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President's Doctor: Trump Has Been Fever-Free For 24 Hours; Trump's Doctor Issues Clarification On Timeline As Questions Loom About President's Condition; Leader McConnell Seeks To Push Senate Floor Activity Back Two Weeks As Graham Plans To Proceed With Barrett Confirmation Hearings; Pence's Plan To Campaign Next Week Could Put Him & Continuity Of Government At Risk As Trump Fights Infection; Biden Campaign Pulls Negative Ads On Trump, Trump Team Not Doing Same; Trump Team's COVID-19 Infections Raise Questions About Air Force One. Aired 3-4p ET
Aired October 03, 2020 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. It is our urgent breaking news this hour, the health of President Donald Trump. There is a fresh update from his medical team today along with a lot of questions about what they are not saying, and not answering.
Late this morning, the president's medical team spoke to reporters describing the president as, quote, doing very well, in good spirits, but feeling run down.
(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 and 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 was, I feel like I could walk out of here today, and that was a very encouraging comment from the president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CABRERA: As for the first lady, the president's doctors say Melania Trump is well and does not need to be hospitalized.
Important questions though are rising from this medical update, circling around the exact state of the president's health. Doctors would not say if President Trump received supplemental oxygen since his positive COVID diagnosis, even though they were directly asked that several times.
CNN was told a short time ago by a source close to the White House that, yes, the president does have oxygen administered in the time since his illness began.
Also, confusion about exactly when President Trump was diagnosed with the coronavirus, very important detail, right, given his physical proximity to people in the hours beforehand.
The president's doctor just issued a correction to something they announced at the press conference earlier today. We'll have the full details in just a moment.
But, first, let's head to the White House where our Katilan Collins is standing by. Kaitlan, the president's doctor was asked multiple times that Trump had received supplemental oxygen and he would not give a direct yes or no answer.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: He wouldn't, but he basically answered the question, Ana, by not answering it. Because he said the president is not on oxygen today and when he asked, well, has he been on it this week, he just said the president is not on oxygen today. So, everyone can take from that, what they will, because it seems pretty clear what he is trying to telegraph there.
But it was notable that as he was talking about the president, saying he was in good spirits, saying the president himself wished he could walk out of the hospital today, it doesn't seem to be that his symptoms obviously are the case or he would be doing that.
Because then, after those doctors spoke to reporters on camera at the microphone, an official then told reporters on background, which means they did not give their name or consent for their name to be used in that quote, said that the president's symptoms were actually pretty concerning and there is no clear path to a full recovery for President Trump right now in sight. That is a statement that is striking about the president of the United States, that he is now in the hospital and they don't see a clear path to full recovery at this point. Hopefully, of course, that changes, but that's where we are right now.
And what this says about the fact that the president was on oxygen this week as a source is telling my colleague, Jim Acosta, is that the president did actually have more serious side effects and symptoms than we had previously been led to believe. When the White House was saying yesterday this is a mild case, it's moderate, mild symptoms, moderate case, clearly, it's not, because the president had a fever and he had to receive supplemental oxygen. So that does give you an indication of really how this virus for the president progressed since he tested positive on Thursday night, late Thursday night.
And, of course, there are other big question here facing the White House, Ana, is one of credibility. Because you saw the doctors come out, that was a good thing to have them come out in front of Walter Reed and brief reporters. But then we had to get a corrected statement from the doctor about when it was that the doctor tested positive for coronavirus.
He would not say what the president's fever was. He would not say if he had been on oxygen, really simple things that if he had said it, probably wouldn't have been as noteworthy as if, you know, he had not evaded the questions like he did time and time again despite being asked by multiple reporters.
But based on what we can glean from what we've heard from sources, the president's condition is incredibly serious and his symptoms are as well and no clear path to recovery is really a big indicator of where it is right now, almost 24 hours since he's been taken to Walter Reed.
CABRERA: And they did imply that he would be in the hospital for at least multiple days. Katilan Collins, thank you.
The president's doctors are now trying to clarify the timeline, again, of this virus with the president's diagnosis. This was after confusion was again set off earlier at that press conference. White House Correspondent Jeremy Diamond is outside Walter Reed Medical Center right now. Jeremy, what have you learned?
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, it was a really concerning statement initially when we heard Dr. Sean Conley in that briefing in front of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center saying that the president had been diagnosed with coronavirus 72 hours ago, which would have put his diagnosis at midday on Wednesday, which -- when -- whereas the White House actually released the information that the president was diagnosed with coronavirus at about 1:00 A.M. early, early on Friday morning.
