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Fauci Warns Seven Midwest States To Be On Alert On Labor Day Weekend; Trump Denies Calling Fallen U.S. Troops "Losers" And "Suckers;" Labor Day Marks Eight Weeks Until Election Day; Some Voting Has Already Begun; One-On-One With Investigator On Vaccine Trial. Aired 8-9a ET
Aired September 06, 2020 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN HOST (voice-over): A Labor Day coronavirus warning.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: You got to get our baseline back down to a much lower level. We got to be very careful, particularly as we enter this holiday weekend.
KING: Plus, more character questions. The president denies calling fallen heroes suckers and losers.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's a hoax.
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: It is so un-American. It is so unpatriotic.
[08:00:01]
KING: And the voting begins, with a pandemic surge in mail-in ballots.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do like to do it in person, but I don't want to take the chance this year.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. To our viewers in the United States and around the world, thank you so much for sharing your Sunday.
Character again is a late campaign question for Donald Trump. Four years ago, it was a recording in which he bragged about assaulting women, now a damning new report that he called fallen American military heroes losers and suckers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: It's a disgrace that somebody has allowed to write things like that, it could have been, you know, a lot of times the sources aren't sources, they don't exist. And sometimes, the sources are just people that are disgruntled, former so-called employees.
BIDEN: Confirms what most of us believed to be true, that Donald Trump is not fit to be the job of the president, to be commander in chief.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Plus, another damning account from a one-time Trump insider. A long time Trump attorney Michael Cohen writes in a new book the president is racist and was obsessed with criticizing the former President Barack Obama.
Look here at Faux-bama. Cohen's book includes this photo of an actor he says businessman Trump berated and fired, ala the TV "The Apprentice". More on those character questions in a moment.
First, though, this Sunday, another coronavirus crossroads, a holiday weekend at the turn of the seasons. Labor Day crowds at the beach are look here at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Santa Monica, California, recent history and the stubbornly high count of new infections tell us to be nervous.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We need everybody to be careful, to apply common sense, and do all of the things that we have told you to do, as quickly as much as you can. Social distancing, wearing a mask, whenever the distancing is not possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: That to the president's credit was a rare moment of responsible advice. More common, though, are his remarks mocking masks or making the case the worst is over. The numbers and let's take a look, they tell us otherwise.
Let's look at the 50-state trend map. Seventeen states as we enter the labor day weekend, 17 states reporting more cases now than a week ago, meaning case count going up, 19 states, the base, holding steady. 14 states reporting lower case count, California and Texas going down, Florida and Arizona, those are drivers of the summer surge going up after a period of going down. We'll keep an eye on that.
The case curve, this is instructive, very instructive as we get into this holiday weekend. Remember back Memorial Day? Below 20,000 cases. Below 20,000 new infections a day on average there. Then you see by July 4th, spiked to 45,000. Two weeks later, not even, 12 days later, up to 77,000 new infections a day.
There has been a drop at the end of the summer surge, but on Friday and Saturday, Friday was above 50,000 cases. Yesterday, above 40,000 again. You want to get the baseline down, this is not down. It dropped some, but it is not down in any significant way.
Again, a reminder of why everyone is so worried about the holiday. This is the trend map in the United States, here, this is Memorial Day. This is where we were on Memorial Day, 19 states trending up, 24 states trending down. That was Memorial Day. That's one month later.
Look at this map. You want green. Beige is at least steady this. This is where we were on Memorial Day, red and orange are bad, one month later, horrible, horrible, horrible -- 37 states trending up one month after.
If you look at the positivity right now, heading into the Labor Day weekend, people taking coronavirus tests, coming back positive, again you want to be below 5 percent, look at this, in the Dakotas, 19 percent, 21 percent. Iowa, 16 percent. Missouri, 14 percent. Kansas, 17 percent. Florida, back up to 13 percent. South Carolina, 12 percent.
This is the problem right now. And this is the reason Dr. Fauci talked about this coming into the weekend, about getting this down. You hope to get the baseline back down somewhere here. Instead, it is still up here. So, this from Dr. Fauci, wishful thinking.
And with us this Sunday to share their expertise, Dr. Ashish Jha, he's the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, and Dr. Megan Ranney, the emergency room physician and researcher at Brown.
Sorry, we hoped to hear from Dr. Fauci there, a glitch in the system.
So, was we start this conversation, Dr. Jha, I have the maps -- I have the graph still up here. This was the idea, to try to get the baseline down, try to get it back down around 20,000. Instead, we're at 50,000 or 40,000.
