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Inside Politics

U.S. Has Averaged 1,000-Plus Deaths For 20 Straight Days; Virtual Democratic Convention Kicks Off Tomorrow; Poll: 45 Percent Of Voters Plan To Cast Mail-In Ballot This Year; How Doctors Decide Whether To Send Their Kids To School; Harris Former Job As Prosecutor Again Comes Under Scrutiny. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired August 16, 2020 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:35]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN HOST (voice-over): The coronavirus case count is stubbornly high, testing still a problem.

DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, CDC DIRECTOR: This could be the worst fall from a public health perspective we've ever had.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Bottom line is, I'm not pleased with how things are going.

KING: Plus, the president says it out loud. He's making it harder for you to vote.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Post Office is not equipped for it. It is going to be a disaster.

KING: And it's convention week for Democrats.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Kamala is smart, she's tough, she's experienced.

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), PRESUMPTIVE VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The case against Donald Trump and Mike Pence is open and shut.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King in Washington.

To our viewers in the United States and around the world, thank you for sharing your Sunday.

The Democrats hold their virtual convention this week to officially nominate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and launch us into the 2020 campaign stretch. Election Day is 11 weeks from Tuesday, but to say that, or to say in 79 days to be exact gives a false sense that there's still plenty time to tune out the sometimes annoying noise that comes with politics. The urgency is now, especially if you plan to vote by mail. The

president of the United States said this past week he opposes more money for the Post Office, money the Post Office needs because interest in mail-in voting is way up because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Then the Postal Service now run by a campaign donor warned states it might not process and deliver ballots on time for them to be counted.

A voice from another time, meaning the Republican Party before the Trump takeover would seem quite plain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): I heard some people say they think the reason the president doesn't want people to vote by mail is that polls show that people who want to vote by mail tend to vote for president -- or Vice President Biden, people who tend to want to vote in person tend to vote for President Trump and so this is a political calculation.

But my own view is we want people to vote. It is essential in my view for a nation which is the leading nation of democratic nations in the world, the leader of the free world, for us to show that elections can be held in a free and fair manner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: In other words, essential to show this is the United States of America, not Belarus.

Now the president and his supporters are quick to say Romney, the GOP's presidential nominee just eight years ago isn't a real Republican. Senator Romney isn't a Trump Republican, that's for sure, and like all of us, he is far from perfect.

But he is someone who does his homework, who values data, and who gets why the president is so afraid of your vote.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: We have 5 percent of the world's population, but 25 percent of the world's deaths due to COVID-19. And there is no way to spin that in a positive light. From the outset, there was a tendency on the part of the administration to dismiss COVID-19 as a threat, not to consider how serious it could become, and there was not immediate action to, if you will, ring all the alarm bells.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That assessment from Senator Romney about the beginning and seven months in that threat he talked about remains very real.

Let's look for the latest. If you look at the 50-state trend map and bring it up on the wall here, 13 states trending up, that's heading up from the middle of the week, when it was just five or six. You could count them on one hand. Thirteen states heading up, 17 states, the bay states holding steady, 20 states in green heading down, steady, Florida and Texas, they were among the big drivers of the summer surge, heading back up, California, the biggest driver of the summer surge in terms of case count. This map better than a few weeks ago, in a somewhat static place.

If you look at the case curve, this is where you see the depth of the issue facing the United States of America. April, we thought that was a peak. Came down in June 1st to 17,000 cases averaging every day. Then the summer surge got up close to 80,000 on average at one point.

Right now, down in the 50s, in the 50s. But still stubbornly high, 53,000 cases a day on average in the United States of America, again, June 1st, 17,000, right now 53,000 plus. Why? The big states continue. Florida, up, maybe down a little bit, we hope it continues, still more than 5,000 cases a day, where it was the beginning of June, up here now.

Down here, California, again, June, steady climb, more than 10,000 cases every day from our most populous state of California.

Georgia and Texas -- again, Texas, here's where it was the beginning of June, up, a plateau and down some, that is good.

[08:05:06]

But still way above 5,000 and 10,000 a day, the state of Georgia, over 3,000 cases a day.

So, I'll come back to this map as I bring in Dr. Ashish Jha. He's the director of the Harvard Institute of Global Health.

Dr. Jha, thank you again for being with us on a Sunday. It is like a weekly status report. Yes, if you look at the curve, starting to come down some, some, but still 53,000 cases on average.

Where is the United States right now as more parents have to make a decision about back to school as the back to work debate continues?

