Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Midwest Cases Surging as Experts Warn of Holiday Weekend; Trump Does not Mention Jacob Blake's Name During Kenosha Visit; Trump Slams Pelosi for Hair Appointment that Violated Restrictions. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired September 02, 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: Doctors and the data say.

[10:00:01]

That's what we're going to focus on.

This morning, a warning from Dr. Anthony Fauci as the nation again reports more than 1,000 deaths from coronavirus in a single day and sees new spikes in coronavirus cases in the Midwest. FaucI's message, get this virus under control, in particular, before the fall flu season begins.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: What I would really like to see is kind of a full-court press to get us way down as the baseline so that when you get these cases in the fall, they won't surge up. They'll be controllable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Fauci and other experts also warn not to get complacent as this coming holiday weekend approaches, hoping that the country does not see a repeat of surges that we saw in the data, in the facts after both the Memorial Day and the July 4th holiday weekends.

We're covering all the angles this morning. First, let's go to CNN's Nick Valencia for more on the warnings ahead of Labor Day. This is particularly a concern of Fauci and others because the data showed us there that were spikes after Memorial Day and July 4th.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And we continue to see cases pop up across the country with the Midwest now being the latest hot spot. It is ground zero, it seems, right now for the coronavirus spread in the United States and places like South Dakota, where we saw the Sturgis rally just a couple of weeks ago, cases surging after that.

Iowa, just in the last week, a 77 percent increase in cases, part of that, according to the White House coronavirus task force, has to do with university spreading. And it's something that Dr. Deborah Birx with the task force is very concerned about. A really strong message from her ahead of Labor Day weekend, fears that another surge could be fueled by large gatherings.

DR. DEBORAH BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: If you have been in a party or you've been in an event or you've had a large gathering, potential exposure did occur. And you need to assume that until you get tested that you could have the virus because you may be asymptomatic and that you may unintentionally spread it to your mom, your grandparents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: This could be a huge problem like we saw with testing and the testing capacity after Memorial Day and more recently after the July 4th holiday. And for those wondering about more testing, it's something that was addressed by the White House testing czar, Brett Giroir, Admiral Brett Giroir, who said that the White House is announcing $5 antigen tests to be sent out to states in mid-September. But he says it's unreasonable for everyone to think that they're going to be able to get one. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Nick Valencia, thank you.

Now, to Iowa, where the White House coronavirus task force is issuing a new warning over a surge in cases being seen there. CNN's Omar Jimenez, the task force calling for tougher restrictions and a big concern there are all these students coming back to universities.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jim. So the White House coronavirus task force issues these reports once a week to governors on a state-by-state basis, and this last report puts Iowa in a red zone, so to speak, as defined by the task force, and showing that over the course of the last week, it has the highest new case infection rate in the country. And when you look at their positive rate, it is now top five within the country as well. So, obviously, these are concerning numbers,

Also with these reports come, a set of recommendations that the task force sends to these states, and among them is to put in place a mask mandate here in the state of Iowa. That hasn't happened yet. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has been reluctant to put that in place. We have seen mandates going into place in places like Des Moines, for example, and some individual locations.

But the reason the task force is putting that recommendation out is we're seeing community spread in over 60 percent of the counties here in the state. So, on top of the masked mandate, they're asking that indoor dining be reduced to 50 percent in places that are in yellow zones and then even down to 25 percent in some locations, as well. They say bars should be closed.

And you touched on it before coming to me. One of the major concerns coming forward is that we are now starting to see college students returning to their universities and this report is being issued two weeks before Iowa State is set to have its first football game back where, according to a letter from the school, we understand, 25,000 people will be in attendance.

Now, they say social distancing rules will be in effect, but, obviously, it is a major concern when you look at the three leading counties in the state for coronavirus cases, at least two of them have major universities here in Iowa. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Something to watch, Omar Jimenez, thanks very much.

Joining us to discuss, Dr. Seema Yasmin, she is a CNN Medical Analyst and a former CDC Disease Detective. Dr. Yasmin, I always like to start big picture, if I can, and here we are seven months into this outbreak, the president is now going deeper into spreading conspiracy theories and the true extent of it.

