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Schools and Colleges Struggle to Reopen Amid Coronavirus Pandemic; Admiral Brett Giroir Warns to Keep Guard Up as Cases Decline Across the U.S.; Kamala Harris Accepts Historic VP Nomination; White House Taskforce Warns of "Expanding" Community Spread in Georgia; Georgia Governor Defends COVID-19 Response Amid Growing Criticism; New York City to Lift More Restrictions As Infection Positivity Rate Hits New Low. Aired 9-9:30a ET
Aired August 20, 2020 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:14]
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Good Thursday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Poppy Harlow.
Do not let up. That is the warning from the Trump administration's coronavirus testing czar this morning, Admiral Brett Giroir. States across the U.S. are seeing a decline, a lot of them are seeing a decline, in coronavirus cases and that is good news, but the admiral says that if we are not careful things could turn around very, very quickly. And he tells Americans that wearing masks and social distancing combined with testing are working and we cannot let up now.
That warning comes as schools nationwide are struggling to safely reopen, now prompting pushback from America's teachers. More on the strikes and the threats to strike in a moment.
SCIUTTO: Plus, an historic night at the Democratic National Convention. Kamala Harris accepted the nomination for vice president, making her the first black and South Asian woman ever to be on a major party ticket.
Another unprecedented moment from the night. Former President Obama's stunning rebuke and takedown of President Trump, warning that the current president is a threat to American democracy itself.
Tonight, we will hear from Joe Biden himself as he accepts his party's nomination. We're going to have more on the details of that later, how it's going to play out. But first, let's get to CNN's Bianna Golodryga. More on the pushback we're seeing from the teachers as schools begin reopening.
This is happening in a lot of places and New York is unique here, right, because New York is a place that has gotten the outbreak under control. The positivity rate in the latest test is just way down. A fraction of where it was weeks ago. But teachers there still pulling back.
Tell us what they're doing.
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes, teachers in New York are pulling back, Jim. The positivity rate is lower. But the teachers union, the Federation of Teachers in New York say that they would like a delay to the start of classes which are scheduled to begin September 10th. We're talking about 75,000 education workers in the city that are demanding that there's going to be more protection done for them to make sure that when they return to school, not only will children be tested, they want teachers to be tested as well. They want nurses to be provided.
The mayor of New York says that they are trying to make safety accommodation as necessary and said that there will be nurses. But this just goes to show you've got a positivity rate of under 1 percent in New York and you take a look at a city like Detroit and there are 51,000 students there, they've got a positivity rate in the city of just around 1 percent, and still concern from teachers.
The Detroit Federation of Teachers overwhelmingly voted by 91 percent, they can authorize a strike. They also want to see a delay in classes. And they say that their health concerns are not being addressed. And 80 percent of teachers there who were asked said that they support online instruction, do not feel safe returning to classrooms.
So this just gives you a sense, Jim and Poppy, of the concern that a lot of teachers, a lot of those that work in schools still have about returning to the classroom. Ventilation continues to be a big problem for a lot of these schools in this country, and as parents we can understand we don't want to send our students and our children back to class if their teachers don't feel comfortable being there because that raises the question of what kind of education are they going to be getting.
SCIUTTO: True. And the question is, you know, what mitigation works, what's necessary, Dr. Fauci and others have said with that mitigation it can be safe.
Bianna Golodryga, thanks very much.
This morning coronavirus cases in the U.S. are trending down. It's good news and it's a remarkable change just in the last couple of weeks. That's something to be lauded and it's a sense of where these mitigation efforts are making a difference. But also coming down is nationwide testing, and Poppy, as we've said on this broadcast many times, testing is necessary to help continue to control the outbreak.
HARLOW: A hundred percent. Let's go to our Dianne Gallagher. She has more.
Good morning, Dianne.
DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Poppy and Jim. So, yes, cases, they're on the decline but there are a lot of health experts that are concerned that we're not getting this accurate picture of just how much coronavirus there is in the U.S. especially in hot spots like Georgia, Florida and Texas, because the number of people being tested is on the decline in those areas.
Now to give you an example here, yesterday there was reported to be just under 681,000 new COVID-19 tests. The seven-day moving average that we tend to look at here is just about 745,000 tests. Now that may sound like a lot to you there, but that's a lot of tests that are underneath what we've actually been looking at here. The average number of tests per day, according to the Trump administration's testing czar, is roughly 820,000 tests a day and we've seen a pretty steep rate of decline just from late July when we were hitting this number of testing high to where we are right now. Almost 25 percent of a decline.
