Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Trump Convention Paints Grim Picture Of Democrats' America; RNC Makes Appeal To Black Voters; Thirty-One States See Increasing COVID- 19 Positivity Rates; COVID-19 Indicators Decrease After Summer Surge; Father: Jacob Blake Paralyzed After Being Shot By Police. Aired 12- 12:30p ET

Aired August 25, 2020 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Hello, everybody. I'm John King in Washington. Thank you so much for sharing this busy day with us, it is day two. First Lady Melania Trump is a prime time highlight of the Republican Convention program.

Day one offered constant assaults on both Joe Biden and the truth. And it offered a clear look at the president's comeback strategy, fixing his struggling standing in the suburbs is one big convention hope.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICIA MCCLOSKEY, ST LOUIS HOMEOWNER WHO POINTED GUN AT PROTESTERS: They want to abolish the suburbs altogether.

REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): It's a horror film, really. They'll disarm you, empty the prisons lock you in your home and invite MS-13 to live next door.

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE, NATIONAL CHAIR, TRUMP VICTORY FINANCE COMMITTEE: They want to destroy this country and everything that we have fought for and hold dear.

DONALD TRUMP JR., PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP'S SON: It's almost like this election is shaping up to be church, work and school versus rioting, looting and vandalism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Again a lot of that just not true. Another convention goal is to create an alternative coronavirus reality. In the Trump convention version he acted decisively and smartly early on in all is under control now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMY FORD, REGISTERED NURSE: As a health care professional, I can tell you without hesitation Donald Trump's quick action and leadership saved thousands of lives during COVID-19.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We just have to make this China virus go away and it is happening.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They gave me Z-Pac's medication and cough syrup.

D. TRUMP: Okay. I won't even ask you about the Hydroxychloroquine. Because it's a shame what they have done to that one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The actual coronavirus reality right say more painful and a much more complicated script. 5.7 million plus total cases here in the United States, nearly 178,000 Americans dead. America lagging, hardly America first if you take a look at how other nations is fighting this pandemic.

Now there is some improvement ten weeks to Election Day. Look here, the daily average of new cases is down to 40,000 per day. But 40,000 per day is still a too high baseline, way too high. Who do you trust question isn't just a Trump versus Biden framing.

The president says a vaccine is possible before the November election and our reporters now tell us his White House debating using an emergency authorization to rush it to the public. But the nation's top expert Dr. Anthony Fauci says that is, "The one thing you would not want to see".

The president also says the economy is on a super V-shaped bounce back. The reality and you know this because you live it; it's a lot more complicated. It depends on what you do and where you live. Job losses remain very high and unemployment claims rose last week compared to the previous week but again convention speakers say Trump alone can fix it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATION: Trump brought our economy back before and he will bring it back again.

REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): Who better the lead us out of these times than the president who already built the stronger economy our country has ever seen?

TRUMP JR.: So if you're looking for hope, look to the man who did what the failed Obama/Biden Administration never could do and built the greatest economy our country has ever seen. And President Trump will do it again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's discuss. Joining me now Maggie Haberman of "The New York Times" McClatchy's Francesca Chambers. Maggie, I want to start with you. I was reading the live analysis of you and your colleagues last night as the convention was unfolding and one of the smart points you make consistently is that the president is driven by the 2016 map.

He knows how he won last time, he knows how he surprised everybody and he focuses almost obsessively on that as he plans this campaign, including listen here to a bit, the Trump campaign knows the president is not going to win the African-American vote but if he can move the margins a little bit get a little bit more votes for him, drive Joe Biden's total down a little bit among African-Americans in the right places it can help.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HERSCHEL WALKER, FORMER FOOTBALL STAR: I take it as a personal insult that people would think I have had a 37-year friendship with a racist.

VERNON JONES (D) GEORGIA STATE REPRESENTATIVE: The Democratic Party doesn't want black people to leave their mental plantation.

HALEY: America is not a racist country.

SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): Joe Biden said black people are a monolithic community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Pretty striking night, one response to the Democratic Convention, clearly.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, John, but I think it is not just about trying to shave off some slim at the margins percentages of Joe Biden's totals among black voters.

I think it is also about trying to tell suburban white voters that the president who they may feel uncomfortable with the statements the president has made that are widely seen as racist over the last couple of years that there's - he's not a racist, that they should be okay voting for him that they can rationalize supporting him again after supporting him in 2016.

In order to do that they will have to tell themselves that they didn't see a lot of the last three and a half years. Its voters can make all kinds of rationalizations as possible they will but I think that's much what last night was about.

