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Trump Questions Honesty of Election; Trump Campaigns in Battleground State Florida; Demonstrator Injured in Breonna Taylor Protest; U.S. and Europe Warned About Covid-19 Spread; U.S. Officials Say Vaccine Decisions Will Be Based on Science; Upcoming Election Amplifies Dark Side of Social Media. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired September 25, 2020 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: Sowing the seeds of election doubt. President Trump once again is refusing to guarantee a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the November election.

A protester is injured in Hollywood when a vehicle tries to drive through the crowd on the second night of demonstrations over Breonna Taylor's killing.

And as the world edges towards 1 million coronavirus deaths, there are warnings in the U.S. and Europe that much worse is to come.

Live from CNN headquarters in Atlanta. Welcome to you, our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber and this is CNN NEWSROOM.

There is growing concern that U.S. President Donald Trump might not leave office quietly if he loses re-election in November. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said he's confident of victory but assured that he and Mr. Trump would accept the outcome of a free and fair election. The President, however, continues to cast doubt on the integrity of the election. On Thursday he questioned whether it will be honest just one day after refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses. CNN's Jim Acosta has the latest from the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In what may be a warning siren to the world that American democracy is in serious trouble, President Trump is standing by his comments that he may not accept the results of the November election.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't know that it can be, with this whole situation, unsolicited ballots.

ACOSTA: The White House is giving the President plenty of wiggle room to offer up his own definition of an honest election.

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The President will accept the results of a free and fair election. ACOSTA: Something Mr. Trump hinted at when he was asked whether he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power.

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

TRUMP: 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.

ACOSTA: The President continues to rail against the use of mail-in ballots to help shield voters from the coronavirus in the November election. But Mr. Trump's own FBI director noted what experts have said for years, that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the U.S., including ballots sent through the mail.

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: We have not seen, historically, any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it's by mail or otherwise.

ACOSTA: Democrats are accusing the president of behaving like a dictator.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA) U.S. HOUSE SPEAKER: You are not in Russia, Mr. President. And by the way, you are not in Saudi Arabia. You are in the United States of America. It is a democracy.

ACOSTA: Republican leaders sound as though they believe the President is bluffing.

SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): I'll let him speak for himself, but I've indicated pretty clearly that there will be a peaceful transition of power.

ACOSTA: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tweeted the winner of the November 3 election will be inaugurated on January 20. There will be an orderly transition.

Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse said, "The president says crazy stuff." While South Dakota's John Thune insisted the GOP would push back if Mr. Trump refused to accept an election loss.

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD): Well, Republicans believe in the rule of law. We believe in the Constitution. And that's what dictates what happens is, in our election process and so yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You would stand up to him if he tried to do something like that?

THUNE: Yes.

ACOSTA: Oddly enough, the President tweeted an endorsement for vote- by-mail ballots in Florida, but Mr. Trump has stated why he has confidence in Florida's system in the past.

TRUMP: Florida has got a great Republican governor. And it had a great Republican governor.

ACOSTA: The President caught a rare glimpse of Americans who want to vote him out as he paid his respects to the late Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But Mr. Trump later claimed he really couldn't hear the chorus of boos.

TRUMP: We heard -- we heard a sound, but it wasn't very strong.

ACOSTA: On the pandemic, the administration is trying to reassure Americans that they will be able to trust a vaccine for COVID-19.

ALEX AZAR, U.S. SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: I want to reassure you and the American people, politics will play no role whatsoever in the approval of a vaccine.

ACOSTA: That's after Mr. Trump insisted the White House will have the final say on how the vaccine is approved.

TRUMP: We're looking at that, and that has to be approved by the White House. We may or may not approve it.

ACOSTA (on camera): The President is unveiling what the White House is calling a healthcare plan, something Mr. Trump has hinted at for months. But the President's plan appears to have some gaping holes in it.

[04:05:00]

While he claims he will protect people with pre-existing conditions, the President is not saying how that would be guaranteed if his administration is successful in its efforts to overturn Obamacare, in a case that will be heard at the Supreme Court after the election.

