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U.S. Presidential Election Coming Down to the Wire; Trump Scrambling for Votes in State He Won in 2016; Biden Meets Virtually with Health Experts in Delaware Event; New CNN National Poll Shows Biden Leads Trump 54 Percent to 42 Percent; Trump Holds Potential Super-Spreader Rallies as COVID-19 Surges. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired October 29, 2020 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to you, our viewers joining us here in the United States, Canada, and all around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber, and you're watching CNN NEWSROOM.

Just ahead, five days left to vote in the U.S. as both presidential candidates crisscross the country with their closing arguments, focused almost exclusively on the worsening COVID-19 pandemic.

And that crisis getting so bad in Europe that France and Germany are going back under coronavirus lock downs.

Then, severe weather striking this hour. Tropical storm Zeta rips across the U.S. southeast after battering Louisiana as a category 2 hurricane. We'll have the latest forecast and bring you the destruction.

The U.S. presidential election is coming down to the wire. Just five days remain before millions upon millions of votes must be counted, including mountains of mail-in ballots.

Joe Biden is spending the final week of the campaign at low key events with mask wearing and social distancing audiences. His message, the need to unify the country and halt the spread of the coronavirus.

Now, contrast that with Donald Trump. He continues to downplay the pandemic, holding large, crowded rallies that health experts warn are potential super spreaders.

Biden has two events on Thursday in the battleground state of Florida. President Trump and Vice President Pence will hold rallies in Florida, North Carolina, Iowa and Nevada.

A large number of Americans have obviously already made up their minds since early voting began, well over 75 million ballots have been cast. Now that could signal one of the highest turnouts in recent U.S. history when the dust finally settles after November 3rd. The electoral map currently doesn't favor President Trump so he's campaigning hard in places he admits he wouldn't otherwise go. CNN's Jim Acosta has the latest. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Down in the polls and fighting the hang to on Arizona a traditional GOP stronghold he won four years ago, President Trump is sounding more desperate, escalating his attacks on wearing masks.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: And in California you have a special mask. You cannot, under any circumstances, take it off. You have to eat through the mask. It's a -- right? Right, Charlie? It's a very complex mechanism. And they don't realize those germs they go through it like nothing.

ACOSTA: He has founded new conspiracy theory to ride to election day that the media are somehow going to stop covering the coronavirus after November 3rd.

TRUMP: On November 4th, you won't be hearing as much about this. It's going to be right now it's COVID, COVID, COVID.

ACOSTA: Part of an ugly closing message that Mr. Trump has adopted on the trail. It includes raising doubts about the plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

TRUMP: I mean, we'll have to see if it's a problem, right? People are entitled to say maybe it was a problem, maybe it wasn't.

ACOSTA: But the distractions aren't working as there are daily reminders that the administration bungled response to the coronavirus, including this press release from the White House office of Science and Technology that cited ending the COVID-19 pandemic as one of Mr. Trump's achievements.

ALYSSA FARAH, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: No, absolutely not. I think that was poorly worded. The intent was to say that it is our goal to end the virus.

ACOSTA: The administration's top health experts are contradicting the President like his false claim that new cases are soaring because of an increase in testing. Mr. Trump's testing czar said that's not true.

ADMIRAL BRETT GIROIR, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: We do believe and the data show that the cases are going up, it's not just a function of testing. Yes, we are getting more cases identified, but the cases are actually going up. And we know that too because hospitalizations are going up.

ACOSTA: And Dr. Anthony Fauci is knocking down the President's bogus claim that the U.S. is turning the corner in the pandemic.

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.

ACOSTA: The size of potential for a super spreader of his rallies, Mr. Trump had one other major health concern to deal when hundreds of his supporters were stranded in the cold after his rally in Nebraska with some needing medical attention. Democrat Joe Biden seized on that.

JOE BIDEN, U.S. DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hundreds of people including old Americans and children were stranded in sub-zero freezing temperatures for hours.

ACOSTA: Still, the President is complaining about being rained on at his rallies.

