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GOP Sen Attacks Trump As "TV Obsessed" & "Narcissistic"; CNN: U.S. Officials Investigating Whether E-Mails Are Tied To A Russian Misinformation Campaign Against The Bidens. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired October 16, 2020 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

DR. DAVID SCRASE, NEW MEXICO HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: We had a fair amount of that over Labor Day and, you know, people are getting tired hunkering down. I don't think they want to believe it's another year ahead of us with this. And so, I think we just as a state and as a group of people let our guard down a little bit, got too relaxed.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Got too relaxed to say the governor today putting some new restrictions in place limiting gatherings, five people or fewer. Establishments serving alcohol must close by 10:00 p.m. Visitors from high risk states must quarantine for two weeks. You could hear the urgency in her voice and the sound we played a little bit earlier. She says the greatest crisis the state has ever faced. Do you worry that because of fatigue because we've been at this for months, people will not listen?

SCRASE: You know, I think that the most potent way that people do listen is when they know someone or someone in their family is infected or gets hospitalized or God forbid should pass away from coronavirus.

And obviously when we have, you know, six to 10 times as many cases that's -- that many times more people who have that firsthand experience and that does change behavior these curves. As we tell the people in New Mexico, the coronavirus is just a straight line. The curve going up and down every time is how we behave, how we interact, whether we mask, whether we stay apart.

And so I -- we're hoping with some new outreach to younger people, which was until recently, the primary driver of our uptick in cases trying to speak more of their language and get their attention that we can get them to listen but it's a challenge. And as, you know, we're facing it in every state in the country.

KING: We are facing it everywhere. Dr. Scrase, grateful for your time, I wish you the best of luck in the days ahead. We'll circle back and check in.

SCRASE: Thank you very much.

KING: Thank you, Sir.

Up next for us, a Republican senator sounds off on President Trump and warns of a bloodbath in the coming senate elections.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:36:26]

KING: Some Republicans are beginning to say out loud what they have been whispering in the past four years. The way President Trump conducts himself is driving away key voters and driving the Republican Party to the edge of a demographic cliff. This is Republican Senator Ben Sasse. Listen here, speaking to constituents back home in Ruby Red Nebraska.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BEN SASSE (R-NE): If young people become permanent Democrats because they've just been repulsed by the obsessive nature of our politics, or if women who were willing to still vote with the Republican Party on 2016 decided that they need to turn away from this party permanently in the future, the debate is not going to be, you know, Ben Sasse, why were you so mean to Donald Trump? It's going to be, what the heck were any of us thinking that selling a TV-obsessed narcissistic individual to the American people was a good idea? It is not a good idea.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Joining us now the former Republican senator and our CNN senior political commentator, Rick Santorum. Senator, again, a lot of Republicans have been whispering things you yourself while trying to help the President sometimes have said, Sir, please stop conducting yourself like this. Is Ben Sasse right? Is Donald Trump driving away young voters and women to the point where the party will be on the edge of a demographic cliff?

RICK SANTORUM, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hello?

KING: Senator, I don't know. Can you hear me now?

SANTORUM: I somewhat -- I just heard someone on the iffy come over and I didn't hear your question. I'm sorry.

KING: OK. That's all right. That's all right. No, it happens in this wacky world we live in. My point, Senator Sasse --

SANTORUM: Yes.

KING: Senator Sasse says that young people, women are leaving the Republican Party in droves because of the way this President conducts himself. Do you agree?

SANTORUM: Right. Look, yes, like as you mentioned, I have said that repeatedly on CNN that that the issue of the President's demeanor is the reason I believe that he is not way ahead in this race. He should be way ahead in this race. And he's not because his personality is turned off a lot of voters. And I think we saw it unfortunately, in the first debate. I think that's why a lot of -- we saw it in the polls, a lot of conservatives got, you know, get very, very, very concerned after that first debate. I think in the last two weeks, the President has actually pretty been on -- pretty well been on message last night. I thought he was on message and did a -- with, you know, a couple of apples, did a very good job and connected with the audience.

So I still think there's a chance. But I think Ben has been a pretty consistent critic from the very beginning. So this is not new for Ben. But I think he is voicing what a lot of Republicans in the last couple weeks were concerned about.

KING: You mentioned the town hall last night. I thought the President looked good. He looked energetic if you were worried about his health. He certainly turned in a strong performance in that town hall. But you said a couple of bubbles. Here's one, Savannah Guthrie tried to get him to denounce this QAnon wack job conspiracy theorist that thinks there's a deep state of the United States government of Satan worshipping pedophiles.

I mean, they have to speak these words is just nuts in and of itself. The President refused to do so. He kept saying I don't know anything about them. He's praised a congressional candidate who's QAnon believer. He's been asked this question many times. If he doesn't know anything about them, he could have learned by now. Senator Mitt Romney, just tweeting moments ago the President's unwillingness to denounce an absurd and dangerous conspiracy theory last night continues an alarming pattern.