DR. ASHISH JHA, DIRECTOR, HARVARD GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE: Good morning, John. Thank you for having me on.

I think you summarized it perfectly. We're off the peaks, things have gotten a little bit better, but it is still an enormous amount of disease burden across much of the South and West, and parts of the Middle West. And more than 1,000 Americans are continuing to die every day.

So even if we plateau with this level we're going to hit 200,000 deaths sometime in September. And this is an enormous amount of suffering, most which of is preventable.

KING: I want to look at that number here and bring it up, because, again, we talk about this as the United States of America. We look at other countries around the world and whatever your politics at home, spend your time, go to Johns Hopkins, go to Harvard, go to these websites, go to the ones you trust, go to all of them and compare and contrast.

A look at the data here, seven-day moving average, Dr. Jha, a thousand deaths, more than a thousand a day, traces back to the middle of July. We know this as sadly from our experience the last seven months it is a lagging indicator.

Is there any evidence this number, the death number, can be driven down until a better job is done to get that case count well below 50,000 plus a day?

JHA: So, I do expect the death numbers to come down in the next few weeks because cases have come down, I believe they have actually come down. It is hard to tell a little bit, John, because testing has also fallen by about 20 percent, 30 percent. And so, it is -- the picture is muddy.

But my best guess is the death count will come down some, even if it comes down to 800 deaths a day, that's 24,000 Americans dying every month. Again, what I worry about most is we're becoming immune to a level of suffering and death that we should not be, we should not accept this business as usual and yet, unfortunately, that's where we are.

KING: And so, one of the challenges you talked about repeatedly is testing. So if you look now at the percent positive, 18 states in the District of Columbia, those are the states in green, they're below 5 percent positivity, where you want to be, you would be like down by zero, but at least below 5 is progress.

But you see -- these gold states, the yellow states, their positivity rate between 6 percent and 10 percent. The red states, that's the danger zone, Florida among them, Texas among them, Arizona among them, more than 11 percent of the population, some of these places, about 15 percent, the tests come back positive.

So the virus is still spreading. If you look at the change, 34 states reporting, Dr. Jha, higher positivity rate, this week than last week. So, the case number down a bit now, still above 50,000. This map tells me hardly out of the woods, especially because as you noted, testing is down somewhat.

Testing is down somewhat if you look at this map here, weekly change in testing, 20 states increasing their testing, 17 states decreasing their testing, flying blind to some degree.

JHA: Yeah, and when percent positivity is high, above 5 percent, certainly above 10 percent, the key message for people at home is to understand that means that we're missing a vast majority of the cases out there. That, you know, I look at a place like Texas and think, maybe that test -- the case count that they're identifying every day is 20 percent, 30 percent of all the cases, that we're missing a vast majority. That's a huge problem and we should really be a New York or Massachusetts levels which are coming back at 1 percent or 2 percent or 3 percent. That's how you do it and that's not what's happening across large

parts of the country.

KING: You have repeatedly said there is not enough testing, the turnaround time is not fast enough, you said it so many times that you get the attention of Admiral Giroir, who is the country's testing czar right now. I want you to listen and then respond on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. BRETT GIROIR, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH, HHS: After Dr. Jha had been on TV so many times, he never once contacted the administration. I called him up. I said, look, if you have ideas of what we need to do or justify it, please tell me. Yes, we want to increase testing, there is no physical way to do 5 million tests per day in this country. If there is a way to turn it from 1 million to 5 million today, let me know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Your response, sir?

JHA: Yeah. So, look, this is not personal between me and Admiral Giroir. I think he's a good man trying to do the best he can within the context of an administration that has not wanted to use the full power of the federal government to make testing widely available. I was responding a little bit to the fact that he has been out there saying we have plenty of testing, we have enough testing, we don't need to be testing more folks.

[08:10:02]

Obviously, most public health experts disagree with that. And the idea that the federal government of the United States and the phenomenal scientific community in America cannot produce more diagnostic tests than what we have right now, when we spent $3 trillion on healthcare, to me defies logic. So, all of us have a whole series of ideas for Admiral Giroir and I think if he's willing to implement them, a bunch of us are more than willing to share them, we have written about them, I've talked about them on the show.

So, these are not secrets we're keeping from the administration. We're happy to engage with him at any point to lay out the ideas. But he's got to be willing to lead the administration towards delivering more testing for the American people.

KING: Let's hope that conversation opens up. And let's also hope this new saliva test helps as well. Dr. Jha, appreciate your expertise and insights and your calm and your candor which are important right here.

