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Confirmation Hearing For Judge Barrett October 12; Trump Continues Lies About Mail-in Voting; Portland Arrests; Louisville Church Shelters Protesters; Fauci Optimistic About Year-End Vaccine; Florida Moves To Final Phase Reopening; Climate Change Fueling Blazes Around The World; Wisconsin Voters Undecided. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired September 27, 2020 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN HOST (voice-over): President Trump announces his Supreme Court nominee, a choice that, if confirmed by the Senate, could solidify the court's conservative majority for decades.
Also on display at the White House, a distinct lack of masks or social distancing, including from one of the top public health officials in the country. More details on that.
And this church in Louisville, Kentucky, has offered sanctuary to protesters for the past few nights. So I'll speak to the pastor for her views on the unrest rocking the city.
Live from CNN World 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.
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BRUNHUBER: U.S. President Donald Trump's pick for the Supreme Court is expected to speed through the U.S. Senate and be confirmed before the presidential election.
Confirmation hearings for federal appeals court judge Amy Coney Barrett will begin October 12th. It is a lifetime appointment and the Republican majority and the Senate appears to have the votes to get her on the bench quickly. CNN's Jeremy Diamond has more on this high stakes pick.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Donald Trump on Saturday officially nominating judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. This is his third nomination. And the first woman that the president has nominated to put on the bench.
The president certainly relishing this moment. After, all the president has talked about how appointing justices to the Supreme Court is one of the most important things that he does as president. He certainly views this as a critical part of his legacy.
It is one of the reasons why so many conservatives, including those who are perhaps turned off by his brash political style, ultimately flock to his campaign and have supported him through his four years in the White House.
The president is really remaking the balance of the Supreme Court, there already was a conservative majority on the Supreme Court and now if she becomes the next Supreme Court justice, you will have a 6-3 conservative majority on that court and that could have an impact for decades, particularly given the fact that judge Amy Coney Barrett is 48 years old.
She can serve on this bench for a long time to come. Of course there are political implications in the short term as well. The president and his campaign certainly hoping that this will rev up his conservative base and encourage them to turn out to the polls on November 3rd in droves.
But there's also the question about the impact that this will have on the Left. Certainly Democrats, criticizing President Trump for moving ahead with this nomination and before Election Day, they are driving home the point that this could really, not only fundamentally alter the balance of power on the Supreme Court but put into question things like Obamacare and those pre-existing conditions, protections for those pre-existing conditions.
The case on Obamacare is coming before the court in a matter of weeks and the White House certainly hopes that judge Amy Coney Barrett will be on the court by that point.
We should note, of course, that a majority of Americans, nearly six in 10 Americans believe that it is the president who is elected in the November 3rd, 2020, election, who should pick the next justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The president not at all abiding by that timeline; RAY: pushing for judge Amy Coney Barrett confirmed before the November 3rd election. On Saturday, the White House chief of staff Mark Meadows saying he believes if everything goes smoothly, they could have Barrett confirmed by November 1st -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, the White House.
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BRUNHUBER: Democrats are bluntly warning that putting a sixth conservative justice on the high court will spell the end of Obamacare and abortion rights. CNN's Phil Mattingly explains there is not much they can do.
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PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, in the words of one Republican official after I spoke to after the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, this is Mitch McConnell's ball game now, as in the Senate majority leader, who's been the focal point of President Trump's term for him. He's moved 200, including 2 Supreme Court justices, now is moving towards a third and he's going to move fast.
In fact Republican sources say the calendar has already been circulated for hearings for Amy Coney Barrett starting on October 12th.
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MATTINGLY: It's a tentative calendar. It just underscores how fast Republicans plan to move.
They want to confirm Amy Coney Barrett before the November 3rd election and they are laying out the process to do just that. Here's how things are going to work over the next couple of weeks.
The next week the nominee will start her visits with Mitch McConnell, Senate Judiciary chairman Lindsey Graham will follow shortly after and then other rank and file senators will likely speak with the nominee. That will all lead up to those October 12th hearings.
