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New York Times Reports, Trump's Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Tax Avoidance; Nebraska Begins Mailing Absentee Ballots Today; Source Says, CDC Director Concerned That Dr. Scott Atlas is Arming President Trump with Misleading Information. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired September 28, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN NEWSROOM: Top of the hour, good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

It maybe this is why the president has fought so long to keep Americans from seeing his personal tax returns. The New York Times report laying out years of documents, and these records completely at odds with the president's mission to paint himself as a savvy businessman. In fact, they highlight massive business losses and personal tax avoidance.

Here is what we learned. In 10 of the last 15 years, beginning in the year 2000, the president, according to The New York Times, paid zero in federal income taxes, zero.

HARLOW: And then in 2016, so the year he was elected and then the first year of his presidency, 2017, he paid $750, just $750 in federal income taxes, put that in perspective, that's about a third of what President Abraham Lincoln paid in taxes in 1864. All of this as we are less than 36 hours from the first presidential debate.

So let's begin with our Kara Scannell. Good morning, Kara. For anyone that didn't spend an hour, I think that's how long it took me to read The New York Times reporting, word for word, I didn't have a chance to read all of it. What are the top lines?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: Well, good morning, Poppy and Jim. And as you say, the president has not paid taxes for 10 of the past 15 years beginning 2000. And in 2016 and 2017, he paid only $750 each year.

Now, how did he do that? According to The New York Times, which looked at 20 years of the president's tax returns, they said that he was losing money in many of his core businesses. His golf courses had lost over $300 million in the past 20 years and that he used those losses to offset income he had made from being on The Apprentice and other licensing deals that he had building off of his celebrity.

The other ways that he was able to reduce his tax bill was that he paid people through consulting fees, $26 million in the past ten years, including what The New York Times said was a $700,000 payment to his daughter, Ivanka Trump, for consulting while she was an employee of the Trump organization.

Now, The New York Times also said that the president had taken many personal and business expenses and written off in his taxes, including $200,000 spent at Mar-a-Lago in linen, silver and landscaping, and $70,000 that he spent on his haircuts and hairstyling.

The Times also reporting that the president is under financial pressure. His businesses, his hotel in Washington, D.C. is losing money. His golf courses are losing money. And he is on the hook for several hundred millions of dollars in loans that are coming due. That could put the president in a precarious situation if the banks seek to foreclose on any of his properties if he is unable to make these payments, which will become due in the next four years. Jim, Poppy?

SCIUTTO: And I just spoke to a former senior intelligence official who said that debts in that amount are a security risk. Kara Scannell, thanks very much.

HARLOW: Let's bring in our White House Correspondent, John Harwood. Good morning to you, John. Any more from the White House on this other than the president's swift denial last night?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the classic response from Trump was offered last night and has been doubled down by his son, Donald Trump Jr., this morning on Fox. What the president did was avoid the specifics of the allegation and simply, when he was in the White House briefing room last night, issue a blanket denial. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: It's fake news. It's totally fake news, made up, fake. We went through the same stories. You could have asked me the same questions four years ago. I had to litigate this and talk about it, totally fake news. No.

Actually, I paid tax. And you'll see that as soon as my tax returns -- it's under audit. They've been under audit for a long time. The IRS does not treat me well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARWOOD: Now, what you notice there was he didn't deny the specifics, the $750 in taxes paid in 2016 and 2017. He pointed to other taxes paid, state taxes in particular, which is the same approach that Alan Garten, his lawyer, took in a statement that he issued. The statement says, over the past decade, President Trump has paid tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes to the federal government, including since announcing his candidacy in 2015, personal taxes as opposed to personal income taxes. Now, obviously, the question, as you and Jim have been discussing, Poppy, is whether or not the financial squeeze that the president is facing, including $400 million in personal debts that are coming due, whether that compromises his performance of his job as president, in foreign policy, on coronavirus, in his zeal to stay in office, whatever the outcome of the election, you can bet that Joe Biden, just like Hillary Clinton in 2016, is going to be raising this issue on the debate stage tomorrow night.

[10:05:03]

SCIUTTO: Well, the president said fake news. The fact is, in the 2016 debates, the president proudly said that not paying taxes makes him smart --

HARWOOD: He bragged about it.

SCIUTTO: -- when he was challenged by Hillary Clinton. So, of course, we have a debate tomorrow, Joe Biden, the opponent. Do we know how the president will answer that given that his words were on tape? He said proudly, it makes me smart not to pay taxes. How does he answer that to Joe Biden when certainly, I would expect, brings this up in the debate?