Jim Acosta, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: Now earlier CNN spoke with Mr. Trump's former long-time personal attorney Michael Cohen. You'll remember that Cohen went to prison for campaign finance violations, tax fraud and bank fraud after he was caught up in the Russia election meddling investigation. Well, Cohen says the President is trying to sew as much confusion and doubt about the November election in case he loses. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL COHEN, TRUMP'S FORMER ATTORNEY: What you have to understand with Donald Trump, that he's the master deflector. What he's going to do here is claim that the Democrats are interfering with the ballots and that he's not going to have a legitimate shot at winning because the ballots are going to be skewed in Joe Biden's favor. What he's doing is he's deflecting. It's really, he who's playing with the mail system. It's he who's getting rid of the sorting machines and all of the mailboxes. It's he who's doing this and he's just deflecting it in order to sew some doubt in people's head regarding the Democrats and Joe Biden. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: President Trump was campaigning in Florida on Thursday, a key battleground state in the upcoming election. CNN's Boris Sanchez was there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Politics taking precedent on Thursday night in Jacksonville with President Trump hosting a rally in one of the state's hardest hit by COVID-19 and not very many social distancing restrictions taking place. More on that in a moment. But I want to focus on content of the President's speech.

He spent most of his time attacking his Democratic rival Joe Biden. The President repeatedly bashing Biden saying that he's very sleepy and that he wants to quadruple American's taxes. The President even at one point insinuating at Biden was this is like taking stimulants to enhance his performance on the campaign trail. Listen to more from the President.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Somebody said, oh, he won't do well at the debate. I said, I think you're wrong. He'll do fine. He's going to do fine. They'll give him a big shot of something and he'll go out there. He'll have a lot of energy. He'll have energy and be like superman for about 15 minutes.

SANCHEZ: And President Trump saying that seeing the enthusiasm in this crowd makes him confident that people will rock the state of Florida on election night, November 3rd. Of course, polls tell a different story. They show neck and neck with former Vice President Biden in the sunshine state.

A footnote on social distancing and COVID-19 and Trump campaign giving a pretense of following the guidelines set by the CDC and this President's own administration. People were waiting for hours and hours on end, there was standing room only. And very, very few masks in sight. Formerly the campaign emphasizing the politics and the potential of winning Florida over the polls and some of it held with the supporters.

Boris Sanchez, CNN, Jacksonville, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: The casket bearing the body of Ruth Bader Ginsberg will be escorted to the U.S. capitol in the next few hours. CNN's Jessica Schneider has more on the unique honor being confirmed on the late Supreme Court Justice.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Justice Ginsberg's casket will move from the Supreme Court over to the U.S. capitol on Friday where she will make history as the first woman to lie in state. Justice Ginsberg has been lying in repose here at the Supreme Court for the past two days where hundreds and maybe even thousands and thousands of mourners have come here to pay their respects.

President Trump and the first lady made their way here on Thursday to stand at the top of these steps and pay their respects to Justice Ginsberg. However, when the President got to the top of the steps there were chants in the crowd of vote him out.

The President was asked about this. He though said he barely heard those chants. He was wearing a mask and he did seem to glance over at the crowd. The White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany though called the chants appalling. It said that in other parts of the country the President is always greeted with respect.

The ceremony over at the capitol will happen at about 10 a.m. on Friday. There will be some speeches as well as musical selection from an opera singer. Of course, Ruth Bader Ginsberg loved opera. And we have learned that presidential candidate Joe Biden and his wife Dr. Jill Biden will be there as well.

Jessica Schneider, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: Now lying in state in the U.S. capitol is extremely rare. Fewer than 40 people have received that honor since the practice began in 1852. After the capitol ceremonies Ginsberg's casket will be transported to Arlington National Cemetery for burial.

Protests over the police shooting death of Breonna Taylor have turned violent in Hollywood. At least one person was struck by a vehicle during demonstrations there late Thursday night. CNN's Stephanie Elam is in Hollywood and explains how the events unfolded.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[04:10:00]

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We've been out here following these protest in Hollywood, California, in the name of Breonna Taylor. It started over by a cemetery where there are people speaking and then they began to march. And as they were marching, they got to one intersection in Hollywood where a car either came into the crowd or proceeded to move through the crowd. It did sound like some of the protesters then started hitting the car and then the car accelerated out of the crowd.

We saw there was one person on the ground. They encircled this person. They were calling for help. They did allow a fire engine to come in and administer help and then to transport that person to get further attention. We saw it all happen. It was very close to where we were at the time.

Those protesters then continued to march up. We saw a few other scuffles along the way. There was one point where the protesters were getting close to a police station and they met a line of police officers there and then turned their direction to go a different way and now the protesters are here. You can hear the helicopters are above right now. That's probably what we're hearing right now, the police helicopter listening and watching what this crowd is doing.

They're blocking this intersection, which is a major artery here in Hollywood right now as they're making their way down. Another car came through the crowd just a few minutes ago and they were beating on that car and that car managed to get away. But just showing you how this one has changed a bit since we started off with those speakers in the park.

