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Coronavirus Dominates Campaign with 8 Days Before Election; Pence Holds rallies Despite Outbreak Among Aides; Mark Meadows: U.S. Not Going to Control Pandemic; U.S. Senate Set to Confirm Barrett to Supreme Court; Covid-19 Infections Rise Across Europe; Wales Enters "Fire Break Lockdown" to Slow Virus; China's Xinjiang Region Conduction Mass Testing. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired October 26, 2020 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, hello, North Carolina.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. President and Vice President are in an all-out campaign sprint despite a coronavirus outbreak among the VP's closest aides.

Plus, calling for a national mask mandate to save lives this winter. Why one former health official says the time to act is now.

And sources say President Trump will hold a swearing in ceremony for Amy Coney Barrett tonight, after a Senate vote that's expected to confirm her to the country's top court.

Live from CNN world headquarters in Atlanta, welcome to you our viewers here in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber, and this is CNN NEWSROOM.

Well, as you might expect, coronavirus is dominating the campaign trail in the U.S. with just eight days to go until election day. Vice President Mike Pence stumped in North Carolina Sunday despite the fact that five staffers have now tested positive for COVID-19. His office says he has tested negative, and he will not quarantine. President Donald Trump also spent Sunday campaigning with few masks and little social distancing to be seen. He repeated several inaccurate claims about the pandemic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know why we have cases so much because that's all we do is test. If we cut our testing down in half, they'd say -- well, they wouldn't say that -- but cases would go down. Now we have the best tests, we are coming around. We're rounding the turn, we have the vaccines, we have everything. We're rounding the turn even without the vaccines we're rounding the turn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: But case numbers are rising up in most of the country. According to Johns Hopkins, more than 225,000 Americans have died since the pandemic began, and comments by the White House chief of staff are getting a lot of attention while speaking with our Jake Tapper, Mark Meadows made some surprising comments about what the Trump administration is and isn't focusing on. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

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 mitigation.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Why aren't we going to get control of the pandemic?

MEADOWS: Because it is a contagious virus just like the flu.

TAPPER: Yes, but why not make efforts to contain?

MEADOWS: Well, we are making efforts to contain it.

TAPPER: By running all over the country not wearing a mask. That's what the Vice President is doing.

MEADOWS: We can 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 people don't die from this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: CNN's Kaitlan Collins has more on Meadows comments and the COVID-19 outbreak among the Vice President's inner circle.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The Vice President was in North Carolina yesterday, despite the fact that several of his top aides have recently tested positive for coronavirus, including, within 24 hours, his chief of staff, Marc Short. Who is now self-isolating and is not likely to return to the campaign trail with the Vice President over the next several days.

And of course, there's only a few days left until the election, and the Vice President has been on the road nearly every single day with staff, including earlier this week, when he was on the road with Marty Obst, one of his senior political advisers, who works outside of the White House, who we've now learned has tested positive.

So basically, the situation is there are several staffers close to the Vice President who have tested positive for coronavirus, including his body man. There are several staffers who are now going to be quarantined, because they were in contact with someone who tested positive, one of those aides.

But the Vice President himself is refusing to follow CDC guidelines by staying at home. The White House says that's because he's an essential worker and he's been cleared by his medical team to go out, that we haven't had an on-the-record statement from the Vice President's doctor saying as much.

And of course, this comes on the day that the chief of staff to President Trump, Mark Meadows, told Jake Tapper yesterday in that interview that they are not going to get control of the coronavirus. He's basically saying they're going to have to focus on vaccines and therapeutics, but there is not a way to contain it, which is not what you have heard from health experts over the last several months. Who said if people did wear a mask and if they did social distance, two things that the White House has really largely rebutted over the last several months, they said that could help stop the spread of the coronavirus, or at least slow it in the United States.

[04:05:00]

But that clearly doesn't seem to be the White House's point of view, and it also seems to be in contradiction to what the President has been telling us for months, which is that coronavirus is under control, and that we are rounding the corner on the pandemic.

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BRUNHUBER: And one member of the Democratic ticket quickly jumped on those comments by the White House chief of staff, vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris says the Trump administration was basically admitting they failed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), DEMOCRATIC VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: They are admitting defeat, and I have been saying that and Joe Biden has been saying that since the beginning. This is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of America. And he went on to say you can't control it, like the flu. And yet again, they're suggesting to the American people that this is like the flu. When we have known from the beginning and they knew since January that it's five times more deadly than the flu.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Both Trump and Biden campaigns are getting out on the campaign trail today with a flurry of events just over a week before election day.