HARLOW: Well, Jim, I think it's a little harder for him to give that same answer having been president for four years with people paying taxes under his administration. The question that Joe Biden could throw back at him is, to all those blue collar voters and Republican donors for that matter, did the president pay less taxes than you because he's smarter than you or is there some other reason for it? That's the issue that's squarely on the table.

SCIUTTO: We'll watch tomorrow. John Harwood at the White House, thanks very much.

CNN's Jessica Dean, she is in Cleveland ready for tomorrow night's debate.

Jessica, the Biden camp, I know they've already put out, not surprisingly, a campaign ad based on this, how are they responding to The New York Times reporting?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. Well, we just heard John kind of laying it out there. And we have heard from Joe Biden on the campaign trail over the last couple of weeks really framing this race as Scranton versus Park Avenue, and this is something -- this story that really lends itself to that narrative.

And I'm going to let one of the deputy campaign managers explain it. Listen to Kate Bedingfield on our air yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATE BEDINGFIELD, BIDEN DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER AND COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: I mean, look, it's latest reminder how clear the choices here between -- in this race between Park Avenue and Scranton. You have, in Donald Trump, a president who spends his time thinking about how he can work his way out of paying taxes, of meeting the obligation that every other working person in this country meets every year. With Joe Biden, you have somebody who has a completely different perspective on what it means to be a working family in this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: And, Jim, you mentioned that video that is online that the Biden campaign turned around very quickly after this new reporting came out yesterday. And in that video, it lays out the average tax bill for people like a teacher, a nurse, a firefighter, comparing that to, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars to Trump's $750 alleged tax bill that he paid over the years.

You can expect to hear more of this from the debate stage tomorrow. It is certainly a narrative the Biden campaign is eager to take hold of. They really want to keep driving home that point, that Trump is looking out for himself, in their view, that, in their view, Joe Biden is going to be looking out for the average Americans. So we can expect to hear more of that. Poppy and Jim?

HARLOW: We'll be watching. Not much sleep for me and Jim tomorrow night, and you, Jess, thank you very much.

Hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots in Nebraska will be mailed out this morning to those voters who requested them. This is yet another federal judge has blocked USPS, the U.S. Postal Service, from making policy changes that would slow down election mail.

SCIUTTO: CNN National Correspondent Kristen Holmes has been following this.

I mean, the issue here, of course, in Nevada, a key swing state, they're mailing out ballots to every registered voter as opposed to folks who request them. And this is something that the president has attacked repeatedly. What happens next there, right? In effect, this is going to happen, will those ballots be counted?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, and that's the big question. And we know that they had brought a lawsuit, the Trump campaign, about mailing out these ballots in Nevada and they lost. And that was really the one that all of the constitutional lawyers had told me, these conservative lawyers, they thought they were going to win. So that is happening in Nevada.

But there are so many things that people are concerned about with this election. You talked about that, Poppy, that USPS lawsuit. This is now the third judge who has put in place a court order stopping the Postal Service from making any of these policy changes before the election that could slow down this mail.

Well, just last week, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said essentially that this was all moot, that they had already stopped making these changes. But the fact that they're going through this process just really goes to show you how much concern there is around this election. And it's not just around the Postal Service and the fact that there are all of these mail-in ballots and so many Americans who will be mailing in their ballot because of coronavirus, there are a lot of things that people are focused on.

And we have new reporting this morning that Democrats have built an entire legal apparatus to deal with every single scenario, including scenarios that seem so unlikely. For example, they have a -- they're putting in place processes to deal with federal law enforcement officials being deployed to states.

[10:10:00]

Now, that is something that we haven't seen before but something that President Trump himself has said could happen. And, in fact, last night, Speaker Pelosi sent a letter to her colleagues telling her to focus on state delegations in case there was some sort of contested election.

Just so you know, that isn't something that hasn't happened, the election going to the House in more than a decade -- I mean, excuse me, more than a century. And so that goes to show you just how concerned everyone is, that anything could happen this cycle.

HARLOW: Kristen, anything could happen, less than 40 days out. Thank you very much.

Ahead for us a lot this hour, in a few minutes, we'll be joined by the White House deputy press secretary.

SCIUTTO: Lots of tough questions to come.

