Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

NYC to Reverse Reopenings; Biden Campaigns in Florida; Extra Precautions for VP Debate; Lawsuit over Texas Ballot Drop Boxes; Supreme Court Derailment Threat. Aired 9:30-10a

Aired October 05, 2020 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: She is now testing negative for Covid, but she still has some lingering effects. The hope is that this trend will not continue upward.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And big political implications as well. Wisconsin, a key swing state in the election

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, yes.

SCIUTTO: Adrienne Broaddus, thanks so much.

Well, Mayor Bill de Blasio says that he expects to hear from New York's governor within the next few hours about his plan to return portions of the city to lockdown. This in response to Covid-19 outbreaks in particular neighborhoods.

HARLOW: Yes, that are growing a lot. De Blasio is considering closing all non-essential businesses in those neighborhoods, schools and daycares as well. This is in nine different zip codes throughout Brooklyn and Queens that have trended up in terms of higher positivity Covid rates.

Alexandra Field joins us in New York this morning.

Good morning, Alex.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Poppy and Jim.

Look, this is being described as a targeted response to a very specific area, but it is a significant step backward for all of New York City. It affects just nine zip codes, but that has a large impact. You're talking about 300 different schools, restaurants, businesses. You're also talking about an effect on part of the city's large orthodox Jewish community, a community that has been hit hard by Covid already.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FIELD (voice over): In this Brooklyn neighborhood, hundreds of thousands of masks are being handed out. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you very much.

FIELD: As clusters of Covid-19 cases in New York City pop up again in orthodox Jewish communities, communities already devastated last spring.

LEAH ZAGELBAUM, VP OF MEDIA AFFAIRS, AGUDATH ISRAEL OF AMERICA: There wasn't a family that didn't know somebody that was either sick, in the hospital, or dying. Nobody wants to go back there.

FIELD: Back to funerals like this one for a prominent rabbi who died in April, bringing thousands of mourners to New York City's largely empty streets. Month after New York City bent the curve, holidays, celebrations and large gatherings may be fueling the newest cluster. This video surfacing from late September shows a large orthodox gathering with little regard for social distancing.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): I said to the local governments, we need an all-out compliance effort. It has to be enforcement.

FIELD: Stepping up enforcement, the city has already shut down two yeshivas in Brooklyn. Now, state and city officials are urging 200 rabbis and other community leaders to take a more aggressive stance with their congregations.

RABBI YERUCHIM SILBER, AGUDATH ISRAEL OF AMERICA: Look now I would say almost everybody's masked up if you look -- just look around the street, you can just see it over here, there's --

FIELD (on camera): That's what we're seeing, too. Did it look different a few days or a few weeks ago?

SILBER: It did, but I think people are getting the message now.

FIELD (voice over): The city recommends testing for everyone living in a hot spot, but there's no line at a mobile test site in this largely orthodox community.

ZAGELBAUM: We shouldn't be singled out and certainly the fingers shouldn't be pointed at people who are doing their best because they've gotten sick, because you don't see that in any other community.

FIELD: Community leaders insist there isn't resistance to masks or testing, but they say the spike here is caused by the same complacency they see everywhere else.

ROBERT CARROLL, NY STATE ASSEMBLYMAN: And I do think there's fatigue. I think it's been a long six months. We haven't beat this disease yet. There isn't herd immunity. Those kinds of things are incorrect. We need to be vigilant through the rest of this fall, winter and probably next spring, until there's a vaccine.

FIELD: A reminder to a community that has suffered so much, that the virus isn't behind us yet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Remember to wear your masks.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FIELD: So while the proposed shutdown would affect just nine zip codes right now, the mayor is also proposing stricter regulations for 11 zip codes where the rates are also climbing.

Poppy and Jim, we know the governor is expected to weigh in within the next few hours. To this point he has pointed the finger at local authorities, saying they haven't done an effective job with enforcement.

SCIUTTO: It's a shame with all the progress the city had made.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Alexandra Field, thank you.

