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Trump and Biden Both Rally in Florida Today; U.S. GDP Up 33 Percent in Third Quarter; Gov. Ron DeSantis Slowed Testing as Scott Atlas Discouraged Attention to Asymptomatic Cases. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 29, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Next month, United Airlines will require passengers on one particular flight to test negative for coronavirus. The flight is from Newark to London-Heathrow. United will administer rapid tests for free at the airport in Newark.

What's so interesting here is that passengers must show up three hours ahead of time. And this does not even allow them to bypass the U.K.'s mandatory 14-day quarantine.

United says this is just a proof of concept for now. The hope is to get governments on board with a uniform testing protocol rather than putting the burden on airlines -- Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: It is the top of the hour, I am Brianna Keilar. And right now, Florida is the epicenter of presidential politics. President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are hosting dueling rallies in the Sunshine State right now. And with just five days to go until Election Day, there are more than 7 million Floridians who have already cast their votes.

Across the nation, politics and the pandemic are colliding as cases spike in 41 states including Florida, and the country is reporting nearly 79,000 new coronavirus cases in the last day. CNN's Ryan Nobles is in Tampa at the Trump rally, and we have CNN's Jessica Dean who is in Coconut Creek, where Biden is holding a drive-in event.

Ryan, tell us what the president's closing message is to Floridians.

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, he is basically making the argument, Brianna, that if you appreciate his work over the past four years, you should give him the opportunity to take another four years in office.

And he's making that argument very strongly here in the state of Florida, which is essential to his path to 270 electoral votes. The 29 electoral votes that he was able to squeak out with a win here four years ago were key to his victory last time around, and they will be this time around as well.

And you know, there have been so many people that have already voted in Florida, but Republicans -- and the president in particular -- are very focused on those that will show up on Election Day. They believe the bulk of their voters are either going to vote in person and do it on Election Day. They, you know, are kind of downplaying the big number of mail-in

ballots and early voting that seems to show at least a lead with Democratic registrants here in Florida, because they believe they're going to be able to close that gap on Election Day, and that's why they believe these rallies are so important in the closing days.

They describe many of the rally-goers that come to events like this as low propensity voters, voters that don't show up to vote all that often or only vote in presidential election years. And they say that they are motivated to go out and vote when they show up at a rally like this.

But of course, Brianna, that ignores the growing coronavirus crisis here in this state. The governor, Ron DeSantis, spoke earlier today. He touted the state's response to the virus despite the fact that he has lifted all restrictions related to coronavirus and the cases here are spiking.

And then of course you have the optics of this rally here behind me, thousands of people packed shoulder to shoulder, very few if any of them wearing masks. In fact, I've been to so many of these rallies, and would argue that this is the least amount of people I see wearing masks at any of these Trump rallies.

The president doesn't seem to think that that's a problem. He's still making the case that we are moving past the coronavirus and essentially, it's going to be voters that decide whether or not they believe him on Election Day.

One other note I'll make for you, Brianna, before you leave me here. Melania Trump is speaking behind me right now, introducing her husband: a rare appearance for her on the campaign trail. And as she started out, she welcomed the crowd and said it was good for them to be back in their home state of Florida. Of course, the president and the first lady voting here, as it is now their official residence -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Ryan, thank you so much.

And Jessica, it's worth noting that Joe Biden and the DNC are outspending Republicans two to one on ads in Florida. What is Florida's role in Biden's pathway to 270 electoral votes?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, it's not a must-win for Biden, there are other ways to get to 270 on Election Day. But certainly, if Biden wins Florida it is a show of strength. And it could, as Ryan laid out there, really end Trump's chances of re- election, especially if it's an early victory, if they're able to declare a winner on the night of the election.

So a lot of eyes turned here and a lot of money, as you mentioned. They are outspending the Republicans and President Trump over two to one here in Florida, so really flooding the airwaves with ads both on television, digital ads, radio ads. And then of course spending time here. Vice President Biden is going to be here in Broward County

momentarily. Broward County has a large Democratic electorate, it also is made up of a lot of African-American voters, that's a key part of the coalition that the Biden campaign is hoping to put together on Election Day.

And whereas we hear about President Trump really relying on voters to turn out on Election Day and vote on Election Day, the Biden campaign, really encouraging early voting. That's what this drive-in rally is all about. And, again, it's different than Trump's, it's socially distanced, it's a drive-in rally, everyone stays inside their car --

[14:05:09]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump 2020!

