Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Trump Willing to Overrule FDA on Vaccine?; President Trump Refuses to Commit to Peaceful Transfer of Power. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired September 24, 2020 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:03]

KATE BOLDUAN,CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan. Thank you so much for joining us this hour.

It's a question so easy for an American president to answer that it is rarely asked: Will you commit to a peaceful transfer of power after the election, of course, if you lose?

President Trump was given ample opportunity to answer this correctly yesterday. Instead, here's what he did:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Will you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transferal of power after the election?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, we're going to have to see what happens. You know that.

I've been complaining very strongly about the ballots. And the ballots are a disaster. And--

QUESTION: I understand that, but people are rioting. Do you commit to making sure that there's a peaceful transferal of power?

TRUMP: We want to have -- we have to have -- get rid of the ballots, and you will have a very -- we'll have a very peaceful -- there won't be a transfer, frankly. There'll be a continuation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: The election is six weeks away, as you well know. And this isn't just another example of Donald Trump spouting off on Twitter or a rogue retweet that is explained away or ignored.

This is a question of the continuity of our democracy. Asked about it today, here's what his press secretary said:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president will accept the results of a free and fair election. He will accept the results of a free and fair election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: "He will accept the results of a free and fair election."

Unfortunately, I feel like we're now to a place where we have to question what their actual definition of free and fair is. That's where we are.

As for the Republicans, here are the few Republican lawmakers who so far are willing to talk about this on camera.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): There will be a very peaceful transition. A concern I have though, too, I hope you ask the same question of Hillary Clinton, who simply said out there, never concede the race.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): (OFF-MIKE) peaceful transition of power. And the real threat is the threat that Joe Biden has been explicit about, that, if he loses the election, he intends to challenge the election.

SEN. KEVIN CRAMER (R-ND): The president speaks in very extreme manners occasionally. I didn't find what he said last night to be overly extreme, quite honestly. I just thought that what -- he's making the point that we will see what happens after the election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: But there is more. It is not just what the president is saying.

The president and his and his campaign are not waiting for Election Day to take action. His campaign lawyers are already right now in court challenging and fighting election policies put in place in response to the pandemic that would make it safer and easier -- they're intended to make it safer and easier for Americans, Republican and Democrat alike, to vote.

Add to that there's, of course, the president's push to confirm a Supreme Court justice before the election, a justice that could very well be on the bench and asked to decide the outcome of a contested presidential election.

There is very clearly a lot here and a lot of important things here.

Let's start with the legal moves that the Trump campaign is already undertaking ahead of the election.

CNN's Kristen Holmes has been covering all this for us.

Kristen, where do things stand?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, look, there's still ongoing lawsuits in several of these key swing states. And I want to break down exactly what they are and who they are coming from, because there is a Trump campaign effort.

So, we will start there. That is mostly what you were talking about in terms of voter access. That is what -- the lawsuits that we saw brought on mail-in voting, on drop boxes on who can be a witness, those kind of things.

And we have seen a lot of them, again, across the country, particularly in swing states. I will note that Nevada was a big case, Republicans really thought that they could win that case. They did not win. Democrats prevailed there. That was all about mail-in voting.

But, again, is, it goes those to that access. Democrats saying that we need more voter access because of the pandemic. Republicans saying two things, one, that they want to uphold the laws that we have now, but, two, that all of this access could somehow lead to widespread fraud, which, of course, we know is not true.

But I want to keep that there, that widespread fraud thought, because that ties together at the end. The other thing that we see going on here is cases across the country that are brought by Republicans or in Republican legislatures that aren't necessarily the campaign, but they are causing a lot of chaos within the system.

For example, in Wisconsin, another swing state, we know that Republican attorneys supported a Green Party bid to be on the ballot there, which, of course, would cause a lot of confusion. And it did in fact cause chaos within the state there.

There was also another election in Michigan -- excuse me -- it's not an election. It's the legislature there that has tied up this ability for Michigan to process votes, absentee ballots, ahead of Election Day, and that's also going on in Pennsylvania.

