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Biden Is Leading Trump On The Path To 270 Electoral Votes; Remembering Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; CDC Website Reverts Back To Old Guidance On COVID Aerosolized Transmission. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired September 21, 2020 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:31:05]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: We have some new changes in our CNN electoral map as we head into the final six weeks of the campaign. Six weeks from tomorrow is Election Day, the campaign now being reshaped by the big Supreme Court fight. Joe Biden without a doubt has an advantage heading into these final weeks. The question is, how will it play out with debates coming up the Supreme Court pick and the like? But let's look at the map. This is our current map 269 electoral votes solid or leaning for Joe Biden. It takes 270 to win.

This is our latest map, 169 for President Trump, if it's dark red, it's solid Republican. If it's light red like Iowa, it leans Republican. If it's dark blue like California, it's solid Democrat. If it's light blue like Arizona and that's new on our map, it leans Biden. This is our current map 269 to 169. This is where we were just last week 268 to 170. So very minor shifts in terms of the numbers, but what changed in the map?

Let's go back to where we are now to show you how that plays out. Let me come back in here. Here we go. What did we move? We have moved Pennsylvania. We had it lean blue. We now make it a tossup but we have made -- move Wisconsin from tossup to lean blue. And we have moved Arizona from tossup to lean blue. And we have this congressional district here in Nebraska that has moved to tossup. Advantage Joe Biden heading into the final weeks, the Supreme Court fight shakes everything up.

No one quite certain how that will play. Does it motivate conservatives? Well, Joe Biden knows that's what happened in 2016 that helped Donald Trump. In 2020, Joe Biden says liberals, progressives, independence, moderates, even soft Republicans, a Trump court could tilt huge issues like health care.

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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: In the middle of the worst global health crisis and living memory. Donald Trump is before the Supreme Court trying to strip health care coverage away from tens of millions of families, the strip away, the peace of mind of more than 100 million Americans with preexisting conditions. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Here to talk this over, David Axelrod, of course chief strategist for the two Obama presidential campaigns, now a CNN commentator host of The X Files. David, it's good to see you.

You look at this map. We're heading into the final six weeks. It is advantage Biden. Yes, many of these battleground states are close. But Biden doesn't need to win them all. Donald Trump has a much more narrow path when you look at it. And yet, has there's a lot of skittishness when you talk to Democrats, how much of that is just, you know, hangover, headaches about 2016 and how much of it is about 2020?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Or the natural state of Democrats, it could be that as well. But look, I think there's reason for people to be skittish because they assume too much in 2016 on the Democratic side and paid a price for that. But they have the advantage of having gone through that. And there are a lot of things that are different now.

Donald Trump is the incumbent, Joe Biden doesn't have the freight that Hillary Clinton faced in 2000 -- or carried into the race in 2016. And this pandemic, really hangs over us. And it is something that Donald Trump simply can't escape. And it is a brick on his ability to grow, or it has been.

So, you know, when we look at polling now, Biden, "The Wall Street Journal/NBC" poll yesterday, Biden was up eight points in January. He's up eight points now. The race has been incredibly stable. And that's not a good thing if you're the incumbent trying to make up a ground.

KING: It is not a good thing if you didn't come and try to make up ground which is why the President thinks this court pick could help him at least shake things up. Listen to him this morning on "Fox News", essentially saying I'm President, this is my pick. We're going to make it. And I think it energizes people.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And we want to have nine justices and we want to have somebody with a lot of talent added to the very talented people we already have on both sides. We won the election and elections have consequences. It's called you pick people from the Supreme Court and you pick judges too. We have -- we're going to have almost 300, about 300 judges at the end of my first term.

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[12:35:15]

KING: That is, I know progressives don't like it. That is a remarkable first term legacy of this President, how many judges they have confirmed at the district court level, the appeals court level, two Supreme Court justices, now the fight for three. You know, what is your sense out in America having been through two presidential campaigns? In 2016, there's no question. For the voters, about 21 percent of voters said Supreme Court was most important to them, that went lopsided to Trump. Is it different in 2020? Can Democrats turn this to their advantage this time or does that make you nervous?

AXELROD: Well, look, I think that if you look at the reaction to the news of Justice Ginsburg's death, and just a prodigious amount of money that Democrats raised in the first 24 hours, I think it was $100 million. That gives you a sense of how energizing that issue is for Democrats. And I think Biden put his finger on probably the most energizing piece of it, which is health care and the Affordable Care Act.

And I think you're going to hear a lot of that from Democrats. The question, John, is whether those people who are energized by the Supreme Court issue were in already. You know, we have great deal of enthusiasm about this election. And among Republicans and conservatives and evangelicals, the Supreme Court has always been at the top of the list. The question is, does this elevated in the minds of Democrats and particularly young Democrats?

So I thought it was very interesting that Chuck Schumer stood with AOC yesterday in giving his response to the death of Justice Ginsburg. And I think it sent a message to young voters and particularly young women voters who may not have been as enthusiastic about participating on behalf of Joe Biden, but are now energized by this issue.

