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Health Experts Call for Independent Panel to Review Vaccines; Portland Mayor Says, Trump Helped Create Violence at Protests; Trump Going to Wisconsin after Governor Urges Him to Reconsider. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired August 31, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: Pro-Trump caravans seen here going into the city in defiance of request, please, from local officials, while the president condemn protesters over violence in Portland.

[10:00:12]

He is set to head to Kenosha, Wisconsin on Tuesday, despite the governor there urging him to stay in Washington.

First, let's begin with CNN's Senior Medical Correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, on this warning from health experts on a vaccine. I mean, this is a big deal here, right, because they are concerned that politics will get in the way of science here. Explain why and explain what they are going to do about it.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So, Jim, they are concerned the politics are going to get in the way, and they are also concerned that Americans perceive it that way, and, therefore, won't get vaccinated.

So the doctors I'm talking about are not sort of fringy doctors. These are folks at Harvard, at NYU, at UNC and they are seeing Americans growing distrustful of the FDA and other government agencies. 40 percent of Americans say they don't want to get the coronavirus vaccine.

So these doctors said, look, there's clearly distrust here. Let's form an independent commission, completely independent from the FDA, and that commission will look at the data, have full access to all of that data and they will get to say whether or not they think this vaccine should be put on the market.

What these experts fear is that if it's just up to the FDA, then that's going to be a problem. People aren't going to trust what they do. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Yes. And for vaccines to be taken widely, you need trust, and you need safety. We know you're going to stay on top of it, Elizabeth. Thank you.

Let's discuss more now with Emergency Physician at Lifespan/Brown University, Dr. Megan Ranney. Doctor, good to have you on. Okay, so folks --

DR. MEGAN RANNEY, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN, LIFESPAN/BROWN UNIVERSITY: Thanks, Jim. Good to be here.

SCIUTTO: -- at home understand how this works normally. You have phase three trials of vaccines so you test this on a lot of people to make sure it's safe. Tell us why that's important and your level of concern now of rushing that process.

RANNEY: Yes. So those phase three trials are an essential part of vaccine development. They are how we make sure that the vaccines that we're offering to the American public are both effective and safe. We give them to tens of thousands of healthy Americans and track to make sure that the vaccine actually prevents the disease and also track to make sure that there are no unusual or rare dangerous side effects.

That's really important because in the past there have been a couple of vaccines that caused trouble. If we don't finish those phase three trials, we can't reliably tell the Americans that it's safe and that it works.

SCIUTTO: Okay. Let's look at the pattern here, right, because this is not the first time there have been concerns about political influence in the response to a pandemic treatment. You had the president and his trade adviser pushing hydroxychloroquine as a treatment though the data didn't back it up. You have concerns about vaccines. You had the president over the weekend taking the remarkable step of questioning the administration's own data on deaths from this, right, which is something that has bubbled up from the sort of dark corners of the web here.

How concerned are you about political pressure disrupting going forward the national response to this?

RANNEY: I'm tremendously concerned. You know, the FDA and the CDC had a have historically been protected from political pressure. They are the country's top scientists and public health professionals. But what we've seen multiple times over the course of this pandemic is pressure from the executive branch on those scientists to change their recommendations.

It is just in this past week we've seen both the FDA and the CDC walk back statements that they have made. It is essential for American public and for the trust and the health of our country for those government entities to continue to be able to operate free of political pressure.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

RANNEY: We trust them, we rely them, and we're not seeing that freedom from political pressure right now.

And that's the reason why those independent experts have called for an advisory board is because we're concerned as to whether the FDA will continue to serve its essential function for the American public. SCIUTTO: Yet one more institution undermined.

Okay, let's talk about schools because universities -- a lot of universities are opening up across the country. You have had surges of cases as they do, which was not unexpected. You're putting people back on to campus.

When you look at this, are these outbreaks to be expected or controllable, or, in your view, do they show that in-person, on-campus stuff, particularly when kids go to parties and they do, is just too much of a risk? Where do you stand?

RANNEY: So what this shows is that particularly in high -- in states or in areas with high levels of COVID-19 infection or for universities that are bringing students in from across the country, it is likely unsafe to bring kids back right now.

