Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

U.S. Universities Find Spike in COVID-19 Cases; Second Night of Republican National Convention to Air Tonight; Breonna Taylor Protests in Louisville, Kentucky Continue for Fourth Day. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired August 25, 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: It's the top of the hour, I'm Anderson Cooper. For the second consecutive day, the number of Americans dying from the coronavirus has dipped below 500 as the nationwide average for deaths fell eight percent over the last two weeks. That as the new confirmed cases also continues to fall with just over 38,000 reported on Monday.

In a newly released interview with the Infectious Diseases Society of America, Dr. Anthony Fauci says that when it comes to COVID-19, scientists and health officials are learning things in, quote, "real time."

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES (via telephone): I think we learned the lesson that I think we should have known from our experience with other outbreaks, is that when you're dealing with a work in progress, things change and you've got to keep an open mind that you certainly don't know the whole story in the first or the second or the third or even the fourth month. As scientists and public health officials, we need to be humble to realize, at any given moment, there may be a lot that we still do not know."

(END AUDIO CLIP)

COOPER: CNN's Tom Foreman joins me now. Tom, you're digging deeper into where those cases are declining, which college campuses are seeing spikes. Give us the numbers.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well if you look at the cases overall in the country, yes, this is good news. If a lot of the country in the latest map, compared to the week before, you could see a lot of states moving into that steady or green area. That is a real plus, only 10 in the red area.

But look where the red ones are, sort of cutting a swath up through the middle of the country mainly. That's a worry point right now because, just as Dr. Fauci was saying a little while ago, this is a learning process.

One of the problems is absent a true national plan, state after state after state -- according to health officials -- is coming up with their own plan. And then it's hit-and-miss as to how they put it together, and then people have a little bit of good news, they think it's better, they start taking off the masks, they get closer and problems result.

Look at the death rate compared to the week before, and you can see how many places are still seeing rising death rates. That's a trailing indicator. That's because people don't generally pass away right away. Watch the middle of this country in the next couple of weeks, and see if we don't see the death rate creep up there as these waves just keep streaking across the country.

And, Anderson, you mentioned the colleges. That is a genuine concern right now to people all over this country because colleges are absolutely having a problem. They try to go back to classes, and look what happens.

Several places have had big spikes: University of Alabama had a huge number of cases, more than 500, show up in addition to the 300 they started with. UNC-Chapel Hill has problems out there, Iowa State, Notre Dame, Missouri, USC. All of these schools have tried to have best practices and they've struggled to make them work when you bring all these students back in.

And even to the point that some schools are really cracking down hard. If you look at those that are pushing against fraternities and sororities and other groups that might try to have big gatherings where a lot of people are gathered around having a good time. Ohio State, University of Kansas, Penn State.

The problem with all of this, Anderson, is it's not just a matter of people wanting to go to school or schools wanting to have them back. Think about all of these schools out there, thousands and thousands of students who were transported to school by their parents, they moved in, they rented property and now, in many cases, they're having to reverse that with no idea what comes next -- Anderson.

COOPER: Tom Foreman. Tom, thanks very much.

As Tom just mentioned, the number of daily new cases are going down, certainly good news. Our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins me now to talk about it.

So what do you think is behind the numbers? Why are the cases going down? What's working?

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what works is separating people out so that the virus has a hard time jumping from person to person, people wearing masks doing all the things that you and I have been talking about since March and, you know, April.

It's been really important to sort of have these measures in place. And what we've seen around the country is that there are certain places where the numbers would go up, people weren't really paying attention, as Tom said. And then all of a sudden, it hits them that we're in the middle of a significant outbreak.

They pause reopenings, as you saw in Arizona. Mask mandates go into place, certain counties in Florida. They closed down the bars, like you see in Louisiana. So the hotspots become cooler at that point.

The question -- and again, this is something that we've been asking for several months -- is, is that decline going to continue or are we going to still be on this rollercoaster ride as we see waves of new cases in other parts of the country?

[14:05:02]

COOPER: And Dr. Fauci is warning about approving a coronavirus vaccine before it's fully tested, he worries that people would not volunteer for other vaccine trials. Given what we've seen -- you know, pressure being put on the FDA for emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine and now for plasma, do you think his fears are justified?

GUPTA: Yes. I mean, this is a really important, critical point. I mean, this is probably one of the most critical points of this whole story, Anderson. One is, you've got to -- you know, there's obviously been a decrease overall in willingness to try the vaccine. We've seen the poll numbers sort of go down in terms of the percentage of people who are willing to try this vaccine from May until now, it's gone down some 10 percent roughly.

