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The Situation Room
U.S. Nears 175,000 Deaths with 5.6 Plus Million Cases and CDC Forecasts 20,000 more Deaths in Next Three Weeks; Trump Threatens to Deploy "Sheriffs" and "Law Enforcement" as Poll Watchers on Election Day; Biden Hopes to Build Momentum from Convention with Virtual Campaigning Ahead of Election; Postmaster General: Delivering Ballots On Time "Number One Priority" As Trump Rails Against Mail-In Voting. Aired 5-6p ET
Aired August 21, 2020 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[17:00:00]
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM. We're following breaking news.
Right now, the United States is nearing 175,000 deaths in the coronavirus pandemic while the number of confirmed cases has topped 5.6 million. And the CDC is now forecasting that 20,000 more Americans will die from COVID-19 in the next three weeks alone. Meanwhile, the virus is spreading across college campuses right now. Outbreaks are being reported in at least 19 states with almost 1,400 known cases.
Also, in a rather contentious Senate hearing on mail-in voting, the postmaster general of the United States has vowed delivering mail-in ballots on time is his, and I'm quoting him now, "number one priority" despite President Trump's new attacks on voting by mail.
Let's go straight to our chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta.
Jim, President Trump is lashing out at mail-in voting as well as his Democratic rival.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. President Trump is ratcheting up his attacks on Joe Biden in response to the Democratic nominee's speech at the convention last night. But the president and his team are back on their heels as the Trump administration is struggling to explain big delays at the U.S. Postal Service. Leaders at the Postal Service are insisting there is still cause for alarm about the upcoming election when lots of Americans will be voting by mail. The president is warning though, he'll be sending law enforcement to make sure there is a fair vote.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ACOSTA (voice-over): Eager to get back on the attack, the president took aim at the theme running through Joe Biden's speech at the Democratic convention that the trump administration has been a time of darkness.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They spent four straight days attacking America as racist and a horrible country that must be redeemed.
And yet look at what we have accomplished until the plague came in. Look at what we have accomplished, and now we're doing it again.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Where Joe Biden sees American darkness, I see American greatness.
ACOSTA (voice-over): It was a carefully scripted rebuttal to a Biden speech that surprised even some Trump allies as nowhere near sleepy.
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: This is our moment. This is our mission. May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here tonight, as love and hope and light join in the battle for the soul of the nation.
ACOSTA (voice-over): And yet in front of a crowd of conservative activists, many not wearing masks, the president warned a Biden administration would lead to the same unrest on the streets that happened on Mr. Trump's watch.
TRUMP: I'm the only thing standing between the American dream and total anarchy, madness, and chaos, and that's what it is.
ACOSTA (voice-over): The president reprised his attacks on mail-in voting, predicting they will lead to chaos on election night.
TRUMP: And they all think I'm trying to steal an election. Just the opposite. I want the fair results of an election.
ACOSTA (voice-over): At a Senate hearing on mail slowdowns, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump ally, denied he's trying to rig the election for the president after recent revelations that processing machines have been removed at postal facilities across the country.
SEN. GARY PETERS (D-MI): Will you be bringing back any mail sorting machines that have been removed since you have become postmaster general? Will any of those come back?
LOUIS DEJOY, U.S. POSTMASTER GENERAL: There's no intention to do that. They're not needed, sir.
ACOSTA (voice-over): DeJoy conceded he and Mr. Trump recently met, but insisted their conversation was not about the election.
PETERS: Did you discuss those changes or their potential impact on the November election with the president or anyone at the White House? And remind you, you're under oath.
DEJOY: I have never spoken to the president about the Postal Service, other than to congratulate me when I accepted the position. ACOSTA (voice-over): The president has yet to provide any evidence
there will be fraud on election night, and yet he's vowing to send police officers to polling stations.
TRUMP: We're going to have sheriffs, and we're going to have law enforcement, and we're going to have hopefully U.S. attorneys, and we're going to have everybody, and attorney generals.
