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Pence Out Stumping, Ignores Quarantine Guidelines; Eight Days Till Election, Seventh Day Of Record COVID Infections; 43 Million Cases Cross Europe In COVID's Second Wave; Israel's Mixed Reaction To New COVID Restrictions; Putin Denies Knowledge Of Hunter Biden's Ukraine Activities; The Mad Rush Of Coney Barrett's Confirmation; China Draws Up Next Five-Year Economic Plan; Fracking Politics; Its Logical Course V. Renewables. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired October 26, 2020 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[01:00:00]
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. president and vice president ignore COVID-19 risks even as the virus spreads among their inner circle yet again.
Inside ICUs in Italy as the coronavirus cases spike. How doctors are preparing for a second wave.
Plus Wales under a firebreak lockdown. How it works and the mixed response it's getting.
Hello everyone, I'm Michael Holmes. Thanks for your company. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
With eight days remaining in the U.S. election season the country is enduring its worst stretch of the coronavirus pandemic at the same time. For the seventh straight day a confirmed more than 58,000 new infections with a couple of days well over 80,000.
And once again the virus hitting the White House. CNN has learned at least five people close to the vice president have tested positive. Among them, Mike Pence's chief of staff and one of his closest aides.
Pence was in close contact with some of those staff members but says his office says he has tested negative. So far, he's refusing to quarantine, despite guidelines from his own government health experts that say that's what he should be doing.
Instead he did that. Hold a campaign rally in North Carolina on Sunday, planning to hold more events again until election day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're all standing out here in the rain for one reason and one reason only. And that is that North Carolina and America need four more years of President Donald Trump in the White House.
CROWD: (Applause)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: President Donald Trump also on the campaign trail rallying support from voters in Maine. He spoke about the vice president's refusal to quarantine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Should the vice president come off the campaign trail?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You have to ask him, he's doing very well. Good crowds. Very socially distanced. He's doing very well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Now a week ago Kamala Harris canceled all travel after two people in her orbit tested positive for coronavirus. Now she said she did so out of an abundance of caution.
Well, now Harris is back on the campaign trail making multiple stops in the state of Michigan on Sunday and criticizing Vice President Mike Pence for ignoring his own administration's public safety recommendations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. DEMOCRATIC VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He should be following the guidelines. We're doing it. I think -- we have models the right and good behavior, and they should take our lead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is defending the vice president's decision to continue campaigning but admits the nationwide outbreak is getting out of hand.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK MEADOWS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Here's what we have to do. We're not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigations. Various --
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, "STATE OF THE UNION:" Why aren't we going to get control of the pandemic?
MEADOWS: Because it is a contagious virus, just like the flu. It's --
TAPPER: Yes. But why not make efforts to contain it?
MEADOWS: Well, we are making efforts to contain it. TAPPER: By running all over the country not wearing a mask?
MEADOWS: Jake, we can --
TAPPER: That's what the vice president's doing.
MEADOWS: -- get into the back and forth. Let me just say this. Is what we need to do is make sure we have the proper mitigation factors whether it's therapies or vaccines or treatments to make sure that people don't die from this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: And CNN's senior political analyst, Ron Brownstein, joins me now from Los Angeles. And good to see you, Ron.
We've got to start with Team Pence and the coronavirus positives, which sounds like a bad band name. What does it say when so many people in the White House, in the Administration, can't protect themselves let alone the country?
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it's just a dramatic symbol of the way they've handled this from the beginning. The original sin, from the outset, from the president, has been his determination to project normalcy at all costs, regardless of what is actually happening in public health or regardless what it means for public health to be projecting normalcy. Rather than responding, in fact, to what is occurring.
His goal from the beginning has been to keep the economy opening as much as possible as quickly as possible. Put enormous pressure on Republican governors to follow his lead. Sent the (inaudible) signal by holding events without masks, without social distancing as he's doing to this day.
And basically what he's telling Americans is that no matter how many people get sick, no matter how many people die, no matter how long I'm in office, I am not going to treat this any more seriously than I am today.
[01:05:00]
That's been -- he's got 35 percent of the country who says open at any costs but 60 percent of the country disapproves of the way he's been handling this. And he's basically telling them if you reelect me nothing is going to be any different.