[09:05:03]
And again, we are seeing it in states like Georgia and Florida and Texas. Now there are a lot of different reasons that health experts have given. Some of this is data input, antigen tests that aren't necessarily being added or they're being added in bulk. Other health experts say that it might just be COVID-19 fatigue that there are -- people are tired of waiting so long to get results, saying that especially in the month of July, some people -- myself included -- were waiting almost two weeks to get tests.
The testing czar, though, did say that even though those case numbers were on the decline that we don't need to let off of the gas, that we need to make sure that we stick to the plan so we don't see a turnaround again, Jim and Poppy. And see what we basically saw after Memorial Day.
HARLOW: Let's hope that we can keep going in this direction. And as you note, Dianne, that it's for the -- for accurate reasons, not for a lack of, you know, getting results. Thanks a lot.
Let's turn to politics now and it is the final night tonight of the Democratic National Convention and tonight, presidential nominee Joe Biden will take the virtual stage and he will deliver his plan for America. CNN has learned the speech is expected to be, quote, "optimistic," and will not focus on President Trump.
SCIUTTO: Yes. That's a remarkable strategic choice there. Stark contrast of course from blistering attacks we heard from President Obama last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies. I did hope for the sake of our country that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously. That he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.
For close to four years now, he has shown no interest in putting in the work. No interest in finding common ground. No interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends. No interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.
Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't, and the consequences of that failure are severe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Joining us now, April Ryan. She's White House correspondent for American Urban Radio and Networks. And Ron Brownstein, senior editor of the "Atlantic."
April, I want to start with you and your reaction. Because we saw there, of course, from President Obama, you know, the attacks on Trump. If you look at Kamala Harris and this first-time moment for America, a woman of color accepting the major -- a nomination for a major party, she was focused on the future. Let me play this one clip here and I want to get your reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And years from now this moment will have passed and our children and our grandchildren will look in our eyes and they're going to ask us, where were you when the stakes were so high? They will ask us, what was it like? And we will tell them -- we will tell them not just how we felt. We will tell them what we did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: That last line there also from her memoirs, in fact.
April, tell me your reaction to that message there from Kamala Harris.
APRIL RYAN, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, AMERICAN URBAN RADIO AND NETWORKS: Well, the message last night was resounding. First of all, when she came to the podium I thought about the potential of the next few months if I could be in the White House and she could be vice president, and I would possibly raise my hand and saying, Madam Vice President. I saw a presidential nature, vice presidential nature of a woman who was running for president, who could now be vice president.
This moment in history is like none other. We are in the midst of a deadly pandemic and a racial reckoning, and she brought to bear at the very beginning of her statement the race portion of it. She heralded the names of those ancestors who fought so hard for the democracy. The black people who fought for this democracy. And then she went into this moment and how there needs to be change.
She is that transformational portion of the Biden ticket that is needed in this moment to show what did we do in this moment because history is going to be viewed from many people. This moment in time, they're going to use this moment to figure out how to progress in the future if they have a pandemic, if there's another racial reckoning. This is a moment that we have to be very precise with in what we do and she's absolutely right. [09:10:06]
HARLOW: Ron Brownstein, you have a really interesting new piece in the "Atlantic" this week. Here's what struck me. You write, "Democrats offer the 21st century version of a Norman Rockwell," painting. And you go on to say that Trump has committed the GOP to a strategy of squeezing bigger margins from a shrinking share of the electorate, while systematically alienating the groups that Democrats are highlighting this week."
Are they doing that effectively enough? Or is there too much focus on being anything but Trump and not enough focus on America ahead?
RON BROWNSTEIN, SENIOR EDITOR, THE ATLANTIC: I think there -- I think what they have done, Poppy, has been very effective. The issue I think is more as in 2016 what they haven't done. I mean, if you look at the two big messages of this convention, one has been as I said embracing the changing America.
The reality that America is growing more racially diverse, it's culturally changing, it is economically changing, and in the brilliantly re-imagined roll call vote in the group, keynote address, Democrats -- and in the historic moment of Kamala Harris as a woman of color, though, it kind of capstone of it, accepting the nomination. All those ways they have shown they accept and embrace that changing America.
Similarly, you know, they have made a very strong case against president trump not only on the traditional policy grounds, but former President Obama last night laying a claim that we have never really heard one president say about his successor. But one for which there's evidence to make it a credible claim. That he is a threat not only to my policies, but to the underlying democracy of the country.
And both of those are powerful messages and mobilizing the people who respond to those messages is a big part of how Joe Biden will win if he does, but there is another piece to the puzzle.
SCIUTTO: OK.
BROWNSTEIN: And that is delivering a bread-and-butter economic message to voters who don't respond as much to either of those arguments and that's largely blue-collar white voters in those Midwestern states that tip the election to Trump and which are now, by the way, Trump is now back up to 60 percent among noncollege white in the latest CNN poll, but it's also true among a lot of non-white voters.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
BROWNSTEIN: Research shows respond primarily to the bread-and-butter economic messages, that's the task ahead for Joe Biden tonight.
