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Pence Not in Quarantine After Being Exposed to COVID; President's Doctor Under Fire for Misleading Public on Trump's Condition; White House Refuses to Say When Trump Last Tested Negative; Trump Tweets That He's Leaving Hospital Tonight. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired October 05, 2020 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

OLIVIA NUZZI, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, "NEW YORK MAGAZINE": So before the Amy Coney Barrett event in the Rose Garden, there was a prayer march on the National Mall attended by thousands of people.

I've been tracking this, trying to confirm whether or not anyone there had been infected because it occurred just a couple hours prior to this event.

And several people at the prayer march then went to the Amy Coney Barrett event, including Vice President Mike Pence, Franklin Graham and Pastor Greg Laurie, who I have confirmed today in "New York Magazine," he's tested positive.

This is now several people who were at that event in the Rose Garden who came through the White House, and some of them attended an indoor event afterwards, who have now tested positive, including Kellyanne Conway.

I'm losing track of them. Kellyanne Conway --

(CROSSTALK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Chris Christie, Mike Lee, right? I know.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: It's a long list.

NUZZI: Yes. It's really unfortunate.

But I think it was Mark Meadows who said they were going to expect more positive cases coming out of the White House after we learned about Hope Hicks and after we learned about the president.

It seems like that's on track to happen. I'm sure that we don't yet know the extent of this.

KEILAR: No, we don't.

Olivia, thank you so much for helping us to wrap our heads around it. It's a continuing problem. We'll be keeping our eye on it with you. Thank you.

NUZZI: Thank you.

KEILAR: President Trump's doctor is getting a lot of scrutiny, he's getting a lot of criticism for his very rosy assessment of his patient's health. And he's set to give another briefing next hour.

It's not just what Dr. Sean Conley is saying, but what he's not saying. According to Dr. Conley, President Trump did have a fever at one point. Here's the thing. He won't tell us how high. He won't say when Trump last tested negative before his reported positive test late Thursday.

We only learned on Sunday that the president had been given a steroid that is usually reserved for people with severe cases of COVID.

While he finally disclosed that the president's oxygen levels dropped on two occasions, he did not reveal right away that the president was actually given supplemental oxygen at least once.

Here's how he explained that omission.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Why did you wait until today to disclose the president was administered oxygen?

DR. SEAN CONLEY, PHYSICIAN TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: That's a good question.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you.

CONLEY: So I was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude that the team, the president, and the course of illness has had.

I didn't want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction.

And in doing so, it came off that we're trying to hide something, which wasn't necessarily true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: It wasn't necessarily untrue, either.

CNN political analyst, journalist and author, Carl Bernstein, joins us now to talk about this.

I mean, this admission by his own doctor, Carl, that he wanted to paint a rosy, upbeat picture.

CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Let's be clear about what we're witnessing. This is the ultimate Trump coronavirus cover-up, directed by Donald Trump, in using his doctors shamelessly to perpetuate a cover-up. It's undermining the national security of the United States. We have

to call this what it is.

This is the second big cover-up. The first cover-up was of the seriousness of the pandemic itself. As he told my colleague, Bob Woodward, he didn't want the country to panic, he said. And that was the reason not to give the country the real science underneath.

He's ignored masks. He's ignored his scientists. He's ignored the safety of the American people.

And now, at the most critical moment of a national security emergency, in generations, in really the modern history of the presidency, in some ways, he is directing a cover-up so that we know almost nothing about his real condition.

When he contracted the virus, how he has been treated, what his lungs are like, whether or not he really is capable of executing the duties of the presidency, as he goes through this experience.

We are in the dark because he wants us to be in the dark.

KEILAR: We still, Carl, don't know when he had his last negative test.

Listen to what his doctor and what Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, who just announced her own positive test, have said about this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What was the date of the president's last negative test?

CONLEY: I'm not going to get into all the testing going back. But he and all the staff are routinely -- routinely are tested.

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I'm not going to give you the details with time stamps every time the president is tested. He's tested regularly. And the first positive test he received was after his return from Bedminster.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: The question, Carl, is: Did he have one prior to the debate. They don't want to answer that question. Why?

BERNSTEIN: Because this president is guilty of homicidal negligence through the pandemic.