HOLMES: And to that very point -- of course, the coronavirus is one issue that Donald Trump doesn't want voters focused on a week out from the election and yet here we are. Mark Meadows saying we're not to be able to contain it.
Quite apart from the public health aspect to the point of what you were saying before, how damaging is that sort of surrender politically? BROWNSTEIN: I think enormously. First of all, the medium is the
message. As I said to you before, it really doesn't really matter what Donald Trump says from these various stages or the vice president from the stages that they are stepping onto.
The loudest message they are sending to the public is through the way they are holding these rallies. Without masks, without social distancing, mocking Dr. Fauci at times.
They are sending this unequivocal signal that they are not going to do anything different, they are going to continue to prioritize the economy over public health even though it is counterproductive, as you know, in the long run. There really is no way to get the economy fully moving until the virus is under control.
And then Mark Meadows coming out today as they have so often done to make the implicit explicit and to tell the country we have basically given up on trying to help you avoid contracting this disease, the most we're going to do is try to accelerate the treatments for you once you do.
HOLMES: Utterly extraordinary, really. OK. We talked a little bit about this last week, just over a week ago. Everyone's aware of how the polls were wrong in 2016 --
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
HOLMES: -- which we talked about. But around this point, back then Hillary Clinton had a lead but it was starting to evaporate. Joe Biden is holding pretty firm. How do you read that difference?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, there are a couple of things that are different. First -- obviously, we talked about pollsters, they've changed their methodology.
Last times polls were wrong and the Clinton campaign was wrong about what was happening in the key Rust Belt battleground states, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, because Trump turned out more non-college and non-urban whites than the pollsters or the Clinton campaign expected. They've changed methodology to try to deal with that.
Second, the overall voting pool at this time is much bigger than it was last time. Everybody is voting in big numbers and that makes it harder to shift the turnout mix in your direction as the president did last time.
Part of what happened last time was he turned out more people than most expected but Hillary Clinton turned out less as African American turnout sagged in the big cities, in particular, across the Midwest and both of things combined to produce what we saw.
And, of course, the other third thing is there are fewer voters who are kind of floating around. There are few undecided voters and not nearly as many are expressing interest in third-party candidates.
Donald Trump has -- the only president ever never to reach 50 percent approval at any point in his presidency. He needs to reach a higher number to win this time than last time because fewer people are splintering off to those third parties.
And that's just very hard for him to do given the way he's focused on mobilizing rather than expanding his base towards his presidency.
HOLMES: So no President Kanye West, I take it. You also, you talk about this -- and it's fascinating -- about key groups, white women.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
HOLMES: One group that Biden has made big gains with and he's eaten into Trump's advantage also with non-college educated white men. Better placed in that regard than Clinton --
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
HOLMES: -- was in 2016 as well?
BROWNSTEIN: Right. Look, the situation Trump has put himself into is that he has alienated college-educated white voters -- we saw it in 2018. In 2020 he is probably going to have the biggest deficit of any Republican candidate with them ever.
He's looking at towering deficits among young people, much bigger than he suffered in 2016. More like what Obama was able to achieve in 2012 or even 2008 for the Democrats.
Among people of color, he might make some small gains among men, Hispanic and African American men. But he is looking at just enormous rejection among women in both of those groups which limits the overall increase he can expect among non-white voters.
And what that means is that all you're left with are his core groups of non-college, non-urban and evangelical whites. And to have a shot, he not only has to turn them out in historic numbers, he has to get back to the kind of once in a generation advantage that he enjoyed into 2016 when he won two-thirds of those non-college white voters, the best for anybody since Reagan in '84.
It's an awful tough election strategy if the core of it is every four years you are going to set a record.
It's like in baseball terms planning to hit 406 every year, the last person to do that was Ted Williams in 1941. So that's what Trump has left for himself.
There is a path. Turning out more of those voters than people expect and running up the margins with them again. But there are a lot of reasons why it's hard to kind of the lightning in a bottle to that extent two times in a row.
[01:10:00]
HOLMES: I get all my stats from you, including baseball. BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Well, here in L.A., we're very focused on baseball
right now. So.
GORE: HOLMES: Exactly, exactly. One game away. Ron Brownstein in L.A., thank you.
BROWNSTEIN: Thanks. Thanks, Michael.
HOLMES: Now countries across Europe are in the midst of a second wave of the coronavirus. And new restrictions are being put in place as infections break records with nearly 43 million cases across the region.
