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President Trump Hospitalized At Walter Reed Medical Center After Testing Positive For COVID-19; President Trump's Physicians Give Press Conference On President's Condition; President Trump Receiving Experimental Treatments For COVID-19; President Trump's Past Comments On Mask-Wearing Examined; Analyst Discusses Possible National Security Effects Of President Trump's COVID-19 Diagnosis; Historian Reviews Past Presidential Illnesses And White House Secrecy; Vice President Mike Pence And Senator Kamala Harris To Debate In Salt Lake City. Aired 2-3p ET

Aired October 03, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:20]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. Thanks for being with us.

Brand new questions this hour, very big questions swirling around President Trump's health right now. Despite a news conference by his doctors a short time ago, we still don't know just how sick the president is, and equally alarming, how long he has been sick. He did not answer the questions from reporters.

We did not get those questions answered when the president's personal physician and other Walter Reed doctors came out and they talked to reporters. Their unanimous message was, and in their exact words, the president is doing very well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SEAN CONLEY, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S PHYSICIAN: At this time the team and I are extremely happy with the progress the president has made. Thursday, he had a mild cough with some nasal congestion and fatigue, all of which are now resolving and improving.

DR. SEAN DOOLEY, PULMONARY CRITICAL CARE PHYSICIAN: The quote he left us with was I feel like I could walk out of here today, and that was an encouraging comment from the president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Optimistic news from the president's medical team. But here is what has triggered a list of new and, so far, unanswered questions. The president's doctor said he was 72 hours into this COVID-19 diagnosis. But even that is changing. CNN's White House correspondent Jeremy Diamond is standing by with some new information. He's at Walter Reed Medical Center. This timeline, Jeremy, doesn't add up. What new information have you just learned? JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, about two-and-a-half

hours ago we heard Dr. Sean Conley say very clearly that President Trump had been diagnosed with coronavirus 72 hours ago. That would have put the president's diagnosis at midday on Wednesday, which is a completely different timeline from what we had been hearing, and was concerning given the fact that the president held a rally with supporters in Minnesota on Wednesday evening, for one.

Now Dr. Conley has just issued a memo which was released by the White House just moments ago clarifying that he was -- not just clarifying, but saying, quote, "I incorrectly used the term 72 hours instead of day three," and he says that the president was first diagnosed with COVID-19 on the evening of Thursday, October 1st, and had received Regeneron's antibody cocktail on Friday, October 2nd.

So putting back the timeline in place here to what we had been hearing from the White House over the last 24 hours, which is that the president on Thursday evening, after he began showing some symptoms of fatigue, after his White House aide Hope Hicks had tested positive for coronavirus, that the president indeed got confirmation that he as well was positive for coronavirus on Thursday evening.

And then around 1:00 a.m. early, early on Friday, the president tweeted and the White House released the first memo from Dr. Sean Conley saying that the president had, indeed, tested positive for coronavirus. So they are putting that timeline back in place.

Dr. Sean Conley making as clear as he possibly can that he incorrectly used the term 72 hours when he actually meant to say that this is day three, meaning that on Thursday was day one, yesterday was day two, and now we are on day three of the president having coronavirus.

Obviously, there were a number of questions that were raised in that press briefing, though, beyond this question of the timeline. There's also the question of the severity of the symptoms that the president has been experiencing and the reasons for which he was brought to the hospital yesterday at Walter Reed.

We had heard from White House officials that this was mainly done out of an abundance of caution. And then earlier today we heard a fairly optimistic assessment from the president's doctors that he was on a much better path to recovery.

And then, whiplash once again, we got this statement from a person familiar with the president's health which was distributed to the pool reporters, the TV and print pool reporters who were onsite at Walter Reed, meaning that this was a statement that was distributed most likely by the White House.

This was from a person familiar with the president's health, saying not only that the president's vitals had been very concerning over the last 24 hours, but also saying that the president's path to recovery is not clear yet, and that there are questions still about how quickly and how well the president will recover from this coronavirus.