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Dr. Sean Conley though, within about two hours of that briefing though, issued a new memo to clarify his comments, not only clarify, but really to say that he was incorrect when he said that 72 hours. Let me read you his words directly in this memo. He says, quote, this morning while summarizing the president's health, I incorrectly used the term 72 hours instead of day three. And 48 hours instead of day two with regards to his diagnosis and the administration of the polyclonal antibody therapy.
He then goes on to say the president was first diagnosed with COVID-19 on the evening of Thursday, October 1st, and had received Regeron's, he means Regeneron, but this gives you a sense of how quickly they rushed out the statement, Regeneron's antibody cocktail on Friday, October 2nd. So, clarifying that timeline, putting it much more in line with what the White House had been saying publicly over the last 24-36 hours or so since we learned that the president had tested positive.
The president for his part, Ana, we are hearing from him on Twitter after that big gap yesterday during the day when we didn't hear from the president on Twitter at all. He's now tweeting, quote, doctors, nurses and all at the great Walter Reed Medical Center, and others from likewise incredible institutions who have joined them, are amazing, in all caps. Tremendous progress has been made over the last six months in fighting this plague. With their help, I am feeling well.
Now, we did, of course, hear those doctors earlier today say that the president -- one of those doctors said that the president felt like he could leave the hospital today, that he was feeling much better and the doctors saying that he has not had any fever over the last 24 hours. But we do know, of course, now that the president's condition got serious enough that he required supplemental oxygen yesterday and ultimately to be admitted as a patient here at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
And he is expected to remain here, Ana, for several days at this point, so, obviously, very concerning, and when you add to that statement from a person familiar with the president's health who is saying that there is no clear path as of now for the president's full recovery. So, again, putting it altogether, certainly a concerning situation for the president and one that is likely to be very fluid over the next several days. Ana?
CABRERA: Okay. Jeremy Diamond outside Walter Reed Medical Center, thank you.
I want to bring in a couple of medical experts now, Dr. Paul Offit and Wayne Riley. Dr. Offit is the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, he is the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine. And Dr. Riley is the president of Downstate Medical Center in New York.
I want to start with this news that the president was given supplemental oxygen on Friday. This is according to a source close to the White House. Dr. Riley, what does that tell you about the extent of seriousness of his coronavirus symptoms?
DR. WAYNE RILEY, PRESIDENT, DOWNSTATE MEDICAL CENTER: Well, Ana, as an internal medicine specialist trained in the complex care of adult patients, that is very concerning. We do know that COVID can cause many systems your body to be affected, but, obviously, the key one is the respiratory system, in other words, the lungs.
So there was some physiologic discrepancy or detriment rather in the president's respiratory status that required oxygen, and, generally, oxygen is not a benign therapeutic. It is a critical therapeutic when you think that there's significant issues relate to do a patient being able to breathe and to oxygenate blood appropriately. So --
CABRERA: Does it bother you? Forgive me. Does it bother you that they wouldn't be more upfront about what he needed in terms of that kind of treatment?
RILEY: Yes. Unfortunately, the White House physician engaged in a little too much happy talk. We need, as Americans, to know more details about the status of the president. And as you could tell, he was somewhat dissembling about when the president got oxygen, if he was on oxygen as of the moment he was speaking, but it left more questions about this.
So, unfortunately, that press conference was generally unhelpful from a medical standpoint. And I know Dr. Offit agrees with me, we need more information in order to really make an informed sort of opinion about what's going on with the president. But it does not look very good.
CABRERA: Dr. Offit, what questions were you left with? What are some of the critical pieces of information that they would not provide?
DR. PAUL OFFIT, DIRECTOR OF VACCINE EDUCATION CENTER, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILIADELPHIA: Here is what I would say. I think the lesson here, hopefully, for the public, is how hard it is to treat viral infections. I mean, if you're infected with a bacteria, bacteria reproduce themselves outside of cells, so you can kill bacteria with antibiotics very easily, but viruses reproduce themselves inside of cells.
So when you hear that the president has received Remdesivir, remember that that drug can shorten the length of illness but it's never been shown to save lives, similarly when he received the Regeneron product, which is two monoclonal antibodies directed against a surface protein of the virus.