It will be 4 days of hearings, opening statements, 2 days of questioning, then outside witnesses as well. That will tee up a Senate floor vote after the committee approves the nomination.
The expectation is that every Republican on the committee will vote for Amy Coney Barrett and at least 51 of the 53 Republicans in the United States in the Senate when it gets to the Senate floor will do the same.
Democrats have made it clear they are unified in their opposition, not just to the nominee but to the process itself. However they have very little that they can do to slow down or stop it altogether. There are procedural tactics that they can deploy and they do in plan to do that both in the Senate and on the committee floor.
But as long as Republicans have the votes, there's nothing Democrats can do to stop them. That's why Republicans are targeting shortly before the election to confirm President Trump's third Supreme Court justice to the court.
Right now all signs point to that happening. Of course they still have to see over the course of the next several weeks -- Phil Mattingly, CNN, Capitol Hill.
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BRUNHUBER: For an international perspective on all of this, let's go to Leslie Vinjamuri joining us from London. She's head of the U.S. and Americas Programme at Chatham House.
Thank you for joining us.
With all of this happening so close to the election, is there any clearer sense now which side will capitalize more politically on this fight, not just in the presidential election but also the battle for Senate? Conventional wisdom says conservatives are more energized by Supreme Court issues. But in this case, Democrats are making it all about the Affordable Care Act, which could galvanize progressives, possibly.
LESLIE VINJAMURI, HEAD OF THE U.S. AND AMERICAS PROGRAMME, CHATHAM HOUSE: I think what it really does is it galvanizes contention (ph) and mobilizes probably more voters on both sides because, of course, progressives, especially, but the Democratic Party as a whole, doesn't want to see this kind of appointment, certainly doesn't want to see it before the election, thinks the next U.S. president should make the choice.
Republicans, as we all know, care passionately and deeply about the Supreme Court and courts in general. They look to President Trump to do what he's set to do.
But I think a lot of what happens has -- will play out, depending on how the hearings develop, what line of argument the Democrats make right now. They're focused on risks this presents to health care, which I think is absolutely critical and will certainly draw attention from Americans in the middle of the pandemic.
Where more than 200,000 Americans have been killed, the numbers continue to rise, healthcare is so critical. Remember that the Supreme Court will be hearing the case on the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, a week after the election. And 23 million Americans depend on this.
So I think, you know, if the Democrats really play this as something where the future of America's healthcare is at stake, where there is hypocrisy in terms of -- on the Republican side, pushing forward a candidate so quickly in the context of an ongoing election, that will sustain a lot of attention and mobilize voters.
But at the end of the day, I think it -- the vote, the difference it is going to make, will have a lot more to do with the pandemic, with the economic crisis. People are pretty fixed in their views of the Supreme Court. But it does polarize the American electorate and it polarizes Congress in the Senate.
BRUNHUBER: What does the whole process, the rush to confirm a new justice, say about the centrality of the courts to the Republican cause?
I heard one Republican commentator explain it this way, the Republicans seem to have given up legislating and are outsourcing their business to the courts.
What -- is that what is at stake here?
VINJAMURI: I think that, you know, the courts have been the locus of battle for any number of decisions over the last several years.
The Democrats have very effectively pushed back, not only through street protests, public protests but they've litigated the American Civil Liberties Union. If you go back to the very beginning, they pushed to stop the
president's ban on Muslim majority countries and individuals entering the country; they litigated that through the courts.
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VINJAMURI: So I think there is a sense that if you can really shift the courts and stack them with conservative judges, that you can -- that you can really hold the line on any number of conservative positions.
And it is also because, of course, President Trump hasn't been very effective in legislating. It has been very difficult to get legislation through now, especially now, with a House that is dominated by the Democrats.
Difficult to know where Congress is going to go, difficult to know where the Senate is going to go after the election. But there is a sense and, if you can hold the courts, you can influence the direction of travel in the United States.
