Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Biden Campaigns in Michigan and Trump in Florida, Georgia; Town Halls Reveal Sharp Differences Over Coronavirus; At Least Seven States Report Record High Number of Hospitalizations. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired October 16, 2020 - 11:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:00:15]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm John King in Washington. Thank you so much for sharing a very busy Friday with us.

A crowded campaign trail today, the Democratic nominee lands in battleground Michigan. The president campaigns in Florida and in Georgia. We are 18 days to Election Day. So, we talked battleground states and electoral maps. And this election, we have a new map. And it too factors into your choice. Red and blue are how we divvy up wins by Republicans and Democrats. Orange and red are how we show you new coronavirus trouble.

Take a look. A lot of trouble. 32 states trending up in their count of new COVID infections right now. The candidates are back on the trail after primetime network town halls last night. Both answered tough questions and both evaded tough questions. Asked about court packing, Democrat Joe Biden says stay tuned.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I have not been a fan of court packing because I think it just generates, what will happen... Whoever wins, it just keeps moving in a way that is inconsistent with what is going to be manageable.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, MODERATOR OF ABC NEWS TOWN HALL: So, you're still not a fan?

BIDEN: Well, I'm not a fan. It didn't say - it depends on how this turns out, not how he wins, but how it's handled, how it's handled.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That is a policy question mark. This is a question of decency. The president asked by NBC's Savannah Guthrie if he rejects the QAnon conspiracy theorists who support him. Remember, QAnon believers say the government is run by Satan worshipping pedophiles. Remember too that the president called the QAnon believer running for Congress, quote, "a real winner" and "a future Republican star." Last night tough the president of the United States pleading ignorance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I denounce white supremacy, OK?

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, MODERATOR OF NBC NEWS TOWN HALL: You did, two days later.

TRUMP: I've denounced white supremacy, for years.

GUTHRIE: Republican Senator Ben Sasse said, quote, "QAnon is nuts and real leaders call conspiracy theories, conspiracy theories."

TRUMP: He may be right.

GUTHRIE: Why not just say, it's crazy and not true?

TRUMP: Can I be honest? He may be right. I just don't know about QAnon.

GUTHRIE: You do know.

TRUMP: I don't know. No, I don't know. I don't know. You tell me all about it.

GUTHRIE: Let me ask you another thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The coronavirus also a big town hall's topic. The president says he's been right from the beginning. Joe Biden says the incumbent was a disaster from day one and is to this very day. The numbers speak for themselves. Thursday 63,000 plus new cases. The United States topping that 60,000 mark for the first time since back in the middle of August. 26 states reported more than 1,000 new infections on Thursday.

The president says we are on the way down. That is simply a lie. Listen here to a close ally who got infected at the Trump White House, a White House that ignores basic science and basic commonsense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), FORMER GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY: I was doing it right for seven months and avoided the virus. I let my guard down for a couple of days inside the White House grounds and it cost me in a significant way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's take a closer look at the numbers right now. And you go through it. Again, I'll bring back up this map. Red and orange are bad. You see a lot of red and orange. One state, New Mexico, that means 50 percent more new infections now compared to last week. That's the deep red.

The rest is orange, 31 states. So, 32 in all trending up. 31 of them reporting between 10 percent and 50 percent more new infections right now than a week ago. 32 states trending in the wrong direction.

15 states, the beige holding steady. Only three states currently reporting fewer new COVID infections right now compared to a week ago. There's a lot of states heading in the wrong direction.

If you look at cases reported just yesterday, the deeper the color, the higher the number. So, you see out here, there's a big problem across the plains, smaller populations. The case numbers aren't as high but look again, deeper colors in Florida, in North Carolina. Out here, Wisconsin, and Illinois, Texas as well, California as well. States having an increasing problem as the weather gets colder.

Nine states in fact setting records, new cases - nine records on Thursday. Nine new infection records on Thursday. We thought we were through this. We're going back up a hill. And you see, a lot of it concentrated here in the Midwest, out here in Prairie, Colorado and New Mexico as well. If you come back through now, this is what we have lived the last eight months.

In April, up the summer surge, look at here, 77,000 the peak of the summer surge, 64,000 in August. Right back at that. Right near that number again yesterday. And again, came down from the summer surge, unmistakable. Look at the red line. You don't even have to know the number. You're going back up a hill. That's what the public health experts said we needed to try to avoid.

With the case count going up, the death trend tends to follow. At the moment, you see the blue line is flat, but you also see a number of days with the red is above the blue line. That tells you it's starting to trickle back up. Let's hope it does not but that is the pattern as you watch it.