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Realize that history teaches us that that probably isn't going to work. And it doesn't work for measles infection, it doesn't work for rabies infection, it doesn't work for chicken pox infection. You can't treat when somebody is symptomatic. You can treat early in the incubation period before they develop symptoms but not later.
And so what do you do for viruses? You prevent them, either with a vaccine, which we don't have, or with masks, which we have that this president unfortunately has chosen not to use. It's a cautionary tale. I mean, hopefully, the lesson that people take from all of this is that it's really important to wear masks because it's so hard to treat viral infections. The question I would have loved to have seen answered actually was what does his chest X-ray look like.
CABRERA: What does his chest X-ray look like, he would not provide. At least he wasn't forthcoming with information about the president's lungs and the condition of the president's lungs.
The details that they did provide included that his oxygen saturation level today was 96 percent and that he was walking around. Dr. Riley, is that encouraging? Is that good?
RILEY: Well, that was sort of good news, but the problem with oxygenation levels is that they fluctuate. They can fluctuate over an hour, over a day, over two or three days. So, again, the information was incomplete.
And Dr. offit is right, I sure would have liked to have known if a chest X-ray had shown any issues in terms of presence of possible coexisting pneumonia or other respiratory signs or symptoms that we do know can sometimes happen in the setting of viral diseases.
Viral diseases cannot be cured, as Dr. Offit just mentioned. So we're left with treating these systems and letting the immune system kick in. But the problem is we have a 74-year-old man who has at least two or three pre-existing conditions that, unfortunately, is the president of the United States and in hospital at this moment.
CABRERA: Dr. Conley warned that days seven to ten of this virus are when patients often experience the most severe symptoms and that it's hard to tell exactly where the president is on the timeline. But, Dr. Offit, considering how often the president is supposedly tested, I guess where would you expect him to be on this timeline?
OFFIT: Fairly early. This bad coronavirus which has just made its debut in the human population does some very strange things. One of them is it actually can cause vasculitis, which is inflammation of the blood vessels, which is amazing given that the virus really doesn't enter the bloodstream. Rather, it induces the immune response that damages cells that line blood vessel. Therefore, any organ that has a blood supply can be affected. So you can get stokes, heart attacks, liver disease, kidney disease and it's just a very unusual virus.
When I was on service recently at our hospital, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the chest X-ray that I saw on one of our patients was clearly pneumonia, but not like a pneumonia that I haven't really seen before. It was really more of a vasculitis than it was sort of a viral pneumonia. That's what you're up against with this very unusual virus.
CABRERA: Is it important to know when he last tested negative, because Dr. Conley would not provide that information either?
OFFIT: Well, in terms of timeline -- I'm sorry. I'm sorry, go ahead, Dr. Riley.
RILEY: No. Well, the timeline is muddled. Again, remember, and I know Dr. Offit will agree with me, a test is a point in time. And the other concern that many of us have is that the rapid test is not as accurate as the PCR test. And so, again, the timing and the timeline remain muddled. So just because the president tested negative with the rapid test two or three days ago really is not helpful to piecing together the timeline and trying to figure out how his course of this disease began.
CABRERA: And it's my understanding, Dr. Offit, that people could be infectious even before testing positive. Is that true?
OFFIT: Absolutely. I mean, you actually are most contagious before you develop symptoms. That's true for many viruses. So that's why you should assume, frankly, everybody you come in contact with is asymptomatically infected. Just assume that, and wear a mask. Hopefully, that's the lesson here.
I mean, that Rose Garden ceremony, hopefully, will be held up as a lesson for what not to do. I mean, it created a situation that, at some level, puts our country at risk. It's unacceptable and unnecessary.
CABRERA: We still don't know if the end of that spread has been contained just yet. Dr. Paul Offit and Dr. Wayne Riley, thank you very much for sharing your expertise with us and all you do. We appreciate it.
A credibility crisis is brewing at the White House. Chaos and confusion ensuing after statements and misstatements about the health of the president of the United States. We'll try to get to the bottom of it when we return live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
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CABRERA: The president remains hospitalized at this hour at Walter Reed Medical Center. How sick he is remains unclear. How long he has been sick is unclear as well.
At a news conference today, President Trump's doctors wouldn't answer basic questions about his vitals or whether he had ever been placed on supplemental oxygen. They also painted an optimistic picture of the president's outlook.
But sources tell us President Trump's vitals over the past 24 hours are concerning and that the next 48 hours will be critical. This conflicting information in the president's health is a national security concern.
