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U.S. At Labor Day Coronavirus Crossroads; White House Adviser Calls COVID Death Projections "Ridiculous & Absurd"; Washington Post: Former Employees Say DeJoy Pressured Them To Donate To GOP, Then Reimbursed Them Through Bonuses; Trump Officials Defend President Trump's Record On Military; Senator Kamala Harris Meeting With Jacob Blake's Family In Wisconsin. Aired 12-12:30p ET
Aired September 07, 2020 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Hello to our viewers in the United States and around the world. Welcome to a special Labor Day edition of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John King in Washington. Thank you for sharing your day with us.
A little tradition even in this new normal, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence all in battleground states to open the eight-week sprint to Election Day. First though a reminder that we are still learning as we go when it comes to the Coronavirus pandemic.
An International Monitoring group saying a study today says it's "highly unlikely" the virus can be transmitted through food. That is a positive as the country stares down a Labor Day Coronavirus challenge and as the numbers challenge the president's take that we have already rounded the corner.
The president here in Washington today, he says he will hold a news conference next hour. Already on Twitter he says vaccines plus are coming soon but the scientists working on a vaccine well, they are worried you will see their work as an election year rush and our planning an extraordinary joint promise that science alone will dictate this timeline.
The president claims he is getting great reviews for his pandemic management. The polls tell us otherwise and the numbers that matter most continue to numb us, nearly 6.3 million cases, soon to be 189,000 American deaths.
Labor Day is critical in part because Memorial Day and the 4th of July help drive the summer surge to those awful highs. The data tell us just how bad it was. 4.6 million cases 74 percent of the American total came during the summer. The south was the epicenter 2.5 million summer surge infections and 43,000 plus summer surge deaths so where are we on this Labor Day?
Let's take a look. First you look at the 50 state trend map and it is a mixed picture. 16 states trending up meaning reporting more new infections now compared to a week ago. 16 states that's the beige holding steady, 18 states in green trending down. Down includes Texas and California they were big drivers of the summer surge.
But heading back up Arizona and Florida also big parts of the summer surge so a very mixed picture when you look at the case map. The death trend map is just always full of sadness. 15 states trending up at the moment meaning more deaths on a seven-day average right now than a week ago, 13 states holding steady and 22 states trending down in that count.
When you look at the new cases, this is the big question in the community. Go back to Memorial Day here. Why did we have a spike? Here is July 4th, why did we go up more? And the question is as we come down now, can we get down faster or are we at a plateau?
If you see the last couple of weeks, it looks like a plateau of roughly 40,000 new infections a day that is too high especially as the seasons change. If you look at the total cases this way, Memorial Day we were at 1.67 for just shy of 1.7 million total infections in the United States back on Memorial Day.
Just this is a depressing summer up to 6.3 just shy of 6.3 million as of Sunday and we count into the Labor Day holiday. Because of all these new infections, because the baseline remains so high the IHME model now projects the death toll will more than double between now and the end of the year to 410,000 plus Americans.
That's the IHME projections for January you see the numbers on your screen. We're still below 200,000 and it projects it will more than double including the possibly of 3,000 deaths a day during the month of December. In July we averaged about a 1,000 deaths a day. Look at that number that is stunning.
Now for critics who say this is just a projection, they'll be way off; I just want to note for history here the IHME projections so far have actually been conservative in that IHME projecting 81,000 deaths by July 1st the number was higher.
Projected 137,000 deaths by August 1st the number was higher projected by October 1st we would hit 180,000 obviously we hit that earlier by August 27th. Among the critics now is the doctor who now has perhaps the most influence on the President of the United States, Scott Atlas brought into the White House Coronavirus Task Force. He says when you hear this number, don't believe it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SCOTT ATLAS, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE ADVISER: I think the model is ridiculous in many ways. When you look at what they're doing, they're claiming they can predict if you wear masks and if you don't how many deaths will occur? That's absurd. It is really off the rails when the taxi cab driver starts knowing what a projection model is or starts telling me about Hydroxychloroquine. This is --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay. When I say --
DR. ATLAS: --this is really off the rails.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Let's discuss, let's bring in Ali Mokdad he is Professor of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and Dr. Celine Gounder a CNN Medical Analyst and Former New York City Assistant Commissioner of Health. Mr. Mokdad, let me begin with you because you work on that projection. Scott Atlas says it's absurd. I believe you consider it to be actual science.
ALI MOKDAD, PROFESSOR OF HEALTH METRICS SCIENCES, IHME: Yes, it is. Unfortunately, when somebody like Scott says absurd it makes you wonder what he is talking about. So we do this all the time.
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MOKDAD: We have a prevalence of a risk fast factor associated what is the relative risk or odds ratio? And we can compute how much attributable deaths you will have from that risk factor? And you could do what we call a counter factual.
