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Erin Burnett Outfront
U.S. Has Nearly 23 Percent Of World's Coronavirus Deaths; Trump: Americans "Are Dying, It Is What It Is"; Study: Potential Coronavirus Vaccine Shows Promising Results; Six States Band Together For Rapid Testing Plan As Trump Admin. Faces Growing Criticism For Lack Of National Plan; Tropical Storm Isaias Wreaks Havoc Up East Coast; Interview Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) On Tropical Storm Isaias And North Carolina Joining Bipartisan Agreement for States to Carry Out Rapid Testing; Massive Explosion Rocks Beirut. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired August 04, 2020 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: All our equipment, this microphone I'm using is the only microphone we have left functioning and here you can bring the camera back to me and this is our only camera. The others are all damaged, Wolf.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Well, fortunately, you're OK. Our team in Beirut is OK. We will stay in close touch with you. Ben Wedeman on the scene for us.
"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts right now.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next the breaking news, more than a thousand Americans died of coronavirus today. The President downplaying the numbers saying 'it is what it is', except it doesn't have to be this way.
Plus, the obituary she wrote for her husband blaming the President and the Governor of Texas for his death, why her words are gaining so much attention tonight.
And more breaking news, the President just calling the massive explosion in Beirut an attack, was it? Well, we are live on the ground tonight. Let's go OUTFRONT.
And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, it is what it is. The words of President Donald Trump, when asked about 1,000 Americans dying a day from coronavirus. And just moments ago, the President again saying something false about America's coronavirus situation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We proportionately are lower than almost all countries. We're at the bottom of the list and relative to cases also we're at the bottom of the list, which is a good thing being at the bottom of the list.
(END VIDEO CLIP) WINKLER: Well, the U.S. is not at the bottom of the list when it comes
to people dying. We have 4 percent of the world's population. Currently, we have nearly 23 percent of the world's deaths and of the 20 most affected countries when it comes to death per 100,000 people, the United States ranks fourth. And as of tonight, the U.S. death toll topping 156,000 people in 11 of the past 15 days, more than 1,000 Americans on every single one of those days have died from coronavirus.
But the message from the President when he's confronted with this thousand person a day toll, it is what it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think it's under control. I'll tell you what ...
JONATHAN SWAN, REPORTER, AXIOS HOST: How? A thousand Americans are dying a day.
TRUMP: They are dying. That's true. And it is what it is, but that doesn't mean we aren't doing everything we can. It's under control as much as you can control it. This is a horrible plague that beset us.
SWAN: Do you really think this is as much as we can control?
TRUMP: Well, I'll tell you ...
SWAN: A thousand deaths a day?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: A thousand deaths a day. It is what it is. Look, here's the truth, it does not need to be what it is. Look at countries in Europe and Asia. When you look at deaths per million residents, nowhere near the death rate of the United States. We're in green there on the end and you can see how it got corrected in Italy. Italy was way worse off than the United States back in April, right? But they did things, they did lock downs and masks and now way fewer deaths.
It is what it is in large part, because there has been no national strategy to combat the virus. Total failure in testing, no universal mask wearing plan to things that President Trump frankly bears a big, big deal of responsibility for. Thanks to his constant monitor that there's too much testing and his personal refusal to demonstrate wearing a mask and, frankly, ridiculing others who do. Listen to this exchange with Axios.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SWAN: The figure I look at his death and death is going up now.
TRUMP: OK. No. No.
SWAN: That's a thousand a day.
TRUMP: If you look at death ... SWAN: Yes, it's going up again.
TRUMP: Let's look. Take a look at some of these charts, OK?
SWAN: I'd love to.
TRUMP: We're going to look.
SWAN: Let's look.
TRUMP: And if you look at death ...
SWAN: Yes, start to go up again.
TRUMP: This one, well, right here United States is lowest in numerous categories. We're lower than the world.
SWAN: Lower than the world. What does that mean?
TRUMP: We're lower than Europe.
SWAN: In what?
TRUMP: Look. Look.
SWAN: In what?
TRUMP: Take a look right here. Here's case death.
