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Trump Planning Rally Tomorrow, Won't Say if He was Tested This Week; Louisiana Bracing for Fourth Hurricane of the Year; Plot to Kidnap Michigan Governor Exposed as Political Tension Roils Nation. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 09, 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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[10:00:00]

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

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

Right now, the outer bands of Hurricane Delta are lashing the gulf coast. This Category 3 storm expected to make landfall in Louisiana tonight. People there are still recovering from Hurricane Laura, now bracing for life-threatening storm surge, flash flooding and even possible tornadoes. We'll take you there, live.

SCIUTTO: And right now, these sobering statistics, coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are surging to just concerning numbers in most states across the country. President Trump says that he wants, however, to begin holding large public rallies as soon as tomorrow. The trouble is we don't know if he's still contagious or not still testing positive. The White House has not been sharing this information.

Let's start with CNN's John Harwood for more on the president saying he wants to start holding rallies this weekend. John, I just wonder if there's anybody in the White House who is cautioning him against that.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, aides have been trying to keep him in the residence. He doesn't want to stay in the residence. He's trying to get back to normal. He's feeling kind of antic right now because he's losing this re-election to Joe Biden, down by ten points in another new national poll this morning.

And he's trying to figure out something to do. He's been phoning into Fox News with a bunch of wild rhetoric, complaining about his cabinet, complaining about his political opponents in the media, saying he wants to prosecute his political opponents, reversing himself on whether or not to negotiate stimulus with Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, reversing himself on whether he's going to debate next Tuesday or not.

And the president, without appearing in public, without letting his doctors be questioned in public, has suggested that he is able. He issued a letter from his doctor yesterday saying that he should be able to resume his activities soon. And the president said he wants to get out on the campaign trail as early as tomorrow.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I think I'm going to try doing a rally on Saturday night if we have enough time to put it together, but we want to do a rally probably in Florida on Saturday night, might come back and do one in Pennsylvania in the following night. And it's incredible what's going on. I feel so good.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Have you had a test since your diagnosis a week ago?

TRUMP: Well, what we're doing is probably the test will be tomorrow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARWOOD: Now, that -- the key point the president mentioned there was he has not had a test yet to affirm that he is now negative for coronavirus. We do not know the state of his health, do not know when he last had a negative test, which would tell us how far we are in the course of his illness. So the bottom line is, it's not clear whether he can safely, for himself or for others, return to the campaign trail and we'll see how hard he tries to bust out of the White House and do it.

HARLOW: John Harwood, thanks very much.

Way too many unanswered questions. Let's get some answers from our Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Good Sanjay.

I had to look back at the transcript for the actual quotes to actually believe that, yes, the president wants to hold a rally tomorrow and on Sunday in Florida and Pennsylvania, respectively. It reminded me of what his physician, who now says he's cleared to go, said when the president was in the midst of the thick of this. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SEAN CONLEY, WHITE HOUSE PHYSICIAN: If we can get through to Monday with him remaining the same or improving, better yet, then we will all take that final deep sigh of relief.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Monday, as in, three days from now, Monday. So where does this leave us?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, they're trying to accelerate this time schedule. And it doesn't make sense medically, even at the time that Dr. Conley said that this past Monday.

I mean, it was still already feeling like, you know, that was when he was -- the president was getting out of the hospital. It already felt like it was sort of being rushed along. He should be in isolation, he should be in a hospital. He's 74 years old, he's a vulnerable patient and he has shown on top of that that he became symptomatic.

Some people really don't develop symptoms. He did. He needed oxygen. He's been on three experimental therapies. And, look, it was just a week ago that he was essentially medevaced from the White House to the hospital.

So, you know, regardless of whether you're the president, you can say, anybody, 74 years old with that sort of week that he's just had, still on sounds like these steroid medications, which are typically given for ten days, that could be masking a lot of symptoms at this point.

[10:05:06]

But when he comes off of the steroids, he may worsen, which is why I think Dr. Conley sort of made that point in the first place, let's wait until he's off all the medications and see how he does. So, it doesn't make sense. And not the least of which, he still would be considered contagious.