France reporting more than 52,000 new cases on Sunday, breaking its daily record for the fourth day in a row. The country's positivity rate more than double the U.S.
And Spain's prime minister declaring a new state of emergency on Sunday. That includes a nighttime curfew and travel restrictions.
Italy recording another 21,000 cases on Sunday, that's a new daily record there. The prime minister warning Italy can't afford another lockdown but they are preparing for the worst.
Our Ben Wedeman went to an Italian hospital to see how doctors are getting ready for the next wave.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SNR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The intensive care unit is a place of total concentration.
No small talk, just the rhythmic beeping of the machines, the steady breathing of patients on ventilators.
The Ospedale Maggiore di Lodi was in the front line of Italy's coronavirus pandemic earlier this year. And now the staff is bracing for the second wave.
Dr. Matteo Brambatti (ph) anticipates another nightmare.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
"It's like the second jump for a paratrooper," he tells me. "The first time you don't know what to expect, the second jump is more problematic because you know what's coming."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
At the moment Italian hospitals are able to deal with the number of patients in intensive care. However, that could change as the numbers continue to skyrocket.
ICU Director Dr. Enrico Storti regularly gathers his colleagues for a debrief.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ENRICO STORTI, ICU DIRECTOR, L'OSPEDALE MAGGIORE DI LODI, ITALY: (...) to evaluate, to better evaluate what we did. And how we can now put on the floor and bring on the table our ideas, our solutions to
(Crosstalk).
WEDEMAN: Gathered in this room are some of Italy's, perhaps some of the world's most experience soldiers in the fight against COVID-19.
Dr. Analisa Milade (ph) diagnosed the first Italian coronavirus patient on the 20th of February.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANALISA MILADE (ph): We are ready because we learned a lot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WEDEMAN: But this war, like all wars, takes a toll.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. MICHELE INTRONA: I think I felt like the soldiers during the world wars. I don't know. I think I experienced what these young boys experienced at that time when they were going -- fighting in a war, knowing that they could die.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WEDEMAN: The empty beds ready for more casualties.
Ben Wedeman, CNN. Lodi in Northern Italy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Well, the United Kingdom reporting nearly 20,000 new infections on Sunday. Wales was largely spared from the virus earlier this year but is now under a firebreak lockdown, that's what they're calling it, as cases rise.
CNN's Nina dos Santos explains how that will work and the mixed response it's getting.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Shutting up shop and locking down. Friday's last orders were filled with uncertainty in Cardiff. As come sundown, Wales' three million residents were once more ordered to stay at home for the next two weeks.
A firebreak deemed essential to stop COVID in its tracks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK DRAKEFORD, FIRST MINISTER OF WALES: A short but deep period of restrictions that will interrupt the virus, break the chains of transmission. But that is the best hope that we have of being able to get things back on track.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOS SANTOS: The decision was welcomed by these shoppers on the streets.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It's about time that somebody took this bull by the horns.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It's people dying, at the end of the day. We've just got to stay in and just respect that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOS SANTOS: But not so much in the supermarkets where a ban on the sale of non-essential items prompted a petition to loosen the new laws almost immediately.
Meanwhile, businesses braced themselves for meager takings.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN PANGELLI, MANAGER, 39 DESSERTS: If this didn't work the first time, why's it going to work the second time?
We have hand sanitizers for staff and customers, we wash our hands every 10 minutes, we socially distance in the store. Why can't we stay open safely?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[01:15:00]
DOS SANTOS: Like Scotland and Northern Ireland, Wales has its own government with autonomy over matters like health.
It claims this national lockdown is needed to prevent the virus spreading from big cities to remote places where it hasn't yet gained a foothold.
The porous border with England is also a source of concern.
Here in Betws-y-Coed in the mountains of North Wales they were spared the first wave of the pandemic only to recently witness an uptick in cases, thanks largely to tourists bringing the virus over the border from hotspots in England.
