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President Trump: People Are Tired Of Hearing Fauci And All These Idiots; President Trump Attacks Dr. Fauci On Call With Campaign Staff; Dr. Anthony Fauci: Certain Parts Of Society "Disturbingly Anti- Science"; President Trump Tries To Hold Onto Key Rust Belt Swing States; Utah Reports Rise In Test Positivity, Hospitalizations. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired October 19, 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 to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I am John King in Washington. Thank you for sharing a very, very busy news day with us. 15 days now from the November election. And President Trump's top priority today, attacking the scientists inside his own administration.

On a campaign call just last hour, the president labels Dr. Anthony Fauci "A disaster." And the president claims without any evidence that had he listened completely to Dr. Fauci, American Coronavirus deaths would number more than 500,000. This is a quote from the President of the United States "People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots." That's what your president says.

The president says the pandemic's end is near, but scientists warn the next few months will likely be the darkest weeks of this entire pandemic. Take a look at the numbers. 48,000 new cases recorded on Sunday. The second highest COVID tally on Sunday since back on July 26th. That number is also low, because we know it is missing case totals from six states.

The weekend total of new cases from Friday through Sunday just under 175,000 new infections. The United States now growing its case count by 56,000 per day on average right now. The spring spike was driven by the Northeast, the summer surge centered largely on the South. This false tsunami is not regional, it is just about everywhere.

Look at the map. 27 states, 27 of the 50 states, that's the red and the orange trending in the wrong direction. 21, that's Beige, treading water. Only two green, two states, only two of the fifty pushing down their case curves right now. 2020, we all know is the pandemic campaign.

Thursday night is the final time the president debates Democrat Joe Biden. Every day it seems he squares off against truth and against science.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: 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: I think deep down he believes in science. If he didn't, he would not have entrusted his health to the very competent physicians at The Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Sometimes equates wearing a mask with weakness.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does that make sense to you?

DR. FAUCI: No, it doesn't, of course not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's go to the White House and CNN's Kaitlin Collins. Kaitlan, a predictable pattern here, the president has again taking the bait. Dr. Fauci does that 60 minutes interview last night, he is clearly critical of the president about the reckless event at the White House to Supreme Court rollout, about the president getting Coronavirus himself right there about how the president somehow thinks masks are weak.

And then the president as he often does responds to somebody he sees on television, calling Dr. Fauci a disaster, an idiot. Dr. Fauci has pretty high esteem with the American people.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, he does. And let's remember also that the Trump Campaign recently used Dr. Fauci in an ad, because they know that he can appeal to voters because he does have such a high approval rating.

But clearly it didn't take long for the president to respond after that 60 minutes interview. And so, to be clear to viewers, this is a call that the president was doing with campaign staff, staff that's here at the headquarters in Washington and staff throughout the country.

And unprompted, the president was supposed to be disputing reports that campaign staff internally and privately believe that the chances of him being reelected are slim. But then unprompted, the president goes after Dr. Fauci, because he was talking about these big rallies that he has been having, and he says that he believes people are getting tired of Coronavirus.

And we're working on audio. But right now I'm just going to read you the quote from the president where he said people are saying whatever, just leave us alone. They are tired of it; people are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots. He then goes on to say somewhat sarcastically Fauci is a nice guy, he has been here for 500 years, he also claims Fauci is a disaster.

And that if I listened to him, we would have a half million deaths, where later going on and upping his own number to say 7,00,000 or 800,000, though of course with no basis for why he is saying he believes there would be thousands or hundreds of thousands of more deaths if Dr. Fauci had been leading the effort.

And he said this is a call with staff that the president seemed to know that reporters like myself were on this call, because then he goes, there's a reporter on, you can have it just the way I said it, I couldn't care less. So he knew that people were listening in on this call that he was trashing the nation's top public health official that the campaign is recently used in ads and the president continued with this sentiment.

And of course this is coming as over 200,000 Americans are dead from Coronavirus. And as you just pointed out the top of the show, we are seeing cases rise. But the president is saying he believes people do not care about the pandemic any longer.

KING: Right, the cases are rising. The president does have a campaign to run. Nobody begrudges in that and it's 15 days away is Election Day. Although a lot of people have already voted and are out voting as we have this conversation right now. But he is calling Dr. Fauci an idiot; he is saying that Dr. Fauci is a disaster at a time we are running up all these new cases,

[12:05:00]

KING: And at a time the radiologist he now listens to most of all in Coronavirus put out a tweet over the weekend saying masks? No. Masks, no. Dr. Scott Atlas, the president's now trusted voice. Mask of course now you see it right there, Twitter took that down, because it defines it as misleading information, especially about a critical public health issue.

