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Trump Downplays Virus In Hard-Hit Wisconsin; Wales Under Two- Week "Firebreak" To Stem COVID-19; Exclusive With Russian Vaccine's Main Developer; U.S. Officials: Russia, Iran Have Stolen Voter Information; Nigerian Police Force Mobilize To Quell Worst Unrest In 20 Years; COVID-19 Triggers Rise In Asian American Unemployment Rate. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired October 25, 2020 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): This is CNN breaking news.
KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN HOST (voice-over): Welcome to you, our viewers in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber.
Our breaking news: two senior aides to vice president Mike Pence have tested positive for COVID-19. His office revealed his chief of staff Mark Short has begun quarantine and the vice president and second lady tested negative.
Trump said Pence's number two was quarantined and he would be fine. CNN learned another senior Pence adviser also tested positive recently, though it's not clear exactly when.
CNN White House reporter Sarah Westwood.
Sarah, the vice president and the top staff not exactly known for mask wearing and social distancing.
What more can you tell us about this outbreak?
SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The vice president and his staff have been seen frequently, even since the big White House outbreak, not wearing their masks when traveling, when out in public. That was the case again yesterday.
We saw the vice president traveling through Florida, emerge multiple times from Air Force Two without wearing a mask and now, as he was out campaigning in several events in Florida yesterday.
But last night after his travel when he was arriving back in Washington, the first sort of red flag that something might have been amiss is that he did step out of Air Force Two wearing the mask by himself. He did not wave to the crowd as he normally did. And then shortly after that last night, the vice president's office announced that Mark Short had tested positive. We know Short traveled with the vice president on Thursday and Friday
on a very long multiday trip through Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. And Mike Pence's office also said Pence is considered a close contact of Short. Obviously as the chief of staff, he spends a lot of time around Pence.
Even though the vice president's office said Pence would continue his campaign schedule under the CDC guidance for essential workers which said even if there's household contact or close contact who tests positive for coronavirus, essential employees can continue their schedules as long as they have no symptoms of COVID-19.
But I think it's worth noting that that is very different from the excuse that the White House provided, when Pence continued his schedule after President Trump tested positive. In that case, they said that Pence could continue his schedule because he wasn't in close contact with the president or anyone in the White House who did test positive at that time.
Now despite acknowledging that Pence is a close contact, they're finding a different justification for Pence continuing his schedule. And he is scheduled to head on to North Carolina today for a campaign rally.
But what's really the question here is what did change in terms of the White House's protocol between the White House outbreak we saw a few weeks ago, that sickened the president and the first lady, the press secretary and a number of other senior aides, it's not clear there were any significant changes.
And the containment measures that were in place before have obviously proven inadequate. Now we know the White House is performing contact tracing with Mark Short to see if there was anyone else he was in proximity to has tested positive as well.
BRUNHUBER: Thank you so much. The story we'll be following closely in the next couple days. CNN White House reporter Sarah Westwood, appreciate that.
More than 83,000 Americans tested positive for the coronavirus on Saturday, almost identical to the record set the day before. It's the second day in a row in which new infections in the U.S. exceeded 80,000.
But with barely a week until the presidential election and down in the polls, the Trump campaign has the pedal to the floor. We begin with CNN's Jeremy Diamond as the president fights for a second term.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, President Trump campaigning again in the battleground state of Wisconsin against a grim backdrop of the coronavirus, not only with a surge of cases across the country, a record number of new coronavirus cases, just before the president arrived here on Friday. But also here in Wisconsin. On Friday, Wisconsin experiencing its highest number of coronavirus
cases in a single day during this entire pandemic. Hospitalizations, they are on the rise, not only across the country but here in the state of Wisconsin.
What we see here, is the president gathering thousands of his supporters once again, closely packed together and most people as usual not wearing masks. The president also continues to spout misinformation about the virus.
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DIAMOND: Downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic, making a false claim as he often does that, if there wasn't so much testing in the United States, that there wouldn't be as many cases as there are.
