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Trump Trashes Dr. Fauci as Coronavirus Cases Spike across U.S.; Trump's Closing Strategy, Downplay Surging Virus, Slam Fauci; U.S. Supreme Court Allows Pennsylvania to Count Late-Arriving Ballots. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 20, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: 14 days to the election. A good Tuesday morning to you, I'm Jim Sciutto.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: We are almost there, I'm Poppy Harlow. We're glad you're with us this morning.

Well, very sad news as the COVID surge continues. New coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are way up across the country. More than 220,000 Americans have lost their lives as of this morning to this pandemic, with just two weeks until Election Day.

The president's closing strategy, downplay this virus, and he seems more interested in fighting the guy giving us facts. This morning, Dr. Fauci responds to the president's recent attacks.

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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Many, many states that had been doing reasonably well are now showing upticks. That's what we should be concentrating on. All that other is a distraction.

It's like The Godfather, nothing personal, strictly business, as far as I'm concerned. I just want to do my job and take care of the people of this country. That's all I want to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Dr. Fauci not taking the bait there.

It comes as he and other top health officials warn of a long road ahead that, sadly, the darkest days in the pandemic are ahead of us still. President Trump denying, however, those facts this morning on Fox.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Well, we are living with it and we're having the vaccines coming out very soon. With or without the vaccines we're rounding the turn.

We understand the disease. No, there will be no shutdowns.

Well, we have to open up and we live with it and we open up our schools.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: let's go to CNN's John Harwood for more on the president's comment this morning and his continuing, really, approach to the worsening outbreak.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Jim, what we've got is a situation where coronavirus is the top issue in the election. President Trump has given up trying to fight it. And he's trying to justify his failure to control the virus so far. He's doing that in two ways. One is embracing the advice of Scott Atlas, who is not an infectious disease specialist, but who is arguing under one term or the other that we should have a herd immunity strategy. He's also trying to discredit Dr. Anthony Fauci, who leads the health community that thinks the administration is not being aggressive enough.

It's a tricky thing to do because polls show the American public believes Fauci more than Trump, as the Trump campaign is recognized by including Fauci in their campaign ad. So President Trump has to discredit him in a gently way as he did this morning.

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TRUMP: He's a nice guy. The only thing I have to say is he is a little bit sometimes not a team player. But he is a Democrat. And I think he is just fine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARWOOD: Now, of course, Dr. Anthony Fauci is not a partisan figure. He served presidents of both parties, beginning with Ronald Reagan.

And a further problem for the president comes in the The New York Times/Siena poll out this morning, which shows that 37 percent of the American people agree with the president that the worst is behind us, but 51 percent, a majority of Americans say the worst is ahead of us in this pandemic. That very closely resembles Joe Biden's advantage over President Trump in the national polling.

HARLOW: Yes, troubling. Thank you, John, very much.

Our Senior Medical Correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, is with us. Good morning, Elizabeth.

So, in addition to the spike in cases, these record hospitalizations in 14 states, are happening.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. Let's take a look at the map that shows us those 14 states, Poppy. These are -- again, this is so important to remember. It's not just the cases, it's the hospitalizations that we also want to focus on. So, record hospitalizations in these states.

And if you look nationwide, you can see what we're unfortunately headed back up to that very high hospitalization rate that we had in July. That is not the direction we want to be going on, especially since we're headed towards winter when more people will be indoors so the virus can spread more easily.

Let's look in particular at some of those states that are experiencing those record hospitalizations. Across the country, it's more than 37,000 reported yesterday. Ohio, had more than 1,100 in their state.

[10:05:00]

And you can see Oklahoma, Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska are following.

And I think, you know, one of the things to remember here is that the United States is huge. So, you know, it started with a horrible situation in New York and it sort of moved around the country and you can see that we're really looking at large areas of the Midwest that are experiencing these highs now. Poppy, Jim?

SCIUTTO: All right. Folks waiting for a vaccine, of course. The head of the NIH was on NPR this morning, said very unlikely a vaccine authorized before Election Day or even late November. What are the experts saying about the most likely timing of at least one approved vaccine?

COHEN: Well, there are two that are actually kind of neck and neck, Pfizer and Moderna, with Pfizer being a little but further ahead. In fact, the head of their company telling The Wall Street Journal that they think -- or actually Moderna is saying that they think that they could have some data in December.