The Welsh Government says that it's following scientific advice. Part of that science confirms that genetic material from COVID-19 caught by people in neighboring parts of England is now popping up in wastewater in Wales.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Because it was --
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Very, very busy --
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: -- very, very busy.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: -- here in the summer.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. In the summer.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Very, very busy.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I mean, it's lovely to see people.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: But it was really busy.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Busy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOS SANTOS: Thousands of visitors were streaming into Snowdonia every day. Now not even the locals are allowed out without good reason. Halloween is off the cards so that maybe Christmas can be saved.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: You can't do anything and you can't diversify. We've all built our businesses up over 15, 20 years. What can you do?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOS SANTOS: Wales is taking a different approach to other parts of Britain still focused on local tiered restrictions. This lockdown will last until November the 9th.
Whether the picture will look less bleak thereafter it may be many more weeks before that becomes clear.
Nina dos Santos. CNN, Wales.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Israel is starting to ease its second nationwide coronavirus lockdown and people there have some mixed feelings about it.
The country has reported more than 309,000 infections according to Johns Hopkins University but new daily cases are dropping steadily. Israel saw fewer than 700 on Saturday but that's down from a peak of more than 9,000 a few weeks ago.
While there is relief that Israel's latest lockdown appears to be working, there is also a lot of finger pointing over why the situation got this bad in the first place.
Oren Liebermann explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In the heart of the Negev desert, the second wave of coronavirus hit hard.
The town of Yeruham was labeled a red zone because of a high infection rate. A second lockdown was inevitable. But it was also embraced.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DEBBIE GOLAN, YERUHAM RESIDENT: There was definitely an awareness in the community of the seriousness of the situation and the need for severe measures, measures that would be effective.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIEBERMANN: The town closed schools early going above and beyond Ministry of Health requirements. Religious services moved outdoors before it was mandatory and in late spring the mayor created a local contact tracing network, not relying on a national plan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TAL OHANA, MAYOR OF YERUHAM, ISRAEL: I need to fight the COVID and I need to give them hope. I need to work for their immunity and I must do everything I can that they will trust me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIEBERMANN: Across the country, public trust in the national leadership's handling of the coronavirus crisis has plummeted. The different sectors in Israeli society, religious, secular, ultra- orthodox and Arab attacked and blamed each other for a second wave of infections that was much worse than the first.
The second general lockdown only exacerbated that bitterness even as it brought down the numbers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERAN SEGAL, WEIZMANN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE: Anytime you reach the point where you need a lockdown that's the failure of managing the pandemic.
The lockdown itself is likely to work because everybody stays at home. But reaching that point is, in my view, a failure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIEBERMANN: Eran Segal of the Weizmann Institute of Science says it was a surprise that Israel's second lockdown worked so quickly.
On September 30th, Israel hit more than 9,000 new cases in one day. Three weeks later, the numbers were down to around 1,000 a day even though the lockdown was less strict.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEGAL: All other activities like allowing people to be more outdoors, to do sports, to drive more but be kind of more on their own, those are not drivers of the pandemic. So the fact that we allowed those during the second lockdown and not the first didn't have an effect.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIEBERMANN: Yeruham saw a similar drop from 27 in a day in September to less than five in the last week. Here they take seriously the commandment to love thy neighbor as thyself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RABBI YITZHAK, SHALEV, CHIEF RABBI, YERUHAM (Through Translator): The country of Israel is like a hand. The hand has a lot of fingers. There is no finger worth more than others but only all the fingers together can make one hand. A hand without a finger is not a complete hand.
The same thing for us. We have many different men and women, everyone with his opinions, desires, ideas. But we are all truly one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[01:20:00]
LIEBERMANN: As Israel slowly reopens, there is a fear that it's too soon. The numbers now are significantly worse than they were at the end of the first lockdown in May.
Yeruham is not immune to that fear but here they say their greatest strength is a community united against coronavirus.
Oren Liebermann. CNN, Yeruham.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Well, Russia's president is weighing in on one aspect of the U.S. election as well as a report on bounties on U.S. soldiers.
We'll discuss when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CNN HIGHLIGHT
JOE KAESER, PRESIDENT & CEO, SIEMENS: I'm actually very confident that Siemens got all the tools and all the power to be able to significantly contribute and able build a better world by a better infrastructure, automation and digitalization.
There is -- something good comes out of that pandemic other than that people get to terms on how to work together and to collaborate. This is going to be the acceleration of the digital industry going forward.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, isn't going along with one of President Trump's campaign attacks on Joe Biden.
President Trump, of course, has been raising accusations in debates that Joe Biden and his son Hunter engaged in unethical business practices. There's no evidence of that, by the way.
