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Soon, Trump Expected to Face Reporters after Steven Bannon Arrest; U.S. Official: Positive Trend Could Change if Americans "Aren't Careful"; Fauci Has Surgery for Vocal Cord Polyp; Dr. Birx Recommends Colleges Conduct "Surge Testing" for COVID-19; Colleges Struggle to Reopen as Clusters Pop Up on Campuses; Dr. Lee Norman, Secretary, Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Discuses Struggling Colleges, Surge Testing, Health Officials Investigating 5 COVID Clusters at Kansas Universities; Ex-Trump Adviser Steve Bannon Arrested; Trump Embraces Baseless QAnon Theory, Says Its Backers "Like Me". Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired August 20, 2020 - 11:00   ET

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

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[11:00:43]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan. Thanks so much for joining us.

Soon, we expect to hear from President Trump. He's hosting the prime minister of Iraq at the White House this morning. The prime minister will be arriving any minute now.

And they will be meeting in front of reporters for at least a brief period in the Oval Office this hour. And we're certainly standing by for that.

Especially since this morning the president's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, was arrested and charged with fraud. We're bringing that to you if and when it happens.

Now let's turn to the latest on the coronavirus. New infections in the United States continue to decline today with the country averaging just over 47,000 new cases over the last seven days. That's down 11 percent from the week before.

Looking at the map, you can see that there are 20 states that are now seeing a downward trend in cases, in new cases.

The number of people hospitalized due to COVID is also lower today, down nearly 28 percent since its peak last month.

Tragically, though, more than 1,300 Americans died from the virus yesterday as the daily death toll remains stubbornly high, refusing to decline, it seems. In Florida, the death toll just crossed 10,000 people.

And on the critical issue of testing, the rate is up slightly today but still down in trouble spots like Florida and Georgia, leading some to question whether new cases are now being under counted once again.

Overall, the trends are positive right now. But the country's top official in charge of testing warnings that it can quickly change if Americans aren't careful.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADM. BRETT GIROIR, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES (voice-over): We need to be absolutely diligent about adherence to public health recommendations or else we could have flares and outbreaks. This thing could turn around very quickly if we're not careful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: We also have some breaking news coming in about the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci. He's just out of surgery following a procedure for a polyp on his vocal cord.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta is joining me now with the very latest on this.

Sanjay, what more are you hearing about Dr. Fauci, how he's doing and what this procedure means for him?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, he had a procedure that started this morning. It was under general anesthesia. And it was, as you mentioned, to address this polyp that he had developed on his -- his vocal cord.

We can show an image of what have that looks like. Basically, I know this is something that's been bothering him for some time so he's been wanting to get it addressed, you know, over the past few months, in fact. But now was the time that he could actually get it done.

He texted me -- there you see the image of it. That's a graphic representation, obviously. But that's what the polyp sort of looks like.

It sort of adhered to the vocal cord. It can cause someone to have difficulty speaking, sometimes can be painful as well. And as I mentioned, he wanted to have it addressed for some time so now is the time.

He texted me, Kate, as soon as he got out of surgery. The guy is amazing, right? Almost 80 years old. Texted me as soon as he got out of surgery and said that he was doing OK.

But he's going to need time to recover, obviously, from all of this.

BOLDUAN: You can imagine that recovery means not talking, which is basically what he's been having to do now for six months straight as we lean on him.

Talk -- can you just remind us that -- the kind of representation of a polyp and what it looks like is really useful. But how does a polyp form? I feel like I often hear about it when it comes to singers developing polyps.

GUPTA: That's right. Yes, that's right. There's -- there's all sorts of different reasons, you know. Typically, it's just from overuse of the vocal cords or from damage to the vocal cords in some way.

So singers, as you mentioned, from overuse. But people who are smokers, for example, may be more likely to develop polyps just because of the trauma to the vocal cords.

I can tell you, with Dr. Fauci, he's been talking about this for some time. Back in December of last year, he actually dealt with flu. He had a pretty significant flu virus at that point. This is obviously pre-COVID.

And he's been talking a lot, you know, over the last several months and his voice has become increasingly gravelly. And, you know, he's talked about it.

He knew he had a polyp. It was just a question of when best to sort of have this addressed.

[11:05:01]

And as you mentioned correctly, the advice is going to be don't talk for a while. That's how you rest and recover from vocal cord surgery. Or, if you do talk, keep it at very limited bursts of speaking, just under a couple of minutes, for example.

So we're probably not going to hear from him as much, at least spoken words for some time. So, again, or even just very shorts snippets of speech.

