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Approaches Differ as COVID-19 Cases Surge; Mask Mandates Result in Lower Hospitalization Rates; Trump Downplays Coronavirus; Differences between 2016 and 2020 Races; Zeta Slams U.S. Gulf Coast; U.S. and India Reaffirm Relations Amid Concerns About China; Author of 2018 'Anonymous' Op-Ed Critical of Trump Revealed; Food Writer Builds Little Restaurant for Chipmunk; Kushner to Woodward: Trump 'Very Smart Politically' in Fight with Governors; Michigan A.G. Appeals Court Decision that Struck Down Ban on Open Carry of Firearms at Polls; Hurricane Zeta Hits Louisiana with Flooding, Power Outages. Aired 12- 12:45a ET
Aired October 29, 2020 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause.
Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, one surging pandemic, two different plans of action. While France and Germany ordered lockdowns to slow the spread of infection, in the U.S., the president not only ignored the worsening health crisis but lied, claiming the outbreak is getting better.
Health experts in the U.S. are warning anything close to return to a normal life is now more than a year away.
Hurricane Zeta hammering parts of the U.S. Gulf Coast, nearly 1 million people left in the dark, and Zeta is not done yet.
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VAUSE: In the final days before the U.S. election, a surging pandemic is filling hospitals and morgs but also sending Donald Trump's poll numbers into freefall in crucial key swing states, with that making his second term increasingly unlikely.
The Trump campaign continues to hold likely superspreader events in states where daily infections have hit record highs. Vice president Mike Pence, held a rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday, but before that, CNN spoke with the campaign press secretary about a visit to a state which just a day earlier saw a new rise in confirmed cases and COVID related deaths.
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ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Are you at all concerned given that there has been a outbreak in the vice president's orbit of people around him and that there is currently an outbreak -- I mean, hospitals in Wisconsin are near capacity. And so does that give you any pause or the vice president any pause about going there and holding a big rally?
HOGAN GIDLEY, WHITE HOUSE SPOKESPERSON: No, it doesn't. The vice president has the best doctors in the world around him. They've obviously contact traced and have come to the conclusion that it's fine for him to be out on the campaign trail.
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VAUSE: It was an incredibly tone-deaf response and in many ways speaks to how the Trump Administration sees this pandemic. A pandemic which senior health experts say will continue to disrupt practically every aspect of normal life for another year, maybe more.
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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: I think it will be easily by the end of 2021 and perhaps even into the next year before we start having some semblances of normality.
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VAUSE: Normality right now looks like this. The U.S. reported more than 76,000 new cases on Wednesday. And that is bringing warnings that there could be much worse to come.
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DR. PETER HOTEZ, DEAN OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Our nation is plunging into a terrible darkness from COVID- 19. The numbers will be probably up around 80,000 new cases a day by the election, which is the worst ever. And we're headed towards 100,000 new cases.
We're headed towards a doubling of the number of Americans who've perished in this epidemic by the end of the year, early January.
Hospitals are surging. And it's not only new cases that are going up, it's of course hospitalizations, positivity.
All directions point to a horrible, horrible winter for us.
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VAUSE: Despite what the doctors and the scientists have been saying, despite all the warnings and guidelines issued by the nation's leading pandemic experts, Donald Trump's Arizona rally saw thousands of supporters all crammed together.
Social distancing, it seems, does not look good on camera. And very few were seen wearing a face mask.
And President Trump continues to lie and mislead about the nation's dire health crisis.
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TRUMP: Normal life which is what we want, we just want normal life like we had seven months ago, will fully resume.
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VAUSE: To Durham, North Carolina now and Dr. Gavin Yamey, professor of global health and public policy at Duke University.
Doctor, thank you for being with us. I think we've seen this movie before, right? About a month or so after opening in Europe it hits the U.S., like a lot of sequels this one has upped the death and the devastation.
Is it fair to say that just like the last time, the U.S. has done little to prepare for this next wave?
