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The Situation Room

Trump Refuses to Concede as Pandemic Spirals Out of Control; Joe Biden Mulls Transition Moves Despite Trump's Refusal to Concede; Interview with Representative Adam Smith (D-WA) about Trump's Refusal to Concede; Dodger Stadium Becomes the Nation's Biggest COVID Testing Facility; Violence in D.C. Following Tense Day of Protests; Despite Biden Win, No "Blue Wave" in Downballot Races; Ivanka, Jared May Not Be Welcomed in New York; Gloomy News, Looming Holidays Worry Mental Health Experts. Aired 9-10p ET

Aired November 14, 2020 - 21:00   ET

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

[21:00:46]

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 Washington. This is a special edition of THE SITUATION ROOM.

No public appearance today, no public statement, at least in person, by the now outgoing president of the United States. President Trump this morning giving just a glimpse of himself to supporters en route to his golf resort outside Washington in northern Virginia.

Those Trump supporters, thousands and thousands of them, marching from the White House up to the U.S. Supreme Court. A throng of people from mainstream conservative groups and voters to far-right groups, even some Republican lawmakers there, united today in their belief that President Trump was cheated out of a second term.

But at the same time the president's own Department of Homeland Security experts are calling the 2020 presidential election the most secure in American history, two very opposite positions. And hanging over this political uncertainty and denial, this surging and spiking coronavirus pandemic, which is infecting and sickening Americans right now in numbers that we have not seen before.

On Friday the Johns Hopkins University reported more than 175,000 new cases and 1,431 new deaths on Friday alone. This is the highest single day reported since the pandemic began in early January. Putting that death toll into context, nearly one American is dying from coronavirus every minute.

Let's begin our coverage this hour with CNN's Jeremy Diamond. He's over at the White House for us.

So, Jeremy, has the White House given up actually on containing the pandemic because it is getting worse and worse by the day?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, it was just last month that the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said that we are not going to control this pandemic, and in the weeks since and in the months before, frankly, that has been the attitude inside the White House as it relates to the coronavirus pandemic. Essentially, mitigate to the extent that you can in this country while working towards a vaccine, and now that we are beginning to see progress in terms of obtaining a vaccine, you saw the president yesterday focusing on the success of that development and on the fact that he anticipates beginning to be able to deliver millions of doses of the vaccine in the coming months through Operation Warp Speed.

But the president isn't focusing on the seriousness of the coronavirus surge that is happening right now in this country. Instead, we are seeing the president continuing to abdicate his role as a voice of national leadership on this matter. The only moment where the president briefly acknowledged the surge in coronavirus cases was when he said yesterday that that surge in cases is tied to an increase in testing.

That, of course, is not true. We know that based on the rising number of percentage of people who are testing positive for this virus. This is a very real surge, an explosion, in fact, in cases as we have watched over the last nearly two weeks, now nearly more than 100,000 new cases per day in this country, and yet the president is not taking it, Wolf, as seriously as those health experts say that he should.

BLITZER: Yes. And if it continues like this, the projections say between now and January 20th, the Inauguration Day, 70-plus days from now, more than 70,000 more Americans will die from the coronavirus, perhaps well more than 70,000 just between now and January 20th.

Jeremy Diamond at the White House, thank you.

Meanwhile, in Delaware, President-elect Joe Biden is planning his transition to the White House, but as the president-elect builds his cabinet and coronavirus strategy, President Trump is still adamantly refusing to concede the election.

Let's go to CNN's Jessica Dean. She's in Wilmington, Delaware, for us.

Jessica, why is President Trump's cooperation so important for the Biden team as they plan their transition to office?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, Wolf, it is tradition. It is what has always happened. It is precedent that the outgoing president would set this transition process up to be successful as soon as they were able to. President Trump has refused to do that. He has refused to concede, and the General Services Administration, which is the federal office responsible for validating Joe Biden as president-elect and really setting off and triggering the formal transition process, has refused to do so so far.

[21:05:09]

So what does that mean? That means that the Biden transition team is not allowed to talk with federal agencies. They're not allowed to get the Presidential Daily Briefings from the intelligence agencies, so Joe Biden is not up to the day-to-day national security bullet points that he needs to know as they get ready for what they hope is a seamless transition.