Kaitlan we know that this has caused a lot of tension. Dr. Atlas coming into the White House has caused a lot of tension. "The Washington Post" is reporting that tension is so high; that Dr. Deborah Berks went to the vice president's office and says this is dangerous, this is counter to what the public health expert's advice should be; Dr. Atlas should be removed from the Task Force.

So again, 15 days from Election, yes, but on a critical day, every day is critical. As we go back up to this third peak, conflict, fighting, in-fighting among the president's top advisers.

COLLINS: Yes and there's also really been this disintegration of the task force, where they're not meeting that often though. The Press Secretary claimed to severely say they're meeting every single day. We've heard from other people like Dr. Fauci who have said in interviews they're only averaging about one meeting a week now, because that's the vice president is obviously on a road a lot, campaigning, as well as the president.

And so, they had a meeting on Friday. I believe they have another meeting tomorrow. But what's really the story here is there are these serious divisions among those members of the Task Force. And Dr. Scott Atlas is a big reason for that, because many of the doctors have been frustrated by what he is telling the president. Because they believe it runs contrary to what their data and their science shows. Dr. Atlas has brushed this off as saying, well, it's just discussions

that we're having, and if there's no push back, then it's not a very good discussion. But their concern is that, there's information getting to the president that he is then pushing when he is questioning something like the use of masks like he did last week at that Town Hall with NBC.

And Dr. Birx clearly is someone who went from having the president's attention, she was the one that he brought to briefings, she was the one he took on the road with her. And now Dr. Atlas who he watched on Fox News and then brought into the White House as a Coronavirus Adviser has taken that position really.

And he is the one that the president is speaking to so often. And so, that's coming into concern of people like Dr. Anthony Fauci. You can see the way that president talks about Dr. Anthony Fauci, trashing him on this call. He has not done similar with Dr. Birx, but he is trashing him saying he is a disaster; meanwhile he is praising Dr. Atlas, calling him one of the greatest doctors in the world and saying things like that.

So you can tell who the president is listening to and obviously his frustration with Fauci has been bubbling up for months and now it really has surfaced in a remarkable way. I think people should take a step back to see just how stunning it is.

This is the nation's top infectious disease expert, and the president is openly going after him on a staff call meant to bolster campaign staff two weeks before the election, and instead it turned to a trash talking session on Fauci.

KING: Right. And he says so, run the country like you ran his business while his campaign right now spending millions to dollars to promote Dr. Fauci in an ad on television, saying something Dr. Fauci says he is taking out of context, but still he's spending millions of dollars to put Dr. Fauci out there and then the person who is running that campaign calls him an idiot and disaster.

Brilliant. That's just how they teach it in business school. Kaitlan Collins live with the White House. Thanks so much. Let's continue the conversation now about the pandemic with Caitlin Rivers, the Senior Scholar from Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Caitlin, I hate to put you in this position, but you have the President of United States on a call saying Dr. Fauci is a disaster. Dr. Fauci and those like him in the administration who argue for strong mitigation, who warn about the rising case count, they're idiots, the president says. I want you to listen to a speech Dr. Fauci gave last hour. He doesn't mention the president but--

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. FAUCI: We have a lot of challenges ahead of us. And I can't help thinking that we're really going through a time that's disturbingly anti-science in certain segments of our society, that's very troublesome to me. And we really need a group of scientists and physicians and health care providers really stick together in our principles.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Help me as a scientist, someone who has spent months on this. When you hear the President of the United States, I am not saying Dr. Fauci is always right, I am not saying anybody is always right, but Dr. Fauci has spent four decades doing this.

This is what he does for a living. For the president to call him a disaster and an idiot, is that I assume you would agree the president is one of those anti-science people?

CAITLIN RIVERS, INFECTIOUS DISEASE EPIDEMIOLOGIST: I have to agree with Dr. Fauci that our outbreak has headed in the wrong direction. And it's more important now than ever that people understand how to keep themselves and their families safe.

And so, I think that we should be promoting the messages around how to slow the spread of the virus, and keep people healthy to the greatest extent possible. And so, I'd encourage people to listen to Dr. Fauci's message on that.

KING: And so, when you look at the case count, 50,000 plus a day on average now, higher than that, 56,000 plus a day on average. Now you look at so many states in double digit positivity, which means not only more cases today, but the likelihood of more infections tomorrow.

I want you to listen to Dr. Michael Osterholm here who says the next stretch ahead of us will be the most dangerous. We've been at this for about eight months now, but he says the worst is about to happen. Listen.

[12:10:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY: The next six to 12 weeks are going to be the darkest of the entire pandemic. Vaccines will not become available in any meaningful way until early to third and quarter of next year. And even then, half of the U.S. population at this point is skeptical of even taking the vaccine. So what we have right now is a major problem and messaging. People don't know what to believe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: When you look at the period of the next 6 to 10 to 12 weeks, do you see the same thing and the data of the case claim the higher positivity? And if so, what can be done to make it less worse, even if it's going to definitely be bad?