I want to bring in our panel of David Sanger, CNN National Security Analyst and new York Times National Security Correspondent, Carrie Cordero, CNN National Security Analyst and former Counsel to the U.S. Assistant Attorney General for National Security, and Tim Naftali, CNN Presidential Historian.
Tim, let me start with you, because this is the moment where the White House's lack of credibility becomes an immediate crisis, does it not?
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TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, Ana, that was a problem before Dr. Conley's press conference. But Dr. Conley had a chance to establish a new level of trust. He had an opportunity to establish transparency and he flubbed it. And it's very worrisome. Not only did he confuse us about the timetable, but he then issued a retraction or restatement.
But if you look carefully at the comments that were made by he and his team, he is not the only one who misspoke. So it's not just Dr. Conley, it was also one member of his team who misspoke about when the president started getting the experimental antibody treatment.
And the very first instance, this team, which should have been establishing transparency and trust, bobbled the ball. And this is a really bad moment. It has intensified the crisis.
CABRERA: Carrie, the White House does continue to say the president is in charge, there's no transfer of power right now. But what happens if the president gets too sick to govern?
CARRIE CORDERO, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, we potentially could be in a situation where the 25th Amendment would need to be evoked, where the president, if he had the ability, could transfer, certify and transfer his powers to the vice president. From everything that we are hearing, I don't think that we are close to that yet. But there is a constitutional process. However, the credibility problem that you were just discussing with Tim does play into the question, and I think the lack of confidence that people might have that they would actually follow that process. So I think that's where that issue comes into play as sort of whether or not people have confidence that they would invoke the constitutional process that does exist.
But there's also another national security problem here, which is that this isn't just about the president being sick. Through the recklessness of the White House, they have now exposed other national security leaders in the government. They have exposed the vice president, who is next in line, other White House officials who are involved in national security decision-making, members of Congress, members of the Secret Service, who staff the president.
So there's a broader circle of people who are involved in national security decision-making, who now also have to worry about their own health, their family's health and who are distracted from actual national security issues, like security of the election, foreign interference, cyber security of the election, potential civil upset during the election time period. So it's an enormous distraction, and it is because of their mishandling of the virus.
CABRERA: So there are those issues internally, David. But you also the president of the United States isn't 100 percent, you have allies and adversaries who are paying attention as well. You have multiple members of this administration who also contracted the virus where they were forced to quarantine along with several members of Congress, as we've been discussing. Does this make the U.S. more vulnerable right now to those exterior national security threats?
DAVID SANGER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, it may well if China or Russia or others sought to further test the United States and the system. But, you know, if you're a foreign adversary and you're looking back at this week, you have to remember it was only four or five days ago that we were questioning whether the president, based on what he said in the debate, was willing to voluntarily give up power if it turned out that he lost the election.
And, of course, he had left the impression at the end of that debate that he didn't believe there was any way he could lose in this election unless the other side cheated, unless there was interference of some kind, or because of the mail-in ballots.
Now, speed forward by three or four days, and a world that was looking at the United States questioning or the president of the United States questioning whether or not peaceful transition of power could take place is now plunged into another crisis, which is what's the future of the president's own health in a sort of Shakespearean turn of events where it appears that the ceremony to nominate a new Supreme Court justice or announce nomination, the Supreme Court justice turns into what now looks like it may have been a super-spreader event or certainly a spreader event.
And so if you're looking at this abroad, you're saying, United States, on the one hand, is having a hard time holding onto its history of democratic transition that goes back to 1788, and on the other hand, can't manage a disease that was running amuck in the midst of a meeting of the leadership. That combination together might make them conclude they don't really need to go after us and we're doing a pretty good job right now of undercutting ourselves.
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CABRERA: Tim, with the world watching every tweet, every word uttered, how important is messaging coming from the White House in this moment?
NAFTALI: In a crisis like this, you cannot stress too much the importance of the opening statements. They set the tone. That's why Dr. Conley's press conference was such a disaster today. You set the tone for transparency and trust.
Right now, the White House is backpedaling and there is someone, perhaps the chief of staff himself, Mark Meadows, who is undercutting directly Dr. Conley's very optimistic and reassuring report on the state of the president's health. This is terrible. This shows that the -- it gives the impression that our country is incompetent, besides being full of the virus.
CABRERA: Carrie, what kind of information should they be sharing, and what maybe should be held back from a national security perspective?