BOLDUAN: I'll tell you, I'll take an interview over text with him, considering how important the information is that we need to get from him at any time.

Thanks, Sanjay. I really appreciate it.

GUPTA: You've got it, Kate.

BOLDUAN: We wish the doctor a very quick and speedy recovery. We mean that in the most urgent sense as we're in the middle of the pandemic.

Let's turn back to the chaos with the coronavirus that's surrounding school reopenings across the country.

The situation on college campuses is becoming especially troubling. And it seems to be quickly exposing how difficult it is to contain the virus no matter the plan in place, no matter how much money any campus may be able to throw at it.

Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, she's now telling colleges that they need to be conducting "surge testing" in order to keep a handle on cases that are popping up and so quickly.

Here's Dr. Birx. Let's play how Dr. Birx put this during a call with state and local leaders yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. DEBORAH BIRX, COORDINATOR, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE (voice-over): This last trip through the heartland really brings attention to how each university not only have to do entrance testing, but what we've talked to every university about it being able to do surge testing. How can you do 5,000 samples in one day or 10,000 samples in one day?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Here's just a sample of the problems that is facing universities right now. University of Mississippi, at least 15 student athletes, one employee, tested positive for COVID.

In Massachusetts, Boston University is reporting 12 COVID cases since testing began on campus late last month.

Five students at Virginia Tech have tested positive for COVID ahead of the fall semester, which starts next week.

That's on top, of course, of the situations at UNC, Chapel Hill, and Notre Dame having to move to online learning only after outbreaks on their campuses this week.

And in Kansas, health officials are investigating at least five COVID clusters at universities across that state.

Let's go there. Joining me right now is the health secretary for the state of Kansas, Dr. Lee Norman.

Dr. Norman, thanks for coming back on. I appreciate it.

First, I want to ask you what you think Dr. Birx is

DR. LEE NORMAN, SECRETARY, KANSAS DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT: Hey, Kate.

BOLDUAN: -- is advising about campuses and colleges doing surge testing. Are colleges and universities in Kansas capable of that?

NORMAN: We have some of our colleges and universities that are doing surveillance testing when students, faculty and staff come in. We have some that are not doing surveillance or testing.

We do have the ability to do surge testing, and, of course, to follow anybody that's going to be symptomatic and then do the cluster tracing and testing around them.

BOLDUAN: The advice from Birx, that makes sense to you, right?

NORMAN: It makes a lot of sense. In fact, I met with her in person here in Kansas City this past Saturday. And we described one of the larger universities that is using a saliva-based test to test every one of the people coming in. They have had quite a number of positives and have been able to

quarantine and isolate those. And they are going to sequentially do the faculty, staff and -- and students in -- in waves, if you will. It's been successful.

BOLDUAN: That's really interesting.

How concerned though -- just broadly locking at what you're dealing with at the moment, how concerned are you about the five active clusters that we're hearing about at colleges in Kansas?

NORMAN: We are quite concerned. Some of the patterns are already emerging. And granted, the classes just started on Monday. So we know the ones that are testing positive probably brought it in from their home communities. I know we'll have more outbreaks than just the five. But it's a big reminder.

In Kansas, our number of coronavirus is still going the wrong direction. Colleges and universities, community colleges, will not be safe islands as long as community numbers are going up.

BOLDUAN: Kansas state is one of the schools that's facing an outbreak, a cluster. And from what I see, it's linked to a fraternity. There are other schools in other states with clusters linked to the Greek system as well.

Dr. Norman, what can you do about this? What can you do about off- campus parties? If this seems to be a particular trouble spot, how do you address it?

NORMAN: Well, to your point, the colleges and universities can do everything in the teaching and learning setting.

But in off-campus housing, and particularly fraternities and sororities, it depends a lot on the governance structure and the civic responsibility, if you will, within those fraternities and sororities.

We've had two significant outbreaks -- you mentioned one of them -- here in Kansas. And I think that's just going to be the tip of the iceberg. It will happen more and more.

I do not know what college presidents and CEOs will do when it comes to the Greek communities. But I think there really needs to be a significant curtailment of their social activities because they are just not getting it, quite honestly.

[11:10:06]

BOLDUAN: And I mean, that must be quite frustrating for you. You opened the campuses, you're there to learn. Yes, college life is also about social life, but this isn't a college year that anyone has experienced before.

I mean, what would you say if you could have every ear of fraternities and sororities, or honestly college presidents, because they need to really start stepping up and start making some decisions? NORMAN: Yes. Well, I've kind of given up a little bit on fraternity

and sorority members, quite honestly.

