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Instant Debate Reaction: Biden Won Nashville Confrontation; Biden Repeatedly Rebuts Trump's Attacks As "Not True"; Biden Enters Final Election Sprint With Clear Advantage; U.S. Averaging 763 Deaths Every Day, Highest Level In A Month; More Than 71,000 New Cases In U.S. Thursday, Highest Since Summer. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired October 23, 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, everybody. I am John King in Washington. Thank you so much for sharing your day with us. An important day it is, 11 days left now. The debates are done, the campaign trail is busy. Last hour, some debate day after cleanup.

Joe Biden last night said he wants to transition away from the oil industry. That raised the eyebrows, even among some Democrats who say oil, gas and fracking are key to jobs. Biden immediately tried to amend his answer after the debate. Well, today, his running mate Senator Kamala Harris also did the damage control.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Joe Biden is not going to ban fracking. He is going to deal with the oil subsidies, but the president likes to put everything out of context. And let's be clear, what Joe was talking about was banning subsidies, but he will not ban fracking in America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: This is an always an odd wait and see moment. We knew the state of the race when the candidates walked on stage in national last night. Joe Biden was the frontrunner and convincingly so if you study the numbers like that, or if you look at the map. And when the debate ended, the instant polls scored it a Biden win.

The consensus instant analysis was that maybe President Trump helped his cause some but not enough. But America's take. Voters around the country, their takes often differ than Washington's take. So now we wait a few days to see how this final debate settles across our 50 state puzzles. We so know some things as we wait.

More than 50 million ballots are already cast. The data tells us Democrats have an edge there. And we know the Coronavirus; already the defining 2020 issue is surging as the leaves change and as the election nears. Take a look. Thursday, 71,000 plus new cases. 71,000 is the fourth highest single day total of this pandemic. The daily average of new cases is now 61,000. 12 states hitting new highs for the daily average yesterday.

COVID has 40,000 Americans in the hospital today. And the daily average of new deaths is ticking up again as well. Back to COVID and its impact on America in a minute, let's start with the debate, and whether or not it will impact this. Heading into the debate, we already had Joe Biden at 290 electoral votes.

The deep blue states, solid Biden, the light blue states, lean Biden. It takes 270 to win. Joe Biden walked on stage last night knowing if nothing else changed, he could well be the next President of the United States. President Trump needs a comeback. He only had 163 electoral votes in our outlook as he walked on stage.

The question is, did he turn in a strong enough debate performance to change the map. One key test in the days ahead, watch these states we have these toss ups, Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Main Second Congressional district. The president carried them all four years ago. We will watch.

Does the advertising mix change over the weekend, do polling numbers change as we come out of the weekend into next week? What Republicans are hoping for is the president's debate was strong enough to do this, to get these states back in the Republican fold. He won them four years ago.

What the Democrats are hoping is that voters watched the debate last night and they said we were inclined to like Joe Biden coming in. Now if these states can lean Joe Biden's way, if they're competitive in the end, he has a money advantage, too, I think we could show you that, he has a cash on hand advantage as we head into the final weeks of the campaign.

Joe Biden is saying, if I come out of the debate OK in a map that's already favorable to me, look, I have $162 million in my campaign account to $43 million, $44 million if you round up for the president Biden plus friendly committees, $331 million, $223 million for the president and his most friendly committees.

So, the vice president, the former vice president, the Democrats in enormous advantage will see how the debate impacts the map. Then Biden has the money to try to whether its fix things or take advantage of opportunities in the days ahead. That is the challenge as we head into the final ten days of the campaign.

In the debate last night, the president did press his case. It was normal. They actually talked. No interruptions. Big exchanges over energy, over healthcare, over taxes. Joe Biden spent a lot of time after the president, parried saying he is just wrong.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And he wants to close down. He'll close down the country if one person in our massive bureaucracy says we should close it down.

WELKER: Vice President Biden, your response.

BIDEN: Simply not true.

TRUMP: He is the vice-president of the United States and his son, his brother, and his other brother are getting rich. They're like a vacuum cleaner. They're sucking up money.

WELKER: OK. President Trump, thank you. We do need to move on.

BIDEN: Not true.

TRUMP: I just gave $28 billion to our farmers.