DEAN: -- the COVID response is really staying central to Biden's closing argument to Floridians here, so we expect to hear more about that today. But again, Brianna, they're relying heavily on the message of early voting. They want their voters to go ahead and cast those ballots.

KEILAR: It is in full swing there in Florida. Jessica Dean, thank you so much -- and to Ryan as well.

I want to bring in our chief political analyst Gloria Borger to talk about what we're seeing in Florida right now. It's a gold mine when it comes to electoral votes, and a lot of elections can come down to Florida. Tell us about why.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it's a gold mine because there's gold in Florida, it's called 29 electoral votes. And when you look back on recent history, Barack Obama won the state twice, Donald Trump squeaked through with about one percent of the vote.

And in this election, it's really clear, as Jessica was saying, that Donald Trump needs to win Florida. If he doesn't win Florida, he's got to run the table on his 2016 victory. And if you look at all the polling, that would be incredibly difficult for him to do.

Biden wants it of course because, Brianna, we'll all be -- you know, on Election Night, Florida's going to be one of those states that may report early. And if you see that Joe Biden is winning in Florida or has won Florida by the end of that night, people who are Biden supporters will breathe easier thinking that he's going to win the election. So he'd like to get that head start.

KEILAR: Yes. And Jessica hit upon this, why Broward --

BORGER: Yes.

KEILAR: -- County is so important. But how crucial is Broward County to a potential Biden success in Florida?

BORGER: Well, it's very important. First of all, lots of senior citizens. Biden is about up seven points with senior citizens in the state of Florida, a lot of those seniors living in Broward County are transplants from the Northeast who decided to move to Florida for the better weather.

And I think one thing that kind of makes the Democrats a little bit nervous about Florida is that they were ahead, I believe, by nine points in the early voting. Now, that gap has been narrowed to about four points ahead of Republicans in the early voting. So what he's trying to do is get these supporters out there to the polls. He -- you know, he understands that that's not going as well as he would like, so he's trying to push that number -- as is Trump in Tampa.

KEILAR: And Gloria, I want to thank you so much. It is wonderful to see you --

BORGER: Sure.

KEILAR: -- I know I'm going to be seeing a whole lot of you here in the coming days.

BORGER: Thanks, Bri.

KEILAR: Ahead, we do have a bit of good news here on the financial front, the economy recovered over the summer at a record rate, GDP was up 33 percent in the third quarter. That number, though, does need some context, so I want to bring in CNN business anchor Julia Chatterley for that.

How does the pandemic factor into this, Julia?

JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN BUSINESS ANCHOR: Hey, Brianna. It's all about the pandemic, it's all about the cash too that was used to effectively buy the dramatic recovery that we're seeing in the third quarter -- dramatic recovery, of course, following dramatic collapse in the second quarter.

But I want to just put the annualized effect of this number in perspective too. When we talk about an annualized number, we're talking about what growth would look like if the gigantic recovery that we saw in the third quarter continued for a year. Look, that's clearly not going to happen.

What drove this was stimulus checks, reopening of the recovery and of course the bump-up in unemployment benefit, which ended a couple of months ago. And now, people are simply spending what they managed to save in that interim.

It's best to look at it on a quarterly basis. So the change in growth from the second quarter to the third quarter was around 7.5 percent. It's still a record number, but it's a much smaller number. And now, we're in the fourth quarter. Of course COVID cases are rising, we didn't see an agreement to provide more financial aid to people so the risks (ph) at the fourth quarter look very, very different.

KEILAR: And stocks took a hit this week, Julia. What are you expecting here in the months to come? CHATTERLEY: Yes, it's a great question. Deep uncertainty at least in

the short term for investors, but also for American consumers, Brianna. And this is the key: We've recaptured around two thirds of the growth that we'd lost in the first half of this year, but we've only recaptured around half of the jobs.

And now, of course, we've got record COVID cases going into the winter months, and our starting point is that much weaker.

Remember, we've still got around 22 million Americans claiming some form of jobless benefit assistance. We've got over 10 million people that are still out of work. And a lot of them were struggling before the crisis hit.

The management of this economy, the management of the health crisis, the pandemic, and of course the ability to agree on more financial aid is critical for Americans beyond this election. And voters need to consider that.

[14:10:12]

KEILAR: All right, Julia Chatterley, thank you so much for that.

Next, we have a CNN exclusive. We are tracking how a push from the White House Coronavirus advisor to slow down testing seems to correlate with a drop in COVID tests in a key state.