In an interview on state television Mr. Putin said he doesn't see anything criminal in Hunter Biden's past business ties with Ukraine or Russia.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA (Through Translator): Yes, in Ukraine he indeed had business or maybe still has business there. There has nothing to do with us, this is a matter of Americans and Ukrainians.
[01:25:00]
Yes, there's a least one known company that he was basically running and it looks like he made good money. But I don't see anything criminal here. At least we don't know anything about this. Yes. He worked for a company that was producing oil and gas.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Now Mr. Putin also dismissed the "New York Times" report that Russia paid the Taliban to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. He said several high ranking U.S. officials were unable to corroborate that report.
Now coming up here on CNN NEWSROOM, one of the fastest and most contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmations in years comes to a head on Monday. How President Trump plans to mark the event.
And China's leaders are meeting in Beijing with an eye towards the country's next phase of economic development.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: And welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Michael Holmes, appreciate your company.
President Trump expected to host an outdoor swearing in event at the White House on Monday night for Judge Amy Coney Barrett.
Now that will come not long after her expected confirmation to the Supreme Court expected by the Republican dominated U.S. Senate.
One Republican opposed to the nomination is Senator Susan Collins. She says the 2016 standard of not confirming a supreme court nominee close to a presidential election should apply now as well.
All Democrats are expected to vote against Barrett's confirmation, of course. But despite all that, Republicans still have the numbers.
[01:30:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: The senate is doing the right thing. We're moving this nomination forward.
And colleagues, by tomorrow night we'll have a new member of the United States Supreme Court.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: CNN supreme court analyst, Joan Biskupic, joins me now from Washington. Always lucky when we can get you on, Joan.
Let's just start with a basic thing. What precedent is set with a confirmation like this in these circumstances less than two weeks from election day.
JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Good to see you, Michael. And yes, this is quite amazing.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg died just about a month ago on September 17th and here we are just hours from when Judge Amy Coney Barrett is going to be confirmed to the supreme court just about a week before the election.
So this is stunning. Nothing like this has happened this close to an election ever. So it's a pretty strong precedent.
Especially, Michael, given what we all know occurred four years in 2016 when the Republican majority that is pushing through the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett blocked all consideration of President Obama's nominee for the seat that had been vacated by Antonin Scalia.
So we've got two stunning developments here. One where an individual's blocked for about a year and one where someone was sped through in just about a month.
HOLMES: Yes, exactly. I'm curious about your take about how does a politically charged nomination like this complicate things for the Chief Justice, John Roberts and his stated aim of keeping the Supreme Court out of politics? Which seems a bit ludicrous as we sit here having this conversation.
BISKUPIC: That's right, that's right. John Roberts came up through politics early on in his career so he knows how it works for the judiciary. He knows that these things are always drenched in politics to one extent or another.
But he maintains that once someone gets on the bench there are no such things as Obama judges, as Trump judges, as Bush judges, as Clinton judges. That's exactly what he said in late 2018.
But his point is that he doesn't want the American public to believe that an individual's automatically going to side with the president who put him or her on the court.
And when you see something like what happened with this nomination where the Republicans are pushing so hard to get her on and President Trump himself has said he wants her there in time for any kind of election litigation --
HOLMES: Yes.
BISKUPIC: -- it really defies the kind of assertion that Chief Justice John Roberts makes that you can trust an impartial judiciary, that the Supreme Court is just going to decide these cases as they come without regard to politics.
HOLMES: I did want to ask you though. How quickly will be the impact of Coney Barrett on the bench in terms of the docket? Some pretty important things coming up and things that she has already expressed views on in her previous life.
BISKUPIC: That's right. Exactly one week after the election the justices will hear a case testing the entire validity of the Affordable Care Act. It's the signature achievement in the domestic realm of President Barack Obama and Republicans have been trying to get rid of it for 10 years, it was signed in 2010.
And this is a lawsuit that she hasn't commented on directly, but twice before she has criticized court rulings that did uphold the Affordable Care Act earlier in 2012 and 2015. So she already comes into it suggesting she's not so crazy about the Affordable Care Act.
But the question before the justices this time around, Michael, it's really a weak legal argument that the challengers have brought, and I would be surprised if she ends up -- first of all, I'd be very surprised if the majority votes to strike down the entire law and she might not even go that far herself.
