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Trump to Visit Arizona Today While Biden Highlights COVID-19 Response; Live Coverage of Trump Press Conference; Trump Campaign Highlights COVID-19 As Success. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 28, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: And losing is something that is, you know, he doesn't ever want to acknowledge.

But I think that's what we're seeing right now, is a candidate who is trying to broaden a map that looks very narrow for him, and so that's why he's in a state like Arizona, that's why he's in a state like Nevada. We've had polls that have just come out in Nevada that show him behind.

So I do think that this is something that is kind of sinking in with the president, that as Joe Biden is expanding his map, the president has to go back to these places to be where he was four years ago.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST, NEWSROOM: And, Gloria, just stand by for me, I want to bring in Jeremy Diamond to this conversation. He is at this event in Arizona, awaiting the president.

How essential is Arizona to the president's path to the White House, Jeremy?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's an extremely important state for the president, especially because this is a state that the president won by four points in 2016.

In fact, a Democratic presidential candidate hasn't won this state since Bill Clinton in 1996, and yet right now the polling average, the CNN polling average shows that Joe Biden is ahead by about four points here in the state of Arizona. That's about the same amount that President Trump was ahead by in the polls before the 2016 election here in this state.

And so what you're going to see from the president is, first, he's going to stop right here where we are in Bullhead City. This is a ruby-red county where the president is going to be focused on driving up turnout among his base. You already have thousands of people who are already here, most of them from Arizona, some of them as well from neighboring Nevada because we are right on the Nevada-Arizona border.

And then after this event, Brianna, the president's going to be heading to Goodyear, Arizona, which is in Maricopa County. That is a suburb of Phoenix, and you're going to perhaps hear a different message from the president there, perhaps the same message.

But it will be focused on a different type of audience, he will be focused on those suburban voters when he is in Goodyear, Arizona later today, and we know that that is a demographic -- particularly white suburban women -- who the president, you know, won in 2016 and now he is struggling with them because they have been turned off by the kind of behavior that we have seen from this president over the last three and a half, nearly four years now -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Jeremy, thank you so much for that report from Arizona.

And I want to go now to Delaware, this is where former Vice President Biden is keeping the focus on the pandemic. He is laying out a plan on how he would defeat this deadly virus.

CNN's Jessica Dean is following his campaign for us, and he really went after Trump's handling of the virus. He sees this as a key weakness of the president's. Tell us what he said.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there's no question about that, Brianna. And it's interesting seeing Jeremy at that rally, with all of those people jammed in there together.

And in comparing that to what we saw from Joe Biden today, where he got this briefing, socially distanced, doing it digitally, not everybody in the same room, but getting a briefing from all of these experts on the COVID crisis, and then giving a briefing on that. It tells you just how important the campaign and Joe Biden see this issue and how clear of a contrast they want to draw.

His message today, essentially -- and he actually said this verbatim -- he said, enough, it's time for a change. He went right after President Trump and his handling of the pandemic. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We can't afford four more years of a president who, instead of fighting the virus, attacks doctors. I can't get over this guy. He attacked doctors, claiming they're overreporting COVID cases because they want to make more money.

We can't afford four more years of a president who would rather spend his time desperately trying to strip people of their health care than even once bother to put forward a health care plan on his own. We can't afford four more years of Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: And Joe Biden, saying he has a health care plan, Brianna. He also has a plan for how to attack this virus and get it under control. He acknowledged it's not going to be something they can do overnight, but that they have a plan and they will work to enact it if he's elected on day one -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Jessica Dean, thank you so much for that report. The closing argument of each campaign is on full display in these

final six days: which states they're visiting, which voters they're going to target. I want to bring in CNN's political director David Chalian to talk about this with me.

When you look at the map that they are running ahead of Election Day, what is it telling you? Right now we have President Trump in Arizona.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes. With Kamala Harris, the vice presidential nominee on the Democratic side, also doing two events in Arizona today.

You heard Jeremy's report there, I mean, it is a real battleground state there. And one, by the way, that both sides are fighting over. Because for Democrats, it's sort of a decade-long project of trying to flip that reliably red state blue, it's only gone Democratic to Bill Clinton in 1996 in the last 70 years. So they see that part of (ph) a demographic shift across the Sun Belt, part of the Democrats' future, they believe, and hopefully they're counting on present as well.