ACOSTA (voice-over): On the pro-Trump QAnon movement:
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Will you dismiss it? Will you dismiss it?
MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just did, John.
BERMAN: No, you didn't.
PENCE: We dismiss conspiracy theories out of hand.
ACOSTA (voice-over): Vice President Mike Pence tried to dance around questions about the baseless conspiracy theory.
PENCE: I don't know anything about that conspiracy theory. I don't know anything about QAnon, and I dismiss it out of hand.
ACOSTA (voice-over): The president is doing some dodging of his own, insisting that he hasn't been speaking to his former chief strategist Steve Bannon, who has been charged with defrauding donors to a private wall project on the border.
But sources tell CNN, Mr. Trump and Bannon have spoken in recent weeks, despite what the president has said.
TRUMP: I haven't been dealing with him for a long period of time, as most of the people in this room know. I haven't been dealing with him at all.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ACOSTA: And the president is likely to stay behind closed doors for the rest of the day as he's attending a funeral service for his brother Robert at the White House. But the president will be gearing up for his convention next week. Aides are calling the theme to the convention a, quote, "return to American greatness." A title that suggests Mr. Trump is still in damage control mode as the nation is reeling from the pandemic. Wolf?
[17:05:12]
BLITZER: Certainly is. All right, Jim Acosta, thank you. Now the latest on the coronavirus pandemic. CNN's Nick Watt is in Los Angeles with the latest update. Nick, a horrible new forecast of what 20,000 more American deaths in just the next three weeks. That's more than many countries have seen since this pandemic started.
NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It absolutely is, Wolf. And you know, we've also just got new guidance from the CDC on how we should be opening schools. They say that this is coming out after discussions with school districts, and the aim is basically that if you have one case in the school, you don't have to shut the whole place down.
They're talking about pubs. They're talking about if you get a case you just shut down one particular classroom, perhaps.
You know, they also say that communication has got to be clear for all in different languages and has to be transparent. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is holding out for a miracle.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PENCE: We think there is a miracle around the corner because the president called on pharmaceutical companies. We believe it's very likely that we'll have one or more vaccines for the coronavirus before the end of this year.
WATT (voice-over): Meanwhile in the real world.
TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, DIRECTOR-GENERAL, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: No country can just ride this out until we have a vaccine.
WATT (voice-over): And right now, the U.S. is seeing many more cases every single day than we did in those dark days of April. On average, more than a thousand Americans have died every day for about a month now.
DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: Hopefully this week and next week you're going to start seeing the death rate really start to drop.
WATT (voice-over): His optimism is based upon the nationwide new infection rate dropping at the moment. But -
DR. AMY COMPTON-PHILLIPS, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I think we're going to see in the fall another spike. And I just don't see it not happening given the burden of disease that's circulating in the community today.
WATT (voice-over): There's a whiff already.
REDFIELD: Middle America right now is getting stuck. We don't need to have a third wave in the heartland.
WATT (voice-over): Case counts climbing in Illinois, Iowa, South Dakota. Now looking a little sunnier in the south, the rate of new cases now falling in Texas, even so today in Dallas.
MICHAEL HINOJOSA, SUPERINTENDENT, DALLAS INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT: All the medical professionals were unanimous in their recommendation that there should be no in-person learning on September the 8th.
WATT (voice-over): Of the 101 largest districts in the nation, 64 now reopening online only despite pressure from the president and some of his acolytes who are not medical professionals. July 8th the president tweeted this. In Germany schools are open with no problems. That day, 356 new cases in Germany. Yesterday, more than four times that.
New York crushed the curve, still nervous about schools.
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): But they're still working out with the plan would be. I would have a lot of questions. Parents do have a lot of questions. This is a risky proposition no matter how you do it.
