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Trump Downplays Virus, Says, Don't be Afraid of COVID; Trump Downplays Virus despite 210,000 Deaths in U.S.; Michelle Obama Says, Vote for Biden Like Your Lives Depend On It. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 06, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: A very good Tuesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN NEWSROOM: And I'm Poppy Harlow.

Just hours out of the hospital and a still infected with COVID, a virus that has killed more than 210,000 Americans, the president is back to downplaying this pandemic, comparing it to the flu and claiming it is, quote, in most populations, far less lethal, not based in fact.

Remember, privately, he told journalist Bob Woodward in February that COVID was more lethal than the flu. And facts are more Americans have died from COVID-19 than during the past five flu seasons combined.

SCIUTTO: Follow the facts, follow the data.

Also this morning, we've learned that the CDC offered to help the White House do contact tracing to help stem the outbreak surrounding President Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis. The White House refused that offer. Health experts say that decision putting lives and health at risk. You contact trace to see who is infected so they don't infect other people, their families, grandparents, but they're not taking the CDC's help.

Let's begin with CNN's John Hardwood, he is at the White House.

The president, we should note clearly, because the doctors say, that has still has COVID and the typical course of the illness takes it days beyond where we are right now. Tell us what we're expecting from him today and in the coming days despite that fact.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: What we're expecting, Jim, is more dangerous behavior. We've seen it this morning on Twitter when he sent the message that Poppy alluded to, telling people to get used to living with COVID. It's less lethal for many people than the flu. That's not true. That's the approach that's led to more than 210,000 deaths so far. We've seen it in his personal behavior where the president busted out of Walter Reed yesterday, insisted on coming home. His ego compels him not to look weak and so he decided to come home, march up those steps, rip off his mask, put the resident staff in danger at the White House, people who work him and with him are now actively afraid of the president because he is, of course, infectious.

And the president, as you indicated, Jim, is not out of the woods. This is an unpredictable disease. He may have pneumonia. His doctors won't say one way or the other. And at the same time this is all happening, his political health is rapidly deteriorating, as we saw from our CNN poll this morning, down 16 points to Joe Biden nationally. And we've seen the same trend in key states, guys.

HARLOW: John, stay with us. Let's bring in to this conversation White House Correspondent from Reuters, Jeff Mason. Good to have you here, Jeff, as well.

Again, just in terms of a lack of transparency, the White House is not saying and will not lay out the number of west wing staffers who tested positive, not to mention folks that work in the White House and have worked there for years routinely under different administrations. It's your job to report on the White House, go to the White House. How do you feel about that? Are you comfortable going there at this point?

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, REUTERS: Well, to your first point, Poppy, you're absolutely right. They're not giving specifics about those numbers, but what we do know is that those numbers are continuing to increase. And as John alluded to, there are staffers who are, I think, concerned themselves about going to the White House who are staying home and quarantining for that reason.

As far as journalists are concerned, all I can say is it certainly puts us in a bind. But it's important to us, as it is to all of you, I know, that we continue to cover the most important -- the most important leader of the world. And, unfortunately, that requires taking on some risk right now.

SCIUTTO: Jeff, the president notably instructed you to take off your mask when you asked him a question a number of weeks ago, part of a consistent public message from this president, including last night that masks don't work, unnecessary. Here is that moment.

Again, as someone who is in that building, right, interacting with staff from the White House and now many of whom we know have been infected, are they responding at all to your understandable concerns about your own health and safety?

MASON: Well, as far as the mask issue, Jim, you're right to raise it. And to reference what he did last night, that's just been part generally of an ethos that this president has set about masking, making it political instead of following the health guidelines.

[10:05:00]

The time that you're referring to with me, I left my mask on because I was around people, and that is what (INAUDIBLE) are.

More broadly, in terms of communicating with the press corps, the White House Correspondents' Association, it has kept journalists informed to the best of its ability about the situation and continues to encourage people not to go into the White House unless they absolutely have to.