SCIUTTO: Sanjay, you heard the president refuse to answer the simple question, when were you tested, a question that all of us might have to answer, our kids going to school, to show up at a job, right, I mean, things that Americans around the country are being asked. And the presidents, by the way, in the past have been asked to share medical data fulsome. I mean, Reagan underwent a colonoscopy, and colon surgery while in office and we got up-to-date information on that.

Have you ever seen a sitting president refuse to provide this kind of crucial health information?

GUPTA: I mean, you would have to go back quite a bit in history, right, to hear there have been these cover-ups way in the past, you know, presidents going off even in the middle -- on a boat to have surgery to hide it from the public, going back to Kennedy and the medications that he may have been on, was on, as we now know, but not in recent history, Jim.

And the thing about it is, the thing that makes this different as well is that while everyone's entitled to their privacy, to some extent, it is likely different if you're the president, but also we are talking about a contagious, deadly disease here.

So I've had conversations over the past week with lawyers, with ethicists, people who are trying to understand what is the obligation, if you have this disease, you are considered contagious by the CDC's own guidelines, what is the obligation? Now, in the past, when he was contagious in the past, but also going forward over the next several days, because we could show this.

Again, this is basic guidelines, but at least ten days after symptoms is when you would still be considered contagious. You have to not have had a fever for 24 hours. By the way, in this last letter, they didn't even mention whether or not he had a fever. That's how sort of the letter was lacking really basic information. The steroids can also reduce the fever. So is it the steroids, is it him getting better, we don't know.

So there are basic guidelines, which he still doesn't meet. I think it's really worrisome for him, just because of his own health to be doing that, but also for the people around him.

HARLOW: And, Sanjay, what about all of the other tens of thousands of Americans contracting this a day? I mean, we're averaging now 45,000 new COVID cases a day. That's up 8 percent from just a week ago. You have hospitalizations rising in nine states. You have got a field hospital opening in Wisconsin, where they have record hospitalizations. And I'm not saying this to alarm people, I'm saying it to inform people who may have gotten complacent.

Do we know the why here? Like is this because the weather -- the change in the season, it's flu, it's cold season where immune- compromised, or what is it?

GUPTA: Well, I'm glad you raised this, first of all, because we've focused a lot on the president and this is an ongoing pandemic. I think there are two important points. One is there's been this idea circulating for some time that as we open up schools and things like that, it's okay, young people don't really get sick. We can sort of insulate older people, you know, because they are more vulnerable, which is true.

But what we're seeing now, as you look at these trend lines, is the ramifications of that but that's essentially the strategy that we've adopted. Many places, colleges in particular, that are opening up, in Wisconsin, the rates that have gone up are driven primarily by college towns. So we're now seeing the real world sort of young people getting it, they may not be getting sick, but they are still transmitting it to vulnerable populations. Sometimes they don't even know how that's happening, but it's happening, and that's why hospitalization rates are going up and deaths are going up as well, as we start to see the trajectory. You see those upticks, and they are likely to -- like you, I don't want to alarm people, but they are likely to continue to go up.

I do want to show you something that we found deep within the IHME model, and this is important. It speaks to what's happening in Wisconsin. They can predict that purple line is the expected number of hospital beds by the end of this year, by January 1st. And what they're predicting, because we always pay attention to the death toll, they're predicting we would need some 4 million staffed hospital beds in this country.

Well, the problem is that we really only have closer to 1.2 million. And that's why you're hearing about places starting to try and build these field hospitals. They're also going into these cities and looking at buildings, and saying, it's going to be cold outside. Could that building over there, that convention center, as we saw with Javits, now become a hospital setting again? Those are real conversations that are happening. SCIUTTO: Yes, it recalls images we saw in New York at the peak of this early on. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much.

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GUPTA: You got it. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Well, Hurricane Delta is bearing down on some of the same gulf coast areas hit by another storm just weeks ago. We're going to take you there live and get the latest.

Plus, there's new information on what motivated the domestic terror plot, that's what it was, to kidnap the Democratic governor of Michigan.

