Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Election Day Approaches as U.S. Case Count Spikes; Washington Post: Birx Went to Pence's Office to Push for Scott Atlas' Removal from Task Force; Trump Mocks Complaints about Lack of Masks at Rallies. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired October 19, 2020 - 11:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:00:40]

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everybody. I'm John King in Washington thank you so much for sharing a very, very busy news day with us.

The coronavirus is making an aggressive fall surge just as the clock ticks us ever closer to Election Day. 15 days until America's choice and the president plans a full week of battleground travel to Arizona, to Pennsylvania and to North Carolina. All that before Thursday's final debate.

The final sprint overlaps with what scientists warn will likely be the darkest weeks of this entire pandemic. The numbers on the right side of your screen there, a daily reminder of just how bad things are. And they are getting worse.

Look globally. The case count tops 40 million now. The United States responsible for a world worst 8 million recorded COVID-19 infections.

The end is not near no matter what the president says. Look, 48,000 new cases recorded on Sunday. That is the second highest COVID tally on a Sunday since July 26th. The numbers also missing new case totals from six states so it's actually higher.

The weekend total of new cases from Friday through Sunday, just under 175,000. The United States now growing its case number on average by 56,000 cases per day. The spring spike was driven by the northeast, the summer surge was centered on the south, but this fall tsunami is not regional. It is everywhere.

Take a look. 27 states across the United States, 27 of the 50 right now trending in the wrong direction. 21 treading water. Only two - only two of the 50 pushing down their case curves right now.

The president blames more testing for more cases. Experts blame reckless behavior and pandemic fatigue. Either way, the numbers tell us worse is coming before better. Look at this map. 14 states with a positivity rate north of 10 percent. That means 14 states with what scientists consider uncontrolled coronavirus spread right now.

2020, of course, is the pandemic campaign. Thursday night's final debate will remind us the choice is Trump versus Biden. Everyday reminds us it might just as well be Trump versus science.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If I listened totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: You know, I think deep down he believes in science if he didn't he wouldn't have entrusted his health to the very confident physicians at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

But he sometimes equates wearing a mask with weakness.

DR. JONATHAN LAPOOK, CBS CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Does that make sense to you?

FAUCI: No, it doesn't. Of course, not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Joining our conversation to begin the hour, CNN medical analyst Dr. Celine Gounder and Toluse Olorunnipa of "The Washington Post."

Toluse, I want to start with you because of this new reporting by several of your colleagues. Dr. Scott Atlas, the doctor who has the president's ear most of all right now when it comes to the coronavirus, tweeting out over the weekend, no, when it comes to masks. Again, saying masks don't work in his view, when all the scientists say they are.

And "The Post" is now reporting that Dr. Deborah Birx, a member of that task force, went to the vice president's office said this is bad advice. He should not be giving this advice. I'm not comfortable with this advice and I wish that he would be removed from the task force.

Startling development when you consider not only the case surge but the fact that we are two weeks from an election.

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Yes. It's absolutely startling that there's infighting in the task force that's supposed to be managing the national response to this pandemic.

Somewhat unsurprising is the fact that there would be disagreement between career epidemiologist, people who have expertise in infectious diseases and someone who President Trump recruited to the White House because he appeared on Fox News, not because he has any expertise in this area. Not because he has been shown as someone who studies this very closely. He's a radiologist. He's someone who the president got to know because he was on Fox News, you know essentially repeating what the president wanted to hear about this virus not being as bad as it should be, herd immunity, allowing the virus to spread, allowing people to get back to their normal lives.

While the experts, the scientists who studied this, including Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci have been saying we need to take this seriously, we need to put in all kinds of mitigation efforts in order to make sure the virus does not spread and we don't have all of these spikes that we're currently seeing.

So, it's somewhat unsurprising that there would be disagreement but the fact that this is now spilling out into the public and the fact that the president has elevated Dr. Atlas over the experts, the people who you would expect to be leading the charge and he has downplayed and sort of downsized their role is somewhat surprising ahead of an election which is going to be all about the coronavirus and the president's failed response to it.

[11:05:12]

KING: Right. And Dr. Gounder, that's where it gets -- I don't know what the right word is for it, but it gets frustrating in the sense that at a moment Americans need to be extra vigilant, at a moment, we're going up a third peak, at a moment we're heading up that peak starting from a baseline of above 40,000 new infections a day.

