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New Day

Deaths Rise from Coronavirus in the U.S.; Schools and Colleges Struggle to Reopen; Russian Opposition Leader Hospitalized; Trump- Russia Probe Not a Hoax. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired August 20, 2020 - 06:30   ET

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

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[06:33:27]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Even as new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations across the U.S. begin to decline, the death toll remains stuck at more than 1,300 people. To be specific, another 1,356 Americans lost their lives on Wednesday. A report from the White House Coronavirus Task Force, obtained by "The Atlanta Journal- Constitution," warns of expanding community spread in Georgia.

CNN's Natasha Chen is live in Atlanta with more.

What have you learned, Natasha?

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, the task force report suggests Georgia should be doing a lot more, including closing bars and gyms. Now, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp is upset about this. He called this pandemic politics on the part of the media. He emphasized the positive progress being made.

Now, it is true, the seven-day moving average of new cases has come down since late July, but is still averaging more than 2,000 new cases a day.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHEN (voice over): The White House Coronavirus Task Force has a dire warning to Georgia and Kentucky as new cases of coronavirus continue to climb and schools continue to tackle reopening. Georgia is seeing the highest daily numbers of coronavirus cases per capita. The state's governor is lashing out over a leaked report from the task force obtained by "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" warning Georgia needed to take stronger measures.

GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): This is what's so frustrating about pandemic politics and leaked reports. All I'm asking for is Georgians to get all that information.

CHEN: In Kentucky, more than half of the counties are in the danger zone, according to the task force.

[06:35:01] The governor says positivity rates are more than 5 percent.

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR (D-KY): It means we're in the midst of statewide spread that we've got to stop. And I believe we can stop. But you can't address a problem without admitting there is a problem.

CHEN: Meanwhile, more schools and universities are making decisions about reopening. The University of Alabama is going ahead with in- person learning and sports activities. But reopening is also posing some problems for schools. At the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, more than 350 students are in isolation, due in part to an off-campus party.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If we want to be here on campus, it's going to be a different kind of experience. We can do this, but students have to step up and do their part.

CHEN: Notre Dame and the University of North Carolina are both suspending their sports programs for at least a few days after clusters on their campuses. The University of Mississippi announced 16 new cases, 15 student athletes and one staff member. Even pre-college students are affected. The College Board canceled SAT tests for nearly half of the enrolled students on August 29th due to testing site closures. And Detroit's teacher union is voting to authorize a safety strike.

TERRENCE MARTIN, PRESIDENT, DETROIT FEDERATION OF TEACHERS: It is not an action that we take lightly.

We will do whatever we need to do to ensure the health and safety of our members.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHEN: And teachers here in Gwinnett County, the largest school system in Georgia, are also upset. That district is phasing students back into the classroom. Tonight, there is a board meeting where teachers plan to protest outside. And one of them told me there are at least 50 people signed up to speak publicly there.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Natasha Chen for us in Atlanta. Natasha, thank you very much.

Joining us now is Dr. Ali Khan, he's the dean of the University of Nebraska Medical Center's College of Public Health.

And, look, Dr. Khan, there is one question that is looming over every household with children right now, which is, will my kids get to go back to school? If they are back in school, how long will they be able to stay there? If they're not in school, when will they be able to go back.

And this is it. I mean 95 percent of the discussions in every house are all about this. And I think there were major developments overnight with the Detroit teachers authorizing a strike if they are convinced that safety measures are not in place. Teachers in New York City threatening to strike if they don't see changes made. It just seems like there is lingering, if not increasing apprehension about this. And I'm not sure how you address that.

DR. ALI KHAN, DEAN, COLLEGE OF PUBLIC HEALTH, UNIV. OF NEBRASKA MEDICAL CENTER: I think we've already answered this question for the United States, right? So we started this discussion about two, three weeks ago as some early school districts started. And we know from our work overseas that before school started on average, they had 0.8 cases per 100,000 per day. And we know if there are over 50 cases -- or 5 cases per 100,000 per day, the schools will not do well. And we -- well, we're seeing that. we're seeing high schools and elementary schools shut down. We're seeing colleges shut down. I mean the best way to protect our kids and get them back in school is shut down community transmission. Until we, as a nation, are willing to do what we know works all over the world to shut down community transmission, our kids are not going to be safe and we're just going to do this sort of back and forth, go to school, stop school until eventually we just close them altogether.