HARLOW: Also ahead, our exclusive interview with YouTube CEO, Susan Wojcicki. A critical time for the nation, how will they handle election night? Their fight against misinformation, ahead.

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HARLOW: Right now, several coastal communities in the state of Louisiana are bracing for yet another powerful hurricane.

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Hurricane Delta is set to make landfall there tonight, possibly hitting the same areas that were slammed just six weeks ago by Hurricane Laura.

SCIUTTO: The National Hurricane Center says Delta could cause dangerous storm surge.

CNN's Martin Savidge following the latest from Lake Charles, Louisiana. Always an abundance of caution here. How bad do they expect it to be? Can we really know at this point?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, right now, it's a Cat 3, they say, maybe a Cat 2. Last time I was here, six weeks ago for Laura, the real concern was the water. This time, it's the wind. It's easy to see why, just with everything around me.

Let me show you this, this debris, tons of it, like this. This is just aluminum siding, but you can razor sharp, it gets picked up by the wind, through air and, of course, it's got nails to boot, that would slice a person open.

Look down the street and you can see that there is tons and tons and tons of debris in this town. In fact, the city says it's hauled away about 1.5 million cubic tons, but they haven't even scratched the surface here. That all becomes airborne if the winds become tropical or hurricane force and it becomes a battering ram to the buildings and homes that are still standing. It's one of the reasons they pushed so hard for the mandatory evacuation.

I want to show you the drone footage we've got. It's another symptom of what the problem is in this particular town. Blue tarps, they're synonymous in the aftermath of the storm, but they're not meant to survive another one, especially, say, a tropical storm or a hurricane. There were 10,000 homes that were destroyed as a result of Hurricane Laura. Tens and tens of thousands more that were significantly damaged. That means that these buildings have been weakened to a point that the mayor is saying, it's not safe for you to try to ride a storm out in your home that's been weakened. It could collapse around you.

And one last thing I'll show you, the high rise building. Citibank, it's become a symbol of the aftermath of devastation. It was just gutted with the windows and now it looks like a plywood skyscraper pointing up into the air.

And one last thing I'll point out to you, radar hold here. The National Weather Service radar in Lake Charles was taken out by Laura. They'll still be able to see the hurricane via satellite, but things like those tornadoes that suddenly turn up, they'll be hard to spot. It will be more of a danger for this community. Jim and Poppy?

HARLOW: Oh, my goodness, seeing those windows blown out in that Citibank building and also the fact that these tornadoes are expected and they may not know they're coming, that's scary. Marty, thank you for the reporting.

SAVIDGE: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Can you imagine if the roof over your head was a blue tarp right now?

Well, the FBI has foiled a plot to kidnap Michigan's governor by domestic terrorists. Now, more than a dozen men are in custody but the danger from these groups, it's not over. It's a big national problem.

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SCIUTTO: Right now, 13 men are in custody accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and overthrow governments in several states. A law enforcement source tells CNN that some of those men are supporters of what's known as the Boogaloo Movement, which advocates for civil war against liberal political opponents and law enforcement.

I'm joined now by former House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, and Shawn Turner, he's former Director of Communication for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Shawn, Mike, good to have you both on this morning.

MIKE ROGERS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY COMMENTATOR: Thanks, Jim.

SHAWN TURNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Thanks, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Shawn, if I could begin with you, what does an armed terror plot to kidnap a sitting U.S. governor tell you about the state of the domestic terror threat in this country today? TURNER: Well, Jim, it tells me that much like Director Wray over at the FBI said that it is a growing and significant threat. Look, as Mike knows well, we've been watching these groups for quite some time. And we, over the past, I would say, 10 to 15 years, we've seen a significant change in the way they operate.

We've noted that these groups are increasingly looking at foreign terror groups and they're sort of learning from these foreign terror groups and understanding how they operate in order to better operate here in the United States.

These groups are growing in number. The way they communicate and the way they plan is becoming more sophisticated. And, interestingly, enough, these groups are becoming more emboldened. We're seeing these groups going out to peaceful protests and demonstration, demonstrations completely armed and they're out in the open.