CORDERO: Well, they should be communicating to the public the truth. The president is an elected leader in a democracy and they owe the public, he is in public service, and they owe the public the truth. So the fact that the doctor today was cagey about whether or not the president had received oxygen, whether or when the president had last received a negative test, all of that -- because it was so obvious that he was not being forthcoming, all of that hurts the credibility, as Tim is describing, of the office of the presidency. It's not being truthful to the American public.
And to David's earlier point, we are actually in a position where it's the United States that is creating instability in the world. So if other countries, allies or adversaries, can't believe the information that they are providing, the White House is providing about the president's health, things that if he's doing relatively okay, he's getting the best health care in the country that is available, he's getting far better health care than any other average American would have gotten with coronavirus, so if they can't be truthful, that undermines all sorts of U.S. national security responsibilities that we have as a country.
We have military responsibilities, we have economic responsibilities, we have diplomatic relations. This isn't just about one man and the fact that he was trying to get re-elected and, therefore, they were downplaying this threat of the coronavirus. This is a country that this White House is supposed to be running. And they are undermining the global reputation of the country and actually contributing to international instability in doing it.
CABRERA: Carrie Cordero, Tim Naftali and David Sanger, thank you very much for the conversation. And more breaking news just ahead, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell now seeking to push Senate activity on the floor, at least, back two weeks after three GOP senators have tested positive for the coronavirus.
You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
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CABRERA: Back now to our breaking news. The health of President Trump remains in the balance as we wait for additional clarity on how sick the commander-in-chief is and just how long he's had coronavirus.
More questions than answers today, after the president's personal physician, Dr. Sean Conley, initially told reporters this morning that Trump was 72 hours into his diagnosis, conflicting with what the public was told early Friday morning.
Then Conley issued a statement just last hour saying he misspoke and that the president was, in fact, first diagnosed with COVID-19 Thursday evening.
But the rosy picture he painted about the president's condition doesn't add up to an assessment from a source familiar with the president's health, who told reporters that, "The president's vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning and that the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care." That is a quote.
CNN is also learning that Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, is looking to push back Senate floor activity two weeks.
This, after Senator Ron Johnson became the third Republican Senator to test positive for coronavirus in the past 24 hours.
As we reported, Senators Mike Lee and Thom Tillis both tested positive on Friday, days after they attended a White House event where President Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
CNN's Lauren Fox is following all this for us.
Lauren, the big question is: What does this mean for Barrett's confirmation process?
LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Essentially, McConnell is offering to hold up votes on the floor for two weeks.
But what is important to remember is that the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham, does still plan to move forward with Amy Coney Barrett's nomination hearing the week of October 12th.
That is significant because there are two members of the Judiciary Committee, Mike Lee and Thom Tillis, both Republicans, who will likely be dealing with whether or not they can attend that hearing. Now, there are questions about what happens with the vote at the end
of the week if they are unable to attend. So there are a lot of balls up in the air right now.
But when you're thinking about this nomination, it was just a couple of weeks ago that it seemed like Republicans were moving full steam ahead. That they likely had the votes to move this forward before the election.
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Now, of course, because we have questions about when those two Senators will be able to return to the committee, as well as whether or not everyone will be available to vote on the floor in the last week of October, there are questions about what is going to happen with that nomination.
Now, of course, we are still awaiting word from Chuck Schumer. But he said in a statement that what he thought was irresponsible was, if you don't think it's safe enough to return for members to move forward with floor proceedings over the next two weeks, why would it be safe enough, essentially, to move forward with this judiciary nomination hearing -- Ana?
CABRERA: Lauren Fox, keep us posted. Thanks.
It has been a rough week for the White House. We started the week with "The New York Times'" tax report bombshell. We have the first presidential debate and the fallout from that. Now, the president ending the week with being diagnosed with coronavirus. And all of this just one month before the presidential election.
Much more just ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM.
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CABRERA: The Trump White House and re-election campaign have been thrown into chaos just a month away from the election after the president, a number of his top aides and political allies all tested positive for COVID-19.
The Trump camp has been forced to reconsider its schedule and tactics.
Let's discuss with CNN political correspondent, Abby Phillip, and CNN political analyst, Sabrina Siddiqui, national politics reporter for the "Wall Street Journal," Sabrina Siddiqui.
Ladies, thanks for being here.
Let's talk about all of these people and the trickle-down effect that's taking place.
Abby, we first learned Hope Hicks tested positive on Thursday. The dominos have continued to drop, the president's campaign management, Kellyanne Conway, three Republican Senators, the list goes on.