BRUNHUBER: Barrett, herself, has stated, judges are not policymakers; they must be resolute in setting aside any policy views they might hold.
But when it comes to nominees, their statements before they join the bench, are often no guide to their actions when they're on it.
But how -- do you have a sense of how much ideology will play in the Supreme Court now, given the balance of power, with conservatives having twice the number of votes, if she's confirmed?
Will that erase the veneer of neutrality?
VINJAMURI: I think that a lot of Americans increasingly are concerned that the court is not above partisan politics, but it is not as independent as they might like to see. I think to be fair, you know, all of the Supreme Court justices are extraordinary in their training and their professionalism. And they take the issue of precedent very seriously.
Amy Coney Barrett has been very serious about that. But they have different philosophies of the law. She's originalist, she looks back to the original text and meaning of the Constitution. That's a very specific position, very different from somebody who thinks about the Constitution as something that is very living and should be interpreted through the modern era.
And, of course, one's positions are reflected through that legal analysis. So there is a lot at stake. I think if we look at Amy Coney Barrett's positions on any number of issues, they are deeply embedded in legal analysis.
But of course, they reflect a certain -- a certain view of the law and of precedent. So there is a lot at stake. We have seen how this plays out. But I think really when you talk about moving a court from 5-4 to 6-3
leaning conservative, that ability to kind of, you know, for Chief Justice Roberts to be a deciding vote is really changing. So there is a lot at stake.
BRUNHUBER: All right, so many more questions but we'll have to leave it there. Leslie Vinjamuri, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it.
VINJAMURI: Thank you.
BRUNHUBER: With coronavirus deaths in the U.S. surpassing 204,000, there wasn't much evidence of face masks and social distancing at the Supreme Court announcement.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Have a look at this. Many people simply didn't wear masks as guests appear to be seated closer than six feet or about two meters apart.
And COVID tests needed for anyone interacting with the president were not required of others. Then Alex Azar, head of the Health and Human Services Department, wore his mask some of the time but not when he greeted people.
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BRUNHUBER: A spokesperson put it this way, quoting, "Secretary Azar wore a mask the majority of the event and consistently communicates and practices the three Ws of wearing a mask, watching your distance and washing your hands.
"In this circumstance, everyone he had contact with, including the secretary, tested negative before the event."
President Trump spent the rest of his Saturday in Pennsylvania, a battleground state he won in 2016. And he launched into another round of baseless attacks on mail-in voting. CNN's Ryan Nobles reports.
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RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Trump making a visit to the key swing state of Pennsylvania and a rally here in Middleton, Pennsylvania, just outside of Harrisburg. The president brought up an issue here in Pennsylvania attempting to sow doubt in the electoral process where a group of discarded ballots were found and that the Justice Department is looking into.
The president didn't necessarily tell the whole story. He used it as a vehicle to undermine the electoral process. Take a listen.
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TRUMP: They're going to try and steal the election. Look at this crowd. The only way they can win Pennsylvania frankly is to cheat on the ballots.
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NOBLES: Pennsylvania isn't the first state where President Trump has suggested that if he doesn't win, that something fraudulent would've happened. He said this in a number of swing states around the country and, in fact, even brought Iowa up on Saturday night, somehow saying that the problems with counting ballots in the Iowa caucuses back in February had to do with absentee ballots.
The caucuses did allow for a small number of absentee ballots, the counting process had nothing to do with mail-in ballots but the president continuing to sow confusion on all levels. This as absentee ballots are already being mailed out around the country.
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NOBLES: And voters are already starting to send them back in -- Ryan Nobles, CNN, Middletown, Pennsylvania.
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BRUNHUBER: A night of competing protests in Portland, Oregon. How police kept far right and far left groups holding rallies there peaceful.
