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U.S. Officials Link Iran to Threatening Emails Sent to Voters; Study Shows COVID-19 Death Rate Drops as Medical Efforts Improve; Supreme Court Blocks Curbside Voting in Alabama. Aired 11:30-12p ET

Aired October 22, 2020 - 11:30   ET

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

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[11:30:00]

JOHN KING, CNN INSIDE POLITICS: Foreign election interference is front and center in the closing days of the campaign again, with a big new twist. Top national security officials called a news conference last night to announce Iran was behind a new effort to intimidate voters with the goal of fomenting election confusion.

Now, there are still questions about this new information, including whether Iran hacked voter registration files or just used public information. And there are questions about how this alleged Iranian meddling was characterized by the director of National Intelligence.

The emails allegedly sent by Iran were to Democratic voters and threatened harm if those voters did not vote for President Trump. But listen to how the director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, explained it.

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JOHN RATCLIFFE, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: We have identified that two foreign actors, Iran and Russia, have taken specific actions to influence public opinion relating to our elections.

We have already seen Iran sending spoofed emails designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest and damage President Trump.

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KING: Joining me now is our CNN Senior National Security Correspondent Alex Marquardt, and Shawn Turner, CNN National Security Analyst, former Director of Communications to the U.S. National Intelligence.

Alex, I want to start with you. This is a remarkable, hastily arranged evening press conference. Take us inside the reasons they decided that was necessary and if you can, connect the dots for me. DNI Ratcliffe says this was to hurt President Trump but the emails threatened Democrats don't vote for Biden.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes. This was arranged very quickly, as you say, John, at 7:30 last night. We didn't really know this was coming, and it's remarkable because this really was a who's who of the top national security officials who are in charge of safeguarding this election.

On its face, it is significant and new information that Iran and Russia have gotten hold of voter registration data and are using it. As you noted, it's less important that they got that data because much of it is publicly available, but more important perhaps is how they're using it.

Iran, we now know, has sent out thousands of these emails, we've already reported, to voters in Alaska and Florida that are threatening voters, Democratic voters, saying, vote for Trump or else. One of them also said, vote for Trump or we will come after you.

Now, look at what Ratcliffe said in that sound bite that you just played. They are designed to intimidate voters, that is true, they are designed to incite social unrest, that is absolutely clear. And where he gets himself into a bit of trouble is when he says that they are designed to damage President Trump.

So, what a lot of Democrats are saying today is that doesn't quite follow. How is that possible if they're threatening Democratic voters, how does that work that they are designed to harm President Trump?

Now, this comes after many -- several instances of Ratcliffe acting in a very political manner in order to help President Trump, but it must be said that the intelligence community and professionals within that community have said for the past several months that Iran is seeking to undermine President Trump.

And what was also remarkable about this press conference was that -- was not just that they mentioned Russia but that it wasn't -- the emphasis was not really made there. There are countless experts and officials who say that it is really Russia who is doing the vast majority of the malicious work to meddle in this election here, to undermine and denigrate Joe Biden in favor of President Trump.

That is not something that we heard last night. It was primarily about Iran. And we have seen the president go after Director Wray in the past when he has said that Russia is very actively meddling in this election. John?

KING: It is a tad confusing, which is why we have Shawn Turner here. Shawn, you know the inside workings of the intelligence community very, very well. So, as you watched this last night, one of the knocks on the Obama administration was they did not call out the Russian interference more plainly, more publicly in the last election.

So, on the one hand, good, I believe, you believe, that they're coming out and talking about this, but you have questions about the motives.

SHAWN TURNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Right, John. Look, I think we have to acknowledge upfront that for the intelligence community to provide information to the American people about interference in our election is a good thing, whether that interference is foreign or domestic and we're seeing both in this case. But I do think it's a legitimate question to ask about the timing.

Look, as Alex said, this event was put together hastily last night and we saw some information in this event that really didn't seem to ring true with what we're actually seeing.

[11:35:04]

Look, when it comes to election interference in the United States, there is no bigger offender than Russia. It's not Iran, not North Korea, not China. We know they all attempt to interfere but none bigger than Russia. And for this administration, that is an inconvenient fact. Because what we saw in 2016, what we saw attempted in 2018, of course, what we're seeing again in 2020 is that Russian interference is universally designed to either directly or indirectly support the president.

So when we saw Director Ratcliffe focus on Iran, which is a country that may be fourth or fifth down the ladder when it comes to interference, what we saw there is an attempt to do what we've seen Director Ratcliffe do repeatedly since he's been DNI, and that is to take intelligence that may be factual but interpret that intelligence on the spot so it is politically convenient for the president.