WATT (voice-over): Kicking up to college level, cases now confirmed on campuses in at least 19 states. Some reverting to remote learning. Gatherings like this proving a problem. Penn state's president asking the question, do you want to be the person responsible for sending everyone home?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WATT: And, Wolf, horrific news out of Florida. A 6-year-old girl in the Tampa bay area has just died from COVID-19. The youngest person to die in the state with this virus. And we also hear that a judge next week is going to rule on a lawsuit, a teacher's union is suing the governor over an executive order that states that schools must at least offer five days of in-person tuition every week. Wolf?
BLITZER: So sad, indeed. All right, Nick Watt reporting for us. Thank you.
Let's get some more on all of this. Our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is joining us. Sanjay, what's your big takeaway from these updated school reopening guidelines just released by the CDC?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think the big takeaway is that there's not been a lot of clarity in terms of what to do if you have people who are infected on campus. I mean, so far, you know school districts have sort of have been handling this on an ad hoc basis.
Different districts even within the same state, may handle it totally differently. So at least this is some guidance. And I think the big takeaway is that I think there's been this rush to say, look, just shut everything down immediately. Everyone goes back home, go to virtual learning at least for a period of time.
And what they're starting to say is look, let's evaluate this a little bit more carefully. Could you run into a situation where you do a short-term sort of shut down, cancel after-school activities, cancel events, things like that.
[17:10:06]
And if there's a situation in schools where you are cohorting where there's you know basically same students are always together throughout the entire day. If that's one of those kids, then can you just address that cohort and leave the rest of the school in play?
A lot of it is going to depend on the community, Wolf. You know, if there's a lot of viral spread in the community, it may make it more challenging because the numbers will just continue to go up. But in places where you're opening more safely, you may be able to have these other sorts of -- these other sorts of approaches to this.
They also made a big deal in these guidelines about saying let's have enough mental health counseling, in-person, virtually, recognizing obviously this is a real concern, even if you go back to in-person learning, it's still a very different sort of in-person learning.
BLITZER: Yes. It certainly is. You know CNN's John Berman today asked the Vice President Mike Pence about a recent White House decision to declare teachers essential. Listen to his answer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Does that mean that they will be forced to work if they come into contact with someone with the coronavirus?
MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No. Absolutely not, John. To keep our economy rolling, to keep our healthcare, economy rolling, to keep food on the table, we recognize that there are essential workers in America.
BERMAN: Mr. Vice President --
PENCE: What it does, John, is it prioritizes supplies and PPE and testing. So, we want our teachers to know we're going to continue to prioritize their health, their safety, the safety of our schools. But we're going to work every day. And states around the country are safely reopening as we speak.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: So, what does this designation, Sanjay, mean?
GUPTA: So, you know, essential worker or critical infrastructure worker, that's sort of the designation. And there's all sorts of different things that come with it. Some of the vice president was mentioning, it does prioritize personal protective equipment and testing, which has been inadequate in most school districts. It would prioritize those for people who are considered essential workers.
But one of the big things it means is that these teachers, even if they've been exposed to someone with COVID-19, they could continue to work. In the past as you know, Wolf, if you had an exposure, you'd be quarantined for 14 days. In this case, they're saying because you're essential, you can continue to work. You don't have to work, it's not mandatory but you can. So that puts some more sort of in line with healthcare workers.
Wolf, as you know, we've been doing a lot of reporting on this, talked to a lot of school administrators around the country. And this is concerning because what we've learned, as you well know, Wolf, over the last several months is that even if you have no symptoms at all, you've had an exposure, maybe you have the virus now, you have no symptoms at all. You could still be spreading the virus. And I think that's one of the concerns among teachers and faculty and staff and obviously the students. BLITZER: The Florida Department of Health, Sanjay, just reported that a 6-year-old little girl in Florida died from the coronavirus. Some more tragic evidence that President Trump's claim that kids are essentially immune. Not true. The "Tampa Bay Times" reports eight children - eight little children have died from coronavirus since the pandemic started. So, what's your reaction to his awful news?
