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Experts Fear Post-Labor Day Surge as Crowds Gather for Holiday; College Towns Emerge as Virus Hotspots as Students Return; State of Emergency Declared in California as It Battles Multiple Wildfires; The Atlantic Reports President Trump Denigrated Veterans; White House Debunks Rumors President Trump Made Disparaging Remarks About Veterans. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired September 07, 2020 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:50]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Good morning everyone. Happy Labor Day. I'm Poppy Harlow. It is good to be back with all of you. Jim has a well-deserved day off.

And this morning health experts are on edge. They're on edge because of scenes like this. packed beaches, huge parties, as crowds gather to celebrate another holiday weekend in the middle of this pandemic. The fear, yet another spike in coronavirus cases could be coming and this time millions of our children head back to school. We saw this after Memorial Day and after the Fourth of July when nearly 80,000 new cases a day were being added.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ASHISH JHA, DIRECTOR, HARVARD GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE: We go into Labor Day with 40,000 new case a day, much higher than we were at Memorial Day and so I'm worried any new surges will be potentially quite catastrophic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Also emerging this morning, college town hot spots, one university now cracking down and expelling dozens of students for breaking protocols.

Plus new scrutiny over President Trump's vaccine promise and his push to get one approved before election day. Former FDA officials now sounding the alarm on that.

There is a lot to get to this Labor Day. We begin, though, with the crowds. My colleague Rosa Flores joins us in Miami Beach.

Good morning to you, Rosa. Beaches open?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, beaches here are open, I'm on Miami Beach. Take a look around. It's still very early here so there's very few people but if you take a look, the people that are here are social distancing.

They're staying in groups, which is what officials hope for, when it comes to people coming out on beaches, but we have seen video from coast to coast that does show beaches that are packed with people. A lot of them with families. And again what officials hope for is for people to stay in groups, for them to stay within family units so that this virus can stop spreading.

Here on Miami Beach where I am, officials have deployed 120 what they call beach ambassadors to remind individuals to wear their masks, to social distance and also to wash their hands regularly. Now, the city of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez says that one of the things that has curbed the spread here in Miami has been the fact that people have been wearing masks, but he does say that here is his biggest concern.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR FRANCIS SUAREZ (R), MIAMI: I think for me, the biggest thing is that people relax. They get to a point where they feel that -- you know, that the virus is not a threat and it certainly is. It has shown it is incredibly efficient at reproducing. When we opened up after stay-at-home we were about 100 cases a day. We got 3500 rather quickly. So that to me is a bit concerning and flu season is another big concern.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: As we take another live look here, Poppy, you'll see that a lot of these people out here are families, they're staying within their groups. But I want to mention one more thing and that is the worry from local officials that what you see in public and in public spaces is only part of the picture, Poppy. The last time during Memorial Day these beaches were closed but what happened was people were gathering at home.

HARLOW: Right.

FLORES: There were parties at private venues. That was the problem, Poppy.

HARLOW: Right.

FLORES: And so what you see out here is only a portion of the picture -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes. Better for them to be outside on a beach and not in big groups. Let's hope the numbers do not tick up.

Rosa, thanks very much for that reporting from Miami Beach.

This morning, the "New York Times" is reporting that a lot of college towns across the country are already seeing a spike in coronavirus cases, but interestingly not an increase in deaths from COVID-19.

Let's go to my colleague, Evan McMorris-Santoro. He joins me. Good morning, Evan. I mean, that's obviously likely because younger

people are less likely to die from the virus. However, they go home, they go to work, they go to places with more vulnerable populations including the staff at their colleges and universities.

EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right, Poppy. They just go home. They go out in the college town.

HARLOW: Yes.

MCMORRIS-EVAN: You know, it was a bit reason why some of these colleges reopened is they want to have some of those businesses operating.

Now there are two important things in that article to think about. The first is that, look, this is a lot of research, there's a lot of numbers here, but they say very clearly in the article it's -- you know, it's unclear precisely how those figures overlap and how many infections in the community outside of campus are definitely tied to campus.

[09:05:12]

So look, this is early numbers but that's the whole point. It's very, very early in the semester and already we're seeing colleges having this problem. Some schools had to shut down, some schools are seeing these surges all over campus. This roll-out of the fall semester, the danger, the fear that would bring with it COVID and these early numbers like these "New York times" figures suggest that is happening.