First, we have hundreds of thousands of Americans dead, in large measure, because he did not do what was required of a real leader in this country.

[14:35:00]

He ignored the scientists. And he chose, for political reasons, to perpetuate his own presidency and win reelection, not to deal with this pandemic in a way that would serve the health and national interests and the interests of our citizens.

This is part of the same thing. We are -- what you just heard there really is Dr. Trump's traveling medicine show. He's the con man once again.

Why Republicans on Capitol Hill, who are falling like flies, some of them, because of the president's negligence, will not get up and demand we have some transparency in the national interest here, is really more negligence on the part of our leaders.

But we need to look at the danger of this situation. We don't know whether or not, quite honestly, the vice president, Mike Pence, has gotten an honest accounting of what's going on.

I'm going to hope and presume he has. But he would be about the only person we know who got such a thing, if he, indeed, has it.

I've talked to Republicans on the Hill. Certainly, Leader McConnell up there does not have a clue about the president's actual condition, from everything I've been told, nor do others.

So --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: But, Carl, you mentioned the vice president.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: You mentioned the vice president. I want to ask you about that. He's still on the trail. He's headed to Salt Lake City next hour for the debate.

He's tested negative. But Kayleigh McEnany tested negative repeatedly and then she tested positive. And Pence was in very close proximity to many people who now are testing positive for coronavirus.

Why hasn't the vice president quarantined?

BERNSTEIN: You would have to ask the vice president that.

Except what comes to mind here is just the politics of this and winning reelection by any means necessary are all important as opposed to, again, the national security of the United States, the well-being of its people, and now the well-being of its leaders.

We have a government in quarantine right now as a result, once again, of the president's negligence at that super-spreader event, that show that was put on.

Rather than a safe venue, rather than a safe ceremony at which his nominee for the Supreme Court could be introduced, he put on a show with a statement once again that masks don't count, that health doesn't count, that spacing and distance between people doesn't count. So as a result, we have a continuation not only of the cover-up that

we've had throughout this pandemic, but the cavalier recklessness of a president of the United States taking a joyride yesterday.

More of the same attitude. Exposing the Secret Service agents to the danger of this terrible, terrible pathogen.

Look, let's be simple about this. It's back to covering Donald Trump by the press in a way it's always needed to be -- he's always needed to be covered. Follow the money, follow the lies, and now following the science.

Because what we are now getting, the science has, once again, been suppressed. We have no idea -- can you imagine this? We have no real idea of his medical condition, the severity of his illness.

KEILAR: No, we don't know.

Carl Bernstein, as always, great to see you. Thanks for being with us.

BERNSTEIN: Good to see you.

Still ahead, the National Security Council finally gets guidance to wear masks even though staff have been asking for that since February.

Plus, Joe Biden weighs in on whether he is game for another debate, as he hits the campaign trail in Miami today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:43:06]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

KEILAR: We have breaking news. The president says that he's going to be leaving the hospital.

This is what he just tweeted, "I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 p.m. Feeling really good," he said.

"Don't be afraid of COVID. Don't let it dominate your life. We have developed under the Trump administration some really great drugs and knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago."

I want to get to Jeremy Diamond there at Walter Reed.

I mean, I have a hard time believing, Jeremy, that he feels better than he did 20 years ago. We have seen how he's doing. We know his oxygen in recent days has dipped. This just seems like a complete fabrication.

Also the fact that he's saying not to let COVID dominate your life is very disrespectful of -- look at the screen. Almost 210,000 deaths here in America alone.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Brianna, at the end of the day, this is the president doing what he wants to do. This is the president taking control, taking the wheel here and deciding that the P.R. aspect of this is certainly more important.

That he does not want to be viewed as being in the hospital for more of a period of time than he's already been here.

We know, over the last 24 hours or so, the president has been agitating both his doctors and his political advisers, telling them he wants to be out of the hospital.

In fact, while the president was tweeting this, I was on the phone with a source close to the president, who was saying the president has pushing to get out.

But the concern among many of the president's advisers is, what happens if the president's condition, which now seems to have gotten better, what happens if it worsens again?

We know that this is a disease where you can start to feel better and then, suddenly, complications can arise. Either complications from the three drugs he's now on to deal with his symptoms of coronavirus, or simply complications from the virus and disease itself.