This is a huge deal. Pennsylvania, Michigan, two of the most critical swing states, will not be able to actually process ballots until the election.

Now, all of this together -- you have these accusations of widespread fraud, you have all of this chaos around the ballot, all of these legal fights -- this is what election officials are worried about.

[15:05:07]

They are worried about the fact that, if you keep saying this, and you keep undermining the system, that people won't go out and vote, and that is going to cause a huge issue for our democracy.

BOLDUAN: Kristen, thank you so much. Really appreciate it laying out for -- there's a lot to keep track of, and thank you for doing it.

So, with the president refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, not to mention working to undermine mail-in voting, there's a real risk that millions of Americans will get to a place of, if they aren't already, doubting the legitimacy of the election results because of just what they're hearing and seeing from the president.

It's something that is of the utmost concern of our next guest.

Trevor Potter is joining me now. He's the former chair of the Federal Election Commission, longtime Republican election attorneys who served as John McCain's general counsel during his presidential campaigns, now the founder and president of the Campaign Legal Center.

Trevor, thank you for taking the time.

When you heard the president say this yesterday, what did you think?

TREVOR POTTER, PRESIDENT, CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER: I thought two things.

The first is that I think what we are seeing here, and as your report just described, is an extended, concerted effort to tamp down the vote, to suppress the vote by casting doubt as to whether the voters can really decide this election.

And that's very troubling for a democracy. But that's something that the voters themselves can push back on. We are just starting the voting process now. It will be in-person early voting. It'll be same- day election voting. It is absentee ballot, mail-in ballot. All of those are legal, valid ways of voting. We have a system in place that will count those votes.

So the first thing is to say, I do think what we're seeing here is an attempt at sort of classic voter suppression, to have the voters feel unmotivated, to worry their vote won't be counted, the post office won't deliver it on time, all the things we have heard.

And the way to fight back against that is to go ahead and vote. So, that's point one.

I think the second point here, which is really important to remember, is that, while we have a tradition in this country of the losers of an election conceding and wishing their opponent, the victor, well, that's not a constitutional requirement.

And if President Trump loses this election, and wants to say he doesn't think it was fair, or he thinks there were, as he said when he won last time, millions of illegal votes cast up, he can say that. But it doesn't change the outcome.

We have a system, with an Electoral College, with state election officials certifying results after a beat count in every state. Those are then sent to Congress, signed by the governors of the states. They are counted transparently in public by the new Congress in January.

So, whether President Trump likes the result or not, there is a system in place that he does not control to count those Electoral College votes and to determine the winner. And that is the Electoral College voting, Congress counting it in public. It does not depend on the president -- quote -- "accepting the results."

It doesn't depend on a Supreme Court decision in almost any case. The court does not have a constitutional role here. BOLDUAN: You, as the former chairman of the Federal Election

Commission, I was sitting here thinking, if you were still in the post, what would you be doing right now? I mean, what can the FEC do?

POTTER: Well, I will say one of the problems we're facing, which is an example of a broken FEC, is, the commission has no quorum at the moment.

BOLDUAN: Right.

POTTER: And so, legally, the FEC is sidelined. It can't take any action.

But it's largely a disclosure and campaign finance enforcement agency. In this country, the power to count votes is a state power. It resides in the top election officials in every state, often the secretary of state, and then ultimately in the governor to certify the Electoral College results.

So, while the FEC, I think, were it functioning, would be out there pointing out that we have a really comprehensive system based in the states for running elections and counting returns, it -- the fact it doesn't have a quorum is a problem for other reasons, like enforcing the campaign finance laws, but it is not a problem in this election situation, because the state officials are the ones responsible.

[15:10:00]

BOLDUAN: Well, let me ask you about that, because this appears that it could be going further than just the idea of the president saying he rejects the election results outright when they happen.

I want to read for you what -- some of what "The Atlantic" is reporting Bart Gellman in his reporting about this.