I think there's also this idea that you know, with the vaccine, unlike therapeutics, unlike medicines to take care of sick people or treat sick people, a vaccine is given to someone who is perfectly healthy, right? So the bar by which you measure that and what you're willing to accept has to be higher. You can't rush that through or that's going to erode trust.

But I think the other point -- and I talked to Dr. Fauci over the weekend about this -- is, you know, once you have an emergency use authorization -- you think about it, do you want to be enrolling in a trial at that point or do you say, hey, I want the vaccine at that point, right?

I mean, you -- some people may say still, I'm happy to enroll in a trial, that's for the good of science. But many people may say, I want the vaccine, making it difficult for trial enrollment to get to where they need to be.

COOPER: The commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Stephen Hahn, he walked back his initial analysis of the benefits of convalescent plasma. I know you spoke with him, what did he say?

GUPTA: Well, you know, he made a mistake. And he called me last night to talk about this. He said that he wished he had explained it better, but the truth is he made a mistake that was a pretty critical mistake.

The data out there, a lot of people out there have said, look, the data is not there. It's not adequate data, it's not very impressive data. That's what the FDA's been hearing, that's what the FDA itself said this past week, we want to wait --

COOPER: Right.

GUPTA: -- you remember, Anderson? They halted the emergency use authorization.

So we looked at the data carefully after, you know, Stephen Hahn, Dr. Hahn made these comments on Sunday, to try and understand what he meant. Because what he said was that there's a 35 percent reduction in mortality, meaning that if a hundred people get this convalescent serum, 35 lives would be saved as a result. That's what he sort of said on Sunday night.

That's not true. We could show the data specifically. I mean, again, I spent a good chunk of the evening last night looking at this, going over it with him again. Some 35,000 people were in this Mayo Clinic trial. What they found was that people who got the higher dose of this convalescent plasma, a dose that had more antibodies in it, their mortality was 8.9 percent. And that's compared to people who got the lower dose, was 13.7 percent.

So there is a difference. If you got higher doses, you had a lower mortality rate. But that is not the same as saying 35 out of 100 lives would be saved. In fact if you do the math, it's like five lives, 4.8 lives would be saved out of 100.

But the bigger point, Anderson -- we've talked about so many drug trials -- is they didn't compare this to no convalescent serum. That's how you do a randomized trial: give some people the therapeutic, some people don't get the therapeutic, you compare them. That wasn't done. Essentially, it was comparing it against itself, higher dose versus lower dose.

And when we looked even deeper at the study, we found that nearly half the people got steroid medication, which we know can be effective. So was it the steroids or was it the convalescent serum? You don't know, and that's the problem. You wouldn't know does it work, you wouldn't know the dose to give, you wouldn't know who to give it to, you wouldn't know when to give it. That's why you do the studies.

A lot of people have said to me, Anderson, well, just give it, I mean, just try it. I mean, why not, right?

COOPER: Right, what --

(CROSSTALK)

GUPTA: That's not how it works.

COOPER: -- that's what I was going to ask you. I mean, you know, given -- we're seeing people dying, why not just give it if we think it might work?

GUPTA: Right. Because we -- A, we don't know that it works, and we can actually show this. You know, you can study it, 70,000 doses have been given out. You -- this could have been studied. But the other thing is that then who do you give it to? When do you give it? You know, what's the right dose? Is there a potential harm to giving it? Should you combine it with another medication?

At the end of the day, you want to give the best treatment possible based on the science. Everything is not a Hail Mary sort of here, you know, in this sort of sense. There's a lot of promise around convalescent serum because it's been used for other diseases, but sometimes it hasn't worked as well and sometimes it's actually caused harm. You obviously don't want to do that.

COOPER: Fascinating. Sanjay, thanks very much, putting it in perspective. I appreciate it.

GUPTA: You bet.

COOPER: The RNC is ready for round two. Tonight's headliner? First lady Melania Trump. CNN's learning the speech has not been vetted by the West Wing. We'll have more on that ahead.

Plus, we're just getting word that Jerry Falwell Jr. has resigned after a sex scandal involving his wife and a young man who they met at a pool.

