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Live Coverage of Joe Biden Speech in Georgia; Melania Trump to Campaign in Pennsylvania Today; Justice Kavanaugh Signals Preference for Election Day Voting. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 27, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And we'll act to restore our faith in democracy and our faith in one another.

Today, we're facing a public health crisis of historic proportions. And with winter at hand, it's getting worse. Just last Friday, 83,000 new cases in one day. Saturday, another 83,000 cases. Nearly 1,000 people a day are dying. Another 200,000 deaths are expected over the next several months.

And the president keeps telling us not to worry. He keeps telling us we're turning the corner, is his quote. It's as removed from reality and as offensive as when he told us the virus affects virtually nobody, just the elderly with heart conditions, virtually nobody, just the elderly with heart conditions. As if they don't matter.

And when he said in response to the number of deaths reaching a thousand, he said, "It is what it is." Well, it is what it is because he is who he is.

In the spring, the president declared, in his voice as commander in chief, as (ph) commander in chief, he was going to wage war on the virus. Instead, he shrugged, he swaggered and he surrendered.

And then his chief of staff, just last week, made a stunning admission, an admission that I believed but never thought he'd say, saying, quote, "We're not going to control the pandemic," end of quote. We're not going to control the pandemic. It's a capitulation, it's a waving of a white flag, it's a window into the shocking truth about this White House, that they've never really tried.

Think about all the frontline health professionals who've risked -- and some, given their lives for the last nine months in this pandemic. Think about all the first responders, think about all the grocery store clerks, the drivers, the delivery drivers of trucks, teachers, parents with their kids home from school.

Think about all those who have lost their jobs, think about all those who have been infected by the virus. Think about all those who have died. They were giving their all, while their president was giving up.

Well, I'm here to tell you we can and we will control this virus. As president, I will never wave the white flag of surrender. Just imagine where we'd be today if the president had embraced wearing masks instead of mocking it. Imagine where we'd be today with a president who practiced social distancing instead of holding superspreader events. Imagine where we'd be with a comprehensive system of testing and tracing.

I first put forward a detailed plan on how to deal with this virus back in March. This administration ignored it. Then I released several more detailed plans in the months that followed, the most recent just last week.

This administration has yet to offer a single plan. That's one of the reasons why one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, the "New England Journal of Medicine," called the president, quote, "dangerously incompetent," and went on to say the president turned a crisis into a tragedy.

I'm ready to act. I know what to do. And starting on day one of my presidency, we will do it.

I've talked about the battle for the soul of America since the very beginning of this campaign. And I want to be very clear, in these closing days, about what I mean, and about what I intend to do in that battle to assure that our better angels prevail over our worst instincts.

I believe this election is about who we are as a nation, what we believe and maybe most importantly, who we want to be. It's about our essence, it's about what makes us Americans, it's that fundamental.

Time and again throughout our history, we've seen charlatans, the con men, the phony populist who have sought to play on our fears, appeal to our worst appetites and pick at the oldest scabs we have for their own political gain. They appear when the nation's been hit the hardest, when we're at our most vulnerable. Never to solve anything, but only to benefit themselves.

[14:05:25]

In a recent encyclical, Pope Francis warns us against this phony populism that appeals to, quote, "the basest and most selfish instincts." He goes on to say, "Politics is something more noble than posturing, marketing and media spin. These sow nothing but division, conflict and a bleak cynicism." He said, "For those who seek to lead, we do well to ask ourselves, 'Why am I doing this? Why? What is my real aim?"

Pope Francis asked questions that anyone who seeks to lead this great nation should be able to answer. And my answer is this, I run to unite this nation and to heal this nation. I've said that from the beginning. It is badly necessary.

The Bible tells us there's a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to heal. This is that time. God and history have called us to this moment, and to this mission. With our voices and our votes, we must free ourselves from the forces of darkness, from the forces of division and the forces of yesterday. From the forces that pull us apart, hold us down and hold us back.

And if we do so, we'll once more become one nation, under God, indivisible, a nation united, a nation strengthened, a nation healed. That is my goal. That is why I'm running. That is what we must do.

Thank you all for being here, and may God bless America and may God protect our troops. Stay safe and wear your mask.

(APPLAUSE)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST, NEWSROOM: I want to bring in our chief political analyst Gloria Borger to talk about what we just saw. So this -- Joe Biden is there in Georgia, which is interesting in itself.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

KEILAR: But this is his closing message very clearly. He's talking about unity, and he's talking about action. But he's clearly trying to be more inspirational and be a comforter-in-chief. I think that's the vibe he's trying to give off, as he does have criticism for President Trump's pandemic response but he's trying to sell this message of unity and healing.

