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WH Testing Czar Giroir On Daily COVID-19 Tests For Everyone: "I Don't Live In The Utopian World"; Univ. Of Illinois Tests Students, Faculty And Staff At Least Weekly. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired September 01, 2020 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Experts say that's too few. On the plus side, the positivity rate has been dropping. And you see Monday coming in at 4.6 percent. All the experts will tell you get it below 5 percent then try to shove it down more. There's been a big controversy about new CDC testing guidelines. Asymptomatic people maybe don't need to get testing as much as they thought weeks or months ago.

Listen to Admiral Brett Giroir here, he's the Coronavirus Task Force Testing czar. He says people who say we need more tests or daily tests are simply living in a dream world.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADM. BRETT GIROIR, HHS ASSISTANT SEC. FOR HEALTH: It's great to talk about this utopian kind of idea where everybody has a test every day and we can do that. I don't live in a utopian world. I live in the real world. And the real world had no test for this new disease when this first started. We can return to society without having everyone have a test every single day. You know we can do that, and we're showing we can do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's bring our CNN senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen. He says he doesn't live in the utopian world, he lives in the real world. Elizabeth, give us some context here because the admiral has said a number of things over the last seven months about testing and the availability and the reliability that simply turned out not to be true. Where are we now?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So John, in the real world, the situation is that things have gotten better, which may not be saying much because they were such a nightmare to begin with. But yes, things have gotten better. And if Admiral Giroir feels that he needs a pat on the back to say you're working hard, things are getting better, I will officially give him that pat on the back that things are better than they used to be. They are still not where they need to be.

Too many Americans are waiting too long to get their test results. If you go in and get a test on a Monday and you don't get results until Wednesday or God forbid, let's say Thursday, that's a number of days that you're running around potentially infecting other people. This is a great country with people who can do great things. Why can't we get more test that are quick within minutes and also accurate. We should have more of these out there this many months into the outbreak.

I will also say that when I hear the admirals say, you know, too many people say, you know, we should test every American every day. I have never heard anyone actually make that argument. He has done this before. He says people say we can test our way out of the pandemic. I've never heard anyone seriously say that. He needs to stop sort of making up these Boogie man who he's fighting against. No one's telling him we need to utopia. We're just telling him he needs to do better.

KING: Yes. Competence would be good. We'd start there. And it's not going to put it all on the Admiral. He's had some pressures, shall we say. Elizabeth Cohen, appreciate the important context there.

Up next, the president of university that says it's setting an example of just how often to test to keep your community safe.

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[12:37:14]

KING: As thousands of students head back to college campuses, universities of course wrestling with how to manage the seemingly inevitable clusters of coronavirus that pop up, some turning to widespread testing of students, faculty and other employees in an attempt to control and avoid outbreaks.

One of those the University of Illinois system which is testing its students, faculty, and staff, at least once a week. With me now is the president of the University of Illinois system Timothy Killeen. Mr. President grateful for your time, I just want to begin by putting up some pretty stunning numbers seven day average of positivity rate at some of your campuses or Urbana-Champaign, 0.79 percent, Chicago 0.64 percent, Springfield 0.46 percent. Those are remarkably low, where you want to be in the middle of a pandemic, how are you pull this off?

TIMOTHY KILLEEN, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS SYSTEM: Yes. We've been innovating all summer with our brilliant faculty working hard to sort of attack this virus, not just watch it. And we recognize that we need to do that with computational means, but also testing. And we've developed our own test. Now FDA approved that we're testing everybody on our flagship campus twice a week. We conducted about 169,000 tests already in the last couple of weeks as campus gets going, which we're now routinely doing about 2 percent of the total tests in the United States.

And the reason we want to do that is to track where the viruses to determine whether there is asymptomatic carriers to look at isolation and quarantine mechanisms to squelch any outbreak as they occur. There will be outbreaks as we know, and we want to catch them quickly and take immediate action. So it's fast frequent testing that we do. And will link up with the public health authorities and we also use digital means who automated exposure notification. KING: Sorry for interrupting there. Help me understand the cost ratio here because you hear one of these, we just earlier in the program, we're listening to Admiral Giroir, saying I don't live in this utopian world where people can be tested. He says every day, no one saying test everybody every day. But there are a lot of people saying we need faster reliable testing at a reasonable cost point, so that we can send students back to campus so that we can put more people back in office buildings and back our factory floors. What's your cost point?

KILLEEN: Exactly. That's what we've been working on. And we've got the cost down to somewhere, you know, about $15 per test the marginal cost of it. And we're moving to get it even cheaper than that. And the reason is we moved out, we don't have the need for reagents or swabs. We have local courage. We use students to transport the saliva vials. So we've worked hard to reduce the cost so we can have this widespread testing underway on our campuses. It reassures our students it reassures the parents. And in fact, we take now to the point where you can't get into a class unless you have a recent negative test on your cellphone that you show on your way in.