A flat line now between 500 and 1,000, on a daily basis. We'll see the projections are that will go back up. Some say it will pass 1,000 and do it soon.

[11:05:06]

Here is another trouble sign. You want the positivity rate, Americans take a coronavirus test, what's the percentage that comes back positive? 6.3 percent. You want it below five. Above 5 percent tells you, you have an outbreak in your community. 6.3 percent right now. It was below 5 just a couple of weeks back nationally.

The national number though being shoved back up because of this. Look at this map. The deeper the colors, the higher the positivity, 36 percent in South Dakota right now. 36 percent, 22 percent in Idaho, 17 percent Wyoming, 23 percent Wisconsin, 20 percent Iowa, 16 percent Indiana, 15 percent Alabama, Florida back in double digits at 12 percent.

If you have double digit positivity rates, that's more cases today, more people who can spread which gets you more cases tomorrow. This is obviously a giant public health crisis for the country. It's also the defining question in the presidential campaign. At the town halls last night, very different answers to the question, how are we doing? (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And what we've done has been amazing. And we have done an amazing job. And it's rounding the corner and we have the vaccines coming, and we have the therapies coming.

BIDEN: He missed enormous opportunities and kept saying things that weren't true. It's going to go away by Easter, don't worry about it. It's going to all -- when the summer comes, it's all going to go away like a miracle. He's still saying those things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Joining our conversation, CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash. Dana, they're stubborn and they're stupid. And one of the things I don't understand about the president is he has to know the case map. He may not go to any coronavirus task force briefings. He may not even allow those meetings to happen anymore, but he has to know the numbers. And he says we're going down. He says we're rounding the corner. It's simply not true. How can he think that he can tell that to the American people at a time they're living this again going back up the hill?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Because the fact that he suffered from coronavirus, the fact that he was hospitalized, because he had the deadly virus has not changed the way that he approaches his life. And that is that he is convinced that he can convince people that they are looking at a blue sky, but that the blue sky is pink.

I mean that is the way that he approaches everything, and it has been his whole adult life. It has worked for him in business. It worked for him certainly at the beginning of his political career. But it clearly does not work when you are telling people something that really does affect their everyday lives and unfortunately, it is affecting them in much more negative ways as you just showed with that really, frankly scary map and the fact that the numbers are going up. It's just not possible but it's impossible to convince him otherwise.

KING: It is stunning in the sense that you also heard Governor Christie - Chris Christie. He said you know, there who said, you know -- a gentlemen who's overweight, who has asthma, who says he was very careful back home for months, comes to the White House to help the president with debate prep, lets down his guard and ends up in the intensive care unit. And he says wear a mask. He's trying to tell people not wearing masks. He says he wishes both candidates in the last 18 days this election would agree on that. Everybody should wear a mask. Everybody should social distance, but the subject came up last night they don't agree.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I tell people, wear a mask. But just the other day, they came out with a statement that 85 percent of the people that wear masks catch it. So, this is a very --

GUTHRIE: It didn't say that. I know that study. TRUMP: That's what I heard, and that's what I saw.

BIDEN: You can't mandate a mask. But you can say, you can go to every governor and get them all in a room, all 50 of them as president and say, ask people to wear the mask. Everybody knows.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Biden has been very consistent on this, saying you know leaders have to lead, hold up their own mask, tell people to wear a mask, get Republican and Democratic governors, the president there, again distorting completely the findings of a study about masks and he won't budge.

BASH: It's reprehensible that he's taking his own government's data and misrepresenting those data, particularly when it comes to something as simple as wearing a mask. And he is taking this issue and he is handing it on a silver platter to Joe Biden. He's just allowing Joe Biden to look and sound and feel like a leader in a way that President Trump just will not do it.

It is mind boggling to people, even those who like him and help him. Chris Christie is a perfect example. He sat with him and helped him for days on his own time and his own dime to try to prepare him for the last debate and suffered the consequences. Even he is speaking out and saying, this makes no sense. Wear a mask. It is -- it's -- if he said wear a mask, I even think that just based on the data, the polling data, it actually could help him, not hurt him. But he won't go there.

[11:10:01]

KING: He did it once for a day or for a couple of days -

BASH: Right.

