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New Model: 410,000 Americans Will Die from COVID by 2021; Trump Mocks Masks at Pennsylvania Rally; 1.4 Million Jobs Added in August, Unemployment Falls to 8.4%; Mark Zandi & Amy Walter Discusses the August Jobs Report; White House Denies Trump Called War Dead "Losers" and "Suckers". Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired September 04, 2020 - 11:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:00:21]

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everybody. I'm John King in Washington. Thanks so much for sharing your day with us, a busy day.

We expect to hear any moment from the president of the United States. He's at the White House meeting with the Serbian president and the prime minister of Kosovo.

The president is angry today about a damning, if true, report. He and his aides denying a report saying that the president, the commander- in-chief, called American servicemembers who lost their lives in combat "losers and suckers."

Joe Biden today gives a big speech on his economic vision. And it comes as a new jobs report from the government sparks the campaign debate.

The president sees great news. The economy did add 1.4 million jobs in August. And the unemployment rate is back below 10 percent.

Democrat Biden will take the broader and the longer view. That job growth was down from July. And there are still 11 million fewer jobs, 11 million fewer jobs, than there were at the beginning of this pandemic.

Democrat Biden will blame that on the president's coronavirus mismanagement.

The IHME model today is simply heart-stopping and it reminds us election issue number one is this pandemic and its pain.

The new model predicts COVID-19 will claim another 224,000 American lives, another 224,000 American lives by the end of this year. In other words, that the already staggering U.S. death toll will more than double in the next four months.

It is a predictive model, meaning it doesn't have to be right. There will be fewer deaths, will be fewer deaths, if there's more mask- wearing. And that's especially important as we head not Labor Day holiday.

We expect our leader, of course, to set an example, or at least we used to.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But did you ever see a man that likes a mask as much as him?

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: And then he makes a speech and he always has it, not always, but a lot of times he has it hanging down --

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: -- because, you know what, it gives him a feeling of security.

If I were a psychiatrist --

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: Right? No, I would say -

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: I'd say this guy's got some big issues. Hanging mask.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Just think about that. The president of the United States mocking masks heading into a weekend his experts say is critical to efforts to corral the virus before the infection risk gets higher with the change of seasons.

Let's take a look at the numbers that have the experts, apparently not the president, but have the experts worried.

This is our state-by-state map right now. We have 15 states trending up, meaning reporting more new infections now than a week ago. And 15 states trending up. And 24 holding steady. And 11 states going down.

So a mixed message, if you will, if you look at the map in terms of new infections. Remember, this part of the country where you see that orange.

I want to go back. First let's go back to Memorial Day. We were not by no means out of the woods. Some people talk about the summer surge starting on Memorial Day.

If you look, this is Memorial Day. And 19 states were trending up at that point. There was already some evidence that we were having a problem, Memorial Day. Nineteen states trending up back then, 22 steady and nine going down. That is may, Memorial Day, the gateway to summer.

Fast forward to July 4th. There's your summer surge. Look at it. Look at it. Look at 37 states going in the wrong direction. More infections on July 4th. Only 12 holding steady.

This is when the summer surge, boom, if full bloom and later in July and August game.

Let's watch how it played out. Memorial Day gets you to July 4th, it gets you this, 45,000 new infections a day. July 4th, got up above 60,000, pretty close to 70,000 at the height of the summer surge.

We're now back at a plateau of 36,000 and change reported yesterday and about 40,000 new infections is where we are now. The question is: Can you keep shoving it down?

That's what Dr. Fauci and the other experts say. You must shove this down before the change of seasons. And a holiday weekend raises trouble.

The death trend, again, if you go back to July 4th, 265 deaths reported on that date. But death lag cases, we know that. It trickles up.

And essentially since the middle to the end of July, that flat blue line dropping a little bit of late, but essentially 1,000 Americans a day dying since middle to late July, 1,000 Americans a day dying.

This is what Dr. Fauci is worried about. He says these seven states are experiencing a surge right now in new cases and troublesome positivity data as well.

Again, right out here in the middle of America you can see the search states Dr. Fauci says must do a better job. Some of them are smaller states so you don't get giant case numbers, but you are getting more and more and more and cumulatively it adds up.

If you look at positivity, take a coronavirus test, what percentage come back positive? Look at this, South Dakota above 20 and North Dakota above 20 and Iowa 17 percent and Missouri 14 percent and Indiana just shy of 11 percent. These states have a problem at the moment.