SWAN: Oh, you're doing death as a proportion of cases. I'm talking about death as a proportion of population. That's where the U.S. is really bad. Much worse than South Korea, Germany, et cetera.
TRUMP: You can't do that.
SWAN: Why can't I do that?
TRUMP: Look, here is the United States. You have to go by the cases. The cases of death.
SWAN: Why not as a proportion of population?
TRUMP: What it is says, is when you have somebody that has ...
SWAN: Yes.
TRUMP: ... where there's a case ...
SWAN: Oh, OK.
TRUMP: ... the people that live from those cases.
SWAN: It's surely a relevant statistic to say if the U.S. has X population and X percentage of death of that population, versus South Korea.
TRUMP: No, because you have to go by the cases.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Well, there's the irony, of course, so now he's happy he has all of these cases that he keeps saying he doesn't want to have because of testing. But he walked into the interview, those are his papers, those stats, charts, graphics. But, again, I'm kind of shuffling around trying to sort of notice what was on them, obviously, he hadn't had time to go through them much before.
It couldn't paint the rosy picture that he wanted to paint. Again and again, during the interview, when Trump was confronted with some of the reality on the ground, he returned to one of his favorite talking points.
[19:05:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have tested more people than any other country, than all of Europe put together times two, we have tested more people than anybody ever thought of. India has 1.4 billion people. They've done 11 million tests. We've done 55. It'll be close to 60 million tests and there are those that say you can test too much, you do know that.
SWAN: Who says that? Who?
TRUMP: Oh, just read the manuals, read the books.
SWAN: Manuals?
TRUMP: Read the books.
SWAN: What manuals?
TRUMP: Read the books?
SWAN: What books?
TRUMP: What testing does ...
SWAN: I'm sorry.
TRUMP: ... wait a minute, Jonathan. Let me explain. What testing does it shows cases, it shows where there may be cases. Other countries' test, you know when they test? They test when somebody is sick, that's when they test and I'm not saying they're right or wrong, nobody has done it like we've done it. We've gotten absolutely no credit for it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OK. Let's just - there's a lot in there and no legitimate doctor has ever said you can test too much. They just haven't said that. In fact, their ideal thing would be to go out and test every day. As a matter of fact, the doctors on Trump's coronavirus task force all say there is not enough testing in this country and the turnaround time is not fast enough and they're right.
I was in urgent care today for an unrelated matter and there was a sign, it said it could take 10 days to get a coronavirus test results, best case, minimum it said seven. Seven to 10 days renders the results completely useless, you're either incredibly sick or you're better and nobody can contact trace.
So in that regard, Trump is right. We are like no other country. Germany gets test results back within 24 to 48 hours, Japan gets them back in three days. It is what it is in this country, because Trump keeps pushing things about testing and masks and social distancing that are false and modeling bad behavior on that front right just the other day, no masks, no social distancing at his fundraiser.
Kaitlan Collins is OUTFRONT live near the White House tonight. So Kaitlan, again, the President coming to the podium insisting the U.S. has a lower death rate than other countries. It's simply not true when you just look at the facts here of how many people have died in each country relative to population.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And it's not clear if his team is presenting him with the same numbers that we're looking at or if he's looking at other kinds of charts, because you saw in that Axios interview how they were recording it differently, not by population, but cases and deaths overall.
And then we know before that Fox News interview that the President did with Chris Wallace they left, I believe, Russia off of the list. And so it's not clear how he's looking at these rankings when he's making these arguments. But today, in the briefing room, you saw him trying to argue, well, if you took New York and New Jersey off the list, that would change how it looked in the US.
Well, of course, because those are big areas and, of course, we know they were the first ones hit so hard by the coronavirus, but you can't just remove them from the count because they do have high numbers. That's like if Japan wanted to remove Tokyo from its list, you just can't not count one of the biggest areas in your country just because they had a high outbreak and as the President was looking at what he's been - something that he's leaned on multiple times to indicate how the U.S. has done in his mind done well with this is this ranking of these mortality rates with countries.
But Erin, it even is a stretch to do it as it stands now, because according to the latest Johns Hopkins' numbers that you were just talking about, we're fourth on that list. But if you look at the other countries and you combine those three that are ahead of the U.S., they still don't have as many deaths as the U.S. does, because it's counting it per population, per 100,000 people.