But even more immediately, before these November 10th arguments this Supreme Court is going to see several challenges that relate to the current election; ballot issues, deadlines for absentee voting and mail-in voting.
So there are just a lot of cases marching up to the Supreme Court that could the November 3rd election's outcome.
HOLMES: Yes. We'll see how political it is. Joan, always good to see you, Joan Biskupic. Thank you.
BISKUPIC: Thank you, Michael.
[01:35:00]
HOLMES: Now U.S. stock futures are down with no clear progress on a coronavirus stimulus plan and U.S. cases, of course, jumping to their highest numbers ever over the weekend. Bit of a depressed mood then on Wall Street.
Now let's have a look at the Asia markets. They've been trading lower as well as China's leaders meet to chart country's economic course for the next several years.
Steven Jiang has more on that from Beijing.
Yes. The fact they can look ahead to a plan that's five years off is quite something given last year. What are you expecting?
STEVEN JIANG, CNN SNR. PRODUCER: That's right, Michael. These so called plenary sessions of the central committee are a regular occurrence here but with added importance this year because of the ongoing pandemic and China's worsening relations with Washington.
Now doing this behind closed doors, gathering Chinese leader, Xi Jinping and other top officials, they're going to draw the next five- year plan for the country's economy as well as other major policy initiatives.
Now they're probably not going to set specific GDP growth targets as they had done previously to give themselves more wiggle room but they are going to do quite a number of things.
Including, for example trying to increasingly emphasize domestic consumption, domestic investments to drive economic growth and reduce China's reliance on the U.S. and other western economies.
Now this, of course, is a result of what's been happening in the past four years with the Trump Administration's increasingly hardline policy towards China.
But I think the Chinese leadership understands even with a potential Biden Administration the broader China policy trend from Washington is not going to change.
That's why Mr. Xi and other officials have been increasingly been talking about self reliance, especially in key industries.
He wants to see more homegrown innovation to avoid being choked by the U.S. And there are other things they're going to do, for example shoring up and reinforcing state support and funding of other sectors especially in the technology sector.
But one thing, Michael, as you point out, the fact they're leading -- they're discussing a five-year plan while other government can barely plan for the next five days is giving them this opportunity to show the superiority of the Chinese political system. Michael.
HOLMES: Yes. Making a point. Thanks very much, Steven. Good to see you. Steven Jiang in Beijing for us. And we will take a quick break on the program.
When we come back. Fracking has entered the U.S. national conversation again. For many voters, it never went away.
We'll hear from them next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:40:00]
HOLMES: Welcome back. As the U.S. president election approaches, Donald Trump trying to turn attention away from the coronavirus pandemic towards other issues.
And one of them is he's framing himself as a champion of fracking. Which is a controversial process for extracting oil and gas. Mr. Trump says his opponent would get rid of that.
And it's a big fear for voters in Pennsylvania, a state that could swing the election one way or another. For them, fracking isn't a far away political issue, it is personal. Vanessa Yurkevich tells us why.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In western Pennsylvania, natural gas is king.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMANUEL PARIS, SENIOR PROJECT MANAGER, ALEX E. PARIS CONTRACTING CO, INC: The natural gas industry put this area on the map.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
YURKEVICH: Fracking, or the drilling for natural gas in shale rock, has transformed the economic landscape of this area. Today the industry employs nearly 30,000 people in the state.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
Where would your company be today if not for the natural gas industry?
PARIS: I'd say pretty nonexistent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
YURKEVICH: Emanuel Paris's family contracting business is almost 100 years old. But almost didn't make it.
When the coal industry started to fade in the '90s, the company was just barely hanging on. But then came fracking. So they pivoted. Providing piping and rig construction to natural gas companies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PARIS: So our company went from approximately 250 employees to 400 to about 650 within years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
YURKEVICH: And that's why he's watching closely what President Trump and Joe Biden are saying.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Joe Biden will ban fracking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, FMR. VICE PRESIDENT AND DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will not ban fracking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
YURKEVICH: In the last weeks of the presidential race, the future of the fracking industry here is directly tied to voters' livelihoods. And for Paris, that decides his vote.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PARIS: President Trump has a more clear perspective on keeping fracking going with minimal regulations where Biden in the past and through the campaign has kind of gone back and forth on what he wants to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
YURKEVICH: Before the pandemic, the industry was already shedding jobs because of overproduction of natural gas bringing down prices. The pandemic only made that worse.