Where are we on Labor Day weekend?
DR. ASHISH JHA, DIRECTOR, HARVARD GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE: Good morning, John. Thanks for having me on.
Yes, so this is -- this is a problem as we head into Labor Day, because part of the goal of lowering that baseline, that Dr. Fauci talked about, is we know when kids go back to school this fall, when colleges open up, that we're going to see more cases and those are going to go up. You don't want to be starting off with a baseline of 40,000 to 50,000 cases because it is going to be much, much harder to control those outbreaks.
[08:05:02]
So the goal is -- was to get this much, much lower. Unfortunately, that's not the position we find ourselves in as we head into Labor Day weekend.
KING: And one of the issues we face is college campuses, the back to school question, whether talking from K-12 and now, colleges, and, Dr. Ranney, I can show you, 12 days ago, when we started tracking this, students starting to go back to campus, 12 days ago, that's what we saw, 26 states reporting cases of COVID, back on campus.
Here is where we are today, just 12 days later. All 50 states reporting cases. All 50 states now reporting these outbreaks. It just -- it reminds you, number one, of how stubborn and resilient the virus is.
That question as we head to fall, that only adds to that baseline, it's going up, not down.
DR. MEGAN RANNEY, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN, LIFESPAN/BROWN UNIVERSITY: That's absolutely right. We just had a mass migration of young adults across the country as colleges start to reopen. It is entirely predictable that as those kids move, they're going to bring COVID with them from their home state to wherever they're going to college and then as we've seen ample reports across the country, it's human nature for young adults to go out, go to bars and fraternities and sororities, to hang out at parties and to spread COVID.
It is why the asymptomatic testing and the masking and the university standards are so critical, but it is also why it may be irresponsible for some colleges to reopen in person right now because this is not just going to affect those youth who are, of course, at risk, but it is also going to affect a larger community around them.
KING: And I played a little sound bite from the president at the top there at his briefing the other day, he did say heading into the weekend, people should wear a mask. He did say heading into this holiday weekend, people should social distance. We wish he said that every day.
He doesn't, though, which is why we had this remarkable period, Dr. Jha, where Dr. Fauci is on television, very frequently and doing other interviews warning people, please, please, please. Dr. Birx is traveling the country now, essentially delivering reports to governors saying your state is on fire.
Just in the last few days, this is Iowa, the House Coronavirus Committee released this one, this was a task force recommendation late July to Iowa, continue to promote social distancing, wearing a cloth face mask when outside the home. Again, a couple weeks later in August, mandate cloth face coverings outside the home, in indoor settings.
We know similar warnings have been delivered to Georgia, delivered to Missouri. The president won't say this anymore. He won't lecture or pressure these Republican governors to do things. Dr. Birx is running around delivering hot zone reports, but they're not listening.
JHA: Yeah, it's a very odd situation, John, where basically, you have two top White House officials, Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, going out and telling the truth, telling people what the science is. If you look at the reports that they're producing, they're talking about surveillance testing for K-12, they're talking about surveillance testing for colleges.
And yet what comes out of the White House is an undermining of their own top scientists. I don't -- I don't know that in my lifetime I've seen anything like this, where there is two opposite messages coming out of the White House at the same time.
KING: And one of the factors we see, Dr. Ranney, is the IHME model, which a lot of people are criticizing, they're saying it's just projection. It's actually been conservative. If you go back and look at what the IHME has said, projecting deaths in the United States, almost every time they projected, the actual number, sadly has come in higher.
I want to show you one thing from the latest report, why they increased the death toll this is about mask wearing here. Look at the middle of the country here. These are places in the country where fewer people are wearing masks.
You see now you have the death projection up there now, 410,000 deaths by January 1st. They believe 122,000 of those could be saved if more people would wear masks. This is simple correlation, Dr. Ranney, if you look where people aren't wearing masks and go through the past few weeks of where you have higher cases, it's pretty simple and yet.
RANNEY: That's exactly right. You know, that IHME projection as you said has been amply criticized, it is a projection, it depends on what all of us do. Their projection, they're saying on average probably around 400,000 deaths. So we're probably going to double the number of deaths between now and Christmas.
But it could be as low as 200,000 -- or as low as 100,000 more or we could triple the number of deaths between now and the end of the year. It depends how we behave. There are lots of studies showing when there is universal masking, the number of infections in deaths drops dramatically and staying outdoors, physical distancing, that helps as well.