Let's look at where the four trials are at. So, Pfizer says that they could possibly have data that they could use to go to the FDA to get an authorization in late November. But I want to emphasize here, and I can't emphasize this enough, they say they possibly could have positive data. They're not sure that data is going to look good. They might have data, but the data might look terrible. Hopefully, it will look good. So this is a possible. That's why we put that word there.

Moderna, same situation, they're a little bit behind them. And they think that they could have data in December, but remember that data might not be good, it might not show that it works. We're hoping it works that it works.

AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, those trials are on pause while they look at participants who become ill to see what's going on. AstraZeneca has had two participants become ill, Johnson & Johnson has had one.

So, as you can see, half of the trials are on pause but half of the trials think they might have some data that they could show to the FDA November or December, emphasis on might.

SCIUTTO: Go it. Well, we know you'll bring it to us once we get that data. Elizabeth Cohen, thanks very much.

Joining us now, Dr. Carlos del Rio, Executive Associate Dean at Emory University Medical School. Dr. del Rio, always good to have you on.

DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE DEAN, EMORY UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: Great to be with you, Jim.

SCIUTTO: We had Dr. Paul. You heard Elizabeth's update on when data would come on. We had Dr. Paul Offit on in the last hour, because I asked him a big picture question.

Okay. So, approval coming in the next couple months, possibly, probably. How about broad availability of this? He said not until the middle to the end of next year that all of us and folks watching can be likely to get one. Do you agree with that or might it come earlier?

DEL RIO: Yes, Dr. Offit is absolutely right. I mean, I think if we have a vaccine, and let's assume everything goes well and we get a vaccine by December, January, the first rolls of the vaccine -- the first roll out is going to be to people, to first responders, to people at highest risk, elderly individuals. Then there's going to be a tiered approach and get into different phases.

And the last phase, getting it to everybody is probably not going to be until, I would say, the second to third quarter of next year.

Now, we've got to remember, the two vaccines that Elizabeth was talking about, the Moderna and the Pfizer vaccine, and I will say that I'm an investigator on the Moderna vaccine, they are vaccines that need two doses and they are vaccines that need to be refrigerated at minus 70.

So these are not the typical you're going to go to Walgreens or CVS to get. You're really going to have very specific sites that are going to be administering this vaccine.

And vaccinating millions of millions Americas is going to be a major effort. We're talking about a significant public health effort.

HARLOW: What about to the point about a vaccine, actually application and distribution? A bunch of states are waving their hands here saying we don't have the funds yet to figure out an equitable distribution plan for the vaccine once we get it, right? Because keeping it at negative 70 degrees, that's not easy. That's not like your home refrigerator or any doctor's office, right. So, I mean, how big of a crisis is that potentially?

DEL RIO: Absolutely, Poppy. That's a major issue, because states are submitting their plans right now about what to do. The CDC requested those plans, and I think that's right, to then allocate the resources because you're going to have to figure out almost like having vaccination points in cities and counties and municipalities that you can then tell people to go to.

And I suspect in order to avoid crowding, you're probably going to have to make an appointment, you're probably going to have -- it's just not -- you're not going to be able to just walk up and get a vaccine, the amount of vaccine necessary at those places, how much they can store in the refrigerators. As I said, setting the infrastructure for minus 70 is nothing cheap. Those refrigerators run in the order for $5,000 to $6,000 a piece.

SCIUTTO: Goodness. I mean, the challenge is just enormous there.

Let me ask you this, because a growing problem is reluctance to take this vaccine, at least based on the public polling down to around 50 percent in CNN's measure of this. People have been bombarded with so much disinformation about the vaccine, questions about political influence, et cetera.

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What percentage of the country needs to take it, be confident enough to take it and have access to it to successfully put this virus under control?

DEL RIO: Well, we need to do sort of a back of the envelope calculation. It depends on the efficacy of the vaccine. I think we're all pretty sure that this vaccine is not going to be like a measles vaccine, a vaccine that has 90-plus, 100 percent efficacy. This is going to be a vaccine more with about 40 to 50, let's say 50 to 60 percent efficacy.

So if you need to vaccinate, you need to make sure 60 percent of the country are immunized with a vaccine that has 60 percent efficacy, you probably are going to have to vaccinate close to 80, 90 percent of the country. So it's going to be a significant (INAUDIBLE). This is not simple.

And that's why I tell people, that's what I say, the vaccine is not a solution, an immediate solution. It's going to take time. And for the meantime, we have a vaccine. We can wear a mask. And wearing a mask actually decreases transmission of this virus.