Ahead for us, more on the voting and Post Office crisis. But next, a convention like no other, and a ticket looking to make history.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Well, let's -- let's -- let's sit back and think about this: Joe Biden had the audacity to choose a black woman to be his running mate. How incredible is that and what a statement about Joe Biden?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:15:38]

KING: Democratic Convention opens tomorrow, a celebration planned for Milwaukee, now largely a virtual event, thanks to the coronavirus. This part will be familiar, a who's who of Democratic speakers including the Clintons, the Obamas and several major voices in this 2020 campaign.

Missing, though, is talk of major family feuds. President Trump is now the glue binding the different Democratic factions. In "The Washington Post", 2020 contender Pete Buttigieg put it this way. Four years ago, you could point to Donald Trump as the wolf at the gate but it was theoretical. Now, the wolf is through the gate, eating the chickens.

The convention -- colorfully put, right? The convention goal is a four-day prosecution of the case against four more years. And the president's handling of the coronavirus pandemic is the Democrats' exhibit A.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: When other countries are following the science, Trump pushed miracle cures he saw on Fox News. While other countries were flattening the curve, he said the virus would just poof, go away.

But there is a reason it has hit America worse than any other advanced nation. It's because of Trump's failure to take it seriously from the start.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With us this Sunday to share their reporting and their insights, Tarini Parti of "The Wall Street Journal", and Astead Herndon of "The New York Times."

Astead, I want to start with you. You're in the convention city. You mentioned before we came on the air, it's a ghost town there in Milwaukee, which is a shame. It's a great city. We're all looking forward to the convention there.

But as this convention begins, most of it will be online. The Democratic ticket, the newly minted ticket of Biden and Harris has an advantage. I want to put up our current map now. Joe Biden at the moment is either solid or leaning Democratic states 268. Very close to the 270 it takes to win the election.

If he can hold what he has now and then pick up, you look at the tossups there, you see the state of Michigan there, you see the state of North Carolina, you see Georgia, you see Florida, you see Arizona.

So, well within reach for the Democrats as they begin the convention, I mentioned Exhibit A is coronavirus. I assume Exhibit B and C, too.

What is the overriding goal for Democrats here? What must they do?

ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think they know they're heading in with a structural advantage that Biden is leading in polling and that there's a sense among Americans that there is a frustration particularly with the way this administration has handled that pandemic.

I think this week about holding those gains is about projecting unity and projecting a type of competence and decency that Biden wants to lead his electoral pitch with. As much less about the kind of ideological fights we saw in the primary, the moderates versus progressives, the kind of wings of the party are going at it. This is a moment for Democrats to say, all of that kind of electability fear was justified in placing that trust in Biden and what this administration will represent is a kind of clean slate for Americans.

I think you're going to hear that message from the AOC, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren wing of the party. I think you'll hear it from kind of Joe Biden and his allies. And you'll hear it from John Kasich, Mike Bloomberg, folks who are meant to appeal to the independent or swing voter.

It's all about coronavirus, it's all about Trump and it's all about saying, this is -- this is a Biden administration that can make government work.

KING: It is quite striking, Tarini, if you live through four years ago or even the Democratic primaries this year that most of the Democrats have decided let's get Joe Biden elected president, and then we'll fight over policy, then Bernie Sanders will get the Oval Office meeting and then Elizabeth Warren will raise the liberal issues or try to push more left, but not now.

That does seem to be an overriding theme. The question is, can they hold it together?

TARINI PARTI, NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Right. It is interesting that they haven't resolved the very big issues facing the Democratic Party. They're just putting it off and deciding that right now they're going to run against Trump and figure out the issues later.

We're seeing this reflected in polling. We're seeing younger voters, progressives who weren't as on board with Joe Biden months ago now coming on board, especially as the coronavirus rages. We're seeing continued protests in several cities.

So, we're seeing a lot of younger voters and others who may have been skeptical of Biden really uniting around this Biden/Harris ticket.

KING: So, it will be interesting to see. Donald Trump, the incumbent president of the United States, incumbents have the Rose Garden strategy, they have media attention every day.

[08:20:02]

Can the Biden campaign keep the focus where it wants to be? Can it drive the narrative of the news cycle?