BORGER: Yes. And remember, this is kind of the bookend to the speech he gave in Gettysburg, where he talked about bipartisanship and he talked about fighting for the soul of the nation. And this now is his closing argument, which is not only is he fighting for the soul of the nation, but he is the person who can unite the nation.

He made the case against Donald Trump in terms of COVID, effectively saying that this man is a selfish man, that he never really cared about you, that he runs on -- and he quoted the pope on this, but -- he said it's a phony populism. The pope did not mention Donald Trump by name of course.

And he said, look, this is a time to heal. And you need to think about all of those people who lost their jobs, all of those people who were infected. And remember, this is the president who told us that the virus affects virtually no one except the elderly with heart conditions. And then he said it is what is is -- meaning COVID -- because he is who he is.

And so this was the argument. You're going to hear this for the next week. He is clearly in Georgia, as you pointed out, which is a state that Democrats have not won since 1992. He is at Roosevelt's healing place, and the choice of that was -- you know, is not lost on us, that this is where Roosevelt went to heal and to think. And I think the message could not be clearer.

It is interesting that we have yet to hear the sort of final uplifting closing argument from Donald Trump. Maybe we will hear that someday within the next week. Instead, what you hear from Donald Trump is the same old charges against Biden and the Democrats at loud, raucous rallies.

So the contrast really could not be clearer. This is a man -- Joe Biden -- who said stay safe, put on his mask at the end of his speech and walked off. And the president is talking about the huge sizes of his rallies, the amount of people who come out to see him. And so you know, these are two very different men with to incredibly different messages -- Bri.

[14:10:23]

KEILAR: Yes, the contrast is stark.

BORGER: It is.

KEILAR: Gloria Borger, thank you so much.

BORGER: Sure.

KEILAR: President Trump, touting his COVID response as he left the White House moments ago. He is scheduled to speak in Michigan later this hour. The state is part of the so-called blue wall that he needs to break down again in order to win.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is live for us in Lansing right now as he awaits the president, who's making his way there. So what is the strategy today? And it is such a contrast, going from this Joe Biden event to what we're seeing there in Michigan, as this crowd -- which has been very engaged -- is awaiting the president.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, no question. Look, the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, has warned that this event is a recipe for disaster. This is one of the states of many states across the country that is experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases.

We are at this point right now where the moving average of daily cases is at the highest point that it has been in the United States at any point during this entire pandemic. And yet what we are seeing from the president is the opposite of CDC guidelines, it is the opposite of wise public health guidance and advice and practice, frankly.

What we're seeing from the president is these events where thousands of people continue to gather, most of them not wearing masks. And despite the surge in cases that we are seeing here in the state of Michigan, but there's no question that the president is focused -- very much so -- on that blue wall that he helped capture in 2017, those 77,000 votes across three states that helped him capture the presidency in 2016.

Here in Michigan, the president won this state by fewer than 11,000 votes. And now that he is down in the polls against Joe Biden by an average of eight points, the president is still pushing forward here, trying to see if he can capture magic in a bottle one more time.

Yesterday, he was in Pennsylvania; today, he is in Michigan and then he will head over to the state of Wisconsin, those three states both key to the president's narrow path to 270 electoral college votes.

And what we are hearing from the president is not so much talking about the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, he rarely talks about it as his rallies except to downplay it. What we are hearing from the president, though, is this continued focus on these mail-in ballots and talking about the need for votes to be counted on Election Night. Listen to what he said just before leaving the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So I think we're doing very well. We're going to have an exciting night. It would be very, very proper and very nice if a winner were declared on November 3rd, instead of counting ballots for two weeks, which is totally inappropriate and I don't believe that that's by our laws. I don't believe that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: And the president is just wrong there, Brianna, when he says that that's not by our laws. That's completely false, it is completely legal for states to count ballots after Election Day. There's different rules by states, usually has to be postmarked by Election Day and received within a certain number of days, but that is what we are going to see on Election Night.

Because of the number of mail-in ballots, there will be a lot of counting that goes on and perhaps the results won't be known a few days after Election Day, but that doesn't mean that there's something that is wrong, that means that the system is working despite what the president is saying -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Jeremy Diamond in Michigan, thank you so much.

For the first time this campaign season, with just seven days to go, First Lady Melania Trump is making a solo campaign stop. She is appearing at a rally in Pennsylvania this hour, which is a state that President Trump visited yesterday. And CNN's Kate Bennett is at this event for us.

So, Kate, the first lady has been conspicuously absent from the campaign trail so far. She was supposed to attend an event last week, she ended up skipping it because she had a lingering cough from coronavirus. What are you expecting from her appearance today?

KATE BENNETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, Brianna, I mean, talk about 11th hour. Here we are, seven days out of the election, and the first lady of the United States is making her first solo campaign appearance. And frankly, her first campaign appearance at all in over a year.