GUPTA: I mean it's awful. It's sad. You know I have kids and you think about that, you think about their parents. And we don't know if the child - you know anything more about the child in terms of how they contracted it. But we know the virus is out there, it's contagious. And we know kids are not immune.
Just to be clear, immune means you can't get the infection. We know kids can become infected. I think what has held up since we looked at some of the earliest studies coming out of China was it is true kids are less likely to get sick, very sick or even die. But it does happen here.
What we don't know for certain, although I think the evidence is becoming clearer on this is just how much will kids spread this virus? The reason we don't know so much, Wolf, is if you think about it since mid-March, little kids in particular have been largely at home. I mean older kids started to go out earlier. Obviously, adults going out earlier.
And the largest study out of South Korea which looked at thousands of people, there are only 57 people who are under the age of nine in that study. So, we're learning more and more about kids and how much they spread this disease as they start getting out and about in society.
BLITZER: Yes. It's so sad. It's so sad when you hear about these little kids getting very, very sick and some of them even dying. Sanjay, thank you so much for your excellent analysis as always.
Up next, Joe Biden gives the peach he's been waiting to deliver, waiting for more than 30 years as he accepts the Democratic presidential nomination. We're getting right now some new information about whether we'll be seeing him amid the pandemic and in what venue.
And will the U.S. Postal Service be able to deliver mail and ballots in time to be counted? I'll talk about what the postmaster general of the United States told lawmakers earlier today. My guest Congressman Ro Khanna.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:19:22]
BLITZER: The critic in chief over at the White House is weighing in on the Democratic National Convention. Today, President Trump called it the darkest, angriest, gloomiest convention in U.S. history.
Let's get some more reaction to the convention from CNN's Arlette Saenz. Arlette, what are you hearing? ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, the Democratic convention is now in the books with the election just 74 days away. And for now, Joe Biden has no plans to hit the campaign trail in person as is typical after those conventions due to the coronavirus pandemic.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SAENZ (voice-over): Fireworks lighting the sky as Joe Biden reveled in the moment he strived for, for nearly three decades.
[17:20:03]
BIDEN: I accept this nomination for president of the United States of America. But while I'll be a Democratic candidate, I will be an American president.
SAENZ (voice-over): In a speech to a virtual convention, Biden promising a vision of hope and light.
BIDEN: I give you my word, if you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. I'll be an ally of the light, not the darkness.
SAENZ (voice-over): The Democratic nominee never mentioned President Trump by name. But Biden was blunt about Trump's time in the White House.
BIDEN: The president takes no responsibility, refuses to lead, blames others, cozies up to dictators and fans the flames of hate and division. He'll wake up every day believing the job is all about him, never about you.
SAENZ (voice-over): With the coronavirus pandemic still ravaging the country, Biden took aim at Trump's response.
BIDEN: And the president keeps telling us the virus is going to disappear. He keeps waiting for a miracle. Well, I have news for him. No miracle is coming.
SAENZ (voice-over): It was the most pivotal speech of Biden's half century in politics as he vowed to offer a turning point for the country.
BIDEN: This is our moment. This is our mission. May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here tonight, as love and hope and light join in the battle for the soul of the nation.
SAENZ (voice-over): And a powerful moment from a young boy who bonded with Biden over a shared struggle.
BRAYDEN HARRINGTON, 13-YEAR-OLD BOY MET BIDEN IN NEW HAMPSHIRE: Without Joe Biden I wouldn't be talking to you today. About a few months ago, I met him in New Hampshire. He told me that we were members of the same club. We stuttered. SAENZ (voice-over): We spoke with Brayden Harrington back in February, days after that chance meeting with Biden.
HARRINGTON: I felt like a really like close vibe between us because he had like the same thing going on.
