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President Donald Trump Repeatedly Claims U.S. Is Rounding The Turn On COVID-19, Despite Surge In Cases Across Multiple States; Dr. Anthony Fauci: U.S. Seeing "Resurgence Of Cases"; NIH Directors: Trump "Not infectious" For Anyone Else; "Washington Post:" No Changes In A.G. Barr's "Unmasking" Probe; Joe Biden & Donald Trump Compete For Older Voters. Aired 12-12:30p ET
Aired October 14, 2020 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[12:00:00]
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JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Hello, everybody. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John King in Washington. Thank you for sharing your day with us.
The president heads to Iowa today, 20 days from the November choice. The president right now in desperate need of a campaign reset. A plea to suburban voters last night captures the state of the campaign. The president is losing and women are running away from his rhetoric.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Suburban women, will you please like me? Please, please. I saved your damn neighborhood, OK?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: That tells you the president understands the current campaign math. Listen to more of that rally, though, and you are reminded he still denies facts and denies science. The president insisted again last night and then just again last hour. The United States, he says, is rounding the final Coronavirus turn, but the pandemic is nowhere near done. And it is making the late campaign statement of its own.
This map lays out nationwide trouble, the very opposite of what you hear from the President of the United States. 36 of the 50 states, that's orange and red on the map, reporting more new Coronavirus infections this week than last week. And notice no green, meaning no states right now are trending down, no states right now trending in the right direction.
Rounding the final turn means the finish line is ahead, the end. Well, the seven-day average of new infections is at 51,000 per day that is a dramatic increase from last month. Sad but simple math. Heading up the hill again, not rounding the final turn.
Plus more cause for concern in the race to treat the vaccine and develop a virus, another trial for therapeutic from Drug Maker Eli Lilly now pressing pause over safety issues. Let's take a closer look at the numbers I just talked to you about and let's pause on this map again.
36 states, that's the red and the orange. Red means 50 percent or higher case count this week compared to last week. 50 percent is a deep red alert. The orange is also bad though, that means more new infections right now when you compare the data to a week ago. More new Coronavirus infections in 36 of the 50 states right now. 14 states holding steady, that's the beige.
You can look all you want, there is no green. No state right now reporting fewer infections today compared to the data from last week, so, heading in the wrong direction. Look where we were just a month ago.
A month ago, a lot of green, 22 states heading down, only 11 states heading up one month ago so look at this map. Green is progress, orange and red is not. This is where we are today. A closer look at how the cases go.
And again, we've all lived through this. About 20,000 cases around Memorial Day, then up into the summer surge close to 70,000 cases many days, came back down some did get here late August, beginning of September, below 40,000 new infections a day. But now we're on the way back up and suddenly that arc going higher, 52,000 infections yesterday back above 50,000 new infections a day.
At the moment - at the moment, the rate of death plateaus 802 yesterday. That's a sad number but many projections tell you this will go back up. Let's hope it does not. But that's what the projection say and you see a line handling right here.
And you look at the positivity rate. This is why public health experts are frankly depressed at the moment, higher positivity, more cases today, more cases to come tomorrow, 23 percent out in Idaho, 17 percent Wyoming, 24 percent South Dakota, 21 percent Wisconsin.
You see a lot of double digits in the northern half of the country where it is getting colder. More positivity today, more cases tomorrow. Public health experts are worried. They say there's no new plan from the White House, no new effort to try to stem the higher positivity.
Instead they are hearing more and more from the White House, let it rip. More people will be exposed, will eventually develop herd immunity. Listen to one of the country's premier infectious disease experts here saying that would be a disaster.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM HASELTINE, FORMER PROFESSOR, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL: Herd immunity is another word for mass murder. That is exactly what it is. If you allow this virus to spread, as they are advocating, we are looking at 2 to 6 million Americans dead. Not just this year but every year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Joining our conversation this hour, Dr. Amesh Adalja, he is the Senior Scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Dr. Adalja, it's good to see you. You listened to Dr. Haseltine there.
You go through the numbers right now where above 50,000 new infections a day. Again, I reluctantly putting doctors in the middle of politics again. The president says we are rounding the final turn. Not true, correct?