So you say if smoking goes down by 5 percent what will happen to lung cancer? This is basic epidemiology 101. I don't understand what he is talking about. I understand somebody like a taxi driver questioning me but not a scientist who reads journals and sees what science is all about.
KING: One of the sad parts in the last seven months I think is sometimes the taxi drivers seem to have more facts than things we hear from people advising the President of the United States. I think that's one of the sad things of the past seven months.
Dr. Gounder, we've had these conversations and so you hear Mr. Atlas there who now - inside the White House they say, perhaps the most influential person on the President of the United States.
The projection says we will more than double our death toll between now and the end of the year and yet if you listen to the president and listen here he and Dr. Fauci in another disagreement. The president says we have turned the corner.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And by the way, we are rounding the corner. We are rounding the corner on the virus.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: You know I'm not sure what he means. There are certain states that are actually doing well in the sense that the case numbers are coming down. Our concern right now is that there are a number of states, particularly, for example, the Dakotas, Montana, Michigan, Minnesota and others who are starting to have an uptick.
(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: You got 12 states with a positivity rate tracking a week now back above 10 percent in double digits. You have got - keep looking at these other states as well with cases trending up. Have we rounded the corner? We have a baseline of 40,000, new infections a day, is that rounding the corner?
DR. CELINE GOUNDER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: John, the least reliable forecaster when it comes to this pandemic is our president. He has said as you may remember oh, this is just going to go away with the summer weather, well, it did not.
Whether we have 400,000 deaths by the end of the calendar year or 275 or 600 no model is perfect? What is clear, though, is that we have way too many transmissions occurring and that many of those are preventable so every death that occurs that's a preventable death is one death too many.
KING: Ali Mokdad, I want you to listen here because one of the questions people have asked, remember the president said back in February I think it will all disappear in April when it got warmer. We learned through the warm hot months of the summer. It did not disappear, it got more deadly and we got more infections.
And when you see the growth from Memorial Day to where we are now it simply numbs you to go through the numbers every day. The question now is as it gets cooler as people tend to leave the outside and go more inside, is that climate more conducive to the Coronavirus? Listen to this take from Dr. Scott Gottlieb.
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DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: If you look at where we are heading into Labor Day relative to where we were heading be Memorial Day? We have an equivalent amount if not more infection heading into Labor Day right now. And we're heading into a more difficult season.
We're heading into the fall and the winter when we could expect a respiratory pathogen like a Coronavirus to start spreading more aggressively than it would in the summertime. And the other backdrop here is that people are exhausted so I think that people's willingness to comply with the simple things that we know can reduce spread is going to start to fray.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Walk through some of that. Because I was reading the detailed analysis of your projection the other day and you do factor in the baseline, meaning Memorial Day 18,000 new infections a day and now we're at 40,000 plus new infections a day, which means you, have a higher baseline there is more infection out there in the country.
But then also the conduct of people, looked at the other surveys on mask use for example, especially in the middle part of the country where people aren't wearing masks as enough and lo and behold those are the states where you see high positivity and more cases. MOKDAD: Very true. So unfortunately, John, what we see right now is when the cases go up, take, for example, Arizona, people start wearing a mask and then when cases start coming down, people start relaxing.
And right now in the United States the trends are against us so mask wearing is 5 percent down from before. Mobility is increasing in the United States, we have more cases right now and we're heading into winter where we know this virus is flowing what we see in pneumonia seasonality.
So it is going to pick up in winter which is very true, what your guest said, and we'll see more cases coming into winter, unfortunately.
KING: Then, Dr. Gounder, walk us through that. And we could show some pictures of people out on the beach this weekend and you want everyone to get outside, safer to be outside but some of the pictures that we saw this weekend are not so safe if you will.
If we're starting from 40,000 baseline what are the seasonal factors and other factors that you think are so critical to think about at this cross roads moment of the challenge being can you shove it down below 40 and keep it down or does it go back up again?
DR. GOUNDER: Right, John. So we're starting with this high baseline and on top of that we have recently seen an increase in counties where colleges and universities are located so college students are driving an increase in transmission.
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DR. GOUNDER: You layer on top of that the bump you'll get from Labor Day activities just as we saw with Memorial Day and then the 4th of July. And then when people are indoors more as the weather cools, as they're coming back from maybe a summer vacation outside the city or wherever they go.
When you have students returning to school in many parts of the country in very crowded conditions, you know 30 to a classroom in some places that is going to drive transmission in the community. And so as the fall comes many of us are really steeling ourselves for what we're about to see in terms of the new surge.