She has not been on the trail with the president since June of 2019, she's decided to come here to rural Pennsylvania, clearly a Trump area. Driving in, we saw a lot of Trump signs, a lot of Trump supporters here today. She's expected to talk for about 10 minutes today, making the case for why she and her husband should be in Washington another four years.

But certainly, her absence from the trail, just to make -- it has been a historic break from precedent. First ladies are typically very, very much needed, they're important and they're essential surrogates on the campaign trail. So it is not something that Melania Trump particularly likes to do -- we didn't see her a lot in 2016, she's not a prolific speech-giver or a public presence.

[14:15:05]

However, this is a tight race. So to see her here in Pennsylvania today certainly notes that she is deciding to make this last-week push. We're expecting more solo events, and perhaps an event with the president also before Election Day -- Bri.

KEILAR: All right, Kate, thank you so much. Kate Bennett for us from Pennsylvania.

And with just seven days to go, the Supreme Court has just made a crucial ruling about mail-in voting in Wisconsin. They denied a deadline extension, and they ruled that all ballots must be received by Election Day no matter when they are postmarked.

Just last week, the justices upheld a ruling by a state court in Pennsylvania, extending the mail-in ballot deadline there. Justice Brett Kavanaugh writing, quote, "most states, including Wisconsin, require absentee ballots to be received by Election Day, not just mailed by Election Day. Those states want to avoid the chaos and suspicions of impropriety that can ensue if thousands of absentee ballots flow in after Election Day and potentially flip the results of an election."

Richard Pildes is a CNN election law analyst and a constitutional law professor at NYU Law School. I wonder what you make of this opinion being something that can illuminate how Justice Kavanaugh might rule if he was faced with a contested election. What do you think?

RICHARD PILDES, CNN ELECTION LAW ANALYST: Well, it's clear that a majority of the Supreme Court -- not just Justice Kavanaugh -- are not particularly tolerant of lower federal courts using federal constitutional doctrine to change the rules and state election codes over the election.

How that might apply after the election is anyone's guess, it depends on whether we actually have contested litigation and whether the federal courts and then the Supreme Court are brought into the picture.

KEILAR: As he writes here, there's not really an address of how the additional -- I mean, one of the big things, when it comes to mail-in ballots and how long after the election they should be considered, one of the issues has to do with the unprecedented volume of mail and mail-in ballots that we're going to see. Does he really address that adequately?

PILDES: Well, we've known since I think late March that we were going to face this situation of a massive surge of absentee ballots, unlike in normal times. There are a lot of things to do to prepare for that. Actually, one of the things I've been doing for several months is

encouraging people, if they're not particularly vulnerable, to vote in person. Because -- or certainly to return their absentee ballots very early, not at the last minute.

And the reason is that, given our political climate at the moment, I think it's safe to believe realistically that if the vote cannot be determined for five or six or seven days in Pennsylvania and it's decisive in the election or a couple of other states, it's going to unfortunately be a very explosive situation.

Social media's going to throw fuel on those fires, candidates -- particularly the president -- is of course going to try to shut the process down, that's what he did in Florida when this happened in the governor's election there. And so it's a toxic culture in general. It will be better if we can get to a clear result sooner rather than later. I think everyone recognizes that.

KEILAR: Kavanaugh actually cited one of your articles for the "Chicago Law Review" when he made his case, but you also write, "The policymakers need to give serious consideration to extending these receipt deadlines." What did you make of being included in Kavanaugh's opinion?

PILDES: Well, it's a little uncomfortable to be part of the story here, instead of talking about an opinion. In that article, I say what I just said to you now about this concern about not being able to get to a count for a long time, and what might ensue.

I don't say anything there about what courts should do or shouldn't do about this, but I do say -- as you rightly point out -- that policymakers should consider extending these deadlines, given the massive volume of absentee ballots we're going to get. Some states have done that, most states have not. Most states do still require absentee ballots to be received by Election Night to be treated as valid votes.

KEILAR: And finally before I let you go, I want to ask you about a tweet from the president. Twitter actually flagged this as misleading, I want to preface that by saying this. He claimed the country, quote, "Must have final total on November 3rd." What do you think of a president making a declaration like that?

PILDES: Well, let's just be clear, we never have a final total on Election Night. The networks may declare winners, but there's a process. The states count the ballots, they never finish that count completely on Election Night, it usually does take a couple of weeks. With absentee ballots we know it may take longer in some states than others -- Pennsylvania, Wisconsin in particular.