President Trump is set to hold three rallies in the battleground state of Pennsylvania while Vice President Mike Pence is set to visit Minnesota.

Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden is set to be in Delaware where Jill Biden rallies supporters here in Georgia. And Biden's running mate, Kamala Harris, is scheduled to appear on the daytime talk show, "The View."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: All right, for more on the U.S. presidential race, let's bring in Inderjeet Parmar. He's a professor of international politics at City University of London and a visiting professor at the London School of Economics. Thank you very much for joining us.

I want to start with the administration's response to COVID. On one hand we have the President saying we're handling it. We're rounding the corner and so on. But then we have his chief of staff, as we reported there, saying we're not going to control the pandemic. So, forget about the public health merits of this. As a campaign strategy, What's the thinking here? On one hand projecting confidence, on the other, resignation, like you know, it's almost gone, and if it isn't, there's nothing we can do.

INDERJEET PARMAR, PROFESSOR, INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, CITY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON: Well, I think one message is just purely for the people that President Trump may be speaking to at the moment, when he's on the campaign trail where he thinks it serves his interest to say it's getting under control or rounding the corner.

The other is really more consistent with the strategy of herd immunity, which this administration has followed pretty much from the beginning. And without a vaccine, herd immunity basically is an admission that you're not going to do anything effective about the coronavirus, the pandemic, you're just going to let it run its course and that actually is consistent with the Trump strategy from the very beginning.

They have a view that science is unimportant, is not useful. They're not following guidelines by the CDC and so on. And I think they thought probably that this thing was going to largely affect blue states and they did everything in their power, in effect, to carry that on. And, you know, sent some of their supporters to liberate Michigan, liberate Virginia, and so on and so forth. And that encouraged a lot of really right wing people.

So, I think they are doubling down on their electoral strategy. That's stick with a big, big message, that you don't need to wear a mask, you don't need to social distance, this will run its course, government has no role. At a time when you're running for the president is an abdication of leadership to most people, I think.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, on the issue of leadership, I mean, you've written that the pandemic is awful and deadly as it was. So, just in purely political terms was an opportunity for the President to unite the country and not having done that will cost him at the polls. So, you wrote that in July, so now we're at the end of October, any reason to change your mind?

PARMAR: Not really. I think the President has -- there's a political electoral strategy which is I think they thought they would just be a problem for Democratic states, and Democratic cities, like New York and so on. But I think underneath it all was a philosophy which is that there's a deep state. The deep state is made up of civil servants, public officials and so on and that that is untrustworthy, that is not going to be efficient in doing anything. In fact, the administration is against the deep state, and I think the underlying viewpoint has not changed one little bit.

And the investigations done by other publications like "Vanity Fair" into the behavior of Jared Kushner all the way from March, when lots of private companies offered a plan to build ventilators and PPE and distribute it and so on was rejected by Kushner. I think we have seen a consistent strategy. It's an anti-government strategy. And right now, I think President Trump is actually trying to just galvanize his own support to turn out. And secondly, I think he's relying on a contested election in order to have any chance to remain in office.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: Thanks to professor Inderjeet Parmar who was speaking with me a short time ago.

[04:10:00]

A source tells CNN that President Trump is planning to host a White House swearing in event today for his Supreme Court pick, Amy Coney Barrett, after her expected confirmation. She's set to fill the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who died last month. Democrats have blasted President Trump and Republicans for moving forward with Barrett's nomination so close to the election. CNN's Lauren Fox has more from Washington.

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LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: In what has been a fast moving confirmation process, Amy Coney Barrett is on track to be approved to the Supreme Court on Monday when the Senate is expected to vote. This comes after the Senate advanced her nomination in a procedural vote on Sunday afternoon.

Now, all eyes are going to be on whether or not Vice President Mike Pence will attend this vote. That's because members of his staff have tested positive for coronavirus. And while the Vice President and his wife have both continued to test negative, there's some concerns on Capitol Hill whether or not Pence should make it to this vote or not. With Democratic leader Chuck Schumer arguing it would endanger the Senate for Pence to attend that vote, and other Republicans saying that it's not necessary for him to be there, although Senator John Thune the majority whip told me it was up to the Vice President to make that decision for himself in consultation with medical experts.

