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Interview with Former CDC Director Tom Frieden; Interview with Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX); Steve Bannon Calls Charges Political Hit Job. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired August 21, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:00:41]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, NEWSROOM: In today's "Home Front," bridging the divide between civilian and military families, we hear from presidential nominee Joe Biden in (ph) appeal to families who serve in his -- in his DNC speech, and also honored his late son Beau, who was a major in the Army National Guard.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: While he's no longer with us, Beau inspires me every day. Beau served our nation in uniform: a year in Iraq, a decorated Iraqi war veteran. So I take very personally and I -- the profound responsibility of serving as commander in chief.

I'll be a president who will stand with our allies and friends, and make it clear to our adversaries: The days of cozying up to dictators is over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Just past the top of the hour, I'm Anderson Cooper. The head of the World Health Organization with a blunt message today, waiting for a vaccine to stop the spread of the coronavirus is not a strategy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, DIRECTOR-GENERAL, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: No country can just ride this out until we have a vaccine. Even if we do have a vaccine, it wouldn't end the pandemic on its own. We must all learn to control and manage this virus using the tools we have now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Those tools, he said, include things like wearing masks and good hand hygiene, two things that current CDC director Robert Redfield says will help U.S. deaths start to decline as early as next week. That, even as a new CDC forecast projects nearly 195,000 total COVID deaths by September 12th. Redfield added that he expects new cases to continue to drop thanks to

more Americans taking precautions against COVID-19. As of today, just 10 states are showing an increase in new cases compared to a week ago. Overall, the number of new U.S. cases is down 11 percent from last week.

With me now, Dr. Tom Frieden, former head of the Centers for Disease Control. Dr. Frieden, just wanted to begin with that new CDC projection of 195,000 deaths over the next three weeks. That's a total number. That is in line with the average of 1,000 daily deaths that we've been seeing. Dr. Redfield said we could soon see a decline, noting the drop in new cases. Can you explain the lag between a drop in cases and deaths?

TOM FRIEDEN, FORMER DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: What we see, Anderson, is first cases go up or down, followed by hospitalization, followed tragically by deaths. But even at the rate we're at now, just keep in mind, that's one American being killed by this new virus every single minute. And even if they fall to half the current rate, that will still be the third leading cause of death in the U.S.

So although it's absolutely true that the rate is less high now than it was a week or two in most of the U.S., it's still very high, too high in many places to go to school or university or work safely.

COOPER: Dr. Redfield also said that he estimates between 10 to 20 percent of the U.S. population has been infected with the virus at one time or another. Do you know how he's getting that percentage, and do you think it's accurate?

FRIEDEN: Yes, that matches a number of other estimates. We think that's basically correct, somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of all Americans, 30 to 60 million people, infected with this virus.

And what you have to recognize from that is that this has been a bad pandemic, but it's nowhere near over. Immunity is not just around the corner. Neither herd immunity, which some people are frankly foolishly talking about, or a vaccine, which is really important but which is going to not be quick or easy. We did get some new evidence this past week that suggests that immunity from a vaccine will be possible, but that's not certain yet.

COOPER: And I know you have an op-ed on CNN.com about -- that touches on herd immunity. Why would -- why is pursuing herd immunity not a wise idea?

FRIEDEN: In all likelihood, getting to herd immunity requires 50, 60, 70, 80 percent of all people to become infected. That would mean hundreds of millions of more infections and at least a million more deaths in the U.S. And globally, many millions more deaths. So that, Anderson, as we said before, that's not a plan, that's a catastrophe.

[14:05:11]

But what we do suggest now is that from both animal and laboratory evidence -- and now some human evidence, it seems that some people who have been infected have some immunity against reinfection. We're not certain of that, but it's looking increasingly likely.

But there's a lot of nuance here. Many of the antibody tests don't actually predict immunity. We don't know how long it will last if there is immunity. And ultimately, we have both peril and promise from a vaccine: the possibility that people will let down their guard.

And what Dr. Tedros said is absolutely correct, no community, no country should say, well, a vaccine's coming so we can relax. That would be exactly the wrong thing to do, first because we don't know if it's coming and when. And second, until it comes, you can see tens or hundreds of thousands of more deaths.

And also, vaccine has to be studied very carefully, no shortcuts on safety so that we can be confident that it's likely to protect people without causing adverse events.