There is no question and you can listen to the former vice president here that he believes the president's leadership of the pandemic is his opening, Astead, as you put it, to say, A, I know what to do, and, B, I have more compassion and empathy. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Every single American should be wearing a mask when they're outside, for the next three months at a minimum. Every governor should mandate, every governor should mandate mandatory mask wearing. It's not about your rights. It's about your responsibilities as an American.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It is a deliberate effort and we'll see it this week to compare and contrast. You watch the president, what his team does every day, and watch us, this is how we do it, what we do policy wise and this is how we would communicate. Again, they really believe the empathy thing helps them.

And interesting here, we have this experiment, back in 2016, the University of Michigan did this. CNN now partnering with the University of Michigan and Georgetown in our polling firm.

Voters being asked what do you think about the candidates? One word answer. Some word clouds. Here is what Americans said they heard most about the president of the United States, Donald Trump. And you see one word, look at that, coronavirus, giant on the screen there.

Now, what have they heard about Vice President Biden? You see a mix of words when you look at Vice President Biden, some of those words, if you look at the smaller ones, not so great. But the dominant one, let's come back to the president, is coronavirus in giant numbers.

The reason we're using this, don't invest in any one world cloud or anyone survey. But back in 2016, this research did showed late in the campaign that emails became so associated with Hillary Clinton. Emails was the big number, like coronavirus is there, that's what the Democrats hope to keep that word cloud today the same when we get to late October.

HERNDON: Exactly. I think there are two major factors here going into November that separate it from 2016. You know, the theory about the power of the incumbency and the reason that gets precedence and advantage, is that they can show and project leadership in their natural day to day course of their job. But President Trump, the way he used this White House has been so divisive, has been so controversial, has not shown the kind of leadership that a lot of Americans said they were looking for from the virus.

So I actually think that that -- that that power of the podium that allows Biden to make this a referendum on that leadership in the way that the Biden campaign has benefited from. The other factor here is that the person trying to take up that vessel on the Democratic side is just drastically different than four years ago. Whether that's a consequence of sexism, of kind of rooted attacks against Clinton, about things of her own making, we just know that voters come to Joe Biden in a completely different way than they do from Hillary Clinton.

I remember being out in friendship, Wisconsin, the central portion of state earlier last month and asked the Trump supporters, do you think he'll win this state? They said, he might lose, I asked him why, they said, people hate Joe Biden a lot less.

KING: That's part of the campaign dynamic, especially two, two people on the stage for a long time now, for Donald Trump is not a newcomer anymore.

Tarini, one of the interesting parts is how does this campaign play out? The president is starting to travel more. Joe Biden so far has resisted that.

With Senator Harris on the ticket, are there plans to be a little more active at least getting out to key battleground states or do they believe staying virtual is part of we're more responsible in the middle of the pandemic message and what's the unique plan for Senator Harris?

PARTI: I think that they're still trying to figure out exactly what the plan will be. But you could see Senator Harris going out to battleground states and campaigning more, while keeping the focus on the coronavirus and the president's handling of it. We're already seeing the two of them, you know, bringing reporters into their briefing on coronavirus that Vice President Biden has been getting for months now.

So, they're trying to show that contrast to voters as much as they can, and whether that translates into actual campaign events, I think they're still sort of figuring that out. But I think you could see Senator Harris getting out there more so than we have seen Biden being out there.

KING: Tarini Parti of "The Wall Street Journal", Astead Herndon of "The New York Times" -- appreciate both of your reporting and insights this morning, 79 days ahead of us, we shall get through them all.

Up next for us, a record number of Americans say they want to vote by mail this year. Well, the Post Office now warning it might not process your mail-in ballot on time.

As we go to break, sad news for the Trump family this weekend. Robert Trump, younger brother of President Trump, died Saturday in New York City. The statement released last night, the president said, quote, he was not just my brother, he was my best friend.

Robert Trump was 71.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [08:29:15]

KING: The president's constant claims that mail-in voting with rife with fraud are just false, period. But he does have reasons to worry about mail-in votes being counted. Look at these numbers, 45 percent of Americans say they plan to vote by mail this year. Now, let's look more closely. More than 6 in 10 Biden voters want to vote by mail. Only 24 percent of Trump voters do.

This is using the power of the presidency to try to impact the election in his own words.

[08:29:42]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They want $25 billion -- billion -- for the post office. Now, they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots. If we don't make a deal, that means they don't get the money. That means they can't have universal mail-in voting. They just can't have it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now, it's not just the money. In fact some experts argue that debate about money is almost a distraction. Let's walk through this issue to a degree.