KING: -- where he was trying to at one time. And then as always, he goes back to his default. To your point, he thinks he can tell people up is down and west is east. You mentioned Governor Christie. Let's listen to him again because this is important. Because we know Trump supporters out there, the president tells them don't listen to us, don't listen to the scientists, don't listen to Dr. Fauci, don't listen to the data, don't listen, don't listen, don't listen. Well, here's a guy who, as Dana said, on his own time and his own dime tried to help the president with the first debate. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTIE: I was led to believe that, you know, all the people that I was interacting with at the White House had been tested. And it gave you a false sense of security. And it was a mistake. You know I've been so careful for seven months because of my asthma, wearing masks, washing my hands, social distancing and for seven months I was able to avoid the virus in one of the worst hit states in the country, in New Jersey. But I let my guard down. And it was wrong. It was just a big mistake. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: There's a proud stubborn man, Chris Christie, it was wrong, it was a big mistake. We've never heard those words from the president of the United States about that superspreader event at the White House. About any decisions about not ramping up tests early on, and so on and so forth.

BASH: That's exactly right. He is trying to lead by example, he is signaling to a president who, even though he talks to Chris Christie on the phone, he consumes information and it sort of sinks in with him by television. So, that was a big reason that the former governor of New Jersey did that.

But let me translate this to you even further. When the former governor said that he had a false sense of security, he thought everybody at the White House was being tested. You know who he was talking about. He was talking about the president of the United States.

Everybody who came into that building or came into the White House campus, including Chris Christie they were told by the medical staff they needed to be tested and the assumption was that everybody was tested. But we now know based on lots of data points, including the president not answering last night, whether or not he was tested the night of the debate that he wasn't tested every day, and you know he could have been, we don't know but he could have been patient zero or at least part of the problem at the White House on that big Saturday event they had for the Supreme Court nominee and also in his debate prep room where everybody except two people came down with the coronavirus.

KING: Right. Chris Christie says the White House never contact traced him, his county board of health back home did. I'd like to see that list when they asked him, governor who did you come in contact to? Might have had the coronavirus. I'm guessing the president's name is at close to the top. Dana Bash appreciate your reporting and insights.

Let's move on now to some important news, CNN reporting on what the president calls his coronavirus cure. It is no cure, but the antibody cocktail from a drug company called Regeneron was part of the president's aggressive coronavirus treatment. And he now promises all Americans will be able to get it free and soon. Experts though have a very different take. They warn there may only be limited access to this treatment and it likely will carry a steep price tag.

CNN's Sara Murray has been doing this reporting. She is here to explain. Sarah?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, ever since the president got Regeneron's the antibody cocktail, he can't stop talking about it. I mean let's just take a look at him last night talking about it yet again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: When I got it, I had a choice. Do nothing or use some of the things that we're looking at, like in this case, Regeneron. and Eli Lilly makes something that's supposed to be incredible. And I think that maybe I wouldn't be doing this discussion with you right now. We have therapies now and cures, maybe you can use the word cure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: Now, he calls it a cure. He says every American is going to be able to get it. That is just not the case, John. Every American is not going to be able to get this kind of treatment.

First of all, it's still experimental, it's promising, but it is not yesterday proven, the FDA has not issued an authorization yet, and if or when they do, it could be for a relatively small subset of coronavirus patients. If they did decide to issue a broader authorization for a lot of people to be able to access this treatment, it's not likely that the companies that make these kinds of treatments would be able to make enough to go around.

They would have had to -- the Trump administration start ramping up manufacturing on these months and months ago and there was pressure from scientists inside and outside the administration to get them to do that. But within the Trump administration they were really focused on this pursuit of vaccines. And they knew that vaccines would help with coronavirus. They weren't sure if these antibody therapies would pan out and if the science would be there.

The other issue, John, is the price. The government bought up a number of these doses in the hopes that they will work. And they are planning on providing them free of charge. But people are worried about what happens when these are commercially available and how expensive they could be and they're very worried that ultimately, it could be the most privileged Americans who benefit from these the most.

HHS insists they're going to try to make sure that that doesn't happen, but we will see if these drugs are authorized. And then what happens when they go to market. John?

KING: Well, the president has some info on some of that. We'll keep an eye on a very important reporting.

[11:15:02]

Sara Murray, grateful for that reporting and the context. Thank you so much. Up next for us with the rising coronavirus case count comes the domino effect. Seven states now recording record hospitalizations.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: At least seven states right now reporting the highest number of hospitalizations since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Michigan not at its peak but it is reporting hospitalization numbers not seen since before Memorial Day.

Let's talk to Dr. Rob Davidson, he's an emergency room physician in Michigan, also he's the executive director of the project protect -- Committee to Protect Medicare, excuse me. Doctor, it's good to see you

So, I just want to put up the Michigan numbers on the screen, the hospitalizations right now.

[11:20:00]

You are not thankfully at the moment across the state back to where you were at the end of April and in early May. How you see that number way up around 4,000. But you do see the trendline, Thursday hitting 1,000 hospitalizations heading back up. What is the situation on the ground, is 1,000, is that enough to start causing a strain on the system or is it still good?