Now his transition team will tell you they are pushing ahead just fine right now, that they are able to do what they need to do right now. They point to the naming of Ron Klain as chief of staff. They point to the COVID-19 Advisory Board being launched last week. That they are doing what is within their power to do right now. That being said, they're having to back channel when it comes to coronavirus, for example, to local governments, to state officials, to people in the medical community, to try to get people rallied around their plan.

They won't be able to talk to the federal agencies about a vaccine distribution plan. Joe Biden will be in office when that happens. Health and Human Services and other agencies preparing a plan right now, and they can't communicate with one another.

We also know that when it comes to national security that the Biden transition team has been reaching out to former Pentagon officials who served under former Defense secretary James Mattis. They can't talk to the current ones, but they figured that the former ones were the next best thing, trying to get some information, get the lay of the land.

But, Wolf, obviously right now the transition team is saying that it is OK, they had planned for this, but if this goes on much longer many people are saying it not only threatens national security it's also threatening the health of millions of Americans as we see all of these cases surging -- Wolf.

BLITZER: It certainly does. All right. Jessica Dean in Wilmington for us. Thank you.

Joining us now, Democratic Congressman Adam Smith of Washington state. He chairs the House Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Chairman, thanks so much for joining us. As you know, the Biden team is reaching out to former Pentagon officials who served under former Defense Secretary Mattis to get at least some sense of the information they need before taking over on January 20th. What does it say to you that the president-elect's people have to do this sort of end run since he is being blocked from getting the traditional, the customary Presidential Daily Intelligence briefings?

REP. ADAM SMITH (D-WA): Well, first of all, it is good that President- elect Biden has these connections. He has worked with Jim Mattis when Jim Mattis was the CENTCOM commander in a variety of different roles within the Pentagon, and so to have that relationship is a huge positive. And I think the president-elect is doing everything he can to be ready.

But, look, I mean, what President Trump is doing here is one of the worst things any president has ever done. I mean he is jeopardizing the health, the safety of our country, basically in the service of his massive ego. I mean if he wants to contest the election, he can do that through courts where he is losing. There is nothing to contest here. He clearly lost. But even if he thinks by some twisted, you know, thought process that he might still win, he should be preparing Joe Biden to become president. There's no excuse for what President Trump is doing.

BLITZER: What about the military and intelligence communities right now, Mr. Chairman, that have to deal with all of these issues including the firing, all of a sudden the firing of Defense Secretary Esper, the possibility that the FBI director Christopher Wray could be ousted, the head of the CIA, Gina Haspel, being on thin ice? All of the reports suggesting right now all of this as the president continues to refuse to concede. How serious of a threat potentially is this to national security?

SMITH: Well, it's very serious potentially. I mean all of those jobs you mentioned, secretary of Defense, CIA -- sorry, CIA director, FBI director, they're very important jobs. And as we sit here -- and I know, you know, serving on the committee I serve on, I served on the Intel Committee, you know, I have been briefed regularly on the threat stream, on the issues that we're facing and the challenges that we have.

All of those people you just mentioned, they're working on those things with their staffs and they have a knowledge base of what's happening there that is incredibly important. So with Secretary Esper gone, the, you know, acting secretary, he wasn't part of those conversations. He's got to be brought up to speed. The other three top people in the Pentagon who were fired in the last couple of weeks, same thing.

So it is a huge risk that ongoing operations can be jeopardized. Where the Pentagon is concerned, we have troops deployed all over the world, certainly most notably in Afghanistan but the Middle East as well. You know, those operations benefit from consistency and knowledgeable leadership. You make these times of changes, that makes it more difficult and it creates risk.

BLITZER: Is there anything your committee, the Armed Services Committee, can do about the information blockade, especially when it comes to military intelligence which the incoming National Security team, including the president-elect and the vice president-elect, they need? And they have security clearances. He was vice president of the United States for eight years and Kamala Harris is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

[21:10:04]

SMITH: Yes, there's not a lot we can do. What we can do is shine a light on the problem and try to put pressure on the Republicans to move in a different direction. Now I know it was reported that Senator Lankford from Oklahoma, a Republican, is very concerned about this and is going to try to put pressure on the Trump administration and then move forward legislatively to try to require this.

Look, if we got cooperation from Republican members of Congress and the Senate, there's quite a bit we could do. But absent that cooperation, the best we can do is call the president out, alert people to the danger, and try to force changes by the president. Look, this is -- I mean this is a terrible set of decisions that President Trump is making. This is placing Americans at risk. And we've talked about the national security implications.