[12:40:09]

KING: And I want you to listen quickly here. This is Dr. Deborah Birx at the White House coronavirus taskforce. I'm sure you're following the same kind of data. She's looking at that summer surge across the south and where it came from which should be a warning to every university president, listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. DEBORAH BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: We know that what happens across the south was primarily driven by 18 to 25 year olds across the south of asymptomatic spread. Sending these individuals back home in their asymptomatic state to spread the virus in their hometown, among their vulnerable households could be really re-create what we experienced over the June timeframe in the south. So I think every university president should have a plan for not only testing, but caring for their students that need to isolate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: I was looking at the briefing materials about your plan. Walk viewers through it the idea that you agree with Dr. Birx. If you have an outbreak on campus, you're not going to send those people home to spread it, you're going to isolate them, walk through that.

KILLEEN: Yes. We -- we're testing every week, twice a week, everybody, faculty, staff, students, so and we're catching a lot of asymptomatic carriers, just as Dr. Birx said in that in that age range. So we put them in what I like to think of is comfortable isolation immediately working with the public health authorities, where they can continue their studies and they have food and they have all the medical attention on daily basis. And anybody who's been exposed by that carrier also gets a notification, and they go into quarantine. And we have housing set aside for all of that. So we want to continue our educational mission so everybody can move forward in their degrees and their programs. Now, but if they're carrying the virus, we don't want them spreading that virus. So we go immediately into isolation. And the key in our approach is fast, same day turnaround. So my test yesterday took six hour to come back onto my cellphone. That's -- and when we get that, then there's no time for the virus to spread.

So we're going fast, frequent. And but I completely agree with Dr. Birx there, that that age group is often asymptomatic and they're healthy. And unless you're testing and figuring out where the virus is, it's like it's getting the canary in the coal mine. And our testing is designed to get the name of the canary and the address of the coal mines and to act very quickly if there's an outbreak. And you will see outbreaks and you will see rapid urgent action as needed at the University of Illinois.

KING: Very well put. Timothy Killeen is the president of the University of Illinois system. Sir, grateful for your time and your insights, and I hope your success continues in the challenging weeks and months ahead. Thank you very much for your time today, Sir.

KILLEEN: Thank you.

KING: Up next, the President on the ground in Kenosha, Wisconsin, some see a parallel to a campaign a generation ago.

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[12:47:37]

KING: This just in to CNN. The Justice Department is tightening the rules for surveillance of political campaigns, candidates or campaign staff. The new rules include requiring justice and FBI to consider warning individuals or campaigns that are being targeted by a foreign entity before seeking any court permission to conduct surveillance. Should there be reason not to give a warning? The FBI Director must explain why in writing to the Attorney General. This is a reaction of course to errors the FBI made when it gathered information to surveil a former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page back in late 2016 and then in to 2017.

President Trump's visit to Wisconsin today draws a parallel to 1992, a different election and a different racial crisis. Back then it was the challenger, the Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, who was the first visit the site of rioting and protests. That was in Los Angeles, the city exploded with rage over Rodney King, a black man and the acquittal of the white police officers who were caught on tape brutally beating him. Those officers were acquitted by a mostly white jury. Clinton's message he made the case, that 12 years of Bush-Reagan neglect led the country to that moment. President George H.W. Bush message that year, some of it mirrors what you hear from President Trump now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GEORGE H.W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are concerned about any question of excessive police violence, and we are equally concerned about excessive public violence. To restore order right now, there are 3,000 National Guardsmen on duty in the city of Los Angeles. What we saw last night and the night before in Los Angeles is not about civil rights. I'm not here in the mode of politics and I'm not here in the mode of partisanship and I'm not here in the mode of blame. I'm here to learn from the community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With me to discuss CNNs Paul Begala, who was a top adviser to the Clinton campaign back then and Jeffrey Engel, the founding director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University and co-author of "Impeachment in American History". Jeffrey, I want to start with you in the sense that we just listened to former President Bush there. Yes, he had a law and order theme. But he also did mention that he's worried about police brutality. In just the calm of his tone, very different than what we hear from the current president, the common denominator is the Attorney General William Barr in both cases.

JEFFREY ENGEL, CO-AUTHOR, "IMPEACHMENT: AN AMERICAN HISTORY": Yes, I think calm is really quite important word to remember because President Bush among all things want to lower attention. You know, there's actually an evolution in Bush's response to the Los Angeles riots over the first few days. His initial reaction is simply to say, well, you know, the jury returned its verdict and the system worked. And we need to respect that verdict.