And then there is a third thing John that I think last night was about that really hasn't gotten talked about which is how much of this convention is about making the president feel good? It is not just about, you know, erasing the coronavirus or telling a completely different picture than what people lived or experienced.

[12:05:00]

HABERMAN: It is telling the president he was great and so much of what his advisers do for him and around him is about bucking him up and boosting his mood and that was a big chunk of last night.

KING: They think if they can keep him in good spirits maybe he'll listen to some of their advice and not do some other things that he often does to harm his standing.

HABERMAN: Right. KING: One of the interesting things Francesca, here is the tone. Some of the speakers were quite dark; Republicans in their preview meeting with reporters said this would be an optimistic, uplifting convention.

Most of last night was anything but very tough attacks on the Former Vice President, very dystopian as the Democrats would say look of what the suburbs what America would look like if Joe Biden wins. But it is interesting if you listen to Nikki Haley on the one hand, Donald Trump Jr. on the one hand, just their tone. They're making the same case but very differently, let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HALEY: America is a story that's a work in progress. Now is the time to build on that progress and make America even freer, fairer and better for everyone.

TRUMP JR.: In order to improve in the future, we must learn from our past. Not erase it. So we're not going to tear down monuments and forget the people who built our great nation. Instead we will learn from our past so we don't repeat any mistakes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So some people look at that and they think there's a 2024 preview. Let's focus on 2020. The president has a choice to make when he gives his big speech and he obviously has a choice to make as he works through the programs for those who go before him. Will we get from the president a more upbeat Nikki Haley or a more dark Don Jr.?

FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, MCCLATCHY: Well, his campaign tells me that one thing that we will get is a second term agenda, something that the president's daughter-in-law Laura Trump said to me he had not cohesively put out before and that's a really large acknowledgement from the Trump campaign.

That's something they say that he will do on Thursday evening at his speech. And that's basically the one thing that he could do differently John than what we see from him on a daily basis when he attacks Joe Biden is put out detailed plans for what he would do in a second term.

Now whether or not what we'll see on Thursday night are details beyond what the Trump campaign released this week for his second agenda we'll have to see on Thursday evening. But the campaign says that he will begin to get into those things.

And I have to tell you that is exactly what Republicans have been telling me for weeks that they would like to see this president do. They want to hear him talk about coronavirus; they also want to hear him talk about a second term agenda for the economy.

The president in the plans that we have seen has mentioned coronavirus but that as you pointed out earlier is been about how he plans to get a - to have something for it by the end of the year but also about a return to normalcy in 2021 which are two things that are really outside of his control in some ways.

KING: And, Maggie, we have talked about this before. Take us inside how they get to the coronavirus in this convention because people are living in this in their lives. The president can't tweet it, he can't talk it away.

Everybody in America whether it's a personal health care situation, whether it is the economics disruption, whether it is parents now debating whether to send their kids back to K-12 or what we see happening on college campuses. What is the mindset in the Trump campaign universe about this convention to try to at least improve his coronavirus standing, his numbers which are horrific right now?

HABERMAN: Not everyone is on the same page John about how to go about that. There are some people close to the president who think he does have a story to tell around the relief efforts from the congressional bills that provided money and loans to businesses.

They think that was some of the focus you saw last night. One of our most of what you heard last night was the - is everything is fine, it's all going to be fine and that is just not people's lived experiences to your point. So they do have a lot more work to do there.

But in terms of dealing with the virus itself and the response, the president continues to point to two actions that he took and one was a limited ban on travel from China at the end of January and the other was a less limited but still limited ban on travel from Europe in mid- March.

Those were two actions he treated the one from China as if it was his mission accomplish moment you know using the terminology from the Iraq war with George W. Bush and then proceeded to down played the virus for the entire month of February and criticize anyone who raised concerns about how he was reacting.

So it really hard to unsee that and his advisers know that. They do not believe that if the coronavirus is number one issue that people are voting on that the president is going to do very well so what they do is try to turn it into a different story.

KING: We'll watch as it plays out. Maggie Haberman and Francesca Chambers very much appreciate the reporting and the insights again night two tonight for us Melania Trump among the headliners there.

We'll continue the conversation and the coverage. Also it's a sad anniversary today, U.S. Senator John McCain passed away two years ago today the Senator dying at age 81 after a long fight with brain cancer.

In an odd twist in this campaign it was the Democrats who played a video putting his friendship the Republican Senator's friendship with Democrat Joe Biden on display at their convention last week. Up next for us, the coronavirus cases, deaths and hospitalizations all down nationally but there some troubling signs in the heartland.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:10:00]

KING: The numbers meaning the facts don't match up with a lot of what you heard about the coronavirus at the Republican Convention last night. Yes, some numbers are coming down, finally trending in the right direction but a better and more consistent national plan could have kept them from surging this summer.