He goes on and say parties rushed down a rabbit hole opened a door to political movement that could eclipse them both. Mitt Romney saying again this is dangerous behavior for any leader but certainly the President of United States, agree?

[12:40:06]

SANTORUM: Yes. Look, it was a huge mistake last night. Hopefully he will -- I'm sure he'll get this question again. So have an opportunity to hit it right just like he did with the first question out of the box last night with Savannah, which was, you know, you're going to denounce racism. And I understand he's frustrated because he's done it 20 times. But, you know, in politics, you're going to get that 21st, 22nd, 23rd question because that's what -- that's how things work in politics. It's not fair.

The, you know, the media isn't always nice you and you have to answer the questions and not worry about them, worry about who you're talking to beyond them. Don't let them distract you from your message.

KING: You talk about the media sometimes not being nice. At the moment, I want you to listen here. Governor Chris Christie came into the White House to help the President with debate prep. He's an ally of the President. He's not being nice to the President right now, either. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: 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 costs me in a significant way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: There's a couple issues here, Senator, number one, Senator Christie saying they're not doing this right. They're not being careful enough inside the Trump White House when it comes to coronavirus. So we could talk about it in that context. But you have won in tough climates and you have lost in tough climates.

My bigger question is when you have a Chris Christie, a Ben Sasse, a Mitt Romney, Larry Hogan, the more moderate, yes, but still Republican governor of Maryland, following the Republican governor of Massachusetts saying we're not going to vote for Donald Trump. When you have that dissonance in the party, it is hurtful is it not? Isn't that self-evident in the final days of a campaign when you're already behind?

SANTORUM: Yes. I mean, you look at it, it's pretty clear. People are watching the polls, and they're all sort of, you know, Ben is up for reelection. Others have political futures and are looking at polls and already trying to get out ahead of what they think is going to happen in November. You know, I'm not convinced that that's going to happen. I still think this race is still very much up in the air. But I'm not surprised to see, you know, individual members sort of cutting their own path just to make sure that they've separated themselves should bad things happen.

KING: And to that point, I was just talking about Republican dissonance. A lot of it's coming at the President. He started some up this morning, tweeting this morning about Susan Collins. He says there's a nasty rumor, Susan Collins of Maine, will not be supporting our great United States Supreme Court nominee. He goes on to criticize her, not worth the work.

Susan Collins has made clear she doesn't like the process here. It's so much about Judge Barrett. She doesn't think the process is right. But again, this is the President making a choice about how to use his time and his Twitter feed at a time he's trailing and trailing badly, wise?

SANTORUM: No, it's not wise on a couple of fronts. Number one, there's a vote up there in Maine that he can win which is, you know, one of those congressional districts.

KING: Right.

SANTORUM: And I don't think trashing Susan Collins helps him win that. And, you know, Susan Collins isn't out of that race either. Whether it helps or hurts her, I don't know politically. But I just don't think it's worth his time to do it. I mean, Susan was, you know, was actually a courageous vote in his last nomination and, you know, he -- and she's paying a huge price for it up at the State of Maine as a result of that. You know, sometimes you just leave well enough alone and allow a senator in a tough state to run a race.

KING: Senator Rick Santorum, you know what it's like to win a tough race and to lose tough races in a Senate race. Appreciate your insights today.

SANTORUM: Thank you.

KING: Interesting 18 days ahead.

[12:43:30]

Up next for us, U.S. authorities now investigating whether recently published e-mails are tied to a Russian disinformation campaign aimed at the Bidens.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Some important news just in two CNN. Federal authorities are now investigating whether recently published e-mails that purport to detail the business dealings of Joe Biden's son, Hunter, are connected to an ongoing Russian disinformation effort targeting Joe Biden and his campaign. CNN senior national security correspondent Alex Marquardt joins us now. Alex, take us through this.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, we do know that Russia is very actively involved in a disinformation campaign against the 2020 election and in particular against former Vice President Joe Biden. That is what the intelligence community has said for months now.

Now, according to a U.S. official and a congressional source who have been briefed on the matter, the FBI is looking into whether these unverified e-mails about Hunter Biden that were published by "The New York Post", about foreign business dealings in Ukraine and China, whether they are part of those broader Russian disinformation efforts.

Now, the intelligence community is always critical and helping the FBI with their investigations into Russian disinformation, since they deal on a daily basis with foreign intelligence. And they have said that Russia is working to denigrate Biden, that's their word.

Now, "The New York Post" says that they got these Hunter Biden e-mails from Giuliani and Steve Bannon. And we know that Giuliani has openly worked with a Ukrainian politician to promote disinformation about the Biden's. That politician whose name is Andriy Derkach, he has been named by the U.S. intelligence community as a Russian agent and has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department.