So that's not even a really good comparison. But it's the President trying to find the positive in these numbers to use those and I just want to point out something before I let you go. The President just tweeted these photos of him attending a taskforce meeting. This time it was in the Oval Office, typically they are held in this situation room and it was supposed to be held the situation room at the White House today.
Erin, we believe this is the first time the President has attended a task force meeting since the month of April. Based on the last time I checked with other members of the task force, he had not been in there since April. Now, it's August and it looks like he's finally meeting with the entire team in person.
BURNETT: Well, all right. Kaitlan, thank you very much. The first time since April, certainly that realize it means there are people close to him who know the gravity of this who are making sure he's there. I want to go to Dr. Sanjay Gupta now and Dr. Jonathan Reiner, Director of the GW Cardiac Cath Lab and who advised the White House medical team under President George W. Bush.
So Sanjay, first time, Kaitlan reporting that the President has been in a coronavirus task force meeting since April. By the way, back in April is when we had a thousand deaths a day, briefly went down a bit, plateaued and now we've been back there, as we said, almost 11 of the past 15 days. Of that number, 1,000 a day his comment today, it is what it is. It doesn't need though to be this way, does it?
SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: No. I mean, look, first of all that's an extraordinary lack of empathy. I've known people who've died of this disease and you can just imagine, I mean, people's families hear the President say that and I mean, this was not inevitable. I mean, it is a bad virus. It's lethal. It's contagious. That is true and it's affecting all of us humans on the planet in some way or another. We've all been affected by this.
[19:10:00]
But clearly what has happened here in the United States, how this has unfolded in United States, the minimization of this in the United States back in February and frankly still even today is part of the reason we have so many people who've died in this country. This did not have to happen. This did not need to be as bad as it is, either in terms of infections or in terms of deaths.
So hopefully I like to look forward, hopefully, we can still bring the trajectories of these numbers down. But I don't know that we're doing anything to really make that happen in a concrete way still.
BURNETT: So Dr. Reiner, when the president says I think it's under control, it is what it is, we did just lay out the numbers on death specifically, right? And how many people are dying as a percentage of your total population which, frankly, is the only way to look at this, because he has a point on cases which no one knows how many there are, right?
So looking at anything as a percentage of cases is really meaningless, because you're either testing a lot or a little or it's 40 times as many people you think have it or 10 or - you don't know. But you do know how many people are dying of it relative to your population and on that it is very clear that the United States has been doing absolutely terribly. Does the President really not realize this? JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I think he has the numbers all
jumbled up in his head. I don't think he really can figure this out anymore. So let me deconstruct this, we've had about 155,000 people die of this virus. That equates to about 481 per 1 million population. The President says we're doing great. We're doing better than anyone in the world. So for example, Germany's mortality rate equates to 110 deaths per 1 million population, Israel 60, Japan eight, so we're not doing so great.
But the President was talking about the case fatality rate, which as you say, no one really knows what the true number is because we didn't know the denominator. We don't really know how many cases are out there, right? But when you look at death, the case fatality rate is a reflection on how the nurses and the doctors and the hospitals are doing.
When you look at the mortality rate for the country as a whole, the number of deaths per in this country, that's a reflection of what our government has done and we've failed on that. All the successes in terms of lowering the case fatality rate that belongs to the front line heroes who every day try and put this fire up.
BURNETT: So Sanjay, I want to play again part of the exchange between President Trump and the interviewer Jonathan Swan on the death toll numbers here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're lower than the world.
SWAN: Lower than the world. What does that mean?
TRUMP: We're lower than Europe.
SWAN: In what?
TRUMP: Look. Look.
SWAN: In what?
TRUMP: Take a look right here. Here's case death.
SWAN: Oh, you're doing death as a proportion of cases. I'm talking about death as a proportion of population. That's where the U.S. is really bad. Much worse than South Korea, Germany, et cetera.
TRUMP: You can't do that.
SWAN: Why can't I do that?
TRUMP: Look, here is the United States. You have to go by the cases. The cases of death.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: All right. So Sanjay, epidemiologically, mathematically explain this, why it is so important, why this case method is not the way to look at it.