KING: We'll watch as this one plays out again. Again, a lot of questions, I think it is good they're coming forward but we'll spend a lot of time reporting to get more on this. Alex Marquardt, Shawn Turner, grateful for the reporting and insights there.

Up next for us, a new study examining coronavirus death rates. Will the findings help us as we head back up toward a third peak?

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[11:40:00]

KING: The trend lines of this third COVID peak facing the United States right now are troubling. But there is a new study today that does suggests lessons learned over the past eight months can make this next phase less deadly. You can see it right here. The new study shows hospitalized patients in the United States are now much less likely to die from the virus than they were back at the start of the pandemic. That's thanks in part to modern medicine, that according to one of the study's authors, Dr. Leora Horwitz.

Our findings suggest, she writes, while COVID-19 remains a terrible disease, our efforts to improve treatment are probably working even in the absence of a silver bullet treatment or vaccine, we are protecting patients through a host of small changes.

Those findings faced (ph) in the media test, you see the graph right there, hospitalizations ticking up once again as cases rise across the country.

Dr. Leora Horwitz joins us now. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Population Health Medicine at NYU Langone Health. Doctor, grateful for your time today.

You say a host of small things are helping, no one silver bullet. What are they?

DR. LEORA HORWITZ, NYU LANGONE HEALTH: Well, we've learned an awful lot since March now that we've been six months into this epidemic. We know now not to rush to put people on ventilators. We know now that steroids are very effective for sick patients. We know now to put people on their stomachs to help them breath and open up their lungs. We know the complications to watch for, the blood clots, the kidney failure. And we know how to avoid this by treating early. We even know just to watch people's oxygen and get them into the hospital sooner than we did before.

So all of these are small and they have small impacts. But, collectively, we think that they're being helpful.

KING: That collectively helps and every little thing helps.

I just want to show the chart of deaths over the past several months, and it's a painful chart to show. But I show it to make a point. If you look back at the beginning, March, April, May, you see the death count much higher, and then you the summer surge, July through August. There were more cases in the July and August period than there were back in the March and April period. So, obviously, medicine has helped, knowledge has helped.

How much of it is medicine and how much of it is, for example, that vulnerable populations may have learned the painful lessons and are being more careful protecting themselves?

HORWITZ: Yes. Well, that's exactly why we did the study, because we know that people who are being hospitalized over the summer are younger, they are healthier, they have fewer diseases, and we wondered, does that explain all of the difference in mortality.

So, for this study, we looked just at NYU Langone Health, just our hospital system in New York City. We took care of over 5,000 patients so far. And we accounted for how old they were, how many other diseases they had or which other diseases they had, whether they were smoking, whether they were obese, even how sick they were when they got to the hospital, how low was their oxygen, how bad were their blood counts. And we accounted for all of those things and still found a substantial decrease in mortality.

So it's not just about the patients being healthier now that are getting infected, it's also probably something about our treatment. But it also could be something about how crowded the hospitals are. Now we have more space to take care of them and there's fewer in the hospital at one time.

And it might even have to do with how careful people are being at home. So there is a theory that if you are wearing masks and distancing and staying away from crowds, that even if you get infected, you might get infected with less virus and that might make your disease less severe.

KING: Very important, the way you put it all together there. All the little pieces add up to help in a way. Dr. Horwitz, grateful for your time. We'll check back and see how this plays out over the months ahead as we go up this third peak. Thank you so much.

Coming up for us, the Supreme Court weighs in on a very important question. With all this pandemic voting, should Alabama allow you to vote curbside?

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[11:45:00]

KING: Tonight's final presidential debate is too late to change the minds of more than 45 million Americans. That's how many votes, look at the numbers here, have already been cast, a record for early voting, represents almost a third of the total votes cast back in the 2016 election.

[11:50:04]

Over 12 million of those early votes have been cast in 2020 battleground states so far.

Some form of voting is under way in all 50 states. Early in-person voting is open in 42 of the 50. There are, as we've talked about in recent days, dozens of legal challenges to the new pandemic voting rules. Supreme Court handing Republicans in Alabama a win. Some voters there asked for curbside voting as an option, arguing it would be safer because of COVID-19, with the high court ruled 5-3 and siding with state Republicans who opposed that change.

