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President Trump and First Lady Test Positive for Coronavirus; Biden will be Tested this Morning for Coronavirus. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 02, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: Tired and hoarse on Thursday, this from White House staff.

[10:00:03]

And a White House official telling our Jim Acosta that he is exhibiting the president mild symptoms of an infection.

The vice president and the second lady have tested negative. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, they have also tested negative as well.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN NEWSROOM: That is good news. Moments ago we learned RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has tested positive for COVID-19. Sources tell CNN some staff inside the White House are nervous right now, all of this just weeks before a critical election.

Vice President Biden, this morning, is getting tested. He is also wishing a speedy recovery to the president and to the first lady. His camp was not, they say, given a heads-up from the Trump campaign of possible exposure.

Obviously, we have a lot to cover this morning. Let's get through this timeline. Jim Acosta joins us this morning at the White House, and our Sanjay Gupta, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, is here too on all of the medical implications.

Jim, let's begin with you. What do we know?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the latest information that we have, and Jim just mentioned a few moments ago, is that the president, according to a White House official is showing mild symptoms of the coronavirus. As of this moment, they are doing contact tracing, essentially testing people who have been in contact with the president and his top aide, Hope Hicks, over the last few days.

They are also trying to look at ways that, you know, could have the president out in front of the cameras today. One of the things that the White House is obviously going to want to try to do is calm the financial markets because when, you know, the president of the United States contracts the coronavirus, that obviously has the potential to cause some major jitters up on Wall Street.

But according to this official I was speaking with moments ago, not only are they testing people who have been in close contact with the president and Hope Hicks, they are testing top administration officials, people like the secretary of state, secretary of treasury, secretary of Health and Human Services.

And just in it the last couple of minutes, I did receive a response from Judd Deere, a White House spokesman over here, who said that Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who is the president's nominee for the Supreme Court, she has also tested negative for the coronavirus. And so they are just going through this very methodically trying to make sure that this virus isn't spreading any further.

But Jim and Poppy, make no mistake, I mean, this is a major challenge for this White House. You know, I've been here since early this morning, and I will tell you it does appear not everybody has gotten the memo as to the seriousness of the situation. For example, Johnny McEntee, who is a top official inside this White House, manages some of the personnel operations for the administration, he walked right past me earlier this morning and said he was on his way to get a coronavirus test but he was not wearing a mask.

As I went up to what we call upper press inside the west wing to talk to some White House staffers about what's going on around here, a number of the White House staffers inside the west wing were not wearing the mask. As I and other reporters walked into the room, they suddenly put on their mask.

And so even though the president of the United States and the first lady have tested positive for the coronavirus, the RNC chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel has tested positive for the coronavirus, there is still this sort of lagging coming to reality over here at the White House for some people.

Now, we just saw Larry Kudlow a few moments ago coming out to do a live shot for one of the networks here. He was wearing a mask.

And so, you know, this is indicative of what we have been seeing, Jim and Poppy, from the very beginning of all of this, sort of, you know, ad hoc, it varies person to person as to how serious people inside this White House take the coronavirus. And we're seeing that play out in real-time this morning despite the fact that the president has the coronavirus and is dealing with mild symptoms from that virus.

SCIUTTO: As doctors on this broadcast have said repeatedly, wearing a mask is not just about protecting yourself, it's about protecting others. Jim Acosta, thanks for the reporting.

ACOSTA: I have mine right here. And just mention, I have it right here. As soon as I'm done with this live shot, this goes back on in case people were wondering. And we'll get a coronavirus test later this morning.

SCIUTTO: Because that's what the doctors say. Jim Acosta, thanks very much.

So, let's talk to a doctor. CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now. So, the news, Sanjay, that the president has mild symptoms to this point, mild symptoms of this, the difference between symptomatic infection, as we're seeing here, it appears, and asymptomatic, how significant?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it tells us a few things. First of all, what we know is that when is someone most likely to be contagious from this, and it's usually in the -- surprisingly in the couple days before they develop symptoms.

So this is something that the contact tracers that Jim Acosta was just talking about are going to focus on. If this is the point where he started to develop symptoms, it probably meant that you were doing most of the -- what they call the viral shedding in the couple three days before that, okay? So, today is Friday, symptoms Thursday.

