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Every 60 Seconds, 1,300+ Americans Reported Dead over Past Day; Trump's Ex-Adviser Bannon Arrested on Built The Wall Fraud Charge; CNN Reports, Trump Hell-Bent on Making GOP Convention Different Than Democrats. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 20, 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 HOST: Join us for a special coverage as well.

Don't go anywhere, a very, very busy news day, Anderson Cooper takes over right now. Have a good day.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: I'm Anderson Cooper and I want welcome viewers here in the U.S. and around the world.

At least 173,000 Americans have now died from COVID-19, nearly a quarter of deaths worldwide, and an 1,000 average deaths reported every day for 3 weeks. That is the reality of the virus' toll on this country, in the United States, months after this all began.

But another part of that reality is that each of those numbers represents someone who was loved, whose life was interrupted and who will be forever missed. One of them is Sarah Montoya, who made this urgent plea from her hospital bed just last month.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH MONTOYA, COVID-19 PATIENT: Never in my life did I ever think that I would be fighting for my breath, something that we take for granted every day when we wake up. Please do not put your families at risk. I did the best that I thought that I could. It is not worth it. Put your masks on. Don't go out if you don't have to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Sarah Montoya was just 43 years old. She leaves behind a husband, three daughters one whom pregnant with a first grandson due in November.

Nakoma James was a beloved husband, father, assistant football coach at Lafayette County High School in Oxford, Mississippi. He died earlier this month while in self-quarantine with coronavirus-like symptoms. His widow, Laticia, spoke shortly after they laid him to rest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LATICIA BROWN, LOST HUSBAND TO COVID-19: My man, everything is going to be all right. This is my husband. I mean, it is all right. We'll go to the hospital and everything is going to be right. The paramedic came and said, ma'am, we have been working on him for 45 minutes. We've done all we can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: The Lafayette's County High School Commodores, which held their first practice this week plan to honor James during the upcoming season.

And then there's Dr. Joseph Costa treated the sickest patients in this pandemic, he's head of the ICU at Baltimore's Mercy Medical Center. His husband, David Hart, spoke with me about the Dr. Costa's final moments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID HART, LOST HUSBAND TO COVID-19: I had contracted COVID from Joe at the time he was dying. I was just not going to not be able to touch him with my bare hands, with my cheek. So I took everything off. I just took it off. I know I wasn't supposed to do that. But at that point, it was what I wanted to do for him to help support and comfort him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Unlike so many others, he was able to be by his husband's side when he died.

David went on to say that the fight against the virus is an ethical and moral moment for our country. Those are just three of the people who have died in this pandemic. We give you the numbers every day. We thought we wanted to start off this broadcast by showing you some of the lives who we have lost and the lives that they led.

Across the country with college campuses becoming a growing hot spot for the virus transmission, Dr. Deborah Birx is now urging officials to expand their testing efforts now that many students are back in class.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. DEBORAH BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: This last trip through the heartland really brings attention to how each university not only has to do entrance testing, but what we really talked to every university about is being able to do surge testing. How are going to do 5,000 samples in one day or 10,000 samples in one day?

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COOPER: Dr. Richina Bicette is a Medical Director and Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Bicette, thanks for being with us.

Just remind us what would surge testing involve and how would this work logistically on a college campus?

DR. RICHINA BICETTE, MEDICAL DIRECTOR AND ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Good morning, Anderson. Thank you for having me.

So, what surge testing involves is essentially testing of a large amount or a large group of people. And what Dr. Birx is urging is that campuses get prepared to test at least 5,000 to 10,000 students per day. That is a significant number of tests that she is urging campuses to be prepared to perform. What we don't understand though is how these colleges and universities are going to get the resources to be able to perform this kind of surge testing.

Across the country, we are seeing major hospital systems and hotspots across the United States, including Georgia and including Texas, that are only able to perform 200, maybe 300 tests per day.

[13:05:02]

So how exactly is it that the federal government is urging universities to be prepared to do 5,000 or 10,000?

COOPER: And we know some schools have set in quarantine dorms, others are suspending classes for a short period of time, others are shifting to online classes altogether. If you're advising a college university administrator, what would you tell them to do to protect students and faculty?

BICETTE: I would urge them to imagine the behaviors of college students. We have already seen at places like UNC in Chapel Hill that there have been outbreaks and that they have had to go back to virtual online testing. There have been viral photos that have been released on the internet of students at the University of Alabama at a bar with no mask on, hanging out with people in the local town where their university is housed.

College students are not following social distancing guidelines. They are not quarantining. And that is why colleges that have opened thus far are starting to see surges in coronavirus cases, not only amongst the students but amongst the staff, as well.