In Hollywood, California, Stephanie Elam, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: All right, there's much more ahead on CNN. We'll have the latest coronavirus news from the U.S. including some positive changes in an influential virus prediction. Stay with us.

[04:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRUNHUBER: The United States is quickly approaching 7 million coronavirus cases. But now an influential model is predicting fewer deaths than originally anticipated. JHU for health metrics and evaluation project says there will be more than 371,000 deaths by January 1st. Now of course that is a massive number but it's 7,000 fewer deaths than the model predicted just a few weeks ago. Here's CNN's Erica Hill with all the days' coronavirus news from the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. STEPHEN HAHN, COMMISSIONER, U.S. FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION: The science will guide our decisions. FDA will not permit any pressure from anyone to change that.

ERICA HILL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A straightforward pledge as the FDA works to boost confidence in a vaccine, even considering tougher standards for Emergency Use Authorization.

The President's reaction?

TRUMP: You made it sound extremely political. Why would they do this when we come back with these great results? And ultimately, the White House has to prove it.

HILL: Dr. Fauci noting that's not the traditional route.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE: The scientist in the FDA have put this fourth 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.

HILL: Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar batting cleanup.

ALEXANDER AZAR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: Politics will play no role whatsoever in the approval of a vaccine. The President's been clear, I've been clear, FDA has been clear, science will drive this. FDA is going to make the call on whether a vaccine is safe and effective.

HILL: An antibody test can be administered in a doctor's office just granted Emergency Use Authorization. As new information suggests the virus is becoming more contagious, though not more lethal. The CDC reports more than 20 percent of confirmed cases between June and August were people in their 20s.

FAUCI: The only way we're going to end this is if everybody pulls together.

HILL: Officials in Colorado just banned all gatherings, even outdoors for anyone age 18 to 22 in Boulder. Colorado is among 21 states seeing new cases rise over the past week.

DR. ALI KHAN, UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA MEDICAL CENTER: As you look at that map, what you're seeing is an inconvenient truth. Which is that many states allowed schools and colleges to reopen when they had not gotten the disease under control.

HILL: Some of the highest spikes in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Better news in Ohio and Indiana.

GOV. ERIC HOLCOMB (R) INDIANA: We are moving in the right direction.

HILL: Masks still required in the Hoosier state through mid-October but restaurants, bars and nightclubs can open at full capacity this weekend.

Meantime, new signs the economic recovery is slowing. Another 870,000 Americans filed for first time unemployment benefits last week.

AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, ECONOMICS PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO BUSINESS SCHOOL: You've got the K-shaped recovery with some people doing very well and millions of people really struggling. We're going to -- we're going to live with that for some time.

HILL: Tennessee out with a sobering look at the pandemic's impact on children, estimating a 50 percent decrease in reading proficiency, a 65 percent dip in math skills for third graders since schools moved online last March.

(on camera): Here in New York state Governor Cuomo has announced a coronavirus vaccine task force he's putting together. Stating concerns that the federal government's response is too politicized. This on the same day at the head of the FDA, Dr. Steven Hahn, said in an interview that he pledges experts will determine what happens with that vaccine, scientists will follow the data.

In New York, I'm Erica Hill, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: All right, let's dig deeper into all of this. We're joined now by Dr. Peter Drobac in Oxford, England. He's an infectious disease and global health expert at the University of Oxford. Doctor, thank you very much for joining us.

Let's start where we have to all too often these days even when discussing COVID, and that's with the politics. We heard there the President said the White House can override the FDA's vaccine standards. Confidence in a vaccine already seems very low in this country. What do you make of the further politicization of this both on the possible effect on safety and also on public confidence?

[04:20:00]

DR. PETER DROBAC, DISEASE AND GLOBAL HEALTH EXPERT, OXFORD UNIVERSITY: Well, it's very dangerous. Throughout this process, of course, we're trying to work with unprecedented speed to develop vaccines but do that without compromising safety. And that's why these big clinical trials are so important.

You know, a lot of the problems with vaccines, even those that are effective, can be rare, bad events. And you can really only see that through these large scale trials. The real risk here, of course, as this gets politicized is that if, you know, number one, if we rush a vaccine out, it may only be partially effective. That hurts our ability to study other vaccines. And of course, there could be consequences.

The second problem is that while there's already a lot of people for various reasons who might be skeptical of vaccines, this just further undermines trust. And what we really need if we want vaccines to be a tool to help us control this pandemic, of course, is to get a lot of people vaccinated as quickly as possible and it is ready.