So, again, there have been a lot of questions raised from this briefing by the president's doctors, more questions raised, perhaps, than were even answered. But at least now we are getting some clarity on the question of the timeline in saying, quite clearly from the president's physician, Dr. Sean Conley, that the president was diagnosed with coronavirus on Wednesday -- sorry, forgive me, that the president was diagnosed with coronavirus on Thursday evening, and not on Wednesday as he had suggested earlier in the day.

CABRERA: OK, so they counted Thursday as one of the days, this being day three now here on Saturday. So if that happened on Thursday, that does clear up one of the questions.

[14:05:02]

However, we still don't know whether this president has ever been on supplemental oxygen throughout the course of this illness. We still don't know exactly what degree his fever had reached. We are hearing he's 24 hours free now, but we also know he's been on aspirin as part of his medicine that he's been taking. Jeremy Diamond, there are so many more questions. We know you're going to continue to work to get answers. Thank you.

I want to turn to Kaitlan Collins who is at the White House now. And Kaitlan, as we mentioned, lots of inconsistencies and confusion concerning the president's condition, the timeline, and what prompted the president to be admitted to Walter Reed. What more do you know or have you learned?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: We're also struggling to just find out basic facts because they would not answer a lot of those questions at the briefing earlier. And one of those that was raised was whether or not the president was on oxygen.

And I think that the reason that was a question was because in a statement from the president's doctor, in a memo, not the one that Jeremy just read, another one, it said the president is not on oxygen. It raises the question of why he would say that, if he had been on oxygen previously.

And now a source has told our colleague, Jim Acosta, that the president was placed on oxygen at some point this week. I believe they said it was Friday that the president had been given supplemental oxygen.

And so that is something that is good to know when he was on it, why is he not on it any longer. It's obviously a good sign if he's no longer on it. And so all the doctor would say earlier today was the president is no longer on oxygen. And when reporters asked several pointed follow-up questions, when was he on it, the doctor would not answer and would only smile and say he's not on it today. That's just one question they wouldn't answer.

They also wouldn't say what the president's fever was when he had one. They confirmed that he did have one. They said he hasn't had one in 24 hours. But they simply wouldn't say what it was. Was it 102 degrees? Was it 101 degrees? What was the president's fever? And this is a time when the credibility of the White House matters,

and right now they are not doing a good job at giving people a credible updated assessment of what's going on with his condition, given that he is in the hospital and on experimental drugs. That is a significant matter, and people should know what exactly is going on, whether it's an hour by hour update or how they want to provide these.

And clearly, we're struggling to get that. If you look at this memo that Jeremy just read, there are typos in this memo. They clearly are not being careful about this. And it's the doctor having to clarify something as simple as the timeline of when the president was diagnosed with COVID-19. Those are really simple things. And if you can't get the small things right, it's going to raise questions for so many people about the big things here and if they can trust what the White House is saying.

And yesterday we wanted to hear from the doctor because we had only heard from political aides. Then today we hear from doctor and we can't get straightforward assessments or we get statements that later have to be clarified hours later in a statement. And Ana, it's just concerning that the White House is not able to just simply say here is what's going on, here's the best that we know. And instead, the doctor is avoiding questions about when the president was last on oxygen.

CABRERA: Not to mention, he made an extra point at the end of his initial statement to come back and say, oh, by the way, the president has been given a heavy workload from his chief of staff and he's working really hard right now. It was clearly something somebody told him to say because he almost forgot to say it and then had to add it in at the end. Kaitlan Collins, thank you for your reporting. We'll check back.

Let's bring in our health experts now to get more information. Dr. Celine Gounder is the former New York City assistant commissioner of health and also the host of the podcast "Epidemic," and Dr. Megan Ranney is an emergency physician at Brown University. Doctors, thank you both for being with us.