What we know is that the surge of the coronavirus cases in the U.S. is very real. That's despite what the president is saying. The president did highlight the importance of this battleground state as he was campaigning here, saying that if he wins the state of Wisconsin, he believes that he's going to win the election -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Waukesha, Wisconsin.
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BRUNHUBER: Well, Joe Biden struck a very different tone as he stumped in Pennsylvania. And he got some help from his former boss, Barack Obama. CNN's Arlette Saenz brings us that part of the story from Florida.
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ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Former president Barack Obama traveled here to the critical battleground state of Florida, reminding voters that they helped deliver the White House to him in 2008 and 2012 and asking them to do the same for Joe Biden this time around.
He also predicted that if Biden wins Florida, the election will basically be over, as he urged supporters and volunteers to keep up their final work for the vice president. And while he touted the work and leadership style of his former partner, he also took aim at President Trump, slamming his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and also criticizing President Trump's behavior in office, saying that it is not normal.
And President Obama also talked about that upcoming interview Trump did with "60 Minutes."
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BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When "60 Minutes" and Lesley Stahl are too tough for you, you ain't all that tough. If you got to walk out of a "60 Minutes" interview, then you're never going to stand up to a dictator.
If you're spending all your time complaining about how mean reporters are to you, you're not going to stand up to Putin.
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SAENZ: While President Obama was here in Florida, Joe Biden campaigned in Pennsylvania, holding a drive-in rally with musical artist Jon Bon Jovi. That event took place in Lucerne County, a county that President Obama and Joe Biden won in 2008 and 2012 but a county that President Trump flipped in 2016.
Biden trying to make a play for those Obama trumped (ph) counties as the election nears. And both Obama and Biden had a message when it came to early voting. They have reached that point in the campaign where the Biden campaign is really focusing on turnout as the election is now just 9 days away -- Arlette Saenz, CNN, North Miami, Florida.
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BRUNHUBER: To discuss all this, I'd like to bring in Thomas Gift, the director of the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London. He's in Oxford, England.
Thank you so much for joining us. I want to start with the news from the vice president's office, Mike Pence's chief of staff diagnosed with COVID.
So given Pence is head of the coronavirus task force, what are the political ramifications of campaigning without the chief of staff?
THOMAS GIFT, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRE ON U.S. POLITICS, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON: In terms of the politics, this story is of lesser salience than when Trump tested positive for COVID-19. It's unlikely the news will alter the election significantly.
Still, for Trump it keeps the coronavirus in the news heading into Election Day when the president is trying to deflect attention from the depressing data coming out of the Centers for Disease Control.
Just yesterday the U.S. did reach a peak one-day record of over 83,000 new infections. Mike Pence directs the Coronavirus Task Force and Mark Short as his chief of staff testing positive. He's played a central role in downplaying the virus.
Back in June, an op-ed in "The Wall Street Journal," insisting that there wouldn't be a second wave and Chris has the media for ringing alarm bells, so in many ways, I think the news is another anecdote challenging Trump's grip that the U.S. has turned a corner on the pandemic.
BRUNHUBER: When you see Pence and Short, often seen without a mask on the campaign trail, going to rallies packed with people, like the president, and the vice president is planning to continue campaigning, that contrasts with the vice presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, who took a couple days off the campaign trail when a close aide tested positive earlier this month. [05:10:00]
BRUNHUBER: So you're saying there's no political price for this type of behavior at all?
GIFT: I wouldn't say there's a change to the political price. But I think the political price has already been paid. This is just more messaging consistent what Trump and his administration has pushed since the outset.
At the debates Thursday, it was radically different visions for how the U.S. tackles COVID-19 generally. It's hardly worth reiterating that Trump has stated from the beginning that the threat of the coronavirus is overstated. He's denigrated public health experts, impugned critics for wearing masks and not imposed social distancing at his own campaign events.
He's generally neglected to cultivate a culture of public health. So it's also true generally and also within the personal behavior of both himself as well as his campaign members. I think voters kind of know what the story is. And if there is a political price to pay, I think it's already factored into the polling.
