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Vaccines for Coronavirus in Development; New Adviser to President Trump on Coronavirus Suggests U.S. Attempt to Attain Herd Immunity; New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy Interviewed on Mail-In Balloting and Reopening Schools; Barr Confronted Over Denial of Systemic Racism in Policing. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired August 14, 2020 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Infecting someone with the coronavirus to test the vaccines to see if they're effective.

So let's get much more on this and the implications. Joining us now is CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, exactly what does this mean? Producing a strain of the coronavirus to inject you intentionally, will it happen?

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I spoke to Dr. Fauci about that this morning. And this is a plan that they're keeping in their back pocket, sort of as a failsafe as he described it. And the idea is that they're going to create a strain of the SARS-CoV-2, so this novel coronavirus, they're going to going to create their own strain. They're going to do it in the good manufacturing practice sort of way. And they're going to make a strain that is very consistent and one that they can control, meaning it won't be released into the environment. That's what Dr. Fauci is saying.

And they're going to have this strain. They have been working on it for the last couple of weeks. It takes a while to manufacture a strain like this. But they want to have this strain available to possibly use to expose to people who have received the vaccine to basically get an idea of whether or not this vaccine works.

This comes with a whole host of ethical issues. It is a plan d, as in "dog," as Dr. Fauci sort of described it. What they would ideally do, the way these trials should work, is that once you have a vaccine, you basically vaccinate tens of thousands of people in a particular area where the virus is circulating, and there's tens of thousands of people who are similar people who do not receive the vaccine, and you basically get an idea, is the vaccine protective? Is it decreasing the incidents of infection?

But let's say you get into the fall months -- and this is not a likely scenario. But you get into the fall months, you now have vaccines that are going into the phase three trials, but you don't have the areas of the world where the virus is rampantly circulating, at that point you may consider challenge trials to basically try and intentionally expose people to get that data more quickly. ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: And when you're dealing with a pandemic,

right, that has such global spread as the one we're looking at, and one that does spread so quickly, how common would it be to do something like this challenge trial as opposed to simply working through the phase three trials?

GUPTA: Yes, it's not very common at all. But I can tell you, just again, with other conversations I've had with people over the last couple of weeks about this, that it's always in the back of people's mind. You may remember, Erica, with zika, the zika virus, there was similar sort of discussions going on at that point. Zika was starting to really circulate. People were concerned, understandably. They created -- they were working on the vaccines. And then it was a question of if the virus sort of has a dip and you're not getting rampant enough circulation to be able to get tens of thousands of people and really study them, what are you going to do? And then the idea of challenge trial, which didn't end up happening then, but that idea came up then as well, because you may not have pockets of the world where you have enough virus circulating at any given time to get the data back. You really need rampant viral circulation.

Now, in a way I think to your point, it's a good problem to have, right, because if you're not having virus circulation, that's good. But at the same time, it might come back again a couple months later and you have sort of missed the window of doing the study. And that's where the challenge trial comes into play here.

Again, it is a plan c or plan d, as Dr. Fauci has described it, but the idea that right now the U.S. government is creating a SARS-CoV-2 strain, a strain of this novel coronavirus that they want to have completely controlled, you don't want to use just -- you don't want to just clone an existing strain out there because it may not be a controlled strain. It may mutate a little bit. You want to have exactly a consistent strain that is consistent person to person to person. So it's almost like a medication, a drug, versus thinking about this as a virus. But it is a virus that the U.S. government is creating in the failsafe sort of need that they need to start challenging people with the virus to see if the vaccine works.

BERMAN: It's very interesting medical development. The idea that they are producing this strain to set themselves up should they have to intentionally give the people coronavirus so you can the test the vaccines, that's the news this morning, Sanjay. But as you said, Dr. Fauci tells you it is plan d. It's not about to happen just now. they're just setting themselves to do if they need to.

Let's ask you about a little bit more of the news this morning. Admiral Giroir is talking about testing, very defensive about testing in America. He basically says we're in a good place and he's more or less sick of people telling him that we're not in a good place. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADM. BRETT GIROIR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES ASSISTANT SECRETARY: Our strategy that focuses on mitigation, wearing a mask, watching your distance, washing your hands, quick testing of anyone who is symptomatic in any of their contacts with a baseline surveillance of some percent of the population is probably the winning strategy.

[08:05:06]

Not only do we not recommend this strategy of testing everyone on a frequent basis, but I think it could instill a false sense of security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So he's talking about testing giving a false sense of security here. He basically says he's sick of a lot of the criticism, he takes it personally. What do you think of this, Sanjay?

GUPTA: Well, the good news for. Admiral Giroir, he's very responsive. I talk to him quite a bit. Obviously, he does a lot of these interviews. I think on this he is wrong. He is just wrong, I think, on this. And I am surprised by this. I think this is trying to cover up what is unquestionably an abysmal failure when it comes to testing in this country.