CAMEROTA: Right, but, Dr. Khan, aren't there places, like New York, where the transmission rate is -- I can't -- I don't know what it is right now, but it's below 5 percent right now. So below 1 percent they're telling me.

KHAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And so can't schools in New York, say, open?

KHAN: Yes, so schools in New York had three cases per 100,000 per day. So, absolutely, that's below our threshold of five. And if they put the right protection measures in place, they absolutely should be able to open safely.

But, again, it's -- you have to make sure you have the right protection in place. Are you staggering students? Are you making sure you're taking care of health and hygiene? Are you making sure everybody's wearing a mask? So there's additional steps you need to take. But if you're less than five cases per 100,000 per day in your local community, it's a good time to have a conversation about can you open schools.

BERMAN: Talk about measures you can take. Look at what they're doing in Massachusetts. Massachusetts says it will require kids who are going to school at all levels to get the flu vaccine by December 31st. The reason there is the fears of a twin-demic (ph) I guess they're calling it because the flu is something that can hit you. You want to eliminate one possible dire outcome by getting vaccinated.

As a matter of public health and public policy, how do you evaluate that, Dr. Khan?

KHAN: So even without a Covid outbreak, we know that for many flu seasons, if they're bad, we have diversions in emergencies and no -- no places in the inn (ph) in hospitals. So that's during a bad -- regular bad flu season.

So if you would layer a bad flu season on top of Covid, there's no hospital beds for people. So you need to do everything you can to decrease influenza within the community. Unlike Covid-19, for influenza, kids are how disease gets spread within the community.

[06:40:03]

So if you protect all kids, you will decrease community transmission. But it's also a reminder for all adults this year, please, make sure you get vaccinated against influenza.

CAMEROTA: I know, I'm one of those people who like reluctantly goes to get my flu shot every year because I'm not going to get the flu anyway, why am I taking time out of my day. Today, I mean, this year I'm running. I'm running as soon as they announce it, I'll be the first one.

KHAN: Please.

BERMAN: Good to hear. I am impressed and surprised.

CAMEROTA: I'm going to get in front of you. Yes, I know, my laziness is being beaten by the flu.

KHAN: Absolutely. Alisyn, get vaccinated because, you know, remember, there's two different public health strategies. So if you have a -- if you get a flu and a -- if you get flu and a fever, you stay home for a couple of days and you're fine. But if that fever is really Covid-19, it means bye-bye for 14 days. So it's two different scenarios. So, yes, decrease your chance of getting flu, please.

CAMEROTA: You make such a good point. John can't live without me for 14 days. That's ridiculous!

BERMAN: Or 14 minutes, what do you mean 14 days?

CAMEROTA: That's -- that's not possible.

BERMAN: Dr. Ali Khan, a mask on, thank you very much, as always, for being with us this morning.

We've got a thing. Dr. Khan and I have this thing.

CAMEROTA: I know you do. And he has a different mask every time. Looks good.

BERMAN: We appreciate it.

KHAN: Mask on, team.

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

KHAN: Get down community transmission.

BERMAN: All right, we want to take -- CAMEROTA: Thank you.

BERMAN: We want to take a moment now to correct something that we showed in a graphic yesterday. It erroneously showed that 155 coronavirus cases at Colorado College. That is incorrect. One hundred and fifty-five students are under quarantine there after one student tested positive. We apologize for that error.

So, one of Vladimir Putin's biggest critics is hospitalized after what some suspect to be a poisoning. Dramatic events and breaking details in a live report from Moscow, next.

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[06:45:40]

CAMEROTA: A very disturbing story breaking overnight. Top Russian opposition leader and Kremlin critic, Alexei Navalny, has been hospitalized. Authorities suspect he's been poisoned.

CNN's Matthew Chance is live in Moscow with the breaking details.

Matthew, this is such an upsetting story, and there's video.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there is. It's horrific video, as well.

I mean, look, Alexei Navalny is, you know, the most outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin in this country. He focuses on official corruption. The Kremlin absolutely hated. He's now unconscious in an intensive care ward in a Siberian hospital. That's where the commercial airliner he was flying on had to do a forced landing, an emergency landing, and get -- and call in medical staff take him away. He was pictured in the departure lounge beforehand having a cup of tea before he got on the plane. After that, shortly after takeoff, he was taken ill. He didn't have anything to eat or drink on the plane.

Listen to this video, though. You can hear him, screaming with agony as the medics come onboard and take him away to the ambulance outside. What a distressing situation this outspoken opposition leader in Russia is in now.