I've also heard earlier in your program you mentioned the public health implications. I mean coronavirus is running rampant across the country. There are important things the federal government needs to do, important things that President-elect Biden needs to be included in. You know, we should put the interests of the American people first, not the individual political interests of Donald Trump.

BLITZER: Congressman Adam Smith, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, thanks so much for joining us.

SMITH: Thanks, Wolf. Always a pleasure.

BLITZER: Thank you.

Coming up, we see the numbers are rising, but if you needed another sign of the troubling signs we are in, these are pictures of a testing site. Take a look at this, at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. We're going to hear from the mayor there. That's coming up.

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BLITZER: You're about to see the largest coronavirus testing facility in the United States right now. It's happening over at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. One day this week they were able to test -- get this -- 8,000 people in a massive drive-through operation. This large-scale testing effort coming at a time when the number of COVID cases in California and indeed all over the country, the number of cases skyrocketing.

CNN's Paul Vercammen is over at Dodger Stadium for us.

Paul, it's a very ambitious plan under way to quickly test a lot of people. It seems to be working but update our viewers on what's going on.

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, we'll show you what's going on, Wolf, and you're right, it's an extremely ambitious plan. As you pointed out, they had one day this week where they tested 8,000 people, 7800 last night. They'll exceed 6,000 today. And if you look behind me, you can see the cars filing through here, six lanes. Dodger Stadium. This is the oral swab. You are given the Q-tip-like swab. You put it in your mouth for a good 20 seconds. They have a vial. It's extremely efficient.

Now they expanded the hours here dramatically, from 8:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night. And L.A.'s Mayor Eric Garcetti said he wanted to get way out in front as we are seeing cases surge in California. 10,000 cases in the last day alone. Let's listen to the mayor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI (D), LOS ANGELES: So to me it's really getting people to realize, cancel those vacation plans right now. Do not sneak in other households for Thanksgiving. Get a chicken instead of a turkey or a small turkey. Do those things. To me the mantra is two things, don't share your air and don't do stupid things. We all now are smart and we know the difference between stupid behavior and smart behavior.

There will be people who die because of our behavior if we don't go back to that, you know, disciplined way that in March, April and May we're able to bend this curve down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VERCAMMEN: And Mayor Garcetti also telling me he does not expect Los Angeles to go into some sort of major lockdown. Also, he was the co- chairman of the Joe Biden campaign. He has been in touch with Joe Biden off and on, and he says right now that he wants the Trump administration to stop hiding the ball on the COVID pandemic and other issues so they can prepare for the transition to the Biden presidency --- Wolf.

BLITZER: I'm really glad they're testing all those thousands and thousands of people in L.A.

Paul Vercammen at Dodger Stadium for us. Thank you very much.

Let's bring in CNN medical analyst, Dr. Megan Ranney. She's an emergency physician at Brown University, co-founder of GetUsPPE.org organization, if you will.

Dr. Ranney, thanks so much for joining us. Cases are soaring, not just in big cities like L.A. but all across the United States. Right now we've seen 12 straight days of more than 100,000 new coronavirus infections. The latest record just yesterday. Get this, more than 184,000 confirmed cases just yesterday.

How do you get people to hear what's going on and understand how serious things are right now and they need to take action?

DR. MEGAN RANNEY, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: You know, Wolf, I wish that I could bring every American into my emergency department right now. I wish they could see how full we are, how exhausted the health care workers are, and truly how sick the patients are. Yes, you may catch COVID-19 and be OK, but you also might catch it and get really, really sick. And if you get to the point where you're coming to my er for treatment, you are not in a good spot.

You are coughing, you are having trouble breathing. You have blood clots in your lungs or in your heart or in your brain. You are needing IV fluids and oxygen. You may be needing a bypass machine that pushes air in or in a worst-case scenario we need to put you on your tummy in order to breathe correctly or even put you into a medical coma and put a breathing tube down.

I wish that every American could see what we in health care are seeing in order to understand the severity of the situation and to understand on what a bad trajectory we are. Each time I work a shift I see the number of sick patients increase dramatically, and we're doing nothing to change it. So I know that on my next shift the numbers are going to be far worse. I think honestly that's the only way for us to change our behaviors.

You know, the prior guest said, don't do stuff that's stupid, don't share air. That's the simple message.

[21:20:02]

But people also have to understand the gravity of the situation and the fact that their individual actions can and do make a difference.