BRUNHUBER: And as you suggest, I guess it's more that it takes some of the oxygen out of the campaign. They have to start answering questions about COVID instead of talking about the economy or other things they want to.
I want to turn to the Democrats as we mentioned earlier, former President Obama was in Florida.
How influential do you think Obama will be as the super surrogate for Biden or is there a chance he diminishes Biden among progressives, who are reminded Biden isn't as inspirational?
GIFT: I still think there's a certain degree of nostalgia for the Obama administration. If you look at his favorability numbers, they're high. I think on balance, him being on the campaign trail is a bonus for Joe Biden.
If anything, I think one concern is that he actually overshadows the former vice president, Joe Biden, just because Barack Obama is such a towering figure. But on balance, I think he's been an effective surrogate.
He's taken sharp rebukes of Trump similar to what he did in 2016 with the race against Donald Trump with Hillary Clinton. So on balance, I think this is a good thing for Biden's campaign and he's happy to have him on the campaign trail.
BRUNHUBER: All right. Last question for you. I want to ask about the debate; 10 million fewer people watched the second debate than the first, which was to be expected, I guess.
But interestingly to me, 8 million fewer people watched this final debate than watched the final debate of 2016. Is that an indication of how much people have made up their minds
about the candidates?
GIFT: I think one key difference this year is the number of swing voters heading Election Day is fewer than with Trump versus Clinton. We've already seen more than 40 million Americans cast their ballot early. It's shattered records.
That means Biden's lead could be more sturdy heading into Election Day. If there are fewer voters out there, they could be persuaded in the last week. All in all, you're right. This is a reflection that most Americans at this point with a week going into November 3rd have made up their minds.
They're going Trump or Biden and nothing much said between here and Election Day is going to make much of a difference. It's an issue of turnout.
BRUNHUBER: All right. We appreciate it, thank you so much, Thomas Gift, director of the University College London Centre on U.S. Politics, we appreciate it.
GIFT: Thanks, Kim.
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BRUNHUBER: The coronavirus numbers out of Europe are really worrisome. Some are saying the virus could be there to stay until next summer at least. That's just ahead. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: As coronavirus cases soar across Europe, scuffles are breaking out in Italy over restrictions.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Police clashed with hundreds of supporters of an extreme right wing group in Rome. They threw bottles at riot police as they defied and protested a curfew that recently went into effect. Police used tear gas to break up the demonstration.
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BRUNHUBER: Europe is bracing for its second coronavirus wave to get worse as if it wasn't already bad enough. Several countries are reporting record numbers of infections and many fear cases will continue to increase this winter.
On the same day that France broke the daily case record, President Macron said the virus is likely to stick around until at least next summer. He said there could be new targeted restrictions in the days to come.
Some European leaders have tested positive for COVID-19. Poland's president is asymptomatic and continuing to work but in isolation. The Czech Republic remains the worst hit country in Europe during the past two weeks. It's reporting more than 15,000 new infections for the first time since the pandemic began.
Germany is now reporting the biggest daily rise in cases from Friday to Saturday. The country's number of new infections per day has almost doubled within a week.
In Wales, streets were largely empty on Saturday as the country completed the first day of lockdown. The firebreak will run until November 9th as Welsh officials try to stem the spread of the virus.
Wales is now well into its second day of its firebreak lockdowns. For more on this, let's bring in Nina dos Santos at the border of Wales and England.
Nina, lockdown, a word dreaded by all. Wales now doing exactly that and already plenty of anger at some of the more surprising restrictions there.
What's happening?
NINA DOS SANTOS, CNNMONEY EUROPE EDITOR: Yes. That's right. It's important to remember that England where I am.
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DOS SANTOS: I'm just 5.7 miles away from the Welsh border in the city of Chester, has a different strategy to Wales. Parts of the U.K. like Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland have latitude to set their own health care policies. That's why a country within country like Wales, home to 3 million people, can effectively shut down for two weeks with this firebreak.