We just learned the president did receive supplemental oxygen on Friday. First, your reaction, Dr. Gounder?

DR. CELINE GOUNDER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: So the reason we fixate so much on whether he had a fever, whether he required supplemental oxygen, is this really divides between is this a moderate case of COVID, is this a severe case of COVID? And so that has tremendous implications for his prognosis. In addition, it determines whether it would be recommended he receive drugs like remdesivir, like dexamethasone.

We've heard that he did receive remdesivir, which would be consistent with his having a low oxygen level, with his requiring oxygen. And it was really interesting to me that Dr. Conley cut off the press conference when asked about dexamethasone, because if he has received it, that would also indicate his oxygen levels have been low.

CABRERA: Let me read you something that we are told by a source. It says "The president's vitals over the last 24 hours were concerning, and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. We are still not on a clear path to a full recovery." So on one hand, Dr. Ranney, we're hearing from his doctors publicly saying he's doing very well, and then privately just after that press conference, we get this statement from a source who knows what the president is getting as far as his medical care.

[14:10:00]

And as an E.R. physician, I'm wondering, how do you square those two things? And what do you tell a patient or their family when the next 48 amount of hours or x amount of hours are critical, what are you really telling them?

DR. MEGAN RANNEY, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY: Yes, so two things about those statements. The first is that anonymous source really accords with what I and other E.R. docs who have treated countless COVID-19 patients over the last eight months, what we were reading between the lines in that press conference.

It was so clear that the full truth was not being shared with us. The fact that Trump had been sent to Walter Reed, the fact that he received all of these experimental treatments, and the fact that Melania was still at home, tells me that he was much sicker than they were revealing. So really I believe the anonymous source more than I believe the details from that press conference.

And then the part that's so tough for me is that as I've taken care of COVID-19 patients in my emergency department, one of the most difficult things is telling so many patients that there is so little to do, and that they just have to go home and watch and wait, and wait until that moment when they get worse. Now, it is appropriate for us to offer every possible treatment to the president of the United States. If anyone deserves VIP treatment, it is him.

But it is also unbelievably unfair and highlights the absolute inequities in our health care system. And my gosh, if you think of the anxiety that we're feeling over Trump's illness, imagine what hundreds of thousands, millions of Americans have been feeling for the past eight months when they have received diagnoses he's of COVID-19.

CABRERA: Dr. Gounder, this president obviously is getting the absolute best care possible. How concerning is it, though, that his team isn't being totally transparent, for example, the idea that they wouldn't say specifically that he received supplemental oxygen yesterday, they aren't giving us a specific number for how high his fever got? Is that important information for them to share with the American public?

GOUNDER: I think there's two questions there. What information should the American public be privy to. And I think we should be at this point, given that there has not been a transfer of power, we should understand what exactly are the objective measures, the labs, the CT scans. He's probably had an echocardiogram. We've heard about ultrasounds. What have those tests shown?

Now, is it on the physicians caring for him to reveal that information? There is doctor-patient confidentiality. If you are a physician working at Walter Reed, you will treat every single patient who comes through the door, and you owe that patient the same level of confidentiality. The physician caring for the president, on the other hand, Dr. Conley, is a bit different in that he's chosen to be the president's private physician, and so really should be more transparent with the American people as to the president's clinical status.

Dr. Conley said seven to 10 days, that is the timeframe when the most severe symptoms set in, and that they can't really be sure where the president is on this timeline. The source after the presser says the next 48 hours are critical. As we've been reporting, Dr. Ranney, considering what appeared to be a rapid onset and progression of the president's symptoms, is it possible the president is already in that dangerous seven to 10 day range from when he may have contracted this virus?

RANNEY: It is absolutely possible that he's already in that seven to 10 day range. We know now that the rapid test that he was being administered is one that is not recommended for testing of asymptomatic people. So it's possible that he had false negative tests earlier, even as early as Tuesday, the day of the debate, if he even had a test that day.