Reuters, of course, is part of the pool, as all the networks are in a rotated basis. And so we continue to go in and to serve and to fulfill those responsibilities.

HARLOW: Thank you for doing that, to both of you, for being there. You got to cover it, but you shouldn't be in danger while you do. We appreciate it.

SCIUTTO: Or put your families in danger.

Let's speak now to CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, good to have you on.

I'm not asking you to diagnoses from afar. It's not your job and not something doctors want to do. It's just that because the information flow from the White House has been conflicting, sometimes misleading. I just want to ask big picture of your best judgment of where things stand based on the treatments that the president is taking based on the health data that's at least public. Because there's a lot that's not, but also this video I want to play again of the president last night at the top of the stairs at the White House and what, if anything, you saw from his behavior then.

Where does the president's health stand, as best we can assess?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, so, first of all, just as this video is playing, and I know there's been a lot of chatter about this video, and as you point out, Jim, people shouldn't diagnose anything from videos. The chatter has really been about, is the president short of breathe up there. He just obviously walked up a flight of stairs, he's 74 years old, he's obese, so people are going to be a little winded. Is this something more?

What they're pointing to mouth breathing. When you're mouth breathing like this, or you using accessory muscles to breathe, does that give some indication that he still has some residual dysfunction of his lungs. Again, I'm only addressing it because there's been so much chatter about this and we don't know. I mean, what we heard from the doctors earlier in the day was that his vital signs were good, they were normal and that they had some troubles on Friday with his vital signs but he had stabilized.

I think the larger issue, I think, to your point, Jim, is that every step of the way, you learn things about a patient's sort of risk stratification. We already knew that he was at increased risk because of his age and pre-existing conditions. When we heard the president also had a couple periods of time when he had low oxygenation and required supplemental oxygen, that put him into another risk category. When we found that they were giving him these various medications, including steroids, in particular, which are typically reserved for more seriously ill patients, that put him in another risk stratification.

So you have got to take all these information together and sort of try to assess how is the patient doing, which, again, I'm sure the doctors at Walter Reed are doing that, even if they're not communicating that very effectively or very well to the public.

Overall, I would say the odds are on the president's side of a recovery, and that's based on large data streams from around the world now in this pandemic. But there is a concern that these doctors have clearly telegraphed about the president's health.

HARLOW: Sanjay, part of the message from the president last night there was, quote, don't let it dominate your lives. Don't let COVID dominate your lives. Doesn't that need to be qualified by the fact that he is getting so many things in terms of treatment and care and around the clock observation that most Americans with COVID do not have access to?

GUPTA: Yes, absolutely, Poppy. I mean, you know, it's -- he's had the world class sort of treatment here. He's probably had treatments that are in combination things that very few, if any, people in the world have had access to. And he's the president, so that makes sense. But, yes, he got sick from this disease. That was pretty clear, at least from what the doctors told us.

There was a concern for, you know, Thursday night into Friday that led to a -- essentially a medevac from the White House to Walter Reed. And then he's getting these three medications, one of which isn't even authorized under emergency use and the other two have emergency use authorization but, really, these medications together have not really been used in conjunction.

So it is a very aggressive treatment that he's been able to receive and maybe that's the reason that he is doing better than he was before. We're not sure. Maybe he was just going to improve on his own. We don't know.

But the thing about that that struck me, Poppy, in addition to, you know, whatever this coronavirus -- you don't need to fear it. What does that mean, you don't need to fear it?

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I mean, it is a contagious, deadly disease that has led to 210,000 people losing their lives. Is he advocating for a herd immunity strategy? You don't need to fear it, so just do whatever you want and let the infection rip through the country. We know what that would likely do. It would lead to close to 2 million people dying, hospitals becoming overwhelmed and probably bringing the country to a screeching halt.