But it is going to get tougher for those of us in the North as the season gets colder. Universal masks are critical, for a governor to not put a universal masking mandate in place at this point in the pandemic with the science that we have is to, me, mind boggling. I don't know why you wouldn't try and protect your citizens of your state.
KING: And so, Dr. Jha, to that point, where are we as we head into fall. There are some people who say, well, we've learned a lot of lessons here, so people are separating, people are being more careful, they're washing their hands. So, flu season won't be as bad.
Yet, we have that high coronavirus baseline which means if it starts to go back up again, it starts from 40,000 or 50,000 and instead of starting, let's say, 18,000 or 15,000.
[08:10:07]
Where are we?
JHA: Yeah, what I'm worried about, John, we're going to see a tale of two countries. We're going to see parts of the country where local leadership is terrific and is going to follow the science and other places where we're going to see ignoring of that science and really large outbreaks as we head into the fall and winter. I want us to sort of act as one country, because, of course, people travel between places. I think we can do this much better.
But anybody looking at the data has got to be worried about what the next few weeks and few months bring. JHA: I hope that turns out not to be true, but, Dr. Jha, Dr. Ranney,
once again, grateful for your expertise and insights. We'll continue the conversation in the weeks ahead.
Up next for us, a shift to politics and the character question, the president denying, calling fallen American military heroes loser and suckers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:15:24]
KING: The president's character is again front-and-center as a campaign issue. Remember, four years ago we had this conversation several times. When candidate Trump mocked John McCain's Vietnam heroism, when he denigrated a Gold Star family, and, of course, when in his own voice on that "Access Hollywood" tape we heard him bragging about sexually assaulting women.
This weekend, in the closing weeks of this campaign, at issue is a startling account detailing how the president reportedly referred to American troops killed in combat as losers and suckers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: There is nobody that feels more strongly about our soldiers, our wounded warriors, our soldiers that died in war than I do. It's a hoax.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Loyal Trump staffers rushed out tweets and statements taking issue with "The Atlantic" report.
But the reported comments do track harsh Trump statements made in other episodes and this is important, other news organizations, including CNN and notably Fox News, have confirmed key pieces of "The Atlantic" account. And this is telling, two military men who would have firsthand knowledge, former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, are silent.
The president on Friday lashing out at Kelly. Remember Kelly is a retired marine general, whose own son gave his life in combat in Afghanistan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I know John Kelly. He was with me. Didn't do a good job. Had no temperament.
And ultimately, he was petered out. He got -- he was exhausted. This man was totally exhausted. He wasn't even able to function.
(END VIDEO CLIP) O'DONNELL: With us to share their reporting and their insights this Sunday, Lisa Lerer of "The New York Times", and Toluse Olorunnipa of "The Washington Post".
Lisa, character -- again, there was a lot of character conversations about this president back in 2016. This time, I want you to listen. Some Democrats are hesitant, they think this doesn't work for us to get involved in these character debates with this president, but Joe Biden after seeing this report came forward and talked about his own personal history.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: My son volunteered and joined the United States military as the attorney general, went to Iraq for a year, won the Bronze Star and other commendations, he wasn't a sucker. The servicemen and women he served with, particularly those did not come home, were not losers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Is it different this time? The character questions about this president are constant. Is this different?
LISA LERER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Look, I think the questions are not different. And I'm not sure that they change them -- the voters' minds. I think voters who don't like the president's character are largely against him. I think those who support the president see his character is -- they see it as an ability to stand up to the Washington establishment as an unwillingness to do what -- perform what they call political correctness.
So, I think some of the character issues are certainly baked in. I think what Democrats now are trying to do is find the balance of how that plays in their larger campaign messaging. Character will be a piece of the messaging, but a lot of Democrats believe it can't be the whole message or as large a part of the message as it was in 2016. And instead, the focus has to be far heavier on what the president has and has not done for the American people, particularly when comes to the pandemic, when it comes to the state of the economy.
So I think Democrats are trying to find a balance here, between talking about character and talking about other issues that could be more persuasive to voters who may be on the fence.
KING: And, Toluse, I think Lisa makes a key point, candidate Trump in 2016 was a disruptive outsider, he wasn't in charge. He said he would make Washington different.
Is it different, does character matter more or can you make the connection as Lisa says to presidential leadership, he fails at the big challenges because this is the type of person he is.