Couple of more specific points. He is still focused on this idea of let's just test symptomatic people. That's a sort of antiquated strategy. This virus is different. We have known that since the middle of February that 40 percent of people out there are completely asymptomatic. They don't have symptoms. They will never develop symptoms, and yet they can still spread the virus. That completely changes everything.

Admiral Giroir still focused on let's just test symptomatic people. You can make the argument that symptomatic people, the guidance should be if you're having symptoms you should stay home. We really should be focusing on asymptomatic people, which is what has crushed this country in terms of overall viral spread. So I think it's wrong. We're still not doing enough testing and, frankly, now we're coming up with excuses for why we haven't done enough testing.

You look at every country in the world that has succeeded. A country like South Korea, they never even had to go into lockdown in part because they did the hygiene practices that Admiral Giroir is mentioning and everyone agrees with, but they also had testing. And it was important throughout, still is important, and it will continue to be important. So I'm worried when Admiral Giroir says this. It just means to me he doesn't have a strategy at this point to actually really increase testing.

HILL: I want to get your take on something else, Sanjay. We have heard about Dr. Scott Atlas, who now the president has added to his team. There are a lot of questions about the things that he has been saying about this virus, the accuracy of what he's been saying, and the fact that he is now front and center, not just in the president's ear, front and center.

GUPTA: Yes. It's really, it's quite remarkable. And I have talked to sources about this as well. It's very interesting. So Dr. Scott Atlas, a doctor, he's a neuroradiologist out of Stanford, or was a neuroradiologist. He is now -- he attended a coronavirus task force meeting, according to sources I have talked to, a couple of days ago. He is the person, again, according to these sources, who is in the Oval Office with the president now instead of Ambassador Birx. And he is someone who has been a proponent of a lot of things that flies in the face of what we have heard from task force members, the most substantial of which is this idea of let's basically go after herd immunity, which is something that Dr. Atlas is starting to put out there and float as an idea and even advocating for.

And I think what we have heard all along -- and just to be clear again, that's a terrible idea. Herd immunity in this country would lead to millions -- more than a million certainly of people dying in order to get to that point, likely take four years to actually achieve herd immunity. So it would take a super long time, lead to a lot of death, and there's plenty of public health evidence to suggest that. So the fact that you now have a doctor who is in the Oval Office instead of Ambassador Birx really advocating for this idea I think has raised a lot of concern among people within the White House and certainly on the task force.

BERMAN: Dr. Sanjay Gupta we appreciate you being here this morning to cover all the news, including the breaking news, and understand exactly what's going on. Thanks so much, Sanjay.

GUPTA: Yes, John, thanks.

BERMAN: We have a significant developing story this morning in the 2020 election. A source now tells CNN that New Jersey's governor is expected to announce a statewide mail-in voting plan as early as today for the November election. It comes as President Trump continues his attacks and baseless allegations of voter fraud. Joining me now is New Jersey's Governor Phil Murphy. Governor Murphy, thanks for being with us today. What do you plan to announce in terms of mail-in voting, and why?

GOV. PHIL MURPHY, (D-NJ): Yes, John, good to be with you. We delayed our primary to July 7th, and we pursued a hybrid model. We mailed ballots to folks who were registered in either party. We mailed applications to those who weren't. And we also provided in-person voting capacity, at least 50 percent in each county and at least one location in each municipality. It was a success. Not perfect, but overwhelmingly a success.

[08:10:00]

And so we're going to announce, not to break too much news here, later today that we're going to extend that model into the general election in November. We're going to -- most importantly, we have learned some lessons, including we're going to have more presence of secure drop boxes, make sure there is that physical in-voting capacity, and as it relates to mail-in ballots, the good news is in a general election it doesn't matter what party you're in, everybody gets a ballot. So we're going to have a hybrid model in November. We liked what we saw. We'll tweak it, and that's where we're headed. BERMAN: Everybody gets a ballot. You're going to do universal mail-in

-- everyone is going to be mailed a ballot they can use. They don't have to use it. They can go vote in person. But everyone is going to be mailed a ballot?

MURPHY: That is correct. And if you do vote in person you'll have to what we call provisional voting because the folks won't necessarily know at the voting location whether or not you actually already mailed a ballot in. That's what we did in the primary. A little bit more cumbersome, but it works.

BERMAN: Just to be clear, so people know the facts on voter fraud. Voter fraud is very rare in America. Fraud with mail-in ballots is a little bit higher than in-person voting, but it is still extraordinarily small. I just want to lay that out so people understand that. There was a problem in Paterson, New Jersey. It had to do, part of it had to with just failures in terms of how the ballots were delivered and where they were delivered. There was a tiny bit of fraud as well. How will you prevent that in the general election?