He wrote this: "According to sources in the Republican Party at the state and national levels, the Trump campaign is discussing contingency plans to bypass election results, and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where Republicans hold the legislative majority. With a justification based on claims of rampant fraud, Trump would ask state legislators to set aside the popular vote and exercise their power to choose a slate of electors directly."

It's -- just your take on that, because, if that's going on behind the scenes, I'm kind of wondering what you think.

POTTER: Yes, that is, I think, the most shocking piece of a very good "Atlantic" article.

And a couple thoughts on that. One, I think it's really interesting that a top Trump lawyer was being quoted on the record talking about that.

BOLDUAN: Right.

POTTER: And you have to say, why would they do that in September? First, it sounds as if they think they're going to lose the vote counting, so they're trying to find ways to delegitimize or question lawful ballots. And that's pretty surprising a long way from the election at this stage.

Secondly, though, it's not actually correct, constitutionally. They may be talking about that as a way of scaring people. But the reality is that state legislators, after the fact, cannot change the way that electors are chosen.

The Supreme Court has been clear, going back to the Florida case, in saying legislators have the option of determining how the vote will occur in a state, but every single state in the country has said, we will defer to the voters of this state to select the electors.

And it is not possible, after the election, for the legislature to change that method. That would in fact, violate federal law. There is an Electorate Count Act dating back well over 100 years to when there last was a contested election.

And that act says that the state has to use the system in place under its laws to select electors, and it then sets out that it's the governor, not the legislators, who certify the results and send them to Congress.

BOLDUAN: I think--

POTTER: So, we're really in a situation here where they're, I think, scaring people, and not explaining that this is a highly hypothetical situation and one, as I say, that we are very unlikely to see, given our history.

BOLDUAN: But look at 2020 and what kind of an unprecedented year that's been, though, Trevor, on so many fronts, right?

The president went on yesterday. Where the president was yesterday, and where he kind of focused in on, and what he's been obsessed with for quite some time are these unfounded claims of mail-in voting fraud.

Voting by mail, as we know, is not new and not controversial. You have written about this. You have talked about this.

Do you think that he, though, is doing real harm, in the fear that he is trying to stroke very clearly with us?

POTTER: Yes, it's clearly making people concerned about voting by mail, first of all, the issue of, will it be counted?

And, of course, every state has a system in place for counting it. Secondly, for questioning the legitimacy, but that's really a P.R. gambit, because, legally, a vote cast on an absentee ballot by mail is just as legitimate as one cast in-person. And both have the same security safeguards.

Both of them require that the voter be identified, they produce an I.D., or a birth date or Social Security number or a signature, a range of ways in which the election officials can ensure this ballot is from a lawful voter.

So, the suggestion that there are going to be millions of votes from foreign countries and so forth ignores the way the system actually works.

But I do think it has the effect of telling people, gosh, if I can vote in-person, or if I can vote early, I will avoid all of that, even though both systems are equally valid and equally legal.

I do think that there is a point here people need to understand. And that is that there's some states in this country that have voted entirely by mail for years, like Oregon and Washington, now more recently Colorado and Utah, Hawaii, and those states are going to be fine. They're going to vote by mail. Their votes are going to be counted. They have an efficient system.

There are other states that are not doing used to having lots of absentee ballots, and, in fact, normally have a very small number.

[15:15:05]

And I think the risk here for states like Pennsylvania and New York is that they will be slow in counting because they don't have an efficient system for counting the paper ballots that come in by mail.

And that's where there is a concern, I think, that if it takes a long time to count, and if it looks as if Republicans, following the president's instructions, are going to try to vote on Election Day, and Democrats are more likely to vote absentee by mail, which is what we're seeing in some of the polling, then, on election night, Trump will be ahead in those states.

And he's already flagged that he's going to say, ah, you should stop counting the ballots now, because I'm ahead. That's like saying, halfway through the baseball game, we're going to call it and say, the team that's a run ahead wins, when you have still got half the innings left.