So, all the projections tell you it's going to go higher than the summer surge unless it is stopped and stopped quickly. You have Dr. Atlas saying don't wear a mask. They're not effective even though we know they are. And you have the president in this campaign travels saying nothing to worry about, we're almost done. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It's rounding the turn. You'll see that. Normal life, that's all we want. We want normal life.

(APPLAUSE)

Right? We want a normal life. Just -- we want to be where we were seven months ago.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Yes, we want to be where we were seven months ago, but the president is not announcing any new steps, encouraging governors to do anything new and the doctor he listens to most is telling Americans be reckless.

DR. CELINE GOUNDER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, first of all, Dr. Atlas really has no place speaking about this. He is a neuroradiologist. He has no training or experience in public health or epidemiology or infectious diseases. It would be like seeing a podiatrist for your heart attack or calling up a plumber when you need an electrician. He's completely unqualified.

And this anti-mask rhetoric is really the equivalent of a herd immunity approach. The only time we've ever achieved herd immunity is through vaccination. We have centuries of experience, millennia of experience with other respiratory viral infections like smallpox and measles. Smallpox we had spikes over centuries, epidemics over centuries, and same thing with measles. And only with vaccination have we been able to control that.

KING: And Toluse, again back to the moment. The White House Coronavirus Task Force at the beginning was quite helpful. The initial guidelines to stop the spread. If you go back and read the reopening guidelines, they're actually quite good. The president then just said days later, never mind, please blow through them. go through my redline, get the company back open.

Now, we have this remarkable moment. Dr. Birx has become waldo. There are no more briefings. She's traveling the country talking to governors but where in the world is Dr. Birx is a daily question. There are no more - Dr. Atlas has the president's ear. And Dr. Fauci seems to be almost daring the president to fire him or to pick a fight with him. Listen to more of this conversation last night on "60 Minutes."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAPOOK: Were you surprised that President Trump got sick?

FAUCI: Absolutely not. I was worried that he was going to get sick when I saw him in a completely precarious situation of crowded, no separation between people, and almost nobody wearing a mask.

I do not, and nor will I ever, publicly endorse any political candidate. And here I am, they're sticking me right in the middle of a campaign ad, which I thought was outrageous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: He is being public with a purpose right now. Number one, the president shouldn't have me in his campaign ads and number two, let me translate what he said at the beginning of that. I thought the president might get sick because the president is routinely behaving in a reckless way.

OLORUNNIPA: Yes. That's exactly right and it happens to be the truth. And it may sound political because he's saying it in a way that is so, you know, public and straightforward and a way that we don't normally hear from people who are close to power. But he is essentially just speaking the truth.

The president has been reckless. He has been holding these massive events which are superspreader events and do increase the risk of the virus spreading among high ranking officials within the White House, which in essence is reckless.

But I think Dr. Fauci said something on "60 Minutes" which I thought was really interesting, which is that the White House has been limiting his media appearances. They have not been allowing him to go out and speak publicly.

And that's part of the reason. They don't like the fact that he is willing to speak the truth. He's willing to give a public health message that's accurate and sometimes in discordance with what the president is saying, which is that everything is going to be fine, we're rounding the corner, everyone should go back to their lives.

Dr. Fauci is saying everything is not fine. We're losing hundreds of Americans every day. This case count is spiking. We are ahead of what could be a really bad third wave as people go indoors for the winter.

And instead of having the White House have someone who is trusted by the American people giving that message, they are muzzling him and not allowing him to speak as much as he would like to.

KING: And again, Dr. Gounder, it is the moment. You're a doctor, not a political analyst, but campaigns routinely -- there's a lot of shay between taxes and spending. There's a lot of missed truths. There's a lot of hyperbole. There's a lot of generally accepted if you will political wandering from the facts.

But at this moment with the case count up, the president of the United States is on the road saying we're rounding the corner. I'm not wearing a mask. My chief adviser says you don't have to wear a mask. That's one message. Dr. Scott Gottlieb says something very different. Listen.

[11:10:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARGARET BRENNAN, CBS NEWS HOST, "FACE OF THE NATION": Where are we headed as a country?

DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: Probably the most difficult phase of this epidemic. I think the next three months are going to be very challenging. There's really no backstop against the spread that we're seeing. We're probably two or three weeks behind Europe. And Europe is in a very difficult position right now. So, I think as we enter the winter, we're going to see continued spread.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Help people understand that because it is well put by Dr. Gottlieb. If we go back to March and April, we were a couple of weeks behind Europe, climbing the hill. Europe is climbing the hill pretty steeply. Now, guess that, we are following behind again. We don't hear that from our president. What must the American people hear from the experts?