KING: It is steeling is a good word for it. Dr. Gounder and Ali Mokdad I appreciate it very much. I wish I could predict that you will be wrong but you have been with us for the past seven months and you have been correct at every turn. So I appreciate the insights very much Ali and Dr. Gounder.
MOKDAD: Thank you.
KING: Well, up next for us, new allegations the Postmaster General reimbursed his former employees to make donations to Republicans.
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KING: New questions today for the Postmaster General Louis DeJoy but lucky for you they have nothing to do with your mail. Employees of a North Carolina company where DeJoy was CEO say they were pressured to donate money to Republicans and then reimbursed.
David Young, Former HR Director at New Breed Logistics told "The Washington Post," "Louis was a national fund-raiser for the Republican Party. He asked for money, we gave him the money and then he reciprocated by giving us big bonuses. When we got our bonuses let's just say they were bigger, they exceeded expectations and that covered the tax and everything else.
A spokesperson for DeJoy telling "The Post" DeJoy "Believes he has always followed campaign fund raising laws and regulations" And the North Carolina Attorney General clearly looking at this and tweeting this. It is against the law to directly or indirectly reimburse someone for a political contribution.
With me to discuss this and more, Catherine Lucey White House Reporter for "The Wall Street Journal" Rachael Bade Congressional Report for "The Washington Post". Rachael, I'll start with you because this was an issue when Louis DeJoy was questioned up on Capitol Hill. Maybe Congressman Jim Cooper just didn't ask the question right. Listen to this exchange.
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REP. JIM COOPER (D-TN): Did you pay back several of your top executives for contributing to Trump's campaign by bonusing or rewarding them?
LOUIS DEJOY, U.S. POSTMASTER GENERAL: That's an outrageous claim, sir, and I resent it.
COOPER: I'm just asking a question.
DEJOY: The answer's no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: The conduct alleged in "The Post" article talks about 2010 to 2014 to Republicans so it would have been before the Trump campaign if true but so is - the question now is, is there a nugget here of potential illegality that has to do with Republicans not so much the Trump Campaign?
RACHAEL BADE, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes, look. This is really going to contribute to the sort of legal trouble that DeJoy is going through right now.
I mean, on Capitol Hill, Democrats have been questioning whether he's been going into the post office and making all these changes to try to slow mail-in voting to swing the election for the president who he obviously gives a lot of money to and supports. But this block blockbuster story, you have people on the record saying
that a couple years ago he engaged in this illegal campaign finance scheme or at least alleging this where he pressured them to give to Republicans again to help GOP candidates and reimbursed them?
And what this is going do on Capitol Hill or is doing we're hearing from Democrats it sort of adds to the suspension around DeJoy and not just because you know if he did it back then allegedly what is he going to be doing on Election Day for Trump?
And then you also mentioned this notion of him denying this on Capitol Hill under oath in a hearing reminder that lying to congress, you know, is a felony so you get in trouble for that, too.
So I think that there's just obviously this growing scandal, this growing cloud around DeJoy and a reminder, we're only what, 50 some days out from Election Day and he is supposed to be the official really overseeing in making sure all these mail-in ballots are counted and right now he has this controversy around him.
KING: And he has all this controversy, Catherine, and it is just more and we should be used to this by now, whether it is candidate Trump 2015-2016 and now President Trump 2020. There is just constant chaos; there are constant people under scrutiny.
Now at this moment including the president himself to the point where his Veteran Affairs Secretary and his Treasury Secretary do the Sunday shows and they're asked about this report first in "The Atlantic" but then the gist of it confirmed by many, many organizations including CNN and including notably Fox News that the president talked about disparaged American war dead as losers, suckers. Listen to this.
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DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Have you ever heard the president disparage U.S. service members or veterans?
ROBERT WILKIE, VETERANS AFFAIRS SECRETARY: Well, absolutely not. And I would be offended; too, if I thought it was true.
STEVEN MNUCHIN, TREASURY SECRETARY: 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)
KING: There is couple of layers to this. Number one, just another controversy and this one this character question, about the president. This is just reprehensible if these things were said by any President of the United States but it also then flips the coin is that the Democrats see an opening here, Catherine, but they also are mindful that they thought the character questions would undermine Candidate Trump in 2016 and it didn't work then. CATHERINE LUCEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: That's right, John. I mean, I was at the event in Iowa when President Trump said these things about the Late John McCain. You remember he talked about him not being a war hero, that he didn't like people who were captured, which are, of course, one of the problems for the Trump Administration.
Now there are certain things that the president had said on the record very openly. Certainly he's also praised the military, has appeared and given somber remarks at other kinds of events and they're now mounting a very aggressive push back to this. You saw scores of people come out last week pushing back on this report because they know that it comes at a critical moment for his campaign.