For CNN, I'm Lauren Fox, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: Italy's Prime Minister says another lock down would be devastating. Italy is one of several European countries trying to slow a second wave of the coronavirus. We'll have the details ahead. Stay with us. [04:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRUNHUBER: COVID-19 cases in some European countries are climbing to record breaking levels. France reported more than 52,000 new cases on Sunday, breaking it its daily record for the 4th day in a row. The country's positivity rate has more than double that of the U.S.

Another daily infection record was broken in Italy. But the Prime Minister says Italy can't afford another lock down. The government is ordering bars and restaurants to close by 6:00 p.m., while businesses like movie theaters, casinos and gyms must close their doors all together for now.

And in Ireland the Deputy Prime Minister says it could be possible to start vaccinating those at most risk for the virus, quote, in the first half if not the first quarter of next year.

In Paris CNN's Melissa Bell is live with the latest. So, in France cases up, but maybe even more worrying, as I mentioned earlier, the positivity rate climbing higher, I read it was 7 percent a month ago, now 17 percent.

MELISSA BELL, CNN PARIS CORRESPONDENT: That's right. The figures have been rising really exponentially fast. And that's something we've just been hearing about the head of France's Scientific Council, Kim, who says, that they've been surprised by the brutality of the second wave. By how quickly things are progressing. By how infectious this second wave appears to be, speculating even that this might have to do with a drop in temperatures, that's making the virus spread even faster. That's what he is saying on French radio earlier this morning.

Here in Paris, of course, the figures extremely alarming, in terms of ICU entries, we're now it more than 65 percent of ICU beds taken up by COVID-19 patients in the greater Paris region. And there are fears that that could worsen substantially, and that further restrictions might be needed even beyond the ones that have been in place now for more than a week. The question is whether Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday we start to see the kind of difference in those figures that would allow authorities to understand that their changes had been enough. For now, the fear is there could be a need for further restrictions. The ones you mentioned also in Italy. Stopping short of the second lockdown that the country could ill afford.

Also, in Spain, a state of emergency now in place, Kim, until the month of May. That gives you an idea of how long authorities fear it's going to take to get beyond this second wave, to get it under control. In their of course, beyond the partial lock down that's in position around the greater Madrid area, now in the entire country, curfews put in place, and restrictions can be brought in on travel between regions.

So, countries really now fighting these very worrying figures with everything that stops short of those second national lock downs that everyone is determined to afford because no country, not simply Italy can really afford them at this stage -- Kim.

BRUNHUBER: All right, thank you so much for that, Melissa Bell in Paris.

And we'll go to Wales now where a new fire break this just lock down went into effect this weekend. It said to last two weeks in an effort to fight the spread of COVID-19. So, let's talk about this more with CNN's Nina dos Santos. You know, what's been the response to this lock down so far?

NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN EUROPE EDITOR: I think it's decidedly mixed, Kim, basically it depends on where you live in Wales and what you do for a living as well. And we've from the types of communities where there's a big incidence in some of the big cosmopolitan cities like Cardiff, to some of the rural communities that are desperately trying to shield themselves from this virus. One thing though that is clear is it is continuing to spread in terms of the wave of infections, and that's worrying everybody across Wales.

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DOS SANTOS (voice-over): Shutting up shop and locking down. Friday's last orders were filled with uncertainty in Cardiff. As come sundown, Wales' 3 million residents were once more ordered to stay at home for the next two weeks. A fire break deemed essential to stop COVID in its tracks.

MARK DRAKEFORD, WELSH FIRST MINISTER: A short but deep period of restrictions that will interrupt the virus, break the chains of transmission, but that is the best hope we have of being able to get things back on track.

DO SANTOS: The decision was welcomed by these shoppers on the street.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's about time that somebody took this bull by the horns.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These people dying at the end of the day, you know, we've just got to stay in and just respect that.

[04:20:00]

DOS SANTOS: But not so much in the supermarkets where a ban on the sale of nonessential items prompted the petition to loosen the new laws almost immediately. Meanwhile, businesses brace themselves for meager takings.

JONATHAN PANGELLI, MANAGER, 39 DESSERTS: If this didn't work the first time, why is it going to work the second time? We have hand sanitizers and stuff for the customers. We wash our hands every 10 minutes. We socially distance in the store. Why can't we stay open safely?

