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Nearly Half Of U.S. States Report Increase In Virus Cases; Bolton Says, Trump Wanted Quid Pro Quote With Ukraine. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired June 22, 2020 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: Welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is New Day. Alisyn is off this morning. Erica Hill here with me, great to see you.

ERICA HILL, CNN NEW DAY: You too.

BERMAN: All right. This morning, some Americans might feel like they're done with coronavirus, but the virus isn't done with them, not at all. This morning, 23 states are seeing a rise in the number of cases. Those are the states in red. The states in deep red have growth of more than 50 percent.

Nationwide, cases have risen more than 15 percent and in some key states, there is a substantial increase in the rate of people getting sick and an increase in the number of people who are so sick they're in the hospital. So this isn't just about more testing, despite the nonsense coming from the president on that front.

The White House, in fact, now acknowledges that they're preparing for a second wave of coronavirus in the fall. This is less than a week after Vice President Pence said that fears about a second wave were overblown.

The states of particular concern this morning do include Florida, you can see the rise in cases there, and Arizona, look at the rise in cases there. President Trump is holding an event in Arizona tomorrow.

HILL: We're also following breaking news involving NASCAR. A noose was found in the garage star of Bubba Wallace, the sport's only top- tier black driver. And this comes, of course, just weeks after he pushed for a ban on the confederate flag. It's been banned by NASCAR venues.

Also developing overnight, New York City's mayor announcing a statue of former President Theodore Roosevelt at the Museum of Natural City in New York City will be removed.

We've got a lot to get to. We want to begin with CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. And, Sanjay, as we talk about the pandemic, we actually just got these numbers I want to read to you out of Florida from Jackson Health System, which I believe is the largest health system in Florida. They've seen a 75 percent increase in COVID- 19 patients in the last 13 days. I know -- and we're looking here at the percentage of positive tests in Florida. That's the number we need to watch as well as hospitalizations.

When you hear that 75 percent increase, what does that tell you?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it tells us that the pace at which this infection is growing over there is obviously much faster, much faster than the pace at which testing has been increased, and also, that the majority of people, you know, when you're starting to see a very high positivity rate, that means you're not necessarily getting out into the community and actually doing surveillance.

You're testing people who are at high risk, who have a high concern already. You're finding them, but I think the problem is that that means that there's probably a lot more people out there that you're also missing. So, you know, the amount of positivity gives you an idea that, look, this thing may be actually spiraling even faster than we realized. It's a real concern. And, obviously, Florida has been a concern for some time since the beginning of this pandemic.

One thing about Florida in addition to those cases rising, I think most people realize, is that you probably have a more vulnerable population there, as well. People are elderly. People are more likely to have pre-existing conditions. So this is an area a lot of public health officials are keeping an eye on.

BERMAN: The governor there though on that point, Sanjay, and it's interesting, Ron DeSantis is making the case that a lot of these new cases that are being seen in Florida right now are younger people. If you look at the age distribution, he says that they are in the younger population.

Now, I think he's saying that to indicate, well, the mortality rate is less among young people, so this won't be as deadly, but it's really a mixed bag.

GUPTA: Yes, it is a mixed bag. I mean, it's not surprising that you're going to start to see younger people, because the state is largely reopening. And this has been happening since the beginning of May. People that are out and about are probably going to be younger people, more so than older or people who are considered vulnerable.

But, you know, people who are considered vulnerable still for the most part, I think, are getting the message that they should stay home or certainly stay out of high-risk situations. So this is not surprising.

I think the real question then is going to become the mobility then of those younger people. How much are they likely to spread it? And this is still a little bit of a question mark, and it could be an important question to answer as we start to think about the fall and the winter and even beyond that.

We know asymptomatic transmission happens. We know people can transmit this virus even if they don't have symptoms and may even be more contagious right before they develop symptoms, but how is that all going to play out?

[07:05:02]

Look, if we can show this graph of the United States versus the European Union, I think this is such an important point, because it did not have to sort of go this way in Florida or the rest of the country in terms of the overall number of cases plateauing, seemingly, John, since two weeks ago. 20,000, maybe now we're back up to 25, 30,000 cases per day. It did not need to go this way.

This is what it should have looked like. I mean, people should really remember this image on the screen right now, but the United States have sort of shown that's our basement, that lowest level of the curve there, that seems like that's our basement. That's what we're comfortable with in this country. 20,000 people per day getting infected, several hundred people dying every day. Look at the E.U. That's what it should have been like.