RIVERS: I do see difficult times ahead. We not only see rise in case counts, we see those throughout the country which is concerning, it's not a single hot spot, it's really disseminated outbreaks. And we see worsening signs also in test positivity and the number of hospitalizations. And taken together, that gives us a pretty clear indication that we're

headed in the wrong direction. And we're also entering flu season which could add on a layer of complexity that could really stress our health care systems and make it difficult to manage this next phase.

And so, I think it's really important that people continue to stay home, to wear masks when they spend time in the community and to wash their hands when they get home, and before they eat. All of these things really do help. And I think that they're the tools that we need to rely upon as we go into this next phase.

KING: Caitlin Rivers grateful for your insights as always and science, science and facts that's what we'll try to keep at the top of the program. Caitlin, thank you so much.

Up next, we return to the campaign trail, and a question being asked in the final two weeks of this campaign just as it was in the final two weeks of the last campaign. Is there a viable path to get President Trump to 270 electoral votes?

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[12:15:00]

KING: The question now very similar to a question we asked four years ago at this time, can you get Donald Trump, is there a viable path to get in this case President Trump to 270 electoral votes and add to the calculation since Joe Biden is leading the race?

And look, we admit 290 electoral votes totaling 163 for President Trump. Dark blue solid, Biden, light blue, leans Biden, if Joe Biden's leading right now, what should his calculation should be, what should his calculations be in the final weeks here to block their president, if you will?

So let's take a scenario this way, OK? The states on the board, the gold, those are the tossups states. Let's see if the president wins them all. And it's conceivable, Iowa he won last time, has Republican DNA. Ohio, Republican DNA. The president won it comfortably last time. North Carolina, the president won it last time, Republicans won in 2012.

Georgia has been Republican a long time, he got to go back to Bill Clinton, Democrat wins that in presidential politics. And Florida, always a close battleground, but the president won it last time. Now all those states were in play for Joe Biden. I am not trying to say they're not.

But if the president ran the board there, look what would happen, he would still be short. He would still be short. So you look back, think about the 2016 campaign, and look at the 2020 map. Right now, Wisconsin leans Biden, Michigan leans Biden. Pennsylvania leans Biden, Pennsylvania is the biggest here, 20 electoral votes.

If Donald Trump could take that away, even there it's not enough, it's not enough. But if he can get Pennsylvania and Arizona or Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, Trump would be back in the game.

So what are the questions for Democrats right now is, yes, Joe Biden has money, he could go everywhere. But if you think the map could go this way, shouldn't Joe Biden just do this? Defend there, defend the old blue wall, the three states that President Trump flipped, the reason Trump is President Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania.

Shouldn't Joe Biden just defend them now? Sure, maybe disappoint democrats in Texas, maybe disappoint democrats in Georgia, maybe even not go west, and if Arizona slips, Arizona slips. That's the calculation you have to make late in the campaign.

Let's discuss that with someone who knows how to make those decisions. David Axelrod is with us now. He of course is a Senior CNN Political Commentator, but was the Chief Strategist for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.

So Axe, if you're getting a call and you're in the Biden Campaign and they're saying come, we can at least flip the Texas legislature even if you can't win, come to Georgia, we got two Senate races. If you're Joe Biden, do you say no thank you, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, or do you try to do it all?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, you certainly would spend the preponderance of your time there. One of the reasons that the Trump Campaign feared Biden as an opponent was because he had a particular appeal in the upper Midwest where they won last time and where they need to win again.

One of the reasons Barack Obama chose Joe Biden as his running mate in 2008 was for that very same reason, because he was a strong candidate in that region. And you do want to nail those down. Hillary Clinton made a mistake in 2016 by neglecting those states, never appeared in Wisconsin after the convention, for example.

So you don't want to assume too much. That said they have the resources to make a real statement in these other states. Georgia is a tossup state, this year legitimately a tossup state. Nobody really saw that coming necessarily and he is playing big there on television as is Trump. And there are other states. He is up in Ohio, which is a tossup state right now.

Trump won it by nine last time. So you want to do with resources what you can't do with your physical presence and surrogates. So yes, concentrate on those three states, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. But I'd be greedy right now, I'd be thinking bigger given his lead in the national poll.

KING: You say you'd be greedy, you'd thinking bigger. I just want to put out some of the ad spending stuff you talked about there. Because right now this is an unusual development in the campaign is that the, Biden Campaign has a lot more money than the Trump Campaign.

AXELROD: Yes.