GOUNDER: I think we need to end the war on science. I think we need to listen to the scientists. And understand what is facts -- fact-based in terms of public health recommendations. We should all be wearing masks when we're outside of our household bubble. We should be trying to spend as much time outdoors versus indoors when we're around people outside of our household bubble. We should be washing our hands. We should be social distancing. We should be doing all of these things that we know work.

And masks are number one, two, and three in terms of what would prevent transmission of coronavirus. If we don't take this seriously now, we are going to find ourselves in a very difficult position in just weeks to maybe a month or so.

And many of us in the health field are really stealing ourselves because we know what it was like back in March and April. Many of us have frankly PTSD from that experience and are very nervous about what we're about to face again not having learned the lessons of that.

KING: Dr. Gounder, Toluse, grateful for your time time and your important insights today. We will continue this conversation including up next, we'll dig in deeper on this mask question. The doctor the president trusts most about coronavirus reups his dangerous take on masks. Dr. Atlas says just say no.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:16:10]

KING: Masks are a political dividing line in the 2020 campaign. And the president, and his top coronavirus adviser, like it that way. Like it so much they continue behavior the science tells us is dangerously wrong. A weekend tweet by White House adviser, Dr. Scott Atlas, pushed his view that masks are not effective. Twitter removed that post for violating its rules on misleading information. Dr. Atlas has the ear of a president to routinely skips the masks and routinely mocks his campaign rival for wearing one.

The Trump campaign knows this position, it's hurting the president. So, it makes sure most of those positioned behind him at Trump rallies now are wearing masks but the majority of those in the crowds do not.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They're always complaining, I don't see masks. There's a lot of masks on.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With me now is Chris Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Chris, thank you for your time today. This issue again sadly back, front and center. Just a yes or no answer, you run the numbers every day, science, data, facts, not political rhetoric. Is there any doubt in the data that masks help?

DR. CHRIS MURRAY, DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH METRICS AND EVALUATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON: There's no doubt at all. KING: There's no doubt at all. So, let's look. I just want to show some of your research, which is fascinating. We can look at May versus September.

Now, we put the two studies side by side. Yellow is a very low percentage which is fewer than 20 percent or 21 to 29 percent.

The yellow on the left is back in May that's very few people wearing masks.

Now if you look to the right, green is certainly better than yellow, meaning a higher percentage of people are wearing masks. But the lighter greens that still means a third to a half of Americans only - a third to a half of Americans wearing masks at the end of September.

Now, I want to put up one more. Let's move this forward. And we look at it from this perspective. On the left is your research at the end of September. In a lot of the country, fewer than half -- some big chunks of the country only roughly a third of the people wearing masks. And look at all of those states. 31 states right now increasing positivity. 31 states with increasing positivity.

Is there any doubt in your research of that connection, fewer people wear masks, higher positivity, more cases, more spread?

MURRAY: No, we find that in the statistical analysis what explains transmission, where we're seeing the surges, masks is really overwhelmingly an important driver of the epidemic. It's our best bet as well to put the brakes on it.

KING: And so, listen to the secretary of Health and Human Services. He says, you know what, we're seven months in and people just kind of getting up - giving up, let their guard down. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX AZAR, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: Cases are increasing, and we're seeing this happen because we're getting colder weather. We're losing that natural social distancing that happens from being out of doors and people are getting tired. The American people have given so much we're seeing mitigation fatigue right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Do you see that in the numbers in terms of mitigation fatigue? Do you see ebbs and flows right now in the use of masks and people doing other things they can do to help themselves? Is it consistent? Is it going in the wrong direction?

MURRAY: Well, as you dig deeper into not only you know when people wear masks but in which settings, what you're seeing is that people are still wearing masks pretty carefully when they go to the grocery store. But in many other types of activities like indoor gatherings which are so crucial for transmission. At work, we are seeing -- particularly restaurants, where still people are going to dine, mask use is really quite low. And that's some of the targets that we need to get people to really be vigilant and avoid contributing to transmission.

KING: Hard to get people to be vigilant when the doctor the president listens to the most tells him it's not important but we'll keep trying with the help of people like you. Chris Murray, thank you for your thoughts today and your important research.

Up next for us, the president, what he's doing on the road in a final campaign stretch.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:24:56]

KING: Rallies make the president happy.