Plus, new tapes released from Bob Woodward reveal White House advisors bragging about cutting doctors out of the coronavirus response.

And there is a new wave of cyber-attacks this week targeting hospitals. We'll explain what the motive could be.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: CNN has exclusive new reporting on Dr. Scott Atlas and his influence on the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Atlas' controversial views may be tied to decisions in one key state. Senior political analyst John Avlon lays this all out for us.

[14:15:15]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Remember this?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people, you're going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down, please.

(LAUGHTER)

They test --

AVLON: Now, Trump's aides said the president was joking after that June rally in Tulsa, but he wasn't joking. He was doctor-shopping. And he found what he was looking for in Dr. Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist -- not an infectious disease expert -- who he'd seen on "Fox News."

Atlas joined the White House on August 10th, and soon became President Trump's primary pandemic advisor, pushing aside more experienced and trusted advisors like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx.

Atlas strongly supported a decision in August to revise CDC guidelines to de-emphasize the need to test people without symptoms, according to two sources familiar with the process. Now, this was later reversed when CDC scientists objected.

But Atlas shared this view with state officials including Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis -- and others. That's according to transcripts of public events and accounts from private meetings in that state on August 31st. The general tone, one health official present said, was like DeSantis had gone to Cape Canaveral and decided to give a lecture on rocket science.

SCOTT ATLAS, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE ADVISOR: The purpose of testing is to stop people from dying. When you start introducing closure of schools because people have positive, asymptomatic tests, that's sort of not the purpose of testing.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R), FLORIDA: I think we're at agreement on focusing strategies in school on people who are symptomatic.

ATLAS: The point of all these things are to save lives, not to document asymptomatic people who are low risk.

I have been speaking with Governor DeSantis for quite a while about the pandemic, and he's really an example of doing something with the exact thoughtful approach that we need in this.

AVLON: Got that? And that push to de-emphasize tests coincided with a dramatic drop in testing across Florida, even as the country was careening towards a fall coronavirus surge.

Now, CNN analysis of the Florida State official numbers, aggregated by the COVID Tracking Project, shows that testing dropped off at the end of July and early August, from a peak seven-day average of over 90,000 tests per day on July 18th -- six weeks later, the seven-day average dropped by nearly half and hovered there, between there and 60,000, during the fall.

But if Atlas' and DeSantis' advocacy in Florida was in fact responsible for the state's testing decrease, well that would be very much in keeping with the wishes of President Trump. And some state and local officials believe the pair was influential in taking Trump's anti-testing pronouncements and helping turn them into public policy.

Though both Atlas and DeSantis declined to discuss their views with CNN for this story, they have articulated them in public. And a White House spokesman claimed Atlas had never advocated for reducing testing despite the doctor's public pronouncements to the contrary. TEXT: "Dr. Atlas has never recommended decreasing testing. Instead, he

and the president are focused on using the massive testing program smartly, to save lives and protect individuals at risk in high-risk settings."

AVLON: But this drop-off in testing is of deep concern to some. It took place as positivity rates remained high, in the range that CDC considers indicative of high community spread.

Quote, "There is no way to hide the pandemic by not testing," said Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo of Johns Hopkins. "Even if we don't count the people who have mild or no symptoms, they still have it and they're still infectious to others, and it will show up eventually."

Well, now we're seeing the results of these policies in Florida. "There's no question more people are going to die," says Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber, "we are flying blind without tests."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: John, thank you for that.

Joining me now to discuss is Dr. Jorge Rodriguez. And, Dr. Rodriguez, you heard John Avlon's reporting, reducing testing to attempt to -- unsuccessfully -- hide the pandemic. How detrimental is this to Florida and how important is it that other states not do this?

JORGE RODRIGUEZ, INTERNAL MEDICINE AND VIRAL SPECIALIST: Well, this is very detrimental, not just to Florida but to all of us. Because let's not forget, we're all connected one way or another. And the reason for testing obviously, at the end of the day, it's to prevent lives (ph). And we do that by seeing who is infectious, and hopefully tracing to see who they come in contact with.

But since that has been basically aborted and we don't have that, you know, in place, checking people to see if they are positive lets them know that they shouldn't be in contact with other people. And at the end of the day, saves lives. So what we need is more testing, not less testing. And no state -- no state -- should follow this politically generated policy.

KEILAR: And when you hear Dr. Scott Atlas talking about the point of testing is not for there to be closures because you've revealed that people are positive and asymptomatic? I mean, that suggestion is just asinine because those people still spread it.