If you ask them, what should you do to curtail the spread of coronavirus, they can cite it line and verse what is the right thing to do, but they are not doing it. Young people think they are invincible.

But it's, I think, a large amount of responsibility, therefore, falls onto the governance structure of those Greek communities. And then, of course, ultimately, it goes to the top, which is, how much can you curtail their activities. What is it that you can do feasibly? And I think it will get worse.

BOLDUAN: How much worse? What's your fear here? Because I remember, early on, you were very strong in saying you didn't - you were OK with schools shutting down even before there was any community spread in Kansas. I remember this back in March.

And now you're dealing with real community spread --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: -- and schools are reopening. That doesn't make a lot of sense.

NORMAN: Right. Well, and --

BOLDUAN: I feel like we just lost Dr. Norman, as you can well see.

Dr. Norman, thank you very much for your time.

We'll get back with him as soon as we can another day.

We also have some breaking news this morning that we're following. Another associate of President Trump arrested. This time, his former campaign manager and chief strategist -- chief White House strategist, Steve Bannon.

Plus, President Obama delivering a blistering rebuke of President Trump at the Democratic convention, warning democracy itself is at stake in November. So what will Joe Biden say now after what turned out to be a very historic night at the DNC?

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[11:16:22]

BOLDUAN: We're following breaking news this morning. Former Trump campaign senior adviser, Steve Bannon, has been arrested and charged with fraud by federal prosecutors in New York.

He and three others are accused of orchestrating a scheme to defraud donors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars that the donors thought were all going to help fund the president's border wall.

CNN's Kara Scannell is following developments. She joins me right now.

Kara, what more are learning about this - in this indictment?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: Well, Kate, Steve Bannon was arrested this morning, according to a law enforcement official, on a very large boat off the coast of Connecticut.

He was taken into custody and charged with two counts, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The prosecutors allege that Bannon and three others had launched a crowdfunding service to try to raise money to build the wall, called We Build The Wall.

Instead, prosecutors say that Bannon and others used hundreds of thousands of dollars that they raised from donors to pay for personal expenses.

Prosecutors say that Bannon and others had exchanged text messages and had tried to conceal these payments using shell companies.

In the words of prosecutors here's what they said. They said that, "Bannon, through a nonprofit organization under his control, received over $1 million from We Build The Wall, which Bannon used to, among other things, secretly pay Brian Kolfage, one of the co-defendants, and to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bannon's personal experiences."

Now Bannon is in custody. He's expected to make his first court appearance today. Because of coronavirus, a lot of these appearances are done virtually.

But Bannon is not expected to be detained. Prosecutors are not expected to ask him to be held. So we may see Bannon leave the courthouse later today. But it -- it is unlikely he'll enter a plea at this moment.

His lawyers did not respond to our request. He said he had no comment.

And the White House has declined to comment.

Now, Bannon is not the first official that has ties to the Trump campaign and to the president who has been arrested. We've seen Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone and others who have been arrested.

So Bannon is yet the latest person with close ties to the president who has been charged criminally.

Now, there's no allegation that this had anything to do with the White House or the president.

But prosecutors say this scheme began almost as soon as it started in December of 2018 and continued right up until recently -- Kate? BOLDUAN: Yes. You know, Kara I want to just -- if you can stick with

me, I want to keep that -- that graphic up with how many people have been charged or convicted that are linked to President Trump since 2017. It's a pretty startling picture to have up on your screen.

I think we have with us CNN legal analyst, Paul Callen. And I want to bring him in as well.

There you are, Paul. I'm glad you could get connected.

Tell me, as you're listening to this, you've looked at this indictment. How serious are these charges?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's a very serious indictment. It's about 24 pages in length. It asserts a conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering and the diversion of money from a charity.

I think what's interesting about it is that Bannon himself -- they used the figure $1 million as the amount of money that was transferred to Steve Bannon, who, of course, was a top adviser to the president before being fired really by President Trump.

So this is an indictment, by the way, that the maximum statutory penalty is about 20 years in prison. So that's not to say that that would be the sentence handed down, but it's a very, very serious charge.

[11:20:08]

BOLDUAN: One thing that's striking is the extent to which the prosecutors say that Bannon and the others, who are charged along with him, went to cover their tracks here.

What do you think, Paul, they have that gives them the confidence to arrest, indict, charge someone high profile like Steve Bannon, who has been so close to the president of the United States?

CALLAN: Well, I would have to think that they have strong -- a strong paper trails that would lead back to the defendants in the case.

Now they do specifically mention forged invoices. That would be a very, very important piece of evidence if you were trying to prove fraud.