[10:05:00]

So, now, you're going back to Tuesday or Monday in terms of contagiousness.

It also makes a difference on the backside in terms of when someone might be cleared from isolation. Usually, it's at least ten days after the first symptoms appear. So that's the other relevance of it. And then, you know, you just want to know, try to predict is this something that's going to cause more serious illness or not, you know?

I'll show you something quickly, you know. Overall, statistically, the odds are on the president's side. If you look at -- even take into account his age and his pre-existing conditions, still, survival is 95 percent with this. So it's important to take all of that in context.

HARLOW: Sanjay, what do we not know about the president's health, right? I mean, we know -- we know some of the things that make him more at risk, his age, his weight, being a man. We hope he's okay. What do we not know?

GUPTA: Well, you know, there is a fair amount still that is a bit of a mystery, right? We have these medical records that were released by his doctors. One of the first ones, we subsequently found out that the doctor had that letter dictated to him so it wasn't very comprehensive at all in terms of telling us anything.

There was also this visit to Walter Reed back in November. And I bring that up not because of political intrigue, but now it has, to your point, medical relevance. Are there other things that are relevant to his overall medical history that may now have an impact on his course with COVID? And also it might dictate might he benefit from some sort of therapy earlier because of those pre-existing conditions?

We do know that he is obese and that is a risk factor, increases the risk three times roughly for hospitalization. By virtue of his age, it increases the risk of hospitalization by about five times. But is there something else as well? And, you know, that's still have been an opaque sort of issue here overall. So that's something, you know, that certainly the doctors that are caring for him will need to know and need to take into account.

SCIUTTO: Sanjay, again, we're asking you big picture questions here because we know you're not the president's doctor, right? You're not seeing the data. You're not taking his temperature, et cetera, but based on what we know.

Hope Hicks is apparently experiencing symptoms as well, and the president now experiencing symptoms. We don't know what direction the virus moved between them. The president could have infected her or the other way around.

But given what we know about this virus, viral load is a big factor here in terms of transmissibility, how much virus you're sort of packed with. Does having symptoms indicate a heavy viral load?

GUPTA: Yes, that's a good question. I mean, I think there have been some studies recently that have said do people who are exposed to a higher viral load, are they more likely to become symptomatic, and there's some evidence of that. So if you're totally unmasked and people around are unmasked and you're in an indoor setting with poor ventilation, the viral loads are likely to be higher.

But I think that one the most critical points here, and I think this is what's different about this particular virus, is that the contagiousness, how contagious somebody is tends to be the highest in the couple, three days before they develop symptoms.

So you mentioned with Hope Hicks, she developed symptoms on Wednesday. They're really going to have to back up to Monday-Sunday timeframe to try and figure out all the people she may have come in contact with during that time. For the president, if he developed symptoms yesterday, same sort of thing. So that's going to be really crucial.

And, look, we also get an idea of what the course may be, like you remember when Boris Johnson and Jair Bolsonaro both contracted coronavirus as well. And we can show you sort of what their courses were like and very different. So, Boris Johnson, first of all, he's 55 years old. It was March 27th when he tested positive, had mild symptoms, just sort of a news story at that point.

April 5th, he was admitted to the hospital and then he ended up spending three nights in the intensive care unit. So that was eight -- eight days later -- nine days later when he ended up getting admitted to the hospital. So there is that lag period as well. He's recovered. He did not require a ventilator.

With Bolsonaro, he also, you know, has some symptoms, mild symptoms, subsequently tested positive on July 6th. He announced that positive result on July 7th. But then it was a couple of week, mostly mild symptoms for him, a couple of weeks before he tested negative.

So it's hard to predict exactly which -- which direction this is going to go.

SCIUTTO: Yes. HARLOW: Sanjay, former New Jersey governor who also helped the president prep for the debate, Chris Christie, had this to say this morning about being in that debate prep room.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FMR. GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ): I was at the White House from Saturday afternoon through lunchtime on Tuesday, on and off, during those days.

[10:10:03]

I was tested every day that I went to the White House. The last test I took was on Tuesday morning, and I was negative.

