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Record New Daily Infection in U.S. as Election Day Nears; Biden, Trump Hold Starkly Different Events in Florida; Path to Victory Limited for Trump If He Loses Florida; Biden Leads Trump in Most Polls Including Many Key States; One-Third of U.S. Voters Have Already Cast Ballots. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired October 30, 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]
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM, and I'm Michael Holmes.
Coming up here on the program, the U.S. posting recording record coronavirus cases in the final days leading up to the presidential election. As Donald Trump still insists the country has turned that corner. He and Joe Biden both campaigning in Florida on the same day in the critical swing state that is almost a must win for the President.
And then a little later.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Single voter in Wisconsin has a bigger say about the future of humanity than almost anyone who's ever lived.
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HOLMES: Hard to overstate the importance of this vote. We'll take you to a battleground Wisconsin organizing COVID testing and early voting in an election unlike any other.
The United States approaching election day 2020 under the shadow of an escalating health crisis, with only four days to go before November the 3rd. The U.S. on Thursday reporting a record number of new COVID infections, more than 88,000 according to Johns Hopkins. This as the U.S. nears a staggering 9 million total cases.
But on the same day, the country hit that record, President Donald Trump appeared before a packed and largely mask-less crowd in Florida. Democrat Joe Biden was also making his case to Florida voters accusing Mr. Trump of surrendering to the virus.
Their campaign events like their messages, starkly different. Biden in a mask at a drive-in rally, versus mask-less Trump amid a dense crowd.
But the choice is already made for more than a third of all registered voters. Just over 81 million ballots have already been cast.
Now, only 250 people will be allowed into a Trump rally in Minnesota on Friday, not because of pandemic safety, according to the campaign. Their statement blames Minnesota's, quote, free speech stifling dictates. There were no such restrictions in Florida, of course. Our Ryan Nobles is there with the latest from the campaign trail.
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RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Florida, President Trump facing a battleground on two fronts.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm thrilled to be here in my, our home state, Florida.
NOBLES: Florida is a pivotal swing state, where polls show a neck-and- neck race and 29 electoral votes up for grabs.
TRUMP: When we win, Florida wins, and America wins. It's very simple.
NOBLES: And a state where coronavirus cases are surging, with both federal and state government leaders giving mixed messages on how to handle the virus.
MARK MEADOWS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: As we try to make sure that we come into contact with other people, making sure that we socially distance as much as possible, wearing those masks when we can. We strongly encourage that.
NOBLES: White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows continuing to encourage Americans to wear masks and social distance.
But, at the same time, the Trump team continues to ignore the threat posed by the campaign's massive rallies, with no attempt to social distance and few people wearing masks. Sending Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany out in a campaign capacity to tout the White House response to the virus.
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: You can vote on Joe Biden, where you will be locked down, your schools will be closed, your churches will be closed, you won't have social gatherings. It will be a lockdown, versus President Trump, where we are safely reopening this country.
NOBLES: Meanwhile, the President himself, seemingly ignoring the rising case count, is still downplaying the threat and blaming the media and Democrats for hyping the reality of more than 200,000 Americans who have died.
TRUMP: It would have been two million lives. It's incredible, the job that we've done and that the American people have done.
NOBLES: But it is Florida where top COVID adviser Dr. Scott Atlas was pushing Governor Ron DeSantis to slow down testing as cases surged here.
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Governor DeSantis recently lifted all statewide restrictions related to coronavirus, this as President Trump continues to promise a new vaccine will be ready soon.
TRUMP: A safe vaccine is coming very quickly. You're going to have it momentarily that eradicates the virus. And we're rounding the turn regardless.
NOBLES: But the President's optimism is not shared by many experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has a dim view of the country's effort to contain the virus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where are we, Tony?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Howard, we are not in a good place.
NOBLES (on camera): And despite the fact the President touted his administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic and said that the country is rounding the corner, the stark reality of the virus and its spread through Florida could be seen just a few feet away from where the President was standing. On this same campus home to the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers is a drive-in COVID testing site. And the state of Florida for the third day in a row, the state recorded 4,000 new cases of the coronavirus.
Ryan Nobles, CNN, Tampa, Florida.
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HOLMES: Joe Biden is taking his socially distanced campaign through three states on Friday after he made his closing arguments in Florida where he hopes to cut off Mr. Trump's path to 270 electoral college votes. Jessica Dean is following the Vice President.