So these groups are really sort of coming out of the shadows and making themselves known and it's actually very disturbing.

SCIUTTO: To your point, Shawn, we can play again the video of these armed actors showing up in the Michigan state capitol a number of weeks ago, and I spoke with the lieutenant governor of Michigan in the last hour, who says that he recognizes some of the members of this plot as having been present at that event.

You probably heard, Mike Rogers, the Michigan governor last night and the lieutenant governor again this morning say that the president's rhetoric, things like tweeting out, liberate Michigan, at the time of that armed protest in the capitol and a reluctance to call out white supremacists in definitive terms has encouraged these groups.

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Is that fair criticism, in your view?

ROGERS: Well, I do believe that the president needs to take a stand on this and be very, very clear with his language that he will not tolerate anything of the sort, clearly. I hate to see this issue degrade into a political brawl three weeks before an election, because then it becomes one team against another team on something we should be united on. There is no room for error in not condemning what these folks stand for.

And, remember, they were at that Michigan rally to recruit other people to their cause, which is (INAUDIBLE). And as Shawn talked about their sophistication, meaning they're using good security in their operations and communications. If it weren't for a very brave and courageous soul who said, something is wrong here, and reported it, this may have turned out very, very differently. So I'm encouraging anybody that's who's watching that has any whiff of anything to contact their local police or the FBI to make sure these things don't grow into a thing that actually turns into an actual --

SCIUTTO: It's exactly the warning we heard about Islamic terrorism, right? I mean, if you see something, say something. And the parallels, including the online radicalization are just remarkable.

Shawn Turner, law enforcement is preparing for the idea that this is not isolated, right? But that around Election Day, there are other groups with similar plans for violence. I just wonder, and I know you stay in touch with folks in these quarters, how concerned should Americans be about violence on Election Day from extremist groups like this one?

TURNER: Well, Jim, as you said, I do stay in touch with my former colleagues in this area. And while I will not go as far as to say that this is a blinking red situation, I will say that there is a high state of alert, a high state of concern. And what I find really interesting about it is that that state of alert and concern is not associated with a particular direction that the upcoming election might go.

There is concern that we might see widespread unrest whichever direction the election goes. And as we all know that depending on which direction it goes, that unrest is going to look very different if we have a situation where we have people who are angry because the president lost or people who are angry because Biden won.

So a high state of concern, but not blinking red yet, but something we should all be aware of.

SCIUTTO: Mike, the president has not, in definitive terms, said, I will not stand for this. I mean, you could script it right here. It would be very simple. But you also haven't heard that consistently or often enough or loudly enough from Republican lawmakers. You served in Congress for a number of years.

If you were still serving today, what words do you believe need to be said?

ROGERS: Well, again, this may be the easiest thing to unite around of anything, about condemnation of a group that was arming themselves, training in explosives, surveilling a political figure. But it doesn't matter what party -- it shouldn't matter what party to have some impact on what they believed was overthrowing the government. This should be the easiest thing ever. Everybody ought to be out there condemning this and trying to tamp this thing down.

And, you know, it is disturbing that the FBI came out and said, by the way, during this investigation, that they were worried about these extremist groups actually moving into an action phase. Meaning they were going to do something physical in this. You know, it's not just the six guys hanging around the bonfire drinking beer saying, hey, let's storm the capitol. This was actually an event where they took precautions in their communications, assembled gear, were doing surveillance. Every political figure in America ought to be united in saying, hey, we won't tolerate this. We will pursue you to the ends of the earth and we're going to put you in jail for a very long time. I mean, we just have to get the message out there.

SCIUTTO: Should be simple. I mean, they were testing IEDs, but it's not. Mike Rogers, Shawn Turner, thanks very much to both of you.

HARLOW: It should be simple. You are so right.

Okay. With the election now 25 days away, big tech companies are feeling the pressure to take misinformation offline that is swarming the internet. YouTube is working around the clock on that. We ask the CEO, Susan Wojcicki, their plan for election night, next.

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