COOPER: There is so much focus, obviously and understandably, on the vaccine, and we all want to know when would the vaccine be available. The top adviser to Operation Warp Speed says he expects a COVID vaccine to be widely available between April and June of next year. And then much of the high risk population in the U.S. will have been vaccinated by that time, frontline workers, essential workers. Does that new timeline -- I mean, it's -- one, it's good to know they're confident it will be widely available by then but that's a long way off.

BICETTE: Is it good to know, Anderson? I'm not exactly sure about that. I need to see data before I have the same level of confidence that the Dr. Slaoui has. What we don't understand, and I think what the American people don't understand is that vaccine development is a very, very long process. One of the top vaccine manufacturers in the United States, Merck and Company, they have created four of the last seven novel vaccines in the last 25 years and it's taken 4 years for them to develop the fastest vaccine. So how is it that we are confident that we're going to have a vaccine to a virus that was just discovered at the top of the year? I'm not exactly sure and I would need to see the data on that.

COOPER: Interesting. Dr. Richina Bicette, I appreciate talking to you. Thank you so much and thanks for all you're doing.

COOPER: We're following breaking news out of the New York where former Trump campaign adviser, Steve Bannon, will appear in court soon after he was arrested and charged with fraud earlier today. Bannon along with three others are accused of defrauding donors who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to build Trump's border wall. This is hardly the first associate in the president's orbit to find themselves in legal trouble. His former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and his longtime ally and adviser, Roger Stone, just to name a few, obviously.

The president was asked about the former campaign adviser earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I feel very badly. I haven't been dealing with him for a long period of time, as most of the people in this room know. He was involved in our campaign. He worked for Goldman Sachs. He worked for a lot of companies, but he was involved likewise in our campaign and for a small part of the administration very early on. I haven't been dealing with him at all.

I know nothing about the project other than I didn't like when I read about it, I didn't like it. I said this is for government. This isn't for private people. And it sounded to me like showboating and I think let my opinion be very strongly stated at the time. I didn't like it. It was showboating maybe looking for funds and you will have to see what happens. I think it's a very sad thing for Mr. Bannon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: CNN's Kara Scannell helped break the story, joins me now from outside the courthouse. What can we expect from today's court appearance?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: Well, Anderson, we are just learning that Steve Bannon is expected to appear in court in person this afternoon whenever that court appearance is scheduled. He will face these charges. He will be likely released on bail.

Now, Bannon was arrested this morning on a boat off the coast of Eastern Connecticut along with -- where he was charged along with three others with misleading investors into this border wall crowd- fundraising scheme that they called, We Build The Wall. Now, prosecutors say that Bannon and others had told people that all of the money that they've raised, $25 million worth of it, would go toward construction. But prosecutors say instead, they used the money to pay for personal expenses.

Here is specifically what they say about Steve Bannon. They say, that Bannon, through a non-profit organization under his control, received over $1 million from We Build The Wall and used among other things, secretly pay one of the co-defendants, Brian Kolfage, and to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bannon's personal expenses.

This is a significant development. These charges, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, each carry prison sentences of a maximum of 20 years in prison.

[13:10:02]

It was unlikely, if convicted, Bannon would face anything around that amount of time.

Now, Bannon will not likely enter a plea today. We have reached out to his lawyer who has declined to comment on these charges. You mentioned what the president has said and Bannon is certainly just the latest in a number of people who have been close to the president who worked on his campaign, including Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen, who have been caught up in criminal investigations. Anderson?

COOPER: Did you say he was arrested on a boat?

SCANNELL: Yes, that's right. So, sources tell us that Bannon was arrested on a boat. One person said it was actually his boat that was docked in -- off the Coast of Connecticut, in the Easter Coast of Connecticut, in the Long Island Sound. Sometime early this morning, he was arrested by investigators with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and also with investigators with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, that's the arm of the Postal Service that conducts financial investigations.

COOPER: That's fascinating. Kara, thank you so much for the reporting.

Preet Bharara is a CNN Senior Legal Analyst and a former U.S. Attorney. Preet, how serious are these charges?

PREET BHARARA, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Very serious. They're serious because they carry, you know, incredibly difficult prison sentences, potentially not -- up to 20 years but probably, as Kara said, the defendants convicted wouldn't get 20 years.

The reason they're serious also is because they're fairly straightforward. There was a kind of elaborate scheme to prevent this from coming to light. So funds were coming in for the purpose of building a wall. First, it would go to the government and then they decided that they're going to do private construction of the wall.