Plus, one of the nation's coronavirus experts is now worried that a key new adviser to the president on the outbreak is sharing outright false information, this as cases of coronavirus rise across the country.

And a horrible wildfire season in California has just gotten worse. Two new fires are underway now in wine country forcing some evacuees, and it is so sad to watch to leave without nothing as their homes burn behind them.

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[10:15:00]

HARLOW: Welcome back.

Well, CNN has learned that the director of the CDC believes that a member of the coronavirus task force is sharing misleading information with the president. In fact, Dr. Robert Redfield was overheard saying, quote, everything he says is false.

SCIUTTO: Yes, straight up false. CNN's Nick Valencia joins us now.

Nick, you covered the CDC. You'd speak to officials inside of the Centers for Disease Control. What specifically was Redfield talking about? What false information is this new member of the coronavirus task force sharing with the president?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. We should just say very quickly, Jim, that, broadly speaking, there is a lot of concern about Dr. Scott Atlas at the CDC among the senior officials I have spoken to. And here we have it now, according to an NBC report that Dr. Redfield was on a commercial flight from Atlanta to Washington, D.C. And he was overheard on a phone call with a colleague saying that everything he says is false, referring to Dr. Scott Atlas, who joined the White House task force in August as a top adviser to President Trump.

We have to be very clear. As we have been reporting, Dr. Scott Atlas, in the last several weeks, seems to be the principle voice in the president's ear right now. And that's concerning to a lot of public health experts. Because beyond being a neuroradiologist, Dr. Atlas is not an epidemiologist, doesn't have a lot of experience in infectious diseases and is really somebody that health experts I have been speaking to is concerned, they're concerned about.

His points or his -- you know, when he talks about the efficacy of masks, when he pushes this idea of herd immunity, something that is not being trumpeted or really championed by any health experts that are notable or have worth (ph) in this country, except for Dr. Atlas.

And here is what the CDC said in response to this conversation that overheard by an NBC reporter. They're not denying that this happened. NBC News, they say, is reporting one side of a private phone conversation by CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield that was overheard on plane from Atlanta Hartsfield Airport. Dr. Robert Redfield was having a private discussion regarding a number of points he has made publicly about COVID-19.

And just to wrap this up, guys, Dr. Atlas, since he joined the task force in August, has been at odds publicly with several points of Dr. Robert Redfield, including just how many Americans are susceptible to this virus. We have reached out to Dr. Atlas, as well as the White House, to get comment about this report. We have yet to hear back. But, again, the CDC not denying that this took place. Jim, Poppy?

SCIUTTO: Yes, regardless of what was on the other side of the conversation, he said straight up, he shares false information. That's a remarkable thing to hear. Nick Valencia, thanks very much.

All of this comes as 21 states are now seeing a rise in coronavirus infections. Another 19 see cases holding steady. The green states there are seeing declines. One state that we are keeping a close eye on is Wisconsin.

This weekend they were one of eight states to set a record in new coronavirus infections, 2,800 new cases in one day.

Joining me now is the Dane County executive, Joe Parisi. Dane County is the second biggest county in Wisconsin. Mr. Parisis, thanks for taking the time this morning. JOE PARISI, COUNTY EXECUTIVE, DANE COUNTY, WISCONSIN: Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: So, first question, you're seeing a big rise in particular in cases among 18 to 24-year-olds, that's an age group that feels somewhat impervious to this, right? and there is this impression out there, it's fine for young people. It is true. They have a much lower death rate or cases of severe consequences from the infection. But what danger do they pose in terms of spreading the infection further? What are you experiencing there in Wisconsin?

PARISI: Well, what we're seeing here in Dane County actually is that close to 90 percent of the young people who are getting positive test results are reporting some symptoms. And, unfortunately, a lot of them aren't aware of the long-term consequences that this disease can have, cardiac challenges, et cetera.

But as concerning is the fact that in my community, in Dane County, the university is integral to the city of Madison. It's not separated somewhere. So these young people, they interact with people throughout the community, and they have parents and grandparents and they go to the store.

So we're incredibly concerned about the spike that we're seeing. As you probably know, six of the top communities in the nation for new outbreaks have been college towns in the state of Wisconsin. In Dane County, in the first two weeks of September, we saw our rate of COVID infection go from 150 to per 100,000 to 450 per 100,000.

[10:20:04]

So we're very concerned.

