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States Report More New Cases; Ex-Intel Official Blasts Trump; Vaccine Trials for Children. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired September 28, 2020 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: I mean the statement also doesn't say, no, no, no, Dr. Redfield thinks Dr. Atlas is spot on, on all this stuff.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

HARLOW: So what is the public health implication of not only a clear divide and disagreement within the task force on this stuff, but the fact that Dr. Atlas has the president's ear still?

DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE DEAN, EMORY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Well, Poppy, it's very concerning because the reality is that CDC has not been at the forefront of this response. When we think about what needed -- who needed to guide the response, it needed to be CDC. And because CDC was sidelined from the very beginning after Nancy Mesamire (ph), Dr. Mesamire (ph), gave that statement saying this is going to be bad and she was absolutely right, the president didn't like it and they sidelined CDC. And now -- but, you know, the president started getting advice then from Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, who are terrific and were doing a good job, but now he's grown frustrated with science. He wants to move on. And Dr. Atlas is telling him exactly what he wants to hear.

And I want to be really clear, you know, we could use herd immunity, but herd immunity is a recipe for disaster. There will be thousands of people sick. There will be thousands of people hospitalized. And there will be thousands of people dead. So herd immunity is a non-starter for those of us that want to protect the health and safety of Americans.

SCIUTTO: Listen, and a lot of these things, they're not secret because the president, very publicly, has questioned the wisdom of masks. He's very publicly questioned the death toll, et cetera, you know, so these private conversations seem to reflect the public views.

I do want to ask you about young people. We're seeing, for instance, in the state of Wisconsin a big rise in cases among those 18 to 24- year-old and we're seeing that elsewhere. Europe is seeing that now. Now, it is true, as you know, Dr. Del Rio, that young people are less likely to die from this, no question, but tell us about the significance of young people as spreaders of this within the community. Why is that a concern? DEL RIO: Well, there are two issues, because young people, you know,

get together with older individuals. And, again, they are less likely to get sick and to die, but they're not immune from getting sick and dying. So when you still can see young people in their 20s and 30s critically ill and even dying from this disease is something that should be not acceptable, right?

In addition to that, young people will then go and spend time with older individuals and increase the risk for those individuals. So the reality is anybody getting infected who could potentially transmit to others is bad.

If, however, we are wearing masks, we are bringing -- you know, we're practicing social distance, we would be able to bring infection rates down. And bringing infection rates down is the only way to make sure everybody stays safe until we have a vaccine.

HARLOW: On Friday, Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, signed an executive order allowing all restaurants to open in person at 100 percent capacity. I'm not just talking about outside. I'm talking about indoors as well.

In a state like Florida that has seen such an uptick, what -- what do you think that's going to mean? I know the economic strain, and that's why he's doing it, but from a health perspective, especially with so many retired folks in Florida, what's that going to turn out to result in?

DEL RIO: Again, it could be potentially a recipe for disaster. And the reality, Poppy, is that we don't have -- people have made this argument that it's public health versus the economy. And this is a false dichotomy. The enemy here is the virus. And the reality is, if we protect public health and we improve public health, the economy will recover. There are ways to make sure that we stay healthy and we can still open the economy. Many places have done that and we have done it the right way.

I think New York is doing it the right way. I think many other places are doing it the right way. But just saying this is over is not going to get us over this problem.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

Pictures in Florida. Not a lot of mask wearing going on there in those crowds.

Dr. Carlos Del Rio, thanks very much.

Well, a former intelligence agency director who briefed the president face to face multiple times is now speaking out in public saying that the president endangers U.S. national security. It's a remarkable, public assessment and warning. He's going to join me live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:38:23]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back.

Tom Ridge, the first secretary of Homeland Security and former Republican governor of the state of Pennsylvania, has endorsed Joe Biden for president. Ridge's endorsement comes just days after nearly 500 retired military officials, ambassadors and national security figures announced their support for Biden as well. And my next guest, he is sounding the alarm about this president, too, writing, and I'm quoting, I have briefed him, the president, up close and I have seen and felt the effect of his faults on our nation's security. The person you see presiding over Covid-19 press conferences is the same one in the privacy of his office. He has little patience for facts or data that do not comport with his personal world view.

Joining me is Robert Cardillo. He's the former director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. If you haven't heard of it, it's the agency that used satellite data to identify the compound where Osama bin Laden was hiding, among other things.

Mr. Cardillo, thanks for taking the time this morning.

ROBERT CARDILLO, FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL GEOSPATIAL- INTELLIGENCE AGENCY: Good morning, Jim.

SCIUTTO: So you've served, and I want to note this for our viewers, you've served six presidents, four Republican and two Democratic, through a number of crisis. You write the following in this remarkable op-ed. You say that our current president basis his decisions on his instincts and his instincts are based on a personal value proposition, what's in it for me.