[14:45:03]

We know there's a risk of significant inflammation that can develop at that five to seven-day period.

So it's -- listen, we'll hear from the doctors in the next hour or so, Brianna. But it's likely this is not a decision that the doctors encouraged.

I'm sure they would have preferred to see the president of the United States stay in the hospital, at least to be monitored since he is already here, of course.

But this is the president of the United States taking control, deciding he wants to manage the message here.

But the big risk, Brianna, if the president of the United States goes back to the White House and then has to be helicoptered back to the hospital, those won't be the optics that the president wants.

And that is one of the main concerns among many of the president's advisers.

KEILAR: He's on a five-day course of one of his very aggressive drugs. He won't even have completed that.

I think you're on very firm ground, Jeremy, when you say this was probably over the best advice of doctors. We've had doctor after doctor on today, who says this is not the day for the president, having checked into hospital, knowing what we know about his condition, to leave.

So you're there at Walter Reed, Jeremy. If you can stand by for me. I want to bring in Kaitlan Collins who is monitoring the situation at the White House.

Kaitlan, it's hard to believe that the president would be going back to the White House without there being some sort of setup for his care there. He may be the president, but he is a human being.

When you look at how this disease tracks, no one would -- no doctor, no decent doctor would recommend that a patient -- we've had heard this from doctors today -- leave the hospital at this point in time, considering what the president's condition is.

It's hard to imagine that contingency has not been set up at the White House. But do we know anything about that?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: No, that's still to be determined. Of course, we do no they have medical options at the White House.

They're not at the level as they are at Walter Reed. That was the justification to take the president to Walter Reed on Friday.

It's only been 72 hours since he's been there when he leaves today, if he still leaves at 6:30 like he tweeted.

There's still a lot of unanswered questions, Brianna, from the president's doctors. He announced this departure about 20 minutes before the president's doctor is supposed to be briefing reporters.

They still have not said when his last negative test was. They haven't revealed any potential lung damage or pulmonary issues that may have shown up as part of this, as we've seen other patients with COVID-19 have experience. So they have left a lot to be desired.

They're going to have to come out in 20 minutes and make the case for why they decided it was a good idea for the president to leave the hospital.

Of course, he's the president, and he's been advocating for leaving. We know that.

But the sign off for the medical team is going to be a crucial factor in all of this. Hopefully, they will find a way to justify it or be more forthcoming than the last two briefings that we've gotten with these doctors.

But the message he is sending to supporters by saying not to let COVID dominate your lives.

You've got to keep in mind, this is obviously the president of the United States.

And other Americans who have gotten coronavirus don't have access to their own helicopter to take them to their own suite at Walter Reed where they can get the best doctors in the world. And get a combination of drugs, one of which the president got through a compassion use program. It's not something widely administered to other coronavirus patients.

So his circumstances, understandably, are different because he's the president.

But the danger in him sending the message that getting COVID is no big deal is pretty stunning, given the fact he has access to a greater level of care than a regular American would.

The question of whether the president's health is now, we still don't know because we haven't heard from a medical professional in over 24 hours on what the president is up to.

So they're going to come out shortly. Hopefully, they will provide many more answers than they have in the last 48 hours about what's going on with the president's condition.

KEILAR: We have so many questions.

Kaitlan, I want to bring Dr. Gupta into this conversation.

Should he be leaving, is the question. I know Kaitlan is saying he has so many medical resources. Entirely true. Logistical resources.

He's still 74, obese, and has a heart condition. Should he be leaving the hospital right now, Sanjay.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, and then you add on to that where it sounded like he had a period of time where his vital signs were unstable.

That's, again, according to this report from Mark Meadows, he had his oxygenation drop.

He's been on these medications, one of which he hasn't completed the course. It's a medication typically given in the hospital, the Remdesivir, via I.V.

No, these are all the things that make it pretty obvious he should stay in the hospital, not the least of which this is the sort of illness we know people can do sort of OK for a period of time.

He has shown us, based on his low oxygenation levels, this has had an impact on his lungs.

But we also know, if you look at the time course, it is usually within a week or so where people may have a significant inflammatory load in the body, which can be very concerning.