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 poorest border with England is also a source of concern.

(on camera): Here in Hawarden 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.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because it was very, very busy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very, very busy here in the summer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, in the summer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very busy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, it's lovely to see people, you know, but it was really busy.

DOS SANTOS (voice-over): 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.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't do anything, and you can't diversify. We've all built our business is up over 15, 20 years. You know, what can you do?

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 9th. Whether the picture will look will less bleak thereafter, it may be many weeks until that becomes clear.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DOS SANTOS: Well, Kim, this lock down that Wales has for the next two weeks which by the way, is supposed to end in two weeks, but there's real fear here on the streets of Wales that that may roll on to another one of these lock downs that seems to be never ending.

It's most akin to the national U.K. wide lockdown that we saw in sort of spring and summertime when those kinds of cases were spiking. But the Welch government, as you heard there, says that it has to do this to prevent a repeat of that situation. There will be many people on either sides of this border, which is only just a couple of miles down the road from where I am today that will say that treating one part of the country in one way, its own government and other parts of the county and another is deeply unfair. Only time will tell -- Kim.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, absolutely very interesting reporting there how you show how easily the virus moves across the border. Thank you so much for that, Nina dos Santos, appreciate it. Health officials in China's western region of Zhenjiang say they are

in the process of testing 4.7 million people for COVID. This after a single asymptomatic case was reported in Kashgar city of on Saturday. Authorities say that so far, the mass testing has identified 137 additional asymptomatic cases.

Let's go now to CNN's Steven Jiang who joins me now from Beijing. So, we have, you know, on one hand bad news. The first detected cases in over a week for mainland China. The good news, the size and scope of the testing they are able to marshal to get it under control, it's pretty amazing.

STEVEN JIANG, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER: That's right, Kim, you know, from the perspective of Chinese authorities, this is a tried and true method that has worked well to contain several localized outbreaks in China in recent months. So that's why in this instance in Kashgar, as soon as they found the first case on Saturday, they launched the same process. Extensive contact tracing, mask testing, locking down four towns once they identified the 138 asymptomatic cases.

Now they are still testing as we speak because that's nearly 5 million residents we are talking about. They are more than halfway done with the whole process to be completed by Tuesday. But the central government here in Beijing is also sending a team of experts to help local officials to conduct even more epidemiological investigations because there are several baffling aspects about the latest cluster of cases.

The first case, a teenage village girl and her family, they have never left town since January and they have no known contact with previous cases. So, officials are still trying to figure out what really happened in Kashgar this time around. It's

But, you know, this method of course is why they say this kind of swift and drastic response is why they say they are confident they are able to contain this latest outbreak just as they have done in previous cases in other cities across China -- Kim.

BRUNHUBER: All right, thanks so much. Steven Jiang in Beijing.

Still ahead, mixed messages.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We are coming around. We're rounding the turn. We have the vaccines. We have everything. We're rounding the turn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[04:25:00]

BRUNHUBER: U.S. President Trump and Vice President Pence hitting the campaign trail hard as a former FDA commissioner calls for a national mask mandate. We'll take a closer look at that issue next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRUNHUBER: With just over a week left to convince voters to give them a second term, the U.S. President and his number two spent a busy weekend on the campaign trail. Vice President Mike Pence is under scrutiny after at least five aides tested positive for the coronavirus. He says he's tested negative and won't stop campaigning. President Donald Trump will hold three rallies in Pennsylvania Monday. Here's his response when asked if Pence should step back from the trail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You have to ask him, he's doing very well, good crowds, very socially distances.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: White House correspondent John Harwood has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Events on Sunday encapsulated the dilemma facing President Trump and his campaign with just over a week to go before Election Day. The President was campaigning in both Maine and New Hampshire, insisting we are rounding the corner on the pandemic, appearing without masks or social distancing, getting very close to voters.

But reality intruded with a major outbreak of coronavirus with people close to the Vice President, including his chief of staff, Marc Short, as well as his body man, the one who travels most closely with Mike Pence.

Now, despite that, the White House continued to have Mike Pence out on the campaign trail. He disregarded CDC guidelines, did not quarantine himself. The White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, confessed in a conversation with Jake Tapper that we can't control the pandemic. We are simply waiting for therapeutics and a vaccine.

The challenge, of course, is for the President.