KING: So, the Trump Campaign if you will has to be even more careful and how it spends it. But this is the president's advertising in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. You notice Wisconsin, 6.1 to 1.1. Pennsylvania, 13 million to 8 million. Michigan, 8 million to 5 million.

[12:20:00]

KING: So, Biden is already outspending him. Flip the coin for me, David, if you were, sorry to put you in an uncomfortable position. If you're advising the president's campaign and you know you're short money, you know it cost a lot of money to put Air Force One in the air. How do you try to find the magic like you did four years ago?

AXELROD: Well, obviously he is barn storming many of the states we just mentioned. The question, John, is, and this is a little bit off track of your inquiry, but is he helping himself in those states? If you go to Michigan and you do it, he did, and you inflame feelings about the Governor, and mock her for having been the target of a kidnapping attempt. Does that help you?

If you go to Wisconsin and minimize the virus at a time when it is a major emergency in that state, does it help you? So, theoretically it does help to go to these states. The question is whether he is actually helping himself by doing it?

KING: Let me walk through a scenario. Tell me if you disagree. Just jump in as I turn to the wall here. But I'm just doing this; this is where we have the race right now, lopsided in Biden's favor, right? But it was lopsided in Hillary Clinton's favor two week stuff four years ago. Iowa has republican DNA. So I'm just going to give it to the president.

I think you would say that is clearly within the realm of possibility. Joe Biden could win, but it has republican DNA. Ohio tends to be the most Republican state of the Midwestern industrial states. North Carolina certainly within the president's reaches.

Again Joe Biden can win it, but I'm just saying for the sake of argument. If you think looking at the map, Georgia, we turn Georgia red and we turn Florida red. If you get to this point, then for the president, you're still 23 shy, you're still 23 shy.

So, you can go out to Arizona and Nevada, some people say Mr. President, A, not a lot of electoral votes, B, demographics are against you or same thing for the president. Should he be back in this belt, again trying to recreate the 2016 map even though as you noted with the Coronavirus with Biden being different than Hillary Clinton in many ways, including his appeal to blue collar people, it's a different challenge. But is it their best hope?

AXELROD: You're right to point to those two states. He needs to figure out a way to piece this together. I think North Carolina; they've indicated is central to any strategy, winning strategy. Arizona would be another piece. Nevada would be the longest shot of those three.

But I would focus on those three states in addition to those core states that you mentioned, and you just have to assume, it's interesting he is off the air in Ohio. That's an even race, maybe even shading in Biden's direction right now.

But there are swings that you just have to - if you're going to lose Ohio, you're done. And there are certain things you just have to assume and Marshall your resources on those that you can - that could swing and that you must have.

KING: Right. And as we close the conversation to get back to where we stand right now, instead of the hypothetical ahead on the map, you're absolutely right. If you are the President of the United States, and you can't get that, I'll just leave it at those two, because they're the big prices. If you can't get those, you're done.

We will see how it plays out in the 15 days left? David Axelrod as always grateful for your help walking through that. For us up next, back to the Coronavirus and live to Utah, one of the western states right now reporting a surge in cases and hospitalizations.

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[12:25:00]

KING: Utah is among 14 states right now reporting a Coronavirus test positivity rate above 10 percent over the course of the past week. Utah also seeing a new high in the number of people hospitalized because of COVID-19. CNN's Martin Savidge on the ground for us in Salt Lake City which Martin has a growing problem.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It does, John. And in fact, the Governor knows it well. Gary Herbert has described this as one of the worst Corona outbreaks currently going on in the United States, which could explain why you've now taken a sports stadium facility here, the University of Utah, formerly an Olympic stadium, and now turned it into a testing site for COVID-19.

In fact the people that are showing up here are the people that actually believe they may have COVID-19 or directly in association with somebody who did. So, let's talk about this terrible week. The last seven days here in Utah has been the worst that they've had since the pandemic began. In fact, Sunday, yesterday, was the fifth day in a row that they reported more than a thousand new cases in this state.

So there are real problems that they're seeing here. In fact when you look at the positivity rate in this state, the numbers now at around 15 percent hovering on average, that's incredibly high number. And state officials here know that that is just sort of a leading indicator. The worst is still to come. In fact, I talked to Dr. Richard Orlandi; he's overseen whether it's taking place here. He talks about what they fear is next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. RICHARD ORLANDI, CHIEF MEDICAL DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH: My biggest concern in the next few weeks is where it will peak, and will we have sufficient staff to be able to provide all the health care that we want to provide. The staff are going to be effected by COVID just like anybody else in our community. So as the demand goes up and the staffing levels stay the same or go down, it's a perfect crisis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: They've already got problems with ICU units here in Salt Lake City. In fact, on Friday, they were at 104 percent capacity. Excuse me. The numbers have now come down somewhat, but they know that, that's because of the weekend.