Let's take a closer look at where we are right now. If you look at the state trend map this is an improving map orange and red means case count going up higher now than a week ago. Ten states saying their case counts are going up 17 states, that's the beige, holding steady. 23 state in green importantly Florida, Texas, Arizona and California all trending down fewer cases now than a week ago.

Those four states were the big drivers of the summer surge. So that is heading in the right direction. Here's another way to look at it. Let's go back a month, if you go back a month, number one, see more red 19 states heading up.

25 states in beige holding steady then only six going down a month ago so if you look then and now we are without a doubt in a better place that doesn't mean a good place but we're in a better place.

[12:15:00]

KING: Let's look at the case trend through this. Again you follow the seven-day average, that's the red that's the way you want to be going, right? We are down 38,000 cases on Monday, 34,000 cases on Sunday. We often get a dip over the weekend then it comes up let's hope not. Let's hope that it stays down and we continue to go down.

Right now at about half of where we were in the summer surge, in summer surge many public health experts and the politicians like Joe Biden will tell you didn't have to happen. This is the peak of the summer surge coming down now let's hope that trend continues.

Another way to look at it also is the lagging indicator, the saddest indicator of all the death trend here and again the seven-day moving average that's the blue line here is trickling down a little bit, averaging 965 deaths on a seven day average right now for most from middle July through August.

We were well above 1,000 at least above 1,000 almost every day so you do see that starting to come down Sunday and Monday numbers down below 500. Again let's hope that trend continues, sometimes out of the weekend there are blips we will follow it.

Hospitalizations also down, cases down deaths down, hospitalizations down that is encouraging news, right? Encouraging but not necessarily fantastic or at least not out of the woods news. Look at the positivity rate. 31 states, that's all those red, 31 states saying the positivity rate from coronavirus tests is higher now than it was a week ago what does that tell you? It means there could be more cases around the corner. So 31 states reporting increased positivity, that's a warning sign even though those other numbers are improving. Now, the case counts down in part because the drivers as I noted to the summer surge the California, the Arizona, the Florida and Texas they're down.

Look at it here, Florida above 10,000 at the peak of the summer surge now down under 5,000, yesterday down around 2,600. Texas above 10,000, part of the summer surge, now down right around 5,000. So these two states pushing their case count down after those dangerously high summer surges.

Dr. Richard Besser the Former CDC Director says that's very good news but he attributes it to those states finally doing things like enforcing mask mandates, requiring more distancing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. RICHARD BESSER, FORMER ACTING DIRECTOR, CDC: When you look at Texas, Florida it makes sense that cases went down because they took this more seriously and they started applying the same tools that have worked in other states that have seen numbers go down and stay down and in other countries that controlled this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's continue the conversation with an Infectious Disease Epidemiologist Caitlin Rivers. She is a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. It is good to see you again. So I try to view this as a where are we conversation.

When you do see cases down, deaths finally down some and let's hope it stays that way, hospitalizations down but the positivity rate up in so many states. Score this moment, better, good, not sure?

CAITLIN RIVERS, INFECTIOUS DISEASE EPIDEMIOLOGIST: We're headed in the right direction which I think is important. We are currently clocking about 45,000 new cases a day which is down from the peak when we were well over 70,000 cases a day.

But I think it's important to remember that we are still seeing more cases every day now than we were early in the spring and during our first peak when we were at 30,000 to 35,000 cases a day. So we have a long way to go until we are in a good spot but we are now in a better spot than we were in the worst of it in July.

KING: So one of the places we watch now, we watch that positivity rate and then you look at individual states and it is encouraging I don't want to say it is good, it's encouraging to see the big drivers of the summer surge, California, Texas, Florida coming down some.

We could show you here people including the White House Task Force says watch the Midwest. If you look at these two graphs here, the pink line is the south and then the green line is Midwest. The south you see big driver of the summer surge starting to come down. What does that tell you about the Midwest line trickling up? The case count is not at high but it is still heading in the wrong direction?

RIVERS: We are seeing the hotspots shift around. In the spring it was really New England that was hard hit and then summer it was more the south and the southwest but it's now the Midwest that we have our eye on, it's the Dakotas, Iowa, Illinois are all places that seem to be headed in the wrong direction.

