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U.S. Officials Link Iran To Threatening E-mails Sent To Voters; Moderna Reaches Target Of Enrolling 30,000 Participants For Phase 3 Of U.S. Vaccine trial. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired October 22, 2020 - 12:30   ET

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

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JOHN KING, CNN HOST: The latest now on a remarkable new wrinkle in foreign election interference. The head of the FBI and the director of National Intelligence holding a rare evening news conference last night to say they have evidence that Iran is now mimicking Russia and sending e-mails to American voters trying to interfere in the 2020 election. These efforts include collecting voter registration information and other attempted voter intimidation.

Let's get the latest from our CNN congressional reporter Lauren Fox. She's on Capitol Hill and CNN business reporter Donie O'Sullivan who is in New York. Lauren, let me start with you. Obviously, Congress promised it would do a better job watching this, a big development announcement last night from the FBI director and the director of National Intelligence. What's happening on Capitol Hill?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Well, we just got a statement just moments ago, John, from the chairman of the Intelligence Committee and the top Democrat on that Committee, Marco Rubio and Mark Warner saying in this statement, quote, it is clear that Iran is now actively seeking to sow dissent and divide us, much like Russia did in 2016 and continues to do today. Republicans and Democrats are united when we say that continued attempts to sow dissent, cast doubt on election results, or disrupt our election systems and infrastructure will necessitate a severe response.

Now, I will tell you that on Capitol Hill, there's some concerns about how this press conference came about. There's distrust in John Ratcliffe, the DNI essentially concerns that he's trying to equate Iran and what Russia has been doing over the last four years, John. You can hear from some Democrats, that they're a little frustrated that Ratcliffe got into the fact that he believes that this was intended to hurt President Trump. They argue, you know, this is bigger than hurting one candidate. This is about the integrity of our elections.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke to that point, just a few minutes ago at her press conference, saying essentially, this is about protecting the sacred election in the United States. This is far bigger than any one candidate. John?

KING: Lauren Fox, appreciate that. And to go back to what the FBI director said last night, at this time of confusion, trust your local election officials, don't trust things you might get in your inbox or see on Twitter. And to that point, let's bring in Donie O'Sullivan, who spends a great deal of time reporting on the internet and these websites and the like. So Donie let's get to the basics here. How many Americans receive these e-mails allegedly from Iran?

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Yes, John, thousands of Americans, I mean, this was by no mean a sort of small effort that, you know, might have only hit a few dozens of people, this was thousands of people. Google came out last night, they of course, run Gmail, one of the world's most popular e-mail clients. And they said that through their system, 25,000 messages had been sent.

Now their spam filters caught 90 percent of those messages. But what that means is that potentially about two and a half thousand Americans, possibly American voters received these very threatening messages just on Gmail. And remember, of course, there are many different sort of e-mail providers, including Microsoft, and Yahoo as well. We have reached out to those companies to try to get some numbers.

These are very scary e-mails, John. I mean, you know, you imagine opening one of these e-mails and in black and white, it says we know where you live. And it says, in some cases, it actually included people's home addresses, their names, and they falsi (ph), of course, also claim they said, we will know if you don't vote for Trump. And if you don't vote for Trump, we're going to come for you. Of course, that is absolutely inaccurate, because the ballots here in the United States is secret but nonetheless, a really chilling e-mail for a lot of Americans to get.

And one important point as well, is that we don't know precisely where around might have got this information. You know, they might not necessarily have had to hack anything to get this a lot of these voting records, a lot of the information, including people's home addresses are available through open voter databases that are open to the public. But all that being said, of course for the voter who gets these messages to see that black and white -- in black and white on their screen is a really disturbing thing, John.

KING: It sure is. It's a direct threat intimidation. I will stay on top of this. And we're grateful, Donie O'Sullivan to have your help constantly on this important story. Donie, thank you very much.

[12:34:31]

Coming up for us, Barack Obama back on the campaign trail, the former president delivering a scathing indictment of his successor, how common is that? We'll take a historical look, just a moment.

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KING: Democrats are hoping Barack Obama's returns to the campaign fray will rally turnout in the campaign's final days. Miami is on the former president scheduled for Saturday. That following a campaign rollout yesterday in Philadelphia where the former president offered a scathing indictment of his successor President Trump and some kind words for his former number two.

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BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For eight years, Joe was the last one in the room when I faced a big decision. He made me a better president. And he's got the character and experience to make us a better country. And he and Kamala are going to be in the fight not for themselves but for every single one of us.

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KING: As excited as Democrats are to see President Obama back in the fight, we should remember, this approach doesn't always work.

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OBAMA: I can tell you this, Hillary Clinton has been tested. There has never been any man or woman more qualified for this office than Hillary Clinton.

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He is the right person to be the first president of the 21st century.