It has prompted anger. There's question marks over why the rules are so draconian; just down the road, a short distance away from where I am, Welsh people can't mix with other households. They've been told to stay home until November 9th. No exceptions except for exercise, walking your dog and buying essential items like food and medicines.
And this is where people said, especially on social media, that things might be getting a little bit too silly. There have been pictures of supermarkets cordoning off aisles of what are deemed to be nonessential goods, like children's school uniforms and bed linens. A lot of people said in Wales that will only benefit the big international retailers like Amazon.
People go online and order these things anyway. Remember the restrictions that Wales implemented are going to cost the economy pretty dear. It's estimated they could cost upwards from $600 million over just that short time period. There's also been a lot of controversy about how this has been
implemented because it could be punishing communities where coronavirus hasn't managed to get a foothold. Some of those say not far from the border here are reliant on tourism and tourists are being turned away from there.
Whereas obviously there are other hot spots like the capital of Wales, Cardiff, that has a larger number of cases. I spoke to the first minister of Wales over the last couple days. He was emphatic this couldn't have been put off longer.
They needed to do this to save lives and protect the health system from getting overwhelmed. We won't know for quite some time if it worked. The government may be forced to try to change some of the rules to soften them a little bit.
There's been a petition in the Welsh parliament going through the motions today that's gathered 45,000 signatures and counting, asking the Welsh government to soften some of the rules, notably on what people can and can't buy in places like supermarkets and retail outlets.
BRUNHUBER: All right. Thank you so much. Nina dos Santos, at the border of Wales in England, we appreciate the reporting.
Even if there were a safe and effective COVID vaccine, many Americans are so skeptical about taking it health professionals are alarmed. A CNN poll found only half of Americans surveyed said they would get the vaccine. The director of the National Institutes of Health warns that is not enough.
The virus, quote, "could be here for years." Dozens of pharmaceutical companies are racing to develop a vaccine. Nine in the U.S., 12 in China and Russia has two, including the Sputnik V registered for public use.
Russia has been bragging about how quickly it developed the vaccine. But in an exclusive interview with CNN, the vaccine's main developer admits it's not recommended for some of those most at risk from COVID- 19. CNN's Fred Pleitgen explains why.
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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As Russia deals with a major spike in new coronavirus infections, despite already having approved two vaccines for emergency use, the head of the Gamaleya Institute in charge of the development of the most prominent vaccine, Sputnik V, told us it may take up to a year for the majority of Russians to get shots, as production sites are still in the process of going online.
ALEXANDER GINTSBURG, GAMALEYE INSTITUTE (through translator): Planned capacity of these full sites by next year should reach about 5 million doses per month, which will allow 70 percent of our population to be vaccinated with this vaccine within nine, to 10, to a maximum of 12 months. PLEITGEN (voice-over): Russia's certified the Sputnik V vaccine with
great fanfare in August after testing it in only a few dozen people. The move hailed as a major PR victory for Vladimir Putin as Russia claims to be outpacing Western pharma firms. But in current large phase 3 trials, Sputnik V is lagging well behind Western vaccine candidates.
Sputnik V's makers said only about 6,000 participants have so far received the two doses necessary to achieve complete immunization and start collecting data, compared to almost 30,000 in some large Western trials.
All this as Russian state TV is trashing the U.K.'s vaccine candidate, calling it, quote, "a monkey vaccine," despite the fact that Russia itself has made a deal to produce this very vaccine under license.
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PLEITGEN (voice-over): The head of Russia's direct investment fund which is bankrolling Sputnik V claiming Moscow's vaccine is superior because it uses so-called human adenovirus technology.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we decided to use something already existing, something already safe, something already proven. And many people in the West failed to think about this.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): But even the Sputnik vaccine's instructions say it's only indicated for people 18-60 and not for people with some allergies and illnesses, meaning now older age groups and people with health conditions, some of the most vulnerable to severe cases of COVID-19.