The good news is that we know more now about how to control the virus than we did in the past. Every day we are learning and so we know mask mandates and keeping high risk settings and activities closed like bars for example can be really helpful. And so I'm hopeful that with those tools we will be able to prevent those bad surges and then that Midwest like we saw in the south.

KING: And at this somewhat improved moment for better or worse it also collides with our political season and you do have some people now questioning whether there's pressure inside the Trump Administration for some of the scientists to push things to the front of the line may be a little bit before they're ready.

We heard about that with the convalescent plasma announcement the other day. Dr. Anthony Fauci worry that there might be an emergency use authorization for a vaccine before you gets through phase III trials.

The one thing you would not want to see with a vaccine is getting a EUA emergency use authorization before you have a signal of efficacy. One of the potential dangers is you prematurely get a vaccine out is that it would make it difficult if not impossible for the other vaccines to enroll people in their trial.

[12:20:00]

KING: That's the president's top expert on vaccines on infectious diseases. Now listen here to another great expert Dr. Paul Offit saying he's worried that the administration is going to push this too fast.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. PAUL OFFIT, VACCINE EDUCATION CENTER DIRECTOR, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: There's only two ways out of this pandemic. One is the hygienic measures. You know? Masks, social distancing, contact tracing, testing we haven't been really good at that.

The second is the vaccine. We can't mess this up. We can't scare people by putting a vaccine which hasn't been adequately tested out there because this frankly is our most important way out of this pandemic and I worry about this administration which hasn't been attentive to good science.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Is it a legitimate worry? Do you see evidence from a science perspective that short cuts are being taken or things being nudged too quickly? RIVERS: I agree with the Dr. Offit that it's absolutely critical that we have trust in the regulatory and research process. I don't think that any vaccine that we get or the first vaccines at least will be so effective that anyone could be protected just by receiving it. I think it will reduce risk for individuals and maybe reduce disease severity.

What that means is that as many people as possible need to get it in order to stop the virus from circulating. And so we don't want any old vaccine. We want one that's safe, effective and trusted and is that trusted part that I think we need to be extra vigilant about. We need to have confidence in any product that comes on the market.

KING: Caitlin Rivers, as always grateful for your expertise and your insights. Thank you so much.

RIVERS: Thank you.

KING: Up next for us, protesters clashing with police in Wisconsin again because of the police shooting of a black man.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

KING: Raw emotions spiraling into confrontation and violence in Wisconsin overnight protesters squaring off with police in Kenosha once again because an unarmed black man was shot Jacob Blake now in intensive care after being shot seven times in the back.

Police used tear gas last night responding to plastic water bottles thrown by protesters and for a second night of fires and destruction you see it there in Kenosha city of about a 100,000 people it is about half way between Milwaukee and Chicago.

Race and policing again front and center in America today is three months since George Floyd was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis. CNN Sara Sidner was there for us in Minneapolis then and is in Kenosha now. Sara?

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John look, what is happening today is very quiet and the family is hoping that one of the reasons for that is that they have come out strongly and said we are all here for protest but we do not want to see destruction because that hurts the community even further and they have been very vocal about that.

We were able to sit down and speak with Jacob Blake's uncle, Justin Blake. He actually came out to the crowd last night and told them about his nephew and how important it was to try and keep this nonviolent. But he also talked about how hard this has been when he had to pick up the phone and talk to his brother, Jacob Blake's father, about what had just transpired that everyone across the world has now seen where an officer shot Jacob Blake so many times in the back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JUSTIN BLAKE, JACOB BLAKE'S UNCLE: That it was going to be all right. And it is. But what's all right when someone's life was just totally changed. Thank God he's alive. So we're just praying for a great recovery. That he may have a great quality of life. And that his father, my brother, can enjoy him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: And they say they are so thankful that Mr. Blake is alive but we have learned from his father that indeed at this moment he is paralyzed from the waist down. What we do not yet know and what doctors have not been able to ascertain according to his father is whether or not this is going to be something that is permanent or whether or not it is swelling and perhaps he may be able to have movement in the future?

But there is a lot of concern from the family now about how his life will proceed once he is able to come out of the hospital, though he is expected to survive? There are other obviously things going on. You have got a couple of officers who are on administrative leave and that is a typical thing that police do when there is a shooting involving a police officer.

We also know that the Department of Justice from the State of Wisconsin is the investigating agency. We have not heard anything further on the investigation just yet. We expect to hear from the family again today in the afternoon, John.

KING: Sara Sidner live for us in Kenosha, grateful you there at this very difficult time. Continue the reporting keep come back to us when we know more. Up next for us coronavirus on campus, college and university officials blaming parties some cracking down on students.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)