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JESSICA DEAN, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Former Vice President Joe Biden travelled here to the critical battle ground state of Florida on Thursday for two events. One in Broward County, the other in Tampa where we heard him give his closing arguments to Floridians. He talked about the coronavirus pandemic, slamming President Trump's handling of it and making the case that Americans would be better off if Joe Biden were in office. Saying he has a plan and he's ready to act on it. He also talked about health care, being on the ballot, and how important it is to protect the Affordable Care Act and preexisting conditions coverage for millions of Americans.
Now, Joe Biden doesn't have to win Florida to get to that critical 270 electoral votes, but if he did, it would be an incredible show of strength for the Biden campaign, and could put this contest to an early end on election night. Here's the former Vice President.
JOE BIDEN, U.S. DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: This election is the most important one you've ever voted in, whether it's your first or tenth. Ladies and gentlemen, the heart and soul of this country is at stake right here in Florida. It's up to you. You hold the key. If Florida goes blue, it's over, it's over.
DEAN: On Friday, we'll see Biden going to more states than we've seen him travel in recent memory. He'll be hitting Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, all on Friday as the election grows closer. Back to you.
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HOLMES: Now thanks there to Jessica Dean. Now whoever wins Florida gets 29 of those precious electoral votes. Only California and Texas have more than Florida. Phil Mattingly explains why winning Florida is so important for Mr. Trump's reelection bid.
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PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: For President Trump, there's no question about it, he can win without Florida, but it would be extremely, extremely difficult. Let's just look at this map as it stands right now.
The gold states are toss ups. As it stands, Joe Biden is already above 270 electoral votes in the current race ratings. Now say you gave Joe Biden the state of Florida, that puts him at 319. And let's walk through what President Trump could win and still not reach 270. He could win Georgia. He could win North Carolina. He could win Ohio. He could win Iowa. He could win the second district in Maine up here, for that one electoral vote.
And then he could start digging into Democrat territory. He could win Nevada. He could go ahead and win Arizona too. In fact, he could win the state of Pennsylvania, and look at this, Joe Biden is still above 270 electoral votes. Are there pathways or is there a pathway that President Trump can win 270 electoral votes without Florida. Yes. Is it likely? I think both campaigns would acknowledge if they're being candid, the answer is no.
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HOLMES: Natasha Lindstaedt teaches government at the University of Essex in England. Good to see you, appreciate your time. We were just saying the importance of Florida and that state, of course, has the added factor of the Governor Ron DeSanctis being an ardent Trump supporter, opening the state early, curbing testing criteria, and yet the cases still rising. Given that, I'm curious what you think about the seniors who voted for Trump in 2016, might they be angered enough by his pandemic response that they might switch?
NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: Well, that's actually what we're seeing. It was the senior vote that helped really Trump in 2016 to win over Florida, and he actually didn't do as well with Hispanic voters.
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But things have really turned around now. Seniors are souring on his COVID-19 management and his policies that they don't believe he's going to be able to get the U.S. out of this crisis. And they're really concerned with the way that he is so dismissive of the virus.
In contrast, you're seeing Hispanic voters have really switched and are more supportive of him in the state of Florida at least. So, this is one of these states that's going to be incredibly close. It's going to be probably down to 1 percent. We know last time it was down to about 100,000 voters, and we're really not going to know until the very end. But if Florida goes to Biden, it really is over for Trump.
HOLMES: Yes, it's hard to look at the political map and see otherwise. There are those other key states, though, Florida, we've mentioned. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, which you could call the usual suspects. But some surprising ones perhaps in play. I'm talking about here in Georgia, Arizona, even incredibly perhaps Texas. What's your read on the polling, bearing in mind Democrats and others are very conscious they got burned in 2016 by polls?
LINDSTAEDT: I think the Democrats are really worried about being overconfident because of what you mentioned in 2016. But there are a lot of states at play here. They're hoping that they're going to take Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. They're ahead in the polls there. Of course, they need to take also Nevada. But they could, as you mentioned, take Arizona. They could take Iowa. They could take Georgia, even Texas is really close, which is really a big surprise for the Democrats. But remember in the 2018 election, Beto O'Rourke came pretty close in his run against Ted Cruz.