The head of the Gamaleya Institute told CNN the vaccine simply hasn't been tested on older people but he believes the elderly and people with pre-existing conditions can still take it.
GINTSBURG (through translator): With many chronic diseases, in particular people with diabetes, it is not just that it is carried out; it is prescribed to vaccinate people because these are risk groups that need to be protected. But these people, people with cardiac diseases, these are all chronic diseases, as we know, you need to vaccinate.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): Russia says it will still soon wrap ramp up production of Sputnik V to vaccinate more medical workers and other high-risk groups, a move Konstantin Chumakov, a top vaccine expert at the Global Virus Network, called dangerously risky.
KONSTANTIN CHUMAKOV, GLOBAL VIRUS NETWORK: I think that there is a reason why they call it Russian roulette. So this is exactly it.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): One Russian who isn't taking the Sputnik V vaccine so far is the president, Vladimir Putin, his spokesman telling CNN, Putin is, quote, "thinking about it" -- Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Moscow.
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BRUNHUBER: Tens of thousands of New Yorkers cast ballots in early voting Saturday. This is just one of the lines they waited in. Turnout numbers are up across the U.S. We'll have more on that coming up ahead. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States, Canada and around the world.
The chief of staff for Mike Pence has tested positive for COVID-19. The diagnosis was revealed Saturday in a statement. It said both the vice president and the second lady tested negative.
Marc Short is the second top Pence aide to come down with the virus in recent days. His senior adviser tested positive earlier in the week. Even so, Mr. Pence will remain on the schedule and stay on the campaign trail.
Nine days to go before Election Day in the U.S. with more than 52 million Americans already doing their civic duty. According to information from Catalist, a data company that provides services to Democrats, academics and nonprofits.
The total includes both in-person voting and absentee ballots. Nearly 94,000 people voted Saturday in the first day of early voting in New York City. That's higher than the total number of early voters last year. Turnout is up among younger voters in key states as well.
CNN's Natasha Chen is in Georgia, a potential swing state, talking to early voters about what's driving them to the polls.
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NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, as of noon on Saturday, more than 2.6 million votes have been cast in the state of Georgia. And when you look at both the in person and early voting as well as the absentee ballots that have been cast, that's a 114 percent increase over the same point in the 2016 election.
We've been seeing tremendous enthusiasm and energy, even in the rain, as people continue to wait to cast their votes. Now we have talked to a number of people in line, who represent the changing demographics in Georgia, a younger, more diverse group that is joining the voter rolls.
We met this one young couple in Atlanta, who said they are considering some very important issues as they cast their ballots this time.
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WILLIE SMITH, GEORGIA VOTER: I really do think it's about the character of this country, about who we vote for. So I think -- I just want my voice heard on that.
STEPHANIE SMITH, GEORGIA VOTER: I think, also, having a young daughter, we're also setting up the world for her. And I think our vote now speaks even more than it did as single people, that it's not just for right now. It's for the future.
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CHEN: Over the past 20 years, there's been a significant increase in the percentage of African American voters making up the electorate here in Georgia. And according to a recent study by Pew Research, Georgia also has the largest growth of any state in the country of eligible immigrant voters.
In fact we met voter here who was recently naturalized and excited about participating in her first U.S. election. Something that's also changing the electorate, Georgia in 2016 started automatically registering people to vote when they got their driver's license. So a lot of young people are joining the voter rolls -- Natasha Chen, CNN, Marietta, Georgia.
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BRUNHUBER: Even as tens of millions of Americans are casting their ballots, U.S. national security experts are warning that the presidential election is a target for countries such as Russia, Iran and China. But another possible threat to voters comes from a source much closer to home. Pamela Brown explains.
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PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): New concerns about possible voter intimidation after the Trump campaigned film voters at a Philadelphia polling station. The campaign claims they found at least 3 people dropping off more than one ballot each.
What Trump team's attorney believes is just the tip of the iceberg and what can constitute unlawful absentee voting. The voters are allowed to drop off ballots for people who are disabled. And state officials warned the videos might be interpreted as intimidation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Voter intimidation is illegal under state and federal law and videotaping, you're taking pictures of you without your consent is part of that.