We are closing in on Election Day. Both campaigns are fighting for the few remaining undecided voters. Our reporters are on the ground. We're going to bring you an update.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:38:26]

SCIUTTO: The president remains hospitalized for Covid-19, less than 30 days from the election, yet the campaigning is still going on. Are the strategies shifting now?

HARLOW: Our teams are following the campaigns.

Let's begin with our political correspondent MJ Lee.

Good morning, MJ. Let's start with the Biden campaign. Obviously notable pulling the negative ads. What else?

MJ LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Joe Biden is continuing to hit the campaign trail even as President Trump is getting treatment for Covid- 19. Later today we're going to see him travel to the important state of Florida. Obviously, a lot of electoral votes up for grabs in that important state.

And what the Biden campaign has announced recently in light of Trump's diagnosis is that Biden himself is going to be tested more frequently for Covid-19 and every time that he gets a test result, that is going to get shared with the press. You'll recall on Friday morning, shortly after Trump's positive test, news broke, Biden announced that he was tested two times separately for -- for the virus and both of them came back negative. And yesterday as well the campaign said that he was tested again and that that test also came back negative.

You know, initially there were some questions about whether Biden could put his campaign travel on hold for a little bit because, remember, he did share that debate stage with President Trump, even though their podiums were 12 feet apart, they were more than socially distanced. There were, obviously, some concerns raised about the fact that they were in an indoor space, there were people in the audience and potentially people who were not masked who could have been positive. [09:40:00]

We just don't know.

But what the Biden campaign is basically saying right now is that they feel really good about all of the precautions that they have been taking so far with their campaign events, which are socially distanced. You are required to wear a mask when you go to a campaign event of his. Obviously, all of this has been -- you know, sort of the polar opposite, frankly, from the way that President Trump has conducted himself out on the campaign trail.

SCIUTTO: All right, Ryan Nobles, you're in Salt Lake City. This, of course, ahead of the -- this week's vice presidential debate. Takes on more significance, you might say, in light of the president's diagnosis. So Harris is there. Pence arrives today. There are going to be some changes, are there not, in the rules from the first presidential debate?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Jim, the debate commission taking seriously the president's diagnosis and, as a result, essentially tightening up the restrictions from the first debate. The most significant thing that's happening is that originally the two seated locations for both Kamala Harris and Mike Pence were originally going to be seven feet apart.

They've now moved them to 12 feet apart. And inside the debate hall, there is still going to be a crowd inside this debate hall behind me, but every single person that comes inside the debate hall will be required to wear a mask. And if they don't wear a mask, they're going to be asked to leave.

Now, that's different from what happened at the Cleveland Clinic where that was the standard, but there was a fair amount of folks in the Trump contingent, particularly members of the Trump family, that wore masks into the venue and then took them off during the debate itself Debate organizers saying that just not going to be the case this time around.

And we should also point out that the University of Utah taking very serious precautions to make sure that the coronavirus is not spread throughout the debate festivities. Every single person entering the debate perimeter, including us reporters, are going to be required to take Covid tests ahead of time.

Jim and Poppy.

HARLOW: Ryan, also, the president's positive Covid test did not keep at all the vice president off the trail after he tested negative. How are the campaigns handling things?

NOBLES: You know, what's interesting, Poppy, is aside from the fact that President Trump himself is not going to be out campaigning, the Trump campaign itself has not really changed at all. They're still doing all the same in-person canvassing and volunteer door knocking that they were doing before.

And Vice President Pence is scheduled to hold an in-person campaign rally on Thursday, the day after the event that's going to take place here on Wednesday, in Arizona. So even with the president himself contracting the coronavirus and being forced to be hospitalized, that has not really changed their campaign posture at all.

And we should also point out that the campaign and the president himself are encouraging their supporters to gather in these big groups, in front of Walter Reed Hospital and at other places around the country to show a sign of support for the president. But in doing so, risking spreading the virus even more. So even with everything that's happened, it seems as though the Trump campaign hasn't seemed to learn very much.