SAENZ (voice-over): The night capped off a first of its kind convention heading into an unprecedented fall campaign. Advisers tell CNN, Biden is unlikely to hit the campaign trail in a traditional way with the pandemic still raging.
And next week it's Republicans' turn in the convention spotlight. The GOP plans to have more live speeches and will end the week's event with a White House speech from President Trump.
TRUMP: We're going to win this, and I think we're going to win it really big.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SAENZ (voice-over): And Democrats are already planning their counterprogramming for that convention. They will be running TV and digital ads portraying Biden in the way that he believes that President Trump has failed right now. But as of now, there are no plans for Biden or Kamala Harris to participate in that counterprogramming. But Democrats have one goal trying to paint that Republican convention as chaotic. Wolf?
BLITZER: All right, Arlette, thank you very much.
Let's bring in our White House correspondent John Harwood and our political commentator Bakari Sellers. He's the author of the memoir entitled "My Vanishing Country." There you see the book cover.
You know, John, the president is attacking Joe Biden -- the Democrats for that matter for painting a dark and bleak picture of America during their convention. Looking ahead to the Republican convention which starts on Monday, he says he wants to focus in on a more positive message. Is that going to work in the middle of this very deadly pandemic and a recession?
JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Doubtful, Wolf. That framing is what incumbent presidents typically use. They will say that attacks on them are actually attacks on the country and they'll try to say that challengers are running down America. But there are two problems with the idea that Trump would do a positive message.
First of all, the country's a mess right now. 170,000 people dead. A lot of fear of the pandemic. Many things remain shut down. Unemployment higher than it's been in decades. A million people filed new unemployment claims last week. And 70 percent of the American people say they think the country's heading in the wrong direction. So good luck selling a positive message as an incumbent in that scenario.
The second thing is that Trump's own message is dark. What he's been saying is you think it's bad now, wait until Joe Biden and the radical socialists take over. Your cities will be in flames. You'll be in danger of high crime rates. Your suburb will be wrecked, and the economy will be even worse than it is now.
That is not a prescription for a president to cast a hopeful message. What I think he's going to try to do is frighten voters, especially those noncollege white voters in his faith to try to drive up their margins and their turnout in the election.
BLITZER: Yes, that's what I suspect as well. The president, Bakari, thinks his messaging has worked for him with his base. He's got a lot of support in that base. What are you expecting to hear over at the Republican National Convention next week?
[17:25:07]
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, first of all, Wolf, we have to acknowledge how difficult it is in these virtual conventions to break through. And this is a president who over the last three and a half years has actually governed and led politically through subtraction, not addition or multiplication.
And so, it's going to be very difficult for him to bring those individuals, those orators, those superstarts, those common voices to break through. I mean, this week you had not only Jill Biden, Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, et cetera, but you also had the voices of young people. We just did a special on who were able to break through.
Next week, I think that what the president is going to aim for is something that John pointed out. He is going to try to paint a picture that the Democratic Party is one of chaos. He's going to try to paint a picture of saying that if Democrats are to take over that Joe Biden is nothing more than a trojan horse for socialism. That's very, very difficult.
The messaging of the Republican party and the counterprogramming of the Republican Party as it relates to both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has been conflicting at best. And so, I just expect next week to be full of mixed messages and one without the stardom and one without the heart wrenching messaging that we saw this week.
BLITZER: You know I just want to follow up, Bakari, because the president is again day after day after day raising more doubts about the validity of this entire election. He's even threatening to send in law enforcement to watch polls on Election Day around the country that's raising fears potentially of voter suppression. What do you think of this? Is this a dangerous precedent to set? Can he do this?
SELLERS: Well, can he do it and will he do it are two vastly different things. I think Democrats, my colleagues, have to do something that I'm going to go off script in talking points here. You know I know we're having these robust discussions about mail-in ballots, et cetera. But look, at the end of the day we're just going to have to mask up and go vote.
