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Erin Burnett Outfront
Trump Attacks Birx For Warning Virus Is "Extraordinarily Widespread;" Dr. Fauci Says Asymptomatic Cases Driving "New Phase" Of Virus In U.S.; Dr. Fauci: Children Can Get Seriously Ill With Virus, A Rare Event, But Not Zero; NYT: Trump Campaign Advisers Privately Call A Pre-Election Vaccine "The Holy Grail"; Sources: Biden Has Started To Narrow Down His V.P. List, Will Make His Pick By End Of This Week. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired August 03, 2020 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: May they rest in peace and may their memories be a blessing.
"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts right now.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next breaking news, the President says the virus is receding and the U.S. is doing very well as Dr. Deborah Birx warns its widespread. The President calling her pathetic. Pathetic.
Plus, a school superintendent already lost one teacher to coronavirus. He is supposed to open a school in two weeks or risk losing funding. He says he's sick to his stomach. Tonight he's going to tell us why. He's my guess.
And is the ambition a dirty word when it comes to Joe Biden's VP pick. Let's go OUTFRONT.
Good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.
OUTFRONT tonight the breaking news, President Trump claiming the virus is receding and that the country is doing very well. But the numbers tell a very different story. The U.S. reporting 47,000 new cases in just a day. The death toll in the United States now over 155,030 states as of tonight are now seeing an increase in new deaths. And yet the President is turning his back on the truth today, turning on Dr. Deborah Birx, of all people, he's calling her pathetic. Accusing her of taking Nancy Pelosi's bait.
Why pathetic? Well, because of this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. DEBORAH BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: I want to be very clear, what we're seeing today is different from March and April. It is extraordinarily ride spread. It's into the rural as equal urban areas.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BURNETT: Extraordinarily widespread, so that's pathetic to say, to
speak the truth. Apparently, the President expected Birx to continue being 'positive', toeing his line. Like when she sat silently when he told Americans that injecting themselves with disinfectant was worth exploring as a cure.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And then I see the disinfectant would knocks it out in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Trump turns to Birx. You can see her sitting there. Look, she was disturbed. She was upset but she didn't push back in the way experts had hoped. She didn't say anything and in that she has been loyal to the President. But now she's speaking out and as a matter of fact, Dr. Birx is correct.
Thirty-two states are now trending in the wrong direction when it comes to positivity rates. And as I said, 30 states are seeing deaths rise tonight. Experts are now warning that the virus may again start spreading in some of the nation's biggest cities, Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Washington, D.C. and they are now adding New York City and Boston, second waves may not be far behind.
Experts also predicting big outbreaks in college towns. But it was not just Deborah Birx that Trump attacked. He again also went after Dr. Anthony Fauci.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I don't agree on everything. If you look at countries all over the world are exploding right now. People that you said were doing a wonderful job, so wonderful, but right now, take a look at the countries that are exploding. You have Italy back, you have Spain back, you have France back, you have Germany back, you have a lot of countries and that's not to knock them.
The United States has done an amazing job, a great job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: All right. Coronavirus cases are on the rise in several countries around the world, many, right, but nowhere near the cases and deaths of the United States. We have 4 percent of the world's population in this country and now nearly 25 percent of the deaths. Those numbers are painful and true and then here's this chart again confirmed cases per 100,000 residents.
The countries that Trump listed off; Italy, Spain, France and Germany, have flattened their curve. The U.S. so far hasn't. There's never been a point at which our curve was flat. The graphic shows the United States has not done an amazing and great job thus far and the word pathetic frankly, it is an ugly word.
It's an incredibly demeaning word. I don't know why. It's just you know it if someone calls you it, it's demeaning. It does not apply to Dr. Deborah Birx. But it does apply to touting a cure that the science shows doesn't exist, like continuing to promote the unproven drug hydroxychloroquine. Here's Trump again today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Hydroxy has tremendous support. Many doctors have come up strongly in favor of it. They want it very badly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Only Trump's own doctors don't want Americans taking it very badly. They want the President to move on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ADM. BRETT GIROIR, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH, HHS: At this point in time, we don't recommend that as a treatment. There's no evidence to show that it is.
BIRX: There's not evidence that it improves those patients' outcomes, whether they have mild to moderate disease or whether they're seriously ill in the hospital.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: All of those trials show consistently that hydroxychloroquine is not effective in the treatment of coronavirus disease or COVID-19.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: That cannot be more clear, could it? From person after person after and yet Trump keeps saying the opposite.