People ask seven months in: Does it have to be this bad? All the experts, including out, including Dr. Sanjay Gupta says, no, the problem is we didn't do enough at beginning to help the patients.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[11:05:02]

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: If you think -- if the United States is a human body, at the beginning, when there was very localized disease, it may have required less aggressive treatment. It may have required three weeks of mask-wearing and sort of shutting things down.

But now we're basically saying, hey, it's much more widespread. We didn't do the treatment we were told to do, but now we want to do a little bit of treatment and be as good as the other guys who are healthier now.

Well, we don't have that option at this point.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's get some more insights and expertise. CNN medical analyst, former Baltimore city health commissioner, Dr. Leana Wen, is here with us.

Dr. Wen, it's good to see you. I wish we were having a more pleasant conversation.

I want to start with the president's mocking of the mask-wearing by his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, standing in an airport hangar last night that was full of people not wearing masks.

We know what happened after Sturgis. We see these reports after weddings. We're heading into Labor Day weekend.

And I assume you agree with Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx that the baseline is too high. And if we let it start to surge again as we head into fall, for people indoors, a better climate for the coronavirus, if you will, were screwed again.

Mocking masks, is that the right approach?

LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Definitely not, John. We know that wearing a mask compared to not wearing one will reduce the risk of transmission by as much as five times.

You mentioned that the projections by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation model. They also showed that, if we all wear masks between now and the end of the year, we can save 100,000 lives.

That's double the number of people who died from breast cancer last year. That's what mask-wearing can do. It's a show of respect for one another and it also saves lives.

And do I think it's important to mention that we're at a much worse place now than we were back the Fourth of July and back during Memorial Day because we have much more virus in the community.

So we really need to do our part and prevent infections and save lives now.

KING: And to your point, I just want to show the IHME projection scenario. And you see the orange line pointing straight up. That is if we continue social distance mandate easing.

Right now, the reference scenario, which is keep doing what we're doing, as you can see in the middle of the graph -- hopefully, we'll get it up there. And the lower line in green is if we had universal mask use.

That's the wrong figure. If we could get to just the line, IHME projection scenario, it would be helpful. Thank you.

You did see that there. The green line is -- is where if everybody started wearing masks. Just think about that. Just think about, you don't even need to look at the numbers. Look at the black line and look at green line.

How many people do you want to die? All it takes, putting on a mask, social distancing and you get there.

But just this morning, I heard the governor of Georgia again, Dr. Wen, saying statewide mask mandate not my thing. I just hope people will wear one.

WEN: I mean, at this point, if we know that there's something that can save so many lives, we would all do it.

I mean, imagine if there's a vaccine that's available today that can reduce your risk of getting coronavirus by five times, that can save 100,000 lives by the end of the year, we would all want that.

So we should treat wearing masks the same way because, ultimately, all of these models, they are projections, but these projections are based on our behaviors, on our individual behaviors, and on government policy. So we should be doing our best to change those behaviors now.

KING: And as you know, there are people out there who don't believe public health experts like yourself, who don't believe the media. They think we're ginning this up to hurt the president's re-election chances for some reason.

I just want to show -- go back. Let's show that map from the IHME, the map we had up a couple moments ago.

The red areas on this map, those are states where a smaller percentage of people are wearing masks. Look at the middle of the country. That means a smaller percentage of people -- the darker the color. So if it's orange or gold, that means fewer people are wearing masks in that place.

Remember that right there. Those areas of the country, look at the middle. Fewer people wearing masks.

Now let's show the graphic of the states that Dr. Fauci is warning right now, those states that are highlighted. And look at the other ones in red around them, states with more coronavirus cases now than last week. It's just simply the dots connect.

The IHME says people in those places aren't wearing masks. And Dr. Fauci says they are the ones at risk.

Why is it so hard to break through with this, Dr. Wen?

WEN: Well, this is a virus, to your point, that does not care about political ideology or partisanship. This is a virus that's extremely contagious.

But because of mixed messaging between our public health officials and experts I think people are understandably confused.

But I hope that everyone listening and watching now will help us to spread the message that what we do really matters. And so coming into the Labor Day weekend please wear a mask. Please practice social distancing.

Just because something is open and you can go to it, doesn't mean that you have to do it all. Remember that we can't have everything that we want.

So if we want our kids to be back in school, maybe we should be avoiding indoor crowded bars, avoiding -- avoiding these crowded situations that are likely to spread disease. And so be outside rather than inside and wear masks. That alone will save a lot of lives.

[11:10:03]

KING: Dr. Wen, as always, grateful for your expertise and your candor. And we'll continue the conversation. And I'm with you. We'll keep our fingers crossed across the weekend.

Just ahead, when we come back, a new jobs report from the government. The president says it's great. Others look at it and say it's better, but there are still a lot of problems.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: The economy added 1.4 million jobs in August. And the nation owes up employment rate -- you see it there -- back below 10 percent.

