N1. I'm glad to see the effort to get a vaccine quickly on this disease, but the Trump administration's effort to tout these fake cures, the uncertainty about all that risks what we talked about a minute ago: people not being willing to accept that vaccine when it is proven safe and effective.

COOPER: Yes. Ron Klain, appreciate it. Thank you very much.

KLAIN: Thank you, Anderson.

COOPER: Second wave in Australia being blamed on two hotels.

Plus, the president wants Americans to stop buying Goodyear tires over MAGA attire, even though he's against -- supposedly -- cancel culture.

[14:13:17]

And just a week after a supporter of the bizarre anti-Semitic QAnon conspiracy theory won a Republican primary, a bigoted conspiracy theorist wins another one in Florida.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, Laura Loomer is a far-right activist banned from social media over hate speech. She's now the winner in a Republican congressional primary.

Loomer is a self-described, quote, "proud Islamophobe," has called Islam a cancer on society. She refuses to get into cabs driven by Muslims, and was banned from Twitter after calling Congresswoman Ilham Omar anti-Jewish. She's also been banned by Facebook, Instagram, Uber, Lyft, PayPal and Venmo. Loomer also traveled to Parkland, Florida a week after the 2018 shooting that killed 17 people, accusing the survivors of being puppets.

That is the person who won the Republican primary for Florida's 21st District. That district also happens to include Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.

The president is congratulating Loomer on the victory. This, just one week after he congratulated Georgia candidate Marjorie Greene who openly backs the bizarre QAnon conspiracy theory which thinks that Democratic leaders are Satanists and running an international cabal of sex traffickers who drink children's blood. She won the primary.

I'm joined now by "New York Times" Opinions columnist Frank Bruni and political columnist for the "Bulwark" Amanda Carpenter.

Amanda, let me start with you. Reaction to really -- you know, we're seeing Trump embrace fringe candidates. Amanda, he actually called the QAnon conspiracy theorist a future star of the Republican Party.

AMANDA CARPENTER, POLITICAL COLUMNIST, BULWARK: Well, here's the thing. Donald Trump and misinformation, disinformation, grievance and conspiracy go hand-in-hand. You really can't support Trump and his style of politics without also supporting that.

And so that has naturally created a big vacuum in the Republican Party from, you know, into these congressional seats. You see people who can't abide by that kind of style of politics leaving the party, speaking in slots at the DNC last night.

And so what fills that gap are candidates like Laura Loomer and Marjorie Greene who do embrace conspiracy theories and this kind of disinformation and grievance. And they automatically get support from the president. It is a very direct shot where they can claim power in a way they never could have before.

[14:20:13]

COOPER: Frank, Laura Loomer, it's a -- she's in a district that votes Democrat, so it's unlikely she will actually get to Congress. The other -- the QAnon one from Georgia, it's a very good chance she will get to Congress.

FRANK BRUNI, OP-ED COLUMNIST, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Oh yes, Marjorie Greene probably will join the Republican Caucus in Congress, and people are going to be talking about the QAnon Caucus. Listen, this has been a big month for the lunatic fringe in the Republican Party, and a big month for Donald Trump embracing them.

And while Laura Loomer won in part because there were a lot of Republicans running in this primary, so she didn't need to get to such a very high level of support, and she's not going to end up in the House of Representatives, I think this still -- this matters in a big spiritual sense, but also, this is getting a lot of news attention in Florida.

Florida, of course, is a key battleground state with 29 electoral votes. I think Donald Trump, by embracing Laura Loomer, is playing with fire. I don't think beyond this primary, beyond that district in terms of how Florida votes on and before November 3rd, I don't think this is going to help Donald Trump win that state. I don't think this is going to make him appealing to swing voters.

But he seems to have embraced a strategy in this 2020 campaign of just trying to kind of gin up a very limited base as much as he can, and he seems to be abandoning the center entirely.

COOPER: You know, Amanda, I -- Scott Jennings was on the program last night. And I mentioned that, you know, President Trump had called this QAnon conspiracy theorist, who's coming to Congress, you know, the future star of the Republican Party and you know, I think Scott said it was an asinine comment that he had made and you know, this is not the future of the Republican Party. But I mean, if it remains Trump's party, it kind of is the future.

CARPENTER: Yes. I do think this will be Donald Trump's political legacy. If he wins or loses, it's just a matter of which degree. I mean, make no mistake, Donald Trump explicitly coddles and cultivates this kind of thinking: through retweets on his Twitter account, what he picks up and blasts out at rallies to directly appeal to that audience.

And so this isn't an accident. All these conspiracy theories that he has been touting since he launched his presidential campaign, have consequences. And we are all suffering through it. There is no coincidence that with all this medical and political disinformation that we are suffering through an incredible politicized pandemic.

So, you know, people can pretend like, oh, this is just stuff that Donald Trump says, but it has real consequence in our lives.

COOPER: Yes. Frank, I mean, it's easy to just -- you know, when you look at what the QAnon believers, you know, it's like a cult. I mean, when you look at what they're actually believing about, you know -- I mean, it's so bizarre to even -- it's like going down a crazy rabbit hole.

It's easy to kind of make fun of it when you first see it but, you know, there are people who have shown up with guns at pizza parlors. You know, the guy in D.C. showed up, you know, with an automatic weapon at a pizza parlor, thinking he was there to rescue children. And, you know, there are no children being captive in this pizza parlor. I mean, it's -- you know it does have real-world consequences.

BRUNI: No, yes, we can't make fun of it. There may not be that many believers in any one conspiracy theory, but Donald Trump is promoting, through these conspiracy theory culture, because that ultimately helps him.

There is a connection between congratulating Laura Loomer, welcoming Marjorie Greene to Congress when she comes, and telling people that they can't trust that the election is going to be legitimate, telling them that their votes may not be counted or that there's voter -- you know, voter fraud here and there.

He wants to create an information ecosystem that is so polluted, and he wants people to distrust so many things that he can then fill that vacuum with whatever he wants them to believe. So this is all of a piece.

COOPER: Frank Bruni, Amanda Carpenter, appreciate you being with us. Thanks very much.

President Trump, urging his millions of Twitter followers to boycott an American company despite previously railing against so-called cancel culture in the past, what the company is saying.

[14:24:24]

And that is just the latest in a long list of things that has drawn the president's scorn. We'll run through them, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: President Trump is calling for a boycott of Goodyear after an employee complained the company wouldn't allow him to wear a MAGA hat to work.

This is the image that started the firestorm. Our affiliate WIBW obtained it from a Goodyear employee in Topeka, Kansas. It shows a slide from a training session that Black Lives Matter and LGBT clothing is acceptable, but Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter and MAGA attire is not.

Goodyear says the slide was not created by their corporate office and that it generally asks its employees to refrain from political expressions. The statement went on to say that the company wholeheartedly supports both equality and law enforcement and will continue to do so.

Still, the president today, tweeting to his supporters not to buy Goodyear tires, and arguing this is his chance to fight back against the cancel culture of the Left.

It's not lost on us that he's arguably one of the founders of cancel culture. Look at just some of the companies, people or products he's called to boycott or fire over the years, starting with his favorite medium, TV. He's called for entire networks to be boycotted including CNBC, HBO, NBC, Univision and CNN.

[14:30:09]