[19:05:03]
When he actually could be using his bully pulpit to say something that his experts say would get rid of the virus, a mask mandate. After all, Trump has been very clear that shutting down the country is not an answer he will consider.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: It's important for all Americans to recognize that a permanent lockdown is not a viable path toward producing the result that you want or certainly not a viable path forward.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: All right. Permanent lockdown is not viable. Well, nobody wants that. But what is just as effective as a lockdown? What could stop us from having to have another one of those horrific things? Here's Trump's testing tsar. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GIROIR: Wearing a mask is incredibly important, but we have to have like 85 percent or 90 percent of individuals wearing a mask and avoiding crowds. That is essentially gives you the same outcome as a complete shutdown.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Wow. So will trump finally go with a mask mandate? Kaitlan Collins is OUTFRONT live outside of the White House. Kaitlan, the President tonight asked about his criticism of Dr. Birx calling her pathetic. What did he say?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: He said that he told her today that he believes the U.S. is doing well and that was in response to a question about why he was criticizing her for accurately describing the outbreaks that we are seeing here in the U.S. And he said he respects Dr. Birx, he was talking about their interaction today.
But he said he maintained that he believe the U.S. was doing well and he did not answer a follow up question when he was asked if he shares the same view that she does of where the current state of the pandemic is right now.
And Erin, this is the first time we're seeing the President publicly break so much with Dr. Birx and the only reason it's different than what you saw with Dr. Fauci and the many times that they publicly contradicted each other and disagree with one another and as the President was attacking Dr. Fauci is Dr. Fauci's office is not in the White House. He is out of the NIH. It's about a 30 minute drive to the White House.
But Dr. Birx's space is in the West Wing and she is the person who actually meets with the President on a near daily basis, a few times a week to talk about what's going on with COVID-19. So it makes it more awkward for the two of them and for the President to be calling her pathetic on Twitter and the way that he was. So it really determine - it remains to be seen, I guess, you should say how this affects this going forward.
But we should note that as the President is downplaying the severity of the outbreak in the U.S. and as you saw him talking about it there at the briefing, they're ramping up testing in the West Wing and it's no longer now just the people who meet with the President. There's now mandatory random testing for the staff that's in the West Wing.
BURNETT: All right. Kaitlan, thank you very much. I guess I have to say I'm sort of shocked it's taken them this long, because those people could come into contact with anybody who comes into contact with the President. All right. Thank you, Kaitlan.
I want to go now to Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Dr. Jonathan Reiner, Cardiac Cath Lab Director at GW and, of course, advise the White House medical team under President George W. Bush. So Sanjay, the President says as he calls Dr. Birx pathetic that the virus is receding and he said he criticized her comments that we're entering a new phase of the virus and it's extraordinarily widespread. He says the reason he criticized her is because the country is doing his words very well.
All right. So these two things just don't seem to both be possibly true at the same time, right, extraordinarily widespread or doing very well.
SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: This isn't a matter of opinion. That's the thing about the story, Erin, that there are numbers, there's real data. I mean, no one has to sort of look at this and say, "Well, it could be one or the other." The numbers are terrible and we're probably wildly under counting the number of infections in this country, why? Because we're still not doing adequate testing.
The numbers continue to go up and frankly we're not really doing anything to keep them from going down. We're doing some testing that would kind of like be a lung cancer patient is getting no treatment than occasional chest X-ray and saying, hey, I'm thinking that he's doing better. You've got to treat. You've got to actually do something about this and we're still not at this point. So you it felt like we gave up at the beginning of July and I'm not sure it feels any different right now.
BURNETT: No, it doesn't.
Dr. Reiner, Dr. Birx is now finding herself in a tough spot. President Trump calling her pathetic saying that she basically caved to Speaker Pelosi's criticism. You heard Kaitlan just say, Dr. Birx's offices in the West Wing, so she's there. Fauci is 30 minutes away at the NIH. She has to be with the President on a near daily basis, even as he called her pathetic.
How hard is it going to be for her to do her job when this is what the President does when she speaks the truth?
JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, as you can see over the last several months, Dr. Birx trying to walk a very tight line between telling the truth and not offending the President when the truth offends the President. And this week, she ran afoul of that.
Look, the President doesn't value expertise. He only values loyalty and not only that he doesn't believe that his experts know more than he does.
[19:10:06]
We've seen that when he deals with the CIA. He knows more than the intelligence professionals. He knows more about the military than the generals and he apparently knows more about epidemics and pandemics than his scientific task force. She has a very difficult job.