I think it's important right now, where we are with the political situation. Because we can't really trust the White House on the science, is that the pharmaceutical companies that are developing these vaccines need to stick to their own pledges and not apply for an emergency authorization until the evidence is there of safety and efficacy.

BRUNHUBER: But then what about also perhaps making the vaccine clinical research data publicly available so outside experts can weigh in? Because at this point it seems, you know, the public doesn't know who to trust.

DROBAC: Yes, that's extremely important. One of the, you know, features of all of the research and scientific effort that's been happening right now is that there's been great sharing of information. Papers are being published before they go through peer review and that's allowing for greater kind of public scrutiny. But there's a downside to that as well and sometimes we, you know, press releases are kind of the leading edge of scientific communication and that's a problem.

Most of the companies that are running the large scale trials have published their protocols. So we can already see exactly how they're designing the trial protocols and that's really helpful. Absolutely will be important for those data to be publicly available for scientific scrutiny.

BRUNHUBER: So what do you make of the human challenge vaccine trials in which volunteers are injected with the actual virus? The U.K. seems to be going down that route. The W.H.O. says it's a faster way to test vaccines, the NIH here disagrees. It sounds enormously risky. Is it worth it?

DROBAC: This is a really tough one. So humans challenge trials have a lot of promise in that because each person who's getting the vaccine is actually being exposed to the virus in a controlled way. You get a lot of events. The problem with the big phase 3 trials is that you have to vaccinate tens of thousands of people partially in order to have enough that people just randomly might get exposed to the virus. And that can really take time, especially when infection rates are not high.

So the benefit of human challenge trials is that it gives us a lot of critical information very quickly. The downsides are few from a scientific standpoint because you're only testing young, healthy volunteers. You don't get any information about how the vaccine performs with the elderly, with folks with medical co-morbidities, with children. These are all important populations and vaccines typically don't always act the same in everybody.

The other big challenge really is one around ethics. There's so much we don't know about this virus, right? So normally when we do challenge trials for vaccines, we've done this with things like typhoid and cholera in the past, we have an effective rescue treatment. So that if someone does get infected, we can treat them and make sure that they don't get sick. We do not have an effective rescue treatment for this coronavirus yet.

The second thing is that we know that a lot of people, including young, healthy people who get infections, suffer from long-term chronic complications. Up to one in ten people. This is a phenomenon we don't understand very well yet. So the problem is we can't give an adequate assessment of risk to those who are volunteering. And to me that's really not an ethical thing to do at this time.

BRUNHUBER: It makes sense, all right, thank you so much. We'll have to leave it there. Dr. Peter Drobac, the University of Oxford, we appreciate you talking to us about this.

DROBAC: Thank you.

BRUNHUBER: Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: Do you guys seriously think that Joe Biden is a pedophile?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I do.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel he is. I feel he's part of the game.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: We'll explain how social media is allowing the most absurd and slanderous gossip to be peddled as truth in the run up to the U.S. election. Stay with us.

[04:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRUNHUBER: And welcome back to you, our viewers in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber and you are watching CNN NEWSROOM.

The U.S. presidential election is less than six weeks away and the tense political environment is amplifying a dark side of social media. Some popular platforms have become fertile ground for partisan conspiracy theories, propaganda and fake videos and refuse to die even when they're exposed as lies. We get more from Donie O'Sullivan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: So we have come to a Trump rally in Bemidji, Minnesota today, to ask from supporters what they see when they open their Facebook feeds?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No one has been more wrong more often than Biden.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The November 3 election result may never be accurately determined.

O'SULLIVAN: On that post is there any label or fact-check or anything?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, they have a little thing at the bottom that says voting by a mail has a long history of trustworthiness in the U.S.

O'SULLIVAN: Are you a Facebook user?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I use Facebook, yes.

O'SULLIVAN: So what sort of pages do you follow on there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anybody that agrees with me.

O'SULLIVAN: Only people that agree with you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That would be a Republican and anti-abortion guy and pro-gun and pro-beer.

O'SULLIVAN: But do you not think it would be good to follow some pages of people you disagree with, see their opinion?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No because they call me stupid, ignorant, you know. Why would I follow people that throw rocks at me constantly because they don't agree with me? I got tens of thousands of people that do. O'SULLIVAN: So Trump, his campaign, a lot of senior Republicans over the past few weeks have been sharing doctored and manipulated videos on social media. Now the Trump campaign and Trump supporters will often say, these videos are clearly jokes. There are memes, people know they are memes, people know they're fake.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And when they say, well, this is fact-checked, it's wrong, because it's taken out of context. Like when Joe Biden fell asleep during a live interview on television ...