So we need to continue wearing masks. This is not going to -- oh, we have a vaccine, we don't need to worry anymore.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Yes, for sure. And, by the way, our kids aren't going to have a vaccine for long after we have a vaccine.

Dr. del Rio, great to have you, as always. Thank you.

DEL RIO: Take care. Have a good day.

HARLOW: You too.

The president clearly taking a page out of his 2016 playbook in these final two weeks, hitting the trail and his opponents hard. Will it work this time around?

SCIUTTO: We're also following breaking news this hour. The Department of Justice is now suing Google, accusing the tech giant of stifling competition.

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[10:15:00]

SCIUTTO: Two weeks until Election Day, 14 days, but tens of millions of Americans have already cast their ballots. You have both candidates now in an attempt to win over undecided voters, Biden/Harris, Trump and Pence, Trump, of course, part of that attacking even some of his own advisers.

HARLOW: In the past few days, we've seen him lash out at everyone, from Dr. Fauci to the Debate Commission as well as the media.

Let's bring in our Senior Political Analyst John Avlon and Politico White House Correspondent and Associate Editor, Anita Kumar. Good morning. Good to have you both here.

I wanted to start with you, John Avlon, to that point that was just made about all of the attacks from the president. It's not new but it doesn't seem to have the approach of trying to broaden the base. And I ask you this because Republican Congressman Francis Rooney, just yesterday, admittedly is leaving Congress for a number of reasons. He was pretty fed up. But listen to what he said about that issue of the base.

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REP. FRANCIS ROONEY (R-FL): I think that the narrowing of the base could really continue to undermine the Republican Party's ability to have part of the government.

There's been a lot of damage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: There's been a lot of damage. And the question is what happens to the Senate, John? Does the president see what this could bring?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I don't think the president actually cares about anyone other than himself. And that's the problem the Republicans are confronting, which is why you're starting to see some Republicans bring some distance between themselves and Donald Trump, because they recognize that he is a drag on their general election prospects.

And it's the flipside of the calculation they made heading into their primaries because they're afraid of the base. I know the base loves Donald Trump, and so they were afraid to speak out and say their truth. Good for Congressman Rooney.

But, again, it's much easier to speak out and grow a civic spine in this particular political context when you're not seeking re-election. And so, frankly, a little too late. But you're going to hear a lot more Republicans start to distance themselves because Donald Trump seems to be self-destructing and runs the risk of taking the ticket down with him.

SCIUTTO: And to Rooney's credit, he was willing to publicly express disagreements with the president before he made his decision not to run. But, again --

AVLON: But not vote for impeachment, for example.

SCIUTTO: True, no question. Although he did say he was open to it. Again, I'm not trying to do his work for him compared to some of the other (INAUDIBLE) at this point.

Anita, if I could speak to you about the Biden/Harris strategy for the final stretch run here, what's their message, where are they focusing that message?

ANITA KUMAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. They definitely are going to try to do what they have been doing, which is a disciplined message on two things, the coronavirus, of course, and also what Joe Biden likes to call the soul of our nation, how to get this country back to being civil with each other, that people can get along.

So you'll see him doing those things. You'll see Senator Harris also doing those things and really try to stay with that. Obviously, the debate is on Thursday. That's a very important moment for Joe Biden. He is going to try not to get upset, he is going to try to stay disciplined on that message, not let Donald Trump interrupt a lot of times.

But they're going to do these events that are going to be small. They're going to talk about how they are listening to scientists on the coronavirus, and they're not doing these big rallies like Donald Trump. And we'll see them, of course, both sides in these swing states that we are familiar with. Both sides are going to be in Pennsylvania this week. Donald Trump will be there tonight. And we'll see some of those same changes or differences between the two of them.

HARLOW: John Avlon, again, two Republicans speaking out. I'm going to try this one more time, Republican Senator Lamar Alexander, who also is retiring at the end of the term. But listen to what he said yesterday about Dr. Fauci when the president attacked him.

Dr. Fauci is one of our country's most distinguished public servants. If more Americans paid attention to his advice, we'd have fewer cases of COVID-19, and it would be safer to go back to school and back to work and eat out.

Meaningful from a Republican or just lip service?

[10:20:01]

AVLON: I mean, it's better than nothing. It's a statement of fact and principle. But, again, Lamar Alexander, voted against hearing from witnesses during the impeachment because he assured us --

HARLOW: I'm talking about Fauci and -- okay, Fauci and the health of the American people. AVLON: I understand that. But, again, you're asking if it's too late.