No, no one was wearing masks in the room when we were prepping.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: No one was wearing masks in the room where we were prepping. Given that we know now that is the case, and the age, by the way, you saw of Rudy Giuliani in the room, et cetera, of those people in the room, and then the fact the debate happened and there were multiple plane trips, et cetera, how wide could an outbreak be?

GUPTA: Well, it -- it could be significant, you know. Again, if you start to look at calendar and say, okay, when was the likelihood -- when was the most contagious time period, you're talking about the exact time period that the governor -- Governor Chris Christie was just talking about here, beginning of the week, Monday, Tuesday, small room, poor ventilation, lots of people who may be considered vulnerable.

What struck me about the governor's comments and their protocols at White House was that they rely a lot on testing. You test negative, therefore, you're good to go, you don't need to abide by other health protocols, simply not true. First of all, the tests can give you a false negative result, so that's obviously not serving its purpose.

But also, you know, you can test positive -- I'm sorry, you can test negative in the morning and positive potentially by afternoon. It's -- if you're positive, you know you need to isolate, but if you're negative, it doesn't give you free rein to be on a small room with no mask within six feet of people. It never made sense, it still doesn't make sense and that was a risky move that the governor just described.

SCIUTTO: Sanjay, before we go, from a public health perspective, how must the president responsibly change his travel, his campaign events, not just for his own health, important, but the health of his staff, Secret Service, the press, the crowds, everyone who travels with him and sees him when he travels?

GUPTA: Well, you know, I think, most immediately, there's going to be a lot of people who are going to be contact traced as part of this and will need be to be quarantined if they have had the contact with the president or with Hope Hicks or with the first lady. For the president himself, he's got to be in isolation, right. So that's a different term than quarantine. Isolation is for people who have COVID. And he's going to need to abide by that. It's a thing where, you know, you're going to be in for probably around two weeks or at least ten days since the symptoms first appeared.

To the larger point, Jim, which is what I think you're asking, I mean, the president has known that this is a serious disease, you know, going back to early February. Whether his policies or his stance towards it changes now that he's dealing with it himself, I don't know. We did see that with Boris Johnson, who I just mentioned, but we'll see. He can't do rallies at least for the next two weeks, period. You know, if anybody allows him to do that, that would certainly violate health protocols.

The vice president may be considered an essential worker, a critical infrastructure worker which may allow him to still be out there, you know, despite having had this exposure. If he subsequently tests positive, he's got to isolate as well.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: I don't see how there can be another rally without everyone wearing masks, even post that two weeks, Sanjay. I mean, it's just so obvious that people need to be protected.

GUPTA: Yes. It's been obvious for a while, I think. But, yes, I agree with you.

HARLOW: Thank you. Sanjay, we know you've probably been up all night on all of this. So thank you very much for being here with us.

We do have breaking news from inside the Biden campaign, as CNN learns that Joe and Jill Biden will be tested this morning for COVID.

SCIUTTO: And the president's coronavirus infection is about to have some major national security implications. We're going to follow all the developments this morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:15:00]

SCIUTTO: You may remember 1,000 years ago in the news cycle that there is a Supreme Court battle coming up and we have just learned that Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett has tested negative for the coronavirus today, this according to White House Spokesperson Judd Deere.

Mr. Deere added that Barrett, who is tested daily, is following CDC guidance and was last seen with the president on Saturday when she was officially nominated.

HARLOW: That is a good update.

Also, new several White House officials who have been in close contact with the president in the past few days are all working from home today. That is coming to us from a White House official.

Also, the daughter of the president and his adviser, Ivanka Trump, and her husband and senior adviser to the president as well, Jared Kushner, they have both tested negative this morning for coronavirus.

And we have learned that Democratic Presidential Nominee Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, will be tested for the virus today.

SCIUTTO: All right. Let's get to Ryan Nobles, Jessica Dean, they are following both campaigns.

Jessica, let me begin with you. The Biden campaign says that the Trump campaign did not take the simple step of alerting them at any time of possible infections. What's their reaction to that, and how soon do we expect to get results from the former vice president's COVID test?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. Well, Jim, we're still learning and the campaign is still sorting all of this out. You mentioned that we learned from the senior Biden campaign official that they did not get any heads up or notice from the Trump campaign that there had been possible exposure.