[12:05:00]
DR. AMESH ADALJA, SENIOR SCHOLAR, JOHNS HOPKINS CENTER FOR HEALTH SECURITY: It's absolutely not true. It is another lie. We're not rounding any corner. We're just getting worse. There is intensification of spread like we all predicted when it got colder, when it got less sunny, where people are unable to do things outdoors.
We have to fix these problems or we'll continue to have this unacceptable number of deaths, unacceptable number of cases. And we're already hearing about field hospitals being set up in Wisconsin. We can't move forward without a plan or we're going to be just trapped in this kind of pandemic hell forever.
KING: You say pandemic hell forever. That's the sober way to put it. I want you to listen again, it's Trump versus Biden on the ballot, some ways it's Trump versus science, including Dr. Fauci. Listen to Dr. Fauci's concerns here about the uptick in positivity.
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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We're seeing an uptick in what's called test positivity, which is often and, in fact, invariably highly predictive of resurgence of cases which historically we know leads to an increase in hospitalizations and then ultimately an increase in deaths.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: And so, Dr. Adalja let's walk through that. We were at 18,000 new infections a day back in late May. And then we saw the increased positivity, and Dr. Fauci is right. Then you see the spread, then you see the cases, then you see the hospitalizations from 18,000 baselines back at the end of May, we got up well above 60,000 new infections a day.
If the baseline we started at was around 40,000, now we're going back up the hill. How high might we go?
DR. ADALJA: I think we could get to a place where we're having 100,000 cases a day. You have to remember that when we see 50,000 cases in a day, we know we're missing many cases. I have friends and colleagues who just don't want to get tested, because the lines are too long or the turnaround time is too long, so we're still undercounting cases.
So, I do think there will come a point where we're reaching around 100,000 cases confirmed per day. That's just simple math bases on the biology of this virus and the transmission dynamics we're seeing in certain states where there's 25, 20 percent positivity, which is really just shows you how far this virus has slipped out of control in some parts of the country.
KING: As we talk about the national situation, I'm going to read you something in just a second that tells us about the president's personal concerns. He's back out in the campaign trail, very busy aggressive campaign schedule. On the one hand, that's easy to understand. He's losing in a presidential race, it is now under 20 days away from us.
But he had his own case of Coronavirus. There have been questions is it safe for the president to travel at this moment in time. This is a statement just released by the NIH on Tuesday evening at the request of the White House, the NIAID Director, Dr. Anthony Fauci and H. Clifford Lane, the Deputy Director reviewed the totality of COVID-19 test results of the president.
They went on to say they affirmed that all current evidence indicates that the president is not infectious for anyone else. So I guess that's "Good news" in the sense if they are at a Trump rally or staffer getting in close proximity on a helicopter on a plane, but the fact that government scientists were asked to say the president is safe, what does that tell you?
DR. ADALJA: It just tells you that there was so much opacity with the way the president's physician team relate information about his health. And that they were kind of using deliberately misleading language about whether he needed oxygen or didn't need oxygen or what his chest imaging results were that people don't have confidence.
I think that the president is not contagious, he finished his 10 days of self-isolation. But again it's not surprising that people doubt that, because of that, the slew of misinformation that came out. And this could have been avoided with a lot more transparency.
And I think it just kind of distraction what the issue is with these political rallies, it's not necessarily the president infecting you; it's the lack of social distancing that happens at those political rallies, the screaming and the shouting and the cheering and people not wearing face coverings. So the risk isn't from the president himself, it's from the other attendees giving it to each other at these rallies.
KING: Dr. Adalja as always grateful for your expertise and your insights. Thank you, sir.
DR. ADALJA: Thank you.
KING: Up next for us, the president said, it would be a big scandal, but the unmasking investigation reportedly over without the charges, the president predicted would happen.
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[12:10:00]
KING: We're learning today of a quiet end to a scandal Republicans have been hyping for years. "The Washington Post" reporting there will be no charges in the federal investigation into unmasking. That investigation was announced back in May and ordered by the Attorney General Bill Barr.
Unmasking is the term used when a government official asks for the name of someone listed anonymously in an intelligence report. Back in 2016, some Obama Administration officials did ask for specifics after seeing reports raising concerns that Americans were having unusual campaign year contacts with Russians.