[14:50:04]

So I don't think this is a medical decision. We'll see what the doctors say, as Kaitlan pointed out. But I think this is his decision and him saying, I'm going to do this. I don't think the doctors -- if you're looking at his data, you're

paying attention to risk factors, you're paying attention to how sick he has been, you wouldn't advocate for this at all.

Obviously, he has more resources at the White House. But will everyone be wearing protective equipment when they come in contact with him? Is he truly going to isolate? These are all important issues.

We'll see what happens. But I don't think this is a good medical decision.

KEILAR: Yes. It's hard to imagine someone who goes on a joyride on the street outside of Walter Reed Medical Center agreeing to just stick to their bedroom, right? I mean, in the White House.

That raises serious questions about whether he can do that and keep other people safe.

I want to talk to you about the human part of this, because his tweet here, he said: "Don't be afraid of COVID. Don't let it dominate your life."

And I'm looking at the screen, Sanjay, and I see almost 210,000 deaths in America.

When you think of the monumental loss and the family members who are satellites of that number, and it just vastly expands to show you how many people have had the worst year of their lives this year, and things will never be the same for them.

I don't know. I would say -- I find this tweet to be incredibly disrespectful and just totally missing what's going on.

What's your reaction to it?

GUPTA: Yes, I agree with you, Brianna. And I've talked to a lot of these families. I continue to stay in touch with families that lost people from COVID. They just lean on each other and keep talking to -- it's tough.

I always try to think about how they perceive this sort of stuff, and it's hard. I think it's very disrespectful.

It also sounds like, in some ways, if you read that, "Don't be afraid of COVID." Is he advocating for herd immunity again?

How many times have we been through this, right, where herd immunity could lead to more than a million people, maybe two million people dying, hospitals becoming overwhelmed, so many people becoming infected.

What does, "Don't be afraid of COVID" mean? It's a contagious disease that can kill people. It's something that we can be, you know, protected against to a large degree, but we haven't even done that. So it's disrespectful. But also, in some ways, I worry that he's, again, sort of empowering this dangerous approach of herd immunity, which we know Dr. Scott Atlas has talked about in the past, someone who has the president's ear.

I don't know. I think it's wrong. I think he shouldn't be going. I think he shouldn't be advocating this approach.

And he has the resources that most people in this country don't have in case he does get sick again, which we want him to get well. But this is not the message to send to the American people.

KEILAR: No. And he also is indicating that he thinks he's out of the woods, and he's not. That's what COVID has taught us, that this is a long-term -- this can be a long-term issue.

And here he is just a few days in, right, a few days in? He's not out of the woods here.

I wonder, Sanjay, given what we've seen from the president's doctor, if -- look, any physician, I hear it from you. You're thinking that no doctor would really recommend he would leave right now.

If the doctor disagrees with him leaving, will he admit that in the news conference, do you think?

GUPTA: I doubt it. There's no indication from the two news conferences that he's given so far that he would be willing to admit something like that. He skirts around this.

And he's been obviously put in a very uncomfortable position for him. He's really bending himself into pretzels trying to answer these questions. I doubt that he would answer that.

But I think the doctors who are caring for him at Walter Reed, many of whom are just impeccably credentialed, I just wonder what those conversations are like right now.

Are they basically being told, look, he can get good care at the White House, don't worry about it, are they really thinking he's out of the woods?

It's really a few days from now that may be the most concerning time period for anybody, whether it's the president or anybody else, who has already shown they have developed significant symptoms from COVID.

A lot of people say, well, maybe he won't develop symptoMs. He already has developed symptoMs. That put him on a different trajectory in terms of the risk factors and the risk stratification.

Also, I do have to point out, Brianna, we talked about this medication, Dexamethasone, the steroid. It can be a very effective medication, especially for critically ill patients. It can really tamp down the inflammation in people very, very quickly.

The problem is that is not treating the underlying disease goes away. That is just treating the symptoms. People may feel better as a result of receiving a few doses of that medication.

[14:55:06]

But that doesn't mean the underlying disease has gone away. And when it comes back, it can come back with a vengeance.

And so it's -- I know, if the doctors are listening, I'm not telling them anything they don't already know.

It's just the question of whether they'll apply the most basic evidence-based science and medicine to the president like they would any patient in his position. And right now, it doesn't seem like they are.