And into that, you have another book, Michael Cohen, look, Michael's gone to prison, he lied to investigators, so the Trump campaign will say he can't be believed, he was at the president's side for year and writes this new book and among the things he describes a man who is just patently racist.
And among the things he says in the book, he says Donald Trump told him this: Tell me one country run by a black person that isn't a shithole, there it is, I said it. They're all complete F-ing toilets, according to Cohen.
After Nelson Mandela died, Trump allegedly said of South Africa that Mandela F'd the whole country up. Now, it's an S-hole. F Mandela. He was no leader.
To read that, it's just -- it's mind numbing.
TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah, and it's also somewhat not surprising in part because of what we heard the president say publicly. He stoked racial divisions. He's trafficked in stereotypes.
[08:20:01]
He's talked negatively about his predecessor, the first black president. So, it's not completely surprising, but it is stark to read this on the page from one of the president's closest advisers. And this is the latest in the series of accounts that we have seen in tell all books, in news stories about the president's character, about how he talks about fellow Americans, about his role as president, governing Americans who are very diverse and come from different backgrounds.
We're seeing constantly sort of this contempt he has for anyone who would be seen as a sucker or a loser, anyone who is not sort of, you know, all hands on deck in terms of trying to take advantage of their fellow American, whether it be a service member or whether it be somebody in public service, like John Kelly, saying that, you know, they couldn't do the job well, that they did not live up to the standard that he has set for them, for certain people.
So it is pretty clear from all of these accounts that even the people close to the president believe that he is someone who speaks negatively about fellow Americans, who does not have the character we have seen from former presidents, who see themselves as governing the entire country, not just their supporters. So I do think this will be relevant for some voters on the margins who believe that character does count and that is important to have a commander in chief who shows that character, specifically when it comes to our troops.
KING: And to that point, one of the challenges, Lisa, is how do voters process the leadership question and the character of the individual. One of the issues front and center this past week, the social unrest in the country and from the president and his opponent, two very different views.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Biden's plan is to appease the domestic terrorists, my plan is to arrest them and prosecute them.
BIDEN: Fear doesn't solve problems. Only hope does. And you keep giving up hope, you might as well surrender. There is no real option.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: And it gets to the question of leadership and character right there. Make a choice.
LERER: That's exactly right. And you see the president's campaign really leaning into this one question out of the convention. Joe Biden has been forced to fight on the president's terrain and talk about this unrest that's happening in the country, not only from the perspective of racial justice, but also from the perspective of people who are worried that perhaps there is these protests have gotten a little too chaotic.
I do think on the character issue, just from jumping back for that one second, the president's team does have a problem with that, which is, of course, the president. We heard them go through their entire convention, trying to rebrand the president as someone who is compassionate, someone who is empathetic, they had a series of staff members come out and give personal testimonials about how the president called them, when they were sick, or called, you know, a mourning father -- stories like that that tried to maybe the president look like someone who is very empathetic.
Then a week later, you get news reports that the president is giving very differently behind closed doors. So, I think it is hard to rebrand the president as something that voters see in news reports after new reports he is not. So, that is a real challenge for this campaign.
KING: That's an excellent point.
Lisa, Toluse, appreciate your coming in this Sunday morning. Again, eight weeks, eight weeks to Election Day.
Up next for us, a closer look at the state of the race. Joe Biden holds a stable national lead. But the state look -- well, that matters more.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:27:21]
KING: Stable, advantage Biden, but perhaps closer than meets the eye. That is the state of the presidential race eight weeks to the finish line.
Let's walk through some of the key metrics. Number one, if you look at the national polling, what a remarkably stable race we have had: Joe Biden at 51 percent in May, Donald Trump at 43. Here's where we are now, Joe Biden at 51, Donald Trump at 43, a remarkably stable national race, which bodes well for Biden. He's above 50, Donald Trump in the 40s.
But if you look at the battleground states, it is a bit closer. And remember 2016, Joe Biden still has a fairly comfortable lead in Pennsylvania, but Florida is tight, North Carolina incredibly tight. Wisconsin a Biden lead, but in play, Arizona, a Biden lead, but, again, a state in play.
The battleground states still advantage Biden, but tighter than the national perspective. He wants to make this praise about crime. Only 37 percent of Americans say that's something they're worried about, 60 percent are worried about the coronavirus, 58 percent about the same, worried about the economy. These are the driving issues in the race, this one advantage Biden, this one slight advantage Trump, president trying to breakthrough on this.
