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Cases, Hospitalizations Soar as Pandemic in U.S Worsens; Trump, Biden Storm Trail with 50 Million Votes Already Cast; Trump's Accusation About Fauci's Politics Don't Hold Up. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 23, 2020 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN RIGHT NOW: Hello. I'm Brianna Keilar and, I want to welcome viewers here in the United States and around the world.

The pandemic in America is a disaster. It already was and now it's getting worse. The first coronavirus wave never really ended. Cases never dipped low enough for a true trough between waves and now the fall and winter surge is upon us.

The president is still not modeling CDC guidelines, even after contracting COVID. But his secretary of Health and Human Services is urging Americans to.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX AZAR, SECRETARY, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: 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 face coverings when we can't watch distance, and then particularly being careful in household gatherings. This has become a major vector of disease spread.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: More than half the U.S., 32 states, show upward trend in cases. Yesterday, there were more than 71,000 new cases reported. That's the highest one day count since July. Seven states saw the highest one day case totals, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah, Colorado and also Montana, seven states there.

The number of deaths increasing, the seven-day average for deaths is 763. That is the highest that it has been in a month. Hospitalizations are soaring with more than 41,000 yesterday. That's 33 percent jump since the beginning of October.

And an influential model of the coronavirus pandemic predicts that more than 385,000 deaths will occur in the U.S. by February 1st. That is a prediction. It doesn't have to be a fact. A new study projects more than 100,000 lives in the U.S. could be saved if we all just wore masks.

CNN Health Reporter Jacqueline Howard has more on this. Jacqueline? JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: That's right, Brianna. This new study finds that if 95 percent of Americans wear a mask in public, that could save lives. The studies from Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, here is what the study found in September, some 49 percent of Americans reported that they always wore a mask in public.

So, keeping that in mind, the institute says that if states issue social distancing mandates when the number of daily deaths reaches critical threshold but mask-wearing stays the same, the death toll from COVID-19 could exceed 500,000 total by the end of February. But if mask use increases to 95 percent and states issue mandates, the study projects about 380,000 deaths by the same day.

So you see that's a difference of about 120,000 lives. Brianna?

KEILAR: Jacqueline Howard, thank you so much for that.

And I want to talk about this study now with Dr. Saju Matthew. He is a primary care physician. He is public health specialist. Dr. Matthew, it's great to see you.

And this is a study that says that, as of September 21st, only about 49 percent of U.S. residents reported that they always wore a mask in public. Do you see that that's something that could change for the better so lives can be spared, or do you think that's about where it is going to be for the future?

DR. SAJU MATTHEW, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Brianna, I want to be optimistic. I am a primary care physician. I'm the gate keeper. We're first point of contact when patients come in with COVID. And I'm telling you, there is still a lot of people out there that believe that this is a hoax, that I don't know of anybody that had COVID, Dr. Matthew, why should I wear a mask?

And if we just look at these studies, if we look at other countries, look at South Korea, Brianna, we have the first case on the first day back in January of both U.S. and South Korea. Now, they have 444 deaths and we have over 220,000 deaths. Look at the number of cases total in Japan, that is a mask wearing society, total number of cases, 90,000. We could get to 90,000 cases per day in the U.S.

All we have to do, look at our other countries, look at our neighbor, Canada. It is very simple. I just hope and pray that people will realize there is nothing political about this. Wear a mask. You'll save your mom. You'll save your dad and you'll save your life as well.

KEILAR: And I want to talk to you about another new study. We are always wondering which groups of people are at increased risk to serious complications or death with coronavirus. And this study found that people with down syndrome have ten times a risk of dying from COVID-19 compared to those who do not have down syndrome. Why is that?

MATTHEW: The reason for that is patients with down syndrome, it is a genetic malformation, if you will, in utero. And a lot of patients with down syndrome also have other chronic conditions. It can affect your heart, it can affect your liver, it can affect your neurological system.

So, unfortunately, from day one, a lot of our down syndrome patients are dealing with chronic medical conditions.

[13:05:06]

And we know that patients who have diabetes, hypertension, heart problems, they are also the patients who are being affected mostly with COVID-19.

KEILAR: And here we are, we are at a key place in this fight against coronavirus. There is so many grim predictions for the weeks ahead. What are you expecting?

MATTHEW: What I am expecting is if we don't hunker down, if I was a weatherman, this is where I would be sending out high alerts. We're going into the cold and flu season. Our cases already started at a very high level. And that's the difference.

When people ask me, Dr. Matthew, why is it that the U.S. is so behind from the get-go, we never got into contact tracing, we never got into aggressive testing. And, really, one thing a lot of us should remember is our testing should be scaled on the size of the epidemic and not necessarily on the size of the population.

But I want to be optimistic. I think that, moving forward, if every American just took this upon ourselves to fasten that seat belt, wear a mask, it's very simple, don't go into indoor gatherings, weddings, restaurants, try to stay away from gyms, wash your hands and socially distance, I think that we can definitely decrease the number of cases.