It's also possible, though, that he's getting a particularly bad case of COVID. Any of us who have been practicing in the emergency department over the last eight months have seen patients who come in and get really sick really quickly. So it's tough to say from the level of his symptoms how far along he is.

What I can say for sure is that at this point, knowing that he's been on oxygen, knowing that his vitals have been unstable, he not only faces an uncertain next week of his health, but also most likely is going to face long-term effects from this virus even should he survive. He's already clearly experienced some lung damage, and perhaps other problems as well that we don't yet know about.

CABRERA: They didn't provide any information about the condition of his lungs at this point, either. Dr. Ranney, Dr. Gounder, thank you both for your expertise and sharing it with us. We appreciate it.

More questions than answers this hour. The White House is under fire for its handle of the president's coronavirus diagnosis as mixed messaging causes chaos, more uncertainty. More of that as we continue in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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[14:18:51]

CABRERA: Despite the White House currently being ground zero of a coronavirus outbreak, top staffers are not in quarantine, even though the CDC says people who have been in close contact with someone who has COVID-19 need to quarantine. Even yesterday the White House chief of staff was briefing reporters without wearing a mask.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why aren't you wearing a mask right now?

MARK MEADOWS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: So I've obviously been tested. We're hopefully more than six feet away. And if there's any concern there from a guidance standpoint, we have protocols in place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: It's unclear what protocol the White House is following, though, because the guidance I'm about to read is incredibly easy to find on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. It says this, quote, "even if you test negative for COVID-19 or feel healthy, you should stay home, quarantine, since symptoms may appear two to 14 days after exposure to the virus."

It's this continued apparent flouting of health and safety guidelines, even as the president battles this virus, that has been so mindboggling about the White House's handling of this pandemic.

[14:20:00]

From the onset, the president and members of his administration have refused to follow simple but potentially life-saving guidance from health experts, and that is to wear a mask.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: These face masks are the most important, powerful public health tool we have. We have clear scientific evidence they work, and they are our best defense. I might even go so far as to say that this face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Instead, as more than 200,000 Americans have died, the president said that his experts were wrong. And he not only refused to embrace face coverings, but he questioned the necessity of them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don't know, somehow I don't see it for myself.

I don't agree with the statement that if everybody wears a mask, everything disappears.

There is -- by the way, a lot of people don't want to wear masks. There are a lot of people who think that masks are not good.

Your second question was, I couldn't hear you? Can you take it off, because I cannot hear you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll just speak louder, sir.

TRUMP: OK, because you want to be politically correct. Go ahead

I wear masks when needed. When needed, I wear masks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, let me ask --

TRUMP: I don't wear masks like him. Every time you see him, he's got a mask.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Up until now this behavior has continued throughout the pandemic even as the death toll has climbed. The president continued to hold massive rallies where masks and social distancing have never been required, defying local guidelines, as well as the recommendations of his own health officials, and those closest to him have done the same. Back in April Vice President Mike Pence went mask- less while visiting patients at the Mayo Clinic even though face coverings are required inside that medical center.

And just this week at the first presidential debate where the audience was required to wear masks, the Trump family wore masks to enter and then took them off while they were seated. When they were offered masks by a doctor there, we are told they waved them away.

And yet here is where it moves from mindboggling to infuriating. Despite what the administration is saying or doing publicly, privately the president has admitted he is well aware of how dangerous this virus is and how it spreads.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It goes through air, Bob. That's always tougher than the touch. The touch, you don't have to touch things, right. But the air, you just breathe the air, that's how it's passed. And so that's a very tricky one. That's a very delicate one. It's also more deadly than your, even your strenuous flus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: We now know the National Security Council sent masks to the White House in February, but staffers were told by senior officials that it wasn't, quote, a good look to wear them. Did the White House suddenly know something others did not? No, because here's the president two months later.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This thing is a killer. If you're the wrong person, you don't have a chance. And, Bob, it's so easily transmissible, you wouldn't even believe it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: And yet --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB WOODWARD, JOURNALIST: You're risking getting it, of course, the way you move around and have those briefings and deal with people. Are you worried about that?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, I'm not.