[12:50:16]

He then went on, as you're on the tape to tell people that he wants to make sure there was law and order. But then the really crucial thing is in the middle of that speech, he also said, but I want to be clear, what I saw on the videotape was an injustice. What I saw was a terrible transgression of Rodney King civil rights. And I'm ordering the federal government and the Justice Department to investigate themselves.

So in essence, he put himself on the sympathetic side of the people who were protesting, even while he was trying to save time to tamp down the violence. And of course, the key distinction is he didn't play a role in fomenting the violence. There's nobody who ever accused George Bush of going out and trying to make it worse on the streets of Los Angeles.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Paul, to that point I was on the trip with Governor Clinton in May 1992 when he went to Los Angeles. I want to listen to a little bit of his message then, and then follow up on the point Jeffrey just made.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There are a lot of places like South Central L.A. all over the U.S. where a lot of people are very angry because there aren't enough jobs, not enough opportunity, and people are -- there's too much tension between people of different races where they don't live together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Governor Clinton did make a case of my word neglect. His case was that Reagan and Bush had not spent enough time on economic empowerment in the African American community. He did not as we hear today, and as Jeffrey just said, President Bush however you might want to fault him and you did fault him quite well at the time, though quite aggressively at the time. He was not somebody who was stoking violence.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Absolutely. Jeffrey is exactly right. You're right. You were on the trip. I was on that trip, John. And I can tell you in private as well as in public, Governor Clinton thought that the response, first of Governor Wilson, a Republican governor of California, deploying the National Guard, then the President even sending an active duty troops under the Insurrection Act. Clinton thought that was fine.

His critique was there were systemic issues of economic injustice and racial injustice and police violence against minority communities that had been neglected. You're right for too long. He did use that word neglect. So it was a very different critique. No one, no fair amount of person thought that George H.W. Bush stoked violence.

I will say that that attorney general at the time, though, how clueless is this, here's what he said at the time. Our system is fair and does not treat people differently. He said that after the Rodney King verdict, and he's still Attorney General today, clueless then clueless now, but Clinton's critique what's much more systemic than it was about bush himself.

KING: And I think that's a key point, Jeffrey, because just today the President of the United States it was asked if he wanted to have racial healing, he said yes. And he talked about how black people, Latinos would like to have less crime in their neighborhoods, and he left out the part they would also not like to be fear when their sons and daughters go out that they're going to get pulled over or god forbid gets shot.

Bill Barr was law and order then and there is, as Paul says, no systemic racism was his argument. And he's the same man today.

ENGEL: Yes. In essence, I think, you know, what George H.W. Bush was saying at the time is really important because on the one hand, he admitted that there was essentially structural problems and he use that term, but he said structural racism and all but the words and really admitted that every American had a responsibility to make sure that every other American felt safe and secure.

What he did not offer, however, were any systemic solutions. In essence, George Bush looked at the situation and realize that this was kind of the same critique that the Clinton campaign was making was correct, that he really didn't know what to do, although he recognized there was a problem.

KING: And Paul, so fast forward, what should Joe Biden be doing now in handling a very different incumbent president?

BEGALA: Well, you have to do two things. You have to speak out against violence, period. Violence is always wrong. I think Joe had that exactly right in Pittsburgh yesterday. What Clinton said at the time in L.A. was 68 people were killed in Los Angeles riots in 1990. It was a disaster. Clinton said that that rioting is understandable but still unforgivable. In other words, you have to acknowledge the rage and the pain and the frustration, but you must draw the line at violence. I think Biden did that. And then you have to step up the way Jeffrey talked about and talk about addressing the systemic problems.

And I don't think Mr. Trump has been very good at either of those. I thought Biden give a terrific speech yesterday in Pittsburgh. I think it's what the country wants. We want to acknowledge that violence is always wrong. And we want to acknowledge that racism is always wrong and we have to work on both.

KING: Paul Begala, Jeffrey Engle, appreciate your insights on the current day and also a bit of a flashback to a generation ago. Gentlemen, thank you both.

[12:54:50]

Coming up for us, Kamala Harris making a surprise cameo last night during a record breaking singing battle between two R&B legends.

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KING: It was a musical faceoff between R&B singers Monica and Brandy, more than 1 million viewers on the live stream then suddenly a surprise guest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I just wanted to thank you ladies, just you queens, you stars, you icons. You both use your voice in such a powerful way, and an extension of our voices is our vote.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I definitely agree.

HARRIS: I am going to be singing and dancing all night with you all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[13:00:02]

KING: Thanks for joining us. Hope to see you back here this time tomorrow. Brianna Keilar picks up our coverage right now. Have a good day.