[14:20:06]

RODRIGUEZ: Yes, absolutely, it is, it's moronic. And it's almost like saying, you know, we're not going to do any mammograms, so we don't have, you know, any positive breast cancer results. It is completely the antithesis of what should be done.

And basically this is sort of junior high school student council politics, running health care. And I don't mean to insult any junior high school students, but -- (LAUGHTER)

-- it really is, you know, the cart leading the horse, and it is so idiotic.

KEILAR: And I want to ask you about this audio that CNN has obtained. It's of President Trump's senior advisor and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, telling the journalist Bob Woodward in mid-April that Trump had cut out the doctors and scientists who were advising him on COVID- 19. Let's listen to this.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

JARED KUSHNER, WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISER (via telephone): 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 and there won't be pain for a while, but that basically was, we've now put out rules to get back to work. Trump's now back in charge, it's not the doctors. They've kind of -- we have, like, a negotiated settlement.

The last thing was kind of doing 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.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KEILAR: I mean, what do you think about -- a couple things that I noticed. It's this -- how oppositional the language is to doctors --

RODRIGUEZ: Yes.

KEILAR: -- and then the legal -- sort of the legalese lens of this idea of a negotiated settlement with the doctors, like they are the enemy in court. I mean, so it's really just this opposition to doctors. What do you make of that?

RODRIGUEZ: That's exactly what I was going to say. If you start just looking -- or listening to the way that he speaks, first of all, it's adversarial. And it's always an us-against-them. And you know what, we doctors aren't trying to take over, you know, the country. We're trying to do what we do every day.

And even though the -- you know, the buzz among physicians is that we're really annoyed and upset about this, we really don't have time to worry about this. We're dealing with the real world, we're dealing with people that can't breathe, people on ventilators, people that are having blood clots.

So it appears that this administration needs always a foil, always an enemy. And we are today's enemy.

But you know what's ironic, Brianna, is that at the end of the day, if you don't trust doctors, man, if you're sick, apparently, you know, a helicopter will land, you know, on the lawn of the White House immediately, and you're going to rush to Walter Reed to see doctors. So again, it's just politics that is, you know, wagging the dog here.

So hey, guys, we're not trying to run the country, we're just trying to save lives.

KEILAR: Yes, just trying to save lives. And also, saving lives? Last I checked, good politics. Dr. Jorge Rodriguez, thank you so much.

RODRIGUEZ: Thanks, Brianna.

KEILAR: The long list of states where the Trump campaign and Republicans are fighting to make it harder to count your ballot.

[14:23:22]

Plus, Republican Senator Susan Collins had 30 seconds to talk about systemic racism during her very contentious debate. See why she only took five.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: This hour, more than 79 million Americans have already cast their ballot. And as that number continues to grow, so does the list of places where Republicans are trying to stop votes from being counted, as concerns about the surge of mail-in votes has prompted state officials to extend the deadline for receiving ballots.

Their efforts are targeting battleground states like Pennsylvania, where Republicans unsuccessfully appealed to the Supreme Court twice to stop ballots from being counted three days after the election even if there is no legible postmark. Republicans have argued no vote received after Election Night should be tallied, even if it's postmarked by Election Day.

And we see a similar story in Wisconsin. Except there, the U.S. Supreme Court just sided with Republican officials. Now, all ballots must be received by 8:00 p.m. on Election Day to count.

Then, in North Carolina, the Trump campaign has fought to reduce the amount of time to count ballots postmarked on or before Election Day after the state election board extended the counting deadline from three days after Election Day to nine days after. North Carolina, of course, has a large military population, which votes disproportionately by mail. Last night, the Supreme Court decided not to intervene, which was a defeat for the Trump campaign.

Then in Nevada, the Trump campaign has sued to ask for a halt in counting mail-in ballots in the Las Vegas area. They don't like that their observers don't have better access to the process. They also object to the signature matching process.

In Texas, which is of course rich with delegates, the state's top court, voting to uphold Republican Governor Greg Abbott's policy, which limits one drop box for mail-in ballots per county, just one. That includes, for instance, Harris County, where Houston is located. It's home to nearly 5 million voters, one drop box.

And finally in Michigan, a conservative judge has ruled that residents can carry an unconcealed gun to polling places. This reignites fears of voter intimidation and this is what President Trump says about these lawsuits.

[14:30:06]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We'll see what happens at the end of the day.