If you look at this, you're an incumbent president, you don't like this number, 64 percent of the American people in our new CNN poll say things in the country are going badly. If you're an incumbent president, that is horrible. Only 34 percent say it's going well.
History tells us the president needs this number to be at least above 40 percent. If 40 percent, 42 percent of the American people think it's going well. An incumbent has a chance, it's still hard, but he needs to move that number up.
This is what's fascinating. You see this race play out. Most voters say they made up their mind. That doesn't mean this number will hold.
The debates are still coming, for example, but in our national poll, 89 percent say they made up their mind. In Florida, 93 percent, a Quinnipiac poll say they made their mind. In Pennsylvania, same, Quinnipiac, 94 percent say they've made up their mind.
So, only 5 percent in this state, 5 percent in this state, just shy of 10 percent nationally say they're still open. And yet, the campaign spending tens of millions of dollars trying to swing the persuadables.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
BIDEN AD ANNOUNCER: This is Trump's America. He won't bring us together. He doesn't want to. And never will.
TRUMP AD ANNOUNCER: The greatest economy the world has ever seen coming back to life. But Joe Biden wants to change that.
BIDEN: I will shut it down.
TRUMP AD ANNOUNCER: Why would we ever let Biden kill countless American businesses, jobs and our economic future.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
[08:29:45]
KING: Jonathan Martin of "The New York Times" joins us now.
And, Jonathan, you're in Wisconsin. There's actually going to be some campaigning.
JONATHAN MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah. KING: We're getting into a more traditional campaign with both campaigns getting out and a being a bit active.
You and your colleagues write this on the Labor Day traditional gateway to the fall race, "No president has entered Labor Day weekend, the traditional kickoff to the fall campaign, as such a clear underdog since George Bush back in 1992. Mr. Trump has not led in public polls in such must-win states as Florida since Mr. Biden claimed the nomination back in April. There's been little fluctuation in the race."
And this is the interesting part. "Still the president's surprise win in 2016 weighs heavily in the thinking of nervous Democrats and hopeful Republicans alike. Democrats look at these numbers and they think this is great, except they have this doubt in the back of their mind, don't they?
MARTIN: That's exactly what it is. And I think Democrats see the numbers, which haven't really shifted very much, in fact the only real change in the race over the last six months John, has been that period in June, July when Biden took a sort of bigger lead for a bit.
But other than that, it has been a really stable race. But yes, Democrats are so haunted by 2016 that I think they're going to be nervous up until literally the electors put Biden in office.
And we have seen, again, a more traditional -- this is a campaign like no other. In a few minutes I'm going to talk to some experts about mail-in voting. But we do start to see some more activity and some more travel and when you listen to these two candidates, no matter the issue, this is a stark choice for voters. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- The fastest labor market recovery from any economic crisis in history by far.
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: This remains the worst economic situation since the great depression.
TRUMP: We're rounding the corner. We're rounding the corner on the virus.
BIDEN: You're not safe in Donald Trump's America where people are dying at a rate last seen when Americans were fighting in World War II.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Biden thinks especially when it comes to the pandemic he has the advantage because of Trump's mismanagement. More debatable is where is this economic conversation going.
MARTIN: Well, the back and forth is certainly apocalyptic there, John. I think who has the advantage on where the economy actually is come October could be decisive. So a month from now who is winning that debate, is it Biden or is it Trump, I think could weigh heavily on the minds of, you know, that 5 percent of undecided voters that you mentioned a minute ago.
But I am in Wisconsin. And this campaign, John, has not (INAUDIBLE) campaign that you and I know, (INAUDIBLE) have knocked them out their barnstorm in the country. That is changing a little.
Pence and Kamala Harris, the two VP nominees are going to be in this state tomorrow, one of the most important battleground states. And I think that's significant because that tells me that Joe Biden and his campaign recognize that they cannot stick around Delaware, they cannot do a virtual campaign only. They've got to get boots on the ground in these states.
And as we explained in our story today, that's in part because local Democrats, lawmakers in places like Wisconsin and Minnesota, are telling Biden you got to get out here. You got to get out here. You can't skip this state, like Hillary did four years ago. You have to be here physically.
I think that's an important shift here. After the last four months, John, of Biden basically doing a virtual campaign, he and his running mate are finally getting out there, boots on the ground, in these states.
KING: And one other quick point before we go, it is interesting to see. The president, you know, he's trying to reach out to persuade but they have made the calculation, they need to turn out white voters who didn't show up in 2016.
MARTIN: Yes.