To be clear for our viewers here, do you believe this president, in your personal experience of him, places his own interests over U.S. national security?

CARDILLO: Well, Jim, it's hard for me to say exactly how he balances out.

[09:40:00]

All I can talk to is what I see and what I -- what's reflected in his policies. And -- and, again, as an intelligence professional, we often confront policymakers who come into a situation or an issue with a bias or their own experience, of course, but then they take on new information, and they use that to either challenge or to adjust their thinking.

This president has a way to deflect new information, even scientific data, in a way that allows him to be more comfortable, and to sustain, as I said, that internal view and to think about what the best outcome is for himself.

SCIUTTO: You have personally briefed the president on classified information multiple times. You say as well that Trump puts more weight, I'm quoting you here, on the word of dictators, like Vladimir Putin, than the U.S. intelligence community.

Why is that, in your experience? Does he -- does he believe them over the analysis of U.S. intelligence agencies?

CARDILLO: I actually hope that's not true. What I believe in the case of Putin and the, you know, the issues with respect to Russian interference in our election, what he doesn't want to believe and chooses not to believe is the fact that Russia did interfere in our election in 2016 and that its intent was to get him elected. Because he feels that that delegitimizes his presidency, he will deflect anything again that conflicts with that view.

And so when -- when Vladimir Putin says, you know, I didn't do it, that fits, and thus he would align with that vice with the intelligence community's assessment.

SCIUTTO: So that explanation works I suppose for Russian interference in the election, if that's purely the reason there, his sensitivity to delegitimizing his win, but how do you explain then why the president, given repeated opportunities, will not take the simple step of condemning Russia for poisoning the main opposition leader a couple of weeks ago or would not condemn Russia for selling arms to the Taliban to kill U.S. forces in Afghanistan or pay bounties on U.S. forces in Afghanistan and a whole host of other Russian provocations. The president repeatedly refuses to call out those acts of aggression by Russia against the U.S.

Do you have any explanation for why he refuses to do so for all those issues?

CARDILLO: Jim, you're right, those are more complicated and those are a little harder to understand and to fit into, if there is, you know, a rhyme or reason to his thinking. All I could offer is that, again, he avoids the conflict that he doesn't want to deal with. And so, again, I don't -- wasn't there, don't know what he was presented with respect to the allegations of the bounties, but eventually that information got to him. And remember where he took that. It was all about, you know, I wasn't told or I wasn't informed. It was all in the past tense, versus, OK, but you now know, what are you going to do about it.

And, for him, that's a conflict he'd rather avoid that because it, again, it doesn't comport with the centrality of his view and it makes him uncomfortable. Again, I'm -- I'm projecting, but that's my assessment.

SCIUTTO: Does that then invite further Russian aggression when they're not called out by the U.S. commander in chief? Does that in -- from their perspective, given them a green light?

CARDILLO: Look, you know, we've been at odds as a nation with Russia for generations. Russia will, because of those, you know, that opposition, will always seek to find ways to undermine and destabilize and to -- and to confuse, you know, our -- the entirety of our -- of our political body. In this case, though, Jim, I have to agree with you, I think the

president's actions do, in fact, feed that Russian objective. I'm not saying that's his purpose, but I'm saying that's the effect that he's had. And I'll just add, you know, when he questions the validity of our own elections, I couldn't imagine a group in the planet being happier about that than the Kremlin.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you, if I can, about finances here. You're, of course, aware of the new reporting from "The New York Times" about the president's taxes. Set that aside for a moment. But there's also reporting in there that he owes $300 million that's coming due in the next two years. I just want to ask you, from an intelligence perspective, would a debt this large create potential compromises for the president? I mean the simplest terms, if you or I had debt equal to or perhaps above our assets, I imagine that would compromise our ability to get a security clearance.

[09:45:02]

What does the -- how does the intelligence community view that kind of debt in terms of a security risk?

CARDILLO: You know, the general principle with respect to, you know, protecting classified information, maintaining integrity, is to -- is to, you know, minimize vulnerabilities, of any sort, because a vulnerability could be exploited by an adversary.

You're describing a potential vulnerability, debt. You know if -- two things. One, if we were within the intelligence community and somebody was coming up for a clearance review and had an outsized amount of debt, that would -- that would raise some questions. Doesn't mean they couldn't be answered, but questions. If we, as an intelligence community, were assessing a foreign leader, and trying to understand his or her stability, and knew of outsized debts, you know, to a foreign or even to a national entity, we would see that as a risk.

So, again, I don't have any, you know, particular insight into the president's accounting, but, you're right, those debts could be -- could be a vulnerability.

SCIUTTO: Robert Cardillo, thanks for your many decades of service to this country and thanks for taking the time to join us this morning.

CARDILLO: Thanks, Jim.