[10:05:00]

And we're heading toward flu season and there are widespread concerns about politics infecting the science here on things like when a vaccine is approved.

How should Americans at home, people watching, this take that? I mean, how concerned should they be that this country is not letting the science and the facts drive the bus on this?

DR. SEEMA YASMIN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: We should be really concerned about that, Jim. We have examples from so many countries around the world that were hit with the same virus, the same time as us, that have just drastically different epidemics, fewer deaths per population because it wasn't a politicized pandemic response. It was one that was science-led.

And so even now when we're hearing about Iowa, with skyrocketing cases, a 77 percent of increases in Iowa from one week to the next. and the coronavirus task force issuing these recommendations to Governor Reynold, we still don't know whether the governor will mandate those suggestions.

For example, she's already closed bars in six counties. Those counties are now suing there. But the task force report actually says, you need to close bars in 61 counties. And whether that happens because of how political this has become remains to be seen.

SCIUTTO: Yes, the politics, the sad fact is they're getting worse, not better.

So let's set that aside for a moment so that folks listening who want to take care of themselves and their family know what they've got to do. Let's start with a vaccine. You've had a lot of claims about when this can be ready, about fast tracking approval here.

Do you have any concerns about fast tracking it and going more quickly than getting through the phase three trials, the broad trials of this? Do you have any concerns about that? Should folks be confident that if and when a vaccine is approved, that it's something that's safe?

YASMIN: I have concerns about how the trials for vaccines are being communicated, Jim. As somebody where my scholarly work focuses on the spread of health misinformation and disinformation, particularly around vaccines, we are tracking in real-time how quickly that trust is dropping.

So what Dr. Fauci is saying quite rightly that you can't speed up things, that you can't approve a vaccine trial before the completion of phase three trial because you have these data and safety monitoring boards, these independent scientists who can say, hey, the trial hasn't finished, but, look, we have really good data and it shows everyone should get access to the vaccine. That's great, except what use is that if the American people are like, no, I think you did this too quick, you named it Warp Speed, that's really terrifying, did you cut corners, how safe is this really?

My concern is the drop in credibility in science and scientists in the FDA, which already this year has fast tracked two emergency use authorizations and very questionably, that's my concern, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Goodness. Yes, amazing, this is America in 2020.

Let's talk about schools if we can, because, of course, many schools are opening, but with a whole host of -- there's no national strategy. I mean, there are standards, but no one seems to be following them. Who is getting it right and where? I mean, what's the right balance, because, of course, you are seeing an increase in cases, infections when kids go back to school?

From what you see, is that manageable in some places? Are there some communities, states, cities that are getting this right?

YASMIN: So, this is really where you have to zoom in from the big picture into the smaller picture. So, looking back to Iowa, for example, those three counties in Iowa, the highest test positivity rates, they're university counties.

And whereas across Iowa, about 23 percent of all infections, still very high, in that 19 to 24-year age group. When you look at Story County, Iowa, home to Iowa State, where we just learned they're going to have a 25,000 in-person football season-opener, that county, 74 percent of all new infections in the last couple of weeks were in 19 to 24-year-olds.

That's a very different situation to some states and counties on the northeast part of the U.S. where they're doing loads of testing, like 600 percent of the bare minimum testing that they should be doing and they're seeing really low test positivity rates, about 1 percent, and sometimes even less than 1 percent.

So the decisions about how and when you reopen schools are so different because they depend on what's happening in your local area. And you're having to manage that based on resources schools have and just how bad the epidemic is in your region.

And I just have to say that we keep seeing these cyclical clusters. It migrates from one part of the country to another. We're playing whack- a-mole instead of, as you said, having a cohesive national response. SCIUTTO: Goodness, if only. Dr. Seema Yasmin, thanks very much.

YASMIN: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: President Trump, he walked the streets of Kenosha. He made no mention of the reasons of the death -- or the attack, rather, that sparked those protests. Why is that?

And in two months, the nation will vote for the president, and President Trump continues to suggest, with no evidence, in fact, a lot of contrary evidence, that the election will be rigged.