The president doesn't want you to mail in ballots. The president is going to have law enforcement at the ballots. This is going to be a very difficult process. We have to own that. But we are just going to have to mask up and go vote and go vote early if you can. But you can't depend on newer processes. You can't depend on mail-in ballots. What he's doing with postal service, what he's doing with law enforcement, you can't depend on that.
And so, we're going to have to do it the traditional way. And this year unlike any other I think people are more motivated. I think people are going -- when I think about Joseph Lowry and when I think about (INAUDIBLE), when I think about John Lewis, they are going to remember that we've been through worse than this, especially people of color in this country when it comes to impediments to voting. And they're not going to keep us from voting in this election.
So, I know that people want me to harp on mail-in ballots. I can't do that. I got to be honest with you. The president is not going to want those counted. He is going to make that extremely difficult. Mask up and go vote.
BLITZER: Why is the president, John, so intent on stoking so much distrust going into this electoral process?
HARWOOD: Because he's losing. The polls show that he's losing by a substantial margin nationally. He's trailing by lesser margins, but still substantial in many of the battleground states. He is on track to be defeated. And so what the president's trying to do in addition to attacking Joe Biden is sort of throw the cards up in the air and say the whole thing is a mess and get his lawyers ready to go sue and hope that we don't get results on election night. That's one of the key push and pulls of the strategy that Bakari was identifying.
The more people who mask up and go vote, the more likely it is that we will get a verdict on election night in a lot of these swing states. The more mail ballots are relied upon, they get counted more slowly. And that has the potential for dragging out the results and that kind of chaos and that circumstance, even if it's valid vote counting as it's been in the past. The president may try to take advantage of that.
BLITZER: But let's not forget we are still in the middle of this deadly pandemic and a lot of older voters out there. A lot of voters with underlying health conditions are not necessarily going to want to wait in long lines on Election Day at polling stations around the country wearing masks or not even some social distancing. These are the folks that really are going to have to vote early if they can in their states or vote by mail if they want their vote to count.
HARWOOD: Wolf, we're also going to have to get people, and it's usually older people to man those polling places.
BLITZER: Right.
HARWOOD: That's one of the real challenges of this election.
BLITZER: We need some volunteers out there. All right, guys, it's complicated. Thank you very, very much. Meanwhile, the postmaster general of the United States at odds with President Trump in his appearance before lawmakers today. I'll talk about that with Congressman Ro Khanna.
[17:30:00]
Plus, we're getting new details of the apparent poisoning of a top Russian dissident. We'll go to Moscow for the latest.
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[17:35:04]
BLITZER: In a high profile Senate hearing earlier today, the Postmaster General of the United States, a Trump ally and a major Republican donor, told lawmakers that the Postal Service is up to the task of handling election mail delivery despite recent changes, some believer undermining mail-in voting.
Let's get some analysis, some more. Joining us Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California. He's a member of the Oversight Committee in the House of Representatives. You're going to have your own hearings on Monday on this. So there's been a lot of uncertainty, Congressman, about the ability of the Postal Service to deliver ballots on time for Election Day November 3rd. Did the Postmaster General's testimony today clarify any of those questions for you?
REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): No, he did not. One, he didn't commit to restoring the voting machines that have been destroyed or removed. Second, he said that all ballots are going to be delivered within three days, but he gave no explanation of how we're going to verify this. Is there going to be a dashboard, state by state where people can track their ballots and know that it has been delivered in three days? He needs to help us understand how we're going to verify the three days delivery time.
BLITZER: He said during his testimony today, and he's under oath, that delivering ballots on time is his number one priority, his words, and even promised to give mail-in ballots special treatment regardless of their postage class. Was that reassuring?
KHANNA: No, it's not because we're in a trust but verify situation. So I don't understand why he can't do something very simple, use technology, create a dashboard. Everyone who has a mail-in ballot, they should be able to track it with a scan, and should be able to verify that it's been received within three days. And if he offers a system on how every citizen can track the delivery of the ballot, then we can have peace of mind.