KEILAR: Yes. And in the end, he's the president, right? You talk about those conversations. I imagine those conversations they are having, Sanjay, are unlike anything they've ever had when it comes to treating a patient.

I want to bring in Brian Stelter, Sanjay, into this conversation.

The words in this tweet of his --

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT & CNN HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES": Yes.

KEILAR: -- mirrors the rhetoric we've heard on FOX News.

STELTER: Definitely, about COVID not being that bad.

The president appears almost saying he recommends getting sick by saying, "I feel better than I did 20 years ago."

He's acting like he's drinking from the fountain of youth, and thanks to COVID he's better. This is crazy, Brianna. It's like he's back to denying COVID while he still has the disease.

First, he didn't want to go to Walter Reed. Then, when he was there, he wanted to leave right away and get back to the White House. Now he says he's leaving.

By the way, note the timing, Brianna, 6:30 p.m., the nightly newscasts. They're not as big as they were, but they still have a big audience.

I think he wants that return shot with Marine One that he had on Friday night around the same time when he left.

I'm struck by who he's headed home to the. He's going home to the first lady, who is actually the more responsible one. She's the one showing leadership. She is being a role model by isolating himself in the White House.

The president is the one showing worst practices and the first lady is showing best practices.

KEILAR: When he goes back there, Brian, it's worth pointing out, this is going to be a West Wing that's shut down.

Right now, if you walk up into the West Wing area that the press has access to, there aren't the people there that are normally there. They've gone home because they've been exposed to people who are positive for coronavirus. They could have it themselves.

STELTER: Yes, and this is something that people are still actively being tested, awaiting test results.

There are longer than usual lines in Washington, D.C., today because there are so many people in the city that are worried they've become sick because of this White House outbreak.

And he's going right back into the middle of that?

It would seem to me, from a purely cynical political calculation, how would this actually help him win over voters?

Maybe that's not what he's thinking about. Maybe he's just trying to stand with what he said for eight months about downplaying the disease.

KEILAR: It's too late. We've been awake all weekend watching what's going on, so good luck with that.

Sanjay, I do want to ask you about, if the president is returning to the White House, what would be prudent to put in place in terms of medical equipment or even additional expertise to make sure that they could be prepared if things do go south?

GUPTA: Yes. Well, part of this is to isolate the president, the patient in this case, because he has coronavirus. So he needs to be isolated within the White House.

Anybody that comes in contact with him is going to need to be in personal protective equipment. And that's going to be a bit of a risk, obviously, there.

The White House has got all kinds of different resources. They have a White House medical unit there.

But are they going to have -- Dr. Conley, I'm sure, will be there. Will they have other experts, pulmonologists, doctors that are going to be at the White House, that are going to be on very close standby?

As far as machinery goes, one of the reasons you have someone like the president in a hospital is that you also have proximity to the intensive care unit, should he need to be in the intensive care unit.

They don't have those kinds of facilities there. They don't have advanced imaging there, things like that.

I don't know what they can put in place to make it as good as it needs to be. That's, I'm sure, what drove the decision making on Friday when they sent him to the hospital in the first place.

Again, they're pulling him back out of the hospital, I'm sure, because of his own sort of desire to do that and really pushing for it.

But, you know, this might be a situation where he comes home and then may have to go back to the hospital again if he worsens. Because as good as the White House medical unit is, it can't take care of all the things he may need.

KEILAR: If they need to do some imaging to check his lungs again -- and we know when it comes to COVID patients, that is something that can change over time.

They wouldn't be able to do that?

GUPTA: Well, they could probably do a chest x-ray and things like that. I don't know that they can do a C.T. scan. I don't think they have that kind of imaging.

But I think it's more the question of, what are you going to do about it. They could probably give him supplemental oxygen, if he needs high flow oxygen, if he needs to be prone, his position needs to be changed.

I guess with lots of -- bringing in lots of manpower, essentially creating a unit within the White House, they could do that.

But you know, what would be a lot easier is to do it at the hospital where they already have those resources.

[15:00:00]

So it's going to create a lot of work and resources trying to make this happen in the White House. Possible, perhaps, but very challenging.

KEILAR: Very much, indeed.