TRUMP: I probably wouldn't be standing out here in the freezing rain with you. I'd be home in the White House doing whatever the hell I was doing. I wouldn't be out here.

[04:05:00]

ACOSTA: There were still October surprise that are shaking up the race. The latest bombshell, Miles Taylor, an ex-top aide at the Department of Homeland Security has revealed himself as anonymous. The same former administration official who mysteriously penned an op-ed in "The New York Times" more than two years ago stating that he was among a group of aides attempting to act as a check on President Trump.

At the time he wrote, we believe our first duty is to this country. And the President continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.

Earlier this year the President claimed he already knew the identity of anonymous.

TRUMP: It's not so much concern. I know who it is. I can't tell you that.

ACOSTA (on camera): And as this pandemic goes worse by the day, investors are getting nervous on Wall Street. The Dow Jones drops some 943 points, part of what's driving those jitters on Wall Street, investors are fearful of more lockdowns across the country.

Jim Acosta, CNN, traveling with the President in Goodyear, Arizona.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: Now Jim (INAUDIBLE) on the state of the economy and the volatility we're seeing this week in about half an hour.

Well, Joe Biden is projecting a very different image in these final days before the election. His public focus has been on fighting the virus and reminding voters who's to blame for the rising number of infections. We get the details from CNN's MJ Lee.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MJ LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Joe Biden is sticking to a consistent strategy in this final stretch of the 2020 election, and that is to go all in on the coronavirus pandemic. On Wednesday we saw the former Vice President spend the day in his home state of Delaware where he met again with public health officials in Wilmington. These experts telling Biden that they are worried about the spread of the virus, and what they see as a wave in cases across the country.

And Biden, again, seizing on this moment to go after President Trump and criticize him for his handling of this pandemic. He has mentioned recently, White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows saying that the U.S. cannot control this virus. Biden has always gone after President Trump for continuing to hold crowded campaign rallies.

And yesterday he also took issue with the White House science office saying that ending the pandemic is one of its top accomplishments. Biden coming out and saying this is an offensive thing for the Trump White House to say given how many deaths we have seen across the country. Here he is.

BIDEN: At the very moment when infection rates are going up in almost every state in our union, refusal of the Trump administration to recognize the reality we're living through. At a time when almost a thousand Americans a day are dying every single day. It's an insult to every single person suffering from COVID-19 and every family who's lost a loved one.

LEE: Biden also saying that if he does win next week, it is going to be very, very difficult for him to turn things around that this is not the kind of thing that is going to happen overnight, a very different tone from what we have been hearing from President Trump.

MJ Lee, CNN, Wilmington, Delaware.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: The U.S. Supreme Court just handed the Democratic Party big legal victories in North Carolina and Pennsylvania that could impact election results. In North Carolina, the court says the state can count ballots received up to nine days after the election, as long as the ballots are postmarked on November 3rd or earlier. The court rejected a bid by Donald Trump's campaign and the Republican Party to narrow that window of time.

And in Pennsylvania, the high court declined for now to take another look at State Supreme Court decision that Republicans wanted to change. The court is leaving intact a ruling that allows the counting of ballots received up to three days after the election, even if there's no legible postmark.

Now the newly sworn in Justice Amy Coney Barrett took no part in the decisions because she had no time to study the briefs. CNN's election law expert is offering advice as you consider your voting options. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK HASEN, CNN ELECTION LAW ANALYST: The advice is don't mail your ballot if you're in Pennsylvania or North Carolina. Your best bet is drop box, official place to bring it back, or vote in person on election day.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: So that's your advice? What do you say if you live in Pennsylvania, do what?

HASEN: Well, I say this about everywhere in the country right now, if you have an absentee ballot, you should either put it in an official government drop box if you're allowed, return it to an official government office if you're allowed or vote early or in person or on election day in person. I would not trust the U.S. mail at this point, and that's probably the most important thing I can tell everyone who's watching right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: All right, very good advice. And with just five days until the election, we are tracking the path to 270 electoral college volt votes. The crucial number, of course, needed to win the White House.