First, the letters from the post office went out to 46 states. You see them colored in red here. Just about everywhere in America, the post office telling election officials we cannot promise that we can process mail-in votes, absentee ballots, mail-in votes. We can't promise to process them on time and get them to the right place so that they can be counted on time. That's a doozy as we get close to election.

Now what are the rules out there? Nine states, you see them in this green, nine states planning already to have a mostly mail-in voting election. Some of them have always done it, others moving in that direction. You see Colorado, you see Washington state, you see Utah -- those are the states with the most experience at this pretty much on all mail-in election.

You see the lighter green, 34 states have essentially no-excuse mail- in voting in the coronavirus pandemic. If you want to vote from home, by mail you just need to ask, you don't need an excuse.

Seven states, you see them in red here do require voters to say why, what is the medical reason. You're going to be out of state for work or whatever, they require you to give a reason, the states.

Now here is where this gets interesting because of the post office lesson. 29 states, your ballot must be received by election day. Received by election day. In 21 states, it just hast to be postmarked by Election Day, it can come in a little bit later. The "received by election day" matters when you look at the presidential battlegrounds -- Michigan and Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, Arizona, Colorado -- I could go on. This matters hugely in the states that will decide who is the next President of the United States. Your ballot must be in by Election Day, which is why you have secretaries of states both republicans and Democrats, saying what the President says is wrong and what the post office is now warning is alarming.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIM WYMAN (R), WASHINGTON SECRETARY OF STATE: I always get worried when people try to politicize administrative processes like running elections, like delivering mail. And we have to be very careful because the average voter starts to lose confidence in our election process. And that's the bedrock of our democracies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENA GRISWOLD (D), COLORADO SECRETARY OF STATE: President Trump is lying about vote by mail. He is lying about mail ballots. Colorado has a very clean history of running great elections with vote by mail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With us this Sunday, Jessica Huseman. She covers voting rights and election administration issues for ProPublica and Amber McReynolds is the CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute.

Ladies, I'm grateful for both of you here this Sunday.

This is an issue people need to educate themselves on because Washington, the House might come back. The House of Representatives might come back early. Might hold hearings, might try to put pressure on the post office. But we can't count on Washington doing anything.

Jessica, let me start with you, I was reading some of your work. And yes, there's this fight over the money for the post office. But in your view, it's the rules changes that are more significant.

The new postmaster general imposing new rules, cutting back over time in some places, taking away the big sorting machines. Explain why this is such a big deal?

JESSICA HUSEMAN, REPORTER, PROPUBLICA: Right. So I think that what people don't realize is that this -- even if we had 100 percent turnout and every single registered voter in the United States cast a ballot, that would pale in comparison to the amount of mail that the USPS has successfully handled at Christmas and even Thanksgiving every year.

And so I think that the capacity issues and even the funding issues at the Post Office don't necessarily concern me so much as the policy changes that Mr. DeJoy says he's been making. For example, cutting back on overtime, decommissioning sorting machines.

These are all things that, you know, that's why we can pull Christmas off is because if a poll worker -- I'm sorry -- if a postal worker doesn't finish his route or is unable to deliver a package or a package comes in that day to go out that night, then they can run extra rounds. They can do that overtime.

But if we reduce those hours and the number poll workers essentially that are on rotation at any given time then, you know, we literally cannot deliver as much mail. And so I think that we shouldn't necessarily worry so much about overall capacity or overall funding but these policy changes really could make it difficult to pull off vote by mail in November.

KING: And Amber, the President is trying to make a distinction -- he's now a Florida resident. He came to the White House a New York resident, but he's changed his residence so he's going to vote by absentee ballot as he has.

I want you to listen to the President here. He says it is a huge difference, absentee voting versus mail-in voting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Universal mail-in voting is going to be catastrophic. It's going to make our country the laughingstock all over the world.

Absentee is good, mail-in universal, is very, very bad. There's no way they're going to get it accurately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: in the world we live in now, the changes that were under way anyway and now the pandemic, is there really such a giant distinction as the President says or is that just false?

[08:34:51]

AMBER MCREYNOLDS, CEO, NATIONAL VOTE AT HOME INSTITUTE: It is false. It is a matter of terminology. The fact is when voters vote at home, whether they're voting with an absentee ballot, a mail-in ballot, a vote by mail ballot depending on how the state describes, the ballot is handled in the exact same way when it comes back to the election office.

So there is no difference and it is really a matter of semantics and differences by state laws. But fundamentally they are essentially the same thing.

