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Pence Claims Trump Listens to Scientists Despite Evidence He Doesn't; Calls for Notre Dame President's Resignation after Maskless White House Visit; Pelosi Pushes Bill Giving Congress Roll in Removing Presidents; What a Trump Reelection Would Mean to U.S. Allies & Enemies. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired October 09, 2020 - 14:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:32:29]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Look, neither candidate really answered most of the questions in the vice-presidential debate this week. We could have learned a lot, but we did not.

But there was one particular response from Vice President Pence that would have embarrassed even Pinocchio.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The climate is changing. The issue is, what is the cause, and what do we do about it? President Trump has made it clear that we're going to continue to listen to the science.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: It's not clear. It's not clear at all. And it's not true. For instance, climate change, which exists and is a problem according to science.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So Obama is talking about all of this with the global warming and -- a lot of it is a hoax. I mean, it's a hoax. It's a money-making industry, OK? It's a hoax, a lot of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: More evidence, according to an extensive database of attacks on science compiled by the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, the Trump administration that is reversed or revoked nearly 70 Obama- era environmental initiatives, with many more in the works.

They have stopped studying or releasing data or scientific opinions on farm pollution, how truck pollution affects kids, and how some toxic chemicals affect American workers who use them. The president pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement to

combat global warming, he's eviscerated the Endangered Species Act and drained scientific expertise from agencies across the U.S. government.

You likely remember when he rebuffed his government meteorologist by drawing on their map with a Sharpie to extend a hurricane forecast zone into Alabama, because he had said it would be affected, even though scientists did not.

According to "Axios," he once inquired about nuking hurricanes, dropping nuclear weapons on them.

And on the topic of water-saving showers and toilets:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once. They end up using more water. So EPA is looking at that very strongly, at my suggestion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: And if Trump's quixotic approach to science is too subtle, there's his almost constant refrain on wind energy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We don't like that building. The windows are too large. OK, let's rip it down and build a new one. What windows are you going to have? We're not going to have windows anymore. Environmental.

[14:35:01]

So, it's -- you know, they loved wind, too, the big windmills, the -- I always say, the greatest graveyard in the world for birds, just walk under a windmill. You will see more dead birds than you will ever imagine.

What's happening -- including eagles. You know, in California, they put you in jail if you shoot a bald eagle, right? You go to jail, right? These windmills are knocking them out of the sky all day long. It's unbelievable. Yet, they want wind.

And wind also, it's very hard to store the electricity from wind.

So if you go home and you want to watch television because President Trump is on and you want to watch one of his very brilliant State of the Union addresses --

(CHEERING)

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: -- if the wind isn't blowing, the husband looks at the wife and says, darling, I'm sorry, you can't watch tonight, the wind is not blowing. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: That claim aside, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service, cats remain the biggest threat to birds. Windmills are farther down the list, behind coal, oil and power line.

On the science of COVID-19, who could forget this one?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And then I see there is a disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can disinfect it, like that? By injection inside or almost a cleaning?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: He's promoted unproven drugs. Trump political appointees, non- scientists, edited or slow-rolled reports. They altered testing guidelines so they were less scientific.

They pushed the CDC to make their school reopening guidelines less scientist so they would fit the president's false rhetoric on why it's safe for kids to all go back to school in person.

And after scientists and vaccine makers vowed to take the necessary precautions on vaccines, he baselessly said it was because of politics, not science when it's actually the reverse.

His rush on a vaccine is clearly because of politics and not science.

Mind you, this list we have gone through is far from exhaustive.

And when it comes to Trump's reputable scientific advisers, he dismisses and undermines them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Dr. Redfield confirmed that it looked like it was November, December the first doses would be able to be distributed. But then he said that the vaccine for the general likely would not be available until next summer, maybe even early fall.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think he made a mistake when he said that. It's just incorrect information.

Dr. Fauci's made some mistakes. He's a little bit of an alarmist. That's OK. A little bit of an alarmist.

CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: He's a bit of an alarmist?

TRUMP: A little bit of an alarmist.

Dr. Fauci, at the beginning, said, this will pass, don't worry about it, this will pass. He was wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KEILAR: Sometimes Trump likes to play scientist on television, pretending he's better qualified to opine about science than real scientists.

Here's what he said during a visit to the CDC back in March.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Every one of these doctors said, how do you know so much about this. Maybe I have a natural ability.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: He also played scientist on the ground in California in the midst of record-setting wildfires, refusing to acknowledge the science that climate change contributes to wildfires.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It will start getting cooler.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wish --

TRUMP: You just watch.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wish science agreed with you.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: Well, I don't think science knows, actually.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Well, science knows all right. That's literally the whole point of science.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

And next, Notre Dame's president under fire for not wearing a mask when he attended the Supreme Court ceremony at the White House. He's now tested positive. I'll speak to a student who started a petition calling for him to resign.