And yet Donald Trump keenly understands those 11 electoral votes are critical to his ability to put together anything approximating his map from 2016.

Also note, Brianna, when you put up that map -- I think it's so interesting, what's happening on the Trump-Pence side. Pence's schedule seems to just follow Trump a day later, like he does cleanup. Like yesterday, President Trump was in Michigan and Wisconsin; today, Mike Pence is coming in right behind to amplify that message. We've seen that for a couple days. A couple days ago, Donald Trump was in Pennsylvania, and then Mike Pence comes in behind. So they seem to be sort of following each other as an amplification tool.

And just watch those Great Lakes states. Because Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, you're going to see more activity in those three states than you are anywhere else over these next final days.

KEILAR: And Joe Biden, he's going to be in Florida tomorrow, President Obama was there yesterday. How is Florida looking right now?

CHALIAN: Well, it's a real toss-up state. You're going to see both President Trump and Joe Biden there tomorrow. As you know, it's the biggest electoral prize in the world of the battleground -- unless if you think Texas is an actual real toss-up state -- but it is the mother of all battlegrounds in that way. And we will see them battle it out there.

But here's the thing, Joe Biden's path to 270 is not reliant upon Florida. Donald Trump's path to re-election is very much reliant on Florida, it's -- I've played with the map, you can get the president to 270 electoral votes if everything goes his way except Florida, but it is not easy. He would have to really upend some of the trends we're seeing in that Upper Midwest region right now.

KEILAR: All right, David, let's listen back in to President Trump in Nevada. CHALIAN: Sure.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- what I'm witnessing is terrible, and frankly, that the -- the mayor or whoever it is that's allowing people to riot and loot and not stop them is also just a horrible thing.

I saw the event -- everybody did, it was on television -- it was a terrible event. I guess that's being looked at very strongly. We have federal -- the federal government is looking at it also, but the rioting in Philadelphia, you have to stop it. They have to stop it.

It's a local thing as you know, we're not -- we don't send unless we're asked. If they ask, if they ask for help, we'll be there very quickly, but they should bring in their National Guard if the police need help, and they should do something. You can't let that go on.

Again, a Democrat-run state, a Democrat-run city, Philadelphia. We don't have that, we don't have it, the Republicans don't have it. And you'll have more and more of that, and you're going to have it, and you're going to have it strongly. You've got to -- you can't let that happen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you mean the federal government is looking (ph) at the shooting, sir? Is that what you're --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: We're looking at the shooting, yes, we're looking at the shooting. And if asked to go in and help, we will do that. We have to be asked, as you know, by the governor. They should be able to handle it themselves, the police. I know the police very well in Philadelphia. I think they gave me an endorsement.

And they're not allowed -- they were told, I understand, to stand back, to stand back, don't do anything. And people are breaking into stores and walking out with washing machines and walking out with all sorts of things, and it shouldn't be allowed. That's no way to do it, you've got to have law and order, you've got to have respect for our police. The police were told to stand back.

Now, maybe that's not so, but that's what I was told upon very good authority. You can't allow that to happen. We're watching it very closely, and we're waiting for a call. If they want help, we're there, we'll be in there within one hour, we're ready to go within one hour.

Yes, please?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Could I just follow on that? Former vice president has condemned the rioting, but he's also saying if he's elected president, the he will push for a commission to look into how do you go about diminishing these types of situations with mental health situations, crises. Do you have any response to that and --

(CROSSTALK) TRUMP: Yes, sure, sure. The former vice president has been doing this for 47 years, he's been doing it badly. This is a group that he supports. He doesn't want to condemn them. I saw that, he doesn't want to condemn them. You have to condemn, you have to be strong. You can't have chaos like that.

And he'll be very, very weak. He hasn't gotten, to the best of my knowledge, any endorsements -- or certainly if he has, it's very few -- I've gotten almost every law enforcement endorsement in the nation. Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Ohio, almost everyone in the nation. I think we might have even gotten Pennsylvania, which is great.

[14:10:20]

But they have to -- they have to be able to do something about it. The problem with Joe, Joe's all talk and no action. You've got to have some action. You can't let that happen. I went to school in that city, I love the city of Philadelphia. You can't let that happen to a wonderful place like Philadelphia, you can't let it happen.