But when he comes out and calls her pathetic, he completely pulls the rug out from under her. He's just an impossible boss to work for. BURNETT: I mean, it's just sort of shocking if everyone, I mean, I
think in a sense. People feel they become immune to some of the things that he does, but to come out and call your top public health people pathetic, I mean, just think about that for a second. I mean, Sanjay, then he came out and pushed hydroxychloroquine. I just played every single one of his experts and obviously we know the studies all show that that not to be the case.
By the way, Dr. Birx couldn't have been more clear, not for mild cases, not for pre symptomatic cases, not for severe cases, just not at all. Then you have the President pushing it again. Peter Navarro, the Trade Advisor, comes on CNN today and say it may be even better than remdesivir. The only drug that has been shown to have any benefit as a treatment. There's not a single expert who says anything other than that is not true. What possibly could be going on here?
GUPTA: I don't know what the motivation is for this at this point. It's become wildly politicized. Obviously, the science is clear. As you said, it doesn't work as a pre emptive as a prophylactic in mild disease or in severe disease. People keep saying, well, it's been used for 70 years and no problem.
Yes. But when you have bad coronavirus, it changes your body. You wouldn't give aspirin to someone who's dying of a bleeding disorder either. It just defies logic at this point and it's very frustrating, Erin, because we have - we're in the worst public health disaster of our lifetime and we're still having these side debates which are inconsequential, wasting time, wasting money, wasting resources, wasting your valuable airtime. I mean, it's just unbelievable to me.
We could be on the other side of this curve without a therapeutic, if we actually did the basic things right. HOW are we going to get the hard things if we can't even do the basic things right.
BURNETT: Right. And obviously on that, we're talking masks. And speaking of basic things, Dr. Reiner, White House officials today saying they're doing randomized coronavirus testing, that it's going to be mandatory for any staff of the executive office of the President as of today.
Now, what I heard when I heard that was, wow, they weren't doing that. I thought everybody was coming in - anyone who went in that building was being tested, because maybe you'd be around the President or you'd be around someone who was. Does that surprise you at all?
REINER: Well, they're worried. They've seen the virus inch closer and closer to the President. But I applaud them for doing that. But that's what public health experts want the public to get. They're acknowledging that asymptomatic people can carry the virus. We think up to 40 percent of people have minimal or no symptoms and most public health officials have come out, begging for an increase in testing capacity so that we could start testing asymptomatic people.
Gee, I would love to randomly test everyone in my hospital on an ongoing basis. We should have been doing this for a long time in nursing homes. So it's ironic that the President who feels that testing is overrated, the man who wanted to slow testing down please, now they're going to ramp it up in the West Wing to protect him. Good for them but they should be doing that for the country as a whole.
BURNETT: Right. And he should be out there speaking highly of testing instead of benefiting from it. As he says, it's not worth it for anyone else. Thank you both so very much as always.
And next breaking news, Dr. Anthony Fauci is warning about the new phase of the coronavirus. What he says is driving the spread now that is making it much more difficult to stop.
Plus, more than 250 employees of Georgia's largest school system have tested positive for coronavirus. We'll come into contact with someone who has. Is this the scene that's about to play out across the country?
And for the first time we're hearing from the federal judge whose son was shot and killed at their home.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He sprinted upstairs. Within seconds I heard the sound of bullets and someone screaming no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:17:58]
BURNETT: Breaking news, Dr. Anthony Fauci tonight, saying the phase of the virus is being driven by asymptomatic people who are not easy to identify. He says rising coronavirus infections throughout the United States represent a community spread that is much harder to contain. Athena Jones is OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FAUCI: When you have community spread, it's much more difficult to get your arms around that and contain it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT(voice over): In case you hadn't realized it yet, coronavirus is everywhere.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FAUCI: There are people who are spreading it who have no symptoms at all and we know that definitely occurs. It's difficult to identify it and it's difficult to do identification, isolation and contact tracing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES (voice over): While new COVID-19 cases nationwide may be leveling off, holding steady in hard hit Texas and falling in Arizona and Florida, Mississippi has the highest percentage of positive COVID cases in the country at 21.1 percent. California just became the first state to report half a million infections and daily death tolls there and across the country continue to climb. The CDC now projecting the death toll will surpass 173,000 people in the next three weeks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAITLIN RIVERS, INFECTIOUS DISEASE EXPERT: And we need to look ahead and decide where we want to be in one, two, four, six months and figure out what we need to put in place in order to get to that point.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES (voice over): Parties presenting another challenge for communities trying to slow the spread. An in-door celebration at a bar to honor first responders causing alarm in Los Angeles and the New York Sheriff's Office intercepting a party boat off Manhattan and making arrests after an alleged illegal party.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D) NEW YORK: Really reckless, rude, irresponsible and illegal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES (voice over): And in New Jersey where the infection rate while still low has picked up in recent days, Gov. Phil Murphy imposing new restrictions, limiting most indoor gatherings to 25 people down from 100.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D) NEW JERSEY: The actions of a few knuckleheads leave as no other course.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES (voice over): Community spread of the virus already causing problems in Georgia's law school system Gwinnett County public schools reporting some 260 employees have tested positive for the virus or come into contact with someone who has.