COOPER: So you said antibodies don't necessarily mean immunity. So for those antibody tests people take, even if it shows that you have antibodies, it doesn't mean you're immune?

FRIEDEN: Right. This -- there was a very interesting preprint -- not peer-reviewed study -- released this week from researchers out in Seattle at the University of Washington. There was a fishing ship that went with 120 people on it, and there was a big outbreak, almost everybody got infected.

They had done blood tests before people went out to sea, six people were positive by the commercial antibody test but three of them didn't have what are called "neutralizing antibodies," they had a weaker immune reaction. Two of those three got infected.

Of the three who did have neutralizing antibodies, two or three of them didn't get infected despite multiple tests after. One of them might have had a low level infection or low level continued excretion of the virus from a prior infection. Bottom line? It does look like some people after infection can get some level of protection.

COOPER: On CNN this morning, Vice President Pence laid out a timeline for a COVID vaccine. I just want to play that and get your response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We think there is a miracle around the corner. We believe it's very likely that we'll have one or more vaccines for the coronavirus before the end of this year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Fauci had also said it could be available by the end of this year. There's a difference between something being available and actually being available to everybody who needs it.

FRIEDEN: We really do hope for a vaccine. And it's absolutely the right thing to do, to be going full steam ahead, studying them, figuring out how to distribute them, figuring out also who would get them first because they're not going to be available for everyone, and figuring out how to track them for safety.

One of the things that concerns me, Anderson, is that some of the disease that COVID causes is not from the virus, it's from our own immune system's fighting of the virus. And for that reason, there is the theoretical risk that some vaccines could cause some bad reactions in some people, either from the vaccine itself or from infection with the virus after getting vaccinated.

We'll only know that when it's studied, and it is being studied. Those studies need to happen, need to become public and all of us need to see them so we can make informed decisions about vaccinating ourselves and our loved ones.

COOPER: Even once a vaccine is widely available, does that mean life returns to normal?

FRIEDEN: That's a great question, and a really important point. We still -- we have a great vaccine against measles. And last year, an estimated 140,000 kids died from measles. So even with a vaccine in all likelihood, we'll need to continue to adapt our lives, maybe to wear masks, not to shake hands, maybe not have really large indoor gatherings.

And perhaps most importantly, strengthening our public health systems so that we can test, trace, isolate, support people who have the infection, limit its spread when it occurs with vaccine if that's available, but also isolation and quarantine.

So, yes, a vaccine is the single most important thing we can do, but it's not going to bring an end to this pandemic overnight, and we're still going to need to do the basics of preventing it, finding it and stopping it.

COOPER: Do you think basically people will be wearing masks? I mean, in Asia, many people have been wearing masks now for, you know, the past decade, they've had more experience with these sorts of viruses than we have. Do you think that's sort of the future in America, people wearing masks, people not shaking hands?

FRIEDEN: I think it's likely that for a few years, certainly anyone who's feeling sick should stay home. Or if they go out, wear a mask. I think we're likely to see widespread masking indoors until and unless there's either a very effective vaccine or a very effective treatment or both.

COVID unfortunately is here to stay, and the sooner we come to terms with that, the sooner we can get back as much of our economy, our educational systems and our lives as we can.

[14:10:10]

COOPER: Dr. Frieden, I appreciate your expertise. Thank you very much.

FRIEDEN: Thank you.

COOPER: Postmaster general, grilled by senators today over accusations he's making changes to suppress voters. We'll show you what happened.

Plus, how "Fox News" helped promote the Build the Wall fund that's now at the center of the fraud scandal involving the president's former advisor Steve Bannon.

and just a short time from now, actress Lori Loughlin will be sentenced for her role in that massive college scandal.

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COOPER: Postmaster general and fierce Trump ally Louis DeJoy, facing a grilling from senators today, particularly Democrats who are concerned that the president's attacking vote-by-mail election in the middle of a pandemic. DeJoy shrugged off what they see as a calculated effort to throw the election into chaos.

[14:15:10]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LOUIS DEJOY, POSTMASTER GENERAL, UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE: There has been no changes in any policies with regard to election now for the comfort of 2020 election.

(CROSSTALK)

SEN. GARY PETERS (D-MI): (INAUDIBLE) there will be no post office closures or suspensions before November 3rd?