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DR. GAVIN YAMEY, PROFESSOR, GLOBAL HEALTH & PUBLIC POLICY, DUKE UNIVERSITY: Yes, I think that's very fair. I think everybody needs to remember, of course, that the purpose of any lockdown, stay-at-home order, a series of restrictions to try and break the cycle of transmission, the purpose of that is to put in place basic public health measures.
In particular an excellent system to test, trace, isolate, support. In other words you really need to use that frame wisely to build a system to test and identify cases, isolate those cases, identify those who've been exposed, quarantine the exposed and critically support those who are isolating or quarantined. Which might mean financial support, support at home with food and so on.
In the U.S. we didn't do that. We didn't use the first series of stay- at-home orders to put in place that kind of a system.
And here we are, again, unfortunately with rapidly rising numbers of cases and now hospitalizations. We are starting to see rising deaths as well. It was inevitable because we didn't put the measures that we needed to put in place.
And nor, unfortunately, have we reached the kinds of levels of personal protections that we should have had by now. Mask use, social distancing, avoiding of crowds and not going inside into crowded spaces.
VAUSE: Well, the U.S. president seems to have a plan. He believes that if he halves the number of tests he can actually halve the number of new cases.
The man in charge of the testing for the Administration, though, Admiral Brett Giroir, though disagrees. Listen to this.
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ADM. BRETT GIROIR, ASST. SECRETARY OF HEALTH, U.S. DEPT. OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES: It's not just a function of testing. Yes, we're getting more cases identified but the cases are actually going up.
And we know that too because hospitalizations are going up.
Now the peak was in the 70,000s in July. We're about 42-,43,000 now so we're much less than July. But those are going up, those are real. And we know that deaths are increasing, unfortunately.
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VAUSE: The reason why those obvious and accurate comments are newsworthy is because they stand in very stark contrast to what the White House adviser and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner , told journalist Bob Woodward back in April.
Listen to this.
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JARED KUSHNER, SNR. ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT: 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.
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VAUSE: Those words "getting the country back from the doctors."
And as we face this new peak of COVID-19 it seems the doctors and the experts have still been pushed to one side. They're not calling the shots.
YAMEN: That's right. So Trump, Kushner, Trump's coronavirus tzar, Scott Atlas, they have rejected science, they've rejected the advice of public health experts, epidemiologists, virologists and now they are following a completely anti-scientific, kookie, zombie theory that we should just let the virus rip through America causing disease, destruction and death.
Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff, of course, said as much a few days ago. He said there's nothing we can do to control this pandemic.
The U.S. under the Trump Administration has thrown in the towel, has really rejected science. And unfortunately, has ignored the lessons from the Pacific Rim nations that have done so well. As Scott Gottlieb, the former FDA head says, if you look at the Pacific Rim nations in totality, all of them together are having fewer than 1,000 new cases per day. And that's because they follow the science.
They've had powerful leaders who have used scientific-based measures, who have promoted mask use, who have done test, trace, isolate. Who have really listened to what public health experts are saying.
In the U.S., Trump and his administration have rejected science and rejected basic public health measures. And here we are, the worst epidemic in the world, about a fifth of all cases and deaths.
And no end in sight under this Administration that really wants the virus to rip through society.
VAUSE: Speaking of Scott Gottlieb, the former FDA commissioner, he's one of a growing number of health experts who's calling for a national mask mandate.
In many ways this seems to be low-hanging fruit. A mask mandate in public has been implemented in Russia, any place with more than 50 people you have to wear a mask.
They're not doing that here; in fact, they're burning masks in protests in Florida.
What is wrong with this country?
To be honest, it is one of the most frustrating things. It's a piece of cloth that you put on your face. It is not some kind of restriction of freedom, it's not about liberty. It's about science.
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YAMEY: It protects you and it protects others.
And sadly it has become politicized in this country unlike in many other countries.
And one of the things that we really need to do is just get back to basic public health principles and promote science and not sort of kooky fringe theories.
What we really need is for a national mask mandate, a massive scale up of test and trace, isolate and support.