BROWN (voice-over): Which the Trump campaign calls categorically absurd.
On election interference, intelligence officials confirm Russian hackers have stolen election data. But it's unclear how the information will be used. Officials say Iran used voter information to send threatening emails that came to light this week. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Iran and Russia have taken specific actions to
influence public opinion relating to our elections.
BROWN (voice-over): The federal government issued two new cyber security alerts, warning that state and local governments were targeted. But officials say that election infrastructure has not been compromised.
The intelligence community generally agrees that the Russians interfered 4 years ago to help Trump win. Despite that, Trump slammed the assessment again.
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TRUMP: They both want you to lose because there's been nobody tougher to Russia, with -- between the sanctions. Nobody tougher than me on Russia.
BROWN (voice-over): Intelligence experts agree, stopping Russia should be the priority.
JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER U.S. DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Russia has been interfering in the run-up to our election already and, for my part at least, it's a far more serious threat than Iran.
BROWN (voice-over): More than 50 million Americans have already turned in their ballots.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I'd rather get it done and over with and deliver it early. That way I know I've voted.
BROWN (voice-over): And more than half of those votes come from CNN's 16 most competitive states and one of the fiercest battlegrounds, North Carolina, over 2.5 million ballots have been cast. That's more than half of the total turnout in 2016.
BROWN: We are learning more about 2020's first election ransomware attack. It happened in Georgia and in one Georgia county, officials there said, the hack affected a voter signature database and precinct maps.
They do not believe that it affected the election infrastructure and security experts say that it was likely more about profit than politics. But they are concerned about these ransomware attacks, as we get closer to Election Day, because they can cause chaos and confusion -- Pamela Brown, CNN, Washington.
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BRUNHUBER: Joining me now in San Francisco, California, Renee DiResta, the tactical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory.
Thank you so much for being here on this very important topic. Given what happened in 2016, there's so much misinformation being spread, primarily by Russia.
Going into this election, there were a lot of concerns about the international and intentional spread of misinformation and how it might affect the vote.
From what you've seen, has it been as bad in this campaign?
And what if any are the differences between 2016 and now?
RENEE DIRESTA, TACTICAL RESEARCH MANAGER, STANFORD INTERNET OBSERVATORY: Sure, so right now we're seeing there's a lot more misinformation originating from domestic sources. So misinformation, meaning information that's inadvertently wrong, as opposed to disinformation campaigns with regard to Russia.
So what we're seeing today instead is information that oftentimes starts because somebody snaps a photo, maybe of a ballot that's been misplaced, something they see in the trash. And then that's amplified by domestic influencers, who want to spread a political narrative to benefit a partisan side.
And then that act of influence, picking it up and sharing it, means that it reaches many more people because these are unfortunately authentic accounts often with very large followings.
BRUNHUBER: Who is being targeted here?
The way you make it sound is that it's just kind of pumped into the online world for anyone to consume or is it specifically aimed it smaller but influential constituencies of voters?
DIRESTA: We're seeing a lot of different types of narratives spread. There's suppression type narratives, right now. We're very concerned about some of the footage that is real that is showing very long lines at polling stations but then implying that people are not going to be allowed to vote.
We're seeing footage that is taken out of context, suggesting that police officers will interfere in the voting process, targeting people on the Left.
We're seeing narratives of misleading ballot, claims about ballots being thrown away or mail-in ballots being, multiple people submitting multiple mail-in ballots. That one is really more targeted at the Right.
We're just constantly hearing about how voter fraud is going to be committed in the proceed of the mail-in vote we're going to see a lot of because of coronavirus. So it's really running the gamut. There's really no one community that is more targeted than another this point.
We are seeing a little bit more, however, of these narratives about mail-in ballot fraud disrupting the election.
BRUNHUBER: That's what I was going to say. It sounds like a lot of the misinformation or disinformation, depending on who's doing it, centers around either voting or the general theme of democracy.