DEJOY: I confirm post office closures was not a directive I gave. That's -- that was around before I got in (ph), there's a process to that. Now, when I found out about it and it had the reaction that we did, I've suspended it until after the election.

SEN. ROB PORTMAN (R-OH): You do support voting by mail?

DEJOY: I do. That's an interesting -- I think the American public should be able to vote by mail and the Postal Service will -- will support it. So I guess that's yes.

SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT) (via telephone): Do you have a high degree of confidence that virtually all the ballots that would be mailed, let's say, seven days before an election would actually be able to be received and counted?

DEJOY: Extremely highly confident. We will scour every plant (ph) the day -- you know, each night leading up to Election Day. Very, very confident.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro joins me right now. Congressman, are you satisfied with what you heard from the postmaster general today?

REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-TX): I'm not, Anderson, and I think the postmaster general should resign. His answers were not satisfactory. It's clear that the mail has slowed down considerably. He admitted as much.

And I had a chance to visit a post office in San Antonio a few days ago, and was very disturbed when we were told after my visit that there was a lot of delayed mail that was essentially hidden from me when I went to go visit.

And I know that the president has been very hostile towards mailed ballot voting, and because of that, has tried to sabotage the post office. But in the meantime while he's trying to do that, it's also affecting people's ability to get life-saving medicine, businesses being able to send and receive invoices and packages, people being able to pay their bills on time. So this is harming millions and millions of Americans right now.

COOPER: When asked about his conversations with President Trump around the issue, I just want to play for our viewers what he said.

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PETERS: Did you discuss those changes or their potential impact on the November election with the president or anyone at the White House? And I remind you, you're under oath.

DEJOY: I have never spoken to the president about the Postal Service, other than to congratulate me when I accepted the position.

PETERS: Prior to implementing the changes, did you discuss these changes or their impact on the election with any Trump campaign officials?

DEJOY: No, sir.

PETERS: Did you ever discuss any of this with Mark Meadows, any of these changes, what you've done?

DEJOY: No, (INAUDIBLE).

(CROSSTALK)

PETERS: You've never had discussions since you--

DEJOY: I haven't discussed anything with Mark Meadows.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Does it sound unusual to you that he would have zero contact with the president or the White House when he's about to implement massive changes like these?

CASTRO: Yes, it does. And frankly, I don't think that's believable, that he hasn't had high level conversations with either the president, the president's chief of staff or somebody at the White House. Because he is making dramatic and drastic changes to the Postal Service right now.

But let's assume for a second that he hasn't had a conversation with the president. Why would he need a conversation with the president to get his instructions when the president has been very publicly hostile, has questioned the validity and the legality of mail voting? And so to me, that's somebody who is signaling exactly what he wants his new postmaster general to do.

COOPER: You alluded to this, and I just want to go into a little more detail on this. So you visited this local San Antonio post office. The workers said they were directed to deceive you on the visit and hide backlogging issues that they were dealing with. Do you know exactly what they were hiding?

CASTRO: Well, the claim was there there was a lot of mail that had piled up. And then rather than that mail being there for me to see, that there was this huge -- people's mail that's piled up there and been delayed, that they moved it away, they took it away so that I wouldn't see that there was anything wrong.

After that report came out, there had been other Postal Service workers in the San Antonio area who have also reached out and said that right now, overtime has been frozen, at least in San Antonio. And so what happens is, there are piles and piles of mail that are, at 8:30 in the morning, that are still left to be worked on and sorted and then delivered, that are left instead unattended. And that just keeps piling up.

So we've received a lot of complaints from residents here who said, I've been waiting an extra week for my medicine, or a package that I need for my business has taken two extra weeks to get to me. And so the administration, the Trump administration is harming people's everyday lives by sabotaging the post office.

[14:20:10]

COOPER: You know, the president has now vowed to send sheriffs and law enforcement to polling places on Election Day. Is that legal?

CASTRO: Well, we're going to have to -- actually, we're going to have to find that out, right? What his legal authority is to do that. But whether it's legal or illegal at this point -- and that determination needs to be made -- there's no doubt the reason that he's doing it. He's doing it as a way to intimidate people who are going to vote.