We will hopefully soon have a vaccine. But even if we have a safe, effective vaccine it's going to take many months, perhaps into late 2021 or even early 2022 before we've scaled it up to enough people in the States and worldwide for us to start really getting on top of this pandemic.
So we are going to have to do distancing and masking and handwashing and avoiding crowded spaces, particularly indoors, long term. Those are basic protections that we really all need to adopt.
VAUSE: Yes. And the longer we delay that, the longer this goes on. It's bizarre.
Dr. Yamey, thank you very much -- or Yamey, I should say. Thank you very much for being with us. We appreciate it.
YAMEY: Thanks for having me.
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VAUSE: In stark contrast to the U.S., leaders in France and Germany have made a hard decision to once again order lockdowns. Germany just one of many European countries that have a record high in daily cases. That brings warnings there might still be tough restrictions to come. CNN's Jim Bittermann reports from Paris.
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JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's Lockdown 2.0. In France and Germany, citizens must hunker down once again as the country's leaders announce sweeping new coronavirus restrictions.
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EMMANUEL MACRON, PRESIDENT, FRANCE (through translator): The virus is circulating at a speed faster than even the most pessimistic forecasts had anticipated.
Like all our neighbors we are submerged by the sudden acceleration of virus.
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BITTERMAN: In France's month-long lockdown people will need a certificate to leave their home. Non-essential businesses, restaurants and bars will be closed but schools will remain open.
The new rules come after curfews across much of the country failed to contain a surge of new cases, officially averaging 40,000 a day. But experts suggest that the real number could be as high as 100,000 a day.
In Germany, a similar trend of soaring infections met by a similar response. Starting November 2nd, Germany will shut bars, restaurants and theaters. Shops can operate with strict limits on access. Schools will stay open.
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ANGELA MERKEL, CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY (through translator): What makes the current pandemic situation so serious is the speed at which the virus is spreading.
Our health system can still cope with this challenge today but at this speed of infections, it will reach the limits of capacity within weeks.
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BITTERMANN: The sweeping new restrictions in two of Europe's largest economies sent world markets into a tumble though as harsh as spring lockdowns.
They follow an effort across the Continent to control a startling rise of new cases. From Russia to Italy, Spain to Poland, record jumps in infections have led to new restrictions on public life.
Not all have been easy to enforce. Protesters in Spain and Italy demonstrate a growing discontent at the economic and emotional impact of controlling the virus.
Meanwhile, medical workers also voiced their frustration as some hospitals begin to buckle.
Leaders across Europe struggling to strike a balance in the battle against a resurging coronavirus pandemic -- Jim Bittermann. CNN, Paris.
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VAUSE: It seems we've reached the time now for closing arguments in the U.S. presidential election.
For the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, that means hammering the Trump Administration for a failed response to the coronavirus pandemic. While at the same time holding very public briefings with health experts.
In a moment we'll hear from CNN's Jessica Dean with the Biden campaign.
But first, Jeremy Diamond reports from Arizona on Donald Trump continuing to either downplay, mislead or ignore the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Trump on Wednesday was here in the battleground state of Arizona. Now this is a state that the president won by nearly four points in 2016.
But according to the most recent polls he's now trailing former vice president Joe Biden by that same margin.
And that's pretty remarkable given that this state of Arizona hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since Bill Clinton in 1996. And so we're seeing the president as he is in so many places across the country playing defense here in the state of Arizona.
Now the president, despite the fact that the polls show that the coronavirus pandemic is the number one issue for voters, he's continuing to downplay the seriousness of this pandemic.
Insisting, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the surge of cases of coronavirus that is happening across the country is not real. Saying that it is because of testing.
[00:15:00] DIAMOND: Which, of course, we know is simply not true.
And the president is also continuing to have events like the one that we saw right here in Bullhead City. Thousands of people packed very, very closely together, very few people actually wearing a mask. And the campaign certainly isn't requiring people to wear these masks.
And so the president of the United States putting on events that his own coronavirus task force has said could lead to an increase in cases as well as preventable deaths.