What does this signal to you?
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: First of all, this is a result of the lax attitude around the president at the official level and at the campaign level around safety, around mask wearing and preventive measures that could have been taken to protect him and to protect everyone around him.
And so now you're seeing really top officials out of commission for what will be several weeks because of this attitude.
And, you know, I think, secondly, what this signals to the American public, writ large, is that this is a personification of the president's broader leadership over this coronavirus pandemic.
He's been trying to convince the public that we are almost through this, literally saying that just a day before he was diagnosed with coronavirus, that we were nearing the end.
I think this is a clear sign that we are not nearing the end, that the American people see that this virus is still here. And that it was so poorly managed that virtually every senior official around him has been exposed or has contracted this virus.
CABRERA: It's obviously incredibly concerning, the health of the president right now. And we all wish him well. We all want a safe and quick recovery.
You've made the point, though, that, right now, because of the way this has been handled by the administration, the U.S., Abby, is standing alone in a very negative way.
PHILLIP: Absolutely. I mean, there have been obviously other world leaders who have contracted the coronavirus and have made it through.
But the degree to which the senior levels of the United States government has been affected by this is something that is unique to the United States and the developed world.
We are talking about senior level officials in the White House. We are talking about multiple members of Congress all linked back to an event that happened at this White House.
And, you know, on this note, you know, earlier this week, Tom Bossert, the former Homeland Security adviser to the president, made an important note that the vice president is planning -- right now, he has tested negative. He's planning to go out on the campaign trail on behalf of the president later in the week.
But he is the second in command here, if something were to happen to President Trump or if there's a temporary need to transfer power. Yet, he seems to be willing to continuously go out and potentially put himself at risk of contracting the virus with public events.
This is something that needs to be thought through really carefully, because it's not just about whether he might give the virus to someone else. It's also is he protecting himself sufficiently so that there can be continuity of government at the highest levels.
CABRERA: Let me pick up on that with Sabrina.
Because, yes, the vice president tested negative again this morning and now he's plowing full steam ahead.
We learned he has this event in Arizona on Thursday, which is, of course, the day after the debate with the Democratic vice-president nominee, Senator Kamala Harris.
He was at the Rose Garden ceremony, literally surrounded by people who have now tested positive.
Sabrina, what's the thinking now inside Joe Biden's campaign regarding the upcoming debate?
SABRINA SIDDIQUI, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think that with respect to the vice-presidential debate, the Biden campaign plans to press forward. Senator Kamala Harris has continued to get tested and has tested negative.
We do know that the Commission for Presidential Debates has issued some changes. Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris will now be standing further apart on that debate stage than originally planned.
There will also be a requirement that those in the audience, with the exception of the candidates and the moderator, wear masks.
Now, that, of course, was a rule that was in effect at the first presidential debate. But the first lady, as well as members of the president's family, they did remove, as we know, their masks upon taking their seats.
It now seems that the commission is saying, if you do not wear a mask, you will be asked to leave. So these are some of the changes they've implemented.
But there's a broader question about what kind of events the Trump campaign is going to continue to hold.
So far, they are not indicating that they are going to scale back these large-scale rallies that we have seen with Mike Pence perhaps traveling down in the president's stead.
The White House has still had a fairly cavalier attitude towards wearing masks inside or on its grounds. You still have seen officials walking around without a mask and saying that it's still optional, that it's still a choice.
[15:45:12]
So it doesn't seem this has caused any kind of significant change in either the White House's behavior or the Trump campaign's behavior. I think with respect to Joe Biden, they have continued to have
socially distanced events where masks are a requirement. They have not had a large-scale rally since March, since the pandemic hit.
There's going to be a clear contrast in this final month --
CABRERA: Yes.
SIDDIQUI: -- between these two campaigns that is amplified by the president's own diagnosis with coronavirus.
CABRERA: And, Abby, we are seeing at least some strategic changes happening with the Joe Biden campaign, pulling negative ads against Trump. President Trump's Team not doing the same.
PHILLIP: That's right.
CABRERA: Your reaction?
PHILLIP: Yes, they've made it very clear that, you know, in a statement, Tim Murtaugh, the communications director for the president's campaign, said that they believe that the Biden campaign is trying to be -- his word -- "magnanimous" about this, even while attacking the president on policy matters.