His people close to him, his lawyers say this is a clear-cut case of poisoning. They've called on the police in Russia to open a criminal investigation into this situation. The doctors, though, in the hospital in Onsk (ph), in Siberia, are saying, now, hang on a minute, we haven't quite made a diagnosis yet. And so they're still holding out to say, yes, this was definitely a poisoning.

What we do know, though, Alisyn, is that in Russia there is a very checkered past of outspoken Kremlin critics being silenced with violence, sometimes silenced with poison in exactly this way. And so, inevitably, there is speculation this is yet another example of a Kremlin critic being attacked by people who support his opponents.

CAMEROTA: Well, please let us know as soon as you get any more information from the hospital.

Matthew, thank you very much.

And if you thought the investigation into Donald Trump's campaign contacts with Russians ended with the Mueller report, you're wrong. The new, shocking evidence and conclusions that Republicans drew. We have a "Reality Check" for you, next.

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[06:52:00]

CAMEROTA: These days when you hear Trump-Russia investigation, you might be tempted to think, isn't that over? Well, no, it's not, because the bipartisan congressional investigation into Trump's Russia connections just came out. This one was led by Republicans. And it's stunning.

John Avlon has our "Reality Check."

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JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Even Republicans in the Senate Intelligence Committee have determined that the Trump-Russia connection was not a hoax. It was the truth.

And there's a lot of new, damning information in their nearly thousand-page report showing unprecedented contact between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence officers and intelligence services, which they then lied about in public and to Congress.

Now, Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort was in regular contact with and gave sensitive campaign information to Konstantin Kilimnik, who we now know is a Russian intelligence officer, and Manafort's interactions with him represented a, quote, grave counterintelligence threat.

In their report, the name Kilimnik appears some 800 times, and Manafort himself, the report says he, quote, lied consistently. The report also makes clear that when candidate Trump said stuff like this --

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: WikiLeaks. I love WikiLeaks!

AVLON: He wasn't kidding around. He meant it on a scope and a scale we never imagined.

The Intel Committee report chops down the narrative that Trump pal Roger Stone was going rogue for the president in his contacts with WikiLeaks, because multiple Trump campaign leaders knew what WikiLeaks would do for them and when.

Check out this timeline. Once the Trump campaign found out that the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape was about to drop, the campaign told Stone, who directed Jerome Corsi to tell WikiLeaks to, quote, drop the Podesta e-mails immediately, referring to stolen e-mails from Hillary campaign chairman John Podesta. Within a half hour, it happened.

Even after U.S. officials warned candidate Trump that WikiLeaks was little more than an arm of the Kremlin, he continued to boost WikiLeaks from the trail, at least 130 times in the last month of the campaign alone, according to Politifact. And the report strongly suggests that President Trump flat-out lied when he told Bob Mueller's team that he couldn't recall talking to Stone about WikiLeaks. The committee believes he did and did repeatedly.

Here's the lightning round. That already questionable Trump Tower meeting from June of 2016 did, in fact, include an asset of the Russian government. That Russia repeatedly tried to infiltrate and influence Trump's incoming administration, praying on its, quote, relative inexperience, that Russia not only moved on to blame Ukraine for 2016 interference, but sold the obvious lie to Trump and leading Republicans who continue to push it to this day.

We're also learning that the Senate committee referred for criminal investigation five close associates, including Trump's son, Don Jr., and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, all on the suspicion that they lied to the committee as first reported by "The Washington Post."

Now, all of this is new information. But here's what's not. President Trump almost never having a bad word to say about Vladimir Putin, not even over bounties on U.S. troops.

[06:55:01]

And we'll see what accusations are offered up by the upcoming Durham report, much hyped by Barr and Trump. But Senate Republicans signed off on the facts of this exhaustive report. And the results are clear, the Trump campaign's Russia connections were real. Russia's interfering in this election as well and the report condemns it. But make no mistake, Trump's real Russia hoax was the one he tried to perpetrate on the American people.

And that's your "Reality Check."

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CAMEROTA: Our thanks to John Avlon for that very helpful look.

Meanwhile, President Trump delivering a stark warning to the American people and an un -- well, that's President Obama, actually. He's the one who's delivering the unprecedented rebuke of the sitting president. Highlights from the Democratic Convention, next.

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KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I accept your nomination for vice president of the United States of America.

And let's be clear, there is no vaccine for racism.

[07:00:04]

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: What I know about Joe, what I know about Kamala, is that they actually.

END