[19:20:09]
But Gwinnett County have been planning to reopen next week with online-only classes. Schools in Mississippi and Indiana that just reopened for in-person learning, reporting students or staff testing positive for COVID-19. Leaving officials scrambling to warn their contacts.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HAROLD OLIN, SUPERINTENDENT, GREENFIELD-CENTRAL COMMUNITY SCHOOL CORPORATION: It's not exactly that the start we're looking for in that specific school.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JONES: And there is more news on the treatment front, Eli Lilly and Company announcing the beginning of phase three clinical trials of an antibody therapy to treat COVID-19 with plans to recruit 2,400 residents and staff of long-term care facilities to take part, Erin.
BURNETT: Athena, thank you. And I want to bring in Professor Perry Halkitis now, epidemiologist and Dean at the Rutgers School of Public Health. Professor Halkitis, obviously, there has been a spike in cases in New Jersey which had gone through like a big crash right back in April and now all of a sudden spiking again.
We have the chart curve starting to go back up again and the rate of transmission and perhaps this is most crucial in New Jersey is as high as it has been since April when you had so many cases and so much death. What's behind this?
PERRY HALKITIS, DEAN, RUTGERS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Well, I think what we're seeing throughout the country is that human behavior is undermining our efforts to curtail this epidemic. Individuals are out. They are not taking responsibility for their fellow citizens. They're not wearing their masks. They see the sun, they see the beach and as a result of that the virus is spreading wildly.
BURNETT: So Gov. Murphy in your state has announced further restrictions on indoor gatherings. He's done some things you heard in there talking about the actions of some knuckleheads as he called it. But what happens next? I mean, is it going to be a big, not just a pause, but a big step back possibly? I mean, we've seen what's happened to states to the south and to the south of New Jersey, right big increases is a lockdown coming again?
HALKITIS: Right. Well, unless people change their behaviors, a lockdown may happen again. I like the term that he uses knuckleheads, I like them for a number of reasons. I call it irrational operators. We believe that human beings make choices based on wise decisions, take care of their health, to take care of the health of the people around them, but they don't. And their emotions take over, their feelings take over, their desire to have a good time takes over, they are acting like knuckleheads.
And so unless human beings in my state and in other states about the country, which I think have similar patterns, begin to actually acknowledge that this virus exists, begin to continually engage in behaviors like wearing masks, washing hands, avoiding close contact with people, we're going to have to see further restrictions in our society in order to be able to prevent the deaths that are inevitable otherwise.
So when I spoke to Gov. Murphy in late June, New Jersey's curve had flattened significantly and here's how he described the situation to me on that day. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MURPHY: We've beaten this virus down to a pulp in New Jersey with an enormous loss of life. We've been through hell and we don't want to go through hell again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Do you think that may have been premature?
HALKITIS: I think that we live through a very tragic moment in our history and then with tragedy comes change in behavior. People have very bad memories. They forgot what was happening in April, they forgot what was happening in May. So I don't think it was premature on the Gov. Murphy's part. I just think that people tend to forget the bad.
And so when we think, coming back to this idea of human behavior, again, how many people are prescribed antibiotics for 14 days and take them for seven and then stop taking them? How many people are intending to go to the gym for five days a week and do not? Here's the same thing. We need people to wear their masks all the time to distance and we need to remind them that death is a reality.
BURNETT: Well, and the reality of it is, right, that there is going to be death, that this is (inaudible) ...
HALKITIS: Yes, correct.
BURNETT: ... and in that sentence, it's so very different. Thank you very much, Professor. I appreciate your time.
HALKITIS: Thank you.
BURNETT: Next, an Arizona school superintendent says there's no way it can be safe for kids to return. His district already lost one teacher to the virus. That superintendent is OUTFRONT.