BIDEN: Taxpayer's money.

TRUMP: It's what?

BIDEN: Taxpayer's money. Didn't come from China.

TRUMP: No, no. You know who the taxpayer is? It's called China.

BIDEN: Not true.

TRUMP: China pays--

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Joining our conversation, CNN's Abby Phillip and Jonathan Martin of "The New York Times." Abby, I want to start with you in the sense that the Biden Campaign you could see from Kamala Harris doing cleanup there.

They felt they had to fix something that morning after, make sure that people understood the vice president is not going to get rid of fracking tomorrow, not going to get rid of the oil industry tomorrow.

[12:05:00]

KING: But he did say he wants to eventually transition. Overall, do they feel good the morning after or are they a little worried?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it does seem like the bidden Campaign feels like generally they did fine, but this fracking issue and the oil and gas and fossil fuel issue is one that Joe Biden keeps stumbling over, even going back to the primary. He keeps saying things that his campaign then later says actually, that's not our plan. That's not our policy.

And we often talk about Joe Biden being someone who is a little bit prone to gaffes, this is one of those cases where he was clearly, I don't know what he intended to say. Obviously if you ask environmentalists, they'll say yes, we do need to transition away from oil and gas. But I do think Biden also knows that, that is at this point not his

plan and that that is a statement that is going to put vulnerable Democrats in trouble in a lot of parts of this country, and even could affect his prospects in a key state for him, which is Pennsylvania.

KING: Well, Jonathan, it's one of the key pressures on Joe Biden because of the evolution of the Democratic Party. He is an older school Democrat who looks at Pennsylvania, who wants to go more slowly perhaps. And you know there are others who say let's move quickly as possible to the Green New Deal.

Like you pointed this out last night, two Democratic House members, Horn of Oklahoma, Torrez Small of New Mexico, tweeting out after Joe Biden's remarks saying whoa whoa whoa, Kendra Horn's case, here's one of the places, this is one of the places Biden and I disagree. We must stand up for our oil and gas industry.

The New Mexico tweet, I disagree with VP Biden's statement tonight. Energy is part of the backbone of New Mexico's economy. So, you see this in real time playing out, because we are ten days from Election Day.

And there were some people again, Biden is the overall leader, I don't think any of us think there was anything last night that he did to really hurt himself. But maybe did he a little hurt himself here?

JONATHAN MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: He didn't help himself with the few undecided voters that exist still and sort of energy producing parts of the country. And I think he probably created more of an uncomfortable spot for members of congress and those kinds of seats that you mentioned, places like Oklahoma or Eastern New Mexico, which obviously are huge oil communities in America.

So I think that will probably create more of a mess for down ticket Democrats. But John to your broader point, look, Joe Biden has had a blessing this campaign. The basement campaign has been a blessing for Democrats. And last night was a reminder of why it's been a blessing, because Joe Biden is given to say things that he or his staff later have to clean up.

And the fact that he's never really had to have it sort of like four or five events along the day on a campaign trail and instead has run a campaign in the COVID year, which is totally understandable, he is following safety protocols, has been really convenient for he and his party. And I think this was always the risk with nominating Biden, he would have these gaffes that would have to be cleaned up after the fact.

The larger issue though John is that this is a one issue campaign for all intents and purposes. And the issue is not Joe Biden's gaffs. Are they a pain, are they an irritant? Yes, they can be. But this is mostly about Donald Trump and his conduct and albeit last night change that in a serious way.

KING: Right, and back to that point. Joe Biden, number one, Coronavirus was the first topic. Number two, the president says, I don't see a dark winter. The facts tell you; Joe Biden says yes, we are heading into a dark winter. On the facts, you could pick a different adjective if you like; we are headed into a very sober challenging time if you look at the case count.

And to your broader point, not only does Joe Biden prosecute the case Abby that he would do a better job with the pandemic, he tries to make the case look who this guy is, Joe Biden making an empathy argument. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: You're sitting at the kitchen table this morning deciding, "Well, we can't get new tires. They're bald, because we have to wait another month or so." Or "Are we going to be able to pay the mortgage?" Or "Who's going to tell her she can't go back to community college?" They're the decisions you're making, and the middle-class families like I grew up in Scranton and Claymont, they're in trouble. We should be talking about your families, but that's the last thing he wants to talk about.