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JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Former vice president Joe Biden back in his home state of Delaware on Wednesday where he and his wife, Jill Biden, early voted.
Joe Biden also being briefed by his team of scientists and doctors on the coronavirus pandemic and then giving remarks which were televised. He really took the moment to slam President Trump his Administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic.
We've heard so many of these things from him before. But again, it shows you just how important the campaign believes this contrast is in these closing days of the race when we're seeing record number of COVID cases in the United States.
Vice President Biden saying unlike Trump, he does have a plan that he would enact on day one. Acknowledging that it would not be a flip of a switch, that it would take hard work. But that science would lead, that doctors would lead and guide his plan moving forward.
Up next, Vice President Biden heads to the critical battleground state of Florida on Thursday where he will have two stops there.
Again, he doesn't have to win Florida in order to get to that critical 270 electoral votes. But if he did, it would make President Trump's path to re-election incredibly narrow and incredibly difficult -- Jessica Dean. CNN, Washington.
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VAUSE: Larry Sabato joins us this hour. He's the director of the center of politics at the University of Virginia. And it is good to see you.
LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Thank you, John. Good to see you.
VAUSE: OK. I hear a lot from people who just don't believe the polling, they expect a Trump upset just like 2016. And the reason, the rationale is because Hillary Clinton was up in the polls by a similar margin as Joe Biden. But there are a lot of reasons why 2020 is not 2016 and we'll start with favorability. In June 2016, an NBC News/"Wall Street Journal" poll had Clinton's net favorability rating underwater by 22 points. Trump's were even worse, he was underwater by 31 points. That's the favorable/unfavorable look.
Four years later, Biden's favorability is almost at break even point. While Trump, he's improved a little though Republicans have coalesced around him but he's still in the negatives.
People like Biden, they don't like Hillary Clinton. They still don't really like Trump. So is this one of the big key factors here?
SABATO: That is. That's a very important factor. I think also you'd have to say Hillary Clinton was representing a two-term incumbent administration.
Americans frequently change after eight years, we change parties. That obviously is not the case here, Donald Trump is a very controversial incumbent. He's only served four years but to be honest, I think it seems to most people like eight or more.
VAUSE: Yes. And during the campaign event in Nebraska on Tuesday when people were sent to the hospital because they were suffering from pneumonia, Donald Trump was talking about his own, I guess imaginary, polling data.
Here he is.
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TRUMP: By the way, a lot of things are going on. You're seeing those poll numbers are going through the roof. I hate to tell --
Where is the fake news? It's over there. Oh, that's a lot of cameras.
It's going up. They're very concerned; they're very, very concerned. All over. Florida's looking great. Now Nebraska we know is looking great. OK.
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VAUSE: Florida's not looking great, Nebraska's not looking great.
And even if that was true, at this point given the record numbers who've already voted -- in Florida, for example, early vote is about 70 percent of the 2016 total vote count, it's more than 90 percent in Texas, it's more than 76 percent in Georgia, almost at the halfway point in Nebraska.
Last time, undecideds voted for Trump. So many people already voting, it would seem the president may have lost that advantage as well.
SABATO: Yes. We just conducted a survey, we're getting ready to release it. And it shows that the percentage of undecideds this year is tiny, we're down to 5 percent. And even if that split two to one for Trump, it wouldn't be enough. So it's a very different situation. The narcissism that Trump has shown at these rallies suggests to me that he's living in a parallel universe. But that has often appeared to be the case over the last four years.
VAUSE: Yes. There's also no third party candidates this time, right?
SABATO: I couldn't hear you, John.
VAUSE: There's no third party candidates in the mix this time.
SABATO: Yes, thank you.
VAUSE: Which also was a significant factor in 2016.
SABATO: Yes, that's really important.
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SABATO: Because the third parties were a vent for anger and frustration. And it kept them from Hillary Clinton's column more than it kept them from Donald Trump's column. Over six percent voted independent or third party in 2016.