In some states you have to request it, other states you do not. And that ballot comes to you automatically based on your registration information that is on file.

So this is a matter of putting voters first, giving them options to vote at home. And it is just not true that they're fundamentally different. KING: So Amber, let me stay with you for a second. For somebody out

there watching in this confusing time, my view is voters are going to have to take responsibility for this. They're going to have to learn the rules in their state, learn if their state, for example, says you have to put it in the mailbox or if the state is having secure drop boxes. You hear a lot of governors now saying, or state officials saying we need to do that.

Help a voter out there understand. What must they do starting today to make sure if they plan to vote by mail, that they get a ballot and that it gets counted?

MCREYNOLDS: Absolutely. Well, first and foremost, check your registration. Make sure you're registered to vote. Make sure your address is up to date. Do that today.

I've been saying that all week to everyone that I possibly can and I know a lot of groups are pushing this. But check your registration.

And then if you want to sign up to vote at home, you can do that today in most states. And so you can sign up and what we recommend is going right to your state's Web site, a lot of states have added the ability for voters to sign up online in their states. Do that. Check the rules. Sign up early. We don't want to see people get tied up in the huge volume come late September. So sign up today if you can do that.

And in lot of states like California, Michigan, Virginia, Georgia now -- a lot of states are actually implementing expanded ballot tracking options. Meaning just like tracking a package, you can track your ballot through the process. My organization has been working with a lot of states to do that very thing.

And so the other aspect is sign up for ballot tracking so that you get that visibility and accountability as to where your ballot is at every moment in the process and when it is on its way to you. That gives you that extra verifiable information that can help you through the voting process.

KING: It's helpful advice. We'll continue to bring it to people through the election.

Jessica, so you know, the House of Representatives might come back. The new postmaster general who met with the President in the Oval Office just before he went up to Capitol Hill to meet with the Democratic leaders. And that's why there is suspicion here.

Mr. DeJoy says hey, I took over an organization that is a mess. I need to balance the books. I need to structurally change things. Does he have a point about some of this or does the timing of it lead you to think, ok no, if you're going to do these things, how about starting the day after the election, not the weeks before.

HUSEMAN: You know what, I think two things can be true at the same time. A lot of the machines that you see being decommissioned, which was really alarming for folks over the weekend. Those things needed to happen for quite some time. And as many election officials will tell you the decommissioning of some of this equipment is routine.

And I think that the heightened politization of election administration this year and the unfortunate comments that President Trump is making that are flatly untrue about the process has led to far more justified suspicion of what the USPS is going to do here.

But I -- you know, at a certain point, I don't think that Mr. Trump can have it both ways. He cannot both bait the media and the public into believing that he has every intention of manipulating vote by mail in the ways that he can as President of the United States and then call it's conspiracy theorist when we ask basic and logical questions.

So I think that there are still questions to be asked, but I am not as alarmed as many people have expressed this weekend. I think some of these changes were a long time coming and planned long before Mr. DeJoy's entrance into the USPS.

But the timing of the changes and the speed at which they're happening leads me to be a little bit more suspicious than I might otherwise would be.

KING: Jessica Huseman of ProPublica, Amber McReynolds of Vote at Home Institute -- ladies, thank you both. We're going to continue this conversation and bring you back both repeatedly as we go through this as we get closer to the election this information that you at home need to follow closely.

Up next for us, the back to school choice -- two doctors balance their medical expertise about the coronavirus with their hopes of getting their children back in the classroom with their teachers and their friends.

[08:39:29]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: For President Trump the back to school debate is simple. He wants the old normal back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Virtual is not as good as being there. Virtual is just not the same thing. And for a long time we have been hearing how great it would be, how great it would be. Well, we've had the ultimate sample, right? Name the whole country practically and it is not as good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: But this of course is not the President's decision. Even his own son will start the year with virtual learning.

But what is the best course for parents who do have a choice? Those whose children have the option of being back in the classroom. Well, we know two such parents -- two such parents who have a better understanding of the science and the risks than many of us. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, of course, CNN's chief medical correspondent, a Georgia resident and the father of sixth, eighth and tenth grade girls -- you see them right there, they're beautiful.

Emergency room physician Megan Ranney lives in Rhode Island. Her son, see him right there, entering the third grade, her daughter, the sixth grade.

All right. Two doctors, two parents -- two different decisions I believe because you both have different sets of data. Let's look at it.

Dr. Ranney, you live in Rhode Island, the new case average, 85 per one million residents. The test positivity rate in Rhode Island averaging about 5 percent.