[04:10:00]

Right now, CNN's polling suggests Joe Biden will capture, 290 electoral votes, and a new national CNN poll shows Biden leading Mr. Trump 54 percent to 42 percent among likely voters. CNN's John King takes a closer look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Five days out, normally the time to say stop paying attention to the national polls. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote last time. But we pick presidents state by state, electoral college. So why pay attention to the national polls? Well, normally that's a good guide. This is not a normal election. Look at the choice for President right now.

Hillary Clinton was up about 4 points at this point in 2016. She did win but it narrowed on election day and Donald Trump won the electoral college. Joe Biden is up 12 points. A 12 point national lead sets the table for a potential blue wave. A 12 point national lead that has been relatively steady. If you go back to April it's 13. A couple of dips, but 12 points. A 12 point national lead. That's a national poll worth paying attention to.

Can Donald Trump get momentum? Yes, but time is running short. So, you look into the bones of the poll, what is happening here. One is on personal characteristics. Donald Trump is Hunter Biden, career politician, stays in his basement, won't have big rallies and events. He has tried to attack Joe Biden anyway he can.

Fifty-five percent of likely voters have a favorable opinion of the Democratic nominee, only 41 percent have the same favorable opinion of the incumbent President of the United States, on questions of personal characteristics, honesty, integrity, character, trust worthiness, Joe Biden is winning the race, and that matters.

So, if you're the President and you can't beat Joe Biden on character, personal characteristics, then you better beat him on policy. Well, look at this report card. In our new national poll, the President has an edge on the economy but just a very slight edge. And look, coronavirus, the biggest issue facing the country, crime and justice, health care, race relations, Supreme Court picks, Joe Biden beats the President on every one of these issues and is essentially in a tie, a slight deficit on the economy.

When voters say what do I want in a next president, clearly when it comes to these issues, they want Joe Biden. So, we look every day for any evidence of momentum. Right? Every evidence at all for Trump momentum.

New polls out of Georgia today, the state has not gone Democrat for president since Bill Clinton in 1992. Joe Biden still has an edge in Georgia. You look at new polls in Michigan and Wisconsin today. They were red in 2016 and we have them right now leaning blue in 2020, why? Because Joe Biden has a lead in the polls and Donald Trump has issues on the biggest issue facing the country, the coronavirus.

Underwater, only 42 percent of likely voters in Michigan approve of the President's handling of the biggest issue in the country. Only 39 percent of voters say that in Wisconsin. He's running against Joe Biden but with the spike of coronavirus cases around the country, Donald Trump's opponent is the virus as well, and at this moment, he's losing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: Let's bring in CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein who's in Los Angeles. Ron, thanks for coming on. I just want to start with Jared Kushner's comments to Bob Woodward in April that Trump's now back in charge and that he was getting the country back from the doctors. So, if Donald Trump loses the election, was that the fatal mistake?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think that confirmed the result. You know, it's striking that if you go back to the polling averages last October, they were basically, the same. I mean, Donald Trump was losing to Joe Biden by about 8 points in October and November and December, even before this happened. He had alienated so many of the white collar voters who were doing well in the economy with his behavior, and the way he's conducted himself as President that he kind of put himself in this deep hole.

But certainly, the coronavirus confirmed that, and it added a new problem that wasn't really present until the virus, which is an erosion among seniors who had voted Republican in every presidential race since 2000 in the U.S. So, obviously the President's decision to ignore this, to basically say that he wanted to assert normalcy at all times regardless of what was actually happening, regardless of what it meant for public health, I think that kind of created a huge head wind for him. I don't think it set the basic parameters of the race.

BRUNHUBER: All right, so you mentioned the polls, looking at our poll of polls, they consistently show Biden up in Michigan, Wisconsin, to a lesser extent Pennsylvania, do you think Biden has a chance of rebuilding that blue wall as far as the Great Lakes states are concerned? You know, what are we seeing there. Is it just as simple as Trump, you know, hasn't delivered on jobs and the economy as he kind of promised? Or is it the Democrats putting up a candidate in Biden who resonates more with the voters there because of his, you know, blue collar backgrounding and maybe his gender.