Our current estimate is that it's going to be three percent or under. So those votes are really not available to Donald Trump to the extent that they are available to Joe Biden.
VAUSE: I guess the big question though, the sort of unknown factor in all of this is just how long will it take for all of these votes to be counted? And what can happen between election night and that result being made official?
SABATO: Partly it depends on how big a margin the winner gets. Let's say it's Joe Biden and he wins by five or six or seven points. I think we'll actually know within probably 48 hours. We won't have all the votes in and we'll still have states that are undecided.
But all it takes is for one candidate really to be leading convincingly in states that amount to 270 electoral votes. Now if this election turns close, we'll be lucky if it's election
week, it could easily be election month. I don't really want to think about it being longer than election month.
VAUSE: Because it could be a repeat of 2000 with Florida. And a lot of Floridas all over the country with legal challenges.
SABATO: It could easily be all the legal challenges are going to occur regardless of the margin. Guaranteed. Lawsuits, lawsuits, lawsuits. Because they'll be trying to set precedents for the future, they'll be trying to set election law for the future. So we're going to have that regardless.
But if we have an election plus a lot of lawsuits, eventually we might well have a case go to the supreme court. And then they're really on the spot because we all know now it's six to three Republican. If they make a partisan decision then "Katy, bar the door."
VAUSE: Yes. Interesting times, Larry. But as you say, all will be known come Tuesday. We hope.
SABATO: We hope.
VAUSE: Good to see you. Take care.
SABATO: Thank you, John.
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VAUSE: Stay with CNN for special coverage of Election Night in America. Starting Tuesday 9 pm in London. 5 am on Wednesday in Hong Kong. We'll take a short break. When we come back hurricane Zeta slamming the U.S. Gulf Coast, bringing a life-threatening storm surge. Live update just 2 minutes away.
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VAUSE: Hurricane Zeta battering the U.S. Gulf Coast, quickly moving inland. Already more than 850,000 people across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are without electricity. Zeta is now a category one storm with intense winds, heavy rains and a dangerous storm surge.
So far just one death from the storm, a man in Louisiana electrocuted by downed power lines. Zeta made landfall in Louisiana on Wednesday afternoon as a category 2, strong enough to force this barge (INAUDIBLE) its moorings, nearly colliding with another vessel.
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VAUSE: This is the fifth named storm to hit Louisiana this season, a record for any U.S. state.
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VAUSE: The world's two biggest democracies, the U.S. and India, reaffirm security relationship this week. Trump rallying allies in Asia amid concerns about China's military. Maneuvers. CNN's Vedika Sud reports.
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VEDIKA SUD, CNN PRODUCER: A week before the U.S. presidential election, India and the United States deepened (INAUDIBLE) ties by inking a key pact to share geospatial intelligence. The deal was signed during U.S. secretary Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper's two day visit to New Delhi. MARK ESPER, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: It is important to note that
we achieved a significant milestone today with the signing of the basic exchange and cooperation agreement, the last of the foundational defense agreements between our countries which enables greater geospatial informational sharing between our armed forces.
SUD (voice-over): The agreement between the world's 2 largest democracies sends a strong message to the common concern, China. Pompeo didn't mince words in calling China a growing terror and threat.
MIKE POMPEO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Our leaders and our citizens see with increasing clarity that (INAUDIBLE) no friend to democracy, the rule of law, transparency, (INAUDIBLE) navigation, foundational (INAUDIBLE) and prosperous in the (INAUDIBLE) Pacific. I'm glad to say that the United States (INAUDIBLE) is taking steps to (INAUDIBLE) cooperation against all manner of threats and not just those of the Chinese Communist Party.
SUD (voice-over): But the spokesperson of China's ministry of foreign affairs says the China threat claimed by Pompeo is nothing but a cliche of his lies.
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India and China share a hotly-contested border. Tensions increased in June after a bloody clash between the troops at the border had left dozens of soldiers dead.