Now, John, "The Washington Post" is also reporting that the White House was warned by the intelligence community last year that Giuliani, quote, was being used to feed Russian misinformation to the President.

KING: Giuliani's own daughter today quoted saying she have used her father as part of corruption here. Does he responded to any of this?

[12:50:05]

MARQUARDT: He has earlier today. And predictably perhaps he doesn't believe that. He says that he wasn't warned about anything by the intelligence community. Listen to what he said earlier today on "Fox News".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: No one in the Trump administration warned me. No one in the intelligence community warned me. The President didn't say that to me. This is the first time I'm hearing that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

GIULIANI: And I have a pretty good idea where it's coming from. And these are people who are trying to tear down Donald Trump and destroy his presidency from the inside of the intelligence community, of which there aren't many.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: So, John, Giuliani, they're leaning hard into that deep state argument and pitting the President against his intelligence community. John?

KING: As he, yes, that is his go to and his standby and we'll wait additional important reporting. Alex Marquardt, thank you very much, grateful for that important news for us.

Up next, an E.U. Summit canceled now as Europe fights a COVID surge.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:55:34]

KING: Europe right now dealing with a major spike in coronavirus cases. Take a look here you can see the comparison with the United States. Europe has more than twice the population of the United States. And you can see from the numbers there right now has roughly twice as many new infections every day. As a result of those rising numbers, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel canceling the European Union's plan summit on China. It was scheduled next month in Berlin, more now more correspondents around the globe.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Scott McLean in Berlin where Germany has just recorded two straight days of record new case counts not long after Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a series of new restrictions aimed at virus hotspots.

The number of people in German ICU is also jumped up by more than one- third over the past week. Germany was exporting ventilators during the first wave of the virus but this week, Merkel, warned that Germany does not have unlimited resources. Meanwhile, the Czech Republic which has the highest per capita infection rate in Europe continues to post record high case counts. The Prime Minister called those numbers catastrophic and said that the prognosis for his country is not good.

This weekend, construction will begin on a brand new temporary field hospital because the health care system is reaching its capacity. The Czech health minister told CNN that the reason for the resurgence of the virus is because restrictions over the summer months were too lax even conceded that the government may have done a victory lap too soon.

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN REPORTER: I'm Salma Abdelaziz in Manchester where the mayor is essentially in a standoff with the central government in London over their plans to raise the alert level of this city to very high risk that is the top here and it would come with additional restrictions that essentially shut down the nightlife of Manchester and ban any households from mixing together.

The mayor of Greater Manchester has said he's unwilling to gamble the economy of the city for what he says is an experiment that the government's own scientist say might not work.

Now, he's not the only critique of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's strategy. There's a growing number of opposition voices that say a nationwide lockdown is needed to stem the rise in cases.

Meanwhile, in London, the alert level has been raised to tier two that is high. These restrictions will go into force on Saturday and essentially curtail the social life of Londoners and limit it to only those inside your household if you are indoors. Meanwhile, all of this political wrangling is going on. The number of coronavirus cases continues to rise.

SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Selena Wang in Hong Kong. China has tested more than 10 million people for COVID-19 in less than a week. This testing blitz is in response to just a dozen locally transmitted cases that reported last weekend in Qingdao, a northeastern city in China. They tracked this cluster to two dock workers were treated at a local hospital.

The room where they got C.T. scans wasn't disinfected properly, which led to more infections. Two officials in Qingdao have already been fired over this latest outbreak. Before this flare up, China hadn't reported a single locally transmitted cases since mid-August.

We have seen China use this playbook before with clusters found in Beijing, Xinjiang, Dalian, and Wuhan where the city goes into wartime mode with this mass testing, contact tracing, and restrictions. China is especially concerned about even a handful of cases in Qingdao since this is coming right after China's Golden Week holiday where more than half a billion people in China were traveling at the same time.

Qingdao is a very popular tourist spot known for its beaches and beer. And according to government statistics, more than 4 million tourists had come to the city during the holiday. So the fear was that people may have taken the virus back home with them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: And here at home, this just into CNN, the state of Michigan announcing it is banning the open carry of firearms at polling sites on Election Day. In the statement, the Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson says quote the presence of firearms at polling places, clerk's offices, or absent voter counting board may cause disruption fear or intimidation for voters, election workers, and others.

This announcement comes of course amid nationwide concerns about security at polling locations, those concerns especially high in Michigan. Remember 13 people charged earlier this month in a domestic terror plot to allegedly kidnap the state's Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

[13:00:04]

Thanks for joining us today. Hope to see you back here next week. And if you're up early on Sunday morning, we'll be here at 8:00 a.m. Eastern as well.