And that legally cannot happen. Those other ballots are lawful ballots, and they will be counted, but it will take a while in some of those states. And what we're seeing from the Trump campaign is that they are going to try to challenge ballots, if they can, as they are being counted.

But there's a system in place for dealing with that. And the sorts of things we're talking about that "The Atlantic" article talked about are only even hypothetically going to come into play if this election is really close and comes down to a couple of swing states. And then there will be a back-and-forth legally in court, transparently, over whether some of the ballots that came in by mail did not have a signature on them or did -- were not mailed on time, issues like that.

BOLDUAN: We're going to -- and the system that we that we have watched play out so often is very likely tested in some way or another, as for six weeks out now.

Trevor, thank you so much, Trevor Potter. Really appreciate it.

POTTER: Thank you. Thank you. Good to be with you.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: Thank you.

The programming note: in just five days, Donald Trump, Joe Biden facing off in the first presidential debate. You can watch it live play out. CNN's special coverage starts Tuesday 7:00 Eastern.

Up next: President Trump is not only saying it is his call on whether or not he vacates the White House if he loses; he's also declaring it's his call to overrule the FDA on vaccine guidelines.

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:21:41]

BOLDUAN: More than 20 states across the country are reporting a spike now in coronavirus cases.

This uptick comes as President Trump is again attacking the FDA, after reporting that the FDA is considering imposing tougher standards for vaccine approval, standards that make it more likely that the release of a vaccine would push past Election Day.

Here's the president's reaction:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It sounded to me -- it sounded extremely political. Why would they do this when we come back with these great results? And I think you will have those great results, because why would we--

QUESTION: Well, when do you expect this vaccine?

TRUMP: Why would we be delaying it? But we're going to look at it. We're going to take a look at it. And, ultimately, the White House has to approve it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining me now, CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.

Elizabeth, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, he was -- actually just had the opportunity to ask Dr. Anthony Fauci about this. What did he say?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Before I get to that, I want to answer the question that President Trump asked in that sound bite just now, where he says, why would they do this? Why would they delay a vaccine? The reason why scientists at the FDA are thinking of taking these

steps is so that the vaccine will be safe. It's really an easy answer.

Now, my colleague Dr. Sanjay Gupta sat down with Tony Fauci today, and talked to him about this FDA -- about the expectation that the FDA may put forward these standards that could delay a vaccine, but for safety.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So the FDA says, we want to wait two months, which seems very reasonable.

But the president, as I learned just yesterday, has the authority to not necessarily approve those particular guidelines.

That seems like a real injection of politics into this process. Is it not?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: The issue is that the scientist and the FDA have put this forth as what their proposal for the criteria for EUA.

Under normal circumstances, that decision is theirs. The secretary approves it. And that's it. Something that comes from without, that is not a scientific consideration, would be troublesome, I'd have to tell you.

But, remember, there is some degree of flexibility. The 60-day proposal that they put forth was based on what you just said accurately, that modeling most of the issues you're worried about are going to occur in that period of time.

The thing that could modify that, and modify it within the scientific realm of being scientifically justifiable, is that if the vaccine is so overwhelmingly effective that you would say, the risk/benefit of having adverse events override the benefit of getting a 98 percent effective vaccine earlier, rather than waiting 60 days, that's something that even we scientists would say, you know, we should really take a look at that. You might want to shorten that.

But to get rid of completely any further waiting for safety, I think most scientists would say, no, you have really got to be careful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: So let's unpack a little bit about -- a little bit about what Dr. Fauci just said.

Let's say that, in a month, there is data that shows that one of the vaccines that are now in phase three clinical trials looks effective, it looks like it actually prevents COVID-19.

[15:25:05]

The FDA -- the -- what the FDA is expected to do is to say to these folks, hey, wait a second, we want you to wait two months past a certain point in your trial before you can ask us for permission to put it on the market.

If that ends up happening, then there is just really no way that we will have a vaccine by Election Day. The math just doesn't add up.

