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Texas Governor Limits Election Drop Boxes to One Per County; Voter Intimidation Fears Mount as Trump Tells Supporters to Go to Polls and Watch; Interview with Steve Simon (D) Secretary of State, Minnesota, On Voter Intimidation; New Study Says Trump Likely the Largest Driver of COVID Misinformation; Chris Wallace Speaks Out Publicly for First Time Since Debate. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired October 01, 2020 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: This just into CNN, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, he just announced that he is making moves to limit election drop boxes in the state down to one per county for the upcoming election.

The move significantly impacts -- well, it impacts obviously every county in the state but especially impacting Harris County. One of the state's largest counties, largest by population and one of the largest counties in the country.

Also, it's massive in size and a Democrat stronghold. Taking the number of boxes in that county from 11 down to 1. The governor says done it's all being done in the name of election security and to allow poll watchers to monitor the drop locations, but it could, understandably, very much limit access for voters.

This as President Trump continues to stoke fear in the security and integrity of the upcoming election raising the question, is what we're seeing from the President voter intimidation from the President of the United States? Here's CNN's Pamela Brown.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Go into the polls and watch very carefully.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Trump's call for supporters to stake out polling places has state officials scrambling to respond to the potential for election day intimidation and possibly violence. The Massachusetts Attorney General is trying to calm her voters and warn about intimidation.

MAURA HEALEY, MASSACHUSETTS ATTORNEY GENERAL: We're not going to let Donald Trump undermine our election. It's a crime.

BROWN: While 11 governors united to condemn the President's message as a threat to democracy writing, there is absolutely no excuse for promoting the intimidation or harassment of voters.

TRUMP: In Philadelphia, they went in to watch. They're called poll watchers. A very safe, very nice thing. They were thrown out. They weren't allowed to watch. You know why? Because bad things happen in Philadelphia. Bad things.

BROWN: But it wasn't a bad thing. Under state law poll watchers are not allowed in early voting locations. But earlier that day, a false narrative began when a Trump campaign staffer claimed Pennsylvania Democrats were scheming against the President asking in a tweet, what are they hiding?

LT. GOV. JOHN FETTERMAN (D) PENNSYLVANIA: No one's being turned away, because there aren't poll watchers in these satellite offices. That is complete propaganda.

BROWN: The RNC aims to dispatch tens of thousands of election monitors across country, which both parties are entitled to do. But language in Republican sponsored Facebook ads directing supporters to a campaign website called "Army

for Trump" is raising concerns.

DONALD TRUMP JR., EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, THE TRUMP ORGANIZATION: We need every able-bodied man, woman, to join Army for Trump's election security operation.

BROWN: As is this ad warning supporters, Democrats are trying to tip the scales and to fight back. This is playing out as a federal court in Montana is serving up a win to the state's Democratic governor. Republicans in the Trump campaign sued to stop an expansion of mail-in voting there on the basis of widespread fraud. The judge called that a, quote, "fiction."

BEN GINSBERG, REPUBLICAN ELECTION LAWYER: The President's allegations of fraud now have to be proven in court. And I know from my years of looking for this, that that group is not going to exist.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And today the Trump campaign today is defending the President's comments about poll watchers saying that poll watchers are critical to ensuring the fairness of any election and saying that all of Donald Trump's poll watchers will be trained properly to make sure all of are the rules are applied equally.

They also they claim that they want all the watchers to be registered but the bottom line here, Kate, that is not what the President said, and the concern is that he is calling people to take it upon themselves to go to the polls and perhaps cause disruptions or voter intimidation. And that is why you're seeing so many state officials speaking out in the wake of the President's comments -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: That's exactly right. Pam, thank you so much for putting that together. Really appreciate it.

Joining me right now is the Democratic Secretary of State of Minnesota, Steve Simon, he is the official in charge of overseeing elections there. Thank you for being here, Mr. Secretary. You just heard as Pamela was laying out very well, and you heard the President during the debate calling on his supporters to go to the polls and in his words "watch carefully" even calling themselves an Army for Trump.

In seeing that you told "Axios," and I want to just quote you, because it really struck me, that you were afraid of what this means, saying I fear his supporters will take it upon themselves to mobilize large numbers to go to the polls as poll watchers. Why is this so troubling right now?

STEVE SIMON (D), SECRETARY OF STATE OF MINNESOTA: Well, the polling place is supposed to be an oasis of calm for voters where they can exercise their right to vote calmly and thoughtfully.

Fortunately, in Minnesota we have laws designed to protect that, but I worry about what happens outside the building. Make no mistake in Minnesota at least, throngs are people will not be allowed in the polling place. We have very specific laws on that.

[15:35:00]

But what if the Trump campaign mobilizes and to be fair the Biden campaign counter-mobilizes to send people to watch the watchers. You could have a recipe there for conflict. I don't want that. I want to get the word out at least in Minnesota about how clear our law is about limitations on who has access to the polling place.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely, and I wonder if that happens, what do you do? But also, what do voters in Minnesota -- I think this is where we should focus a lot of our attention now. Is what do voters in Minnesota need to know about what you're talking about? Their rights when they go to polls in terms of what poll watchers can and can't do, and what they -- what rights they have as voters when they go in to cast their ballot?