I mean, you know, this is a new era in politics. I think, in the past, we've seen campaigns try to sort of maybe pull back in some way, even potentially suspending some types of campaigning amid some kind of crisis like this.
But it's the Trump campaign that doesn't want to pull back because their number-one campaigner is hospitalized. Hopefully, he gets better quickly. But they know they really can't take their foot off the gas with 30 days before the election.
And notably, Ana, we say 30 days, 30-plus days before the election, but people are voting right at this moment, as we speak, every single day, between now and Election Day.
So there's not a moment that this campaign -- where this campaign doesn't matter. And I think that's where the Trump campaign is coming from.
But it also signals just a different kind of political environment that we're in right now.
CABRERA: Sabrina, just how important are October events in an election year normally? And how do you see Trump's cancellation of some events impacting things?
SIDDIQUI: Well, it's extraordinarily important. This is the run-up to the election. As Abby pointed out, voting is already under way.
But this is sort of the final stretch in which you shore up support, not just from your base, but you have that last opportunity, perhaps, to persuade undecided voters this time, compared to 2016. There's a smaller percentage of undecided voters.
But it's not just campaign events. This also throws into question the remaining presidential debates. We know the vice-presidential debate is still on, as we point out.
But the two remaining debates between President Trump and Vice President Biden have now been called into question due to the president's condition and uncertainty surrounding his health.
So it's really unclear, of course, how this is going to impact the final month of the election, because there's so much that we don't know. We're in uncharted territory.
But I think that it will, at the end of the day, reinforce public perceptions about the president's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
It certainly ensures that the pandemic will continue to be top of mind for a lot of voters as they go into these polls.
That is what we have seen consistency in survey upon survey, that the pandemic, the way in which it has paralyzed American life, as well as its impact on the economy, that that has been a top issue for voters.
And I think that's going to remain, especially as they now see that the commander-in-chief himself has coronavirus.
Clearly, as Abby pointed out earlier, we have not turned a corner as a country.
CABRERA: No.
SIDDIQUI: This virus is very much still at the forefront, not just of the political debate, but simply at the forefront of the nation and where we stand today compared with the rest of the world.
CABRERA: With more than seven million Americans infected and more than 208,000 dead.
Sabrina Siddiqui and Abby Phillip, thank you both for joining us.
Video shows Hope Hicks boarding Air Force One on Wednesday. The very next day, Hicks tests positive for COVID. We take you inside Air Force One with a look at whether the leaders of this country are traveling together safely.
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Next live inside the CNN NEWSROOM.
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CABRERA: The first of the president's inner circle to reveal a positive COVID result this week was Hope Hicks, one of the president's closest advisers. This video shows her boarding Air Force One on Wednesday. CNN's Pete Muntean has more.
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PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Air Force One, a symbol of presidential power around the world. Now the question is whether or not how key it was to spreading this virus through the White House and to key members of the administration, including the president.
We know from administration officials that Hope Hicks got on board Air Force One on Wednesday night, flying back from the president's rally in Duluth, and began showing coronavirus symptoms on board and was put in a separate cabin.
Air Force One is different than most airplanes that you and I fly on. Large plane, about 4,000 square feet, says the White House, with the president's cabin in the nose, a conference room over the wings, and reporters in the back.
What's so interesting here is that those who study the spread of the virus, especially in the confined space of an airplane, say there's no way that Hicks could have been truly separated from everybody else on board.
And those who have flown on Air Force One say there's no way that the president could not have known about this.
Here's what they had to say.
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SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I travelled on Air Force One. It is a larger plane than others, but it is not a huge space.
The notion that Hope Hicks would be quarantined on Air Force One and that the president wouldn't be made aware of that situation is really suspect to me.
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At the same time, White House physicians' staff travel on Air Force One. They would extensively update the White House chief of staff.
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MUNTEAN: Researchers stress to me that flying on an airplane right now is relatively safe so long as you're wearing a mask. Commercial airlines have mandated that. Apparently, no such mandate on Air Force One.
We have seen Hicks and the president both boarding the airplane without wearing a mask, which brings into question another layer of the story, whether those who operate Air Force One could have been endangered. That could create a whole new security risk. The 89th Airlift Wing, out of Joint Base Andrews, says it is following
CDC protocols. It has not said whether or not any airmen have tested positive for the virus.
But our own national security analysts say Air Force One needs to be ready in case of a national emergency. It is a flying White House like we have seen right after 9/11.
Pete Muntean, CNN, Washington.
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