SCIUTTO: So is it, in your view, fundamentally not worth the risk to reopen college campuses? Because I have spoken to a lot of college administrators on this broadcast, some say, listen, we get the risks but we're testing aggressively, we isolate those folks who test positive, et cetera. In your experience, are you saying that the risk outweighs the reward of this?

PARISI: Yes, because testing is important but testing is not a cure. In my community, we were one of the first half dozen in the nation to have a positive COVID test when this first started occurring back in February and March. And we took very aggressive actions. And a lot of people in our community have sacrificed a lot. People have lost their jobs. People have lost their businesses. And we have done that.

And because of that, we have been able to keep this under control Dane County. That is until the first couple of weeks in September when we saw this huge spike. And we had asked the university not to come back. We asked them to go virtual. We expressed their concerns to them. But they did this to us and now we're all living with the consequences.

SCIUTTO: Okay. You heard our reporting about concerns within the CDC about a new member of the president's coronavirus task force who, like the president, sadly, is sharing some flat out false information about whether masks work, for instance. I just wonder, you're someone on the frontline of fighting this outbreak. Does that kind of contradictory, unscientifically-based information, does that hinder your ability to stem the spread?

PARISI: Yes, because one of the biggest challenges we have is that some people just don't believe that this is a serious disease, even to this day. And in Wisconsin, unfortunately, we have somewhat of a dysfunctional state government. We have a Democratic governor who, early on, put stay-at-home regulations in place but then our Republican leaders in the legislature sued in the Supreme Court and had those struck down.

So, outside of Dane County and Milwaukee County and a couple of other places, other than a masking order, there're virtually no other restrictions in place and we're becoming one of the top hotspots in the country.

SCIUTTO: Well, listen, we wish you luck. We know it's a tough battle. It has got to be frustrating as you get fought on some of these steps. Joe Parisi, thanks very much.

PARISI: Thank you.

HARLOW: Well, it is a critical time for the country, a critical time in the presidential election. The White House deputy press secretary, Brian Morgenstern, he will be here, next.

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[10:25:00]

HARLOW: While New York Times reporters have received over 20 years worth of the president's tax documents, their reporting shows the president paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, the year he won the presidency, and then, again, in 2017, he paid just $750 in federal income taxes.

Their reporting also shows that in 10 of the previous 15 years, he paid no income taxes at all on the federal level largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.

With me now is Brian Morgenstern, White House Deputy Press Secretary. Good morning, Brian, thanks for being here.

BRIAN MORGENSTERN, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: Good morning, Poppy. Thanks for having me.

HARLOW: Of course.

Let's begin on that. The president said last night, The New York Times reporting is completely false. So what is true, Brian? How much did the president pay in federal income tax in 2016 and 2017?

MORGENSTERN: Well, Poppy, both the president and his attorney have disputed, saying he's paid millions of dollars in taxes. I saw an earlier report from today that from '05 to '07, he paid $70 million in taxes., so it's quite a lot. He's donated his presidential salary, which for his term, will be a million and a half dollars in taxes that he didn't even have to pay.

But The New York Times has reported basically the same thing four years ago on the eve of a debate. The Democrats had ads up and running within minutes of this coming out, which means it's probably a coordinated political smear. But the president has paid lots of taxes.

But the point is that why would anybody pay more than they owe? He wants everybody to have low taxes, that's why he cut taxes. But an interesting question will be where are the taxes that Hunter Biden on his $3.5 million from Russia? What about his billion dollars from Moscow? I mean --

HARLOW: Brian, I'm so glad we have you, and we got lots of time so we don't have talk over each other. But you speak for the president, so we're going to stick on that topic. I'm talking about federal income taxes. And in the absence of the president releasing, which is unprecedented for modern president, I'm going to go with The New York Times reporting because there's no reason not to believe it, okay?

So, going with their detailed reporting -- it's very different -- I'm just going to finish the question. It's very different than four years ago. This is new reporting. In the absence of that, what is true? How much federal income tax did the president pay in 2016 and 2017? All I'm looking for is the number.

MORGENSTERN: The president's attorney stated it was millions of dollars in taxes, but he didn't have the chance to review the documents that The New York Times is basing it on because they just wanted to reiterate the political smear from four years ago.

HARLOW: The president's taxes already has his federal record.

[10:30:01]

MORGENSTERN: But they're reporting based on what they have and they wouldn't share it. So how can you just use something they wouldn't share? It's the president's private documents.

HARLOW: Here is why it matters.