SCIUTTO: No, apparently not.

Ryan Nobles, MJ Lee, thanks very much.

You can watch the only vice presidential debate this cycle of 2020 right here on CNN. Our special coverage will begin Wednesday night at 7:00 Eastern Time.

HARLOW: Meantime, in Texas, the governor, Greg Abbott, is facing two federal lawsuits over his executive order to limit ballot drop boxes to just one in each county across the state. He says the move will, quote, enhance election security. Critics say this is an attempt to suppress votes.

SCIUTTO: Well, it's pretty transparent. Harris County has more than 4 million people, it's a Democratic stronghold, it had 11 drop boxes, now it will have one.

CNN national correspondent Ed Lavandera is there.

So, Ed, you took a drive around to see how this will impact people who want to take the simple step of putting their ballot in what historically has been a safe place to do it, a drop box.

What did you learn? What kind of obstacles does this set up?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, and that is the question here. You know, the critics of this move saying that this is a move of voter suppression, making it much more difficult in this pandemic age for people, much more difficult and dangerous for people who vote. So we put that to the test.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: Welcome to Harris County, Texas. There are 2.4 million registered voters in this county. And if you're one of those voters who's skeptical of voting in person because of coronavirus pandemic, or you're concerned that the Postal Service won't get your ballot to the elections office in time, county officials here had set up 12 satellite drop boxes where people could drive their mail-in ballots and then drop them off at these 12 locations across the county.

But the governor of Texas has ordered all counties across the state to close all of those down and that they could only have one of those satellite drop boxes open in the weeks leading up to the election. So this is the story of what it will take to get to that ballot box in Harris County.

It's just after 9:00 in the morning. We are in the far northeast corner of Harris County.

LAVANDERA (voice over): The only drop box now available in this county is at Energy Football Stadium, which is 45 miles away.

[09:45:02]

LAVANDERA (on camera): But one of the locations that was closed down was just over 20 miles, so it's kind of along the way, so we're going to drive by that location first.

LAVANDERA (voice over): Harris County, which includes the city of Houston, is nearly 1,800 square miles, much larger than Rhode Island.

LAVANDERA (on camera): This county building is one of the 11 drop sites that was shut down by Governor Greg Abbott. It took us about 31 minutes to get here.

LAVANDERA (voice over): It's where we met Peaches Sullivan, who was dropping off voter registration forms for nursing home residents.

PEACHES SULLIVAN, HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS, RESIDENT: People are still worried. Why would you risk being -- having people come out even more when they don't have to, especially with the pre-existing conditions that they have.

LAVANDERA (on camera): This is a driver where you're going to see it's almost like a slice of America. You're going to see a little bit of everything on this drive from northeast Harris County into Energy Stadium, where this drop box location is.

Of course critics of the governor say this is really just a masquerade way of suppressing voter turnout, making it more difficult for voting populations in highly Democratic towns, like Houston and Austin, to be able to safely submit their votes in the age of this Covid pandemic.

LAVANDERA (voice over): The Texas governor says his decision will increase ballot security and help stop illegal voting, though there are no widespread problems with voter fraud.

LAVANDERA (on camera): So this is the one drop box ballot site in Harris County.

LAVANDERA (voice over): Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins says the Texas governor's move to close down the ballot drop sites is an abuse of power.

CHRIS HOLLINS, HARRIS COUNTY CLERK: To make it so that our voters who have disabilities, our elderly voters have to drive over an hour, more than 50 miles in some cases to drop off their mail ballots, it's unfair, it's prejudicial and it's dangerous.

LAVANDERA: The drive took us about an hour and eight minutes. So, round trip, you're looking at about two hours and 15 minutes. And, quite honestly, it was an easy drive. We caught the traffic at a good time. It was actually relatively smooth sailing considering how bad traffic can get in this city.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: And, Jim and Poppy, the governor also says that this move will also stop attempts at illegal voting, but critics say this was always a secure process. People had to bring an ID and only drop off their own ballot at these satellite sites all across the county.