TRUMP: That is a typical statement.

BIDEN: I want to talk about North Korea.

TRUMP: Excuse me. Just for one second, please.

WELKER: 10 seconds, Mr. President. 10 seconds.

TRUMP: That's a typical political statement. Let's get off this China thing, and then he looks, "The family around the table, everything." Just a typical politician when I see that. I'm not a typical politician.

WELKER: Let's talk about North Korea now.

TRUMP: That's why I got elected. Let's get off the subject of China. Let's talk about sitting around the table. Come on, Joe. You could do better.

WELKER: Alright. We're going to -

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We're never quite sure as again as I said, the America's take is sometimes different than Washington's take. There Joe Biden tried to play to his strength which is that. I get you, I understand your pain and your trouble right now, and this guy doesn't. The president trying to say that's a cop out.

PHILLIP: Yes. It's an interesting strategy for President Trump to say that talking about what people are experiencing around their kitchen table is a typical politician talking point. I think that that is a challenging argument to make when the Coronavirus really has made literal kitchen table issues, a literal life and death, being perhaps the most important issue for American voters. So it's a bit of a risk for him to take that route. [12:10:00]

PHILLIP: But I see what he was trying to do which is that, you know, the president knows and his advisers know that nobody is going to be convinced that Donald Trump is somehow the sort of paragon of the perfect politician. So he really has to lean into this. I am unconventional. You may not like my tone, you may not like my attitude, but you like the things that I'm doing and I'm actually thinking about the policies that are going to affect you.

So that's what he is trying to do there. But again, I think it's a little bit of a risk to come across as dismissive about the real fact that we are approaching Thanksgiving and people are thinking about whether they can even have a Thanksgiving dinner with their families. That is a real thing that the president is going to have to contend with.

KING: And so, Jonathan on this day after, we're trying to figure out what is the impact. We do know Republicans have a sense of cheer, if only because the bar is so low for this president. But if only because Republican Senate candidates now, vulnerable Republicans and other races don't have to be asked today about interruptions and rudeness, and they can have a conversation about taxes and about health care and let the voters decide what people think about policy.

Republicans like that. What about the bigger dynamic? Joe Biden walks in there last night as the frontrunner; he has more money in the bank. If you look at the state polling, he has a menu of opportunities, including the state you're sitting in Texas.

So the argument is do you play it safe here? And just do Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin for the final ten days, put most of your time, most of your money into there or do you go bold? Do you think you can actually stretch the map? Flip Georgia, get Florida, maybe play in Texas.

MARTIN: Well, I think that their instinct internally is to be safe and to not put the ball in the air, but they get that probably or three yards in a cloud of dust. And I think both 2016 and Joe Biden's own instincts and that of his top aides wants them to sort of secure 270 first. That is their number one goal.

But that said there is different ways to get the 270. And I think they see the data, and they know there are place like Georgia is changing dramatically. And in some respects, place like Georgia is not easier to get than Ohio perhaps even Iowa. And so, it does make more sense to be in Georgia on the ground, be there on TV, and perhaps yes, even give Texas a go. This is a numbers game.

And I think the Biden Campaign is looking at the polling data and looking at the early votes so far. And looking at some of these big cities and numbers of folks who are flocking to the polls. John, and a lot of parts of America by Election Day, big cities have already surpassed their 2016 total vote.

And you can be assured that the Biden Campaign, they see that, they know it, and they'll have to make some crucial decisions here in the final week of the campaign about where to spend their time and their money and what makes the most sense. What's the easiest way to get to 270 beyond just the sort of traditional states that we're also familiar with?

KING: And again, the time is running short, believe it or not with our voting. If you're going to change your plan in the chess game, you have to do it over this weekend heading into the final week. Abby Phillip, Jonathan Martin, grateful for the reporting and the insights there.

Up next for us the country hits Coronavirus records. It has sadly not seen since the summer surge. We're going back up.

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[12:15:00]

KING: Coronavirus trends at the moment are sober, if not depressing. Let's take a look at the 50-state map. And you can just tell if you have been here before, orange and red are bad. And you see a lot of orange, a little bit of red. Rhode Island is red. That means 50 percent plus more new infections right now compared to a week ago.