SIMON: Well, voters have a right to be left alone. They have a right to be left in peace and not be intimidated or interfered with. So, our law is clear. We call them challenges in our law. And under our law in Minnesota, each major political party is only allowed one, a maximum of one, not two or ten, one, in each polling place. They must be designated as a person in writing by a party unit and once they get there are strict limitations.

They can't come in within six feet of a voter or a piece of tabulating equipment. They can't speak to a voter. If make any challenge to a voter's eligible, has to be based on personal knowledge. That's the exact phrase in the law, personal knowledge. It can't be based on a whim or a hunch, or a bad vibe or a feeling or a question. It has to be based on something that the challenger knows to be true or believes to be true about a particular voter.

So, a challenger could say, hey, I know her. She's not 18. She lives on my block and she's only 17. Or hey, I know him, he's from Sweden, not the United States. That's OK. But you can't say, hey, she looks funny. Or, hey, I heard him speaking a language other than English. You can't do that in Minnesota. So, I have every confidence we will enforce that law. I can tell you that. And so, there will only be one allowed.

I'm more worried about what happens outside of the polling place to those disappointed supporters of any candidate who show up thinking they're going to be allowed access and finding out they won't be.

BOLDUAN: Yes. That's absolutely right. I think it's also important that they can't -- you can't speak directly to the voters, those poll watchers. I think that's an important aspect that I think should bring some comfort to people who might be voting the first time or might be confused. I mean, you know, it's all part of the process.

I have to ask you, Mr. Secretary. The President held a rally in Minnesota last night and he launched into a xenophobic attack on the Minnesota Congresswoman, Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. And for our viewers I'd like to play what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: What is going on with Omar? I've been reading these reports for two years about how corrupt and crooked she is. Let's get with it. Let's get with it.

How the hell -- then tells us how to run our country. Can you believe it? How the hell did Minnesota elect her? What the hell is wrong with you people?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Take this completely separate, Secretary, from the, from his -- his claims of voter fraud and everything he's saying about that. I just wanted to know when you hear that if you would like to respond to the President as it happened in Minnesota last night?

SIMON: Yes, I sure would. He said that Joe Biden would turn Minnesota into a refugee camp. Well, guess what? My great-grandparents fled from Eastern Europe and they would be then what we would now call refugees. So, they were happy to come to a place that accepted them, where they could find a better life and build a better world and they found that in Minnesota.

And so, if that's what he means by refugee camp, then that's a good thing. And I think it's really unfortunate, unhelpful and intolerable that the President would say something that like, blow the dog whistles that he blew. It's -- it has no place in Minnesota. Let's put it that way.

BOLDUAN: Secretary, thank you very much for coming on. Really appreciate it.

SIMON: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Still ahead for us, I'm going to speak to the author of a new study that tracked down the single largest source of misinformation when it comes to coronavirus, and that source, sadly, may not surprise you at this point.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:40:00]

BOLDUAN: The President of the United States was likely the largest driver of COVID-19 misinformation in the first few months of the pandemic. That quote is the sobering assessment coming from a new study by researchers at Cornell.

After reviewing tens of millions of news accounts all in English, more than one-third of misinformation about COVID involved President Trump, is what they found. The co-author of the study, Mark Lynas, he joins us right now. He's a visiting fellow at the Cornell Alliance For Science. It's good to see you, Mark. Thank you for being here.

Can you just lay this out for us? We're talking about more than 38 million news accounts and articles that were reviewed. What did you find that led you to conclude that President Trump was the largest driver of misinformation around COVID?

MARK LYNAS, CO-AUTHOR OF CORNELL STUDY ON CORONAVIRUS MISINFORMATION: Well, hi, Kate, good to be with you. Yes, that's correct. So, we started out really wanting to answer the question what this "info- demic," which the director of the World Health Organization had called it, looked like? What were the different types of misinformation out there and where were they coming from?

So, we did a huge search of the online and traditional news media across the entire world in the industry in which we found 38 million pieces like you said, dealing with coronavirus and COVID generally. Of them about 1.1 million were tagged as misinformation or covering misinformation-type topics. And of that about 38 percent about were somehow associated with President Trump.

So, we did conclude that the President of the United States was the single largest driver of coronavirus misinformation.

BOLDUAN: The period of time that you studied was from January 1st to essentially end of May. And I just would like to remind viewers of just a couple of the comments that your research found prompted big spikes in the misinformation conversation.

And before I play this as we're talking about misinformation I want to say again, these suggestions are not accurate. They are misinformation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: -- then I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that?

[15:45:00]

Like injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So, it would be interesting to check that.

A lot of good things have come out about the hydroxy. A lot of good things have come out. What has been determined is it doesn't harm you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Mark, what did you see after these comments?