And Lamar Alexander was one of those Republican senators who assured us that Donald Trump would change. Donald Trump fighting with Dr. Fauci is obviously malpractice. He has been a font of disinformation when it comes to the COVID-19 crisis. And it's great to see some Republican senators say that, look, Dr. Fauci is an honorable public servant and he shouldn't be attacked by the president. But that should be table stakes. That's just a statement of truth.

SCIUTTO: Yes. To your point, as you said, post-impeachment, you had folks like Senator Collins say the president learned a lesson here. And, of course, we've seen the president applied pressure internationally to his perceived political advantage at home.

Anita, we have another debate, as Poppy was saying, in a couple days, with new rules, a mute button at least active for the first couple of minutes for their comments here. Will that work?

KUMAR: I'm not sure. Because as you just indicated, it's not for the whole debate, right? It's just for these segments at the very beginning. So what it does ensure is that both sides, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, get to speak uninterrupted for these couple of minutes at the beginning of each segment. So that's good, people should be able to hear the contrast.

But what's going to happen during that other part of the debate is unclear. Will Donald Trump go after Joe Biden and not let either man really have a say and really put out those differences, a little bit unclear.

I will tell you that people close to the president really want him to do something different this time. They don't want him interrupting. They want him to leave Joe Biden room to, you know, as they say, make a mistake or have a gaffe. They feel that was a mistake last time that Donald Trump looked like he was being aggressive but he didn't let Joe Biden make his own mistakes. And they really want him to do that.

So they've been counseling him to do that on Thursday and we'll see if the president is able to do that. Oftentimes, as you know, he gets advice but doesn't listen to it.

SCIUTTO: That's the backhanded compliment version of spin, right, saying, well, if he speaks more, he's clearly going to make a mistake. So we should be aware of that.

HARLOW: Can you imagine if the moderator had to mute? I mean, I can't imagine that pressure. at least there is not that pressure. All right, thanks, guys.

SCIUTTO: John and Anita, thanks to both of you.

CNN's special coverage of Thursday's final presidential debate starts at 7:00 P.M. Eastern Time. You will want to watch.

In the key swing state of Wisconsin, early voting starts today. Could we see the record turnout we've seen in many other states? We'll be watching.

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HARLOW: The U.S. Supreme Court has dealt the Republicans a major blow in their fight against mail-in voting. On Monday, the high court rejected the GOP's attempts to require mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania to all be received by election night, to be counted. Instead, ballots will be counted if they're received within three days of November 3rd.

SCIUTTO: Notably, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberal justices to make it a 4-4 deadlock. That means the lower court's ruling holds. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, two critical swing states, are not allowed to begin processing absentee ballots until Election Day.

Wisconsin kicks off in-person early voting today amid a record number of COVID-19 cases there. And they, of course, got a case up about how long after Election Day those ballots can be received and counted.

HARLOW: That's right. Our Correspondent, Omar Jimenez, joins us in Milwaukee this morning. Good morning, Omar.

The city has taken several steps to try to keep their polls safe in this pandemic.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jim and Poppy. People here in Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, in particular, having to walk that that COVID precaution balance and that duty of being an American citizen, of voting, maybe more than anywhere else in the country. There's a line here before the doors even opened up earlier this first day on this first day of early voting.

But as you talk to the people who decided to, again, show up in person, they wanted to make sure their voices were heard. As one voter told me, they felt the mail system was iffy.

Now, one of the voters that we've been speaking to today, his name is Eduardo De La Torre, he is getting ready to go vote. Tell me about why you decided you wanted to come out and do this in person on day one here in Wisconsin.

EDUARDO DE LA TORRE, WISCONSIN VOTER: I just wanted to get it out of the way and kind of avoid the lines of in-person voting, and like you mentioned, the -- a lot of what the Trump administration is doing with the mail system is creating uncertainty for people like myself, who would otherwise vote by mail.

So it's the first day, I'm here right now and early and I'm ready to get it done.

JIMENEZ: Had you voted by mail in the past?

DE LA TORRE: I had not. But, obviously, I had registered to vote by mail in the last election and I never received a ballot. So that kind of played into my thinking of voting early in person and getting it out of the way.

JIMENEZ: And we both got masks on here, as has been mandated here in the state.

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Were you nervous at all coming out knowing that you're seeing record numbers here in Wisconsin and with a positivity rate over 20 percent?