Orange is somewhere between 10 percent higher infections this week, up to 50 percent more than the week before. 32 states. 32 of the 50 states right now trending in the wrong direction in terms of more new infections now than one week ago. 17 states are holding steady. Only one, Oregon, trending down at the moment. This is a bleak map when you look at it. And we've talked about this before.

As this has trended worse in recent days, you wait two weeks, and sadly you get this. The death trends also heading up. 28 states now reporting more deaths right now compared to a week ago. And you see a lot of the deep red here, Ohio, Indiana, South Carolina out here, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Arizona. 50 percent more deaths this week or higher than one week ago. This is a trend that is troubling as you look ahead and watch the case trajectory.

And this is the case trajectory. Why are public health experts so worried? From a baseline of about 18,000 new infections a day, the summer surge got us up above 70, now we dropped down or just shy of 40. Now we're heading back up again. Yesterday, 71,671 new infections reported here in the United States of America. This is what worries the public health experts. This was the summer peak.

You draw the line out. Inevitable. The trajectory right now is going to surpass the summer peak as we head into the colder fall and winter months. And that is troubling. And this tells you all the more so about the challenge ahead and how it is not going to go away tomorrow.

Again, look at some of these numbers here. You look at Pennsylvania, its 10 percent positivity rate. You look at Iowa, 55 percent positivity rate. Kansas is at 21. South Dakota is at 35. Wyoming 31, Idaho 33. All of those infections, people infected means the risk of spread when the digits are that high, 31 percent, 35 percent, 55 percent, 14 percent. That causes trouble. And then that causes hospitalizations.

Hospitalizations trending back up again. 40,000 Americans in the hospital today with the Coronavirus. Again, the trend lines heading in the wrong direction. So much so that the model by the IHME out at Washington State, the University of Washington, excuse me, right now 223,000 Americans have died of the Coronavirus as of today.

The projection is, one hundred days from now, February 1st, 385,000. That is more than 160,000 Americans to die in the next 100 days. Managing this is a public health challenge of enormous proportions anyway.

[12:20:00]

KING: Listen to the Surgeon General who says, the task of getting you to be more personally responsible, wear a mask, socially distance, gets more complicated because we're in an election year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. JEROME ADAMS, U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: There's no chapter in the pandemic play book for an impeachment trial. And that is where this started in the United States. There's no chapter in the pandemic play book for a presidential election. There's no chapter in the pandemic play book for a social justice movement the likes of which we haven't seen since the '60s in our country.

If I say Hydroxychloroquine, someone automatically puts you into a Trump or a Biden camp. And If I'd say wear a mask; someone puts you into a Democrat or a Republican camp. It's important to understand that context.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With me to share his expertise and insights, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, it's good to see you. But I am seeing you at a time, if you just go through the numbers; you look at the trend lines, cases up dangerously. Hospitalizations heading up. The positivity rate especially in the Midwest and across the prairie states downright depressing.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, there's no question, the numbers are increasing, John. And when you look even deeper at some of the numbers that you were just showing, you see that the pace at which they're increasing is faster as well. That's one of the big concerns. You have to look at both these things in parallel.

And as you point out, compared to July when people were COVID fatigue is not a new thing, people are having that same COVID fatigue going into July 4th weekend. It was very predictable that there would be a significant increase in the overall number of people becoming infected after that.

But people were still able to be outside largely John at that point. COVID fatigue now, people increasingly mobile, holidays coming up, people have to be inside. That's a huge concern, starting from a higher level and less sort of buffering from the weather and from outdoors is a real problem. We saw that 100 years ago.

By the way John, this was the worst time of the 1918 pandemic as well. So human behavior over the last 100 years I guess really hasn't changed that much. John, one thing I want to point out, we've talked about this, we tell people to do preventative things all the time.

And patients will say, well, how do I know that's going to work, those preventative measures you're talking about? Look at places around the country that have implemented some of these basic public health measures nothing super fancy with bells and vessels.

Take a look at Arizona, for example, after they lifted their stay at home orders, first couple weeks of June, saw the numbers go way up. They were starting to red line. It was really, really concerning there, hospitals becoming full.