Jim and Poppy.

HARLOW: Ed, thank you for taking that trip literally and showing us exactly what it takes.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Can you explain how the governor's office is maintaining -- not only are they not limiting voting, they're saying, no, no, no, we're actually expanding it. How so?

LAVANDERA: Well, the governor's talking about two different things there. He says -- first of all, early voting in the state of Texas for now has been expanded from two weeks before election day to three weeks.

And the governor is also saying, in this case, these drop boxes, the one drop box that was available, was only available on Election Day. And now this has been expanded to almost a month before Election Day. So there is an extended period of time where people can drive to this albeit one location, but they have all of this month to it.

Now, remember, this is a location that is only open Monday through Friday during business hours, so, you know, a lot of stars have to align for people to be able to safely make that drive.

HARLOW: Wow.

LAVANDERA: If you can't get away from work, it makes it much more difficult in a city like Houston, where we, you know, can't beat the drum hard enough that it is not easy to navigate the traffic in this town at times.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: So you have to do an hour drive, both directions conceivably, on a work day, during work hours.

HARLOW: Yes.

Yes, total -- makes total sense.

LAVANDERA: Right. And some -- right, and that's from one of the furthest points, you know, we put it to test, one of the furthest points.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

LAVANDERA: But regardless of where you are in the city, it is -- it could easily, for many people, be at least an hour round trip.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Ed, thank you. Thank you. Rally important reporting.

Ahead, new coronavirus infections could up-end the Republican push for a swift Supreme Court confirmation. We're going to take you to Capitol Hill and explain what it means for this now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:53:33]

HARLOW: Today, the Supreme Court begins a new term. It begins it without the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. This also comes as the confirmation over a possible replacement hangs in the balance.

SCIUTTO: Right now three Republican senators are battling coronavirus, Senators Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, and Thom Tillis. If they don't return soon, Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation could be -- could be delayed until after Election Day.

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty is live on Capitol Hill.

And excuse my skepticism, Sunlen, but I've seen and covered Mitch McConnell for some time, watched him work. Is he going to find a way around this to get a vote before Election Day?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it seems, Jim, that he is pushing forward with this. He announced that the Senate would not hold floor action for the next two weeks, but the confirmation hearing for Amy Coney Barrett is, as of right now, still scheduled to start one week from today.

And Democrats up here on Capitol Hill are pushing back at this schedule, saying this needlessly threatens the health and safety not only of the lawmakers that would potentially attend the hearing, the staffers and, of course, the Capitol Hill complex building staff, the hundreds of those people that support this building being up and running.

Here's the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer over the weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Even though he has said it's not safe for the Senate to meet in session, but it's OK to have the hearings. And the idea of having virtual hearings where no one is with the

witness for the highest court in the land for a life appointment that would have such effect on people's lives makes no sense.

[09:55:12]

SERFATY: Now with the outbreak of Covid among three Republican senators, this just throws a huge amount of uncertainty into the math that Republicans are calculating as they drive towards getting Barrett confirmed by Election Day.

Now, if they remain sick, if they are unable to return to Washington, D.C., to cast their vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate, where they actually have to show up, unlike the committee room, if they're unable to do that, that means that this could derail her nomination and certainly the Republican's timeline for all of that. So, put simply, Jim and Poppy, they need these Republican senators to show up and vote. And to do that, they have to be healthy.

HARLOW: Yes. It is amazing that they could have confirmation hearings for a Supreme Court justice virtually and that the Supreme Court starts its session today virtually again hearing arguments over the phone. I mean it is just so 2020.

Sunlen, thank you for that reporting.

While the president has already, briefly, as you saw last night, left Walter Reed Medical Center in the car there to thank his supporters, but when will he leave permanently and go back to the White House? We'll know more later today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)