So that was really, really, I thought, obviously taking us in absolutely the wrong direction. SCIUTTO: Sanjay, you've learned some new details about how the presidential candidates were tested before the debate. Was it sufficient, in particular, has the White House been honest, right, about the president's status there before the debate as well?

GUPTA: So, this was interesting to us because we talk a lot about testing and what should be required for schools, for getting businesses open. When we looked at the -- Cleveland Clinic has been overseeing the medical procedures for these first debates, for this first debate, and they will be for the other debates as well. And at least for the first debate, what was surprising was that the campaigns did have to provide evidence of a negative test, but that negative test, it could have been done anywhere up to 72 hours before the debate. So that could have been, you know, Saturday, Sunday even before the debate on Tuesday.

The other thing is that it only needed to be an emergency authorized type of test. It didn't need to be the gold standard PCR test, it could have been an antigen test which have a higher false negative rate. And then, Jim, it was sort of an honor system there as well. They didn't go back and look at the test. You just had to say basically, these people have tested negative within the last 72 hours.

So there were a lot of loopholes for something that would be so significant. I was really surprised by that coming from the Cleveland Clinic. I'm not sure why they had such loose guidelines. They could have demanded a PCR test that day, which still isn't perfect but would have, I think, been a lot safer.

HARLOW: We got another briefing, Sanjay, yesterday from the doctors taking care of the president. And I wonder if you felt like we got more clarity this time or no.

GUPTA: You know, not really. I mean, we knew on Sunday when one of the doctors said the president could go home tomorrow, right away, just having covered these types of stories so many times, I knew the president was going home the next day because they set the expectation. There was no way the president wasn't going home the next day. It would have been seemed like a failure if he didn't go home. So they basically had boxed themselves into that corner at that point saying that he was possibly going to go home the next day.

What we still don't know is why these various medications were added, like what triggered that. Again, the steroids, in particular, are a medication typically given to severely or critically ill patients. It has significant side effects. It can change people's behavior, make them not on able to sleep, restless, really hungry. And it's not a medication you give lightly. Remdesivir is a medication that should only be given in hospitals. And the White House is a residence like no other but still this obviously violates just the most basic protocols here.

I think, to your question, what we didn't hear probably told us more than what we did hear. We didn't hear whether or not he has pneumonia. We didn't hear the results of his lung scans. We don't know how his heart has sort of responded. We heard lab values were returning to normal. Well, that means, were they abnormal? We don't know if he's on a blood thinner, which would give an indication of how serious doctors think this is as well. Could he develop clotting, that could put him

at increased risk of heart or stroke or something like that.

So, we still don't have the basic sort of picture of the president's health, which is very similar to back in November of last year, you remember, when he had that trip to Walter Reed, we still don't know what that was about, and that was a significant trip as well. We never learned almost a year later.

HARLOW: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you for being here, as always, helpful answers for us all.

So the president says, do not be afraid of coronavirus. Tell that though, to the families of the more than 210,000 Americans who have died from this pandemic. We'll speak to one who lost her father and who is a doctor right now going through a vaccine trial.

SCIUTTO: And this is a sad story, a real one. CNN shows you the new reality facing millions of Americans amid the pandemic, families struggling simply to keep food on the table.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We all live check by check. But now, it's not a check, it's a box, box and a half to stretch out for seven days.

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HARLOW: Even as the president continues to fight coronavirus, he is downplaying it, this morning, again, falsely comparing it to the flu and telling Americans don't let it, quote, dominate your life. The reality, the unavoidable tragic reality is that more than 210,000 Americans have died in this pandemic.

Dr. Chris Pernell lost her father to the virus. Let me read you part of a powerful new piece she wrote out this morning. Quote, my father is one of the too many people who the pandemic killed. On April 13th in a hospital nearly four miles from the hospital where I work, my dad slips away. A heroic man who seemingly can survive anything, including the Jim Crow south and the weight of chronic conditions.

He cannot withstand COVID's blow but the president parades in a car while he is supposed to be hospitalized and under isolation.