SCIUTTO: OK. April Ryan, tonight Vice President Biden will speak. It's Jeff Zeleny's reporting that he's not going to focus on Trump. What does Biden have to do tonight? Because fact is many Americans have not seen or heard much from him. What does he have to do, particularly to Ron's point in terms of painting a picture of what the presidency and the policy would be under him?
RYAN: So Joe Biden, the former vice president, has left it up to everyone else to fight the dragon that the Democratic Party calls Donald John Trump, but now tonight is for him to have a speech that unites, that talks about this moment, this historic moment, but yet has this futuristic view of hope that we can do it.
What Barack Obama won on was yes, we can and change. Firing up the American spirit. What Joe Biden has to do in this moment, in this virtual moment, without people. Without those signs, without the claps and applause is to fire the American public up. Not just the Democrats, but the Republicans who are on the fence and those independents who are on the fence. He has to show he is a man of strength.
He is not Barack Hussein Obama, but he is Joe Biden who has his own unique way and style of touching the heart and making people feel like they matter, so he has to bring that on 1,000 times on steroids tonight. That's what he has to do.
HARLOW: We'll be watching, April, thank you. Ron, so nice to have you both back. It's been a minute. Thanks so much.
RYAN: Thanks.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Good to be here.
RYAN: Thank you.
HARLOW: Still to come, the White House is warning of expanding community spread of COVID-19 in Georgia. The question is what's the governor going to do about that?
SCIUTTO: Plus a bipartisan Senate report out this week, damning new details of Russia's interference in the 2016 election as well as participation from members of the Trump campaign. We'll have more on that.
And a top critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin, he is now in intensive care after a suspected poisoning. Russia has done this before. We're going to have a live update on what we know from Moscow, coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:15:00]
SCIUTTO: Welcome back this morning. A dire warning from the White House coronavirus taskforce as southern states grapple with growing cases and reopening schools there.
HARLOW: That's right. Georgia is seeing the highest daily number of COVID cases per capita. Our Natasha Chen is at the White House -- is with us in Atlanta with what White House advisors are saying. Good morning. NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Poppy and
Jim. Well, this taskforce report is scathing when it comes to Georgia. As of last Sunday, Georgia Tech and Stanford researchers said that this state has the highest per capita circulating infection rate in the entire country.
So this report also goes through what Georgia should be doing better to stop the spread of that virus. And things like closing gyms, closing bars, limiting restaurant capacity to 25 percent in places with high-risk infection and limiting the group gatherings to 10 people or fewer even within families because they're seeing this virus spread from households.
They're also talking about a mask mandate in counties with the higher case-count and really with their threshold that pretty much covers the entire state. Though Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has refused to issue a statewide mask mandate. Instead, this is how he reacted to this report.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): This is what's so frustrating about pandemic politics and leaked reports. I wouldn't be able to speak to who leaked the reports, why they leaked it, what the politics were behind the leak? All I'm asking for is Georgians to get all the information.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[09:20:00]
CHEN: And he is correct when he talks about the progress of the seven-day average of new cases declining in the last few weeks. What's also declining is the amount of testing, and Governor Kemp has said that testing capacity remains high, but is underutilized. Poppy and Jim, back to you.
HARLOW: OK, Natasha, thank you for all of that reporting. Now to Brooklyn, an area of New York City just devastated by this virus in the early months. But right now, a very different story that COVID-19 positivity rate right here in New York City, it is only 0.24 percent.
That is an astonishing change. With me now is Dr. Arabia Mollette; she's an ER physician at Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center. It's a nonprofit hospital, it serves the most vulnerable people in the city. And we're so glad you can be here, good morning.
DR. ARABIA MOLLETTE, ER PHYSICIAN, BROOKDALE UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL MEDICAL CENTER: Good morning, Poppy. How are you?
HARLOW: Well, I think, you know, we're better, and you're hopefully a bit better than you were in the thick of it when we had you on, it was this Spring, and we have some video showing you working in the hospital and what you were trying to cope with.
Can you -- can you tell us what your message is for New Yorkers, given this low rate of positivity, but the fact that things are opening up in New York. You've got bowling alleys that are going to open in New York, you've got museums about to open next week, schools, September 10th are going to open. How do we not revert back?
MOLLETTE: I mean, the thing is that what we did as New Yorkers, we came together to fight this pandemic. And in various ways, for one, we were on the strictest lockdown in the entire nation for approximately I believe 15 weeks.