Dr. Gupta, you are in Georgia. 320 cases per one million people. A positivity test rate of 11 percent.

So Dr. Ranney, you saw that data in Rhode Island and said ok, I'm going to give it a chance. I'm going to send my children, a boy and a girl, back to school. Why?

DR. MEGAN RANNEY, EMERGENCY ROOM PHYSICIAN: So the way that I see it, John, there are three things I was looking for when making the decision about whether or not to send my kids back to school.

The first is that community transmission rate that you already mentioned. That level of positivity less than 5 percent and the level of community transmission of less than about a hundred per 100,000 suggests that it is unlikely that there will be a lot of folks in the school setting who are positive.

The second thing looking -- is looking at how my school system itself is prepared. My school system is mandating masks. They have PPE for nurses. And they have procedures for how to deal with the inevitable positive infected student, teacher or staff member. That was the second part for me.

And then the third part was considering my own family circumstances. None of us are super high risk in terms of healthcare.

[08:44:51]

DR. RANNEY: And for us having our kids back in physical school really would be a huge help for us, both in terms of their social and emotional development, but of course, also in terms of my own work as an emergency physician.

KING: So Dr. Gupta, you came to a different decision because -- I believe because of statistics there in Georgia. But I talk to you as a doctor all the time. You're a parent of three girls and you wrote on CNN.com this week that they want to go back to school.

You know, I don't want to invade your privacy but take us inside the pressure of that. And I assume you agree with Dr. Ranney. It's better for the children to be in schools for their education, for their emotional well-being. But you came to a no, why?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. No. It has been a very difficult time as a dad, I'll tell you. You know, three teen and preteen girls who, you know, have been pretty cooped up, going pretty stir crazy over the last several months. They want to go back to school for all the reasons that Dr. Ranney mentioned and also just their friends, you know. The social part of it.

It really has to do with what's going on here in the community of Georgia and Atlanta. I decided to do my homework. I went to the kids' school. I saw what they doing. Despite the fact that there's not a mask mandate in my state, the school was going to implement the mask mandate. They have hand hygiene. They've been creative about trying to create square footage in the school to maintain physical distance.

But it really is the exact same metrics that Dr. Ranney is looking at are different where I live. You know, as you mentioned, we have a much higher positivity rate; closer to 11 percent. We're still not testing enough. It means that the likelihood of coming in contact with somebody who has the virus is going to be higher.

I thought about it from the health perspective, the health of my children, the health of the community, the health of my wife and I, and all of that.

KING: And Dr. Ranney, you don't think you're going to be in this situation very long. We have seen headlines this past week in Indiana, from where Sanjay lives in Georgia, in Mississippi, in Alabama. School districts that have gone back, where they have the inevitable. Some of this is inevitable to have cases and so they do the shutting of the schools or having quarantines.

You write in "Leaps Magazine", "Sadly I expect this discussion will soon be a moot point. We continue to fail as a nation at basic public health policies. It's therefore unlikely schools anywhere will be open by October."

So you're sending your children back to school but you think they'll be home pretty soon. Why?

DR. RANNEY: So I think it's exactly as Dr. Gupta just said. That because we lack a national strategy, because the virus is still spreading largely unchecked in most of the country, even those of us that currently live in little pockets like Rhode Island or New York City where the level of the virus is relatively low, we soon are going to see a rise in the virus just because of travel and the fact that the virus does not respect state borders.

And we're going to be having the normal respiratory virus season start. So when we start having kids come to school with flu-like symptoms, RSV, all the coughs and colds that all of us as parents are so familiar with, it's going to be nearly impossible for those schools to stay open.

KING: And Sanjay what do you say? I assume the parents of your daughters' friends maybe making a different decision. What do you say to a parent who's decided you know what, I looked at the same data, I'm going to take -- I'm going to take my chances?

DR. GUPTA: You're absolutely right, John. And the way that it filtered down to me, again, you're a parent yourself. Dr. Ranney is a parent --

KING: Gets filtered -- you're right.

DR. GUPTA: -- it comes because my kids say, hey, the other kids are doing it, what's wrong with you, Dad? You know, that's how it often comes to me.

And you know, these are really important conversations. I mean I got to tell you just as a parent, these are conversations I'm having with my kids that I've never had before. I'm talking to them about the risk of going back to school, not just for themselves, but for the community as a whole.

It is this bifurcated sort of explanation you have to do that it's not just for yourself, that please don't be somebody who adds fuel to this pandemic fire that's going on right now.