WOODWARD: You're not?

TRUMP: I don't know why I'm not. I'm not.

WOODWARD: Why?

TRUMP: I don't know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Recklessness, negligence, ignorance? Regardless, it doesn't change where we are right now, with more than 208,000 Americans dead from COVID-19, and the president of the United States now infected.

I want to bring Maeve Reston, CNN national political reporter, Rachael Bade, CNN political analyst and congressional reporter for the "Washington Post," and Kaitlan Collins is back with us, our White House correspondent. Kaitlan, now that the president has COVID-19, has the tone changed within his administration?

COLLINS: It seems that it's jolted some people to the realization that they are not protected from this, which had been kind of the sense here at the White House, is they were lulled into this false sense of security because of these daily coronavirus tests that, we should note, are never administered to all staff.

They're only administered to the staff that actually meets with the president. But obviously what we have realized this week is that those tests are not foolproof, and if they had been taking other measures it could have potentially prevented something like this from happening.

And one of the events that people are pointing back to to look at what was really potentially an origin is that Supreme Court ceremony last Saturday -- that Supreme Court nominee ceremony last Saturday here at the White House, where, of course, you see all of the people there. There's Mark Meadows, the chief of staff and the White House Counsel fist bumping people. Nobody is wearing a mask, except a very few people in the audience that we saw there.

But Ana, it's also the president's debate prep that he did, and we are now learning that a number of officials who were helping the president prepare for Tuesday night have now tested positive for coronavirus.

[14:25:03]

And the latest of that is just Chris Christie, who was around the president for several hours, as was Hope Hicks and Bill Stepien and several other people who were in that room with the president that are now positive. And it's just raising concern inside the White House about how they've been so lax in conducting themselves over the last several months.

There was a brief period where they wore masks, but now things have changed. And the president is hospitalized, on experimental drugs. And even the people who have publicly dried to downplay what his condition was yesterday, it seems to be that they are realizing just how serious this really is.

CABRERA: And Rachael, at least three Republican senators have tested positive since the president's announcement there in the Rose Garden, including Senator Mike Lee, who we saw there fist-bumping people. He didn't have a mask on.

We know he was sitting right behind the vice president, who was also not wearing a mask. We also had Thom Tillis, who was at that ceremony, who was wearing a mask, who has since tested positive. What does all of this mean now, for Judge Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation process?

RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It's a good question. What's happened with the president has clearly cast uncertainty not just over the White House and the nation, but specifically over the Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has come out and said that they're going to try to keep senators away and adjourn for the next two weeks. But he still wants to see Amy Coney Barrett's hearings potentially be done either online, maybe have a couple people in the room in two weeks.

The problem is with that is with these senators coming down with coronavirus, and there could be more. We are hearing concern that there could be secondary spread beyond the original source to a secondary or a third source with all these people being on Capitol Hill this week. Are they going to be able to have enough members there to move her nomination forward? They're going to start with hearings, and then the following week they'll have that first committee vote. And Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hasn't said specifically whether he wants to confirm her in the Senate before or after the election, but there are senators who want to move her before.

Obviously, this is all in question right now because Senate Republicans are reeling even as much as the White House right now, and I'm not sure we've heard the end of who has received this illness and who is going to be facing this for the next couple of days and weeks.

CABRERA: Right. Just in the last few hours we heard Senator Ron Johnson is infected, and that he wasn't at that Rose Garden ceremony but was exposed obviously somewhere else. And then we heard Chris Christie who was with the president was just testing positive today when he had tested negative yesterday.