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KING: CNN's presidential historian Douglas Brinkley joins me now from Austin, Texas. That's interesting watching those clips. This is not what we're here to talk about. But Obama endorses Hillary Clinton, Clinton endorses Al Gore, the two Democrats who win the popular vote and lose the presidency there.

Let's focus on the here and now Doug. And if we can get back there we will. How important do you see a former president like Barack Obama at this moment, it's different from 2016? Donald Trump has been president for four years. Joe Biden has a lopsided advantage right now with the one remaining question, is do all those people who say in the polls, they will support him actually turn out to vote? What's the big question here for Obama?

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: I think Obama helps tremendously. I mean, he eviscerated Donald Trump. He basically owned the news cycle yesterday at a time for days now Joe Biden is not been in public. He's been in Delaware, preparing for the debate. So in that way, Obama ate up the new cycle for him in a very positive way. And Joe Biden has really had to rely on Barack Obama that I was his loyal vice president.

Remember, Biden came to win the Democratic nomination because of South Carolina African American vote and what Klaver did for him. So having Barack Obama, the super surrogate, who's loved in the African American community, a 90, 95 percent approval rating anywhere he goes, has to help in cities like Cleveland and Detroit and Milwaukee. However, is in a huge factor going on right now, no, it's just simply helping Joe Biden.

KING: So let's look at history then from another perspective, which is a president's approval rating, as you get into the final month of a campaign. And if you look at history, we can show you a graphic here, Bill Clinton a 57, Ronald Reagan a 54, George W. Bush at 50, Barack Obama at 49 heading into their reelection. You see Trump, Carter, and George H.W. Bush on the bottom. The three gentlemen the bottom, the two to the right, Carter and Bush, lost. They are the one term presidents. The gentlemen on top all had two terms. Is that 40 percent number, does that tell you anything? Or does history no longer apply because we live in the age of Trump?

BRINKLEY: History still applies. I mean, for example, Ronald Reagan was able to really seal the deal and beating Jimmy Carter in 1980 over the third debate. That's when he said, there you go again. So meaning these debates can matter tonight in the sense that we're dealing with 5 or 6 percent undecided voters. Donald Trump, by anybody's estimation got killed by Hillary Clinton in Las Vegas just she's so dominated him back in 2016. Yet, Trump was able to survive because people liked his rogue and unorthodox fashion. And we weren't doing polls correctly.

So I think that there's still this Harry Truman hope. Anybody who's way behind in the polls remembers that Harry Truman was written off in 1948. The Democratic Party had come unglued. You had Strom Thurmond Dixiecrats forming a third party. You have the progressives in the Democratic Party getting behind Henry Wallace. People assume do we had it in the bag, and lo and behold, a Harry Truman won. He's the patron saint of presidents when you're behind.

So I wouldn't worry about polling right now, it's a lot about momentum. And whether Donald Trump's been building any on these rallies this past week, and whether this debate can give him another little bit of a bounce that he so desperately needs.

KING: And so you say don't focus too much on the polling, but we do -- we just do know the state of the race right now, which is the former vice president seems to be in the driver's seat. We can have some suspicion about the state polls if we wish. When you just think about the historical moment here, you have an incumbent, we have had three successive two term presidents that is very rare in American history. We have three successive two term presidents.

And then you have a former vice president. It's also rare that vice presidents get to become president. You have to go back to George H.W. Bush, of course, and we actually have a headline I just want to sneak it in here as we have the conversation. I want to talk more about the here and now. But I just love this because this is my first campaign Reagan endorses Bush tepidly. That became a controversy back in the day, it's also special to me because Jon Margolis was a great mentor to me when I was a kid on that first campaign.

[12:45:06] But the idea that, what is the historical force tonight, that America likes to keep its presidents and do divided government through Congress, or that Joe Biden gets to be one of the few vice presidents who gets to move up in modern times?

BRINKLEY: It looks like Joe Biden is sitting very, very perfectly set right now maybe not for a blue wave. But boy, he has a real mathematical formula for victory. I mean, Donald Trump, as we've all been saying, has to do everything right. But, you know, Trump is an unusual figure. He creates mayhem. His attacks tonight on Hunter Biden will matter. It's so far it's been ridiculous. But maybe he's going to be able to sway people if somehow there's some kind of basement Biden corruption going on with China.

I doubt it. Donald -- there's a Trump fatigue going on across the land that's part of the fatigue with COVID-19. And that is the danger Trump has of trying to dominate new cycles every day he's been exhausting to cover. It feels like Donald Trump's been in office for two terms. It's been so it's like a cyclone these last four years.

So Trump doesn't seem fresh. He seems tired and all of his stunts. And he'll pull a lot of stunts tonight, a lot of interruptions, a lot of weird moments. They're no longer novel like they were back in 2016. They're becoming tedious. And he's becoming the whiner in chief complaining about everything. I've never seen a president get reelected by just complaining all the time.