Plus, the fourth night of protests in Louisville, Kentucky, over the police shooting death of Breonna Taylor. Why some protesters are taking refuge at a church. We'll hear from the pastor next. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: Police in Portland, Oregon, arrested more than a dozen people a few hours ago after a crowd threw rocks and other objects as officers tried to clear the streets.
Earlier Saturday, hundreds of protesters gathered at three opposing rallies. One group was the far right Proud Boys. They carried firearms, wore body armor and voiced their support of President Trump. Nearby other groups held their own rallies. Dan Simon is in Portland and filed this report a short time ago.
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DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We are in downtown Portland and what you're seeing behind me is pretty much the same thing in terms of what we've seen the last few months, when you have a group of protesters. They're in front of the justice center.
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SIMON: And right now we're not seeing much of a police presence.
But earlier in the night we did see some protesters clash with police. Protesters throwing different things and more than a dozen people were arrested.
I have to say there was a concern that could things could have been a lot worse today. You did have members from the Proud Boys group hold a mass rally. More than 200 people showed up at a local park. The Proud Boys, of course, an extremist group. The Southern Poverty Law Center say they are a hate group.
These are pro-Trump people, they showed up with their weapons. They applied for a permit from the city (INAUDIBLE) denied due to COVID-19 concerns but they came anyway. And as a result of that you did have several hundred left-leaning protesters come to a separate rally.
Fortunately there was no clashes between them. The police fanned out across the city and did their best to try to keep those two groups separate. And fortunately we did not see any violence between those 2 groups.
Now as we approach the midnight hour in downtown Portland, there is a concern that we could see more violence, more clashes between protesters and police. We'll just have to see what happens -- Dan Simon, CNN, Portland, Oregon,
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BRUNHUBER: Authorities say they have arrested at least seven people after protests turned violent in Seattle Saturday night. Police tweeted photos showing smashed windows and graffiti they blamed on protesters during a march to city hall.
They ordered the crowd to disperse after some started setting fires and throwing rocks and bottles at police officers. Recent protests there have been part of a nationwide reaction to the lack of charges in the police involved shooting death of Breonna Taylor.
A curfew is in effect for a Louisville, Kentucky, the city where Breonna Taylor was killed. For the fourth night in a row, crowds gathered in the streets on Saturday, to demand justice for Taylor who was killed by police during a botched drug raid in March.
Fires were set, buildings were vandalized and at least 28 people were arrested in Louisville Saturday night. Shimon Prokupecz has an update.
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SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE PRODUCER: After spending hours in Jefferson Square Park and vowing not to leave as curfew approached at 9 pm, the protesters all left after police made several announcements, saying that they would be arrested if they did not leave.
As the 9 o'clock hour came, the police started to move in; they brought in some of the tactical vehicles, National Guard came in and all the protesters by that time had left. And they came to this church behind me, which they've been coming to every night, which has been serving as a sanctuary so that they can stay on the property.
The church has allowed them to stay on the property so that they could avoid arrest -- Shimon Prokupecz, CNN, Louisville, Kentucky.
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BRUNHUBER: Joining me now is reverend Lori Kyle, the pastor of the church in Louisville you saw in the report. They have been offering food, water and refuge to protesters.
Thank you so much for joining us here. Providing sanctuary has long been a mission of many churches but what you're doing is quite literal, basically, harboring protesters from the police. Let's start at the beginning, why did you decide to open your church to protesters?
LORI KYLE, CHURCH PASTOR: Well, we thought it was so important for protesters to have an opportunity to have a voice. We were very disappointed in the attorney general's announcement on Wednesday, regarding the charges or mostly lack thereof for the officers responsible for the killing of Breonna Taylor.
And protesters were going to be out in the streets, it was important for their voices to be heard but there was a curfew issued by the mayor's office. So our congregation decided we could do what we could to offer safe space in the way of sanctuary for protesters to be able to be out in the community and have their voices heard.
BRUNHUBER: So the original intentions as I understand it was more to provide support, not necessarily provide a refuge during a standoff with police. The first time this happened earlier this week there were rumors that the police were going to actually storm the church.