BLITZER: You're absolutely right. The president, as you know, he continues to focus in on disputing the election results. If his outgoing administration doesn't take divisive action before Joe Biden is able to take over on January 20th, how much harder will it be for the incoming president and his top aides to try to turn things around? As you know, it's another, what, nine weeks or so before Inauguration Day.

RANNEY: It is going to be a very, very long nine weeks if there isn't cooperation between the current administration and the incoming transition team. Listen, we are in a moment of potentially no return for the country. We're seeing cases rise exponentially. This is a moment for the outgoing administration and the incoming administration to join together, to give a unified message about the importance of masks, to work together to try to get personal protective equipment, masks, gloves, gowns for frontline workers, and of course to work together for in increased testing so we don't see lines like we just saw for Dodger Stadium.

If they don't work together, if the Trump administration continues to spread this message that COVID is nothing to be scared about, we're going to see hundreds of thousands more Americans die between now and Inauguration Day.

Now I have no doubt that the transition team is going to do everything they can to create public-private partnerships and to try to get the right message out there, but we need the outgoing administration to be on board, and I'm scared that we can't do it just with the Biden administration. We really need the two to come together.

BLITZER: They certainly do. Dr. Megan Ranney, thanks for joining us. Thanks for everything you're doing. We are totally, totally grateful. Appreciate it very, very much.

We are following some breaking news this hour. There's violence in downtown Washington, D.C. following a rather tense day. There were protests. At least one victim now reportedly stabbed and in critical condition. We are going live. We will update you on what is going on when we come back.

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[21:26:33]

BLITZER: We're monitoring protests here in Washington, D.C., where there is now sadly some violence breaking out downtown following a tense day of protests. Sara Sidner is on the phone joining us right now.

Sara, you've been covering all these demonstrations today. All day, much of it was very, very peaceful. There was a big pro-Trump rally earlier in the day. We could see huge crowds there, thousands of people protesting in favor of the president, alleging the election results were fraud. But what is going on right now? Things apparently have deteriorated.

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Yes. So this isn't a part of the Million MAGA March or the several different names that they came up with like Stop the Steal and the March for Trump. That ended at 4:00 where they had a permit for that and it was for the most part peaceful. There were a couple of small skirmishes but nothing to write home about. Then as night fell things changed, and that is partly because there were folks from the far left and from Antifa who were out at Black Lives Matter Plaza.

They were there for a while, you know, chanting, you know, yelling at police as police sort of set up a scenario there so that they were keeping people from moving too far one way or the other. And then there were folks from the Million MAGA March, some of the Trump supporters who did start coming into that area, and that's when things started to explode into violent -- or at least a lot of tension. At first it was yelling and screaming and then there were some physical altercations.

We watched as a couple of people were detained by police, and then a little bit later on you're seeing this happen throughout the District of Columbia. You're seeing this happen throughout D.C. For example I just happened to be walking down the street, and on H and 11th I noticed all of a sudden some of the pro-Trump ralliers had come out. Folks are going to dinner. All of a sudden all of them started running towards a -- you know, anti-Trump rally that was just walking down the street.

They started running, screaming S, expletives, Antifa, and there were also Proud Boys along with them. I watched them run towards the group that was walking. That group, by the way, started to back up some and then there were clashes between them, water bottles thrown.

Almost immediately, Wolf, the police showed up, and that has been happening kind of throughout pockets of D.C., especially in and around the Capitol, in and around the White House. In that area, that is where we're seeing it, in and around Black Lives Matter Plaza. And so we're seeing this happen kind of dotted throughout the city. We are still trying to get information from the police who have been here en masse trying to figure out. There have been reports of some violence, that there may be people who have been hurt, but we're still trying to get those details from the D.C. police.

At this point in time, what usually happens is something happens between these two groups, the pro-Trump group and the anti-Trump group, and the police are there within minutes, sometimes seconds. They break it apart and then it moves along. But it is disturbing to a lot of people here who are watching this and wondering what is happening with our country. They were hoping that this will eventually dissipate, but right now it is pretty tense in D.C.

BLITZER: Yes, and I want to show our viewers some live pictures from Black Lives Matter Plaza. Right a couple of blocks away from the White House, you can see these pictures right there. Deep into the background you see the White House there.

[21:30:04]

This is Black Lives Matter Plaza. This is 16th Street approaching K Street, if you're familiar with Washington, D.C. Some hotels, restaurants on the side, but you see throngs, Sara, of police right there on the street. They're clearly obviously very worried about what is going on.