Well, I'm going to see you in Arizona. Thank you very much, everybody, thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: All right, I want to bring in Gloria Borger and David Chalian. And there's a lot to fact-check there, but the first part that I'll fact-check, Gloria, is where he says that Joe Biden isn't condemning the violence. I mean, we literally --

BORGER: He did.

KEILAR: -- here just in the last hour, had Joe Biden on condemning the violence. He said there's no excuse for looting or violence, he expressed support for protests. But he very -- in clear terms, it was the thing he led with -- said there was no excuse for looting and violence, and he echoed the words of Walter Wallace Jr.'s father when he said, you know, that you shouldn't be doing this because you're not helping Walter Wallace Jr.

What did you think --

BORGER: Right.

KEILAR: -- Gloria, of what you heard -- the other thing, I just want to fact-check really quick. He said that he's gotten the endorsement of police officers? You had black police officers and firefighters in Philadelphia who are actually protesting the fact that their unions endorsed Donald Trump. So that's an important part of this --

BORGER: Right.

KEILAR: -- that of course he will never mention. Gloria, what do you think? BORGER: Well first of all, this is the president trying to make his

point, as he has throughout this campaign, that he's the so-called law and order president and that if it were up to Joe Biden -- who he says has been doing this for 47 years, badly -- he doesn't want to condemn "them" -- I'm not quite sure who that means. He said you have to be strong. And of course, he is strong and Biden is weak.

Let's just point out that right now, this is a homicide investigation, and that nobody's going to call in anyone Donald Trump would like to call in right now. This is a homicide investigation. It is not time to ramp up any kind of violence, and I think that is what Joe Biden was trying to do.

And I think the president, you know, it's obvious, he was trying to use this as another wedge to bring back his law and order campaign, and gives him an opportunity to talk about something other than COVID.

KEILAR: And he was --

(CROSSTALK)

CHALIAN: But, Brianna --

KEILAR: -- yes?

CHALIAN: Sorry, I -- but everything Gloria said, and I would just add, and it's not working, right? I mean --

BORGER: Right.

CHALIAN: -- since June 1st --

BORGER: Yes.

CHALIAN: -- we have seen him, ever since he went into Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., this law and order attempt, this idea to try and paint Joe Biden as the champion of lawlessness isn't working with the American public.

I mean, when you ask who would do better on crime and safety issues, you see, Joe Biden actually scores better than Donald Trump on that. Who can keep Americans safe from harm? That's not a Donald Trump strength in the polls.

We saw his convention in August try to be all about this, and turn attention -- as Gloria was saying -- away from coronavirus and COVID into a law and order campaign, and the American people weren't buying it. And I just -- so it seems to me he's dipping into a well in these final days to try yet again to make this campaign about something that it isn't about.

BORGER: And you know --

KEILAR: I do want to play -- I do want to play, real quick, Gloria, what we heard the former vice president say --

BORGER: Sure.

KEILAR: -- because this is just wrong, with President Trump saying that he's not condemning violence. This is what Joe Biden just said, minutes ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: There is no excuse whatsoever for the looting and the violence, none whatsoever. I think to be able to protest is totally legitimate, it's totally reasonable. But I think that the looting is just, as the victim's father said, do not do this, it's not what my son -- you're not helping, you're hurting, you're not helping my son.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: OK, so he's making it very clear there.

BORGER: Clear.

KEILAR: And also, he dodged a very important question. He was asked about mental health, and I just think we need to just briefly touch upon that before we go on to talk more broadly about the election that we're in the middle of.

He was asked about mental health, because in this particular case, you had a situation when the family, said that they were dealing with a mental health issue, they were expecting an ambulance. And instead, they -- police arrived first, and they feel like that was not actually ideal to deal with the situation that Walter Wallace Jr. was in. And of course, there's a lot of upset over what happened.

[14:15:02]

BORGER: Right.

KEILAR: I do want pivot and talk, David, about just broadly, this election that we're in the middle of, and it's a race to 270 electoral votes. There are a lot of Democrats who are expressing nerves about next week, after what they saw happen in 2016, which was a huge surprise.

CHALIAN: There's no doubt about it. I don't think you can find a reporter -- a political reporter, Gloria I'm sure had had this too -- that has had conversation with Democrats who have -- who are like, oh --

BORGER: Just yesterday.