Many people complied with wearing masks, practicing physical distancing. I know that we were saying social distancing, but we were practicing physical distancing, and people took care of one another. People were kind to each other. People were very patient with us as far as health care workers.
And the resilience that we have as New Yorkers was one of the keys that we had to in order for us to survive this pandemic. Even though, we're still in the pandemic, but we were able to flatten the curve, and so I'm very proud of us as New Yorkers, and as well as other cities on the northeast that had worked together tremendously. If it wasn't for fellow New Yorkers, MTA --
HARLOW: Yes --
MOLLETTE: Governmental agencies, our political leaders, even the media outlets that appropriately disseminated good information about COVID-19, I don't think we would be where we are right now --
HARLOW: Yes --
MOLLETTE: And I'm so happy because my -- you know, I'm much happier now than I was before.
HARLOW: We're so glad. I mean, it really is about collective and united sacrifice, right? Much more so from you guys, the frontline workers. But everyone doing their part. You don't walk -- I don't walk out of my -- you know, my home in Brooklyn and see anyone without a mask. That's for sure.
On the vaccine front though, because that is really the ultimate goal, there -- it's really concerning what we're seeing out of the trial from Moderna this week, that only 4.5 percent of those enrolled in the trial are black and 10 percent are Latino. That is not representative of their part -- portion of the population. Why do you think this is happening?
MOLLETTE: Oh, the reason why it's happening because there's a huge -- a history of mistrust stemming from unethical medical experimentation that it took place here in the United States on slaves, the Tuskegee experiment, agent orange, the Guatemala STD study that occurred as well, and so because of the history that -- of this mistrust --
HARLOW: Yes --
MOLLETTE: Therefore, it leads to more black and Latino people to be a little more wary about the vaccine.
HARLOW: Yes --
MOLLETTE: We want safety, we want efficacy and I -- you know, for me personally, it needs to be transparent. We need all transparency. We need to see the accuracy and safety data, and needs to be broken down --
HARLOW: Yes --
MOLLETTE: So someone with low -- a low literacy health level will understand.
HARLOW: Well, and also, you wrote a really important interesting piece in Yahoo about this, but the fact that only 5 percent of active physicians right now in this country are African-Americans. So it's a lot about representation as well for patients.
MOLLETTE: Of course, of course. And there's many studies that have shown that patients actually respond better to physicians or allied health care professionals where they're coming from the same community and race. And America hopefully and our health care system could be ready to face sexism, the issues with sexism and racism within medicine. I am a black woman and I'm an emergency physician, and like many others, we face unfair, unequal treatment within our own profession.
HARLOW: Yes, can I just end on this, because you touched all of us when you came on the program this Spring. You know, speaking so from the heart and in such a raw and honest way about the mental health impact of this on you guys, frontline workers. Let me just play that clip.
[09:25:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOLLETTE: When they look into your eyes and they give that last breath, what makes you think that I'm going to be OK after this or any health care workers that are on the frontline?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: What do we as a society need to do for you, for all of the health care workers? I'm talking about six months, a year from now when the emotional strain, the mental strain you have gone through, seeing this and watching your patients die for months on end really comes home? What do you need?
MOLLETTE: I think we need continued psychosocial support that is affordable or free at cost -- free at no cost, I'm sorry. We need more protection, still the protective gear, we need more support, and those first few months of the pandemic had tremendously left a major impact on many of my colleagues and myself. I am in a better state than I was before. And part of it is because New Yorkers and everyone came together to help fight this pandemic. But we still need psychosocial support, we need better support if anything. And so when this happens -- if this happens again, that certain things
are set in place where that the PETSD that many of us are struggling with now, a part of the morale injury, the fact that we don't have to worry about if we're going to infect our family, our loved ones if we come home --
HARLOW: Yes --
MOLLETTE: The protective gear, just certain things just need to be set in place so that --
HARLOW: Sure --
MOLLETTE: So that we don't have to go through this again. And it's still --
HARLOW: OK --
MOLLETTE: Tough, it's still tough --
HARLOW: I know --
MOLLETTE: But we're here. We're here --
HARLOW: You're here and we are grateful. Dr. Mollette, thank you.
MOLLETTE: Thank you so much, Poppy. Have a good day, OK?
HARLOW: You too. Jim?
SCIUTTO: As Democrats accuse the administration of trying to use the Postal Service to delay mail-in votes, your votes during this year's election, a bipartisan report shows new details on how Russia interfered in the 2016 election. It's doing it again in 2020 and what help and cooperation they got from Trump campaign officials.
And we're moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street, futures are down. This comes as we learn that another 1.1 million Americans filed first-time claims for unemployment benefits last week, continued jobless claims remain very high, nearly 15 million -- maybe you're watching today, we're going to stay on top of this story.