HARLOW: Evan, before you go, tell us what happened at NYU, and particularly Northeastern.

MCMORRIS-EVAN: So look, the deal here is that colleges are trying to thread a very difficult needle now. They're trying to tell students, look, we want to you come back, have a campus experience, but be safe or we're going to come down on you very hard. And at NYU over the weekend, 20 students so far have been suspended for social distancing violations and Northeastern was even harder than that.

They had a program where students were living in a hotel. They gathered in a hotel room. They were caught gathering in a hotel room and a bunch of them got suspended and their $37,000 tuition kept, so they were sent home and the money kept. So the colleges are saying, look, we're going to come down hard on you if you violate these rules but they also say, look, come to school, be a student.

You know, I was talking to one NYU freshman just the other day, and she was talking about how hard this is because she's in her dorm, she's not supposed to see anybody in her dorm and then the school says go out in the city and have a time, but when you come back, make sure you're doing the right thing.

HARLOW: Yes.

MCMORRIS-EVAN: It's a tough one, Poppy. HARLOW: Totally. And there's obviously the whole financial implication

of this and the financial need of universities to have kids back on campus and what role sort of that has played in all this decision- making.

Evan, good reporting, thank you very much.

Joining me now is Dr. Esther Choo. She's a professor of emergency medicine in Oregon Health and Science University.

So, Professor, Doctor, thank you for being here. I'm also going to talk to you as a mom because you have four school-aged children. My children are preparing to go back to school here in New York City physically, it's a choice our family made, right, next week. You've made a different choice, right? Your four school-aged children are not going back to school. What does every parent need to think about this morning as they prepare to make that decision?

DR. ESTHER CHOO, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN: Yes, and it was a tough one. I won't pretend that it was easy for me to decide to keep them home as I'm sure you can relate to. I would have loved to get them out of the house.

HARLOW: Yes.

CHOO: Actually for three of my kids, the older kids, there was no choice. We actually opted to go for a hybrid model where they would have been in school part time and then at home and then my school system made the really smart decision to look at the local rates in the public health department recommendations and felt that we were not ready to go back and turn to digital only for the first term, so that was an easy decision.

My youngest child is in a private school and they actually offered the full time in-person which we went to the first day. And I reviewed their policies and I observed their social distancing behaviors when I dropped her off at school, and observed on video how well they were cohorting and I did not feel comfortable moving forward. And part of that decision, frankly, is that I'm in the hospital every day and so it's the risk that she poses to her teachers.

HARLOW: Sure.

CHOO: So there's an added layer for me but I think I realize that all summer when we were looking at these policies, they all look good on paper. They look very similar on paper when you look at schools that are opening and this goes for colleges and universities as well when you actually go back to school and you look how those policies are implemented and how well they're able to get students to comply with those policies. You sometimes get a different impression, you know?

HARLOW: I think it's a great point. I mean, for us as parents to remember, we are empowered as if our kids do go back to school in person to watch and observe and see what's happening and then make assessments and changes as needed. Let me move on to "The Wall Street Journal" reporting over the weekend

that three of the big vaccine makers, that's Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson have all pledged not to seek FDA approval for their vaccine until they believe it is proven safe and effective because sometimes they can go for authorization before the trials are completed.

What do you make of that move? Because I think a layperson would think well, yes, I mean, why go for approval until you know for sure. What do you think?

CHOO: Yes, that was a tremendously important statement that they came out with, and I think because of what happened with convalescent plasma, there was this question about whether they would go for emergency use authorization ahead of completing these phase three trials.

The vaccine manufacturers know that trust is such an important component of distributing vaccine, and I was in particular -- I was particularly encouraged by Moderna's statements specifically that they would not rush if it meant that they couldn't have adequate enrollment of minority populations.

HARLOW: Yes. Can we talk --

CHOO: And that is true.

[09:10:02]

HARLOW: About that point for a moment? Because you wrote a really fascinating op-ed with fellow doctors just a few months ago about really the problem that is posed by not having equality and representation in minorities particularly black Americans in these trials. The fact that Moderna is saying we are not at adequate numbers of minorities so we're going to slow down until we are. Should every vaccine maker be doing the same in their trials?

CHOO: They really have to, because clinical trials of really any drug should be looking at the population most affected, and in this case, it's not just a cross-section of the United States population. I mean, of the people that have been affected by coronavirus, 33 percent have been Hispanic or Latino, 20 percent have been black Americans. We know Native Americans are disproportionately affected and Asian-Pacific islanders.