HARLOW: Well, there are growing calls for coronavirus vaccine trials in children. This is as, of course, a new school year brings a jump in cases among kids. We're going to talk to one of the doctors who's leading that call. He'll be with us, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:50:53]

HARLOW: Welcome back. So if you're a parent, you're probably a few weeks into the school

year with your children, whether they're at home or physically at school. There is a new report that shows nearly 75,000 new cases of Covid among children reported between September 3rd and 17th, that's up 15 percent. And since the start of the pandemic, more than 587,000 children have been infected.

And now, as adult vaccine trials move at warp speed, a group of pediatricians is calling for vaccine trials for children to begin.

With us now is one of the doctors leading that call, Dr. Buddy Creech. He is a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt. He is also the director of Vanderbilt's vaccine research program.

Dr. Creech, I can think of no better voice on this, and you're a parent, and I am, and so is Jim, so we have a lot of questions on this.

DR. BUDDY CREECH, DIRECTOR, VANDERBILT VACCINE RESEARCH PROGRAM: I am.

HARLOW: Thanks for being here this morning.

CREECH: Thanks for having me.

HARLOW: So help me understand why we should start trials of this vaccine in children now when the adult trials aren't done yet.

CREECH: Well, I think it's really important to leverage how quickly we've been able to move into this final stage of testing for some of these adult vaccines. And I think it may get confusing if we have some good vaccines available for our front line workers and those at highest risk, but we don't take advantage of evaluating these vaccines rigorously in those who may benefit the most. And I think right now we can all agree that kids want to be in school and grandparents want to see their grandchildren. This is one of the ways where we can ensure a safety net around those that are the most vulnerable.

HARLOW: But how do you get parents to submit their children to these trials? I mean would you put your child in one right now when the adult trials aren't even over?

CREECH: Well, I think clinical trials are built on trust. And I can say that back in 2009, when we had the pandemic of flu, my children indeed participated in those trials of new pandemic flu vaccines. And in part we did it because we had so much confidence in the data that go into those studies before they're ever put into anyone, much less children. So I think now's the time where we can take advantage of the data that we have in the adults that have be vaccinated. And then once we have those data in hand, once we know the safety of these vaccines, and a good sense of how well they work, that's the time that we can begin, in a very structured way, giving it to teenagers, and proving it's safe in teenagers, and then working ourselves down from the oldest children to the younger ones.

HARLOW: Oh, OK. No, you make a good point because you're talking about, you know, 13, 14 through 18. I have a two and four-year-old, so my -- I guess my mind is there and

I'm thinking about that age group.

Does this mean, if there is -- there is a lag until, you know, it's going to be tested on toddlers, for example, does that mean that it's going to be four, six, eight months after adults can start getting a vaccine that children can because the time line will just get that much further pushed out?

CREECH: I think that's the timeline that we're worried about. We worry that we're not going to take advantage of this time where we could be evaluating the vaccine in particularly teenagers and even older school aged children. Again, trying to get us to that point that a sufficient number of people have either been exposed to the virus and have some degree of immunity, or exposed to a vaccine and therefore have natural immunity because of the vaccine.

If we can get enough people in that category, then we can slow this pandemic and potentially end it. And I think kids are going to be a major part of that. Even though they've been disproportionately affected in this pandemic, right?

HARLOW: Yes.

CREECH: They haven't been highly sick. They haven't been frequently infected, as best we can tell. It doesn't mean that they don't play a key role in preventing the ongoing spread.

HARLOW: For sure. And, by the way, they've been mostly out of school for the bulk of this pandemic. So we don't really know the real numbers, I think. And then couple it with flu and cold season and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services saying so many fewer children are getting other vaccines. Here in New York City, Mayor de Blasio talked about vaccine doses down 63 percent in children from a year ago. That was just in May. I mean kids are not -- parents aren't taking some of their kids to get their MMR vaccines because they're scared.

[09:55:00]

CREECH: I think so. And some of that is the misconception that I don't want to go to the physician or the nurse practitioner because I'm going to get exposed to Covid.

HARLOW: Right.

CREECH: And I think our practices have done a really good job of protecting, right? Of creating barriers, of being able to make sick and well waiting rooms. We've been doing this in pediatrics for decades where we separate out those kids in a way that we prevent the spread in the office.

I think now is the time to double down on the need for routine child health care but also vaccination.

HARLOW: Yes. CREECH: I think I'm very worried going into this year's flu season that fewer and fewer kids are going to be vaccinated and that's going to have consequences.

HARLOW: Yes, I think you're so right. I -- my kids already have flu shots. I took them to get their MMR boosters. Take your kids to get all their vaccines right now. Listen to the doctors, like you.

Thank you, Dr. Creech.

CREECH: Thank you so much.

HARLOW: All right.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:07]

HARLOW: Top of the hour. Good morning, everyone, I'm Poppy Harlow.