So I don't think I would assume that there is an advantage to one side or the other in terms of enthusiasm generated by this. I also wouldn't assume that this transforms the basic structure of the race. The President would love to change the subject to this fight, because the subject that everyone is talking about right now, which is the coronavirus doesn't really work to his advantage.

KING: So let me put you in an odd spot. You're a Democrat who's won two presidential elections. There aren't a lot of those out there. The President of the United States has to make this pick. If you were advising him, sorry, but if you were advising him, would you tell him pick Barbara Lagoa from Florida try to make a state play, Amy Coney Barrett, maybe an appeal for Catholics in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin in the Midwest. What -- if you're looking at just the raw politics, that map which is tilted against Trump right now and you're trying to change it, what should the pic be?

AXELROD: Well, first of all, we know that he's sitting down in poring through legal decisions and writings right now. He's not looking at the politics. But if he were, John, if he were looking at the politics, you know, you could make a case for picking Judge Lagoa in Florida because you -- the last president to win the presidency without winning Florida Republican was Calvin Coolidge.

If Donald Trump doesn't win Florida, he's not going to win the presidency. And he thinks in those terms, and I'm sure he's looking hard at a Cuban American judge in the most pivotal state he's got. And on the other side of it Amy Coney Barrett doesn't excite -- she does excite the conservative voters, she excites the evangelical voters, anti-choice voters, she also excites voters on the other side of the aisle.

So you might say, well, maybe I'd go for the win in Florida. And I don't stoke up my base in quite the same way because it could stoke up theirs.

KING: David Axelrod, we're going to spend a lot of time and conversations over the next six weeks walking through all this. Very much appreciate your time today.

[12:40:01]

When we come back, when we come back as the President prepares to make his pick, we will take a little time to reflect on the remarkable legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

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KING: To the remarkable legacy now of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a pioneer in Women's Law before she was a judge and justice, a pioneer on the Supreme Court bench for 27 years. A pop culture icon we known as Notorious RBG. Let's discuss this with Jeffrey Rosen. He was a friend of Justice Ginsburg, and he wrote the book "Conversations with RBG: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and the Law". He's also a CEO of the National Constitution Center, law professor at George Washington University.

Jeffrey, thank you for being with us today. You've lost a friend. And I want to acknowledge that. And I very much appreciate your taking the time at a difficult moment to share your memories. What -- just from a personal perspective, I stopped by the court yesterday after my Sunday show just to look at the remarkable scene. And you have people young and old, black and white and Latino, children with chalk out writing things on the sidewalk, flowers everywhere. What made Ruth Bader Ginsburg not just an accomplished justice, and I want to talk to you about that, but a pop culture icon?

JEFFREY ROSEN, AUTHOR, "CONVERSATIONS WITH RBG": Well, thank you so much, John, for taking a moment to honor her memory and let's all do that over the important coming days.

People responded to the fact that she was so extraordinarily powerful and self-possessed at the same time, young women talked about the fact that she was such a boss. Well, that was a word that they use, that she broke stereotype. She didn't behave the way older men or women are supposed to behave in her fiery dissents. And it was a Shelby County dissent that inspired a young NYU law student to create the meme, Notorious RBG in 2013. And her majority opinions, she just exuded vision, clarity, and fearlessness.

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And people responded very powerfully to that. It's a perfect melding of the authentic power of this extraordinary American hero and the fact that the public responded to it so dramatically.

KING: And you mentioned the dissents. And for people who don't follow the courts as closely as you, people probably think, well, you're losing. If you're writing a dissent, you're losing. That can't be fun. But Justice Ginsburg understood the seed, a seed a strong dissent could plant especially on issues that were narrowly decided because those issues could come back.

She wrote -- she told this to NPR back in 2002, dissents speak to a future age. It's not simply to say, my colleagues are wrong, and I would do it this way. But the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that's the dissenter's hope that they are writing not for today, but for tomorrow.

This became her mission. Yes, she had some great majority opinions. And yes, she was on the majority side in some very important cases. But this was her mission when she looked around the court and knew the math.

ROSEN: That's exactly right. I'm so glad you read that. Justice Ginsburg, she noted the Thurgood Marshall red, John Marshall Harlan I dissenting opinion in Plessy versus Ferguson before he argued Brown versus Board of Education, which made that dissent a reality.

And of course, Justice Ginsburg's dissent in the Lilly Ledbetter pay equity case, which she read aloud from the bench and called on Congress to overturn the court's decision. So inspired Congress, the Congress did overturn the decision, and President Obama signed that into law on his first day in office. So Justice Ginsburg always had a sense of speaking to future ages when the current majority was not receptive. And I believe that many of her dissents may well be vindicated in the future.

KING: What was she like in person? You know, I've watched the documentaries. I've watched the film. I watched when she gives interviews at these legal seminars and the like, she says tiny, diminutive, soft spoken woman who yet became, you know, love that word, it's here in the gym working out. And what just in person, obviously, she's a legal legend. She will go down in the history books for her work on the law. But who was she?

ROSEN: When we first met 30 years ago in an elevator when I was a young law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals. And she was silent and in person, she's very formidable when she's not engaging. And just to break the ice I asked, what operas have you seen recently? And then she just opened up because she loves to talk about music, and she was animated and this began a friendship and a conversation about music that lasted for 30 years.