KEILAR: If only people would follow this advice. Hopefully, some people hear you, Dr. Saju Matthew, and they follow this. we appreciate having you on.

MATTHEW: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: At last night's final debate, the president told a lot of lies, particularly when it came to coronavirus. Soon after taking the stage, President Trump downplayed the more than 223,000 American lives that have been lost to the disease.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As you know, 2.2 million people modeled out were expected to die.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: That 2.2 million number that he keeps repeating is a false benchmark. They weren't really expected to die. This is from a British report that said that many Americans would die if we took no precautions, whatsoever, as a country. So, eight months into the pandemic and the U.S. has the most cases and the most deaths of any other nation and the fact it isn't worse is really due to individual Americans and state and local leaders who are doing the things, the recommendations that the president will not.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It will go away. And as I say, we are rounding the turn, we're rounding the corner. It's going away.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: It is not going away. It is going way up. It is about to hit the fan, according to experts, as they're watching the graphs that show fall, winter surge beginning. We're looking down the barrel of a gun that is about to go off as the temperature drops and more people head indoors to socialize.

The president also made some extremely lofty claims about a COVID vaccine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We have a vaccine that's coming. It's ready. It's going to be announced within weeks and it's going to be delivered.

KRISTEN WELKER, MSNBC HOST: You also said a vaccine will be coming within weeks? Is that a guarantee?

TRUMP: No, it is not a guarantee, but it will be by the end of the year. But I think it has a good chance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: He couldn't guarantee a vaccine because the FDA has not approved any vaccines yet. Most are still in active or paused trials. But who needs a vaccine if you believe another falsehood from the president?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: 99.9 of young people recover. 99 percent of people recover. We have to recover. We can't close up our nation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Young people may recover, but not before they spread it to people who are more likely to die. Young adults are the primary source of spread. And according to Johns Hopkins University, about 2.6 percent of people who test positive for coronavirus die from COVID-19. And many survivors are experiencing lingering symptoms and internal organ damage for long-term consequences.

Now, the president and Joe Biden are hitting the trail after a fiery debate. Hear where they're setting up shop in the final 11 days.

Plus, the debate ratings are in. See how it compared to the first one.

And Biden trying to clean up comments that he made about moving on from oil. This is CNN special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:10:00]

KEILAR: Election Day is around the corner. We are just 11 days away now. And right now, President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are hitting the campaign trail, they are looking to connect with undecided voters and trying to energize their base.

More than 50 million have cast their ballots. The president is flying to Florida this hour to convince America's senior citizens to back him a second term. Seniors are a key voting bloc to usher Trump into the White House in 2016 and could prove to be the tipping point in 2020.

Biden is set to speak next hour in his home state of Delaware, where he will outline his plans to defeat the pandemic and get unemployed Americans back to work. We're going to take you there live once he gets under way.

And this final sprint for both men is coming on the heels of last night's debate where they laid starkly different visions for the future of this country.

Joining me now is CNN Political Analyst Carl Bernstein. And, Carl, President Trump and the former vice president facing off last night for the last time before Election Day. This was the last pitch that a lot of Americans were going to be paying attention to. What did you think? What was your takeaway from the debate?

[13:15:00]

CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Trump, once again, is appealing to his base to get him close enough to winning that he can throw a monkey wrench into the electoral process if there is no win, which is very unlikely that he will win a majority of votes in the Electoral College demonstrably. But rather, and people I talk to in the White House and elsewhere say that his strategy is to undermine the electoral process to the point where he can draw this thing out through court challenges, through not accepting whatever the vote of the American people is and trying to cling to office through some other means.

He's still in the ball game. He did not perform like he did in the first debate, which was almost fatal to him. He was much more coherent than he usually is. And his Republican supporters are happy with what he did.

At the same time, the question is, is this election, as we have seen all along, really about the character of Donald Trump and the COVID crisis, the pandemic, his negligence in causing, through his negligence, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans. He is trying to move the debate away from that.

And meanwhile, to energize his base with a kind of repeal, we're going to see, I have been told by those who were around the president, in the next 11 days, we are going to see a scorched earth campaign the likes of which the filthiest of the campaign conducted by Donald Trump, unlike anything that we have seen in our history. So, get set is what I was told last night.

KEILAR: All right. We'll buckle up. We'll hold onto our hats and glasses because this is going to be wild ride, as they say. One of the things I think that we're hearing just from normal people who were watching this election, as they look back to 2016 is people who support say, Joe Biden or oppose President Trump are worried that even though polls may indicate positivity for Biden, they worry that it could be missing something. And then folks that support President Trump say, he defied expectations last time, he is going to defy expectations this time. Could we be surprised again?

BERNSTEIN: There's always room for surprise. Of course, that's a possibility. But a lot is going to depend, I think, on the media and how we focus on these next 11 days, particularly about the issue of Donald Trump, what he and his rhetoric and his actions and words have been all about for almost four years now, the pathological lying, the racism, the call to arms for his followers in the streets to almost provoke violence in our electoral process.