[10:05:12]

It reinforces the point that so many of us have been making, which is that our first goal has to be getting community spread down so that we can safely bring kids back.

It is human nature to go out and want to socialize after these young adults have not seen each other for months on end. It's not fair to them and it's not fair to the communities around them to be bringing them back without adequate safety precautions in place.

Now, Jim, there are a few schools that are doing it safely but most so far are not passing that basic test of putting the public health precautions in place to bring the students back safely.

SCIUTTO: And the standard use cite is the one that's been repeated by the smart folks since the beginning, that if the community has the outbreak under control, you can do it with mitigation. If you don't, it's different. I mean, this is the same rule for schools for younger kids as well, yet here we are, all the way in. The message doesn't get through.

RANNEY: That's exactly right. It is Public Health 101. Step one is controlling the spread of the disease. And it doesn't necessarily require a full lockdown. If we all wear masks, if we're smart about social distancing, and this is critical, if we have adequate testing, particularly for asymptomatic people so that we can track hot spots early, we need all of those things to be able reopen safely.

My own university, Brown University, is doing asymptomatic testing of staff and if and when we restart in-person classes, we'll be doing it for students too. That's really the only safe way to reopen campuses.

SCIUTTO: Dr. Ranney, always good to have you on, thanks so much.

RANNEY: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Let's go to Portland now where the mayor is pushing back at criticism from President Trump after a person was killed during a weekend full of violence in the city. CNN's Lucy Kafanov joins us now. What is the mayor saying and have we learned anything more about the circumstances of that shooting?

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's not much more about the circumstances of the shooting, Jim. Authorities have not named the victim or shooter. What we know is that on Saturday, there was a large counterdemonstration organized by President Trump supporters, members of a far right group known as Patriot Prayer.

They came into Portland in a convoy of vehicles. Police tried to keep them away from downtown Portland, but a smaller group broke off. They entered the streets of downtown. There were clashes with the anti- police violence protesters. We saw some Trump supporters shooting air guns into the crowd.

What we know happened afterwards was there was some sort of a confrontation, and one man was shot in the chest and died, according to police, but that's basically all we know right now.

The governor, Kate Brown, actually, I want to read a little bit of her statement about this far right group. She wrote, right wing group Patriot Prayer and self-proclaimed militia members drove into downtown Portland armed and looking for a fight. Every Oregonian has the right to express views without the fear of deadly violence. I will not allow Patriot Prayer and armed white supremacists to bring more bloodshed into our streets.

Now, President Trump seemed to stir the pot with a series of controversial tweets attacking the Portland mayor saying rest in peace in regards to the shooting victim. Mayor Wheeler blaming President Trump for creating division and tensions, take a listen. He did not mince his words.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR TED WHEELER (D-PORTLAND, OR): Your campaign of fear is as anti- democratic as anything you've done to create hate and vitriol in our beautiful country. You've tried to divide us more than any other figure in modern history and now you want me to stop the violence that you helped create.

What America needs is for you to be stopped so that we can come back together as one America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAFANOV: Law enforcement officials are very concerned that Trump supporters might return to the streets of Portland seeking retribution. We have not seen that take place yet, but the week is young, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Listen, you look at those caravans, hard to convince anyone that's helping the situation. Lucy Kafanov, thanks very much.

Joining us now from Portland, Eder Campuzano, he is Educational Reporter for The Oregonian. He's been covering this protest from the beginning. And it's important, Eder, thanks for coming on to have you on with your view, because a lot of claims are made about this by people who have no experience of what's actually happening on the ground. So let's test some of these things out.

So what portion of the protests are violent and what portion peaceful? Because, as you know, a lot of claims about how far and wide the violence has been here. What have you seen on the ground?

EDER CAMPUZANO, EDUCATION REPORTER, THE OREGONIAN: Right. So on Friday, I believe, we'll be going into day 100 consecutive days of protests in Portland. And, I mean, since the very beginning, you've had this dynamic between people coming out pretty regularly between 6:00 and 8:00 P.M. to protest against systemic racism and against police brutality.

[10:10:10]

And, you know, those demonstrations are full of people giving speeches, folks kind of talking about their own personal experiences.