Then they put in basically three things, this is in middle of July now. Mask requirements, limiting large public events, and certain businesses bars primarily closing. 75 percent reduction following those basic public health measures. John, this should inspire people. Because right now, we're going into exponential growth.

To simply plateau right now would be a really good outcome in terms of where we are, if you could start to actually reliably bend that curve down going into these months that would be huge. There wasn't a vaccine, John, there wasn't any magic therapeutic, and there was just basic public health stuff.

KING: Right. And so, one of the questions as we look at the United States is remembering the history. And I know we've got the graphic and you can walk people through it when you look at the European Union. The president in the debate last night said this is everywhere. He is right, it's everywhere.

But if you look at the history as it starts to go up in the European Union right now, if you remember at the beginning, again, the orange line is the United States. The green line is the European Union. Walk through, Sanjay, the fear that yes, the EU now, one million residents has passed the United States. So the president says that's proof that we're doing better than them.

That's how he likes to characterize it. But remember we were about two and a half, three weeks behind them going up the first hill and that's the worry, right?

DR. GUPTA: That is absolutely the worry. I mean, this is maybe the closest thing you have to a crystal ball if you will. Back in March, remember John, we're looking at Italy saying it looks terrible, what's happening in Italy? That's not going to happen here. And then just as you said John a couple of weeks later, not only did that happen here, but our overall trend line increased.

They were able to in the European Union, that continent, at least bring things down for a period of time. But John, contagious virus, reopening, starting to have COVID fatigue, not abiding by public health practices, they're in exponential growth right now in the European Union, and again, we are a couple of weeks behind over there. So that's the concern.

We're trying to avoid it, it's not inevitable, but it is certainly looking more and more that way. John, I don't need to tell you that there is obviously places in the world that have very different sort of trend lines. South Korea, we bring it up, because they had the same - they have the first patient diagnosed in the same day as ours.

[12:25:00]

DR. GUPTA: If we had adopted what they did in South Korea in this country according to this new study out of Columbia, there'd be 2800 people total that would have died by this point in the pandemic in the United States, 2800 total as opposed to 220,000.

KING: Right. The key points there, the key pieces of that are A, consistent leadership from the top, political leadership, public health leadership, and then personal responsibility. We listened to the president at last night, he says we are rounding the corner, we've turned the bend, it's going to be over soon. Listen to his own Secretary of Health and Human Services saying something very, very different.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX AZAR, HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: This is being driven by individual behaviors at this point. The community spread is happening because we've got to keep focused on washing our hands, watching our distance and wearing our face covering when we can't watch our distance, and in particular being careful in household gatherings. This is becoming a major vector of disease spread.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The president had audience of millions last night. He could have said that. He didn't.

DR. GUPTA: No. He didn't. And frankly, Secretary Azar is talking about the public health strategies that we've known for a while, but these have not been implemented on a national scale. I mean, it makes a huge difference. We are the United States.

People travel back and forth in the areas where you may have had better control; they were still affected by areas of the country that had poorer control. That's the problem. And now when you look at that map that you showed, the country is sort of coalescing around a sort of collective upward trend in this country. Before it was wave over here, wave over here, wave over here. And now it's all starting to turn into one large surge.

By the way, the other thing is what about testing? Secretary Azar is talking about individual behavior and he is absolutely right. We just abandoned this idea of being able to test in a way that was meaningful. John, I could be with you onset right now, despite the fact that we

don't have a vaccine if I can be tested regularly, you could be tested regularly, I'd have the confidence at least that I don't have it, I have the confidence that you don't have it likely, we'd still wear masks and do all those other things, but it would be a very different picture. We just abandoned that idea I think pretty early on and we've never caught up.

KING: That's sort of a sad statement in the United States of America. But it is where we are at the moment, and to your point about that national scale of this. That is what is troubling when you look at the numbers and you look at the map. Dr. Gupta, grateful for your insights, especially on what is this, your 27th birthday? 27 or 28 today?

DR. GUPTA: Yes, that's right. Almost 30 now, John, yes. Feels like a decade since my last birthday, I'll be honest with you.

KING: Happy birthday to our child prodigy, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, it has been a long year my friend, yes, it has.

DR. GUPTA: Thank you.

KING: Up next for us, well, President Trump supporters are saying about his very much dialed back debate performance.

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