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Biden Says Trump Legitimizes Hatred, Racism Across U.S.; States Scramble as CDC Warns Vaccine Could Be Ready in October; Student Arrested in Cyberattacks on Miami-Dade Schools; COVID-19 Kills More Cops in 2020 Than All Other Causes Combined; Stocks Plunge, Tech's Worst Day Since March. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired September 03, 2020 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

JOE BIDEN, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Mental health is a badly needed commodity right now. That's why in the Affordable Care Act we insisted it be treated equally. There's no difference between a mental health problem and a physical health problem. They're both related to your health. They should be both covered. It talked about the whole idea of federal support, you know, clinics and, you know, we need community clinics.

You guys are expected to do everything right now. And Barb, you talked about, you know, rebuilding. Well, you know what? Let's get something straight here. Protesting is protesting. My buddy, John Lewis used to say, but none of it justifies looting, burning or anything else.

So, regardless of how angry you are, if you loot or burn, you should be held accountable as someone who does anything else, period. It's just not -- it just cannot be tolerated across the board.

And, Angela, you know, you talk about the whole issue of sentencing. One of the things that I proposed is we make sure that prosecutors are able to have to list what the option charges are given to a person.

For example if you're a white guy who can afford a lawyer and you're charged with a crime, you're not charged with nine crimes and given nine alternatives and say if you plead to the least one, we're going to put you on probation, and you have no lawyer.

Or you have a public defender who is getting paid half the federal prosecutor is getting paid. Public defenders are going to get paid the same of federal public defenders, the same amount as prosecutors are going to get paid so you have representation.

Because once you get that on your record, you've got a real problem. Well, two people show up for a job. You have that thing you pled to. You weren't guilt of any of it. But rather than run the risk of going to jail for five years, you pled to get out from under anything but you get probation. That happens all the time. That's why we have to have the federal

Department of Justice, which is not much of a Department of Justice right now, have the ability to go and look at the methods that are used by prosecutors and their offices, how they, in fact, deal with sentencing and what they do.

There's a lot more to say, but I probably already said too much except that there's a lot we're able to do. The public is ready to do these things. I promise you. I promise you.

Last piece, education. The idea in the United States of America, your education is determined by your zip code. Title I schools -- you all know what a Title I school is, mostly in black and Hispanic neighborhoods but also in poor white neighborhoods where they can't afford the tax base. They don't have it. Title I schools are able to get $15 billion a year to make up for the $200 billion gap that exists between them and other school districts, white school districts.

Well, guess what? We move that to $45 billion a year, it means I can put every 3, 4 and 5-year-old in school, in school.

We've learned a lot in the last eight years. Every major university, and prestigious university in the country has pointed out that increases by 58 percent the chances that child, no matter what home they came from, will get all the way through all 12 years of school.

It will also insist we provide for -- right now we have one school psychologist for every 1,505 kids in America. We know now that about 60 percent of a child's brain is developed by the time they reach that age.

And anxieties exist with children that can be identified early is able to be dealt with, anxiety. But they don't do it now because they don't -- they can't pick it up.

And their situation, again, where when you do that, we know. We know that the most at-risk generation for the first time in American history is the Z generation. They have the greatest degree of anxiety of any generation all the way up the scale, no matter where they are.

We've also learned -- I'll end with this -- I know, you're getting too antsy. Sit down, man, OK.

But here's the last thing. But this is important. Here's the deal. If you think about it, we finally figured out drug abuse doesn't cause mental health problems. Mental health problems cause drug abuse.

And if you don't detect the anxiety in children early and deal with it and treat it, you increase exponentially the prospect that they're going to be in fact find themselves susceptible to what's happening in the community.

The generic point I'm making is there's so much we could do. So much we can do.

[15:35:00] And we can do it just by eliminating the tax cut for the top one tenth of one percent, which is one trillion, $350 billion just on nothing to help anybody.

19 corporations making a billion dollars apiece don't pay a single penny in taxes. I don't want to punish anybody, but everybody should pay a fair share.

Not going to lay it out for you -- I won't know now because they'll shoot me but here's the deal. I pay for every single thing I'm proposing without raising your taxes one penny. If you make less than 400 grand, you're not going to get a penny taxed and you're going to get a tax cut if you make under $125,000.