DR. ROB DAVIDSON, EMERGENCY ROOM PHYSICIAN: Yes. Well, Michigan like a lot of state has different regions and Metro Detroit area is the part of Michigan that had seen the significant numbers in the spikes in hospitalizations and deaths in the spring.

I'm in West Michigan, rural part of the state and we are seeing our hospitalizations higher than ever with COVID, half of my hospital has COVID patients. And the problem is, when you are in smaller hospital and you serve you know a county of about 50,000 people in about a one- hour radius. When you fill up then you have to start transferring people to regional hospitals, those places are now boarding patients, 20-some patients boarding in the emergency department because they don't have hospital beds. So, I think those numbers are deceiving if you break it down in the regions.

Our test positivity rate in our region is now 6 percent. It's higher than the state in general and it's above that 5 percent number. So, I think we're hitting a critical point.

KING: You're making a critical point as we do. And I just show you the newly confirmed cases in Michigan right now. And again, we're showing you statewide numbers which you're absolutely right, can sometimes be deceiving. Because at the beginning of this, it was largely urban areas but you see this now when you look across the country, not just across the Midwest, go out to the plains states, out to the west, a lot of the spread right now is in rural areas, is in areas that are - that do not have access to large medical centers and the like. So, explain how, not only for COVID patients, but then for other patients there's a domino effect there. Maybe the emergency room you're saying is already packed. Maybe if it's a car accident or something else, there's a domino effect here that gets dangerous.

DAVIDSON: People continue to have strokes, they continue to have heart attacks, have appendicitis. We have three ambulances serving our entire county, when they're busy transferring patients to bigger -- to the bigger centers, or you know then - then those people don't get seen. You know, chest pain patients maybe don't get brought in as quickly.

And then we have the president tomorrow coming to a place within 30 miles of my hospital, you know, bringing his superspreader event to West Michigan where thousands of people will gather without masks close together. And we know three weeks later and then three weeks after that, the hospitalizations. You know it's a predictable trend and unfortunately, he's adding to it now.

KING: You mentioned, he's adding to it, in your view, there will be people that disagree of course. But this has been one of the fascinating dynamics and frustrating dynamics, frankly, since the very beginning. In the sense, you have doctors like yourself who are on the frontline treating these patients, begging for help, asking for help from government leaders.

You have the president coming in for a big event. Again, it violates most commonsense if nothing else. And you have in your state that your governor in fights with the courts over what she is allowed to do. Where are we in that regard, in terms of consistent consensus government leadership about personal behavior and responsibility?

DAVIDSON: Yes. It's tough. We have a Governor Gretchen Whitmer who has been doing everything she can. And you're right the Supreme Court in the state, supported by the state legislature, that's controlled by Republicans, has pushed back against her. And now they are apparently negotiating. My concern is the state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey has abdicated herd immunity as recently as --

KING: I think we may have lost -- we lost the audio on that. Dr. Davidson, grateful for your time there, sir. Technology happens to us. It's also one of the ripple effects of all this. Thank you so much, Doctor, for your time. We'll do it again.

Up next for us, new early voting numbers showing massive -- beyond massive election turnout.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:28:30]

KING: Election Day is 18 days from now. That's what it says on the calendar. Election Day is 18 days from now.

But millions of you have already voted. We have some data. We'll share it with you. Some of it comes from Catalist. That's the data company that provides analytics to Democrats, academics and non-profit advocacy organizations. We have to give that disclaimer where the information comes from.

Look at this, so far. Look at this. More than 20 million ballots have already been cast. Again, Election Day is November 3rd, that's 18 days from now. More than 20 million ballots, 20.6 million ballots have already been cast across America.

Now we know from some states, this is from 27 states that report partisan breakdowns, 5.3 million ballots, more than that have been cast by Democrats. Doesn't guarantee they voted for Joe Biden and Democrats on the ticket. But we do know from polling, most Democrats say they're going to vote for Biden, most Republicans say they're going to vote for Trump, and so on down the ticket.

But look at the advantage so far. 5.3 million Democrats, 2.3 rounded up, 2.4 million Republicans have requested a return ballot so far. So, you see an advantage Democrats, at least you can see -- believe you see one when you look at the early day. The Republicans certainly think Democrats are out to a head start.

Look at this map and you see the states where this mail-in voting and early voting is off the charts. The deeper the orange, the higher the numbers. Texas, Florida, California, no surprise, three of the big populous states with the big numbers.

But also, up here, look across the Midwest up here, big numbers as well. Other states starting to fill in. This map changes as more states kick in and get into this process. And we know this, 39 million. More than 39 million ballots have been requested across the country.

We are in a pandemic election some people think it's just not safe to vote.