But today's jobs report also has continuing red flags about the coronavirus challenge. The August new jobs numbers were less than July. And overall, the American economy is still down over 11 million jobs from back in February.

Let's discuss with the chief economist at Moody's Analytics, Mark Zandi, and national editor of "The Cook Political Report," Amy Walter.

[11:15:05]

Mark, I want to start with you.

Kevin Hassett just left the White House. He came back to be the president's economic adviser. He's left the White House now. I suspect the fact that he's out of the gates is why he's so candid.

Listen to him this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN HASSETT, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER & CHAIRMAN, WHITE HOUSE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: I'm saying it's way better than expected. But, still, as you say, there's still lots of terrible bad news. And the fact is though that if the places like Washington, D.C., just

stay shut, then we could expect to see a massive wave of bankruptcies. There are all sorts of small businesses that are just barely holding on, especially restaurants and hotels. And at some point, they are going to decide it's not worth it anymore.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Help us, Mark Zandi, understand this sort of strange moment. Normally, 1.4 million jobs would be great moment. However, there's still a lot of warning out there.

MARK ZANDI, CHIEF ECONOMIST, MOODY'S ANALYTICS: Yes. It's good news. I mean, we're making progress, but the progress is slow and it's slowing.

So if you go back to June, the economy created 4.8 million jobs and in July it was 1.8 million and now in August 1.4.

And, John, a couple of hundred those were just temporary census jobs to take the 2020 census. So it's even weaker than it looks.

And the trend lines don't auger well. I mean, those businesses that could reopen have reopened. And going forward, it's going to be much more a slog.

The most disconcerting thing is we're still a long way back from normal. I mean, you mentioned 11 million jobs. We lost 22 million jobs in March and April. We've got 11 million of those back. And we're only halfway back.

And I think the next half is going to be a slog. It's going to take some time.

Even that is going to require some additional support from lawmakers and the administration and Congress to get it together and pass more fiscal rescue -- some more support to the economy.

If that doesn't happen, this is going to take a long time.

KING: Amy, that in the context of Mark says it's going to take a long time. We have an election not a long time away. People in North Carolina getting their ballots mailed to them today. Some people will be voting in the days ahead. Let alone the election is two months ahead.

To Mark's point, I want to show the jobs during the pandemic graphic. Because it is stunning. You see that drop, more than 20 million jobs disappearing from the economy back in April. And then you do see 2.7 million added in May, 4.7 million added in June, and 1.7 in July and 1.4 in August.

The president wants to say this is great. And we all get political spin. That's his job, right, spin it as best as he can in his favor.

The question is that used to be his calling card, the economy. Can he get it back into decent shape by the time people cast their ballots?

AMY WALTER, NATIONAL EDITOR, "THE COOK POLITICAL REPORT": Well, look, I think the fact that jobs are come back is good for Americans and it is helpful to the president.

I mean, it's much better to be coming into an election with up employment in the single digits rather than, you know, stuck in the double digits.

But what we've noticed, John, throughout the entirety of Donald Trump's presidency, when the economy was going gangbusters to where it is now, is that there's a really big disconnect between perceptions of the president overall and perceptions of how he's handling the economy.

And there are a lot of people who say that they think he's doing a good job on the economy even now but say they don't plan on voting for him.

And what we know -- and we've been seeing this trend going for some time now, didn't start with Donald Trump, but it certainly exploded under him -- is that voters' connection to the economy is -- as a voting tool, is connected also to their partisanship.

So if you're a Republican, even if things are going bad for you personally, you think the economy is going well because you like the person in the White House.

If you're a Democrat, you think the economy is terrible, even if you're doing OK or you just got your job back. So that's a piece of it.

But the other piece, John, I think the challenge for this president has always been that he likes to put the focus on himself instead of putting it on the issue.

We know that he talked a lot at his convention about the fact that the economy is going to come roaring back. I'm the guy that brought you the best economy, only I can bring it back.

But since then, he's spent all of his last time focusing on Kenosha and violence and talking about Joe Biden's America being blood in the streets.

That's not going to help him win over voters who don't really like his -- like him personally or like his personality but may be feeling better about the economy.

KING: And to that point, Mark -- look, only a small group of persuadable voters out there to begin with. But what is the path for the next six, eight weeks of this economy? Assuming, you know, the government doesn't shut down. Washington has to deal with that.

And as it deals with the possibility, it might just do a stop-gap continued funding effort because there's talk of another stimulus.