Here is what we do know this morning. We know that Joe and Jill Biden will be tested. We don't know exactly when that's going to happen or how long it will take to get those results.

We also know that the Vice Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris was tested yesterday and tested negative.

[10:20:00]

That was all part of the routine testing that the campaign has been doing. They put all of that into place several weeks ago and said that they would be routinely testing Harris and Biden and that if they were to test positive, they would make that known.

So we know all of that. We also know that the campaign manager has sent a memo to staff saying that the health of everyone remains their top priority. Jim and Poppy?

HARLOW: Ryan Young, when we -- I mean, how many days ago, three days ago was it -- Ryan Nobles, I'm sorry, it's been a long night. There was a debate and there were a lot of people sitting in that audience for an extended amount of time inside. What do we know about mask- wearing among those who were there?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the first thing we know, Poppy, was that it was required of everyone who attended that debate at the Cleveland Clinic to wear a mask while the debate was taking place. And around the time of the debate starting, the Trump family members came into the debate hall. They were not wearing masks.

And a staff member from the Cleveland Clinic according to a pool reporter at the time actually approached them to give them masks so that they could put them on during the debate and they refused to put them on. They asked the person to go away and they never wore those masks.

And that is pretty indicative as to how the Trump campaign, the administration have handled mask usage, frankly. The president mocks people who wear masks. His rallies are filled with people shoulder to shoulder not wearing masks. And now, we're seeing the real world implications. Basically anybody in that situation not wearing a mask is now at serious risk for exposure.

SCIUTTO: Jessica, this, of course, has implications for the president who had plans of being out on the road with a lot of in-person campaign events in the coming couple of weeks. The Biden campaign was also making a change to go door-to-door, not the candidate but the campaign, a step the campaign had not done. Is that affected by this?

DEAN: Well, we just don't know yet, Jim. They made that announcement yesterday after months of avoiding in-person canvassing. They said they would begin that in all of the battleground states, that volunteers would be going door-to-door with following all of the safety precautions. We just don't know how and if this will be affected by that.

You'll also notice I'm standing in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Former Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to travel here today. His travel has picked up substantially since Labor Day. It's unclear at this point if he'll be making the trip here to Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was supposed to give remarks later this afternoon and meet with some people here. We just don't know at this time if that will be going forward.

HARLOW: I suppose they will see what the test results are and then make the decision on that. I mean, not to mention, guys, the debates, multiple ones that are still supposed to happen and what goes on with that, we'll get to that in a little bit. We appreciate the reporting. Ryan Nobles and Jessica Dean, thanks very much.

So many political implications also over the president's condition, primary concern, of course, is his health and then the politics follow and, oh, yes the debates. We'll discuss all of it ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:25:00]

HARLOW: Welcome back.

So both the president and the first lady this morning are isolating at the White House after testing positive for coronavirus.

SCIUTTO: We've long reported on this broadcast that this outbreak can touch everyone and now we're seeing that play out before us.

joining us now is CNN's Senior Political Analyst John Avlon, CNN Political Analyst Sabrina Siddiqui and CNN Presidential Historian Tim Naftali.

Tim, if I could begin with you on history here, what are the parallels for a president facing a health issue or a crisis like this one? And, again, we should say that CNN's reporting is mild symptoms for the president but we do know, at least the potential, as to how this might progress, what's the history here and what does the law say.

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, first of all, it's a catastrophe in a sense that this is the first time in our history that both the first lady and the president of the United States have become sick with a potentially -- with a very serious and potentially life- threatening disease. It's the first time.

In the case of George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Bush, they both had Graves' disease but it was eminently treatable. And that's number one. That puts us in a new moment in our history.

In terms of presidential disability, Woodrow Wilson likely caught influenza during the pandemic of 1918-1919. That took praise in April of 1919. He already had hypertension. It looks like it weakened his system and he suffered a stroke two weeks after or three weeks after he had had the flu. And in that era, the doctors were not honest with the American people about the level of presidential disability.

So the challenge right now -- first of all, the challenge is both the first lady and the president get better, and secondly, that the white house's doctors are open and transparent with the American people about the state of the illness, the effect on both the president and first lady.

[10:30:08]

SCIUTTO: Yes.