So it's not that we can't do this. We have been willing to do this. But I think the public's ready. I'll do whatever you tell me, boss.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are the boss. I know when my dad would tell me to sit down, I sat down. So I'm good. I'm good. I think what you heard here was --

BALDWIN: Joe Biden there in Kenosha, speaking to members of the community there. You can hear him addressing, you know, point by point by point on his notes, you know, just questions, concerns from folks there who have been able to speak up about, you know, their children and education and mental illness -- health. And then the prison system.

But I want to go back just briefly, I mean obviously he's there in the wake of the Jacob Blake shooting. He's met with the family today and he was mentioning Charlottesville.

And again, you know, when Joe Biden announced he wanted to run for President, what did he say? He wants to fight for the soul of this nation. And that is precisely what he's trying to do in making his case to become the next president of the United States.

Coming up here on CNN, the CDC is calling for states to get ready for a potential vaccine. But health experts warn getting it out there will not be easy. One of those experts will join me next.

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BALDWIN: As the U.S. coronavirus caseload sits above a staggering 6 million, a vaccine is widely seen as the only way to stop the spread and return to some semblance of normalcy. And according to the CDC, we may be closer to that vaccine than we thought. The center is putting states on notice to get ready and prepare mass distribution.

So now the question becomes, how on earth do we effectively get 330 million vaccine doses distributed across the country? That has health officials, including my next guest, scratching their heads a bit.

Dr. Kelly Moore is an assistant professor health policy at Vanderbilt School of Medicine. So, Dr. Moore, welcome to you. And these CDC documents reveal that the vaccine maybe, maybe, could be ready by October. Why are you concerned that states won't be ready by then?

DR. KELLY MOORE, ADJUNCT ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF HEALTH POLICY, VANDERBILT SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Well, the thing that we're focusing on getting done by the end of October really is getting our distribution system ready. We've been working on pandemic planning. I was involved in that as early as 2005, and planning in generalities for vaccinating the public against a pandemic disease like this one.

But now we're finally getting the specifics about this vaccine against this disease, and there's some real challenges facing us. The storage conditions, frozen vaccines, needing two doses. All of those things we're finally getting the specifics on.

So only now are we able to start really planning the specific things we need to do to get vaccine in the arms of people as soon as the vaccine is approved by the FDA.

BALDWIN: So if this happens to end of October, I'm just cutting to the chase, will the states be ready to administer the vaccine?

MOORE: The states are working right now, as you may know, a deadline focuses the mind. So they're focused on that end of October with their checklists and looking at what do they need to get done first in order to be prepared as soon as a vaccine is ready, that there's not a delay in getting it to the people who need it most.

The good news is our first priority recipients are probably going to be health care professionals who are located in facilities we can identify and get those early small doses to them relatively easily.

BALDWIN: All right, so health care workers first, and then maybe some, you know, older, more vulnerable folks perhaps second. What do you say to people who say hey, great. Can't wait for the vaccine, but I don't want to be the guinea pig at first. What do you say?

MOORE: I think it's fair that people have questions right now about the vaccines, how well they will work and what their side effect profiles will look like. I have questions, too, and we're learning the answers from the phase three clinical trials that are going on right now.

So as we get the answers from those trials, it's our job in public health to educate the public about what we know and to be honest about what we don't know to equip them to make the best possible decisions for themselves and their families.

BALDWIN: Yes, the public health and the public deserves honesty. Thank you for saying that. Dr. Kelly Moore, good luck. Thank you.

MOORE: Thanks.

BALDWIN: Coming up, a 16-year-old student under arrest in connection with cyberattacks that shut down Miami-Dade virtual learning platform.

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BALDWIN: In Florida, a 16-year-old high school student is under arrest in connection with cyberattacks that have disrupted virtual learning at Miami-Dade area schools for three days straight. And now the FBI and Secret Service are just some of the officials investigating this whole thing.

CNN's Rosa Flores is in Miami. And Rosa, so a 16-year-old? So what charges does the student face and do police think other people could be involved?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Brooke, police say that there's definitely other bad actors. But as to the 16-year-old, he was arrested and charged on two counts.

[15:50:00]

First, computer use, in an attempt to defraud, and also interference with an educational institution. According to investigators he was arrested at 3:00 a.m. this morning. At that point in time he confessed to at least eight of the cyberattacks, what authorities called a distributed denial of service attack, imagine a million people knocking at your door at once bottlenecking the system.