India's defense minister, Rajnath Singh, did allude to China's intentions in the region but without naming its neighbor. He said, respecting the rule of law and freedom of navigation in the international seas, and upholding the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all states are essential.
In a further bid to counter China's military strength in South Asia, the Quad, a strategic former allegiance of the U.S., India, Australia, and Japan, will participate in naval exercises in the Indian Ocean next month.
While Pompeo and Esper continue to tour Asian countries this week, China is watching closely.
Vedika Sud, CNN, New Delhi.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Anonymous no more. When we come back, the mystery White House insider who infuriated Donald Trump with damning leaks has revealed himself. So why come clean now?
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know Anonymous? You know this Anonymous that everybody has been looking for? The law enforcement could've found earlier if they wanted to. But everybody was looking for Anonymous. Turned out to be a low-level staffer, a sleazebag.
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VAUSE: Kind of feels like that damning op-ed from Anonymous appeared in "The New York Times" about 1,000 years ago. It was actually just two years ago.
The senior Trump administration official claimed to be part of a resistance, working to save us all from the president's worst inclinations. And he then later wrote a book about it. Then came the Russia investigation, an impeachment, a pandemic. And a campaign later, Anonymous has revealed himself. It is, in fact, Miles Taylor. Former chief of staff to the homeland security secretary. He's now a CNN contributor, a regular appearer on this program, sometimes. Not tonight.
Taylor denied to CNN's Anderson Cooper recently as August that he was Anonymous, and CNN's Chris Cuomo asked him why he lied.
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MILES TAYLOR, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I said in the book that, if asked, I would strenuously deny I was the author. And here's the reason: because the things I said in that book were ideas that I wanted Donald Trump to challenge on their merits.
We have seen over the course of four years that Donald Trump's preference is to find personal attacks and distractions to pull people away from criticisms of his record. I wrote that work anonymously to deprive him of that opportunity and to force him to answer the questions on their merits.
[00:35:09]
And I'll tell you what happened, Chris. The end result is the president couldn't, he failed to deny what was in that book. In fact, to this day the White House has failed to challenge the narratives that were in that book, or the narratives that I've explained in my own name over the past four months, speaking out against the president.
So when asked by Anderson whether I was Anonymous during that time period, I said what I was going to do. I temporarily denied it. But I've always said I would ultimately come out under my own name.
But that said, I owe Anderson Cooper a beer. I owe him a mea culpa. And the same things for other reporters who, at that time period, asked me, Are you Anonymous? And I said no, because I wanted that work to stand on its own two legs and deprive the president of an opportunity to do one more personal attack to distract from his record.
But look, I'm here tonight to say that was me, and I hope people challenge me in those accounts. And I hope the White House looks back at those accounts and looks at them and tries to actually say whether they're true or not. Because there's an army of people who will now come out, Chris, who will validate them.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: We will go through what the White House said in response. We will go through your time there and what mattered in terms of what you were trying to hold off for America's collective national security.
But you know what the problem is with having lied, is that now you are a liar. And people will be slow to believe you, when you lied about something as important as whether or not you wanted to own this.
TAYLOR: Chris, that's the truth, and this was a very torturous decision. It was not immediate for me to want to publish this work anonymously at the get-go. It really wasn't.
But at the time -- and I'll be frank with you -- behind the scenes, I was trying to get people, who I'm not going to dime out, but other household names in the administration to come out and tell the truth, that Chris, we all knew inside this administration.
This isn't about just Miles Taylor. It's about a majority of the president's cabinet at that time that shared these views. I couldn't. And the next best opportunity was to convey it in a way that the president would avoid those personal attacks.
But you're right, Chris, and I owe an apology for having to maintain that necessary misdirection for that period of time, in order for that argument to work.
But look, I'm here now to talk about, and I've been out there talking with us four months
CUOMO: Why not come out when you wrote the book and avoid the idea of a mysterious money grab?
TAYLOR: Yes, no, I think it's a really good point, but I want to start on the point of money grab. To be clear, this was never about eminence. Right? That's why it was written without attribution. It was never about money. That's why I pledged the proceeds of the book, almost entirely, to charity.