Were you afraid of a confrontation and what might follow?
KYLE: No, not really. Our intentions weren't in regards to a standoff with the police necessarily as much as giving the protesters an opportunity to be out and for their voices to be heard.
BRUNHUBER: Now the church has been involved with the Black Lives Matter movement for a while. Why is the issue so important to you?
I understand you were even arrested?
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KYLE: It is important because I as an individual, I, as a minister of the Unitarian Universalist faith, stand behind the Black community and the continued fight for racial justice.
It has been a long fight. And obviously by the events that have occurred this spring and this summer and now we're moving into the fall, in this country, there is a lot to be done. And our unity values especially recognizing the inherent worth and
dignity of every person is important and the efforts that our congregation is doing just underscores our commitment to the recognition of every person's worth and dignity.
And the Black community has suffered indignities and injustice for hundreds of years. And we continue to support them in the fight.
BRUNHUBER: Obviously, many in your community are demanding justice in the Breonna Taylor case. From what you said earlier, you feel justice hasn't been done in this case.
So what do you think should happen?
What does justice look like?
KYLE: Racial injustice in this country is so deeply embedded in every single system. Systemic racism is long-standing and widespread. And so we're going to do the best we can to follow the lead of the Black community, with what they want to do and, in the meantime, do the best we can to provide support by offering sanctuary.
BRUNHUBER: Widening the lens a little bit, the public is seeing nightly images from Louisville, Portland, Seattle, other cities, of smashed windows, things set on fire, police being attacked, violence between different groups.
Do you feel that these protests are achieving anything concrete?
And are you at all afraid that the real message is being lost here?
KYLE: No, I don't think the real message is being lost. I think that it is imperative that these voices be heard and that it is also imperative that the community find their voice and join the Black community in these efforts.
So I think it is important that they be out in the community, despite the curfew. And we're here to support that however we can. In this way, our congregation happened to be in the right place to be able to offer sanctuary and we're privileged to be able to do it.
BRUNHUBER: All right, well, listen, we appreciate you coming on and talking to us about this. Thank you so much, Reverend Lori Kyle.
There is much more to come on CNN, including Florida's move to fully reopen bars and restaurants, despite being third in the nation in COVID number cases. And cases are surging in the U.K. as well.
But while these protesters that you're seeing there, they want virus restrictions lifted. We'll have a live report coming up after the break.
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BRUNHUBER: And welcome back to you our viewers in the United States, Canada and around the world.
The U.S. has seen more than 7 million coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, according to Johns Hopkins. And the outbreak shows no signs of slowing. In fact, health experts say cold weather will make it worse.
The death toll is now over 204,000. And new infections are trending up across nearly half the country. Still, the top infectious disease expert is sounding an optimistic note. Here's Polo Sandoval.
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POLO SANDOVAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dr. Anthony Fauci now says vaccinations could start before the end of the year.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: In reality, by the time you get enough people vaccinated so you can feel that you have had an impact enough on the outbreak, so that you can start thinking about maybe getting a little bit more towards normality, that very likely, as I and others have said, would be maybe the third quarter or so of 2021, maybe even into the fourth quarter.
But the availability and starting vaccination could very likely start in November or December.
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SANDOVAL (voice-over): Fauci's comments come as the U.S. passed 7 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. More than 203,000 people have been killed by the virus. Dr. Fauci also raising concerns about fighting COVID as we head into the fall and winter.
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FAUCI: If you look at some of the super spreading type things that have occurred, almost all of them occurred in indoor situations. You're going to have to do a lot of things indoors out of necessity of temperature.
And I'm afraid, with that being the case, if we don't carefully follow the guidelines, the other guidelines, the masking, the distance, the crowds, that we may see another surge.
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SANDOVAL (voice-over): Case wise California is the first state to surpass 800,000 confirmed coronavirus cases.