GUPTA: I mean, people can put out these relative rates in comparison to a hundred thousand people or a million people or the population of the country. And if you look at this, you're going to have different rankings in terms of where the United States is. The United States is never going to look particularly good, but it's going to have different rankings.
The thing about this is, is that this is a pandemic, right? So Jonathan was talking about the denominator. I mean, this affects all humans on the planet. So this idea that ultimately if you look at the number of infections, the percentage of infections that have occurred in this country, a country that's not even 5 percent of the world's population, it's as you said, 20 percent to 25 percent of those infections have occurred here, 20 percent to 25 percent of the deaths in the world have occurred here in this country.
So, look, there's all sorts of different ways to look at it, but given that we're all in this together, that may be the simplest way to sort of analyze this, how did we do compared to the rest of the world, but what percentage of the world's infections do we have, what percentage of the world's deaths do we have. Again, absolute numbers versus these relative numbers may make it a little bit simpler.
BURNETT: So Dr. Reiter, what about what the President suggested tonight, take out the numbers from New York and maybe New Jersey. By the way, we were at a thousand deaths a day when those states were at their peak and by the way, they could be rising again. Now, we're back at a thousand deaths a day, but he says take them out and the U.S. numbers would look totally different, is that legitimate?
REINER: No. Actually, if you take out how New York is doing now, the country would look much worse.
BURNETT: Yes.
REINER: Why would you exclude New York State from this? The last I checked, we are the United States of America. But if you were to take out the 33,000 Americans who lived in New York who died of this virus, we would still be left with 125,000 deaths, which still is about twice the number of any other country on the planet.
[19:15:09]
But one more thing about this it is what it is. I've had to tell people that someone that they've loved has died. And I'm sure Sanjay had to do the same thing, I've never in my life said, "Look, it is what it is." And the reason for that is because I'm a human, we'd really deserve better than that.
BURNETT: Thank you both very much.
And next, a Republican Governor just announcing a mask mandate after resisting one for months, but now it is a mandate as cases are soaring there and across many states in this country. Plus, our own Drew Griffin, he investigates the coronavirus testing
failure in this country. Why some are able to get results right away, while other essential workers like teachers aren't in here in New York, seven to 10 days, best case.
And breaking news, the death toll climbing tonight after that devastating explosion in Lebanon's capital. The President just calling it a bomb, a attack, was it? We are live tonight in Beirut.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:19:36]
BURNETT: Breaking news, a potential coronavirus vaccine showing promising results, Novavax announcing tonight its vaccine is safe, lessening an immune response in early tests. It comes as masks are now mandatory in Mississippi as cases soar there. Sara Sidner is OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT(voice over): The coronavirus is still spreading out of control in parts of the United States, despite the President's assertion otherwise.
[19:20:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, DIRECTOR, INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: I just categorically reject, we can't do something about it or that the status quo is acceptable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER(voice over): With more than 4.7 million diagnosed cases and more than 156,000.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. JAY VARKEY, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, EMORY UNIVERSITY: The U.S. is the fourth worst performing country in the world. We have 4 percent of the world's population, yet we account for 25 percent of the world's deaths. That is unacceptable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER(voice over): New case rates are steady or down in 42 states, but often the numbers are steady at a very high level with Florida about to become the second state to total a half million cases during the pandemic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R) FLORIDA: I think by the time we get a couple of weeks into the future, I think we'll kind of continue to see the prevalence decline and that'll be a very, very good thing. (END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER(voice over): In Mississippi, the positivity rate is now higher than any other state prompting the Governor to announce a state mask mandate in public spaces and for teachers and students in schools located in hotspots.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. TATE REEVES (R) MISSISSIPPI: We must pump the brakes in hardest hit areas.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER(voice over): In neighboring Louisiana, the Governor just extended several restrictions there, including a state mask mandate for another three weeks. And while cases may be declining in many places, daily death tolls across the country continue to climb.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: This is a very serious situation that our country is facing. You don't need anybody to tell you that, you just need to look at the numbers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER(voice over): Despite the worrying data for the U.S. as a whole, some citizens are still throwing caution to the wind. Another massive house party, this time at a mansion in Los Angeles, a potential coronavirus Petri dish that ended in gunfire. One person killed, three shot.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LIEUTENANT CHRIS RAMIREZ, LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT: We as a public have to be conscious of everybody else, everybody's public safety, our own safety.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER(voice over): Schools continue to be the great unknown, some communities eager to start up. Others more concerned with the risks of sending kids and teachers back into classrooms.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. DEBBI BURDICK, SUPERINTENDENT, CAVE CREEK UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT: We can make great academic decisions, but I don't think talking about somebody's health, not knowing all their underlying conditions are the types of things that we should be deciding.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(END VIDEOTAPE) SIDNER: And, of course, superintendents, teachers, staff members,
parents and children all concerned about spreading the virus going through schools in Gwinnett County, for example. That's Georgia's largest school system. They are reporting some 260 school employees have either tested positive for the virus or had been around someone who tested positive. It is the kind of thing that schools do not want to become a place where community spread exists, Erin.