LYNAS: Well, so the press conference you just played where the President was making these suggestions about using disinfectant electing internally in the body to cure coronavirus that I think that was a press conference on the 23rd of April at the White House.

That led to an enormous spike in misinformation. In fact, it dwarfs all of the other ups and downs we see throughout the whole info-demic. So that's the single largest component of the entire misinformation phenomenon was the President's comments particularly about that disinfectant issue.

BOLDUAN: And what are the real-life implications of this misinformation in the midst of an ongoing pandemic?

LYNAS: Well, I mean, in an ideal world you'd hope that the head of state would be promulgating scientifically factually accurate information, public health messaging in order to try to save lives and ensure that as few people as possible catch the virus and that those who do catch it self-isolate and do all the things needed to keep the pandemic under control.

Now, obviously, we're not in that situation, and the extent of misinformation is deeply concerning. I mean if you don't have accurate information reaching the general public, then people are not going to behave in ways which keeps the pandemic under control.

Potentially more people will get sick, potentially more people die. So that's what's so important, and that's why the World Health Conversation was drawing attention to the info-demic phenomenon to start with.

BOLDUAN: And the fact that misinformation is one the biggest threats in the midst of this pandemic because of the severity of the real-life implications of it. Mark, thank you. Really interesting work. Thanks for coming on.

Coming up next for us, the moderator of that mess of a Presidential debate is speaking out. What Chris Wallace just said about what happened Tuesday night.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:50:00]

BOLDUAN: A total mess and a disservice to the country, that's how Chris Wallace is describing that off the rails debate between President Trump and Joe Biden. Wallace speaking just now on "Fox News." He says it was frustrating.

You can hear it in his voice. And he's also unequivocal about who is to blame.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS WALLACE, HOST, FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Hundreds of man-hours and woman- hours between me and my researcher went in to try to repair a serious, substantive debate, and on so many issues, Biden's tax and spending plans. Trump's climate and environmental policies. You know, I was really hoping for the debate that I think America wanted to see, which was a serious exchange of views.

And, you know, I felt like I had gotten together all of the ingredients, I had baked this beautiful, delicious, cake. And then frankly, the President put his foot in it. And that was frustrating.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Maybe an understatement. Joining me now, Brian Stelter, CNN chief media correspondent and host of "Reliable Sources." Brian, what else did Wallace say?

BRIAN STELTER, CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT AND HOST OF RELIABLE SOURCES: You know, he says that this was as you point out mostly Trump's fault. He says he does not to rewatch the debate. I don't think most people do.

And he said he didn't realize until about 40 minutes in how badly it was going. And I think fundamentally that's the nature of the problem here, Kate, and it's a warning to the future moderators. You have to imagine how this is going to go. Wallace had a failure of imagination not knowing what Trump was going to do.

And I get it, it was difficult, how do you moderate a wrecking ball? You don't. Wrecking balls aren't supposed to show up to presidential debates. But that is why the commission is now actively talking about what changes to make. And by the way, that's why the Trump campaign is now actively arguing against any possible changes. Seems like they want to have two more debates just like this one, but nobody else wants that.

BOLDUAN: Yes, I mean and did Wallace talk about that today, did you hear, Brian, the potential changes?

STELTER: Right about this idea about cutting off the microphone of an interrupter?

BOLDUAN: Yes.

STELTER: He is skeptical of that feature. He thinks it might be uncomfortable or would be uncomfortable for the moderator to be empowered to make that kind of decision. And it would certainly, you know, put the moderator in much less of a neutral position.

So, he's skeptical about that. He also points out that if Trump's mic were to be cut off, Biden would still be able to hear what Trump was saying. So, it wouldn't be fully effective. He says the next moderator, Steve Scully, with the town hall debate should use the town hall voters, the citizens there to ask questions as a shield, as a human shield, against this kind of behavior.

But look, it all comes down to this base issue, you can't moderate a wrecking ball. So, let's see what the commission tries to come up with. But Wallace clearly has a lot of regrets and, you know, I can understand why. He's a veteran journalist, this was going to be one of the pinnacles of his career. And now he moderated a debate that nobody wants to watch.

BOLDUAN: That's true, I mean, and he is a pro. I do feel for him. Like hindsight's 2020. And it's super easy to armchair quarterback something. But you know, he was in the middle of it with all of that incoming. I agree on the lack of imagination and you should anticipate that Trump was going to be a mess, you know, and try to hijack it. But --

STELTER: But what do you do? Yes.

[15:55:00]

And by the way, 73 million viewers on television. This was the third most watched debate in modern history. This was the biggest things since the Super Bowl. So even though, you know, it was like a car crash, it was a car crash people kept watching. And that only increases anticipation for next time.

You know, we have the VP debate next week but then in two weeks we have the next presidential debate. And this commission has a lot on its hands now to figure out how to handle the next one?

BOLDUAN: One hundred percent. Thanks for bringing it to us, Brian, I really appreciate it. I'm Kate Bolduan. Thanks for joining us. THE LEAD picks up after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)