[14:10:06]

And outrage grows across America after police shoot a black man in the back at close range in front of his children. The man's father says he's now paralyzed. We'll have details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Tonight is night two of the Republican National Convention, first lady Melania Trump will speak in primetime from the newly renovated White House Rose Garden. CNN has learned she'll deliver a -- what's being described as a positive and uplifting speech with reflections of her experiences over the last three and a half years. Her speech apparently was not vetted by anyone in the West Wing, nor did anyone on the president's staff approve the content, we're told.

There will also be a speech from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who will address the convention from Israel. Secretaries of state do not usually engage in this type of politicking. Pompeo is drawing intense criticism for using official diplomatic travel and the backdrop of Jerusalem to make a political statement in a presidential election year.

[14:15:16]

Two other presidential family members, Trump's son Eric and daughter Tiffany are also scheduled to speak this evening.

We've also learned that President Trump will appear more than once during tonight's programming, as he did last night. On night one of the convention, Trump campaign official Kimberly Guilfoyle gave quite speech. Many reacted online, saying Guilfoyle was screaming at times to an empty room. Certainly speaking very loudly.

The room was empty because the country's still grappling with the coronavirus pandemic. There was something specific Guilfoyle said that caught people's attention.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE, NATIONAL CHAIR, TRUMP VICTORY FINANCE COMMITTEE: As a first-generation American, I know how dangerous their socialist agenda is. My mother Mercedes was a special education teacher from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. My father, also an immigrant, came to this nation in pursuit of the American dream. Now, I consider it my duty to fight to protect that dream.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Pointing out her mother was from Puerto Rico, which is obviously part of the United States. U.S. territory, its residents are U.S. citizens. Her father is from Ireland.

CNN en Espanol anchor Juan Carlos Lopez joins me now. I wonder what the reaction you've been seeing from Guilfoyle's remarks have been.

JUAN CARLOS LOPEZ, CNN EN ESPANOL ANCHOR: A lot of buzz, Anderson. It's surprising because Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917. And it's a key demographic and a key electoral objective for both campaigns.

Now, it's interesting that she referred to herself as a first- generation immigrant. Her mother was from Aguadilla in Puerto Rico, making her an American.

Now in this case, if you look at the president's track record with Puerto Rico, it's not really helpful to have these kind of events. Let's go over what's happened since 2017. You were there for Hurricane Maria. Well, President Trump was criticized for his reaction to Hurricane Maria.

Also, he was criticized for throwing paper towels at people during his visit. He complained about people not being thankful enough to what he was doing for the island. We heard recently Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff at DHS, saying that he had mentioned and said that the island was dirty and the people were poor, and considering selling it. So talking about Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans as foreigners is not really helpful.

COOPER: Yes. Juan Carlos Lopez, appreciate your time, thank you very much.

As we look ahead to the second night of the Republican National Convention, new analysis makes the case that the Republican Party is now President Donald Trump's party. Our senior political analyst Ron Brownstein joins me.

Ron, you wrote that the question now is whether the Republican Party can survive in that form -- in your words -- "in a country that will grow irreversibly more diverse through the 2020s." What did you find?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, look, I mean, I think it's very clear at this point that Donald Trump is imposing a very distinctive bet on the Republican Party, both for 2020 and for the future. And the bet is that he can squeeze bigger margins out of shrinking groups at the price of provoking greater antagonism among the groups that are growing, even compared to 2016, Anderson.

I think all the indications in the polling are that Trump in this election, win or lose, is going to be more dependent on the voting groups and the parts of the country that are the least touched by the way America is changing demographically, culturally (INAUDIBLE).

And Republicans are going to run even more poorly than they did in 2016 in those places, the big metro centers in particular, that are the center of that change.

So he is pushing the Republican Party toward greater reliance, really, on a shrinking share of the electorate that he needs to mobilize and turn out and deliver margins from in enormous numbers.

COOPER: You also make the point that in 2016, Trump won just four of the 20 states where immigrants composed a larger share of the population.

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.

COOPER: He's now at risk of losing two of the four he won, Arizona and Florida. And he's facing a serious challenge in the other two, Georgia and Texas. Can the president turn this around? Because you know, you look at 1988, Michael Dukakis was up, what, 17 points after the Democratic Convention back then, and he didn't become president.

BROWNSTEIN: Right. So a couple things. First, what you're describing on the immigration is true across the board. I mean, if you look back at 2016, he won only seven of the 25 states with the largest share of college graduates, and he's at risk of losing about half of those. He won only nine of the 25 states where white Christians are not a majority of the population, and at least three of those are at high risk.