MURPHY: Yes, there was some very specific issues around the Paterson mail-in ballots in our May local elections, and the law enforcement is actually pursuing that. Overwhelmingly this was successful. You never could say you bat 1,000, but I'm pretty sure that we have a higher probability of being hit by lightning than we do uncovering voter fraud.

BERMAN: I do want to ask, because we just learned, by the way, that President Trump met with the post master general, who is a big Republican donor, last week before that gentleman met with Congress to talk about how the post office will handle the elections. What, if any, evidence have you seen of slowdowns in postal delivery in New Jersey?

MURPHY: Well, we saw a fair amount of evidence in fairness, John, in March, April, into May, for the very simple and understandable reason you had a lot of folks who are either sick or very concerned, rightfully, about being at the front lines. We have been in constant touch with the U.S. Postal Service. We have pressed them hard. We'll continue to press them hard. But that sort of period, as far as we could tell, is behind us.

And I think any notion that we're -- that we're playing with the postal service is we're playing with fire. It's not just ballots that get sent in the mail. Think about the medications that go to our seniors as one salient example of other areas where we rely on the efficiency of the U.S. Postal Service. So we'll stay on them hard as we have been, and it's in everyone's interest that it functions as well as possible.

BERMAN: A couple important questions about school. You have changed your policy toward reopening schools in New Jersey. Before it was going to be there needed to be some kind of in-person schooling, now you have backed off that requirement, allowing schools to find other ways. Why? Why? MURPHY: Yes, I wouldn't say change, John. Here's what we always said. We want some form of in-person education. The facts are overwhelmingly supportive of that, but we want to do it safely and responsibly. And as we got over the course of the summer, the districts have been sending us their plans, a lot of districts will be able on day one to have some form of in-person instruction. Some won't. It'll be because of simple thing, they're backordered on PPE or they've got real ventilation issues.

And so what we said the other day was if a district submits their plan and they have got a reasonable case for delaying the in-person instruction, and they have got a plan to address the deficiencies, we want to work with them. And So I would just say it's more flexibility in a system that already exists.

BERMAN: I get that, but it does sound like more and more districts are doing online only, at least at first. And I guess the question is they had all summer to get ready for this. There's been months to get ready for this. How come they couldn't make it happen?

MURPHY: Well, this is one of the most complex steps any of the superintendents, educators, parents, kids, or yours truly will take. This is not easy. So over the course of the summer, we committed -- we would listen and we would evolve.

I'll give you an example. The digital divide was a real killer for us in the spring. We have got literally a couple of hundred-thousand kids who didn't have access to the device or the Internet. We have now found the money to close that divide. We have over the course of the summer, we have looked at it, we said, you know what, we don't want to recommend face coverings for kids. We want to mandate them.

[08:15:02]

First, we gave parents the flexibility to take their child out to remote learn. Now as we look at these plans that they've come in, we've said, you know what, a district could do the same thing.

So, this is -- listen, anyone who thinks this is a normal school year, it's not the intention (ph).

BERMAN: Yeah, I get it.

MURPHY: But we've got to evolve. We've got to listen to folks.

BERMAN: I get it. And I know it's not easy. I know how hard it is. I know it's hard in my own kids' school district, and how much the discussion has been going on.

But New Jersey, the positivity is low. It's in the green zone. It's at 2 percent.

In terms of the cases per 100,000, it's at the lower end of the yellow zone.

And Dr. Fauci said yesterday very clearly that those are areas where schools could reopen. So, another way of asking it, if you can't do it in the New Jersey, given where you are, which is at the low end of cases right now, how can we open schools anywhere?

MURPHY: John, two comments. One is we've gone through hell to get to where we are and you know this because you know the state well. Over 14,000 lives lost. The last thing I want to do or any of us want to do is to go back through hell again.

Secondly, there's no question the overwhelming richness of the in- person educational experience. I can't speak to other states, New Jersey is my obsession.

Again, I want to repeat while we could give districts flexibility, the objective is clear. In-person education, safely, responsibly and, by the way, let's not forget equity. Not every family's circumstances are the same. Not every family has a range of choices and we've got to keep that in mind at every step.

BERMAN: Governor Phil Murphy from New Jersey, we appreciate the work you're doing. We appreciate the work you're doing to keep kids and parents and teachers safe. Thank you very much for being with us this morning.

MURPHY: Thanks for having me, John.

BERMAN: All right, the Attorney General William Barr called out for his comments about systemic racism by a woman with decades in law enforcement. She'll tell us about it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:20:29]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Attorney General Bill Barr confronted at a closed door meeting with law enforcement officers over these comments he made about systemic racism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE (D-TX): Does the Trump Justice Department look to end systemic racism and racism in law enforcement? I just need a yes or no answer.

WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I don't agree that there's systemic racism in the police department --

LEE: Specifically --

BARR: -- generally in this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Joining me now is Lynda Williams, president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.

Good to have you with us. So, you're only a couple weeks into the job, right, and to being put

into this position, and you were invited to the meeting with the attorney general with a couple dozen other folks in law enforcement. No real agenda here, just a chat, but you did take that opportunity to address the attorney general's comments from last month.

What did you say and what was -- what was his reaction?

LYNDA WILLIAMS, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF BLACK LAW ENFORCEMENT EXECUTIVES: Well, good morning, first of all, and thank you for having me.

HILL: Good morning.

WILLIAMS: New to that position as national president but not to that platform. And so, the National Organization of Black Enforcement Executives, NOBLE, it's part of a network of major law enforcement organizations. And so, exactly, he invited us to a chat. There was no specific agenda.

And so I patiently let everyone speak, but just two weeks actually on the very day I was sworn in, I heard the testimony of Attorney General Barr that stated just what you played, that he did not believe that systemic racism was real. And so I pop (ph) in and say, sir, just because one does not exist -- I mean, just because one does experience something does not negate this existence. That law enforcement as a microcosm of society, it's to be real, but you can't resolve a problem unless you acknowledge a problem.

HILL: And how did he respond to that?

WILLIAMS: He tilted his head and he responded with a question, did I think that all of law enforcement was a -- was based on systemic racism? I said, we can't throw a blanket on everything, but we can't deny it. But just the very -- very essence of it permeates throughout the organization and make it a racist society, and let's be real that systemic racism is part of our American culture, it's embedded in every facet of life.

Systemic racism is just as American as apple pie and we have to acknowledge that and I challenged him as the attorney general who's the chief law enforcement officer for the entire United States to have a closed mind -- I challenge him and I spoke personally that as a 30- plus year veteran in law enforcement at the federal level as well as on a local level, then I know it to be true, and for him to not acknowledge that is for him to not -- not face reality of where we are, and what this country consist of.

HILL: You know, what you're bringing up, the refusal to accept that reality, right, and my apologies, I'm forgetting who said this, so I apologize.

But as we were having these difficult, necessary conversations, right, that I think it became more prevalent over the last couple of months, I was struck by someone who said empathy means believing the other person's experience, right? You have to believe what they told you, they felt and experienced in that moment, even if you weren't there.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

HILL: And so, what's fascinating to me too is him sort of, you know, tilting his head and listening, but the point that you make I think speaks to another point that we heard him kind of double down on in that -- in that testimony. I want to play that moment as well.

WILLIAMS: OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARR: Blacks will not be treated evenhandedly. They will not be given the benefit of the doubt. They will be treated with greater suspicion.

At the same time, I think it would be an oversimplification to treat the problem as rooted in some deep-seated racism generally infecting our police departments.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: To your point, it's not about so much a deep-seated racism infecting police departments, it's the reality that deep-seated racism has infected the United States of America for hundreds of years and has been allowed to fester and grow, and there is still apparently this block even at the highest levels to acknowledge its existence.

WILLIAMS: Absolutely. And as a law enforcement person and leading an organization such as NOBLE, it was a personal affront because again I pointed out to him that you first have to recognize that there's a problem and that you can't solve that problem if you pretend there isn't one.

[08:25:06]

And even more so, you can't resolve it by making excuses. You've got to acknowledge it. So I said, I challenge you respectfully, you have to acknowledge this because it negates everything that I stand for, who I am, and that's why this country stands where it is if we don't acknowledge that there is a problem and that we have to make a change.

HILL: What was the reaction from the other people who were part of that meeting?

WILLIAMS: You could hear a pin drop. There was nodding and a couple of other colleagues jumped in after I opened that Pandora's Box. But, you know, everyone listened at tentatively.

But you can't deny reality and you can't be afraid to speak the truth. And that's the boldness of being in the position that I'm in, that you have to have the courage to speak truth to power. You know, at the end of the day, he's a public servant as am I.

He's a man with a title, but if we don't talk, if we don't communicate, we can never find resolve to the problems that exist.

HILL: It's a great point. We really appreciate you being with us this morning. Thank you for those decades of service as well.

And listen, I'd love to continue to follow-up with you and see where this goes especially as you now have taken the reins as president of NOBLE. Thank you.

WILLIAMS: Thank you for having me. Thank you.

HILL: California just surpassed 600,000 confirmed coronavirus cases. So what is being done now to address some of the hardest hit communities, immigrant communities? We're going to speak with a Democratic lawmaker who is also a doctor about those efforts, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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