Maeve, we've also learned that the Notre Dame president attended Barrett's Supreme Court nomination ceremony in the Rose Garden last Saturday. He has tested positive. He says he regrets his decision to take off his mask and to shake hands. What do we know about the protocols from that day? MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, it was really

interesting, in the Notre Dame president's statement, as he was apologizing to the Notre Dame community for not wearing a mask at that event, he talked about the protocol that was used, for him specifically.

And we're not sure how widely this was used, but that he was brought into the White House, that a medical official administered a nasal swab to give him a test. The test was negative, and then he was brought into a room with other people who had tested negative. They were then notified of that fact by presumably officials at the White House, who then said, so you can take off your masks now.

So obviously that's just one person's account, but it's an interesting detail that tells you a lot about what the mindset of the White House was going into that event, where, as you can see from the pictures people were not social distanced at all, very few people wearing masks, as Kaitlan just pointed out.

And clearly, we now have this widening circle even just looking at that picture of people who were in close proximity to each other who have now tested positive for the virus, and some of them, of course, going on to be very close to the president in doing debate prep over the next couple of days.

So this is just a really embarrassing situation for the White House, and also a very dangerous one. And it makes you think about the kind of gamble that they were taking with the health of all of those people that were there by giving this sort of false sense of security that if you get a test that you're OK, which we know from all of the medical experts is anything but the truth, Ana.

CABRERA: And the trickle-down effect in terms of the government's ability to continue functioning fully. Maeve Reston, Rachael Bade, Kaitlan Collins, ladies, thank you all for your reporting and analysis.

While there is conflicting messaging coming out of the White House, America's adversaries are watching. Coming up, how the president's diagnosis poses a potential national security threat. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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[14:34:18]

CABRERA: More confusion and inconsistencies today surrounding President Trump's battle with COVID-19. An update from the president's doctor just raised new questions about the timeline of his illness. Trump's physician, Dr. Sean Conley, said during this briefing this morning that the president was, quote, just 72 hours into the diagnosis.

That of course conflicts with when the public was told about it at 1:00 a.m. Friday morning. And then just minutes ago, Dr. Conley clarified himself in a memo saying he incorrectly used the term 72 hours instead of day three.

Now, joining us is CNN national security analyst Samantha Vinograd. And Sam, you say in spite of these efforts to clean it up, the White House's entire timeline was already implausible. Why?

[14:35:02]

SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Ana, even before this Conley kerfuffle, the entire White House timeline was full of holes. I've been on Air Force One where Hope Hicks was reportedly quarantined on Wednesday evening. Senior aides like Hope Hicks sit in special cabins close to the president.

It is unlikely that the president didn't notice when Hope Hicks was quarantined. And standard operating procedure would be, once Hope was quarantined, for the chief of staff to immediately alert the president about a credible threat to his well-being.

The same holds through for Thursday morning. Once Hope Hicks got a positive diagnosis back, a reasonable step would be for the chief of staff again to alert the president about a credible threat to his well-being. That's just standard operating procedure because the safety of the president is paramount. Of course, you also don't want the president walking around spreading contagion among the American people.

The more reasonable explanation here is that the president did know that he could pose a risk to others and chose to go about his political schedule. And honestly, Ana, this is the angriest I've ever been on television. The idea that White House personnel knew that the president could endanger the health and security of Americans and sent him out there as a contagion risk is really unacceptable.

CABRERA: And now there's this additional threat, you've referred to the president's diagnosis as a code red moment for the U.S. government, and a worst case scenario for our national security. Can you just lay out some of the immediate national security risks that you see?

VINOGRAD: Well, on an operational level, we haven't contained the threat within the national security apparatus. That means that there is a health risk to national security personnel while contact tracing and testing is under way. In addition to the physical risks, there are also risks to the functionality of our national security process.

I say this from experience. It takes all that a healthy person has to fully discharge their duties as a senior level when it comes to national security, and the president's compromised status raises real questions about whether he can make timely and important decisions about national security.