The Former Trump National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn's name was unmasked in that process. Now the Obama Administration officials say they were following the rules and just doing their jobs. President Trump repeatedly screamed scandal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The unmasking and the spying. And to me that's the big story.
Well, the unmasking is a massive - it's a massive thing.
We're talking about unmasking, yes, that was a big deal. Horrible deal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Joining me now is Donald Ayer; he's served as Deputy Attorney General back under George H.W. Bush. He knows Bill Barr well. Mr. Ayer, thank you for your time today. This came in with a big bang.
The President said it was a huge scandal, some republicans on the hill compared at the biggest things since Watergate. Bill Barr wanted it. Seems to be going out with the whimper, what does that tell you?
DONALD AYER, FORMER DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL UNDER GEORGE H.W. BUSH: Well, thank for having me John. Well, I think this is an unfolding story. And I think people who understand unmasking and what it is in the process of documents that are part of the intelligence investigation process understood from the start that this was a complete nothing.
And so, it was trotted out as something that sounded sinister or could be made to sound peculiar and strange. And then we had a big kerfuffle for a long time as the fellow name John Bash conducted as opposed at investigation.
And now a couple of weeks ago, I think John Bash actually left his position in the department. We don't know the circumstances behind that. Maybe it was just routine, maybe it wasn't.
[12:15:00]
AYER: And now we've learned that the investigation is basically a failure and having gone nowhere, something that was obvious from the beginning. It's tempting to hear this news and feel as though, oh well, it's good, and they have backed off.
Same thing is true with this Durham investigation where Bill Bar has said in the last week and a half or so that, well, we're not going to have a report, we're not going to have indictments. He said many, many times over the last six months that he hoped we would have some reports, some possibly indictments charges.
And he talked a lot about the substance of it. So that's another one that's going nowhere before the election. And I think we can all be glad those things are true. The question that lurks out there, though, is what does Bill Barr have up his sleeve yet?
And you know, one can speculate a lot about where his head is at and what he's up to? But the one thing we know without any question, based on his conduct over the last, you know, year and a half or so, is that he has in listed full time in getting Donald Trump re-elected.
So there are plenty of ways that he can miss behave, you know, not least of which involves possibly and trying to involve the Justice Department in efforts to interfere with the election. And so, we've all got to be vigilant and we've all got to watch and nobody can take for granted that he's not going to pull some new stunt in order to try to get his mentor Donald Trump re-elected.
KING: That'll be interesting to keep an eye on because you mentioned the president. The president has been in Bill Barr's face in a couple of recent interviews saying he demands and wants something to be done.
And he'll be watching. If not, Mr. Ayer, grateful for your time and your important insights, and we will keep our eye on the very question, important question you raised there. Up next for us, President Trump and Joe Biden making a push for a very critical constituency, older voters.
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[12:20:00]
KING: A distinct battle within the battle forming in these final weeks before Election Day, the fight for the votes of senior citizens. Listen here, Joe Biden and President Trump both on the campaign trail Tuesday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: You're expendable, you're forgettable. You're virtually nobody. That's how he sees seniors. How many of you have been unable to hug your grandkids in the last seven months. The only senior than Donald Trump cares about, the only senior is the Senior Donald Trump.
TRUMP: Now Biden just pledging mass amnesty and federal health care for the illegal aliens decimating Medicare, and destroying your social security. Biden cares more about illegal aliens than he cares about your senior citizens.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Joining me now CNN's Dana Bash and CNN's Jeff Zeleny. Let me just start by saying what the president just said they would flung a fact check, would break the fact check machine. But there is, Dana, I'll start with you, there is intense competition for senior citizens. Its advantage Biden at the moment, when you look at national polls, you go through the key battleground states.
And why is this constituency so important? Well, because they vote. 21 percent of the voting electorate in Florida back in 2016, Donald Trump won 57 percent, that's the senior citizen vote four years ago in battleground Pennsylvania, again 21 percent of the vote, Donald Trump won 54 percent of the vote. If Joe Biden's splits or wins the senior vote, it's game over for Donald Trump.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right. And it's always so fascinating, particularly with Donald Trump, a little bit recently with Joe Biden. But you always know where Donald trump is very worried, because he says it out loud.