Is there anything that the president or Washington more broadly --

(CROSSTALK)

KING: -- can do to change things in the short term?

I think we lost -- we lost our signal with Mark Zandi.

[11:20:00]

We'll continue the conversation another day.

Amy Walter and Mark Zandi, sorry for the technical issues there.

Coming up for us, President Trump denying a report that disparaged U.S. servicemembers killed in combat.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:25:06]

KING: President Trump is angrily denying a new report that says he disparaged dead American servicemembers as, quote, "losers" and, quote, "suckers," during a visit to France in 2018.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They made it up. And probably it's a couple of people that have been failures in the administration that I got rid of. And I couldn't get rid of them fast enough. But -- or it was just made up.

I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes. There is nobody that respects them more. What animal would say such a thing?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: At issue is a report from "The Atlantic's" Jeffrey Goldberg based on accounts from anonymous sources.

Goldberg writes, "In the morning, Trump was scheduled to visit an American cemetery near Paris where American Marines are buried."

This is a piece of the article. "In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, quote, 'Why should I go to that cemetery? It's filled with losers.'"

In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to more than 1,800 Marines who lost their lives as, quote, "suckers" for getting killed.

Earlier today, Goldberg responded to the pushback from the president and several of the president's aides.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFFREY GOLDBERG, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, "THE ATLANTIC": I stand by my reporting. I have multiple sources telling me this is what happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With me to discuss are CNN's military and diplomatic analyst, Rear Admiral John Kirby, and Francesca Chambers, who covers the White House for McClatchy.

Admiral Kirby, I want to start with you just on your sense of the impact of something like this if you are -- as you are. You served for quite some time.

If you're a member of the service, whether you're a private or a general, what is it like to read this report that suggests -- and CNN has not been able to independently confirm this -- but Jeffrey Goldberg reporting the president called "suckers and losers?" Heroes.

REAR ADM. JOHN KIRBY, CNN MILITARY & DIPLOMATIC ANALYST: Very, very disheartening, John. I so desperately want to believe the president's denials, but I know Jeff is a great reporter.

And sadly his experience in the past with Gold Star families and other ways that he's used the military for political purposes certainly lends credence to these claims.

Again, I hope the president's denials are true and accurate, and that he didn't say these things, but it's difficult to get there.

And the thing about impact, it isn't just the way it impacts those who are serving or those who have served. It's about the families of the fallen.

And I don't believe the president fully understands the weight, the gravity, the severity of those kinds of sentiments and how they land on those families who are still grieving today.

KING: Francesca, you could see, you could hear it in the president's comments late last night. And you could see, if you look at his Twitter feed, he's angry and denying this.

Former aides, current and former aides, former press secretaries, his former body person, have all put out statements they have been around the president. This did not happen. They never talk like this.

Missing from it, as a reporter, is one of these conversations was allegedly with former Marine general, then White House chief of staff, John Kelly, who has now left the White House and had a falling out with the president.

General Dunford, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is referenced in this reporting as well.

We've not seen a statement from either of those two gentlemen, both generals, both American heroes. That leaves me curious.

FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "MCCLATCHY": And they are two of the few people who could really clear this up by saying it either did happen or it didn't happen in on-the-record statements.

And the challenge, John, as a reporter, with former and current White House officials who have issued statements about these, is that some of the current ones either weren't there when this -- when this reporting says that this happened or they are still on the payroll for the president.

Hogan Gidley, who is on the campaign now, also issued a statement for this, but, again, a campaign staffer.

So that makes it very challenging as a reporter when you're trying to enlist statements from people who are either close to the president still or currently or formally being paid by him.

KING: And, Admiral, you mentioned, there are times -- if this president had stronger credibility, if you will, if he did not have a history of saying things that were not true, we might be reluctant -- even given Jeffrey Goldberg's stellar history as a reporter, we might be reluctant to tell this story when the president flat-out denies it. But we know he says things not true quite frequently.

If we go back here, if we go back in time, he was on this trip to France. And at the time, they said he could not go to this other cemetery because of weather issues. They didn't want to fly the helicopter because of rain and other issues.

Listen to the president last night explaining. This is his view of what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They said you can't do it. So I said, no, I want to do it. They said you can't.

There was no way I would have been able to do it. And they would never have been able to get the police and everybody else in line to have a president go through a very crowded, very congested area.

So I went and I called home. I spoke to my wife. I said, I hate this. I came here to go to that ceremony and to the one that was the following day, which I did go to. I said I feel terribly. And that was the end of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:30:07]

KING: It sounds very persuasive when you listen to the president of the United States.

I want to read some of his words: "I went and I called home. I spoke to my wife and I said I hate this."