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[14:43:07]

KEILAR: Some Notre Dame students are demanding the president of the school resign.

Father John Jenkins tested positive for the coronavirus after appearing at the likely super-spreader event at the White House for the Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. At least a dozen of the attendees, including President Trump and the

first lady, tested positive for the virus after this Rose Garden ceremony and other events that were indoors.

Father Jenkins was seen there without a mask. You can see him on your screen there, shaking hands in this crowd of more than 200 people. There was no social distancing.

And he has apologized for his behavior. He says he regrets his, quote, "error of judgment" in not wearing a mask.

And he called his positive diagnosis a, quote, "good reminder for me and perhaps for all about how vigilant we need to be."

Ashton Weber is one of the Notre Dame students who drafted the resolution for Jenkins to resign, which was signed by more than 200 students there.

Ashton, wrote in the school newspaper, "The Observer," that his diagnosis strengthened your belief that he should resign. So you already believe this.

Why did it strengthen that belief?

ASHTON WEBER, NOTRE DAME STUDENT WHO HELPED START PETITION DEMANDING UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT STEP DOWN: Yes. Hi, Brianna. Thank you for having me.

KEILAR: Hello.

WEBER: I think it strengthens my belief that Jenkins needs to resign. Even in his apology to student for even attending this event, he wrote -- you know, you just mentioned that he wrote this serves as a call to all of us to be vigilant.

The truth is students have been very vigilant. Since we got back to campus, we saw a massive spike in cases. And following the spike, I've seen so many people doing such a great job of following the rules and the precautions that our university has set in place and Jenkins himself has asked us to follow.

So for him to go to the White House and to completely disregard those guidelines, I don't think it's fair for him to continue to serve as the president and the person who has been enforcing the rules that he himself can't follow.

[14:45:02]

KEILAR: And part of the case you make in this op-ed is that this isn't the first time he's ignored prevention measures.

WEBER: Yes.

KEILAR: Tell us about that.

WEBER: Yes. That's correct. So before I even came to campus, I think it was August 6th, Jenkins

was pictured posing with over 20 students in a large cluster. They were wearing masks. But it was still before we had even arrived on campus.

And he had sent us an e-mail earlier that week telling us that we had to follow social distancing and mask wearing at all times.

So to not even be on campus yet and already see him bending the rules was a scary thing for students because a lot of us just didn't know how it was going to shake out this semester.

KEILAR: So you have these restrictions. You have these recommendations. There's a ban on unnecessary travel. You guys are being advised against it, and yet he went to Washington.

On the flip side of this, proponents of attending this event would say this is a huge deal for a Catholic university to be a part of what is likely going to be another Catholic Supreme Court justice.

What do you say to that?

WEBER: Yes. I think I wrote this in the op-ed as well, but I understand that maybe he felt the need to attend that event.

I don't know that I can speak to whether or not it qualifies as necessary or unnecessary travel. I'm not entirely sure what guidelines the university set to quantify necessary versus unnecessary.

But either way, he has asked us, the student body, to participate in every event and participate in our classes with the utmost precaution that we can take in every moment.

So to see him attending an event -- whether or not it was necessary, he wasn't taking the most precautions possible. So he's not following his own rules. He also wasn't being as safe as possible.

So it's disappointing to see him there, and to be just not wearing a mask, walking around, shaking hands with people who have refuted the importance of COVID-19 repeatedly.

KEILAR: We have watched this event and the impact of its spread across the country. You're dealing with it there in Indiana.

Ashton Weber, thank you so much for joining us from Notre Dame to talk with us. We appreciate it.

WEBER: Yes. Thank you.

KEILAR: Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats are now pushing a bill that would give Congress a role on deciding whether a president can be removed from office. President Trump is now claiming it's not aimed at him, but Joe Biden. We'll have that just ahead.

First though, an update on how one of our "CNN Heroes" is fairing in this pandemic. We honored Scott Strode and his non-profit, The Phoenix, back in 2012. They provide free fitness classes and a sober support community for thousands.

When COVID-19 forced them to close their gyms, they found ways to stay connected online.

CNN's Phil Mattingly checked out one of their classes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Keep moving, everyone. Let's try to get two to three more. You have 20 seconds.

Nice job, Phil.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What was your thought when coronavirus first started to spread and lockdowns really started to kick into gear?

SCOTT STRODE, CNN HERO: I just knew that that social isolation was going to be a big risk for relapse for a lot of people. So pretty quickly we pivoted to offering virtual programs.

We knew we had to deep people connected in this uncertain and stressful time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Three, two, one, and down for the sit-up.