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LUCEY: He is trying to close the gap with the Former Vice President and he is really trying to push back--
KING: I'm sorry. I need to interrupt you on this. The Democratic Nominee Joe Biden meeting with some labor leaders in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This is a surprise for us let's listen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All aspects of construction throughout the State of Pennsylvania. Collectively we have about 135,000 construction man and women in the Commonwealth. We are building major projects like the Cracker Plant out in Beaver County which by the way Donald Trump didn't start.
That was started under the Obama Administration and I saw a press release that he put on that they mandated everybody show up for the event that he was at out there and then he stood up there and said that he created that whole entity out there which isn't true but I'll go away from that for a minute.
But, you know, we have had the opportunity to meet several times through the years. And you have my highest respect and our union members are better off because of you and what you've done in your career as a senator and as vice president. We couldn't ask for a better friend to become President of the United States.
It's just - it saddens us, it saddens me personally with some of the stuff that's going on in our country, starting from the White House. And we need the ship righted again and I really believe that you're the man that can do it and you have my 100 percent supports.
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Well, thank you. I've been union from time I was a kid. In my house you didn't grow up if you - we knew who built the country. We figured it out early on. My uncle used to kid me and say, Joe, you're belt buckle from shoe sole but that an occupational family requirement.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So may I introduce everyone here?
BIDEN: Sure please. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay. This is Bob is from Schuylkill County area he is with the ironworkers. He's a retired veteran from Vietnam War and would you like to say a few words?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Glad to see you. Last time I saw you this close was down in York, P.A. the first time you and President Obama was running.
BIDEN: Is that right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was on the fence line you did an auditorium crowd. I was going to get your autograph. I wish I thought whether I had a pen and a paper ready. The secret service, you can't have that pen and took my pen so that was the end of the autograph.
Anyways, my name is Bob Faust I'm with the ironworkers local 404 out of Harrisburg, P.A. I should say I retired from there in 2003. And we - you know, I started as an apprentice iron worker. Two-year apprenticeship would say I have an excellent program and we can't do away with that.
And you know all these time for the 35 years I was working as an ironworker, I'm 74 now. So it takes me a while to get around not like I used to. But because of that, because of the decent wage we made, the living wage, I had four daughters and a son and two of the daughters I put through college and the third one I put through nursing school.
No help from the government because I made a decent wage as a union ironworker. Now, people can't understand, I don't know. You know? I can't understand what's going on today. I'm lost. I'm lost, sir. And I hope - I just - I get choked up when I think about the direction this country is going in at this time. We need your help.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, our next speaker is Warren from Howard local 520. I mean, Howard. Sorry.
KING: You're watching Joe Biden in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. You see this is the unusual campaign year we find ourselves. In Labor Day it is traditional especially a Democratic candidates to meet with labor leaders around the country. Joe Biden obviously, Pennsylvania a major battleground state for him. It is his birthplace, he is from Delaware now but he was born Scranton, Pennsylvania.
You see Joe Biden meeting there with the labor leaders with the masks, the social distancing in the group there. That was a surprise event for us which is why we jumped into it live. I still have Catherine Lucey of "The Wall Street Journal" and Rachael Bade of "The Washington Post" with me.
Catherine, I'm sorry for the interruption. On the other point but to watch something like this it is just a reminder, Kamala Harris is in Wisconsin today we're told she is meeting with the family of Jacob Blake.
[12:25:00] KING: He of course the black man shot seven times in the back by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The Presidential Nominee Joe Biden there in what looks like the strangest of settings and yet that is our new normal.
So we have our new normal but we also do have it is noteworthy that both Biden and Harris are out. Vice President Pence is out. We are getting - it is not traditional, it is not the same it is not as wide scale but we're getting more of a campaign all of a sudden.
LUCEY: That's right. I mean, post Labor Day we are and even last week we're seeing the former vice president out on the campaign trail in a way that we haven't really since the spring. He is doing events in battleground states. The president has been for some time and of course they are - they have different theories of how to do this?
The president seems to be really leaning into these sorts of airport rallies. You seeing him do the sort of hangar rallies, smaller crowds but still you know fairly sizable crowds in this moment of a pandemic. He's focusing on that.
We'll see him out a number of times this is weak and the former vice president is sticking more to these kinds of socially distanced events or smaller meetings. But we're seeing them both out and one thing to look ahead to this week is that they're both going to be or expected to be in Pennsylvania on Friday for 9/11 commemoration events. Not clear if they will see each other but they're both expected in Shanksville, P.A.
KING: Catherine Lucey and Rachael Bade I appreciate your patience and your reporting and your insights as we went through the live even there. Eight weeks from tomorrow is Election Day. Thank you both ladies. We'll continue this conversation and we continue it. When we come back as well President Trump constantly pushing race and race related policies as reelection issue.
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