Plus concerns tonight, the Trump's October surprise could come in the form of a vaccine. But here's the thing, would it be safe?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:28:21]
BURNETT: Breaking tonight, Dr. Anthony Fauci with some advice as schools begin reopening.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FAUCI: Children can get seriously ill. It's a rare event, but it is not zero. The best thing to do is to try and avoid infection as opposed to wanting to get infection so that you can get herd immunity.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BURNETT: This comes as the superintendent of one school district in
rural Arizona says he feels sick to his stomach when he thinks about reopening. Arizona's Governor has ordered schools to reopen two weeks from today.
OUTFRONT now Superintendent Jeff Gregorich. And I appreciate your time, Superintendent. So you've talked about feeling sick to your stomach. How worried are you?
JEFF GREGORICH, SUPERINTENDENT, HAYDEN-WINKELMAN SCHOOL DISTRICT: Very worried, especially in our area we just have a lot of spread and I believe strongly that if we brought the kids all in it would endanger not only the teachers but also their family and, of course, the students themselves as Dr. Fauci just mentioned.
BURNETT: So you have seen firsthand what can happen here. People may remember this story but this was in your district, one of your teachers, Kimberly Byrd, we're looking at her here. She died from the virus. She got it in June. Two other teachers who shared a classroom with her were infected, right?
They were, we understand, all social distancing. They were wearing masks. They were teaching online summer school, so they didn't even have kids in the classroom and still this tragedy. Have you figured out yet how this happened?
[19:30:02]
I mean this is something that is - it's tragic and it's scared many teachers around the country.
GREGORICH: Well, it -- we've gone over this, over and over, and really, they have done everything right. You know, they use their own devices. I can't imagine putting kids into a classroom and expect them to be safer than our teachers were and that really worries me for not only our teachers but worries me for all teachers. You know, the millions that are going to be going back into the classroom real soon. So I am worried, yes. I am.
BURNETT: And in terms of what you've been trying to do, I know you've been at your schools every day trying to get ready, sanitizing rooms. You've had plastic barriers, used things like shower curtains I understand even, Superintendent, because you don't have the plexiglass dividers, right? I mean, all of these things that every school across this country now needs.
So, are you even able to do it, open with the restrictions in place for sanitizing and spacing and all of those things at this point?
GREGORICH: I mean, we could really have the space and I -- but having taught and been an administrator for 35 years, I don't believe that you're going to keep kids apart. I just don't see that. I mean, yes, we can spread them out and we are preparing to be ready on the 17th if we had to or are forced to, but I don't believe I'm going to recommend that to my governing board. I don't see how we could social distance enough to keep kids apart. And if you've been in a classroom, young kids, you know, especially,
are ones that need that, you know, our kids are -- have, you know, poverty, where 90 percent with free and reduced lunch. Where are the hugs going to be?
I can't imagine a teacher teaching in front of plexiglass and our students expected to stand, be 6 feet apart. I just don't see that being very successful.
BURNETT: Right.
GREGORICH: But I understand we need to try that.
BURNETT: All right. Well, superintendent, I appreciate your time in laying some of this out.
You know, I want to bring in now, Dr. Edith Bracho-Sanchez. She's a pediatrician and assistant professor of pediatrics at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
And I appreciate your time, Dr. Bracho-Sanchez.
So, you know, people have so many questions on this. And part of me as a parent, I'm surprised we don't have more answers on whether kids can transmit this and how effectively.
But we've been told in one recent study, kids 10 and over have transmitted exactly as adults do. And that was a South Korea study. Then there was another study about much younger children finding kids under 5 have a hundred times more genetic material from the virus and their noses compared to older children and adults, but we have no sense of whether that means they're going to spread it more. We just don't know.
So when you take all the literature out there, the studies, is the superintendent right to be as worried as he is?
DR. EDITH BRACHO-SANCHEZ, PRIMARY CARE PEDIATRICIAN: Erin, it's great to be with you. And, yes, we should be worried. And this frustration that we're feeling right now, the pieces of the puzzle coming together, is exactly how science works. You ask a question, define your population, you study it, and you answer that question to the best of your ability.
The question in the study you just mentioned, how much virus are kids carrying in their noses? And the answer is a lot of virus.
The question in the South Korea study is how frequently are children actually passing on the virus that they're carrying to their household contacts? And the answer was, if they're older than 10, they are carrying it and they're passing it on to household contacts.
And so, slowly, we're learning the different pieces of this puzzle. But I think the bottom line is, kids can catch this. Kids can transmit it. Kids can become very sick from this virus.
So I am worried that the virus continues to rage in this country out of control frankly.