Paris laid off 130 people last week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHARLO TKALCEVIC, OWNER, T'S LOCKER ROOM BAR & GRILLE: If they're not working then I don't have a business.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
YURKEVICH: Sharlo Tkalcevic owns the only restaurant in her small town in West Pittsburgh.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TKALCEVIC: Everything's good?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
YURKEVICH: More than 50 percent of her business is from oil and gas workers. She's seen a dramatic slowdown.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TKALCEVIC: It's almost like a domino effect. And it could just be disastrous in my eyes if -- first the pandemic and then fracking is banned.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TKALCEVIC: You guys all right back here?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
YURKEVICH: Twelve years of hard work to keep the doors open cover the walls.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YURKEVICH: What would it mean to give this all up?
TKALCEVIC: It would mean a lot. Sorry.
YURKEVICH: Oh, it's OK.
TKALCEVIC: It would mean a lot because I've worked hard for this and -- for it to just go away overnight. I don't...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
YURKEVICH: For David Roule, it did all go away overnight. After 26 years in the industry he was out of a job as a single parent at the height of the pandemic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID ROULE, PROJECT MANAGER: It was tough. Because you didn't know how things were going to go on a month to month basis. At the time, I wasn't even sure whether I was going to be able to take good care of my own daughter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
YURKEVICH: He sold his home and moved into a rental condo. He didn't qualify for unemployment. Finally, after seven months he found a new job after dozens of rejection letters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROULE: Oh, it was probably more than 50. I actually kept a folder in case I ever needed it. But it was a lot.
YURKEVICH: Are you still concerned about your job security?
ROULE: I think we have to be. Because you just never know how things are going to turn out. So, absolutely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Vanessa Yurkevich, CNN. Atlasbergh, Pennsylvania.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[01:45:00]
HOLMES: Robert Schuwerk is the North American executive director of the Carbon Tracker Initiative here to talk about this. And thanks for doing so.
Republicans did seize on Joe Biden's comments at the debate about moving away from oil reliance in favor of renewables, Republicans trying to make that a negative. But most people see it as a positive. Is that right?
The fact is the world is moving that way, even some oil companies are moving that way.
ROBERT SCHUWERK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CARBON TRACKER NORTH AMERICA: Yes, I think that's very much the case, that the world is moving that way.
And, in fact, one of the things that you kind of in that rhetoric is this idea that somehow Biden is going to shut the industry down. The issue is that the industry's had and continues to have a number of major issues that it's grappling with that have nothing to do with what Biden may or may not do.
We have the pandemic that not only has had the short-term implications but has caused some major oil companies to say well, we think 2019 might have been the year of peak oil. BP's put that out there.
And two-thirds of the U.S. shale executives think that we've probably reached peak production already in the U.S.
HOLMES: Yes. Which is interesting. And at the same time, renewables, that industry, seems by all accounts to be booming. Wind, solar, even I think wave technology as well. But wind and solar in particular.
It's true, isn't it, that those industries are already providing more and better paid jobs than oil or coal, right?
SCHUWERK: Yes. So we have I think it's something like 600,000 something renewables jobs. If you add in energy efficiency which is related to carbon, ?bviously, that's another 2.3 million jobs.
Meanwhile, coal, about 50,000 jobs in the U.S. And even though President Trump tried to do many things to help that industry, what we see is about 1,000 less jobs than when he started.
HOLMES: Yes. It's amazing, isn't it? According to the polls, though, this sort of transition away from oil is supported by the majority of Americans. There was a Pew survey that actually said 79 percent say that doing that is a priority. And yet, we get these debates where the discourse is centered around
who will love and protect big oil the most. Why is that? Is the writing not on the wall here, not immediately but in the next few decades?
SCHUWERK: Well, I think anyone who's observed U.S. politics over the last decade or so has recognized a certain tribalism in it.
And so there is a bit of that where you say your opponent is against something that everyone on your side should be for. So I think that certainly has something to do with it.
HOLMES: Yes. I think I read a report that said more than 70 percent of new generation of electricity, worldwide, came from renewables.
How will the renewable sector grow in terms of energy supply and job growth, economic benefits -- environmental benefit as well, over the next decade or two? How do you see that road ahead?