But, otherwise, he's removed these voting machines. He may say it's his top priority. But if he's kneecapped the Postal Service, then he can then after the election just say, well, I tried, but it didn't work.
BLITZER: He was -- he's only been the Postmaster General for a couple months. He refused, Louis DeJoy, to commit to restoring mail sorting machines that had been removed from service. He suggested those decisions were made before he took office.
You'll have a chance to press him on these issues on Monday. So what specific questions you want him to address right now? Because he says most of these major decisions that a lot of people are complaining about now were made earlier before he became the Postmaster General?
KHANNA: Well, I'm happy to telegraph my questions, because I just want answers what I want to know. Look at what's happening in the Massachusetts, primary ballots are not getting there within three days. It's a total mess. How do we have any confidence if it's not working in Massachusetts that it's going to work in November when they're going to be far more balance?
Second point I'd say is why can't he just restore the machines? What is the harm of that? And the final point, and I think this is important, Wolf, we don't ask our Pentagon to make a profit. We don't say you've got to sell weapons to have national security. We don't ask their health department to make a profit.
Why should we ask the Postal Service to make a profit from 1850 to 1971? They never had to make a profit. The idea is to serve as many people and why do they have that mentality?
BLITZER: Mr. DeJoy also, personally, he said he personally votes by mail, has full faith in the process. And that sounded like a far cry from what we're hearing from the President. What do you make of the President of his attempt, Mr. DeJoy, to actually for all practical purposes, distanced himself from what the President is saying about mail-in voting?
KHANNA: Well, I think he's distancing himself because he doesn't want to be accused of a political manipulation. But my sense is that that damage has been done. They've removed a lot of the voting machines, they've already had policies that are going to have a staffing issues. And so, now he's saying I'm going to try, I'm going to try my best and I'm going to commit to that.
And if he can't delivery after the election, he'll just say, well, I try. That's not good enough, given the stakes, there has to be a verifiable system. And to your point in the earlier panel, yes, we can tell people to mask up and go to the polls. But if you're elderly, if you have risk factors, you're not going to want to do that.
And the polling overwhelmingly shows that Democrats want to vote by mail. And the Republicans want to go to the polls because of our different views on the virus. So this is very serious. It could cost a few percent, it could actually be decisive at the election.
BLITZER: Yes, five states you can only vote by mail, 100 percent mail- in voting and they've had virtually no problems at all over the years, including Republican states like Utah, for example, Colorado. Everyone votes by mail, and they get it done.
Congressman Khanna, thanks so much for joining us. We look forward to the hearing on Monday. Appreciate it very much.
KHANNA: Thank you, Wolf.
BLITZER: Very important stuff coming up.
[17:40:00]
We're also following a developing story, a significant story out of Russia. Russian doctors dismiss claims that a top dissident was poisoned, but now his family's trying to move him to Germany for treatments. We're going live to Moscow. Matthew Chance is standing by.
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BLITZER: Major new developments tonight, the case of a high profile Russian dissident and top Kremlin critic who's in a coma right now following a suspected poisoning.
[17:45:01]
Our Senior National Correspondent Matthew Chance is joining us from Moscow. Matthew, the Russian doctors treating Alexei Navalny are now saying he was not poisoned, but his family doesn't trust the hospital's assessment. Update our viewers on what you're learning. What's the latest?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, Alexei Navalny is still in a hospital in Siberia in the city of Omsk. He's still, as I understand it, unconscious, and on a ventilator. The doctors have been, you know, toing and froing with the family and the lawyers of Alexei Navalny all day, basically saying, look, we have not found any evidence of poisoning for Alexei Navalny.
Remember that this is the main opposition figure in this country was taken suddenly very ill on a flight back to Moscow. Dramatic images emerged, taken by a fellow passenger of him, you know, yelling with agony as he was stretchered off the airplane that had to make an emergency landing in Omsk to get him emergency medical treatments.