HILL: It's remarkable, Sanjay, when you point that out and we see that graph right in front of us, that stark difference between what's happening here and what's happening in the European Union, after we heard Vice President Pence has said, in the recent days, the media has taken to sounding the alarm bells over a second wave of coronavirus infections. Such panic is overblown.

To your point, and as we heard from Dr. Fauci last week, we're still in this first wave, this as Peter Navarro is saying, yes, the administration is preparing for a second wave. Do you think they're seeing those numbers and panicking?

GUPTA: Yes. I mean, I think that they're seeing the same numbers that we're seeing, that the public health officials, I think, are hopefully advising them on. Although it's not clear without the coronavirus task force meetings happening regularly. But the numbers are the numbers. And you can compare them to other places around the world.

I think that there was a sense, you hear that, look, there was an inevitability about this. This was just the way it was going to play out. There's nothing more that we could have done. It was like a hurricane coming through or something. But now you know, if you look at Europe, if you look at Asia. In Taiwan, they have had seven people have died, seven. And that's bordering China. And, again, I think these comparisons are going to be drawn in perpetuity. But we have a chance to potentially learn from these lessons now.

To your question, Erica, I don't think we have the luxury of talking about a second wave right now, because we have not gotten out of the first wave and it's not clear that we will get out of the first wave. Instead of actually having a true sort of ebb and flow, it may just sort of be micro and macro peaks for the foreseeable future.

BERMAN: Sanjay, I know you were watching Saturday night when the president said that, at one point, asked his advisers to slow down on the testing. It's an outrageous statement. The White House now says he was joking. It's a pretty bad joke with 120,000 people dead from coronavirus. You can see that on our screen right now. So I don't know why he would think that was funny.

It's also wrong, that what we're seeing right now is an increase in positivity in testing in Florida, in Arizona, in some of these states. I know you had a pretty visceral reaction when you heard the president say that.

GUPTA: Yes, it felt like a real travesty, you know, I mean, nearly criminal. This is the one thing that could have changed, I think -- one of the main things that could have changed our trajectory in all of this. People talk about the fact that we have done some 25 million tests in this country. That's correct. And it is far more than a lot of other countries.

The problem is, it's not just the number of tests you do, it's when you do them. We got a really late start and the application of testing has been really uneven around the country. There are still lots of places, I know, where people may fill out questionnaires and say they have symptoms, they have a doctor's referral, a recommendation for the testing, and they still can't get a test.

Five and a half months now into this, that can't be the way that it is anymore. There's no way we're getting out of this, unless we can fix this testing issue. As you know, we talked -- by mid-June, there should be 5 million tests per day getting done in this country. These are projections and estimates, obviously. They say by the end of July, it should be 20 million tests per day. That's what we would need to do to really be able to find people, isolate them, and break the cycle of transmission.

Ultimately, you want to get into a situation where a single individual does not transmit this to more than one individual, even less than that. That's how you start to actually bring that curve way down. We're still at two to three people are getting infected from every single person. That's not -- we're never going to get out of this if that's the case.

HILL: Yes. Sobering and so important, because that's the reality and we need to look at it and we need look at where it's bringing us. Sanjay, thank you, as always.

Developing this morning, CNN has learned that President Trump is very upset over the poor turnout at his Oklahoma rally. This video you see the president arriving back at the White House after that event, looking a little dejected. The Trump campaign spent weeks touting as many as a million people had asked for tickets. The Tulsa Fire Department says in all, about 6,000 -- just about 6,200 supporters showed up Saturday night.

Joining us now is CNN Political Analyst, Maggie Haberman, White House Correspondent for The New York Times.

[07:10:02]

Maggie, good morning. You're reporting that the president was warned aboard Air Force One on his way to Tulsa that the crowds were smaller than expect, that he was stunned, yelled at aides backstage while looking out at the endless rows of empty blue seats in the upper bowl of the stadium according to four people familiar with what took place. I would say this is still bothering him this morning, Maggie.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It's still bothering him, and I think we're going to know how long it continues to bother him, frankly, based on how long there is media coverage of it, because he's incredibly attuned to that, as we know. Look, this did not go as planned.

Campaign rally attendance in a general election for a president tends to not mean a whole lot, but the Trump campaign has made its entire metric and message about Joe Biden, that Joe Biden can't compete on crowds. So if you set yourself up and talk about how there are nearly a million registrations for tickets, yes, that is going to become the story. And as we saw, there was just nothing even close to full in a 19,000 capacity center the other night.

BERMAN: And, Maggie, we saw that walk from the helicopter and I see it in your reporting, he's feeling this, I mean, a sense that looked like -- it looked like he felt defeated as he was walking out of Marine One.