SIDNER: They are paying very close attention tonight. I will tell you, I have been to a lot of different cities, and you know this, Wolf, all over the country, for protests that have broken out, some of them quite violent, from Portland to, you know, San Francisco to Los Angeles, to many other areas, to Chicago. And I will tell you that in this scenario there are a huge number of police who are showing up and they are very quickly intervening when two groups, both anti and pro- Trump groups, end upcoming together.

We have literally watched within seconds of there being an altercation, sometimes, like I said, within minutes, but the police are on bicycles. They are going around the city. They are closing off roads. A lot of folks trying to get to different places. Not a great time to be out and about in the evening time around the capital, around Black Lives Matter Plaza, around the Freedom Plaza because a lot of that area is being cordoned off every time there's any kind of incident between pro and anti-Trump groups.

BLITZER: But just to remind our viewers, earlier in the day when thousands of pro-Trump demonstrators had gathered in Washington at Freedom Plaza, walked up to the U.S. Supreme Court, that was generally very, very peaceful, right?

SIDNER: Absolutely. It went on -- you know, I could hear the music playing at about 7:30 in the morning at Freedom Plaza. There were a lot of folks out there. It started with just a few hundred and then it buoyed to thousands and thousands of people who came out.

At one point, Wolf, I was there watching as Donald Trump in his caravan came. He waved to the crowd from his SUV, flanked by Secret Service. He got everybody excited. He went around the plaza, and then everyone eventually marched on to the Supreme Court where there were speeches and from many different groups including, you know, famed conspiracy theorists and members of Congress as well.

But it was wholly, mostly a very peaceful gathering of thousands and thousands of people who support Donald Trump, and their whole idea was that they feel as if there was not a free and fair election in this case in 2020, which has been disproven, of course, by election officials, even people who Donald Trump has actually appointed into federal election security official -- officialdom, who have said that, you know, there is no evidence of major fraud in this particular case.

But it was absolutely peaceful with just a couple of different skirmishes from folks who were anti-Trump, but really all in all, the earlier part of the day during the Million MAGA March, if you will, for about 9:00 a.m. to about 4:00 p.m. when their permit ended, that was a wholly peaceful march in the city.

BLITZER: All right. We'll watch what's going on here in the nation's capital, staying in very close touch with you, Sara. Be careful out there. We'll continue to report on the latest developments.

There's more news we're following here in THE SITUATION ROOM. Some members of President Trump's own family may be in for an icy welcome. We have new details on how the social circles that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner once coveted, they no longer want anything to do with them. Stand by. We'll be right back.

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[21:37:40]

BLITZER: The Democrats, of course, are celebrating Joe Biden's win, but they have little to cheer when it comes to gaining ground in Congress.

Joining us now our senior political analyst Ron Brownstein, the senior editor at "The Atlantic."

Ron, Democrats struggled in all these downballot races and you write in a new article at "The Atlantic" about how the Democrats' problem is already clear looking ahead to 2022, 2024. Tell our viewers what they face.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, look, Democrats at this point clearly are mobilizing a bigger coalition than the Republicans. They've now won the popular vote in seven out of eight presidential elections, Wolf, which no party has done since the formation of the modern party system in 1828. It has never happened. Biden won at least 50.8 percent of the popular vote, a larger share than Reagan in '80, larger in fact than any challenger in the 20th century to an incumbent president.

And he won at least 91 of 100 largest counties in America. The counties he won accounted for at least 70 percent of the nation's total economic output. So in all of those ways, the Democrats are mobilizing a very powerful and potent coalition. But when you look at the continued Republican dominance that was evident in this election among non-college and nonurban white voters, it means that Democrats are facing a much narrower squeeze in the electoral college, both in the rustbelt states that Biden cemented back on to the blue wall, and in the sunbelt states that are moving toward them like Georgia and Arizona. And the squeeze is even narrower in the Senate which favors and kind

of amplifies the influence of smaller, rural preponderantly white states where Republicans are strong. So while it was in one sense a very impressive showing, in another it underscored how narrow a pathway Democrats have to exercising power even though they clearly at this point represent a larger coalition.

BLITZER: Because as you know the Democrats were really hopeful, not only would they have a decisive win for the presidency.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

BLITZER: Which they did have clearly, but that they would gain seats in the House of Representatives, they wound up losing seats in the House, and they would be the majority in the U.S. Senate. That didn't happen either, at least we'll wait for these two run-off Senate races in early January in Georgia.