[10:10:01]

I'm going to speak to the Trump about this and other specious claims made by the president. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: President Trump refused to address the topic of systemic racism among law enforcement while visiting the latest city at the forefront of a national reckoning on race. The president was in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He did not meet with the family of Jacob Blake, the black man shot in the back by police. He did not even utter Blake's name once.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACOB BLAKE SR., JACOB BLAKE'S FATHER: My son's name is Jacob Blake. If he didn't mention it, then you don't care about him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[10:15:00]

SCIUTTO: Joining me now is Mary Spicuzza. She's a Politics and Breaking News Reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that has been covering the protests since the beginning. Mary, thanks for taking the time this morning.

MARY SPICUZZA, POLITCS AND BREAKING NEWS REPORTER, MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL: Thanks for having me on.

SCIUTTO: Give us a sense of the reaction of the president's visit yesterday there. It's a city torn apart by divisions. Did they see this as a political stop or as an attempt to heal those divisions?

SPICUZZA: We talked to some people yesterday who were nervous about the visit. There was one woman who lived just a couple of blocks from the unrest who was really worried that the president would come, say the wrong thing and that things would flair up again. It was a peaceful day.

We did see Trump supporters and Black Lives Matter activists kind of exchanging words, chants, having exchanges, but, really, we only saw one brief scuffle, but that was very contained late in the day. It was a peaceful day for the most part.

SCIUTTO: We are showing pictures now. I believe the president visiting a photo shop that was burned down. We learned afterwards that the owner, the actual owner of that shop did not want to appear with the president so they drummed up a former owner, did not make that clear. Tell us the story behind the story.

SPICUZZA: So, some of our competitors broke that story that, essentially, they reached out to the current owner of the camera store. He said he did not want to appear. They then reached out to one of the family members who had sold it to him eight years ago. It sound like he still owns the property that the camera store is located on.

But the current owner felt like that it was basically deceptive to bring out the person who had sold it -- sold the business to him after he had declined and represent him as the owner. So he was clearly unhappy about that, and that he did --

SCIUTTO: Understood. Where does the response stand with this? There's been a number of peaceful days. As you said, our on the ground reporters have seen that despite the portrayal as the place still being on fire. But what comes next for Kenosha, in your view? Are there discussions under way about, you know, restrictions on police use of force, et cetera? Where does the next step stand right now?

SPICUZZA: The Blake family yesterday was very clear that they didn't want to make this all about the president. They wanted to make this about healing, about justice for Jacob Blake and about criminal justice reform. The governor here had called a special session about some of those issues. It was gaveled out after about 30 seconds by the Republican lawmakers who controlled the capital.

But I know Kenosha is working to get body cameras. They've moved up that plan. There's a lot of talk about changing policing here, throughout Wisconsin and certainly in Kenosha, and I think that's what we're going to hear the Blake family and others talking about in the coming weeks.

SCIUTTO: No question. Mary Spicuzza, thanks very much.

SPICUZZA: Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: Well, there is a call for peace in Portland, Oregon. The city's mayor pleading with residents to denounce violence of all forms as the city approaches a hundred straight days of protests and other violence and attacks. The state is also ramping up efforts to prosecute demonstrators accused of violence.

New York Times National Correspondent Mike Baker joins me now. Mike, you know, listen, it's been really rough in parts of that city there and there's a sense of patience running thin. Do you expect the mayor's call here to be heeded?

MIKE BAKER, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well, I mean, there are a lot of factors in there. The mayor has been calling for some sort of calm for quite some time now and the protesters still, 200, 300 strong most nights, including folks who went to his condo building just a couple of days ago and were lighting off fireworks and bonfires in the streets and chanting for his resignation.

So, for some of these folks, I think -- for him, it's going to be nothing short of resignation that's going to be satisfying for them. So we'll see how his words have an -- if his words have any impact at all.

SCIUTTO: We've seen a lot of outsiders come into Portland. We saw this caravan the other day, you know, listen, firing paintballs at protesters, irritant sprays, et cetera, and then we saw a conflict between, it appears between one member of that caravan and others and it ended up deadly. Where does that stand? Where are local officials? Where are police? How are they reacting to this arrival of outsiders seeming to want to gin things up?