BURNETT: All right. Sara, thank you.
And I want to go now to Jonathan Wharton. He's a Professor. He's a Professor at Southern Connecticut State University. He is planning on holding in-person classes this fall outside and he's encouraging others to do the same.
And Professor Wharton, I mean, I just want to circle to this idea that seems very basic and yet, frankly, in a lot of places is, I don't know, it seems to be hard to pull off or they're not really going forward, I don't know. But this idea of outdoor classes, how is it going to work for you and how is it being received?
JONATHAN WHARTON, SOUTHERN CONNECTICUT STATE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR: Well, I suggested last week, as a matter of fact, in an article. And I've done it in the past before from some of my classes, the difficulty with a campus like mine, unfortunately, is that there's not enough furniture out there between benches and tables, and least for the administration, they're trying to coordinate those efforts.
And so I'm sure you've also heard a number of universities are doing outside tents. They're putting chairs together. They're asking students to bring their chair, so there are a number of different ways to do the outdoor classes.
BURNETT: And can you even do it in the winter, right? You could get, I mean, obviously, where you are in a lot of places in the country, it gets exceedingly cold, you dress warm, you can have space heaters, right? I mean, this is possible in that setting, right?
WHARTON: Actually, we're planning to go online before Thanksgiving. So that's why I'm advocating for this from, pretty much, from the end of August when we begin (inaudible) ...
BURNETT: OK. So you don't even think you would need it through that time. I was just, I guess, making a point I would think you could if you wanted to, but I understand your point that you've already said online. But you know what you raised in the early 1900s during a tuberculosis outbreak, we had people outside, right?
I guess, it's just interesting to me that we're back to that, right? We have all this technology and yet we're going back to a teaching method that dates back to the ancient Greeks that many of us associate with beautiful spring days when finally a teacher would let us go outside of class. But you're right about that in your op-ed, how this is going back in history.
WHARTON: And I've been doing it for years. I've been teaching for 20 years and even before I came to Southern, I taught it at institute of technology where they have a space in the room. I think you'd be surprised. A lot of students prefer it and the feedback I've got from last students, they respect that.
BURNETT: Well, look, I think a lot of them would prefer it to online. Look, I know people want to be safe, but I know and you know so many students who are devastated by this online-only situation that many of them are doing this. You have been teaching online since March.
In doing what you're suggesting, there are some risks you could be taking on to your own health, but you want to do it. You believe in teaching in-person. Why do you think it is so important?
[19:25:04]
WHARTON: It is because a lot of students miss the contact. I certainly missed the discussion and a lot of students don't have their cameras on, unfortunately. And even if you do try to have that happen, they get distracted at home. So it's not as easy as people think and so in the class, let's say, of almost 50 students, it's very difficult. In a seminar, this may be 10 to 15 students, I find it more doable, and I don't mind doing both quite frankly.
BURNETT: All right. Well, I hope, people hear the optimism and the effort here, because it would seem that there's maybe a hybrid here that could work for a lot more people than just throwing in the towel. Professor, thank you so much.
WHARTON: Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate it, Erin.