Despite the state's rising infections, Florida governor Ron DeSantis says the state was moving into phase three of reopening, allowing restaurants and bars to fully reopen. DeSantis also said he expects the state to host a full Super Bowl by this February.
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GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): I also want to be able to show we're going to be able to host the Super Bowl in February. We expect to do a full Super Bowl. And we're going to show that we're going to be able to do that.
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SANDOVAL (voice-over): Meantime, new York City mayor Bill de Blasio announced the city's outdoor dining will be permanent, allowing restaurants to keep using sidewalks and streets for seating.
New York deputy mayor for operations Laura Anglin (ph) crediting it with saving jobs and called it a lifeline for the struggling restaurant industry.
About 12 states are now seeing mask usage rates above 50 percent, according to researchers for the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and evaluation. The IHME also said more than 95,000 lives could be saved by January, if 95 percent of Americans wore masks.
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BRUNHUBER: Polo Sandoval reporting there. He mentioned Florida's reopening and we have more on that. Randi Kaye is in south Florida with more on the governor's move.
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RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida would like everyone to know that the state is open 100 percent.
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KAYE: We have now moved to phase 3, according to the governor. He says that all businesses can now be open 100 percent, including restaurants, bars.
And nightclubs can also open to 100 percent capacity although there will be some limited social distancing protocols in the bars in and the nightclubs. The governor also says the counties and local municipalities can no longer fine people for not wearing masks.
A lot of counties around the state put in their own mask order, their own mask mandate and now the governor says they can no longer fine people.
This came as a surprise to a lot of local officials including Orange County mayor Jerry Demings. He said he found out about all this from a bar owner. He says he's disappointed, he's going to have his county attorney look at it. And again he's not real happy about the governor's decision. The
governor says though that he believes that the threat has eased here in the state. In fact, he would like to have a full stadium when it comes to the Super Bowl coming up in February in the state of Florida in Tampa Bay. That's what he's hoping to see.
And meanwhile, the numbers have ticked down but the cases do continue. We have about 700,000 cases here in the state of Florida, about 14,000 deaths. And now we're getting word of the ninth minor to have died in the state of Florida from coronavirus -- I'm Randi Kaye reporting from Riviera Beach. Back to you.
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BRUNHUBER: Coronavirus numbers are spiking in the U.K. But thousands turned out in London Saturday to protest against virus restrictions. And a preliminary study suggests fewer than 20 percent of Brits self- isolated after showing symptoms. Let's go to Scott McLean in London for more on all these stories.
Scott, so many problems there, where do you want to start?
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there is a lot of ground to cover for sure, Kim. The name of the game is trying to tamp down the second wave of the virus. The government is trying to use all the tools it has at its disposal without resorting to the blunt instrument that could be a second national lockdown.
So it has mandated that bars and restaurants close early across England, made mask guidelines, mask mandates, legal mandates inside shops and stores and also put limits on social gatherings as well.
It is also now focusing, while it waits to figure out whether those measures will actually work, on clamping down on enforcement and education as well. And for good reason here, Kim.
A study out this week or a study yet to be published but the results were released this week from Kings College in London, showed that less than half of people surveyed, 30,000 people they surveyed, could actually identify the main symptoms of COVID-19, high temperature, cough and loss of taste or smell.
So then perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that fewer than one in five people as you pointed out actually quarantined when they had those symptoms, those 70 percent of people said that they intended to. Men, young people, parents, key workers and less affluent people were among the most likely not to follow the quarantine guidelines.
At a university in Manchester, students there, some 1,700 of them, don't have a choice but to follow quarantine guidelines. The administration is threatening disciplinary action against students who failed to self-isolate for the next 14 days after 127 cases of the virus were reported on campus.
This comes the same day that, in Scotland, students were told they're not allowed to go to bars, restaurants or cafes for fear of spreading the virus outside of the campus. Even the health secretary said earlier this week, Kim, that, you know, he refuses to rule out the possibility of asking university students to stay put, to stay on their college campuses, rather than going home for the winter break.