And so we need to actually oversample those populations. Of course we historically don't have trust in those communities and so the outreach takes a little bit longer, and that is simply what we need to do so that we know that the vaccine and actually every drug that we're making for this pandemic is appropriate to the population who needs it.

HARLOW: Dr. Choo, thank you so much for your work and for your time this morning. Good to have you.

CHOO: Thank you, Poppy. HARLOW: Let's talk about California because the wildfires there are

raging. The state is in the middle of one of the worst wildfire seasons ever and now the governor has declared a state of emergency in five California counties.

Look at this. This is jaw-dropping video out of Fresno County, California, a family camping in central California escaped on a boat after finding themselves surrounded by those flames. More than 200 people there had to be rescued. Satellite images show the spread of the smoke across the state, look at that, more than two million acres have been burned so far this season. And Kyung Lah joins me this morning.

Kyung, it is devastating. We have learned one of these fires was started at a party?

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A gender reveal party, Poppy, and this is the edge of the wildfire that was started by that party. According to Cal Fire, the family used pyrotechnics to reveal that gender, and that's what started it, because of the dry conditions here in Southern California.

This fire is 7,000 acres plus as a result of that first spark. 600 fire personnel here battling this fire. We should point out in California, Cal Fire reminds you that if you are negligent, you can be held criminally and financially responsible for the fire, but the bigger problem is further north, what you are showing us earlier, Poppy, in Fresno County, in an area that is seeing now a fire called the Creek Fire, 45,000 acres.

It is burning out of control, and what is most remarkable about this is that we're seeing incredible rescues out of this area. There's one that's really notable in a recreation area called Mammoth Pool, there were some 200 people who were huddling near a boat launch. They were injured. There were broken bones. Some people who had burns and they were actually air lifted out of this. This is really extraordinary, something you don't typically see in a wildfire.

And one other thing, Poppy, you mentioned two million acres burned.

HARLOW: Yes.

LAH: That is a record for the state of California, Poppy.

HARLOW: Wow. Kyung, thank you for staying on it, and thank you to the responders who got those 200 people out. We appreciate the reporting very much. We'll keep a close eye on it.

We have a lot ahead this morning. From fixer to faux, the president's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, with his new tell-all book, and bracing for two hits as the nation battles this COVID pandemic, here comes the flu season. What do you need to know? Air travel also hitting a pandemic air record this Labor Day holiday, but is it safe?

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[09:15:00]

HARLOW: It has been four days since that stunning article in "The Atlantic", but we may only be scratching the surface here. Jeffrey Goldberg, obviously, the editor who wrote the story about president's disparaging remarks about U.S. service members now says he quote, "fully expects" even more to come out. Well, the president spent much of the weekend on the attack, he railed against Goldberg and also several other journalists at numerous outlets who have matched a lot of "The Atlantic's" own reporting.

With me now is our own White House correspondent John Harwood and assistant editor at "The Washington Post", David Swerdlick. Gentlemen, it's good to have both of you, and David, let me begin with you, your paper matched a lot of "The Atlantic's" reporting, so did CNN, so did "ABC", so did "Fox News", I could go on.

And you guys also have a new piece out this morning, just detailing the history here of the president's attacks on those who have served, prisoners of war, the late Senator John McCain, his own deferments four times over from serving in Vietnam. What do you think people should expect in terms of Goldberg's words, that there is more to come here?

DAVID SWERDLICK, ASSISTANT EDITOR, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, I think everybody's looking to General Kelly, Poppy, because he was featured prominently in that article, even though none of these quotes were attributed directly to him.

And so, I think as reporters like Jeffrey Goldberg, like my "Washington Post" colleague Alex Horton continue to dig into this story, what they're going to look to find is whether or not there are people who will go on the record as opposed to people speaking off the record to further corroborate these instances where the president is said to have disparaged troops.

[09:20:00]

What's working against the president here is that he made public comments that are similar about Senator McCain and others, so it's easier for people to believe that some of these other comments may have been made behind the scenes.

And the other thing is that of course, there was reporting about him not going to that Aisne-Marne Cemetery in France on his trip to France for the Commemoration of Belleau Wood years ago. And so, you have a situation where people already have enough that's out there on the record to say maybe some of this reporting is in line with what we already know.