We're dealing with a president of the United States whose level of irresponsibility, recklessness and lack of faith in the American democratic process as well as coming dangerously close to a new kind of authoritarianism that we have never seen advocated by a president, something close to some kind of peculiar Trumpian, American neo- fascism, those are the real issues in this campaign. And I think most voters are aware that the real issue is Donald Trump and his conduct.

Can Trump energize his base enough to make this election close? And Republican senators particularly, who I've talked to, say that that's his real objective. Just get it close enough so that he cannot be forced to leave the White House with a clear victory for Biden. And if that is the case, then he goes into causing a constitutional crisis.

And I think we need to look at his words and actions over the past month and into the next 11 days in terms of his willingness and enthusiasm for provoking a constitutional crisis if he can't get past 270 electoral votes, which seems unlikely, whatever happened in the debate last night.

The trajectory does not seem to have been changed notably, but his strategy is to cause such chaos that we are going to be very troubled in terms of how our institutions, how the Electoral College, how Republicans in Congress, how our system handles a challenge to the orderly and legal electoral process such as we've never seen.

And that also includes the kind of message that he is sending, as he did last night during parts of the debate to his followers, the kind of unfounded, vicious charges, the kind of language that we have seen in the past month appeals to racism.

[13:20:09] As Biden said last night, that much more than dog whistles, fog horns, toward racism, toward a kind of unacceptance of pluralistic America, the likes of which we have never seen. That's where we are and that's what we've got to look at, particularly in the media, along with the coronavirus pandemic and his failure to act, his homicidal negligence in failing to act to save lives of Americans.

As he told to my colleague, Bob Woodward, he knew January 28th that we were facing the greatest national security crisis, as he was told by his national security advisers, that his presidency was going to see and he chose to not only ignore it in public but to pretend almost it didn't exist, as he said, to cause -- so that he would not cause panic in America.

KEILAR: And, Carl, we'll be watching the final days with you. It is wonderful to see you. Thank you so much for coming on.

BERNSTEIN: Thank you.

KEILAR: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell responding to concerns about his health after photos show bruises and bandages on his body.

Plus, the president once again attacked Dr. Fauci, calling him a Democrat. We're going to roll the tape on that false claim.

And as Big 10 football returns this weekend, some college town mayors are terrified about super-spreader events. We're going to take you there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:25:00]

KEILAR: From ballots and bluster to cash and a mea culpa, what a year this week has been. So, let's run through some of the biggest stories that we've experienced here.

Second wave of coronavirus officially arrived, even though the first one never really ended, cases and hospitalizations hitting peaks from the spring and the summer.

Data analysis by experts at Columbia University revealed that up to 200,000 deaths could have been avoided if President Trump and his administration had responded better to the crisis.

A volunteer in the AstraZeneca vaccine trial died, but the trial will continue.

Cracks emerged in the sidelined coronavirus task force as members contradicted the president, and Twitter silenced the president's favorite task force doctor, Scott Atlas, for falsely claiming masks don't work.

Chris Christie apologized for his naked face at the White House super- spreader event after coming down with COVID. Even as Democrats and the Trump administration indicated they were making progress on a second coronavirus rescue package. Senate Republicans want a cheaper price tag and help for millions of Americans who need it is looking dim.

Airlines reported a staggering loss as airport traffic hit its highest mark since the spring.

50 million Americans have already voted early, and that is just 8 million shy of 2016's total number, and we still have 11 days to go until Election Day.

The Supreme Court ruled that swing state Pennsylvania can count mailed in ballots that are received up to three days after the election, even if their postmarks are legible.

The FBI said Iran and Russia are interfering in the election and have obtained voter information to send threatening emails.

Court documents reveal that the U.S. government has still been unable to reunite 545 children separated at the border from their parents. They have not been able to reunite them with their parents, and this includes about 60 kids who were under five years old when they were separated.

Last night, the president said they're well taken care of in facilities, revealing that he is not actually aware of their location because most of them are understood to be with sponsors.

A judge ruled a Breonna Taylor grand juror can speak publicly. The juror saying prosecutors didn't give the jury the option of even considering homicide charges.

And the president got mad during an interview with 60 Minutes and later released his version, breaching his agreement with CBS.

Joe Biden nearly tripled the president with cash on hand. President Trump and Joe Biden debated for the final time.

And New York Post Newsroom is livid as the outlet along with Fox News pushed unverified and sketchy reports about Joe Biden.

Also, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the nomination of Supreme Court Nominee Amy Coney Barrett to the full Senate, paving the way for her confirmation as soon as next week.

We have 11 days until the election. We have 70 days until 2020 is history.

Also, last night, the president continued his attacks on Dr. Anthony Fauci.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I get along very well with Anthony. But he did say, don't wear masks. He did say, as you know, this is not going to be a problem. I think he's a Democrat, but that's okay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So, after calling Fauci a disaster, an idiot this week, the president has added Democrat to his resume. But Fauci says he is not one, he is actually not registered to a party.

[13:30:01]

And he's worked for presidents from both parties, six presidents in all. He has overseen the responses to HIV, AIDS, to Ebola, Zika and tuberculosis.