KING: And you see the new headlines today, White House directs federal agencies to cancel race-related training sessions it calls un-American propaganda. This is a very much base-driven campaign to try to get more white voters off the sideline.
MARTIN: In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Minnesota, they're trying to get every voter that they have last time and get some people, mostly white noncollege voters as you pointed out, who didn't vote in 2016, to vote for him as opposed to trying to sort of win over nonwhite voters or making inroads in the suburbs. That's exactly the strategy.
But here's the vast downside to that, John. It's that even if you do pull that off, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin -- does the adverse impact of that bite you in Florida, in North Carolina, in Georgia, in Arizona, which is to say is there a sort of backlash in the Sun Belt if you pursue that kind of a strategy, more diverse states in the South and West if you run the entire campaign to hold the Rust Belt?
KING: That's what makes the next eight weeks so fascinating. Jonathan Martin, I'm jealous you're in Wisconsin, have a beer and a broth for me. Save the beer for later. It is a little early. We'll talk this week. Continue this --
MARTIN: Not in Wisconsin. Thanks, John. KING: Up next for us, the voting is under way and election officials this year not only need to count the votes, they also need to tell you ignore the president.
[08:34:38]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Election Day is eight weeks from Tuesday, but the voting is already under way. The coronavirus pandemic is creating unprecedented interest in mail-in voting. Look here, nine states will conduct the 2020 election, almost exclusively by mail. 35 allow voters to get a mail-in ballot just by asking. Six require a reason like working out of state or deployed in the military to get a mail or absentee ballot.
Yes, state election officials say the challenge is enormous and the questions about post office operations add to that test. But the history of mail in voting, including this year's primaries, is the turnout goes up and the threat of fraud is quite small. And yet constant attacks by the president and his allies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: We're a very closely divided country here. And if people have to have confidence in the results of the election and the legitimacy of the government and people trying to change the rules to this -- to this methodology which, as a matter of logic, is very open to fraud and coercion is reckless and dangerous and people are playing with fire.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: In addition to his anger there, notice how the attorney general plants the seed to question the legitimacy of the outcome.
One scenario is the so-called "red mirage". Follow along in these graphics from Axios. The president is leading in the Election Day vote counts. And that night he declares victory. That before millions of mail-in ballots are counted. And the map then turns much more blue.
The president raises election trust questions constantly. Going so far this past week just as North Carolina began mailing out its ballots to urge supporters in that state to try to vote twice.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You get the unsolicited ballots, send it in and then go make sure it is counted and if it doesn't tabulate, you vote. You just vote. And then if they tabulate it very late, which they shouldn't be doing, they'll see you voted and so it won't count.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Jocelyn Benson is the Secretary of State of the great state of Michigan. Karen Brinson Bell is the executive director of the Board of Elections in North Carolina. Director Bell, I want to start with you because in this extraordinary year, something I never thought I would see happen has happened, which is you had to put on your Website the fact that voting twice is illegal because the president of the United States encouraged people, mail in your ballot, but then go to the polls and see if they'll let you vote again. What was that like?
[08:40:03]
KAREN BRINSON BELL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BOARD OF ELECTIONS, NORTH CAROLINA: It was not something we expected to be doing. Our focus at that point in time was responding to the over 600,000 absentee by mail requests that we had received which had been unprecedented for our state.
But we just took it as an opportunity to make sure that we educated our voters and explained the processes in North Carolina. So we just saw it as an opportunity, rather than anything else.
KING: The president is undermining the questions -- raising questions about mail-in voting. At the same time the Russians are, we know a law enforcement bulletin went out this week saying, "We assess that Russia is likely to continue amplifying criticisms of vote by mail and shifting voting processes amidst the COVID-19 pandemic to undermine public trust in the electoral process.
How much does that complicate what is already an unprecedented job that you face and your cohorts around the country face of dealing with the unprecedented request for mail-in balloting?
JOCELYN BENSON (D), MICHIGAN SECRETARY OF STATE: It is a direct threat to the security of our elections that in many ways we have been preparing for because we anticipated there would be efforts to spread disinformation among our voters and confuse the electorate and cause chaos as we approach Election Day. So in many ways we're prepared but we need voters to be vigilant and prepared as well.
The name of the game this election season is looking for trusted sources of information. Secretaries of state, local election officials -- that's where you can get the real information about what the rules are, how you can track your ballot and everything else and to kind of block out the noise as you as a voter make your plan to ensure your vote is counted this year.