[11:25:02]

But they also make many of his top campaign advisers a bit nervous. That's because rally Trump circa 2020 often hurts himself more than he helps.

CNN's John Harwood has a great piece on CNN.com outlining this dilemma. Lines that get laughs and cheers from the committed Trump faithful at rallies can also turn off women and other voters the president needs if he is to mount to 2020 come back.

The pandemic is one such example. As John writes, "Most Americans heed Dr. Anthony Fauci, a fact campaign advisers have recognized by using the eminent scientist in ads against his will. At Trump's rallies, supporters laugh as he mocks Fauci."

John Harwood joins me now. And John, that is an interesting dilemma because we know the president like any politician, but maybe even more so than any other politician, draws energy, loves the crowds at these rallies but some of the things he is saying make his advisers cringe.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: John, one of the things that's been a mystery throughout the campaign are the ways in which the president has harmed himself in ways that he simply can't seem to stop doing. One of them is you know he took this decision early on to downplay the coronavirus. Believing that the strong economy was his best argument for reelection.

And then, he sort of extended that after a brief period of getting serious about it. He extended that judgment in part, you know, there's some ideological resistance in his party to a stronger federal role, maybe some competence issues at the White House but trying to get back to that strong economy.

And so, he got dug in there and he's looking for people who affirm his instincts. You get that from Scott Atlas, the adviser who has sort of taken over the task force and you get that from the rallies where people cheer him. They share his skepticism of the virus. And it's part of this pattern of the president seeking the comfort of supporters he already has rather than seeking new supporters, which is what he needs to win and what his other Republican candidates need to hold the Senate.

KING: It will be remarkable to watch it play out. Yes, he has a vibrant support of plurality, but his struggle is trying to get to a majority. It's a fascinating smart piece. John Harwood, grateful for the reporting and insights.

Let's continue the conversation about 2020 right now with White House reporter at "The Wall Street Journal," Catherine Lucey and national political correspondent of "The New York Times," Alex Burns.

Alex, the president is on a phone call right now with his campaign staff we're told, and he sounds quite optimistic. The candidate supposed to sound optimistic. But the president says is, today is the best single day that I felt on either campaign we are going to win. I wouldn't have said that three weeks ago.

That's what the president is saying right now to his campaign staff. Attracts a little bit about what you wrote about in the newspaper today talking about the inside campaign. Bill Stepien is the campaign manager.

"Mr. Stepien and other campaign leaders, including Jason Miller, a senior strategist, have stressed to Republicans in Washington that they expect to outperform the public polls. The say their own data suggest a closer race in a number of states, including Arizona and Pennsylvania, than surveys conducted by news organizations. They are wagering that voter registration and the turnout machinery Mr. Trump's team has built over the past four years will ultimately give them an edge in narrowly divided states on Election Day."

Now, I have been at this a long time. The campaign is supposed to say we're going to win and the campaign is supposed to say people who might be reluctant to give it money that it's going to win. Do they really believe this or is this spin? Do they see it?

ALEX BURNS, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Well, John, I think they really believe that that some of the states are closer than public polls indicate. And for the record, that's something we're hearing from the Biden campaign as well. They don't expect to win a state like Pennsylvania by double digits.

But you know what we also report in that piece is that you just quoted is that Bill Stepien, the very same Bill Stepien who is telling Republicans they expect outperform public polls is also acknowledging to Republican leaders that the president has a very, very narrow path forward in the race. That he doesn't think that it's over. He's asking Republicans not to count them out, but that within even the Trump inner circle there is not the same level of professed optimism that you're hearing from the president himself.

KING: Right. And to that point, Catherine, the president needs to essentially draw to an inside straight flush of the toss up states still on the board, the Iowa, the North Carolina, the Georgia, the Florida. He has to win them all. He just has to. If he's going to get - not only gets him back into play, then comes to so-called blue wall, the president is president because he flipped Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Especially Wisconsin and Michigan have been stubborn all year if you look at the data. Not huge leads for Biden but consistent leads for Biden which is one of the reasons the president gets very frustrated about Michigan and its governor. And it keeps coming up at rallies. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Michigan had the best year. They have a governor that's got it locked down.

Something strange is happening in Michigan.

You know Michigan we sue.

Michigan now has to open because of the court case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That's Carson, Nevada. Why is he in Carson City, Nevada beating up on the governor of Michigan? Is it just his - you know it's another strong powerful woman the president is attacking or is it his frustration with the fact that that state so far not budging?