So, things could be really good for the Democrats. It could be a huge blow out if everything goes Biden's way. And when we're talking about Trump, everything literally has to go his way. I mean, that's what happened in 2016. Everything went for him. And that's what's going to happen this time. Because not only is he behind in the polls but he's behind by bigger margins than he was in 2016.
And we also know that a lot of undecided voters at the very last minute, possibly because Comey announced that he was investigating Hillary Clinton's e-mails, they decided to vote for Trump in the end. We know over 50 million people have already voted.
HOLMES: Yes, that's exactly right. By this point in the campaign in 2016, Hillary Clinton's support was plummeting. Biden's is not. The other thing that's changed is Biden is winning college educated whites. He's doing way better than Hillary Clinton than noncollege educated white, and of course, has cleaned up massive numbers of suburban women who Trump had last time. I think Biden is 61 to 37 percent with women which is incredible. There're more younger voters this time, racial demographics have changed. How do you think that all of those factors play in? It's not 2016, is what I'm saying.
LINDSTAEDT: Right, you know, I think they're all important, but particularly women. This is a group Trump is doing terribly with. And if we compare it to 2016, Clinton only won 53-54 percent of the women's vote. Which was surprising to some because many thought that she would get more support from women. But we're seeing over the last four years, women have really soured on
Trump's policies. Whether it be just his misogynistic rhetoric, for his immigration policies or just the way he comports himself. He doesn't have much support from women. In fact, he was even begging women, particularly suburban women, why don't you like me. But this is the group that Biden has really gained a lot of support from, and it might be the group that really puts Trump out of office.
HOLMES: Natasha Lindstaedt speak to me a little earlier.
Now voter suppression remains a concern in this election, even as the millions of ballots are being cast. And as Americans make their voices heard, the courts are making their presence felt. A federal appeals court in Minnesota vastly shortening the deadline for voters to file their mailed-in election ballots. Under the ruling voters must now get mail ballots to state officials by 8 p.m. on voting day, November 3rd or three in the afternoon at drop box locations. Late mailed ballots will then be segregated. The court could consider later whether to count them or just throw them out. Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar told our Chris Cuomo what voters should do.
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SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): The 8th circuit said nope, even though you've been told this for months, even though your ballots that you got say that they can be postmarked by election day, they actually have to be received by election day. So, here's our problem, Chris, there's over 500,000 ballots in people's hands. The ones that have been mailed in by now, are probably just fine. Right? But I'm concerned about --
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: I don't know, depends on when they were mailed in and how the service is.
KLOBUCHAR OK. Service little better than average in Minnesota, but let's just -- let's just look at what I really can do something about right now.
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And that is to ask the people in Minnesota, who's got those over 500,000 ballots, and that's over 500,000 people, no matter where they are right now, that they not mail them in, in the morning. They're going to think they can. They're going to think they can do it right up to Election Day. But under this court ruling, right now, they can't. So, what they should do is take their mail-in ballot to a drop- off box or go vote themselves.
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HOLMES: Now until this ruling, voters had up to a week after polling date to file their ballots. Minnesota Secretary of State says he still doesn't know if the ruling can be appealed.
All right, we're going to take a quick break. New cases of coronavirus skyrocketing across the U.S. Just ahead, a chilling new warning from health experts about where the virus could be headed in the months to come. We'll be right back.
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HOLMES: Welcome back. Health experts are warning Americans to take more coronavirus precautions in the coming months, otherwise the daily death toll could triple by mid-January.
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A new COVID-19 model is projecting nearly 400,000 deaths from the virus could be possible by the beginning of February. CNN's Brian Todd with more.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Top health officials are issuing ominous warnings to Americans. The country is getting sicker. And a month from now, the top voice on the pandemic told CNBC, America will be in an even darker place.
FAUCI: If they continue on the course we're on, there's going to be a whole lot of pain in this country with regard to additional cases and hospitalizations and deaths. We are on a very difficult trajectory.
TODD: Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb says America is in the hardest part of the pandemic right now, that the U.S. will probably climb past 100,000 infections per day within the next couple of weeks. And he's warning Americans to avoid potentially dangerous family gatherings at Thanksgiving.
DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: I would tell people to be very prudent around Thanksgiving. If you want to come together, take precautions, you know, be mindful of bringing older people in contact with younger people who might be asymptomatic spreaders. You know, you just need to be careful if you're going to come together. We're not going to be this year,
TODD: Wisconsin now reporting a seven-day average positivity rate that's astronomical. Out of all the people tested for coronavirus on a given day in Wisconsin, nearly 30 percent were positive, 86 percent of hospital beds in Wisconsin are taken.