KING: In North Carolina, your ballot must be postmarked on or after Election Day. You can count it after -- it just has to be post marked on or before Election Day. In Michigan, Secretary Benson, you have to receive that ballot, under current law on Election Day.
So Director Bell, let me start this process in North Carolina, you are though allowed to start tabulating before Election Day. If you get as many mail in ballots as you think and some of them come in late as is inevitable, when do you think you'll be done counting? As in do you think if it is close, you'll know the winner Tuesday night or are we talking Wednesday, Thursday, Friday? BELL: For North Carolina, we've actually had a process in place where
we can process those ballots in advance. You make sure that they meet our requirements of having voter signature and a witness signature and then we tabulate on Election Day.
Since we're expecting potentially 40 to 50 -- 40 percent or so of our ballots to be cast by mail and another -- you know, possibly 50 percent to be cast during our 17-day early voting period, we may see as many of our -- as much as 80 percent of our ballots already in hand by the time we close the polls on election night.
So we will upload those results at 7:30 p.m. And then wait for the precinct results to come in.
KING: As you know there has been talk in recent days of the so-called "red mirage". So we can have 11:00 p.m. midnight on election night, and the President of the United States and Republican candidates down ballot is well, perhaps too, leading in Michigan, leading in North Carolina, but -- an important but, there is a giant basket of votes still to be counted. How long?
BENSON: Well, we're anticipating that we're going have twice as many ballots sent through the mail or voted early than ever before in the history of our state. And we're dealing with the same infrastructure because the legislature has not given us more time to -- on the front end process and even begin opening envelopes until Election Day morning. If that doesn't change, it may be until Friday evening before the full results of Michigan's elections are in.
And if that's the case, then I'm going to spend every minute between when our polls close and when we have the full results, proactively letting everyone know that until every vote is counted, we will not be able to say who won any race and that's the way it should be.
KING: You have a president of the United States who has raised the questions and what some are anticipating, especially if he's leading in these big important battleground states on election night, is to say I won and the next day say stop the count, it is a rigged system, how do we know where those ballots are coming from, are they just being received now?
What are you going to do between now and Election Day so that people trust the transparency and then the security of those ballots if it takes a few days to count them all?
BELL: We've updated our Web site. We changed our early voting -- or excuse, our absentee by mail voting material to try to make those aware and it is very clear on our election night Web site that those results are unofficial. And we'll continue to communicate that. And really the media has been a tremendous help in trying to help us get that word out and I think that will be the case again on election night for sure.
BENSON: And this myth -- this mythical idea that ballots can materialize out of anywhere or that in any way ballots would be counted if they weren't verified as coming from an actual voter is not true. The facts and the truth are on our side here.
[08:44:50]
BENSON: And so transparency is going to be key to ensure voters know, the only ballots that we count, the only ballots that are received and verified are those from valid voters where there've been identification checks through signature verification, to confirm the voter's identity.
So our process is secure. We've proved that already with reelections this years. And in our effort to continue to get that information out and lead with truth and data and facts is what I believe is going to ensure that at the end of the day, the general public, the majority of our population will have faith that our elections are an accurate result of the will of the people.
KING: Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Director Karen Brinson Bell -- appreciate both of your time today. Wish you the best of luck in the contentious days ahead and we'll continue this conversation right up to and I'm guessing after the election for a few days. Thank you both.
Up next for us, the race for a coronavirus vaccine, drug companies now taking a new step to answer fears corners might be cut because of election year pressure.
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KING: Drug companies that are rivals in the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine are planning an extraordinary joint statement promising science and only science will guide decisions about when a vaccine is cleared for use. "The Wall Street Journal" was first to report this news.
Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna among the drug makers who will pledge that any vaccine must be proven to be safe and effective before they would allow it to be distributed for widespread public use. It is a clear reaction to worries corners might be cut because of campaign calculations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: It will be delivered before, in my opinion, before opinion before the end of the year but it really might even be delivered before the end of October. How do you like that? Wouldn't that be nice? That will be nice. And you know why? Not because of the election. It will be nice because we want to save people. That's why it'd be nice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[08:50:04] KING: In an exclusive interview with CNN that airs in full next hour, the Democratic vice presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris says there's every reason to believe the president will pressure scientists for an early green light. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SENATOR KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: If past is prologue that they will not, they will be muzzled, they will be suppressed, they will be sidelined.
DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Let's just say there's a vaccine that is approved and even distributed before the election. Would you get it?