What is the aim here?
DIRESTA: Well, unfortunately, the aim really seems to be discrediting confidence in the outcome of the election by discrediting confidence in the result of the election. So insinuating that if we can't run a free and fair election, in which one person, one vote, ballots are counted fairly, everybody's vote counts.
The concern now is that there's substantial lack of confidence in the process. What that might mean is that 50 percent of the population doesn't trust the outcome if their preferred candidate doesn't win because they've been hearing about how the election is going to be stolen or manipulated by the other side.
BRUNHUBER: It sounds obviously like what you're saying is echoing a lot of what President Trump is saying out loud.
Is this in any way to help him or to help his followers?
DIRESTA: Well, unfortunately, one of the things we never expected to see was the president of the United States participating in this process.
[05:40:00]
DIRESTA: That was not on anybody's -- things that we expected to see back in 2016.
In 2016, what we saw a lot of, with regard to these narratives about election machines not working or people fraudulently voting, was actually coming from Russian trolls.
Interestingly enough, that was one of the common themes they tried to amplify back in 2016. They were targeting the Right-leaning communities and had built pages for and create fake personas around and those pages and personas really leaned into the idea that the election was going to be stolen in the weeks leading up to the election of 2016.
Now we're seeing those themes echoed but instead of by Russian trolls, we're seeing them echoed by extremely prominent influencers with very large followings.
BRUNHUBER: Thank you very much, Renee DiResta, we appreciate it.
DIRESTA: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: Another powerful storm is threatening the Caribbean, Mexico and the southern U.S. Zeta has been upgraded to a tropical storm. It's forecast to become a category one hurricane moving into the Gulf of Mexico.
It's now projected to hit the U.S. along the northern Gulf Coast, which was already battered by multiple storms this season. Forecasters expect Zeta to weaken back to a tropical storm before then.
Nigeria's top police commander calling out the nation's entire police force.
Will it be enough or even the right move to quell weeks of unrest?
We'll look at the crisis coming up. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: In Nigeria, chaotic scenes of looting and destruction have prompted the deployment of the nation's entire police force.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): This was the disturbing scene Saturday in a city as looters ransacked a warehouse.
[05:45:00]
BRUNHUBER (voice-over): It's after weeks of mostly peaceful protests over police brutality. The government shut down a special anti-robbery squad amid accusations that members of that unit harassed, kidnapped and extorted, even murdered citizens. As CNN's Nima Elbagir shows us, this past week was a bloody one in Lagos.
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NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Broken glass and debris on the streets of Lagos. Shattered remnants of protests in Nigeria over police brutality that quickly turned from peaceful to deadly.
There is a tense calm in the city now. But on Tuesday night, the city erupted into chaos after eyewitnesses say multiple protesters were shot and killed by army soldiers. The army has dismissed reports of the incident as "fake news."
The shooting set off a wave of anger across the country. Many shops and businesses have been burned or damaged and there is widespread looting in the worst unrest in the country since its return to civilian rule in 1999.
It is one of the biggest political challenges so far for the country's president, Muhammadu Buhari. On Thursday he addressed the nation, appealing for calm.
MUHAMMADU BUHARI, PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA: Your voice has been heard loud and clear and we are responding.
ELBAGIR (voice-over): But critics say he waited too long to make a public statement and didn't even address the events on Tuesday, which has further angered many Nigerians.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People died, people and their loved ones, and he didn't mention anything about. It
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The speech was baseless, hopeless.
ELBAGIR (voice-over): The state governor spoke to CNN and said he is committed to a full investigation of what happened and people will be held accountable but also says demonstrators should have left when they were told, as a curfew was in effect.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The protesters had the time to also have left the site we're talking about. But it's totally condemning (ph).
ELBAGIR (voice-over): The protests began more than 2 weeks ago and has been largely driven by young people in Nigeria, organizing on social media under the #EndSARS who initially called for a police unit known as a special anti-robbery squad to be disbanded because of allegations of kidnapping, harassment and extortion.