BURNETT: So, you know, in Indiana, we just heard a student tested positive. Parents sent them to school. Even though it seems they knew there was a possibility of exposure.
That's an awful thing to hear but I wonder if it is something you think we may see across this country.
BRACHO-SANCHEZ: Erin, there is no question in my mind that unless we actually bring down the levels of virus that is circulating in our communities, we are going to see more and more of those stories. And, frankly, we have failed. When I see that story and when I see what's going to happen, when I read all of the literature, when I look at the predictions, the only conclusion I can draw is we have failed the children of this country by failing to control this virus and, yes, we will see more of these cases.
[19:35:02]
BURNETT: Sobering. Doctor, thank you.
BRACHO-SANCHEZ: Thank you.
BURNETT: And next, growing fears tonight that Trump will rush a coronavirus vaccine for the reason of his presidency, saving his presidency.
Plus, new police body cam video shows George Floyd pleading with cops not to shoot him moments before he died.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Tonight, growing concerns that Trump is eying a vaccine as his October surprise prior to the election. "The New York Times" reporting experts involved in the effort to find a vaccine here in the United States fear the White House will push the FDA to rush a vaccine before the election.
President Trump asked about this tonight said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Can you assure the American people that politics and considerations around the election will not interfere with the science?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Absolutely. Absolutely. We want to make people better.
[19:40:00]
We want to send them to the areas that most need it. And I think we're going to have something very soon. It's going good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OUTFRONT now, Dr. Jesse Goodman, former chief scientists at the FDA. He worked under the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations.
I appreciate your time very much, Dr. Goodman.
So, you know, look, we do have the president said today but he has explicitly tied a vaccine to his chances in the November election. I'll read the tweet. He said: I look forward to having a big and very important second win together. This one should be a lot easier. Vaccines and therapeutics will soon be on the way.
Dr. Goodman, do you -- do you have any concern that the president is pushing too much for a vaccine too early because he wants it before Election Day?
DR. JESSE GOODMAN, INFECTIOUS DISEASE PHYSICIAN: Well, you know, I think it is great that we all are working hard to have vaccines and therapeutics but we can't cut corners and my biggest concern is that there is a public sense that FDA is under any pressure and its independence is not respected that the public won't trust the vaccine.
And we need a vaccine. It is the only alternative to ending this outbreak aside from the infection burning through our whole population. So, I'm very concerned about any pressure on FDA.
BURNETT: They've already, they call it Operation Warp Speed for a reason, right? The speed with which this vaccine research and trials is being done is really unprecedented, right, around the world, but also here. Obviously, you do all those phases to see if a vaccine could, you know, work, right? Whether it works.
But then there are also side effects or serious issues that could diminish public trust and impact efficacy. What could those be, you know, the possibilities of side effects from the vaccine, bad vaccine, I'm sorry?
GOODMAN: Well, you know, fortunately because we have a strong FDA, you know, our vaccines, the improved ones we have, have been extremely and serious effects are uncommon. And then the clinical trials being done now, the large phase three clinical trials for some of the vaccines are on tens of thousands of people so that should be exposed any serious adverse events that are common.
Most commonly what we see from vaccines is what we call reactogenicity, which is the immune system seeing this kind of protein or in the case of our newer vaccines RNA and saying, I would fight this, and that can be a sore arm, a fever, things like that. But much more rarely we see serious, adverse events, for example in the 1976 swine flu and influenza program. There was a neurologic disease which can be paralyzing that seemed to occur about 1 in 100,000 recipients.
And that's why we just don't just need these large clinical trials. We can be assured when we have them something common isn't happening but we need very careful and robust safety monitoring systems in place before any vaccine is widely used to detect the more uncommon serious adverse events.
BURNETT: So -- and, look, when you have, you know, a lot of people in this country afraid and worried about vaccines, right, nearly a third, say they're worried about getting this. When we talk about one in 100,000 getting some sort of severe, you know, paralyzing and neurological issue, it is not nothing. I think we all realize that. It really could affect people's willingness to get this.
But you talk about the FDA. And the Commissioner Stephen Hahn, you know, is obviously, he wants to get a vaccine out safely as quickly as possible. He has not ruled out an emergency approval of one. Here is how he put it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. STEPHAN HAHN, FDA COMMISSIONER: We would consider using an emergency use authorization if we felt that the risks associated with the vaccine were much lower than the risks of not having a vaccine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: How confident do you feel right now, Dr. Goodman, about the whole process? When you see the president today, you know, calling Dr. Birx pathetic, saying he disagrees with Fauci, I mean, the pressure that he as an individual puts on people to get what he wants is immense, right? It's personal, it's public, and it can be very demeaning.