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Rather, I drive my car across the city trying to reach my dad in time to say a final goodbye, but he dies as soon as I park and turn off the ignition.

Dr. Chris Pernell joins me now. She is a physician at Newark University Hospital, also volunteer in a clinical trial for Moderna's vaccine. I'm so sorry. I mean, I've known from having you on that your father passed, but to read those words, I didn't know what it was like for you. And I'm sorry.

And I wonder if you can respond as a daughter who lost a parent to what you have seen from the president and heard from him and then we'll get your response as a doctor.

DR. CHRIS PERNELL, PHYSICIAN, NEWARK UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: Poppy, thanks for having me on this moment. It was surreal the experience of losing my father to this pandemic, right? We had plans for how my father would live out the home stretch of his life. My father had so much into me as his daughter, so much into our family, so much into this nation, frankly, being a self-taught man in physics and math and sciences and going on to be a research scientist.

And I didn't expect this pandemic to steal his life and, furthermore, I didn't expect a president of the United States to ridicule, to mock and to just show just disregard from the sanctity of the 210,000-plus lives that have been lost. I was actually befuddled at what I saw when I saw the president parading in a car. And then to add insult to injury, what he tweeted out yesterday, don't let it dominate your life? How do you say that? My father is gone. I will never see my father on this side of earth again.

And I've had people ask me, how is it that you can speak with courage or how is it that you can take on the president of the United States? I've had people ask, are you concerned for your job? Are you concerned that people will say this is a Republican or a Democrat issue? No, it's not. This is an American issue. This is a human issue. I see the president like a Goliath and the American public as David. So we have to say, follow the science and follow the facts.

HARLOW: Dr. Pernell, the president has been given many treatments that are unavailable to most Americans. Did your father have access to Regeneron's monoclonal antibody cocktail or to remdesivir?

PERNELL: No, he did not.

HARLOW: Did he have around the clock treatment the way your president has gotten it? He didn't have any of that?

PERNELL: No, my dad didn't have that. My dad didn't have access to any experimental treatments. Let me tell you how I found out my father was about to die.

I was actually on social media and a peer and a colleague whose father had just died in a different hospital said, I just called and I found out my father was found dead on a bathroom floor. And I said, let me call the hospital. I would frequently call to check on my father, and it was busy. There were times when his care team couldn't get back to me right away.

And I had someone nonchalantly say, well, you know he's probably likely to die. My father was dead no more than 12 hours after that conversation. So when I see a president of the United States, I'm not only thinking about my father, I'm thinking about the lens of equity. I'm thinking of the black and brown lives who have been decimated by this virus and who have not had the level of access or the level of care that the president has been provided. And so it feels as if he's mocking and I really, really am calling on others to just stand up and say enough is enough.

HARLOW: I'm so sorry that your father couldn't get access to all of that. I mean, it does show that what is available is unequal. You are -- because in so many ways, because of your dad, participating in Moderna's vaccine trial, I understand you just had your second shot. That would be the final one of it on Friday. How did that go? How are you feeling?

PERNELL: I feel fine. I feel great. I can tell you that I, again, had pain, I had tenderness, it probably feels more like the tetanus shot that you get, if you get that tetanus vaccination. I did have fatigue, which was unlike what I experienced when I received the first injection. But it went away. It went after 24 hours. And I had a lingering headache and some joint pain but it was worth it.

And when I say it was worth it, I don't know if I have placebo, if I had the active vaccine but the process is worth it because we have to get at solutions and we have to allow medical science, public health science to help us fight our way through this pandemic.

HARLOW: Dr. Pernell, thank you for being part of that trial and for being here today. Thanks so much.

PERNELL: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Yes, our heart goes out to her family.

Well, the former first lady, Michelle Obama, makes an impassion case for Joe Biden while offering something that had past been rare for her, that's a blistering criticism of the president directly more, next.

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HARLOW: Well, today marks exactly four weeks, that's it, 28 days, until Election Day.