But the evidence that's laid out in the indictment consists bank of documents, consists of text messages. And all they have to show at the end of the day to prove the guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is that they made certain representations that 100 percent of the money is going to go towards building the wall, that no compensation or salary was going to begotten by any of the people who were named in the indictment. And then if they show transfers of money for personal use, which can be done by just comparing documents, the case is over and guilt is proven.

So it's serious because they're serious charges, wire fraud, money laundering, but also serious for those involved because the case seems to be overwhelming.

COOPER: I mean, if these allegations are true -- I mean, this has been your life's work -- do people think they get away with this stuff? I mean, if it is so cut and dry of like the documents tell the story, he is in the public eye, it just seems pretty brazen.

BHARARA: Look, we have had brazen frauds before. The most extreme of which maybe is Bernie Madoff, outside of my office, as well, by my office as well. It is hard to understand why. I know with respect to Steve Bannon himself, he's a man of great means. I don't know the exact financial backgrounds of the other gentlemen. It seems like they're people of means as well.

And what's also sort of contemptible about it is the scheme was to get money -- I know Kara Scannell said investors. These weren't really investors. These were small-time donors who believed in a particular cause of building a wall along the southern border, which the president assured us for four years it was going to be paid for by Mexico.

And some of these people actually said, we don't have a lot of money and want to make sure it goes towards this purpose. And so they said over and over again, no money is going to go to line the pockets of the people in this enterprise. 100 percent of your small dollar donations are going to go to building the wall and that was an inducement to some vulnerable people who had a belief in this cause, and it was a lie.

And over and over again, they went through the -- the indictment, by the way, is 23 pages. It would be many pages shorter, but for the fact that the indictment lays out again and again and again just how many times the leaders of the scheme put representations forward on the website, on social media and emails and other places that zero dollars were going to go into the pockets of the people behind this program, and that turned out to be false.

COOPER: What's also so sleazy about the whole idea is this is the guy who was running -- co-running the president's campaign in which building a wall was the driving force, a clarion call repeated over and over again at rallies that he would then take that and his association with that and, according to prosecutors, try to profit off it by creating this thing and, you know, building a private wall.

BHARARA: Yes. Look, it shows that -- putting aside the legal aspects of this on the political side and on the sort of policy side, it shows that people closest to the president, and maybe this includes the president himself, actually have no belief in many of the things that they put forward. It is just a cynical attempt to line your own pockets with money from people who have been brought along (INAUDIBLE) towards building a wall on the southern border.

And it just sort of -- it pokes a hole in the whole idea that some of these people, Steve Bannon, who is the CEO of the campaign.

[13:15:05]

He wasn't a smalltime person in the campaign and in the administration, although it didn't last that long, that's drove (ph) a lot of people, myself included, that they don't actually believe in these things. And they use these efforts in a cynical attempt to defraud people who are in the president's own base. So, it's legally serious, it's politically odd and cynical, and it's also just, I think, an affront to anybody, not just the people who gave money but to everyone else.

COOPER: And also for a president that ran on, I choose the best people, I know how to run a company, I got the best people around me, I mean, you look at the rogue's gallery of people who have been charged --

BHARARA: He was asked by a reporter. I saw it earlier today. He was -- the president was asked by a reporter who listed off a number of people who were close to the president who have been charged or have been convicted of crime. He said, what does that say about your judgment? The president said, I don't know. I think reasonable people can say we know exactly what that means. He has very poor judgment. He knows that their reputations associated with these people. He hires them anyway. Roger Stone is a case and point and someone we've been talking about recently.

And I guess the question is now, going forward, that a lot of people are asking, what are the implications for the future?

COOPER: Yes.

BHARARA: And we're going to get into this round of speculation, I guess, we did when Michael Cohen was arrested. And Steve Bannon may or may not have information about other people, up to and including other people in the campaign and the president himself. And we are facing what is potentially a long prison sentence and Steve Bannon is not that young a man. There is an incentive to tell the federal prosecutors, agents things that they know and that could be to the detriment of the president and to others.

COOPER: All right. Preet Bharara, I appreciate it, thank you very much. It's fascinating.

President Trump under fire from embracing a dangerous conspiracy group. The FBI says they're dangerous. They believe politicians and celebrities kill any children and worship Satan. I'll speak live with someone who's been getting death threats from QAnon. Plus, after his predecessor launched a stinging rebuke, hear how the president is said to be hell bent on making next week's convention a spectacle.

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[13:20:00]

COOPER: President Trump is planning what can be described as, I guess, a nominating extravaganza. CNN learned the president has been calling aides at all hours with last-minute ideas and demanding updates on speakers for the Republican National Convention set to begin Monday. Trump hoping for a convention that looks very different to the virtual Democratic Convention which we know, through his Twitter feed, the president has obviously been watching.