BROWNSTEIN: I think it's more of the latter. By the way, I posted today on Twitter my original story from 2009 that coined the phrase the blue wall.

BRUNHUBER: I saw that, Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: Although, the blue wall -- essentially some of the blue wall in the three states that Trump is watching, of course, was the 18 states that voted Democratic in every presidential race in 92 to 2012. Trump dislodged, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by a combined total of 77,000 votes.

[04:15:00]

I think it's partially economy, but I really do think it's much more the way he has behaved as President. And also, the effort, interestingly to repeal the Affordable Care Act. I mean, if you look at those states, at those three states, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and for that matter, Iowa, Ohio, Minnesota, there's extraordinary unanimity in the polls across all six of those states. I mean, Biden is winning in all of them. Roughly 55 percent or more of college educated white voters, which would be the best performance for a Democratic ever.

In the states, in that group, which is Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio that have a large African-American population, Wisconsin a lesser, he's winning about 80 to 85 percent of them, and they're perhaps most critically of all, and consistently across those states, he's winning about 40 percent of those whites without a college degree.

Now, that doesn't sound like a lot, but Hillary Clinton was stuck at 35 percent or below among them in all of those states and Biden is improving just enough among those voters to put him in the driver's seat in those critical states. And I do think it is what you say. I mean, he is culturally more compatible him. Some of the seniors are moving away, the older blue collar whites are moving away from Trump over the coronavirus.

And then there are the blue collar white women who simply don't want to have to explain to their kids why they can't tell a classmate to go back where they came from or some of the other things that Trump has said.

So, I would say that Joe Biden is doing the job he was hired to do which is win back just enough blue collar whites in the Rust Belt to give the Democrats a chance to recapture those states and putting them back on the blue wall.

BRUNHUBER: Stay with CNN for special coverage of election night in America, starting Tuesday at 4:00 in the afternoon, Eastern time. That's 9:00 p.m. in London, and 1:00 a.m. Wednesday in Abu Dhabi.

All right, still to come. President Trump is repeatedly telling voters that all is fine and that the U.S. is rounding the corner on the pandemic, but the data is telling the exact opposite story. Stay with us.

[04:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRUNHUBER: Five days now to election day in the U.S., and the shadow of coronavirus hangs over the race. The U.S. President is continuing to hold potential super spreader campaign events. He's telling voters that the United States is rounding the corner on coronavirus, but the data shows a completely different story. The vast majority of states are seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases. CNN's Nick Watt has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: We're rounding the curve. We're rounding the corner. It's happening.

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What actually happened in Wisconsin where the President said those words, more people were killed by COVID-19 in a single day than ever before and record numbers in the hospital.

Dr. NASIA SAFDAR, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, INFECTION CONTROL, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN: If the trajectory continues the way it is now, it's almost certain that we will find ourselves in a place where we will have to decide who gets the care.

WATT: Staff shortages, forecast and fear.

GOV. TONY EVERS (D) WISCONSIN: There is no way to sugar coat it. We are facing an urgent crisis and there is an imminent risk to you, your family members ...

WATT: Right now, 40 states are seeing their average daily case counts rise. Nationwide, we just added more than a half million new cases in a week. The President still says it's just more testing. His own testing czar, once again, says he's wrong.

ADMIRAL BRETT GIROIR, U.S. ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH: We do assess that the cases are actually going up. They're real because hospitalizations and deaths are starting to go up.

WATT: The average daily death toll just topped 800 for the first time in more than a month.

DR. JOHNATHAN REINER, PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: If we continue our current behavior, you know, by the time we start to go down the other side of the curve, a half a million people will be dead.

WATT: Reintroducing restrictions now a very real possibility many places.

GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D) NEW JERSEY: Now it's pretty much up and down the state. I continue to think it is more likely scalpel community- focused, surging of capacities and enforcement, but we have to leave all options on the table.

WATT: Record COVID-19 hospitalizations now in 13 states, Ohio among them.

GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R) OHIO: The current increase in utilization is noticeably sharper, steeper than the increase we saw during the summer peak.

WATT: This is life, but not as we knew it.

FAUCI: 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.

WATT: This baseball season was very far from normality.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dodgers have won it all.

WATT: For the Dodgers, a 32-year wait for a world series is over, but COVID-tinged. Their third baseman Justin Turner is celebrating postgame. In the seventh inning, the team learned he tested positive.

ANDREW FRIEDMAN, PRESIDENT OF BASEBALL OPERATIONS, LOS ANGELES DODGERS: Incredibly unfortunate but, you know, kind of speaks to, you know, what all of us are going through in 2020.

WATT (on camera): One of the big open questions is, how long might immunity last after infection? Some potentially worrying news out of South Dakota where officials say they have identified 28 people as possible reinfections. So, they tested positive and then they tested positive again within a 90 day period. They are still investigating.

Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: CNN medical analyst, Dr. Esther Choo joins me now from Seattle. She is a professor of emergency medicine at the Oregon Health and Science University, thanks for being with us today. Talk about the U.S. here, an average of 70,000 new cases, the death rate going up. Already some hospitals issuing warnings that there nearing capacity. We heard Walmart's CEO among others reporting that we're starting to see people stockpiling. Are we here in the U.S. well on our way back to the bad old days?

DR. ESTHER CHOO, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I think we are. This is all starting to feel grimly familiar. Unfortunately, familiar and even worse.

[04:25:00] As you know, we are starting to surpass our former highest peak rates in July. And yet we're not seeing people curb their behaviors at all. So, we're kind of back where we were, and yet people are tired of being asked to, you know, to stay home and to not socialize in big groups. So, I'm just seeing a lot of fatigue around behavior change. And it just feels like headed into the winter months where we're all forced inside at close quarters, it's going to be very tough to make our way through this peak.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, that's what I wanted to ask. I mean, you know, here some top health officials have openly contemplated a national mask mandate. But when you see countries like, you know, French which had a national mandate, even fines now dealing with a hundred thousand cases daily, going back into lock down. Because the President says other measures haven't worked. Seeing that, is it effectively too late for the U.S.? I mean, it's never, you know, too late to act. But have we already gone too far to stem the problem with masks and social distancing alone, will we need more, you know, drastic measures?

CHOO: I mean, assuming drastic measures are on the table, at the same time, there are simple things we haven't done. I mean, we haven't yet had an administration that's had a consistent steady and strong message around masks. So, something simple like that coming from the very top still is, you know, still gives us potential to move.

And I also think on a state by state level, communities can really decide that this is going to be something that they all socially enforce. So, I hate to say that it's too late. I think there's a lot of potential for change. Hopefully the numbers as they translate from cases to hospitalizations to deaths will make people really stop and think and recommit themselves to this effort.

BRUNHUBER: As if things weren't dire enough, the FBI and two federal agencies warned they have credible information that cyber criminals are planning a wave of extortion attempts which could cripple hospital information systems, a couple of hospitals already have been hit. And if it were more widespread, obviously, you know, it would be disastrous given the spike in coronavirus cases, how worried should we be about this?

CHOO: Yes, hopefully, that will not become a widespread thing, but you know, our information systems are so critical to our response in states like Oregon. The way that we coordinate statewide is through, you know, is through our IT infrastructure, so it could really put a dent in how well we're able to respond quickly to the needs related to the pandemic.

At the same time, I will say, hospitals have a lot of contingency plans for things like, you know, shutdowns. We do routine maintenance shutdowns. We have backup systems in place. That go to good old pen and paper. So, we wouldn't be completely debilitated.

BRUNHUBER: Thank you so much for being with us. Dr. Esther Choo in Seattle. Appreciate it.

CHOO: Thank you. BRUNHUBER: Jared Kushner brags about President Trump taking the U.S.

back from the doctors, and we'll hear from journalist Bob Woodward about Kushner's comments on Trump's political scheme to take credit for stopping the virus. Stay with us for that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)