Under intense pressure, the government agreed to dissolve the unit and redeploy officers to a different team. But the movement continued, widening to include economic reforms and more protections against the police.
The voices raised here in a call for justice have found willing echoes around the world, gaining international attention from celebrities like Beyonce and Rihanna, placing a spotlight on shootings that have yet to be fully explained and the growing discontent from the country's youth -- Nima Elbagir, CNN, London.
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BRUNHUBER: Samsung's chairman Lee Kun-hee has died after six years in a coma following a heart attack. He was considered a visionary who turned his father's South Korean company into an international tech giant. He was convicted in several criminal cases but was pardoned. His son has been leading the company since 2012 and is expected to inherit his father's title.
Lee was 78 years old.
We'll be right back.
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BRUNHUBER: Officials in the U.S. are worried about widespread trust in a vaccine, particularly among the Black and Latino communities. Fueling that concern is the lack of participation in diverse communities in clinical trials. Vaccine maker Moderna said only 10 percent of the trial participants
are Black; 20 percent are Latino. And these groups are both more than twice as likely to get COVID-19 than white Americans.
Now Asian Americans contract COVID-19 at about the same rate as white Americans, according to the CDC, yet they're dealing with a soaring unemployment rate. CNN's Amara Walker has the details.
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AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Lunchtime at this Chinese restaurant is typically a busy hour. That was before the pandemic. Now at Canton House in Atlanta, it's mostly empty tables and an unusually quiet dining room.
CAM VUONG, RESTAURATEUR: My God, the business dropped 98 percent.
WALKER (voice-over): The restaurant industry was among the hardest hit among the coronavirus pandemic. But the owner here is facing a struggle unique to Asian Americans, a double whammy of historic unemployment and discrimination.
VUONG: At the time we closed, we do have our window was broken and -- with a hammer without any reason whatsoever. At that time, we really think that's racist.
WALKER (voice-over): As COVID-19 has spread, so has the racism and xenophobia. Members of the United Nations Committee on Discrimination recently expressed concern over an alarming level of racially motivated incidents against Asian Americans, saying president Trump's rhetoric seems to play a role in legitimizing the hate crimes.
Sixty-year-old Vuong reopened his dining room in May. Business is down still 50 percent. He wonders if discrimination is slowing down recovery.
VUONG: When we first opening, I do have a feeling that the people say don't go to Chinese restaurants.
MARLENE KIM, ECONOMICS PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS: People were avoiding Asian businesses because they thought they would get the coronavirus from these businesses.
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WALKER (voice-over): An economics professor at the University of Massachusetts says COVID-19 has taken a heavy economic toll on Asian Americans. According to government statistics, from February to June, Asian American unemployment rates increased more by more than 450 percent.
KIM: Asians typically have among the lowest unemployment rates. And it's really shot up during COVID.
WALKER (voice-over): A visit to Atlanta's Chinatown underscores the struggle. This gift shop is closing at the end of the month. Other businesses here are telling us they are just trying to survive. Yet Kim says few are taking notice.
KIM: I think it's been overlooked because people don't think that Asians have problems. People think of Asians as a model minority.
VUONG: No, we are just not desperate, we are struggling.
WALKER (voice-over): But Vuong, who came to the United States as a refugee from Vietnam, remains hopeful. He says he's been living the American dream for 40 years and hopes for 40 more.
VUONG: We have a dream, to get the business, to have a house, to have a stable life, a peaceful life, have a family and then raise our kids. But hopefully our dreams are not broken because of this COVID-19.
WALKER: Vuong tells me that he just got started breaking even so he's got quite a way to go still. He's concerned about a second wave of COVID-19 hurting his business. But he says he's the most concerned about the outcome of the presidential election and whether that will inflame racial tensions -- back to you.
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BRUNHUBER: With that, that wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. For viewers in the U.S. and Canada, "NEW DAY" is ahead. For everyone else, it's "Quest's World of Wonder."