KING: And the old saying in politics, if you're whining, you're not winning. But we shall see, we shall see unpredictable is a trademark of Trump. We will watch 90 minutes tonight. Doug Brinkley, grateful for your insights on this important day.

Up next for us, a big milestone for one company working on a COVID-19 vaccine.

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[12:51:37]

KING: Important news this morning in the quest for COVID-19 vaccine, the pharmaceutical company Moderna hitting a milestone by finishing enrolling all of its trial, phase three trial participants. CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us with more. Elizabeth, how significant?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: John, it's significant before Moderna had been said that they would be ready or possibly ready to apply to the FDA for authorization to put this on the market. In December, I spoke with the president of the company Dr. Stephen Hoge. And he told me early December, so they're even more optimistic than they were before.

Let's take a look at what's going to happen here. So 30,000 participants enrolled in the trial, they've all gotten their first shots, and most of them have gotten the booster shot that happens about a month later. Now remember, half of these people got the vaccine and half got the placebo and no one knows right now who got what. When 53 participants get sick with COVID-19 an analysis will be done, who the people who got sick, did they get the vaccine or the placebo? If at least 40 received the placebo, in other words, 75 percent, that means that Moderna will apply to the FDA for authorization.

Now let's take a look at where all of these trials stand. As I said, Moderna says they could apply to the FDA in early December. Pfizer says they could apply to the FDA for emergency use authorization in late November AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, John, those trials are both on hold. Participants one in each trial got sick. And so they've paused to see if they are going to go back or not. So those are both on pause right now. John?

KING: Elizabeth Cohen, grateful for that very important update. We'll stay on top of that.

Coming up for us next, the race for the presidency, the battle for the control of the Senate, you want to look at one state to watch, how about North Carolina.

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KING: A couple of headlines today remind us how important North Carolina is in campaign 2020. This is the "Charlotte Observer". You see President Trump. You see the vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The race for the presidency could come down to North Carolina. Certainly if Joe Biden wins he would block any Trump path. And this is "The Washington Post". There's also a huge Senate race in North Carolina could decide control of the Senate. The Democratic challenger in the end has a bit of a scandal. You see the headline right there. Voters say the infidelity is reckless, shocking. They still plan to vote for the Democrat Joining me now the author of that story, CNN political analyst, congressional report at "The Washington Post", Rachael Bade. It is just a remarkable state and that Senate race, a giant controversy in addition to the presidential stakes.

RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, the drama just keeps on coming, John. I mean, look, I spent a week talking to voters and strategists down in North Carolina, trying to find out if the sex scandal was going to sort of doom Cunningham's effort to take the Senate. And clearly this is not. I mean, we're hearing from voters who are saying what he did was sort of repulsive, but they're planning to vote for him anyway.

And we had a "Washington Post-ABC" poll that came out this week that sort of solidified the anecdotal evidence. We found that only one in four voters said that this sex scandal had anything to do with their vote. More voters are more interested in knowing who's going to control the Senate. This is one of those races where if Cunningham wins, the Democrat wins, the likelihood that the Democrats take the Senate is very great. If the Republican wins, Thom Tillis, that means Mitch McConnell will probably hold the gavel. And that seems to be what people care about most. KING: And so how does Tillis deal with this in the clothes, you would think as an incumbent you would think here's a gift, the other guys in a lot of trouble. But if it's not working, what do you do about it?

BADE: Right now, they're just talking about it even louder, I mean, you're seeing a bunch of outside Republican groups, getting tons of money, and in the last minute putting ads up on T.V. that tout this scandal and say, look, it's not just about sex, it's about the fact that Cunningham who was in the military was having a relationship with a fellow veteran's wife. And it has triggered an investigation.

And so they're just trying to talk about it louder. They think that his unfavorability ratings have very much gone up in the past couple of days. And that they think there is some hope to getting some people to change their vote. But there was one voter I talked to who said this could potentially change his support for Cunningham but the problem was, it was too late. He already sent him this ballot for Cunningham. So he couldn't do anything about it.

KING: And I saw Tillis saying the other day, I trust Dr. Fauci, so clearly the President a bit of a drag on the Republican incumbent.

BADE: Yes. That's exactly right. I mean, Tillis is going to try to talk about the relief package they passed in the Senate. But mostly right now, again, what they're on era with is this infidelity scandal. I'm just not sure if kind of resonate.

KING: We will see in the days ahead, 10 days to the Election Day. Rachel Bade grateful for the reporting straight from one of the battlegrounds. That is a critical, critical race. Rachel, thank you, and thanks for joining us. We'll see you back here tomorrow, a lot of post-debate analysis.

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Stay with CNN for that debate tonight and go nowhere right now. It's a busy News Day and Brianna Keilar picks up our coverage right now. Have a good afternoon.