BRUNHUBER: All right. Always appreciated. Thank you so much, Scott McLean in London.
Coming up, thousands in California are set to get their power shut off in an effort to prevent additional wildfires. We'll go live to our meteorologist for the latest on the conditions there.
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BRUNHUBER: Firefighters in California are battling more than 2 dozen major wildfires. High temperatures and strong winds are threatening to make things even worse.
The power company, Pacific Gas and Electric, says they will shut off power for about 100,000 homes and businesses today in an effort to stop electrical equipment from sparking a fire.
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BRUNHUBER: From the western U.S. to Brazil and even to the Arctic Circle, record-breaking fires have erupted around the world. Many scientists blame human cause climate change for helping to make the fires more frequent and more ferocious. Cyril Vanier reports.
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CYRIL VANIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Now familiar scenes from the U.S. West Coast. An orange haze shrouds the skies above some of California's most populous cities as dozens of wildfires blaze through millions of hectares of land.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, it's gone, it's gone.
VANIER (voice-over): The landscape changing wildfires break records in the region yet again.
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): This is a climate damn emergency. This is real.
VANIER (voice-over): An emergency in the western U.S., part of a climate crisis worldwide, as 2020 sees record fires rage around the globe.
Fires across Latin America tear through the world's largest tropical wetlands at unprecedented rates. Brazil's Amazon rain forest continues to burn, brought on in part by deforestation.
In Bolivia, drought and high temperatures are fueling wildfires while land clearing in Argentina led to blazes now out of control.
Australia began the year emerging from its worst fire season on record, destroying thousands of homes and killing as many as 3 billion animals. The fires may have begun naturally but researchers found that climate change played a major role in how fast and wide they spread.
PROFESSOR RICHARD BETTS, THE MET OFFICE HADLEY CENTRE: Australia's warmed faster, Australia's 1.4 degrees warmer than it would have been without a human impact on climate.
So when you get hot, dry conditions, as this occurred, they're even hotter because of global warming.
VANIER (voice-over): Around the world, fires have also raged this year in Indonesia, Russia, Portugal, Greece and in the Arctic Circle, which scientists say is heating at rates more than twice the global average.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We always say what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic. It does affect our weather in different parts of the world, where hundreds of millions of people live.
VANIER (voice-over): Vegetation burning in the Arctic has released record amounts of carbon dioxide into the. Air this year. Those CO2 emissions helping make conditions warmer and drier on a planet becoming too hot in places to live.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Research shows polish in the proceedings in National Academy of Sciences last year projects that about a third of the planet's population will soon live outside of this ideal band of temperature and precipitation that has proved ideal for humans for the last 6,000 years.
VANIER (voice-over): Scientists say that reducing emissions is key to help slow global warming, now making fires around the world more frequent and ferocious than ever before -- Cyril Vanier, CNN.
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BRUNHUBER: Coming up after the break --
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JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: So, if you can't vote for Joe Biden, can I assume that you'll vote for President Trump?
DEB THOMSON, UNDECIDED WISCONSIN VOTER: I don't know.
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BRUNHUBER: Many voters undecided in the U.S. battleground state of Wisconsin. We'll have a look into those crucial votes coming up next. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: The U.S. presidential election is just more than a month away. The battleground state of Wisconsin could be crucial in deciding the next president. And as CNN's Jeff Zeleny reports, many voters there still haven't made up their minds.
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THOMSON: The office used to have a lot of dignity and that's something that's missing.
ZELENY (voice-over): Deb Thomson is talking about the Oval Office and President Trump's conduct she often finds troubling.
Yet, as a Catholic, she says she cannot back Joe Biden because he supports abortion rights.
(on camera): So, if you can't vote for Joe Biden, can I assume that you'll vote for President Trump?
THOMSON: I don't know, because part of me, I'm afraid to have him in office for four more years.