Now according to investigators, the teenager's computer and gaming system was taken into evidence and with the help of the FBI, the Secret Service, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. What investigators are doing right now is, they are scouring through these devices following the digital fingerprint and digital roadmap trying to figure out exactly what happened.

But you've got to remember, this student is a student with a user-name and password. So that facilitated the activity. But authorities say that he's not the only alleged attacker. Because they know that there's been dozens of attacks and he's only admitted to eight. Now some of the other IP addresses according to authorities trace back to other countries including Russia, Ukraine, China and Iraq.

Now, Brooke, there is a lot to unpack here. This is early in the investigation. But authorities say that they don't know the motive. They don't know if he was working alone. They do know that he's back at home. Now they have taken his computer. And they do know that the next time that he faces a judge it's going to be on October 8th -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Rosa, thank you.

And as this devastating pandemic has made very clear, virtually no community has escaped this virus and that includes our nation's law enforcement.

According to a new report just out this week on the job COVID infections were responsible for more than 100 officer deaths. Accounting for more fatalities than gun violence, car accidents and all others combined.

Marcia Ferranto is the CEO of National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund. And Marcia, I was just reading about this yesterday thinking I don't think people fully appreciate this. You know that this data -- let me be clear -- the data came down from the Officer Down nonprofit, and that organization says it's in the process of verifying an additional 150 officer deaths because of the virus. But this is a quote that I sent out to my team and said we got to talk about this.

This is in "The Washington Post" quote, by the end of this pandemic it is very likely that COVID will surpass 9/11 as the single largest incident cause of death for law enforcement officers.

Why, Marcia, is this happening and what can officers do to stop it?

MARCIA FERRANTO, CEO, NATIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT MEMORIAL FUND: So yes, Brooke, that is a fact. The National Law Enforcement Officer's

Memorial Fund, we are the leading authority on all line-of-duty deaths and we have been for the last 30 years.

Currently, and this is changing daily, all these calculations are coming in. Some came in today. We're currently knowing 106 total COVID-19 related law enforcement deaths of which we have 14 confirmed. And when I say we have 14 confirmed, let me clarify that. That's 14 departments who have submitted their paperwork. But by the end of the fourth quarter of 2020, my guess is we're going to be far surpassing the 106 that we see today.

BALDWIN: And why? Is it just the sheer obvious officers being out on the street's exposure?

FERRANTO: You know, our law enforcement officers are putting themselves into high-risk COVID-19 situations daily. And what our citizens can do to keep their community safe, to keep their family safe, to keep law enforcement safe is to first not gather in groups.

But secondly if you are in need of law enforcement to please let them know during that 911 call what they're looking into and if there is any COVID-19 situations that they are going to find.

BALDWIN: I was reading it's officers and also in correctional facilities accounting for a substantial number of these COVID-related deaths. You know, what is that, Marcia, signal to you just maybe even about the state of prisons in our country?

FERRANTO: It is true, I mean it's the overcrowding of prisons. Correction officers are highly susceptible to contracting COVID-19, that is true.

But also the other interesting piece is we're getting the largest numbers coming out of Texas right now from the Criminal Justice Department. So currently we have 12 of those that have recently hit our research department.

And Brooke, we go through a very stringent review of all of these cases. So all line of duty cases go through a review that includes doctors, and law enforcement professionals as well as other experts. And at the end of the year we will be providing the final results of all law enforcement line of duty related deaths.

BALDWIN: Good. I'm glad you are. I'm glad you're, you know, taking count. I just feel like we've covered so many, you know, groups of people who are so susceptible who've been getting so sick. And, you know, law enforcement certainly out there doing their jobs.

[15:55:00]

And as a result, you know, getting -- many of them getting COVID. Marcia Ferranto, thank you so much for shining a spotlight and for coming on with me. I appreciate it.

FERRANTO: Thank you for having me.

BALDWIN: You got it.

Coming up, Joe Biden's visit to Kenosha, Wisconsin. Here he is again. Live pictures as he's at this community gathering at this church where he just accused President Trump of legitimizing hatred and racism in the U.S. Earlier today, he also met with the family of Jacob Blake. We have more details on Biden's visit coming up.

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: And welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Pamela Brown in today for Jake Tapper.

And we begin with breaking new in our Money LEAD.