[14:20:04]

But there's no reason to even claim that historically we have a legal winner on Election Night. Sometimes the networks can declare that, sometimes they can't. But the networks don't determine who the winner of the election is in

any event, it's the state officials who count the vote, put a certified vote total there together at the end of the process of tabulating all the votes. And that doesn't ever happen shorter than a couple of weeks after the election.

KEILAR: And it's about the norm of a candidate, one of the candidates normally conceding, which is actually such a key part of this and generally happens before you do have those vote totals in.

Rick, thank you so much for being with us --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: -- sorry, go on.

PILDES: Glad to be here, Brianna. I was just going to say that of course concessions have no legal significance. They don't determine who is the winner or not, they have great cultural significance.

KEILAR: Yes. No, it's a very good point. We are a nation, it turns out, very much governed by norms and that is one of them. Rick, it's great to see you, thanks for being with us.

PILDES: OK, thanks, Brianna.

KEILAR: Next, President Trump insisting -- as he has done dozens of times now -- that the country is rounding the turn on coronavirus. We're going to map out how he couldn't be further from the truth. One case in point? El Paso, Texas, where the hospitalization rate is at its highest point ever. We're going to take you there.

And later, a conservative Christian speaks out to make his case for why evangelicals should dump Trump.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:25:53]

KEILAR: With a week to go until the election, the president is repeating one of his favorite lies about the coronavirus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: No, it's running its course, we're rounding the turn.

We're rounding the turn on the pandemic.

It will go away. And as I say, we're rounding the turn, we're rounding the corner.

We're rounding the corner beautifully.

We're rounding the turn, we're doing great. Our numbers are incredible.

We are coming around, we're rounding the turn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Not true. "Forbes" has been keeping track of this lie of his, and found he said this phrase -- or something similar to it -- nearly 40 times in the last 57 days.

Here is the reality: Coronavirus cases hit the highest number ever in the past week, this is a record for the seven-day average. As a nation, we are at 70,000 cases a day when you average out for the week.

TEXT: The Reality of the Coronavirus Pandemic: Highest seven-day case average; U.S. averaging nearly 70,000 cases per day; 37 states showing upward trends; 16 states saw highest seven-day average; U.S. positivity rate higher than a month ago

KEILAR: Now for context, we were in the low 20s going into Memorial Day in May. We had a peak in late July in the high 60s, then we dipped back down to the mid-30,000s in September, which gave our nation a sense that things were settling down.

Well now, here we are. We are spiking into the 70,000s, 37 states have increasing cases. There's only one state that is going in the right direction, the other 49 are not. Sixteen states just broke their previous records for number of cases.

And it's not just more testing, as the president likes to say. The positivity rate is also higher than a month ago, and we also know that spikes in hospitalizations and deaths come after an increase in cases, and hospitalizations are already up 40 percent in a month. Eleven states broke records for the number of people hospitalized with COVID on Monday.

In Utah, hospitals are so strained they're discussing the possibility of rationing care if the numbers don't turn around. In El Paso, a curfew is in effect as ICUs are hitting capacity.

Trump tweeted today, 99.9 percent -- now we're assuming that he's talking about young people, as he has before, but even then this stat lacks context.

let's look at things overall though, 2.6 percent of people who have contracted coronavirus since the pandemic began, they've died of it. So just look at the numbers and ask yourself, are these numbers acceptable? Eight hundred people dying every day in the U.S. on average right now?

Despite all of this evidence, the president is upset -- not that Americans are dying, but that the media is paying attention to Americans dying. He's alleging that this is all a hoax that will disappear after the election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: That's all I hear about now, that's all I hear. Turn on the television, right? COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID. A plane goes down, 500 people dead, they don't talk about it. COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID. By the way, on November 4th, you won't hear about it anymore.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: He is lying, knowingly. After all, the first lady couldn't campaign last week because of lingering COVID symptoms. There is currently an active outbreak on the vice president's staff, five of Mike Pence's closest aides.

Trump's event at the White House to honor the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court could not escape reality. A 9:00 p.m. White House event in the Rose Garden, outdoors, in the dark to be safe. Socially distanced to be safe. more masks than we've ever seen before at a presidential event, to be safe. A huge difference from the superspreader nomination events the president held outdoors and indoors at the White House just a month ago.

So he says that we're rounding the turn? Believable only if you trust Donald Trump over your own eyes, or over the voices of Americans who are living this nightmare that is getting worse. Like Alice Roberts who lost her husband Rob, who was a police officer in New Jersey.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALICE ROBERTS, HUSBAND DIED OF COVID-19: I've lost a partner, I've lost a cook, I've lost a guy who made me laugh all the time. You know, we were always joking. There's just so many good memories that we spent together, just on ordinary things and on, you know, trips and just everyday life. You know, it went by too fast. Everyone always says that, but it really did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:30:03]