MAYOR TOM BARRETT (D), MILWAUKEE: ICU capacities are getting near capacity in the state of Wisconsin. The situation is dire. So, it's a very serious situation in Wisconsin right now.
TODD: Wisconsin is one of 13 states reporting record high hospitalizations, and it's in one of the regions Dr. Anthony Fauci is most worried about when he talks about the hospital crisis in America brought on by this virus.
FAUCI: There are some places in the heartland and in the northwest that never had the kind of hospital and intensive care facility and flexibility that some of the larger hospitals in larger cities like New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Philadelphia and others.
TODD: And one expert says, with hospitals overwhelmed with coronavirus patients, there will be a deadly cascading effect.
MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: If it's overwhelmed because of a single disease, it means that there are also many other diseases for which we do need immediate care like heart attacks, strokes, and so forth that are going to get short shrift. And so, we're going to have an increase in deaths in this country due to other causes.
TODD: And this disease just keeps getting more devastating. New cases are averaging 74,000 per day. Ohio just recorded its highest daily case count with more than 3,500 positives in one day.
GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R), OHIO: Virus is raging throughout the state of Ohio. There's no place to hide.
TODD (on camera): And Dr. Anthony Fauci has said again that he thinks it's time for a national mandate for all Americans to wear masks in public. Dr. Fauci had previously been reluctant to call for that, and in recently days he even said that he didn't think that kind of mandate would ever happen. But he also now says that this is, quote, an untenable situation.
Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
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ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR: So, for more now on all of this, I want to bring in Dr. Peter Drobac, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Oxford. Peter, good to see you again. So, you just heard Melissa there live in Paris. I know you're there in the U.K. These numbers are ticking up dangerously across the continent. What do you attribute it to? Melissa was suggesting it's cold.
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HOLMES: Well the lead back there -- wrong tape.
A new medical study is highlighting the risk of COVID-19 infection in grocery store workers. The paper in "Occupational and Environmental Medicine" found that a fifth of workers in a Boston store tested positive for coronavirus. Now that rate was around 20 times higher than the surrounding general public. Staff who interacted with customers were five times as likely to test positive than behind the scenes colleagues. 76 percent of those who tested positive had no symptoms. The study authors say that of course makes them a significant transmission risk.
Now, for decades, Texas has been reliably Republican in U.S. elections. Just ahead, we'll find out why Democrats see a chance to capture the elusive state. We'll be right back.
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HOLMES: With just four days to go before election day in the U.S., the nation on Thursday reported the highest number of daily coronavirus cases since the pandemic began -- more than 88,000.
Both Presidential Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden were in the crucial state of Florida on Thursday. But their events, like their messages, very different. Masks and social distancing mark Biden's event. Those at Donald Trump's rally, as usual largely ignoring the scientific guidance.
Now with tens of millions of voters, any U.S. election is a logistical challenge, of course, if not a nightmare. But this time, even more so, with so many people mailing in their ballots. CNN's Pamela Brown reports.
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PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): More than a third of America's registered voters have already cast their ballots.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's more a sense of security when we vote in- person.
BROWN: Twenty-eight states have received more than 50 percent of total ballots cast in 2016. And Florida were more than 7 million people have voted, the Democrats big early turnout lead has narrowed to just over 200,000.
The Texas turnout is already massive, with more than 8 million votes cast so far. Early voting there is on track to eclipse its entire 2016 vote total.
REP. SYLVIA GARCIA (D-TX): We want to make as easy as it can be to make it accessible. So, this location is open 24 hours.
BROWN: There are also new legal battles over whether late arriving mail-in votes will be counted. In two key states, the U.S. Supreme Court has weighed in.
North Carolina can count ballots up to nine days after the election, if they are clearly postmarked by November 3rd. In Pennsylvania, the decision is trickier, allowing ballots received by November 6th to be counted for now, but the court made clear, they could be disputed later. Pennsylvania officials announcing they will securely segregate votes by setting aside ballots that arrived after Election Day, setting up a potential nightmare of legal battle if late arrival ballots end up being enough to swing the election.
KATHY BOOCKVAR, PENNSYLVANIA SECRETARY OF STATE: I know there is confusion about flying court decisions. Make a plan today to vote. Right.