What the family of Alexei Navalny say is that they think it's a cover up that, in fact, there was a chemical that was found inside Alexei Navalny. But they're waiting for that chemical to sort of evacuate itself from his body before they give approval for Alexei Navalny to be evacuated to a medical facility in Germany. That could happen though, in the hours ahead, Wolf.
BLITZER: His family is trying to transport him to, as you point out, to Germany for medical care. The hospital, though, correct me if I'm wrong, making that difficult. Is that right?
CHANCE: Yes, the hospital is saying, look, he's not well enough to go right now. He's too unstable. You know, but, you know, they seem to have done an about face on that. And now within the next few hours, he could be flown out on a German air ambulance to a clinic in Berlin.
BLITZER: (INAUDIBLE) take care of him. Hopefully he'll be OK. Thank you very much, Matthew. I know you'll work the story. You'll stay in touch with us. There's more breaking news out here in "The Situation Room". The coronavirus death toll in the United States has just surpassed 175,000 people, and now a disturbing new forecast says another 20,000 Americans will die in the next three weeks.
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BLITZER: Tomorrow and only here on CNN, our Erin Burnett has an expansive look at the progress of women's rights in America. Erin, tell us more about your new special report, Women Represented.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: So, Wolf, you know that it's the 100 year anniversary of women's suffrage this week, of course, and that's something to celebrate. But it is just not what many people think it is. I mean, black women didn't even truly get the right to vote until 1965.
So what we decided to do, Wolf, take a look back at the progress we've made towards gender equality in this country and the progress that we have not. I mean, take politics. Right this week, Senator Harris makes history, the first black, the first Asian woman vice presidential nominee. But she was only the second black woman to ever even serve in the U.S. Senate. The first was actually Ambassador Carolyn Moseley Braun, as you well know, Wolf, but that was 25 years before Senator Harris got into the Senate.
So I spoke to Ambassador Moseley Braun as part of this special report airing Saturday. Take a listen.
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CAROLYN MOSELEY BRAUN, FORMER UNITED STATES SENATOR: So I came to work one morning, I had on a pantsuit, I thought I was looking cute. I get there and come to find out, it was this great whole blue behind the scenes about me having on pants.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let's welcome Senator Carol Moseley Braun.
BRAUN: So that's what started it.
BURNETT: Do you ever think to yourself, wow, I'm a trailblazer. And it's about wearing pants, right? I mean, you know, you wouldn't have thought that that would have been a place you had to blaze a trail.
BRAUN: Right. Right.
When I first showed up at the Senate, the guard didn't want to let me in the door until somebody told him that's the Senator from Illinois. I guess he had never seen a black woman coming in the door of the Senate as a member.
It's a new day in America.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BURNETT: I mean, to me, Wolf, 1993 doesn't sound that long ago. But it is pretty shocking in so many ways to look back and talk with women like Ambassador Moseley Braun, about what women faced in Congress only 30 years ago to imagine that pants were an issue. But so many barriers still exist. Women still make up less than a quarter of the seats in Congress right now, that number even lower for women of color.
So, we talk about why that is and why we have not elected a woman president in this country. I mean, it's pretty incredible when so many other countries have, right? And we talk about so much more in our special, Women Represented. It's a really fascinating conversation, Wolf, with some incredible woman, some remarkable women, and I hope you'll tune in.
Back to you, Wolf.
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BLITZER: Looking forward to it. Erin, thank you so much for doing this. Once again to our viewers, be sure to tune in tomorrow night 10:00 p.m. Eastern for Erin's special report, Women Represented: The 100 Year Battle for Equality, only here on CNN, 10:00 p.m. Eastern tomorrow night right after our special edition of this situation room.
There's breaking pandemic news coming up next, new CDC guidelines for schools on reopening. They are just out, we'll update you on that.
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BLITZER: We want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world, I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM.