SCHUWERK: Well, I think it's pretty clearly evident that when you have renewables you obviously don't have the pollution associated with using fossil fuels.
The jobs. We're already seeing evidence of that, that's only going to increasingly grow.
But I think one of the things that is important to remember here is that part of the reason that this is happening is because renewables are so much more cost-effective.
We did a study on this earlier this year and found basically in every part of the United States except for parts of the western United States, wind power is more cost effective today than the existing fleet of coal-fired power plants. Forget building a new plant. It's the old plan you think should be cheaper, it's actually not.
And those kinds of economics basically open up opportunities for everyone. That means people can have cheaper energy and cheaper energy can also drive all kinds of other economically productive activities.
HOLMES: Yes. It just seems that environmental arguments aside, whether you love or hate oil, its just going to happen.
Robert, really appreciate it. Great to have the conversation. Robert Schuwerk, thanks.
SCHUWERK: Thank you, Michael. Pleasure to be here.
HOLMES: Quick break now. When we come back, after making landfall in the Philippines, Typhoon Molave is set to hit Vietnam. We will track the storm's movement and see who else is at risk.
When we come back.
[01:50:00] HOLMES: Typhoon Molave has made landfall in the Philippines forcing thousands to evacuate their homes and others to shelter in place.
Just have a look at that mass there.
The storm projected to hit Vietnam by late Tuesday. The whole region seeing an especially severe rainy season this year.
Meteorologist Pedram Javaheri joins us now with more.
Tracking yet another major storm in the Gulf of Mexico.
PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That is well correct. Active season across the Gulf of Mexico, certainly, and much the same across portions of Asia as well that we'll get on -- touch on momentarily.
But we're talking about 21, of course, named storms in the National Hurricane Center list that were indicated in the blue. Every single one of those names has been used and expired.
And you'll notice, the ones indicated in red, the previous six-year are now pushing our total up to 27 named storms in 2020. This now tied with the busiest single season on record going back to 2005.
So an incredible run of this pattern here when it comes to storms that we've experienced in recent days.
But the perspective as such -- looks like I'm losing connection, I don't know if you can still see it.
But Tropical Storm Zeta now is the storm we're following when it comes to our next system. Poised to become a hurricane, a category one equivalent hurricane.
And the forecast guidance on this particular storm does want to take it eventually along the Gulf Coast region, make landfall along the coast of Louisiana but our friends across Mexico on alert.
After just three weeks ago we had Hurricane Delta make landfall in this region. Now we have what is forecast to be Hurricane Zeta making landfall across the area within the next 18 or so hours as a category one system.
We have hurricane warnings prompted across the Yucatan region.
[01:55:00]
But again, once we get through this, the system is expected to re- emerge over the Gulf of Mexico.
Beyond this, it'll potentially maintain its intensity as it approaches the Gulf Coast. And then possibly weekend, right as it approaches land Wednesday afternoon.
But really, quite a bit of variability as far as the model guidance is concerned with this particular setup. You'll notice back to the left of your screen the American model
suggests a much stronger storm, potentially a little bit later into the afternoon-evening hours. While off towards the right side of the screen, that is a weaker storm based on the European model's guidance.
But you kind of break down the model-by-model comparison, you see the uncertainties as often is the case as the water cool, become gradually less and less conducive for tropical development.
The steering environment also, Michael, shifts a little bit. So that's an area we're watching carefully for quite a bit of wet weather over the coming several days. Once again, with another landfalling system.
HOLMES: All right, Pedram. Thank you very much. Pedram Javaheri, we'll check in with you next hour. Thanks for that.
Now in Portugal, a record-breaking performance by Formula 1 driver, Lewis Hamilton. The six-time world champion dominated the Portuguese grand prix on Sunday earning the 92nd victory of his career and thereby breaking Michael Schumacher's all-time win record.
After the race, Hamilton said he could never have dreamed of being in that moment.
Now, as earlier, Hamilton went on Twitter to share his thoughts on the violent protests in Nigeria posting a photo of himself wearing a shirt that calls for the end of police brutality and the disbanding of the nation's special anti-robbery squad.
All right. I'm Michael Holmes, thanks for spending part of your day with me.
I'll have another hour of CNN NEWSROOM right after the break.
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