I mean, the fact that one of the first videos that he produced of himself on the White House Lawn, which kind of looked a little like an '80s infomercial, he was describing himself as a senior, begging seniors to take another look at him.
That is clearly because he understands he is in big trouble with seniors. And you talked about the numbers, how well he did before, that is the usual kind of balance, if you will that we see between Democrats and Republicans. In the past few decades, seniors have been going for Republicans more than the Democrat.
And the fact that Joe Biden is even in the hunt and in some polls doing better among seniors in some of these key states, that could be, as you said, game over for Donald Trump.
KING: And one of the interesting issues with the president, Jeff, we know he's losing right now. We know he's going to campaign aggressively. And we know he's going to throw the kitchen sink or the obnoxious tweet, everything he can at Joe Biden.
Including this tweet, these are - matter both in their 70s, they're both senior citizens, but Trump suggesting Biden for resident, if you look at this tweet and its photo shopped suggesting Joe Biden belongs in a nursing home not in the campaign trial for president. Some people find this funny, other people find it grossly offensive, but it is a Trumpian tactic.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: No question, John. And you might wonder who might find that offensive, senior citizens. I've been spending the last few days here in Florida as well as other states talking to senior citizens. It is a fascinating dynamic in this election. And they to a person talk about Coronavirus, to a person talk about the president's conduct, it's how he conducts himself in office. [12:25:00]
ZELENY: But there is no question, I'm not sure how many seniors are on Instagram that saw the president making fun, again mocking Joe Biden. But mocking Joe Biden for wearing a mask et cetera has not played very well in places like here in Florida. It is one of the reasons Coronavirus, and his handling of it, is something that this White House has just struggled to get around.
I mean, we've seen the president try and change the subject to a law and order message, try and change the subject to he will protect the suburbs. That has not overtaken the fact that Coronavirus is something that seniors perhaps more than most others feel acutely. They have not been able to see their grandchildren. They have not been able to live their lives like some of the younger people are doing.
So here in Florida particularly, Donald Trump won seniors according to exit polls 17 points four years ago. Joe Biden is now leading even nearly, even if Donald Trump would happen to win even by a few points, that is still a net deficit for him.
So it is of a critical concern to the Trump Campaign. And Democrats see it as a big opportunity for Joe Biden. John, interesting that both candidates are senior citizens. Only one is really trying to appeal to them in that respect at least and that's Joe Biden.
KING: And again, Dana it gets to how Joe Biden campaigns and sometimes the president opens the door for him. The president says we've made the final turn in Coronavirus that it's going away, that it's going to disappear.
The numbers tell you otherwise. And to Jeff's point, senior citizens A they are more vulnerable, B they can't see their family and their friends and other people because it's a safety precaution. Listen to how Joe Biden says this president simply doesn't get you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: And we see an awful lot of people at the very top doing better than they have ever done and left to wonder an awful lot of us is who are looking out for me? Who is looking out for me? That's been the entire story of my view of Donald Trump's presidency.
The fact that he's never been focused on what matters he's never been focused on you. While you're losing precious time with your loved ones, he's been stuck in a sand trap and one of his golf courses.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Call it the empathy card, call it what you will, it's a direct appeal at an important moment.
BASH: Yes. That is Joe Biden's calling card empathy, and he did it in a very specific, very targeted way, which as Jeff was just saying, he's actually out in Florida talking to voters. It seems to be penetrating. And you know, look, for Joe Biden, all he has to do is, because seniors vote, as you said, all he has to do is to increase his share of the senior vote in Florida, in Pennsylvania.
And frankly in places we don't think of that there's a big senior vote like Michigan, like Wisconsin. And that is why he is - Joe Biden is gunning so hard for those voters and it is a very, very potent message.
KING: All of us are jealous of Mr. Zeleny at the moment and that backdrop he has down there in Florida. Jeff Zeleny, Dana Bash, grateful for the reporting and insights in these final days. Up next for us Nancy Pelosi dealing with a bit of a family feud among Democrats on the question of should she cut a deal on a stimulus package?
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