HARRIS: Well, I think that's going to be an issue for all of us. I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump and it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he's talking about. I will not take his word for it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: With us this Sunday to share his expertise is Dr. Carlos Del Rio. He's the executive associate dean at the Emory School of Medicine and an investigator on the Moderna vaccine trial underway at Emory.
Dr. Del Rio, grateful for you time this Sunday.
Let's start with this extraordinary statement planned by these drug companies. Should we be comforted that rivals are coming together to promise the American people and promise the world science first, science only? Or should we be alarmed that they clearly feel pressure that they need to make this public statement?
DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE DEAN, EMORY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Well John, I think what they clearly hear, I mean they can read what the statements are. They're concerned about it I'm sure. I haven't talked to them directly but I'm sure that I'm really happy they're coming together and issuing the statement because I can tell you as an investigator that science is driving the course.
And we need to continue doing the research the way we're doing it. And science eventually will get us the vaccine, I'm confident on that. But we need to let the process take its course.
KING: You say you're confident of that. You just heard the Democratic vice presidential candidate there saying if it's Donald Trump who says it's safe, she won't trust it. How concerned are you that number 1, there have been? Whether it's, you know, the convalescent plasma decision, the hydroxychloroquine decision there and people who think the president is trying to put his thumb on the scale.
And now you have a campaign in which you have the Democratic vice presidential candidate saying if it's the president's saying it's safe, I won't trust it. How damaging might that be when this is vital that Americans, once we have a safe and effective vaccine actually agree to take it?
DR. DEL RIO: It's really important that people have trust in the vaccine. And I would tell you that, you know, we're doing clinical trials right now. We need people to volunteer for the vaccine right now.
So my concern is actually not even what happens later. But people may not want to volunteer for studies right now. And we need people to volunteer for studies. There's going to be critically -- is complete in order to know what important to know we have a safe and effective vaccine.
So I would tell to people, find out about the vaccine, you know. Go to the Website for the COVID prevention trials. Find out where you can go and volunteer for a vaccine starting. The sooner we fill the studies up, the sooner we will have an answer and we will have an effective vaccine. But we need trust. And trust is at the corner of any public health and any medical intervention.
KING: One of the challenges for these studies, as you well know, sir, is getting an increased minority participation. If you look at the U.S. population, it's 40 percent nonwhite. If you look at the Moderna study so far, 26 percent not white. The Pfizer study, 25 percent non- white. What can be done to increase minority participation in these studies?
And the fact that you're not there yet at an acceptable level, what does that do in terms of when, the time line for when you would think we have a representative study, we feel safe about this?
DR. DEL RIO: Well, there are a lot of things being done to increase minority participation. We are working with churches, working with community, working with many different groups that have the trust of community in order to increase participation of the trials.
You know, part of the reality is that participating in a trial is hard, right. You spend several hours there and for many low-income people, it may be very hard to participate in a trial because you may need to give up a day of work in order to participate in the trial.
So that's is also one of the things that I always think about when I ask minorities to participate in the trial. Is the compensation sufficient? Are we taking care of you as you come to the trial in order for us to make it worth your while.
But we have to have minority participation. Because if we don't, then you're not going to have the trust of the community, once the vaccine is approved. They're going to say, well, this vaccine wasn't tested in my community. So it is clinical and as you know, the biggest burden of this disease is in minority communities.
So we're going to have to have, you know, plans for your people from minority populations to participate in the study. And the reality is what's happening is we're, you know, we're slowing down the enrollment in nonminority populations right now in many of the studies in order to increase participation in minorities. And I'm confident we will get there.
There's a big commitment and there's a big push to actually do that.
KING: So to close the conversation in a sentence, your best hope for a vaccine being widely available is when?
[08:54:59]
DR. DEL RIO: You know, widely available, I'm thinking about the end of spring of 2021. I think it will be probably available in small amounts and for specific groups of people like high-risk individuals and (INAUDIBLE) for first responders, probably, you know, December, January. I honestly think that nothing will be ready to be put into place before the end of December, early January. However, you know, I may be wrong.
Dr. Del Rio, grateful for your expertise. Keep up the good work. Thank you, sir.
And that's it for INSIDE POLITICS. We hope you can catch us week days as well, we're here at 11:00 a.m. and noon Eastern. Up next a very important "STATE OF THE UNION" with dana bash. An exclusive interview with the Democratic nominee for vice president, Senator Kamala Harris.
Thanks again for sharing your Sunday. Have a great day. Stay safe.
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