HABERMAN: My understanding is that he did feel defeated. He was muted on the way back from the rally, not sort of his more upbeat self, as normal. He had gotten himself into a better state of mind by the end of his rally and the end of his performance.

But there was no masking what had taken place and there was no masking fact that the coverage was bad. And he's very as I said, he's very attuned to that.

Look, I don't think this portends great things for rallies for him for going forward. I do think it is a reminder that a lot of folks in the White House have been living in the bubble (INAUDIBLE) telling themselves that the coronavirus fears is just the media driving this.

What you saw in that lack of attendance is at least in part because people are afraid of getting infected. And just because president tells them masks are just politically correct or a statement against him, a lot of people are clearly not buying them.

HILL: Maggie, I'm just so fascinated, as John pointed out, he really does look defeated in that video. The fact we're seeing him with his tie undone, that crumpled MAGA hat in his hand. I mean, if you look at the president's face there, this is a man who has always had a very, you know, sort of calculated public image from when he was involved in business and real estate to now as president. He wants to put forth this image in his mind of power and of strength. The fact that he let himself be captured on camera like that is fascinating to me.

HABERMAN: It tells you that he wasn't able to basically put a happy face on something that for him was just an enormous disappointment. Look, he had been as giddy as a kid in the days leading up to this rally. He's really excited about it. Aides conceded that this was being done in part to try to lift his spirits, which were not in a good place in the last couple of weeks. And so for him to show up and find that all of these promises of all of these people who were going to show up and adore you and cheer for you, that they weren't there, for him, that was crushing.

BERMAN: Maggie, I want to ask you about John Bolton in the interview he did last night. And we're going to talk more coming up about, I think, some of the details of the book and what it says about the impeachment process and that, but one thing has jumped out to me in the last few hours. And that is you had a former national security adviser, who spent well over a year in the White House, someone who worked there and closely with the president come out last night and say that he does not want to see the president re-elected.

I just want to play that sound for people here. He was asked by Martha Raddatz what he hopes history will say about the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I hope it will remember him as a one-term president who didn't plunge the country irretrievably into a downward spiral we can't recall from.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: It's a big deal when someone who worked this closely with the president until not that long ago says he's not fit to be re-elected.

HABERMAN: It's stunning. Look, John, there are obvious reasons to question John Bolton's motives in terms of how he has gone about this. He saved all of his information for a book. He didn't speak willingly during the impeachment hearing and instead was very critical of the Democrats in the House who were leading the impeachment inquiry.

But he is saying very bluntly, people should not vote for this man. They described it as a danger to the republic, described a second term as something that he felt the country essentially couldn't pull out of. This is unprecedented, certainly in modern times to have a former key adviser saying this about a president who is still in office.

Whether it has an impact, only time will tell. Whether he continues saying this up until the election, only time will tell. But he is a conservative. He is a conservative for years, which makes it much harder for Republicans who support the president to criticize his bona fides.

BERMAN: I'll say it, thank you, Maggie.

[07:10:00]

We both want to thank you so much. We're fighting to thank you.

HABERMAN: Thank you.

BERMAN: Maggie Haberman, thanks for being with us this morning. We really appreciate it. HILL: John Bolton explaining what he would have said if he had testified at the impeachment hearings. We'll talk with one of the House's impeachment managers about that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOLTON: He wanted a probe of Joe Biden in exchange for delivering the security assistance that was part of the congressional legislation that had been passed several years ago before. He said it to me directly that that's what he had in mind. I think Secretary Pompeo understood, the Pentagon understood, intelligence community understood, people in the White House understood.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So that's former National Security Adviser John Bolton telling ABC News what he refused to say during President Trump's impeachment hearings and trial.

Joining me now is Congressman Jason Crow. He was one of the seven House impeachment managers. Congressman, thanks so much for being with us.

So that's what he would have testified had he been put before the House during the impeachment process and presumably during the trial itself in the Senate.

[07:20:01]

The fact that he was not, he says, interestingly enough, was your fault. He blamed House Democrats for how they handled the process. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOLTON: They failed utterly to accomplish what they wanted. In fact, they made things worse, because their strategy fitted with the Trump political strategy, keep it narrow and move it fast.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: What do you say to that, Congressman?

REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): Well, he's clearly trying to come up with an excuse for why he didn't come forward when the country needed him the most. And when his subordinates actually had the courage to do what he didn't have the courage to do, and that was tell the story during the impeachment inquiry, tell the story during the trial. And he has to come up with a reason for why he has withheld that information conveniently right before the launch of a multi-million dollar book deal.