BAKER: Yes. It was actually about three consecutive Saturdays now where we've had some sort of gun conflict in Portland.

[10:20:06]

The first time, it was a right-wing person who police say shot his gun out of his car window two times. And then the following week, it was another right-wing person who brandished a gun while there was open street fighting happening between two groups. And then this past weekend when we had these Trump supporters come through town, as you said, paintball was being fired, things being thrown back at them and, eventually, someone who was affiliated with the far-right group got shot and killed in the streets. So it's been sort of an escalating thing over time.

And the police say they don't necessarily have the resources to keep these groups apart. I mean, there's open conflict happening, there's fist fights happening in the street and the police say they don't have the resources to sort of monitor them across the entirety of downtown.

So I think those are ongoing discussions. The governor wants to send in the Oregon State Police to help sort of navigate these issues, but we'll see the next time it happens. There's another event coming up here on Monday.

SCIUTTO: I spoke to the head of a police union in the last hour and I asked him if the arrival of those groups helped or hurts. And he said very clearly, it hurts.

Final question, because I think a lot of folks have only a certain window into the situation on the ground there and they see the worst of it. You've been covering it for some time. How far and wide did the violent conflicts, clashes, protests as compared to the other more peaceful demonstrations we've seen there, the wall of moms, for instance?

BAKER: Yes. I mean, so every night, I mean, protesters are going after a specific spot. And, again, it's about 200 to 300. And some nights, things are mostly peaceful. You know, it's -- it was calm last night and some nights, there're some more, you know, water bottles being thrown at police or windows being broken and fires being set. So you have that element as well.

I think that the arrival of sort of these right-wing forces has injected one, gun, a lot more guns to the streets and escalating things in that way. In fact, I have been talking to some of the protesters this week who see this arrival of guns and the fear that they've -- all this time they've been using these makeshift shields to deflect tear canisters and things like that.

And now they're talking that they need bulletproof vests and some of them are talking that they need guns even though a lot of them have a philosophical aversion to firearms. So it's just a really volatile situation that's continuing to get a little more tense.

SCIUTTO: Predictable. Mike Baker, thanks very much.

BAKER: Thanks a lot.

SCIUTTO: Well, since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, 100,000 small businesses have shut down. That number is still growing. What's the effect? We'll discuss more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:30:00]

SCIUTTO: President Trump is accusing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of violating California's coronavirus restrictions, this after Pelosi got her hair done at a San Francisco salon indoors instead of outdoors.

CNN's Manu Raju joins us me now from Washington. Manu, how does the speaker's team respond to this?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they basically are acknowledging they had an incorrect interpretation of what the rules actually allow in San Francisco and they're saying that was based off of what an employee at the salon had told her office.

Now, what Nancy Pelosi typically does to get her hair done in San Francisco, she has a stylist that comes to her house. But that person was not around so that person referred her staff to someone else who works in the salon.

That person in the salon suggested that she should come into the salon and they suggested that, apparently, according to Pelosi's office, that it's okay for them to operate at least having one person at a time in a salon to get their hair done. Well, that's actually not correct, based on new regulations that went into effect in San Francisco on Friday. Salons are supposed to operate outdoors, not indoors.

And what security footage shows that Nancy Pelosi was inside that salon, she had gotten her hair washed at one point was not wearing a mask, but she was wearing a mask according to her staff throughout the course of her visit to that salon.

Now, of course, the president has jumped all over this and has criticized Pelosi and also seized on comments that the owner of this facility had made to Fox News sharply criticizing the speaker from coming in even as the White House itself has violated social distancing guidelines through the course of the last several months.

This comes, of course, Jim, as Pelosi is back in San Francisco, they're still on recess, Congress returns later this month to deal with some of these key issues, including, of course, the stalled stimulus talks and keeping the government open past this month.

SCIUTTO: Yes, a lot of Americans relying on that. Manu Raju, thanks very much.

The CDC has now moved to protect some struggling Americans from eviction through the end of this year.