This president has been very hostile towards voting, towards Americans exercising their right to vote. And also has asked foreign nations for help -- Russia and even China a few months ago -- asking them basically to interfere in our elections. And so, you know, this has been a president -- the president probably in American history that has been the most hostile to people exercising their right to vote in this country.

COOPER: Congressman Joaquin Castro, appreciate your time. Thank you. CASTRO: Thank you.

COOPER: College football quarterback, sitting out the season because of a heart problem linked to the coronavirus.

Plus, a fight breaks out on a plane over masks as more airlines announce whether they'll leave middle seats open.

And Steve Bannon speaks out for the first time after his arrest in an alleged fraud scheme involving the border wall. Hear his new comments, ahead.

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[14:26:07]

COOPER: President Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon, calling the criminal charges against him a, quote, "political hit job," end quote, today. Federal prosecutors arrested him and three others, alleging they helped concoct a scheme to raise money for Trump's border wall, but instead pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars for themselves.

The so-called We Build the Wall campaign raised more than $25 million. They got a lot of help from "Fox News," multiple hosts interviewed the group's founder, Brian Kolfage, and encouraged people to donate even as other outlets raised questions about his past.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are you doing on the private money-raising for a wall?

BRIAN KOLFAGE, FOUNDER, WE BUILD THE WALL: We're doing incredibly great, and it's all American citizens who are donating to this project to build the border wall.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The critics will say that this is just a publicity stunt, it's not going to even make a dent in the total costs, which would be at least around $20 billion. I'm not great at math, but that's a pretty tough hill to climb. So what do you say to those critics?

KOLFAGE: I'd say they're full of crap. And, you know, this is the United States, and we can do anything we want. And if people want to donate to that wall and give their money, they can do it. I mean, what's 80 bucks for 60 million people? The common person can give that kind of money.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think you mentioned that if everyone who voted for Trump just donated 80 dollars, we'd get the money needed for the wall.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you guarantee that every penny that goes to your GoFundMe account is going to go to the wall? KOLFAGE: Well, we -- like I said, next week, we have big plans. I'm

putting my name behind this, I'm standing up for the American people. They have all given me this money and I'm guaranteeing that that's going to go to the wall. And we'll explain more next week, when we get all the information nailed down legally.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now, again, we wait with bated breath, Brian. We hope you deliver. You've certainly teased it well. Brian Kolfage, we wish you the very best of luck. It's -- you're a terrific person and I really appreciate what you're doing for the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: With me now, CNN's senior media reporter Oliver Darcy.

It seems like "Fox News" knew this would certainly -- I mean, this was the perfect kind of event story for them -- it would be a good headline for its viewers -- and did very little vetting of the actual organization.

OLIVER DARCY, SNN SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER: Right. Well you have to think, Anderson, of Fox as a business organization less than a news organization. And they know what their consumers want. And so when you have a Purple Heart veteran who is raising money to build a wall, you have familiar faces like David Clarke and Steve Bannon behind this, it's a good story for "Fox News." And so you saw them promote this over and over again on their air, on their website.

You -- the point that's worth making is, would they have actually raised all this money -- millions and millions of dollars -- had "Fox News" not trumpeted it on-air? And I think that's probably -- it wouldn't have been the case, right? Had right-wing media not got behind this effort, it's very unlikely that they would have ended up raising so much money.

COOPER: Well, even -- I mean, Donald Trump Jr. appeared at an event of theirs and -- giving them credibility, even though -- or to the degree he can give credibility to anybody, but -- but even, you know, the president is saying, well, look, I oppose this? His son was out there lending his name to it.

DARCY: Right, his son was out there lending his name to it, and Trump knew very well about this, right? It was covered on Fox, he's an avid Fox viewer and so he was well aware of this effort.

And you know, he said the other day -- or the White House said that he doesn't know the people involved in this? That's just not true. As our own Andrew Kaczynski pointed out, he's very familiar with a lot of the people on the board of directors of this group.

And so he was very aware of what was going on with this effort to build the wall, and only really I think distanced himself last month for the first time int hat tweet, where he said that he wasn't a big fan of the group.

COOPER: I mean, if in fact it's proven that they were skimming off money, it's just so hypocritical and just so -- I mean, so cynical for Steve Bannon and others.

(CROSSTALK)

[14:30:03]

DARCY: It's a swampy (ph) thing.

COOPER: Yes. Oliver Darcy, appreciate it, thanks.