What I heard Dr. Fauci saying just now is that there are reasons to support that measure. It increases the safety. If you spend another two months giving people, giving study subjects the vaccine, that gives you more data to see, oh, look, it's safe, people aren't reacting badly to it.

He did put out one caveat, Kate, which is that he said, if the data is so great, it shows that it's a 98 percent effective vaccine, maybe we don't want to wait for 60 days.

I have yet to speak with anyone who thinks that's going to be the case, that we're going to get overwhelmingly excellent efficacy data for a vaccine soon. That just seems highly, highly unlikely.

And as far as safety goes, I think there's an important point here to make. The two vaccines that are front-runners by far in these clinical trials, they both use a technology that is new. It's never been used in the vaccine that's on the market in the U.S. before. So that's exciting in many ways, because it might work really fabulously.

But there are safety concerns. This is not a vaccine technology that's been used on millions and millions of people. So you want to take extra special care when something is new -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Elizabeth, thank you so much.

Joining me now, someone who knows a lot about vaccines is Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert, a member of the FDA's External Advisory Committee on Vaccines, which is a group of advisers that the FDA says it is consulting when it comes to vaccine approval.

It's great to see you, Doctor, again.

What the president said yesterday, I just wanted to get your reaction to it.

DR. PAUL OFFIT, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: I don't think he can do what he says he wants to do.

I mean, the fact of the matter is, the Data Safety Monitoring Board is a group that has been charged with this. We are going to hold this vaccine or these vaccines to the same safety standards and the same efficacy standards that we hold for any vaccine.

That's their charge, which makes sense, given that most of these vaccines are going to be given to people who are young and healthy and are unlikely to die from this virus.

So I don't see how he can perturb that system. I mean, only they know who's gotten the vaccine. Only they know who's gotten placebo. Only they know who's gotten sick and who has it.

So, when Donald Trump says the data look really good, or studies look really good, he can't possibly know that unless he's on the Data Safety Modern Board, which he's not.

So I think that it's really an unperturbable system. As Dr. Fauci said, it could be stopped early if there's overwhelming evidence that it's effective. But that's--

BOLDUAN: Dr. Offit, I'm jumping over to the White House. President Trump is speaking.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

TRUMP: -- about health care.

We have a lot of good things happening with respect to health care, and very positive on preexisting conditions, very positive on the fact that we got rid of the individual mandate, which was the single most unpopular thing having to do with Obamacare, the Obamacare disaster.

And -- but we have a lot of incredible things, positive things and very good things and money-saving things on health care. And then we're going to Florida. We have a big rally. And it'll be something.

I hear there's a tremendous number of people. So we're not totally surprised by that. But that's OK, tremendous number of people.

Jennifer (ph), go ahead.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

TRUMP: They're working to see if they can make a deal.

And if they make a deal, they will have to bring it to me, and I will either approve it or not. And, to me, safety is the predominant factor. And we will see if they can do that. But they're moving along. And let's see what happens.

If they make a deal, that's fine. And if they don't, that's OK too.

QUESTION: Mr. President, are the election results only legitimate if you win?

TRUMP: So, we have to be very careful with the ballots.

The ballots, that's a whole big scam. They found, I understand, eight ballots in a wastepaper basket in some location. They found -- it was reported in one of the newspapers that they found a lot of ballots in a river. They throw them out if they have the name Trump on it, I guess.

But they had ballots.

QUESTION: There were no names on them, they said.

TRUMP: OK. Well, they still found him in a river, whether they had a name on it or not.

But the other ones had the Trump name on it. And they were thrown into a wastepaper basket.

We want to make sure the election is honest. And I'm not sure that it can be. I don't -- I don't know that it can be with this whole situation, unsolicited ballots. They're unsolicited, millions being sent to everybody.

And we will see.

But, if you remember, Hillary Clinton just a week ago or so told Joe Biden, do not accept the results of the election under any circumstances.

But you don't ask her that question. You only ask me the question.

Yes, go ahead.