But, you know, later in the night, once the crowds kind of die down, you know, the crowd is made up a -- a larger proportion of the crowd is made up of folks who are sort of ready to tag buildings, right, and kind of light, you know, trash cans on fire.

Basically, what they say they are doing in terms of property damage to draw a police response and then once that police response comes, you know, it's sometimes tear gas when police call a riot or, you know, officers pushing people with batons. So those demonstrators' point is, well, is this level of police pushback really adequate in terms of what's actually happening on the ground.

So you've always got this element of people really trying to incite that police response but the majority of folks coming out wanting to have their voice heard, and some of them actually trying to keep some of that property damage from happening.

SCIUTTO: Right. Okay. You have competing claims of outside agitators coming in. I mean, some substantiated. You look at Kenosha, and you do, you have a group of people from Illinois, including this kid who is now accused of shooting two people.

What do you see on the ground? Do you see outside actors come in? Who are they? What are they trying to do and to what extent are they responsible for what we're seeing on the ground?

CAMPUZANO: Right. So we actually, in our protest wrap-up that we published yesterday morning, I was in charge of, you know, basically writing who got arrested and where were they, from and a good half of those people live at least an hour away from Portland. One of them came from Spokane. We don't know how long that person was here and one person came from near the Canadian border.

But one of the things that I think you need to realize about protests in Portland is that they have always drawn people from all over. I mean, right wing rallies that were staged at the Federal Plaza in front of the building that houses the IRS and other federal offices, when demonstrations broke out in August of 2017. I was the main reporter on the ground and I'd be polling people and asking people where they came from, and they would be telling me North Carolina, Illinois, Sacramento.

And so you've typically got kind of a call for people to show up to lend support to whatever causes people have in the area and they show up. They travel.

SCIUTTO: Okay. Before you go, we just showed pictures again of this -- this caravan of pro-Trump supporters going in, I mean, spraying stuff from the back of the car. Unclear what it is, paint balls, et cetera. Simple question, did that help or hurt the situation?

CAMPUZANO: Oh, I mean, in the last few months specifically, yes, you have seen these sort of tensions boil over and people adopting tactics like shooting paint balls into the crowd, lining up with homemade shields to push back liberal counterdemonstrators. You know, those sort of aggressive tactics are definitely not helping tensions.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Well, Eder, it's good to have you on the ground. Let's keep talking because it's important to talk to people who are actually seeing what's happening rather than making claims about it. Thanks so much.

CAMPUZANO: For sure. I appreciate you making time for that.

SCIUTTO: Well, President Trump is suggesting that without him, there would not be a Kenosha right now and the president says he will visit the city in Wisconsin tomorrow even as the governor and other local officials are urging him not to come. Things have been relatively calm there in recent days too. They are concerned it may be upset.

Plus, the number two Republican in the House faces calls to apologize after using a doctored tweet to attack Joe Biden, that's right, doctored. Why Twitter says the video is manipulated.

And Democrats say they may subpoena the director of National Intelligence after he says his office will no longer brief lawmakers in person about election security, this even as intelligence assesses Russia is interfering again to damage Joe Biden. I'm going to speak to the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, a Republican, on what he thinks.

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[10:15:00]

SCIUTTO: This morning, there is growing opposition to President Trump's planned trip to Kenosha, Wisconsin. This is the city where a police officer, more than a week ago, shot Jacob Blake, a black man, in the back several times in front of his children, we should note. It's also the city where a 17-year-old Trump supporter shot and killed two protesters days after Blake's shooting. He came there from out of state. CNN's Shimon Prokupecz is in Kenosha. Shimon, the governor of Wisconsin, other local officials urging the president not to come. The president just tweeted, and he's been tweeting numerous times on this, but let's fact0check a claim he's making there about the National Guard. What do you know?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, the idea that the president says that he -- it was his decisions that ultimately saved Kenosha, that his insistence on bringing in the National Guard is what saved this city. The reality is that's just not the case, and I would think that the local law enforcement and a lot of the community leaders here would be pretty upset over that, because there was a lot of work that they did too to get things in order here.