ZELENY (voice-over): Signs of the fall election season are everywhere here in battleground Wisconsin. So too are sound of Trump exhaustion.
CAROLINE QUINLAN, UNDECIDED WISCONSIN VOTER: I have to say I get it, I get it why people don't like Trump. But at the same time, he has done a few things I thought were important.
ZELENY: It's one of the biggest challenges facing Biden, capitalizing on voters' nagging uncertainty about Trump by persuading those with doubts to go Democratic.
VAL DINGMAN, UNDECIDED WISCONSIN VOTER: I will vote, yes. For who, I don't know yet.
ZELENY: Val Dingman does not like the president's handling of coronavirus, or how he conducted himself during a summer of racial unrest. But she's far from sold on Biden.
Four years ago, she supported a third-party candidate, which she hopes not to do again.
DINGMAN: My vote for third party went to Trump, unfortunately. So I -- I guess, learned my lesson.
ZELENY: Her indecision raises questions about an enthusiasm gap, which worries Biden supporters, like Mary and Jerry Karthauser. MARY KARTHAUSER, WISCONSIN BIDEN SUPPORTER: I hope there's not too many that are in that camp that can't realize that there's a lot of issues here at play.
JERRY KARTHAUSER, WISCONSIN BIDEN SUPPORTER: I sure as heck don't want to see Trump for the next four years.
ZELENY: The president narrowly won Wisconsin in 2016. His path to reelection will be determined to a large degree by his strength in these suburban Republican strongholds around Milwaukee.
PAUL DEMCZAK, WISCONSIN TRUMP SUPPORTER: Sometimes, he's a little bit direct --
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DEMCZAK: -- blunt --
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DEMCZAK: -- we could say. But, at the same time, you don't have to wonder if he's trying to hide anything. You know you're getting the straight answer from him.
ZELENY: Paul and Denisa (ph) Demczak wave their Trump flag proudly.
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ZELENY: But notice plenty of Biden signs nearby.
SALLY NORDSTROM, WISCONSIN BIDEN SUPPORTER: And I'm talking to everybody I can. And I'm annoying my neighbors by putting out these signs, because there's Trump/Pence signs all over my neighborhood.
ZELENY: With absentee voting already underway, the president's threat about not accepting the results of the election --
TRUMP: We want to make sure the election is honest. And I'm not sure that it can be.
ZELENY: -- reverberated with controversy here.
Peter Akiti, an independent who plans to vote for Biden, said Trump supporters should take note.
PETER AKITI, WISCONSIN BIDEN SUPPORTER: This is kind of like a monarchy, a dictatorship. Like, America is a republic. We vote. We don't have dictatorships. You don't have queen or kings. People vote.
ZELENY: Drew Pathas (ph), who backed Trump four years ago, said he disagreed with the president's comments.
DREW PATHAS (ph), UNDECIDED WISCONSIN VOTER: That wording shouldn't be used. That was inappropriate.
ZELENY: But said it is just being Trump being Trump, which his supporters love.
PATHAS (ph): I have to look at the whole body of work, you know and all that he has done and all that he has said.
ZELENY (on camera): So the Biden campaign is under no illusions they can win these Republican strongholds but they do believe they can close the gap.
That gap contributed to President Trump carrying the state by some 23,000 votes four years ago. That's just one percentage point of the total in this state.
No question, both campaigns very much engaged here, spending millions of dollars in television advertising.
There's no question President Trump needs these 10 electoral votes for his reelection strategy -- Jeff Zeleny, CNN, Cedarburg, Wisconsin.
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BRUNHUBER: And CNN will carry Tuesday's debate live. Our special coverage begins at 7:00 pm Eastern. That's midnight Wednesday morning in London and 7:00 am in Hong Kong for all of you international viewers.
Well, that wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. For our viewers in the U.S. and Canada, "NEW DAY" is just ahead. For everyone else, it is "AFRICA AVANT-GARDE." See you later.