BROWNSTEIN: Right.

BLITZER: But it looks problematic for the Democrats right now.

BROWNSTEIN: Absolutely.

BLITZER: Why -- they did really well in 2018. What happened? Why weren't they doing well in the congressional House and Senate races that they hoped to win this time?

[21:40:01]

BROWNSTEIN: Separate problems in the House and the Senate. In the Senate the core Democratic problem is the increasing alignment between the way states vote for president and the way they vote for Senate.

Even though the Democrats have won the popular vote, as I said, in seven out of eight presidential elections, Republicans have won more states over that period. If you look over the last two elections in particular, there were 20 states that voted against Donald Trump both times. Democrats now have 39 of their 40 Senate seats, every one of them except Susan Collins, but there were 25 states that voted for him both times and Republicans now hold 47 of their 50 Senate seats which leaves obviously Democrats on a ledge, a very narrow ledge to get to a majority.

If they can't crack that Republican control of the Trump-leaning states -- and they couldn't do it this time in North Carolina, in Iowa, in Kansas and Montana. Georgia, which moved out of the Trump category, is their best chance.

In the House the problem was that while Republicans -- while Republicans dominated up and down the ballot in the House races included in Trump country, there was a lot more ticket splitting it looks like in the suburban areas that moved toward Biden. Some of those Romney Republicans as we call them in the suburban areas, outside Houston, say, or Dallas, may have voted Republican downballot and that really hurt the Democrats. BLITZER: We'll see if how serious a problem Democrats have between the

so-called moderates verse the progressives going down the road.

Ron Brownstein, thank you for that expertise.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks, Wolf.

BLITZER: When Donald Trump exits the White House so will Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. During the past four years the two have some very high-profile roles in the Trump White House and Trump administration, but it's those positions that potentially could cause a little bit of a barrier to the couple resuming their former lives as part of New York City's party scene.

In recent weeks Jared and Ivanka were featured in a rather unflattering "Times Square Display," paid for by the anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project.

I want to bring in our White House reporter Kate Bennett, who's been doing some excellent reporting on all of this.

So, Kate, you've been speaking with some New Yorkers. Update our viewers on what you're learning, what might happen in the coming weeks.

KATE BENNETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, it's going to be a different New York City that Ivanka and Jared return to in terms of a welcome. I mean this was the city that sort of built Donald Trump, that gave him his celebrity, and now certainly he's bashed it enough times that it's going to have repercussions for Ivanka and Jared. Now where they move is a question. They could easily go back to their apartment which they kept in Manhattan, sources tell us.

They could also try for New Jersey. They could maybe go to Florida, but certainly the life they lived in Manhattan in terms of this quasi celebrity world of wealth is not open to them when they return, much because of how now tied they are to the president's rhetoric, to his administration. So -- and also, Ivanka Trump, remember, she really made the bulk of her living on her brand. She had a shoe line, a clothing line, a fine jewelry line.

All of those things have disappeared with her coming into the White House, and rebuilding that now might really be a challenge considering all of the divisive politics that have gone on during these past four years. It will be a different world back in Manhattan.

BLITZER: You also did some serious reporting on this disturbing development that Jared and Ivanka had to pull their three kids from a private school here in Washington after concerns were raised about the couple's public flouting of COVID guidelines at various events that were deemed super spreader events at the White House. Tell us about what you learned.

BENNETT: Well, like everyone watching, the school administrator saw the behavior as well. I mean they knew that there was COVID in the parents' workplace, so to speak, and there was a parent handbook that the school had given out that the parents agreed to in order to, you know, take precautions, wear masks, social distance, quarantine if you are exposed to anyone, get tested regularly, and those things were violated in plain sight by Ivanka and Jared, and the school tried to come to terms with them.

Parents did complain and ultimately they didn't reach, you know, a negotiation that both sides thought was fair in terms of their lives and the school restrictions. And my reporting indicates that the Kushners, Ivanka and Jared, pulled their three children from that school.

BLITZER: Kate Bennet reporting for us, doing excellent reporting as she always does. Thank you very, very much.

Meanwhile, the United States sadly is breaking new records. Over 100,000 new cases today alone. The day is not even done yet. We have more on the deadly pandemic when we come back.