Do you have faith in the system that nothing could be rushed through because of him?
GOODMAN: Well, I have tremendous faith in the scientists at FDA. They are first rate and take the public's health and safety extremely seriously.
I think Dr. Hahn's comment is reasonable in the emergency use. There should be very strong evidence of safety, good evidence for effectiveness, and a really positive, you know, benefit-to-risk ratio.
But I am concerned about the kind of pressure that's been brought to bear. I'm concerned that it could pressure the FDA. It could pressure the commissioner. And even more than that, even if they do their normal, outstanding job, will the public have faith in the vaccine?
So, I would call on all politicians from the top down.
[19:45:02]
We have a wonderful system in this country. We need to let it work. We need to -- these are incredibly important decisions. Vaccines are given to healthy people.
So because they're given to healthy people we need to take those decisions very, very seriously. And otherwise, the public will not trust and will not take the vaccine.
BURNETT: Dr. Goodman, I appreciate your thoughts tonight. Thank you.
GOODMAN: You're very welcome. Thank you. BURNETT: And next, Joe Biden is going to announce his running mate. It
could be tomorrow or the day after. He said it is this week. Are the women on the short list being pitted against each other?
Plus, new body cam footage reveals the disturbing arrest that led to George Floyd's death.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Tonight, literally, any day now, former Vice President Joe Biden has said he would choose his running mate by the end of this week. Based on more than two dozen interviews conducted by CNN reporters, there appear to be three women at the top of the list.
[19:50:02]
California Senator Kamala Harris, California Congresswoman and Congressional Black Caucus chair, Karen Bass, and the former U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice.
OUTFRONT now, Van Jones, former special adviser to President Obama, and Karen Finney, former senior spokesman for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign.
Thanks to both.
So, Van, Biden has said four black women are among his candidates for vice president in addition to the three I mentioned, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Florida Congresswoman Val Demings are also believed to be candidates. What does it tell you when you think about it this way? And, obviously, as I said, among the candidates, right, he is looking at people, not just black women, but you have five black women in the running for the second highest position in the United States.
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It tells me it's about time, you know. Black women have been sticking up to the Democratic Party for a long time. It is time for the Democratic Party to stick up for black women.
This really is the year of black women. Black Lives Matter itself was founded by three black women. A lot of people don't know that. The big fight now is about Breonna Taylor. African-American woman who was killed by police.
Black women on the frontlines of the COVID crisis, on the front lines in the fight for justice. Black women have been saving American democracy for a very long time, from local positions. Let's give them a bigger and higher position, and I happen to note, three -- personally three of the women that you just said, any of them would do an extraordinary job in bringing the country together and really getting problems solved. Black women have been doing that for 400 years in this country.
BURNETT: So, Karen, there's been a lot of focus in recent days, in particular on Harris and Bass. We'll see who it is, but in particular. And Congressman James Clyburn, who's close to Biden, who's talked out, you know, openly about this process, he told "The Washington Post" in reference to those two women specifically and I quote Congressman Clyburn: It bugs me people want to pit the two black women against the other. Nobody is trying to pit Senator Elizabeth Warren against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and both of their names are being mentioned every day as being in the search.
What do you make of that point, Karen?
KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, first of all, Erin, that's a trope that we see time and time again, this desire to call -- you know, have a cat fight and to name in a cat fight. The media falls into that narrative.
And I think part of why we got to the point is that where it was with Senator Harris was certainly on the list among top consideration. We then saw a story that suggested Karen Bass was the anti-Harris. And you had people coming out saying, one is unacceptable, and the other one is acceptable.
So, that narrative then took off. And what you saw, though, is women, black women in particular are refusing to be locked into that kind of a narrative because it is destructive and it hurts all women when we allow a conversation to diminish into a cat fight that becomes frankly oftentimes about personal traits rather than what does each woman bring to the table.
BURNETT: So, on that point, Van, Kamala Harris' name has obviously been, you know, mentioned more than any other. And "Politico" is reporting that the former Senator Chris Dodd who was on the search committee for the V.P. for Biden, was stunned when she had, quote, no remorse for her, you know, now famous attack on Biden at the first primary debate, you know, that one little girl was me.
Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell said Harris, quote, can rub some people the wrong way.