But to answer your question, John, it is complicated. This is not an easy decision. So, you know, I'm not being preachy. I'm not trying to be judgmental. I know the people can look at the same data and come to different conclusions

And frankly, you know, I think Dr. Ranney and I both agree, we have some -- we feel privileged in a way that we can even do it, that we can even have the kids at home. There's a lot of people who can't. They simply can't, I mean.

So it is not a question of judging right now. This is a complicated situation through which we're all learning. This is just the decision I came to.

KING: And it is complicated is the right word for it. 13,000 school districts across the country. That's just the public school district. It's complicated for everybody which is why I'm grateful. Two great parents with also great expertise.

Dr. Ranney, Dr. Gupta -- thank you so much.

And next for us, Joe Biden wrote big crime bills, Kamala Harris was a prosecutor. Can the Democratic ticket win over Black Lives Matter activists who see the system as rigged against them?

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KING: Black women are the most reliable piece of the Democratic coalition. And Kamala Harris knows that is partly why she has a chance now to make history.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATOR KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), PRESUMPTIVE VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: There will be a planned -- you don't want to have any false modesty about a black woman being on the ticket. But it takes more than just that to motivate black women to vote. People have to speak to their issues. And the Biden-Harris ticket does that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Does it? Does it do that? Or are there still questions about Biden's role in past crime debates and about bussing or about Harris' work as a prosecutor?

Astead Herndon of "The New York Times" is back with us.

It is a fascinating question for me, Astead. We talked earlier in the program, you know, the Sanders wing, other liberal wings of the party that might have issue with Joe Biden, largely muting them saying let's beat Trump, then we'll talk.

Is it the same way, do you think? Black female voters who might have an issue with Kamala Harris's role as a prosecutor or Joe Biden's past debate? Can this ticket answer those concerns enough to get enthusiasm and turnout?

ASTEAD HERNDON, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Well, what we know is that black women are kind of the most loyal base of the Democratic Party. They will vote for Democrats probably in the largest number of any demographic group.

[08:54:53]

HERNDON: The question, as you mentioned, is about energy and turnout. That is one that probably would've been high with Donald Trump on the ballot anyway. But we can expect to see some level of energy because of the kind of historic ticket that when we look back four years ago Hillary Clinton kind of returned to John Kerry-esque level of black turnout. And that -- and the race that was so close. If she was a little more closer to the Obama '08 or the Obama 2012 numbers then she could have gotten over.

I think that this Biden ticket sees Harris as someone that can move them closer in that direction. But I will also say that is largely going to come down to black men who we also see the biggest drop-off with in terms of turnout or in terms of voting for Republicans is slightly higher numbers.

If she's going to get that Obama-esque energy, it's going to have to come from both black women and also black men.

KING: Which raises the question again in this most unconventional of campaigns How do they do that outreach to the, you know, you've seen the protests, you've covered some of this of these protests in the wake of the George Floyd and other horrific incidences in the United States of America where you see black women and black men out there. And they're mad at the system.

And some of them, frankly, are skeptical that, you know, Joe Biden is the old guard. Kamala Harris, the word "prosecutor" to many of them, you know, has their heads snap back.

can they do to get at them and say, look, A, we're listening, and B, let's defeat the President, he's the bigger enemy?

HERNDON: Right. I think it's going to be that double-sided argument. There is the kind of "think first for November" argument which is particularly motivating to a kind of older generation or maybe folks who are disaffected from the process and they want to bring them in, that we're going to be the administration that listen to you.

But the other message you have from the Biden-Harris ticket activist (ph), is that we're moveable. I mean that they are someone who could respond to pressure and that that's a better partner for movements and for kind of activist leaders and a Trump administration who has no interest in hearing them and actively runs against their concerns.

There is a structural problem though with the ticket Democrats have, in particular the request of younger, more progressive activists. This is not a ticket that embraces the kind of big systemic change. They use the language of systemic racism. But they are not embracing the kind of ideals that the kind of younger crowd wants in terms of change.

That's going to be a disconnect. So I think the foremost concern for the ticket is going to be try to motivate people to say, you know, we can deal with that stuff after November. Let's get Trump out first.

KING: Astead Herndon of "The New York Times", Very much appreciate your reporting and your insights for opening a fascinating chapter with the convention this week.

And that's it for INSIDE POLITICS. Hope you can catch us weekdays as well, we're here at noon Eastern.

Up next, "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER".

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