And it wasn't about a score settling tell-all memoir, which I've grown sick of in Washington D.C. It's a character study of one man, the president of the United States.
And it wasn't me throwing other colleagues under the bus. The point was to focus on him and his record. And if you go back in time, Chris, our founding fathers did this. When they wrote the Federalist Papers to defend the passage of the Constitution, did they do it in their own names? They did it under pseudonyms, and they did it for a reason, is that Madison and the other authors didn't want it to be about them and their personalities. They wanted the people to debate the ideas.
And I wrote this, Chris, because I wanted people to debate the ideas and Donald Trump's character and record. But again, I want to point out to you, I had no fear about putting my own name on the line here, and that's why I did it months ago. So people could come out and challenge me. They could pick apart my record. They could pick apart my stories.
CUOMO: But not as Anonymous. That's all I'm saying? You know, as Miles Taylor, you did. Right.
TAYLOR: Unquestionably, and now they can, and I welcome it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: The White House released a statement Wednesday saying, "This low-level, disgruntled former staffer is a liar and a coward who chosen anonymity over action and leaking over leaving. He was ineffective and incompetent during his time as Department of Homeland Security chief of staff." That's what they say.
Here's a segue. Up next, chipmunk, party of one. A tiny, teeny restaurant catering for a critter, proving anything is possible during this pandemic.
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VAUSE: Move over, water-skiing squirrel. Your time in the spotlight is over. There's a new road act in town. It's a chipmunk with his own tiny little restaurant with teeny-weenie little tacos. Here's Jeanne Moos.
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JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What's a food writer in Georgia to do when there are so few restaurants open to write about? She opened her own for a chipmunk.
ANGELA HANSBERGER, FOOD WRITER: Look at him. He's eating a taco.
MOOS: Teeny-tiny tacos made of crushed almonds.
HANSBERGER: He ate him with his little hands. You know, like --
MOOS: At a little picnic table that Angela Hansberger's uncle sent.
HANSBERGER: Put the little table on my porch, and I walked away to recycle all the cardboard, when I came back there was a little chipmunk just sitting at the table, like a person.
MOOS: She named the chipmunk after jazz great Thelonious Monk, though this is probably music chipmunks remind you of.
JASON LEE, ACTOR: Alvin.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): Christmas, Christmas time -- MOOS: Thelonious doesn't have to sing for his supper, supper that ranges from berries to sushi so small Angela used tweezers to pair a grain of rice with peaches.
She doesn't skimp on the decor.
HANSBERGER: Welcome to the ramen shop.
MOOS: Her husband used a plastic Easter egg to make a barbecue.
Pizza was served atop the wire cage that encloses a champagne cork. Thelonious Munk has gone camping, and eaten on white tablecloths. He's dined alongside an absentee ballot box and a skeleton.
But he'll never look that thin the way he's eating.
HANSBERGER: Most mornings, I come down now, and he's just sitting there waiting at the table for me. Like human, hello.
MOOS: Angela's cat loves watching the chipmunk.
HANSBERGER; He taps the window softly and makes really soft noises.
MOOS: Focusing on the little picture has made Angela less stressed about the big picture, of COVID and presidential politics.
HANSBERGER: It took away that sense of dread.
MOOS: If there's something Thelonious dreads eating, he drops it like a hot potato and has no shame about knocking over platters to get to his preferred dish. This is a rodent with larceny in his heart.
HANSBERGER: he picked up the bowl, and he drank all of the soupy roman. And then he spilled the bowel.
MOOS: And that cute little goblet.
HANSBERGER: He shoved it in this cheek and took it away.
MOOS: With his ever-present buffet, Thelonious must be thinking every day --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the greatest day of my life.
MOOS: Jeanne Moos, CNN --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): Yahoo, yahoo!
MOOS: -- New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Lord help us.
I'm John Vause. I will be back with more CNN NEWSROOM in about 15 minutes. In the meantime, stay with us. WORLD SPORT is next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