She was completely tuned in to every encounter, just laser focused on asking empathetic questions. She had a very sly sense of humorous that justices noted when describing her and their tributes. And she loved to laugh. Her husband Martin when she adored, just made her crack up. That was her word again. And her friend Justice Scalia also she said he drives me crazy, but he just makes me crack up. So she was extraordinarily present and utterly focused on individual relationships, and on her work. And that was that laser like focus that gave her such empathy for others and made her such an extraordinary human being.

KING: Extraordinarily present. That's a fantastic way to put it. Jeffrey Rosen, grateful, grateful for your time today, we'll talk again as we go through now that confirmation processes are in place as we talk about the law in the future. But I wanted to spend a few moments talking about your friend and the distinguished Justice. Grateful for your time, thank you.

ROSEN: Thank you for doing that.

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KING: We'll be right back.

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KING: Some very important and some very puzzling breaking news related to the coronavirus. The Centers for Disease and Control just took down from its website the guidance had put up on Friday about the aerosol transmission of COVID-19. The website is now back to old guidance. Our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins me now.

Elizabeth, this is confusing in many ways. Let's focus first on the public health concerns for anyone out there watching. What is the change, the reversion, if you will, and do we know why?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: And first, John, I want to say that having a switcheroo like this having something posted to the CDC website and then taken down say, it was basically put up an error. I've been covering the CDC for the better part of 30 years. I have never seen anything like this. So now let's talk about what this is, what happened.

On Friday, the CDC posted guidance that said, hey, things have changed. And we now think that it is possible for this virus to spread basically through small particles that get suspended in the air. So we've always known that if I have COVID, and I'm talking to you, John, and you're right next to me, and I sneeze or cough or I spit a little bit on you, you can take a direct hit and get COVID. And that's believed how this disease is spread for the most part.

What the CDC said on Friday was, well also there's growing evidence that those particles can hang out in the air, and someone who never was even all that close could walk by and get it. In other words, you could spread it to people who are more than six feet away if they come and walk by that airspace. That's essentially what the CDC said. But then just now just before noon, the CDC went back to what it said originally, which is that it couldn't be spread that way.

So they changed on Friday, and then they changed it back just within the past hour or so. So what happened? You know, one of the things that I think we need to honestly think about is that we have seen that the CDC has come under political pressure, come under pressure from the Trump administration to say things a certain way. And we need to ask the question, was there political pressure to make it sound like this disease does not spread in this way.

[12:55:10]

KING: Right. And so we know they have gone back to the old guidance because they said it was a mistake to post this draft. Do we know if we're done or are they -- is the draft under review, and they're going to revise it again, and we'll go through this conversation again, about the agency, they're supposed to be the gold standard for telling people, here's what we know, here's what you should do, it keeps you to use your words switcheroo?

COHEN: John, I think we may be having this conversation again. And I'll tell you why. Back in April, in April, the National Academy of Sciences wrote a letter to the White House saying, hey, essentially, this can spread in an airborne way. You don't need to be just within a sneeze or a cough, it can have particles that will be -- that will suspend in the air.

So if the National Academy of Sciences, a very prestigious body was saying this to the White House in April, first of all, why did it take the CDC so long to switch their guidance to reflect that, which is what they did Friday and then why did they switch it back today? So yes, the science seems to be quite clear that this disease can spread in this so called airborne way. So, yes, I think you and I will be talking about this again.

KING: Elizabeth Cohen, grateful for that important breaking news reporting. Let's bring in for some perspective, our CNN medical analyst, Dr. Celine Gounder. Dr. Gounder, first, let me ask you, does the reversion going back to the old guidance make sense from a public health perspective? And number two, as somebody out there on the front lines, who might say what do I need -- let's check with the CDC, what is the latest guidelines? What does this do to confidence in this agency when they do something like this?

DR. CELINE GOUNDER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, in terms of confidence in the agency, I do think it has been tremendously shaken over the last couple of weeks. And it means that many of us are going to be turning to other authorities, other sources of guidance, whether it's the National Academy of Sciences, whether that is the Infectious Disease Society of America, but other professional scientific bodies that do exist to provide guidance.

In terms of what this means for public health measures and for control, big Picture, it's a lot of the exact same things we've been talking about, but it means that we have to be that much more vigilant about wearing masks. This may influence the kind of masks that we recommend over time. But definitely we should always be wearing masks around other people who are outside of our household bubble.

The six feet apart rule is a minimum in the context of aerosol airborne spread. And we need to be paying better attention to ventilation especially indoors. Some of the things that are under consideration or are happening right now like school reopening, indoor dining, really needs to be rethought in the context of this shift in thinking.

KING: Dr. Celine Gounder, appreciate your quick hustle to give us some insights on this dramatic change, a change now about how coronavirus is transmitted after the CDC revised its testing guidelines as well. A lot of confusion out of the agency was supposed to be the gold standard for such thing.

Hope to see you back here this time tomorrow. Brianna Keilar picks up our coverage after a quick break.

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