So he's no patriot, he's no hero here. He's trying to cast blame at other places to compensate for the fact that he didn't do what he needed to do for the country at the time he needed to do it.

BERMAN: Given what we ultimately heard from Republicans in the Senate, what difference do you think it would have made?

CROW: I don't know what difference it would have made. My hindsight doesn't work really well right now. But it was the right thing to do, right? He had subordinates. He had and people working for him who had the courage to stand up and tell a story that needed to be heard by the American people, that needed to be heard by the Senate. His subordinates stood forward at great personal cost to actually tell an important story about egregious and deep abuses by the president of the United States to help his personal election campaign.

Now, we actually provided John Bolton with that opportunity. We asked him in the last week of the impeachment trial to submit a written affidavit to tell his story. That was after it became clear that the Senate was going to engage in a cover-up and wasn't going to call him to testify. And he even declined to submit that written statement, instead waiting five months to do it as part of a book deal.

BERMAN: So inside the book, John Bolton writes about a meeting the president has with a President Xi of China who says that he then stunningly turned the conversation to the upcoming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China's economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he'd win. He stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome.

So, I guess, my question is now, going forward, do you think that statement is impeachable, if the president did that, is impeachable? And what happens now? Do you have any desire see something new happen with this information?

CROW: This is part of a pattern that the president engages in over and over and over again. And it's selling out the country, selling out our national security in exchange for his personal political benefit.

Now, if you think what he says in front of a political rally or the cameras is shocking, obviously, what he says to our foreign adversaries behind closed doors is even more shocking. You know, whether it's saying to China that you can put a million Muslim Uyghurs in a kind of concentration camp if you buy a farm -- you know, farming and agricultural products from swing states, whether it's withholding military aid from Ukraine and then talking tough on Russia in front of the cameras, or so many other examples, where he says one thing and then does another to help his campaign. It's very dangerous.

And my personal opinion here really doesn't matter. You know, what I think and what I would like to see happen is less important than how we protect the country. And how we protect the country is by getting this information out in front of the American people as quickly as possible, because the president is trying to meddle in the elections. The timing is really important here. We have to get this out quick.

And we also know that the Senate is unwilling to actually discharge its obligation. The majority in the Senate is unwilling to discharge its obligation to be a separate and coequal branch and to hear this information. So we have to look at tolls we have to get the information out quickly.

BERMAN: I want to ask you something on a slightly different subject. You, of course, are a decorated military veteran who served -- you served at Ft. Bragg, named after the racist and quite frankly not good confederate general, Braxton Bragg. What's your feeling on renaming military bases that are currently named after confederate generals?

CROW: Yes. We absolutely should be naming our bases -- we should have our monuments upholding the values that the military stands for, upholding the values that I fought for. It shouldn't be to traitors. It shouldn't be to people who turn their back on the United States, who defended slavery in one of the darkest moments of our nation's history. We should be upholding our values and setting an example. That's why I think it's well past time that we change the names of these bases.

I would be proud to have that base named after somebody who fought for and sacrificed for the values that I also fought for.

[07:25:01]

You know, I trained and deployed to war at Ft. Bragg and Ft. Benning and it's well past time that those names are consistent with the values of our country.

BERMAN: It's a New York City question, not so much a Colorado question, but the statue of Teddy Roosevelt that's outside the Natural History Museum on Central Park West, the city has announced that they are going to remove that.

Now, they're not wiping Teddy Roosevelt from the museum. It's that specific statue, which happens to have an African man and a Native American sort of subjugated, walking behind him there. That's why they say they're removing it. But what's your feeling in general about something like that? If you're removing names of confederate generals is one thing, but removing statues of Teddy Roosevelt, what does that say?

CROW: Well, that statue, that specific statue, you're right, it does portray a subjugation of Native Americans and African-Americans and it is not an appropriate statue. What we need to do is have a conversation as a country. We need to have a conversation and go through a process where we have to come to terms with some of our monuments, our statues, the names of our streets, the names of our bases, and what's appropriate for our values.

And actually having that conversation, going through that process is really important. It will allow us to educate ourselves on our history, educate ourselves on the complicated course that our history has gone through. We need to go through that process and have that discussion. That discussion is valuable, but the results of that will also be valuable.

BERMAN: Congressman Jason Crow, we do appreciate your time. Thanks for being with us this morning.

CROW: Thank you.

BERMAN: New coronavirus cases on the rise at a major tourist hotspot. The mayor of Miami Beach in Florida joins us next.

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[07:30:00]

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