CNN's Kristen Holmes joins me now. Kristen, the Alabama case, one of many, where people are saying, let's expand voting in a lot of states, especially Republican states are fighting back.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. I mean, the thing about the Alabama law is that it doesn't call for or prohibit curbside voting. And, in fact, counties in past elections have used this system now during a pandemic at a time there are vulnerable people who might not be able to wait in long lines in a state where they don't require you to wear a fake mask, the Republican secretary of state banned counties from allowing any sort of curbside voting. A judge, a lower court judge had said they should allow it, now the Supreme Court ruling in favor again of this Republican secretary of state.

And the really important thing to note here is that breakdown. You said 5-3, and it is the conservative-leaning judges in the majority. And as we start talking about Amy Coney Barrett, her advancement towards the nomination, and her confirmation, excuse me, this is likely what we're going to see more of is these conservative majority particularly when it comes to these election cases.

KING: Kristen Holmes for us, thank you so much. Kristen, thank you. Judge Amy Coney Barrett, as Kristen just mentioned, she is now one step away for a lifetime slot on the Supreme Court. The Senate Judiciary voting 12-0 this morning to send the Barrett nomination to the full Senate. The full Senate plans to vote Monday on President Trump's choice to fill the seat, of course, of the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The committee has 22 members, but Democrats boycotted the session this morning because they this vacancy should be filled by the winner of the presidential election.

CNN's Manu Raju tracking this for us now on Capitol Hill. Republicans promised a fast track, Manu, and they are delivering.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they do. And, look, this is a very fast moving nomination. Typically, it takes between two to three months to advance the Supreme Court nomination. Here, they are doing it in just over a month's time. And this comes, of course, despite their own position back in 2016 when they refused to move on Barack Obama's nomination to the Supreme Court because they said eight months before an election was too close. But, nevertheless, the Republicans have the numbers, they moved ahead today.

And Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the committee, said before the committee approved the vote with 12 Republican senators and no Democrats present, he argued that it was the Democrats who started all this back in 2013 when the Democrats at the time changed the rules to allow appellate court judges and other judges to move forward by simple majority rather than super majority of 60 senators. And he said, Democrats are coming to regret it.

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SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I remember telling Senator Schumer, you'll regret this. Today, he will regret it.

All I can say is that Judge Gorsuch was filibustered two or three times, requiring us to change the rules. They started this, not me. If it were up to me, it would be a 60-vote requirement in the Senate today.

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RAJU: So, after the Democrats made that move, of course, John, in 2013, then the Republicans in 2017, when President Trump was in office, they changed the filibuster rules again, removing it for Supreme Court nominees. So that's why Supreme Court nominees can advance by just the majority party support in the Senate rather than getting bipartisan support. So that's why the president has Justice Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, soon will have Amy Coney Barrett on the court, where she will be confirmed on a party line vote on Monday, despite the Democrats' protest here, John.

KING: So, Manu, giant consequences for the court here, 6-3 conservative majority, also political ripples out of those hearings. A lot of progressives are furious that the leading Democrat on the committee, Dianne Feinstein, they believe she wasn't tough enough, she wasn't strong enough, and then in the end, she offered a heap of praise on Chairman Graham, even a hug in these coronavirus times.

And so one of the questions is, Chairman Graham is in a tight re- election battle, does that help him, Dianne Feinstein's praise?

RAJU: Yes. Look, that was one of the reasons why Democrats were so upset. Not only do they think that she lent legitimacy to a process that they are considering illegitimate, but also because Lindsey Graham is neck and neck in South Carolina against Democrat Jaime Harrison. And he is using the Judge Amy Coney Barrett proceedings central to his re-election campaign at the moment.

Now, I just asked Lindsey Graham whether or not he would use Feinstein's remarks praising his stewardship of the committee as part of a campaign ad going forward.

[11:55:03]

And he said, no. No, I'm not going to do that. He said, he and Feinstein are on polar opposite issues, but he will not use her praise as part of his re-election campaign and, of course, that praise where she did say, these are the best hearings that I have sat through, has had such an impact among Democrats. Some Democrats want her gone as a top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and their party takes the Senate in the fall, she would be chairman of the committee next Congress. But uncertain if she will get that position.

Chuck Schumer, John, the top Democrat, has not yet said if he has confidence in her remaining in the top post, that he's had conversations with her. So while Democrats are concerned about it, Republicans like Lindsey Graham are defending her. John?

KING: That political fallout will continue for some time, as you rightly note. Manu Raju live on Capitol Hill, grateful for the live reporting there.

Just ahead for us, it is debate night in America. President Trump, Joe Biden on the stage in Tennessee, perhaps the president's final big chance to turn around the campaign dynamic.

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