HARLOW: So the administration, the president himself calls it fake news despite all of these sources and corroboration. But John, to you, there are members of the administration pushing back hard. I want you to listen to just two of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs on with our Dana Bash and also Treasury Secretary Mnuchin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DANA BASH, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Have you ever heard the

president disparage U.S. service members or veterans?

ROBERT WILKIE, SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS: Well, absolutely not. And I would be offended, too, if I thought it was true.

STEVE MNUCHIN, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY: I think this president has enormous respect for the military and for the generals. And I've been at the tank at the Pentagon with him. I've been at 9/11 at the Pentagon with him. This president respects and supports the U.S. military.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: John, though, what's your reporting from within the White House in terms of how much of a threat they think this is to re- election prospects for the president?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Everything, Poppy, we've seen from the administration, from those administration officials coming out and forcibly denying the story, the furious tweets from the president indicates that they know that this is an extremely damaging story. Think about a couple of levels, first of all, the symbolic level. How many times have you heard at a Trump campaign event, the Lee Greenwood song, "Proud To Be An American", where --

HARLOW: Yes --

HARWOOD: He talks about freedom and says I won't forget the men who died to give that right to me, this goes right to the heart of the legitimacy and the honesty, the truthfulness of that message. Secondly, Donald Trump's base is disproportionally composed of white- working class voters. White-working class voters are strongly represented in the United States military. And so, there's a direct potential insult to the president's comments. And as David said --

HARLOW: Yes --

HARWOOD: The president's public comments about John McCain tracked these private comments. They're different in degree, but the similar sentiment being portrayed --

HARLOW: Yes --

HARWOOD: And I think it is not a coincidence that in the reaction to -- in the attempt to push back against this story, the president is also going harder and harder on white identity politics, pushing back on things like critical race theory and racial sensitivity training because he needs to raise the salience of the feeling among many white voters that concern about racism has gone too far and veered into racism against white people. That's become the president's theme in the last couple of days, and I think that's -- indicates how difficult straits he's in right now.

HARLOW: You make a great point, John, and David, I do think it's notable that the White House line, pushing back on this consistently across folks in this administration has been, well, look at his increase in military spending, look at this and that.

Two things can be true at the same time. You could do that and also have this view and have said these things. Let's talk about for re- election though and how important to John's point veterans, members of the military are to the president's base. If you look back at 2016, they overwhelmingly supported him by a 27-point margin over Hillary Clinton. So very necessary for November.

SWERDLICK: It's necessary for November for I think two reasons, one is that, up to the beginning of "The Atlantic" reporting that we saw at the end of last week, the narrative that the White House had and that they wanted was this discussion about Joe Biden being too soft on rioters, and even though Vice President Biden had denounced rioting and looting and violence, that was still the narrative that the White House was able to get out there.

When this reporting came out and the narrative turned to Donald Trump doesn't respect the troops, President Trump then was on the defensive, rather than the offensive, and he has stayed that way throughout the last several days. I think that definitely hurts him.

The other thing -- the other thing I think, Poppy, is that you're going to see in an election where everything is about turnout and enthusiasm, a situation where on the margins, you may see some people who say, well, look, I'm not going to vote for Vice President Biden, but now maybe I don't want to vote for Trump.

But in terms of the percentages, if you look at all the polling that came out last week, President Trump has the support of 90 percent of Republican voters, and even if this dampens enthusiasm, I think you're going to see those numbers remain the same when we get the next set of polls.

HARLOW: All right, John Harwood, quickly here before we go --

HARWOOD: Poppy, just to the point -- Poppy, quickly to the point that you were making to David about "I increased support for the military", that is not inconsistent with the comments that Trump made. The comments that Trump made have to do with his personal values, his perception of sacrifice, concern for self, concern for something beyond yourself.

[09:25:00]

The stuff about the military budget -- Donald Trump is a transactional politician. And so, he acts as if, if he gives something to someone, they need to give something back to him, loyalty, votes, whatever. So to say that I increased the military budget, that is an indication that he expects support from them. It doesn't speak to the question of what he values and his own --

HARLOW: Yes --

HARWOOD: Personal character.

HARLOW: Yes, it's an important point. Gentlemen, good to have you both, thank you so much. David, John, appreciate it. All right, ahead, in the middle of this pandemic and battling COVID, flu season is about to begin. Coming up, how precautions can help prevent devastating Winter.

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