CHALIAN: -- we've got this -- no, they're really worried, it's like post-traumatic stress in some way from 2016 --

BORGER: Totally.

CHALIAN: -- for these Democrats who just believe that Donald Trump has some trick to pull out of the hat here. By the way, can Donald Trump still win this race, Brianna? Yes, he

can. He's going to need to drive an incredibly huge turnout on Election Day with his base voters to accomplish that, but that still is something that could conceivably happen. It's not the likeliest scenario, but that's not going to stop scarred Democrats from 2016 from being worried until they actually see every vote counted.

BORGER: And you know, Brianna, I was just talking to one of those scarred Democrats yesterday, who counts votes in Florida for Democrats and was doing it way back in the year 2000 during Bush-Gore.

And he told me, not only does he feel like he has post-traumatic stress, but every night he can't sleep and he's looking at turnout, trying to extrapolate what that means, what that means in certain counties, what he's going to look for on Election Night.

He's been disappointed so many times. Four years ago, I was speaking with this person, who assured me that he thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win Florida, and he's been eating his words ever since. So he is nervous. And Democrats are nervous. And they know what the map looks like, but it ain't over until it's over.

KEILAR: Yes. I was in Javits with the -- following the Hillary Clinton --

BORGER: That's right.

KEILAR: -- campaign, I remember that --

BORGER: You were.

KEILAR: -- moment, when it was clear that, you know, Florida had gone for Trump. And I've never seen anything like it, right?

BORGER: Yes.

KEILAR: I think a lot of people realizing they can't always predict what is going to happen. So we will see what happens next week.

David, Gloria, great to see you both, thank you.

BORGER: Thanks. Bye-bye.

KEILAR: There's another focus of -- bye-bye, see you.

There's another focus of the Biden campaign, and it is President Trump's handling of the pandemic. This is the main one. Biden and his supporters are labeling the Trump response as an abject failure, but now the White House is touting it as a success. It's actually listing a highlight of the Trump administration as, quote, "ending the COVID- 19 pandemic," which is curious because the COVID-19 pandemic is in, of course, full swing.

They say, "The administration has taken decisive actions to engage scientists and health professionals-- to understand, treat, and defeat the disease." Dr. Chris Pernell is a public health physician and I certainly appreciate you being with us. This has touched you personally and of course professionally. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy says that that report was poorly worded. What do you say to that, when it essentially is saying up is down? Because we know we're in the middle of this still.

CHRIS PERNELL, PUBLIC HEALTH PHYSICIAN: Brianna, what can you say to that? That's just the latest in a laundry list of misinformation, disinformation and flat-out lies. I agree that this is an abject failure of bad leadership and bad governance on the part of the White House, and the president in particular.

Their language, their reports, their affront has just been unethical. When you have people across the United States worrying, praying that their families don't get sick, that they don't lose loved ones? We have 226,000 reasons why this has not been a victory march or victory shout (ph) for this White House.

I lost my father to this pandemic, as you've said. We've had over 500,000 cases in the past seven days. Coronavirus is tracking to be the third leading cause of death in 2020 alone. There's just no place for this level of lies, and no place for this level of lack of empathy.

KEILAR: You know, Doctor, we see each other a bit, you've been on the show many times. And I can sense just the level of frustration coming from you today. I think normally, I know that it is difficult to watch what is a failed response, a response that could be much better and could save lives. But this one seems to kind of bug you more, this -- saying that they've that they're done with coronavirus.

PERNELL: How do you declare victory in something when we have over 40 states where the virus is out of control? And how do you declare victory when just someone from the White House, over this past weekend, said that, oh yes, it is out of control? Either it's out of control or you're victorious, you can't have it both ways.

[14:20:01]

And we in the public health community, yes, we're fed up. We're like Fannie Lou Hamer-fed up and frustrated, and we're not going to stand by silently. We're going to continue to sound the alarm, we're going to continue to get the message out to the American people, what you need to do to keep yourselves safe.

You have health care professionals, frontline workers across hospitals throughout the United States, doing their best just to keep people healthy and to keep people alive. Look what's happening in Wisconsin, look what's happening in Texas, look what's happening in Utah.