In addition to the president, other personnel that are quarantining don't have regular access to things like classified servers. They're not able to routinely engage with colleagues, which means that they are not able to go about business as usual. Critical resources are being redirected to focus on this current crisis, which means that other balls could be dropped. There are a lot of vulnerabilities right now, and that means that this is a perfect storm for malign actors of all shapes and sizes.

CABRERA: Sam, what message does it send to America's adversaries if the U.S. is unable to protect the president of the United States from a known global health threat?

VINOGRAD: Well, this gets at the strategic risks that the president's avoidable diagnosis with COVID-19 sends around the world. Remember, Russia and China have been long working to discredit the image of the United States as a competent global leader that can address threats, transnational threats like a pandemic.

The fact that the U.S. president was unwilling to take necessary steps to protect himself, to protect his staff, to protect their families, really doesn't make it a hard sell anymore when Russia and China are trying to degrade the image of the United States.

And finally, this notion that the president prioritized politics over the actual physical well-being of his staff and the Americans he was coming into contact with sends a separate message that, for Trump, national security plays second fiddle to his personal needs. So overall, even if the president's physical recovery is expedited, the strategic geopolitical impacts will take a long time to mitigate.

CABRERA: Samantha Vinograd, as always, good to have you here. Thank you.

VINOGRAD: Thanks.

CABRERA: President Trump's coronavirus diagnosis is now the most concerning health scare to hit the White House in decades. Coming up, we will speak to a presidential historian. Doris Kearns Goodwin is with us to talk about how the Trump administration is handling this crisis in comparison to previous administrations. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:43:25]

CABRERA: Yesterday, the nation watched a historic moment unfold as Marine One carried President Trump to Walter Reed military hospital for his COVID-19 treatment. It remains rare for a sitting president to face such a major health crisis. So what does history tell us about these critical moments? Here to discuss, Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential historian and author of "The Bully Pulpit."

So Doris, it's so good to have your experience and wisdom when we're taking a broader look at what's happening and putting all this into context. When you look at what has transpired since Thursday when we learned Hope Hicks had coronavirus, and then the drip, drip, drip of information on the timeline of who knew what and when, there has just been a major lack of transparency. How important is it for the American people to trust what's coming out of the White House right now? DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: It's the most important

thing in a democracy, I think, that people can trust the information that's coming from the White House. And there's a troubled history of White Houses trying to camouflage what actually was happening to presidential health, always on the rationale that the people would panic.

It's incredible to realize that President Cleveland had actual surgery for a diagnosis of jaw cancer, part of his jaw was removed, nobody even knew it. It was done on a yacht. Obviously, we've talked about Woodrow Wilson having a massive stroke and the public didn't know it, that FDR had congestive heart failure, diagnosed in the middle of World War II, but his doctor said it was simply bronchitis. But in the last couple of decades, I think ever since Ronald Reagan, there's been more transparency.

[10:45:00]

So the question for this administration is, are we going to go backward to those earlier days, or are they going to trust, as FDR once said, as long as the government tells the people the truth, they can take it on the chin, they will keep heart. But then the people have to trust that the government is telling them the truth. So I think that's the standard we should be meeting right now.

CABRERA: This is the greatest health threat, right, an American president has faced since Reagan was shot back in 1981. What were your thoughts when you saw President Trump leaving on Marine One yesterday to go to Walter Reed?

GOODWIN: It's one of those moments that you know that history is going to see that picture over and over again, not only because of the president's health that's involved, but really as an image of what this crisis has done to America. And it makes you think not only of his being carried off to the hospital, but the over 200,000 people who were carried to a hospital or maybe never even made it to a hospital and died.

Probably the most dramatic moment in the midst of a presidential campaign that even outdoes this one in a sense is President Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, shot in the middle of the campaign when he's running against Taft and Wilson. And he insists on going to give his speech, even though the bullet has gone straight into his chest. He delivers his speech, and then they find out that luckily he had a 50-page speech in his pocket and that had deflected the course of the bullet.