Still, while hundreds of Americans are dying every day from coronavirus, Trump is looking to have at least some type of audience at multiple appearances. He's planning, if history is an indicator, masks and social distancing not be required.

Alexi McCammond is a Political Reporter for Axios. She joins me now from Wilmington, Delaware.

Early indication showed the president will dive into culture wars. How does it compare with the message of unity you think we've been hearing from the Democrats?

ALEXI MCCAMMOND, POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: Yes, that's exactly right, Anderson. And thank you for having me today. I mean, the RNC and the DNC, in terms of messaging, could not be more different. This week, we have really seen how Democrats have pushed a message of unity, which, of course, is not totally different than what Dems want to do at any convention but that's a lot easier to do when it's virtual because you can have this kind of protest or boos from the crowd or demonstrations.

So it really helps push the image of unity, but also we have seen Republicans cross party lines to attend virtually the Democratic Convention and make the case for why Republicans should be supporting Joe Biden over Donald Trump. We're not going to see something like that from Democrats crossing over to tell folks why they should to support Donald Trump at the RNC next week.

And to your point about culture wars, I mean, that's something that President Trump has relied on time and time again since he was running for president and certainly throughout his presidency. But you even see that kind of theme or contrast in the speakers that we've seen released alone. One that stood out to me of a huge contrast with the Democratic Convention is that couple from St. Louis who was seen in a viral video pointing guns at Black Lives Matter protesters after George Floyd's killing. And they will be speaking at the RNC Convention. And I think that just shows kind of where the two parties are on one of the biggest issues facing the country right now, which is police brutality. COOPER: Last night, obviously, the historic speech by Kamala Harris and incredibly probably the speech of her political life thus far, and also, really, a remarkable speech by former President Obama, a speech kind of backing, trying to fill out the profile of who Joe Biden is and the relationship. But, really, I mean, attacking I'm not sure is the right the word but just devastating critique of President Trump and of, really, kind of an emergency call about the future -- what he believes is the future of democracy is in this country.

MCCAMMOND: Yes, that's right. I mean, former President Obama said in no uncertain terms that democracy itself is on the stake -- is at stake in this election. And I think that is a pretty strong rebuke from the former president who has, otherwise, tried to stay in the shadows or the sidelines, not coming out and attacking Trump or criticizing Trump for different things that he does.

And now it's growing (ph) the urgency the Democrats feeling to not just defeat Trump but move their own party forward in a really substantial way. And we saw that even in the lineup last night. The Democrats are really trying to prioritize a future generation of leaders.

That's why an aide to Obama told me that Obama actually was supposed to be the closing speaker and he switched spots with Senator Kamala Harris so that he could kind of pass the torch to a new generation of leaders, really kind of showing not just what Democrats want the country to look like after Trump, whenever that is, but what they want their own party to look like and represent and talk about.

[13:25:06]

COOPER: That's interesting that they switched places. That's very interesting.

A senior adviser tells CNN the Biden speech tonight won't be centered on Trump. Obviously, he has made his thoughts on Trump very clear in his announcement video and all throughout the campaign thus far. Do we know what he's going to be focusing on?

MCCAMMOND: So, my understanding is that this speech is still being fine-tuned and we won't really have a preview until a little bit later this afternoon perhaps and maybe not at all. But what we do know is that, throughout this convention, we heard folks, like former First Lady Michelle Obama, or even Senator Kamala Harris, I think they both only mentioned President Trump by name one time each. And I think that that kind of an interesting theme that we're seeing with Democrats really focusing on unity and what the (INAUDIBLE) and why folks should vote for Joe Biden, not just against President Trump.

I have been thinking a lot about this, Anderson, and the coronavirus pandemic I hear from voters all the time that there's fatigue of partisan politics. And I think that this moment for Democrats is something that they're really taking into heart and not trying to rely on partisan attacks against President Trump but really kind of talking bigger picture, talking about why voters should support the party but also why this moment is so much bigger than just the incumbent president. And I think that's what we can expect to hear from Biden tonight.

COOPER: Alexi McCammond, I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

MCCAMMOND: Thank you.

COOPER: New warnings about possible COVID-19 infections at a biker rally last week.

Plus, the president essentially endorsing a conspiracy group that believes the world is run by Satan-worshipping pedophiles. And we'll look at the nonsense conspiracies that they believe in. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You guys are --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't believe in the First Amendment?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I totally believe with the First Amendment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But you don't. You just said the press is the enemy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, you guys are weaponized. You're guys are totally weaponized by the CIA.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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