Now, because remember, the basis of the fraud is that the contributors thought they were giving the money to the We Build The Wall crowdfunding organization. And instead the money, so say prosecutors, was going to personal use by Bannon and by other members of the conspiracy.

So you can expect a paper trail. We don't know what the other evidence is.

A lot of times in these cases, Kate, one of the defendants turns on other to get a deal from the prosecution. We don't know whether those talks are going on in the background. But I can tell you, as a former defense attorney, a current defense

attorney and prosecutors, that that happens all the time.

BOLDUAN: Kara, let me ask you, you touched on it a bit, but what more are you learning about the details around Bannon's arrests and the others, if you will, what more you're hearing on how this all went down?

SCANNELL: Well, so this investigation was conducted by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan and also the U.S. Postal Inspector Service. That's the investigative arm of the U.S. Postal Service.

Now what we're told is that people who may have included -- we're not exactly sure if it included people from both of those arms, but we do know that Bannon was arrested this morning with federal officials on a boat that was docked on the Long Island Sound off the eastern coast of Connecticut.

We're told it was a very large boat and that that's where they found Bannon and arrested him this morning.

But this indictment was initially voted on and brought on Monday but stayed under seal.

It's not clear why they moved today to arrest Bannon but we know that happened early this morning, that he was taken into custody and that he's been processed -- Kate?

BOLDUAN: Kara, thank you so much.

Paul, thank you as well.

Really appreciate it.

CALLAN: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: So then there is this. President Trump is not just refusing to condemn a conspiracy theory group that the FBI has identified as a domestic terror threat, but he also seems impressed that they are, in his words, quote, "gaining in popularity," embracing what really amounts to a dangerous online cult because, well, simply put, they support him.

Listen to the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These are people that don't like seeing what's going on in places like Portland and places like Chicago and New York and other cities and states.

And I've heard these are people that love our country and they just don't like seeing it.

So I don't know anything about it other than they do supposedly like me. And they also would like to see problems in these areas, like especially the areas that we're talking about, go away.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Problems in these areas that we would like to go away, like vast conspiracy theories about child sex trafficking?

John Harwood is joining me now from the White House.

John, the president didn't pull a usual, I don't know this group, I'm not going to say anything to make them mad at this moment. He embraced them saying that they like him and that he heard that they're popular.

And then you had the press secretary who tried to blame the media for her boss' words rather than try to clean it up.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, the press secretary is always going to try to cover for the president and explain that the president didn't mean what he said.

But in fact, as you just noted, we entirely know the reason for what the president did. They have praised the president. And if somebody praises the president, he'll embrace them, no matter who they are.

As the president has had a very unpopular term, he's become more and more politically isolated. Anyone who is going to stand up with him, he's going to embrace.

We heard this from Miles Taylor, the former DHS chief of staff, this morning, on "NEW DAY" explain that he'll take any friend.

As a matter of fact, you were talking just a minute ago with Kara and Paul Callan about Steve Bannon. When Steve Bannon left the White House and said some critical things about him, the president blasted him.

Just a few weeks ago, in his interview with Chris Wallace on FOX News, he noted that Steve Bannon had said he's the greatest president ever. So he then said, well, he's doing a great job.

[11:25:05]

That's how his mind works. And he's focused on himself. And he thinks if someone is with him that means they are good.

BOLDUAN: And even if there's a remote possibility that the White House and president isn't really aware of what QAnon is about, when they hear the facts that -- and Kayleigh apparent was presented with this -- that his own administration's FBI considers this group a domestic terror threat, you would think they'd be able to take the very, very bold step, if you will, of saying, yes, we don't actually like them.

I just -- it continues to surprise and not surprise, I guess, John.

HARWOOD: Kate, there's zero chance that the White House does not know who and what QAnon is about. This is very well known.

But, you know, the president himself foments conspiracy theories. There was piece that was written by a columnist in the "National Review" the other day that said the president has weakened the antibodies within the Republican Party against nutty conspiracy theories.

And that's because the president himself has participated in them. Talking about the Russia investigation, saying false about Ukraine and their involvement in the 2016 campaign. Talking about President Obama and spying on his campaign and using words like "treason."

It's all nutty stuff. But this fomented by the president and it's fomented by the friends of the president.

BOLDUAN: And it's super dangerous and it needs to be called out.

Thanks, John. I appreciate it.

Coming up tonight, it's Joe Biden's big night at the Democratic convention. And in what is the biggest speech of his political career to date, we're learning where Biden wants to focus and also where he likely is not going to focus.

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