[21:45:00]

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BLITZER: Globally right now the number of people infected or dead from the coronavirus pandemic is just staggering. More than 245,000 people have so far lost their lives to COVID in the United States alone. Many times that number or dead worldwide, near constant reports of people sick and dying along with less human contact in the coming holiday season, and it's all combining to make medical experts and just concerned people very, very worried about our fellow Americans' mental health right now as well.

One of those deeply concerned is Ted Leonsis. He's the owner of three Washington, D.C. professional sports teams, the Washington Wizards, Capitals and Mystics. He's also a good friend.

Ted, thanks so much for joining us. I'll ask you a quick question on the NBA later, but it might surprise our viewers to know how deeply you, you personally, are concerned about mental health issues and the prevention of suicide.

[21:50:02]

Tell us why, why is this so personally meaningful for you?

TED LEONSIS, OWNER, WASHINGTON CAPITALS, WIZARDS AND MYSTICS: Well, I think it is very important for us and business and leadership and sports to be developing the whole person, and mental health is really probably underreported as our biggest health issue, and COVID is certainly in the news. Last time we spoke we were on our way to three bubbles, and we promised that we would make sure that all of our players were healthy.

And what they really talked to us about when they came out was their sense of isolation and loneliness, and now we're getting ready to start a new season, and mental health is on our minds. And me personally, when we had our last crisis in 2008 and 2009, I had several friends and associates who took their own life, and it really was in a similar situation where they had big financial setbacks and they weren't communicating to people.

So I did this interview with "The Washington Post" and I talked a little bit about that experience, and, Wolf, it's been -- it's really been eye opening, the number of e-mails and comments I've gotten from friends, people who read the newspaper who have had suicide and drug addiction and drug overdose turning into death, and it has been startling to me because it is something that we're not reporting and talking about.

And you know, there's 75,000 people will die taking their own life this year in 2020, and about 50,000 people of those will be from a violent death. They will -- it is the number one way that people use guns, to take a life. And worldwide there'll be about a million and a half attempted suicides this year, and the saddest stat that you can see is that this phenomenon is really among young adults, teens 15. Teens 15 to 24, suicide is the second leading cause of death than for male that age. That age, it's number one.

And so I just think it's something that when I talk to the players, I talk to our employees that if you are hurting -- and this is the time that it is understandable between COVID, social justice, what is happening in the unknown with the -- with the election, how we're doing economically. There's no shame in asking for help. And your family, your friends, there's -- there are suicide hotline, 800-273- 8255. That's a suicide hotline.

We're going to change from a 911 national number. There'll soon be a 988 hotline for mental health that will go into place July of 2022, which will be very, very meaningful for the country. And my overall feeling here is that this is equally as compelling a pandemic for us to deal with. We're not posting the stats every day. We sometimes shame people from talking about it, and I just think that now is the time for us as a society to be able to embrace and talk to people.

Because if you're having a problem and you seek help, almost 90 percent of the people that seek help have a positive outcome. And when this article came out -- and I have done a couple of things on my blog and Twitter about it -- people have really said that to be able to break through the shame and be able to talk to their boss, their co- workers, their family members, really is an uplifting experience and that you can work this out.

And this is the time to do it. We're going into the holidays. It's well-known that during the holidays that people get blue, and we're going to see that really in an accelerated fashion. I mean I just was watching CNN and basically health officials are telling families don't get together, don't be together for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and that's probably the absolute worst thing that a family member or a friend who is in trouble needs to hear. So I am encouraging people, I am encouraging our players.

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You know, when a player says that they're struggling, we want them to trust us. We want to be able to get them help, develop that whole person. We also think that it is not only in their best interests, it is in our best interests. And so you're starting to see lots of professional athletes not being afraid of what they'll hear from social media or the general media.

BLITZER: All right.

LEONSIS: And stepping up.

BLITZER: Sadly, we're out of time, Ted, but I'm so grateful. This is so, so important. We need, not just you and me, but all of us need to keep considering this top of our minds. It is so, so painful, and we are all so grateful to you for what you're doing, speaking out as you are.

Ted Leonsis, thanks so much for joining us.

LEONSIS: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: I wish we were meeting under different circumstances. Appreciate it very much.

And to our viewers, thanks very much for watching. I'll be back for another special edition of THE SITUATION ROOM tomorrow night 7:00 p.m. Eastern. "THE FIGHT FOR THE WHITE HOUSE: JOE BIDEN'S LONG JOURNEY" starts right after a quick break.

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