But then he goes to the hospital, both Wilson and Taft, his two opponents, say they won't campaign until he gets out of the hospital. Everybody thinks the empathy toward him will win the election, but it was still a three-way race, two Republicans against one Democrat, and he lost the race. But that was a pretty dramatic moment in our history.

Yes, you point out that there have been other presidents who have had to be hospitalized during the course of their presidencies. The president, we're told, remains at the helm of the country right now, and yet members of Trump's inner circle, as well as leaders in Congress have tested positive. Many people are forced to quarantine, members of this administration. Does this impact the ability of the government to fully function?

GOODWIN: Without a question. No president governs alone. When you look at the success of the great presidents we've had, whether that be Abraham Lincoln or FDR, they had a team that was behind them. Their team is critical. That's true of leadership everywhere.

So the fact that all these people were exposed at the same time without the proper social distancing, without the proper masks, and that they themselves are now having to undergo several weeks or more of being out of function in a full way is a very concerning thing, I think, for the country right now, and probably might have been mitigated had the science had been followed for everybody within that White House.

CABRERA: Doris Kearns Goodwin, again, I really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you so much for joining us.

GOODWIN: Thank you for having me.

CABRERA: It is still on for Salt Lake. Vice President Mike Pence is still planning to travel to Utah to debate Senator Kamala Harris on Wednesday. But tighter rules may be in place. We'll have much more on that just ahead live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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[14:52:24]

CABRERA: We have some breaking news just in. New England Patriots superstar quarterback Cam Newton has now tested positive for coronavirus. This is according to reports from the NFL Network and ESPN. Newton has reportedly been placed on the league's reserve COVID- 19 list. And in a statement the Patriots say the player has tested positive, that other players and staff who had been in contact with that individual were tested as well.

Those results were all negative. The Patriots were scheduled to play the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs tomorrow. That game has now been postponed. The NFL had already postponed another game this weekend between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tennessee Titans due to positive coronavirus tests on the Tennessee Titans team as well.

Back to our breaking news about the President Trump health situation and his diagnosis of coronavirus. This has upended an already chaotic election year with just 31 days to go. On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee, Senator Kamala Harris will still square off in their first and only debate.

And I want to bring in CNN's Arlette Saenz, who has been on the campaign trail for us. Arlette, Pence and Harris both tested negative for coronavirus on Friday. The Vice President Pence also tested negative again this morning, we are told. At this point the debate is still on, but there are some changes, right? ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, there are some changes to

what is going to be this week's marquee event when Mike Pence, the Vice President, and Senator Kamala Harris face off in Salt Lake City for their first and only vice presidential debate of this cycle.

Now, originally the podiums at that debate were only slated to be about seven feet apart. But we've learned from they have decided to move them a bit further away from each other. They will be seated about 12 feet away from each other as they debate on Wednesday, due to the coronavirus and some of the concerns that have come up over the past few days after the president's diagnosis and also positive diagnoses of people in the president's orbit.

We have learned, as you mentioned, that Vice President Pence has tested negative for this twice, but we will see going forward how many times he might be tested heading into that debate on Wednesday.

And another change to this debate is the issue of masks. Everyone who is in the audience in attendance will be required to wear a mask. The only people in the room not wearing masks will be the two candidates and the moderator. This comes after Tuesday night's debate in Cleveland when there were some in the audience, in the debate hall, who did not wear masks.

[14:55:3]

You saw people like the president's family walking in wearing masks, but once they were seated, taking those masks off. But at the Wednesday debate, everyone in attendance will need to wear a mask, and if they are not wearing a mask, they will be asked to leave. Ana?

CABRERA: Arlette Saenz, thank you.

You can tune in to CNN's special coverage of the only vice presidential debate of 2020. It starts on Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. We're back after this.

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