Look what's happening in my own state of New Jersey, where we had beat back the pandemic, where we had flattened the curve. And now we're starting to see coronavirus cases creep up, and you see those stay-at- home orders coming back, you see nonessential businesses closing early. So, no, I don't have any tolerance for anyone in leadership saying anything other than what's the truth, and the truth is informed by science and facts alone, not by political opinions.

KEILAR: We know you're working to make sure that your father's death was not in vain. And we appreciate you coming on to talk with us about it, Dr. Pernell, thank you.

PERNELL: Thank you.

KEILAR: Coming up, CNN is live across the country as early voters are turning out in record numbers. We're going to take you to three battleground states, next.

Plus, new audiotapes from "Washington Post" reporter Bob Woodward, just released. And this time, we hear from the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, about how the White House was handling the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:25:48]

KEILAR: We still have six days to go until Election Day, and Americans are already smashing early voting records. Whether it's been by mail or in person, more than 73 million Americans have voted so far. Just compare that to 2016, when nearly 137 million ballots were cast in total.

CNN is tracking early voting across several battleground states, and we begin in North Carolina with our CNN national correspondent Dianne Gallagher -- Dianne.

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Dianne Gallagher in Charlotte, North Carolina. More than 3.6 million North Carolinians have already cast their ballots, that's more than 50 percent of all the registered voters in the state.

And to give it even more perspective, more than 75 percent of all the votes that were cast in 2016 for the general election, well, they've already been cast here in 2020 with six days to go before Election Day.

Now, most of the voters are doing what the people around me are doing here, they're early in-person voting. They can do that until October 31st. They can also register and vote on the same day during this period. The rest of those voters? More than 800,000 mail-in ballots have already been accepted. They have to, by law, be postmarked by Election Day.

But the other big story in North Carolina? The courts. Currently, the deadline for when those ballots can be accepted after Election Day has been appealed to the Supreme Court not once, but twice. And so they are waiting to find out in North Carolina if a postmarked Election Day ballot can be received by November 6th or November 12th for it to count. SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Sara Murray in

Philadelphia, and the race is on for Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes. Ivanka Trump was here today, stumping for her father.

And look, a lot of people in Pennsylvania have already gotten a jump on things. Yesterday was the deadline if you wanted to apply for a mail-in ballot, more than 3 million voters in Pennsylvania have done that. The secretary of state and other officials here are saying, do not wait to turn those ballots in, do not wait until Election Day. Turn them in now, turn them in as soon as you can.

Officials here are also warning this is going to take a while. This is the first time Pennsylvania has allowed this many people to vote by mail, and we probably won't know unless it is a major blowout who won the state of Pennsylvania on Election Night. It could take a couple of days, officials are saying. Do not worry about that, they are going to keep counting the votes until we know who won this critical battleground state.

BILL WEIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And I'm Bill Weir in Madison, Wisconsin, where the line for a free COVID-19 test goes out the door and is several hundred cars long. This state is setting the worst kind of records in this pandemic in terms of new cases and fatalities, 64 people lost their lives reported yesterday.

And what they're really worried about is hospital capacity. The intensive care units in America's Dairyland had 87 percent capacity, emergency hospital already set up on the state fairgrounds. And all of this is directly affecting the election. Most of the people I talked to in this line have already voted.

Since the Supreme Court decided that the mail-in absentee ballots have to show up by Election Day, that puts the pressure on get-out-the-vote efforts to get seniors especially out into the cold to a drop box where they don't trust the mail. Meanwhile, the polls in this state showed former Vice President Joe Biden with a lead between eight and 17 points -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Bill, Dianna, Sara, thank you guys for being the eyes and ears on the ground for us.

And there is some new audio obtained by CNN, and it is providing insight into the White House's handling of the coronavirus pandemic early on, back in April. At that point, there were 40,000 Americans who had died of the virus, and President Trump's son-in-law and his senior advisor, Jared Kushner was bragging about the president's response.

JARED KUSHER, SENIOR ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP (via telephone): The last thing was kind of doing this -- the guidelines, which was interesting. And that in my mind was almost like -- you know, it was almost like Trump getting the country back from the doctors, right? In the sense that what he now did was, you know, he's going to own the open-up.

[14:30:02] There were three phases. There was the panic phase, the pain phase and then the comeback phase. That doesn't mean there's not still a lot of pain.