So on all of these fronts, to the extent that he had inroads in places that reflected the growing religious, racial and cultural diversity of the country, that's where he's suffering the biggest erosion.

Can he win again? I don't think he can win the popular vote again. I think it's highly unlikely. But can he find a way to squeeze out the Electoral College by drawing the line in a few states where his constituencies -- which are sticking with him, non-urban, blue-collar, evangelical, whites, his numbers are down a little from '16, they're still pretty strong across those fronts.

[14:20:05]

Can he find a way to squeeze out the Electoral College? Sure. But the long-term implication is he is stamping the Republican Party in kind of an image of hostility to the way the country is changing. And the risk in that is that again, that the parts of the country that are most resistant to him are the ones that are growing, both demographically and geographically.

COOPER: Yes. It's not just -- it's -- I mean, it's going to be so interesting to see what comes out of this convention in terms of if either party really get a bounce. That's such --

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

COOPER: -- traditionally what you look to a convention to do, it's not clear either of the conventions will result in that kind of thing this time.

BROWNSTEIN: It's hard when the country is this -- again, obviously, Biden didn't get much of a bounce. He was pretty much up to the ceiling for a Democrat. I mean, he's polling at 52 or 53. No Democrat has been that high for a very long time, certainly not getting to 53 percent of the vote.

Trump may have a little more room to grow, but he is dealing with the fundamental anchor of his disapproval rating, you know? And 42 percent of the country said they approve of the job he's doing, he's not going to poll that much higher above it. There's only so far he can go by raising doubts about Biden. Ultimately, he has to improve perceptions of his own performance.

And denying the reality that people see in their lives every day about the coronavirus doesn't seem like the first way you would go about doing that. I mean, it's not like he's reporting on what's going on in Afghanistan, he's reporting on something that's happening in people's lives, and saying it's been perfectly handled from day one. It kind of jars with their actual lived experience in a way that I think more compounds than alleviates his problems.

COOPER: Ron Brownstein, appreciate it. Thank you very much.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks, Anderson (ph).

COOPER: Protestors in Kentucky are gathering right now, demanding justice for Breonna Taylor. She was shot and killed by police five months ago. We're live in Louisville with that.

Also, anger and frustration growing in the streets in Wisconsin after police shot an unarmed black man in the back, leaving him paralyzed. There are still a lot more questions about what led up to the shooting. We'll tell you what we know, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:26:41]

COOPER: Happening right now in Louisville, Kentucky, a large protest over the police killing of Breonna Taylor. More than five months have passed since Louisville police barged into Taylor's home using a no- knock warrant, shot her to death while she was sleeping. The officers involved have not been charged, and protestors have demanded justice and transparency in the ongoing investigation.

Jason Carroll, CNN's national correspondent, is on the scene in downtown Louisville where the protest is taking place. The protest marks the end of BreonnaCon, which -- what it was called -- a four-day event, which was meant to draw attention to Breonna Taylor's case. What's happening right now?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now, we've got a number of protestors, several hundred, who have gathered here at a park in South Louisville. You can see one of the organizers there, they're up there giving instructions about how to proceed from this point, Anderson.

So all of the folks that you see here plus more that are expected to gather are going to march from the location where we are to a police training facility about a mile away.

Now, what they've said is they want everyone to be vocal, they want them to get out there and have their voices heard but they want this protest to be, quote, "nonviolent." But when I said nonviolent also meaning peaceful? They said, not in terms of peace. Because they said that there's nothing peaceful about what happened to Breonna Taylor. But they say this will be a nonviolent protest. You've got a couple hundred folks who are here now who plan again (ph) to march over to that police training facility.

And in terms of the reasoning here, you touched on a lot of it. In speaking to folks out here, some have come as far away as Florida, some came from Detroit, others from New York. They say it's time for the three officers involved in what happened with Breonna Taylor to be charged. That is why you've got these folks who are out here today, and they say they're going to be out here every day until something happens with those officers -- Anderson.

COOPER: Jason Carroll. Jason, thank you very much.

Protestors in Kenosha, Wisconsin have -- there have been a number of protests in Kenosha. We'll have more on that, coming up.

Also, one of the most well-known evangelical leaders -- Jerry Falwell Jr. -- officially resigns from Liberty University as conflicting stories emerge about his marriage and an extramarital affair that went on for years, that he apparently was involved with. More on that when we return.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:30:00]