STRODE: It just always lifts my heart to log into a Phoenix virtual class, meet something in recovery who is doing the workout in their basement somewhere in Tennessee, where we don't even have in-person programs, but they can come to The Phoenix anyway.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, nice job, everyone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:48:38]

KEILAR: You can learn more about Scott's great program. You can go to CNNheroes.com.

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[14:53:38]

KEILAR: President Trump's increasingly erratic behavior is raising questions about his judgment as he battles COVID-19 from the White House.

Now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is putting her weight behind legislation to create a commission of medical professionals that could judge whether a president is fit for office.

Here's what she had to say about the timing of this announcement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): This is not about President Trump. He will face the judgment of the voters. But he shows the need for us to create a process for future presidents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: I'm joined now by CNN's Fareed Zakaria. He just wrote a book called "Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World." And is the host of this weekend's CNN special, "HOW THE WORLD SEES AMERICA."

Fareed, thank you for joining us.

Realistically, without Senate support, this legislation is going nowhere. What do you think about the premise of it?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: I'm of mixed mind, Brianna, because, on the one hand, it feels overly partisan and it feels like part of this battle royale that goes on between Trump and Pelosi.

But she does highlight an important reality which is true outside of President Trump, which is we don't have a very good system to figure out what happens if the president gets ill, what happens if the president is incapacitated, what happens if the president is even more ill than that.

[14:55:05]

We have a process, if, god forbid, the president were to die. But short of that, there isn't a good process. And maybe there needs to be a slightly more institutionalized process.

But I do think, unfortunately, it's going to be read entirely as a partisan issue.

KEILAR: You do have this special coming up that is looking at the U.S. from a global perspective, which is so important right now.

I want to just take a look with a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

ZAKARIA: Now the queen was holding a reception for NATO leaders at Buckingham Palace.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAKARIA: The mood grew edgy as everyone waited.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAKARIA: Donald Trump was late.

(MUSIC)

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

ZAKARIA: One group of leaders was enjoying itself --

(CROSSTALK)

ZAKARIA: -- Canada's Justin Trudeau, Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron, Princess Anne, and Mark Rutte, the Dutch minister.

(LAUGHTER)

ZAKARIA: They were caught in a hot-mic moment --

(CROSSTALK)

ZAKARIA: -- making fun of the American president.

(CROSSTALK)

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: They were essentially laughing at the U.S. president there. That's remarkable.

ZAKARIA: The president of the United States, the most powerful country in the world, being mocked by some of its own staunchest allies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Fareed, it's this moment where it sort of pulls back the curtain on what they're really thinking or their attitude toward the president.

What more should we expect from this special?

ZAKARIA: Well, you know, that is a symbolic moment. But it's a symbolic moment of great significance, because one of the characteristics of Donald Trump's foreign policy has been that he has taken a particular ire, he has taken particular umbrage at America's closest allies.

It is one thing for an American president, who dislikes the world, dislikes America's engagement with it, thinks we should be -- have more of an isolationist mindset than maybe Trump does.

But he has taken out his wrath mostly at America's traditional allies, the countries that have fought and died in American-led wars for 70 years.

The countries he likes are Putin's Russia, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Salman, Turkey's Erdogan. It's the strong men. He admits to having fallen in love with Kim Jong-Un, probably one of the most repressive dictators on the planet.

So it's that an odd juxtaposition that's one of the things we explored.

Trump's world view is very unlike that of any American president for the last 70 years.

And I thought it was very important for us to highlight what a great shift in American diplomacy this has been and how it had affected America's image and its relations with the world.

KEILAR: His world view is so different, and so the world's view of him in America is so different.

And I wonder, you know, knowing that, what would a second term -- if he is reelected, what would a second Trump term mean for those key relationships between the U.S. and its traditional allies, and as well its enemies?

ZAKARIA: I think, with the allies, we can say for sure. It would be the beginning of the end of the great American alliance system that has been built over the last 70 years, starting with Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower.

Because Trump doesn't really believe in it. He says this openly. I'm not speculating. Trump has wondered whether we should quit NATO. He's wondering why we're protecting South Korea.

He's talked about -- he views relations with allies as some kind of transaction, almost like, you know, a real estate landlord with his tenant. All he's trying to figure out is, are you paying me enough rent?

It's a very limited, selfish transactional view that doesn't see the broader scope of it, the degree to which it has led to peace and stability in the world, which has, of course, greatly benefited America.

So I think, in those terms, it's a very consequential election, because those allies will go their own way if it's a second Trump term, I think.

KEILAR: Fareed, thank you very much. We're really looking forward to this special you have coming up this weekend. It's called "HOW THE WORLD SEES AMERICA." It airs on Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. Eastern.

And our special coverage continues now with Jake Tapper.

[15:00:06]