So, Harris seemed to address these comments and here is how she did it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA): There will be a resistance to your ambition. There will be people that say you are out of your lane because they are -- they are -- they are burdened by only having the capacity to see what has always been instead of what can be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: You think that's part of what this is, Van, that there are people who are just rubbed the wrong way whether they know it consciously or subconsciously by the fact that she is ambitious and unafraid to show it.
JONES: Well, let me just say, first of all, Ed Rendell rubs people the wrong way. I mean, it's the weirdest thing in the world for that to be his criticism. He rubs people the wrong way. Rahm Emanuel rubs people the wrong way.
We got a lot of Democrats who rub people the wrong way. That's never been the criteria. The criteria has been, are you tough? Are you smart?
Kamala Harris has served in local, state, and federal office. She's been tested on the national stage. For people to say anything about her except for her record to me is a little bit odd.
Now, I also want to point this out. You know, Karen Bass, I agree 100 percent, you don't have to pit these women against each other. Karen Bass is one of the most able legislators that we have, period. Her ability to reach across lines and get stuff done, you would want that in a vice president.
But you don't have to praise -- you don't have to use the praise you of one to put down the other. The division that you complain about in the Republican Party shouldn't show up in this party. Both of these women, all these women should be judged on their own.
[19:55:02]
BURNETT: Karen?
FINNEY: Yeah. I mean, one of the things, you know, that we know is -- again, this is a common trope that a woman is too ambitious, right?
BURNETT: Yeah.
FINNEY: Or that, and again, it becomes personality based. Did anyone say Paul Ryan was too ambitious when he was selected as vice president?
As a friend of mine has said, Harriet Tubman was too ambitious. Thank God.
You know, I'm tired of seeing, Erin, there are black women and women around the country who are trying to come out and stop this nonsense. We cannot continue to view women through these racist and sexist tropes that diminish our qualifications for the job, when we're off talking about these personality traits.
I mean, as Van said, for Ed Rendell to talk about rubbing people the wrong way, shame on him. And conversation should be focused on the fact that the American people are ready for a black woman vice president.
BURNETT: Yeah, and that is the big question. Same thing about Paul Ryan, everybody liked him, the kind of smart superstar. And we talked about his workouts, right? Very different than what we're -- I'm just trying to think, what was the personal thing? Totally, totally different to your point about whether there's double standard. Thank you both so very much.
And today, the federal judge whose son was killed and whose husband shot in their home speaks out.
Alexandra Field is OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JUDGE ESTHER SALAS, SON KILLED BY GUNMAN: Two weeks ago my life as I knew it changed in an instant and my family will never be the same. A madman who I believe was targeting me because of my position as a federal judge came to my house.
ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Federal Judge Esther Salas' only child Daniel Anderl spent his last weekend with his family at home in New Jersey celebrating his 20th birthday.
SALAS: The weekend was a glorious one. It was filled with love and laughter and smiles. Daniel and I went downstairs to the basement and we were chatting as we always do.
And Daniel said, mom, let's keep talking. I love talking to you mom. It was that exact moment that the door bell rang and Daniel looked at me and said, who is that? And before I could say a word, he sprinted upstairs. Within seconds, I heard the sound of bullets and someone screaming "no!"
FIELD: Daniel was shot in the chest, blocking his father Mark who was shot three times and survived.
SALAS: We are living every parent's worst nightmare, making preparations to bury our only child, Daniel. And I am here asking everyone to help me ensure that no one ever has to experience this kind of pain. We may not be able to stop something like this from happening again, but we can make it hard for those that target us to track us down.
FIELD: The suspected shooter Roy Den Hollander died by suicide, an attorney and men's right activist who argued a case before Judge Salas, and then in hate-filled writings on the Internet attacked her in racist and sexist terms.
SALAS: As federal judges we understand that our decisions will be scrutinized and some may disagree strongly with our rulings. But what we cannot accept is when we are forced to live in fear for our lives because personal information like our home addresses can easily be obtained by anyone seeking to do us or our families harm.
Unfortunately for my family, the threat was real and the free flow of information from the Internet allowed this sick and depraved human being to find all of our personal information and target us. At the moment there is nothing that we can do to stop it. And that is unacceptable.
FIELD: Salas said the killer kept a dossier on her family. Law enforcement sources say he had a target list that included the name of several other judges, and a photo of New York's top state court judge, Janet DiFiore. After the New Jersey shooting, she was given state police protection. A mother now in the deepest kind of pain is calling for more.
SALAS: My son's death cannot be in vain, which is why I am begging those in power to do something to help my brothers and sisters on the bench.
FIELD: Alexandra Field, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: Hard to watch.
And thank you for joining us. Anderson starts now.