[10:20:08]

The police here instituted curfew early. They changed their tactics. They closed roads around here to try and prevent some of the outsiders from coming in, and it was a lot of work that they did. And also the community here in trying to bring about peace. So the idea that the president somehow saved this city, I think, just is not reality.

And, of course, all of this is coming, Jim, after the governor sent a two-page letter, Governor Evers here sent a two-page letter asking, pleading with the president not to come here. And what we wrote in that letter is, and let me go ahead and read that for you, it says, I am concerned your presence will only hinder our heal. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together.

It is our job as elected officials to lead by example and to be a calming presence for the people we know are hurting, mourning and trying to cope with trauma. Now is not the time for divisiveness. Now is not the time for elected officials to ignore armed militants and out-of-state instigators who want to contribute to our anguish.

And this is the concern by many people here that with the president visiting, it's going to spark some unrest. And as far as we know, the president right now intends to visit with local law enforcement, he says, and visit the damage. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Shimon Prokupecz, thanks very much.

Joining me is a leader in the Kenosha community, Andy Berg. He is Kenosha County Board Supervisor for District 10. Andy, good to have you on.

ANDY BERG (D), KENOSHA COUNTY BOARD SUPERVISOR, DISTRICT 10: Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: So the president is the coming, whether the governor wants it or you want it or not. Will that help or hurt the situation on the ground there?

BERG: I think it's only going to slow things down. It's going to make things more divisive, as you said, and I think it's going to hinder what we're trying to go in the next few days.

SCIUTTO: Right. I spoke to one of your colleagues on the council there in the last hour, a Republican, and I asked him the same question about does the president, do local leaders need to definitively say, vigilantes, like the one that -- this 17-year-old was a member of, are not welcome in this town? Do you need to hear that from the president? Does the community need to hear that from the president tomorrow?

BERG: I think absolutely the community needs to hear it, whether it's going to be said or not is another question. I'd absolutely say we don't want the vigilantes here.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And we've heard that from Republicans from the council as well.

Joe Biden is going to be speaking today in Pittsburgh, not in Kenosha, but he's going to be address the violence we've seen in cities, such as Kenosha, the outrage at police shootings like this but also the president's response to this. What do you need to hear, in your view, from Joe Biden?

BERG: I think we need to hear what we've always heard from what is supposed to be our presidents in terms of making -- making peace and making -- keeping things happy in our communities, not anything that's going to be dividing people. And I think that's -- I don't think we can expect to hear that from President Trump because we've seen since his first campaign, there's been a lot of divisiveness.

SCIUTTO: As you know, police in some cities beyond Kenosha feel that they are not getting enough support from local leaders. Do you believe that Biden, do you believe that, for instance, the governor of Wisconsin or the mayor of Kenosha have to more explicitly say, you know, except for uses of excessive force, we back the police?

BERG: I think we show we back the police. I mean, we look at budgets every year and we increase their pay and we sit down with their unions and we do back them. We absolutely support them. They are in a tough job.

SCIUTTO: But I guess I suppose I'm saying given that feeling among police, do you feel that they need to hear it more definitively, not just from local and state leaders but from the Democratic nominee for president?

BERG: Sure, absolutely. I think that hearing it would make things a little bit better. I mean, just like our problem in the community, we have to have some sort of action, I mean, saying things. You know, I've spent 20 years in the military and saying things just doesn't answer the problem. We have to actually have actionable items, actionable stuff.

SCIUTTO: I hear you there's a lot of talk, certainly in this town where I am in Washington and not as much action.

Just before we go, very simply, the president is claiming there would be no Kenosha without him. What's your response?

BERG: There would absolutely be Kenosha without him. We're a strong community. We do a lot for each other. And no matter the situation, we'll always bounce back.

[10:2:01

SCIUTTO: All right. Andy Berg, we wish you, we wish the people there the best of luck.

BERG: Thank you. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

SCIUTTO: Good to have you.

Well, three Georgia high schools are set to resume in-person classes this week as the virus shows signs of easing in one of the nation's hardest hit states. We're going to look at the numbers and give you update, coming up.

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[10:30:00]

SCIUTTO: This morning, one of the states at the epicenter of the latest coronavirus surge is showing signs of improvement.