BURNETT: And next, states banding together on a testing deal because the federal government failed them. They are now backing a test that can detect the virus in 30 minutes reliably. Will this work? Talk about transformational.
Plus, Republicans say they may not allow reporters to cover some of their party's convention and they are blaming the Governor of North Carolina. They love to blame this guy, so guess what, Gov. Roy Cooper will be OUTFRONT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:29:56]
BURNETT: New tonight, states banding together to do what the federal government has failed to do. Six governors announcing a bipartisan deal to expand rapid antigen tests to detect and slow the spread of coronavirus and this is the first agreement of its kind and it is bipartisan.
This comes as their remains no national plan to deal with the testing fiasco, weeks long delays for results in many places.
Drew Griffin is OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Why is coronavirus testing in the U.S. still a debacle? CNN spoke to state health officials, testing labs, test suppliers, hospitals, and industry insiders, more than 20 testing experts, the overwhelming consensus, no federal plan.
HEATHER PIERCE, SENIOR DIRECTOR FOR SCIENCE POLICY & REGULATORY COUNSEL, ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN MEDICAL COLLEGES: We need to have a better national strategy to deal with testing.
GRIFFIN: But wait a minute. Wasn't there supposed to be a plan? A White House coronavirus task force and wasn't this man, Admiral Brett Giroir, tasked with fixing testing?
The answer to all three is yes. And according to Admiral Brett Giroir, the federal government is doing all it can.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: It's not enough.
ADM. BRETT GIROIR, TESTING CZAR: Of course, it's enough. Tell me one thing that we should be doing with any of these private labs that we're not doing or they're not doing on their own. And I'm happy to do it.
GRIFFIN: Well, here, Admiral Giroir, is what the federal government should be doing according to those experts. First, national coordination of supplies.
PIERCE: You have, whether intentionally or not, competition across states, across labs.
GRIFFIN: There is not enough of anything -- the swabs, pipettes, the chemicals needed to perform a test called reagents, which is leading to huge competition between states and labs.
KARISSA CULBREATH, PHD, TRICORE REFERENCE LABORATORIES: So if we had all of these supplies that we could use, we could perform around 10,000 tests per day. But we just don't have all of the supplies or all of the people.
GRIFFIN: Case in point, TriCore, New Mexico's largest medical lab is running just 3,700 tests a day instead of the 10,000 it could handle, nowhere near its capacity.
CULBREATH: We need goals at a federal level and the support at the federal level for us to get to where we need to be for testing.
GRIFFIN (on camera): It sounds like a very polite way to say that if there is a national strategy, nobody in New Mexico knows about it.
CULBREATH: Probably, yes. (LAUGHTER)
GRIFFIN (voice-over): One way to get more of those supplies is increase use of the Defense Production Act or DPA. CNN previously reported how the administration isn't using the DPA as much as it could. A plan released by the Rockefeller Foundation said the government should immediately invoke the act, specifically to increase supplies for reagents and machinery to process testing.
DR. RAJIV SHAH, THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION PRESIDENT: What we have seen is that industry left to its own devices is not going to produce the types of tests and the scale of tests necessary.
GRIFFIN: And several of the experts say the Trump administration needs to abandon its idea that the competitive marketplace will solve supply issues. It simply won't. And if you want proof, Dr. Rajiv Shah of the Rockefeller says turn on your TV and watch sports.
SHAH: If you are a multimillion dollar baseball or basketball player, you're getting tested quite often so that you can go to work. But if you're a teacher, if you're a health care worker, if you're out there doing your job and asked to do your job without the benefit of support for testing, that's not fair and that's not right.
GRIFFIN: Heather Pierce with Association of American Medical Colleges says it's time to let science lead this U.S. response.
PIERCE: That is not a market-driven response. That is something that requires the engagement of the public health community, the academic community, and the government public health forces.
GRIFFIN: In other words, a federal plan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: Erin, the surprising response from the Department of Health and Human Services is there is a national plan, and that is to work with the states but that a single national plan isn't appropriate because those states have different needs. As for those supplies, the Department of Health and Human Services told us that is unrealistic that the federal government could manage distribution of supplies to labs across the country.
Erin, they think it's working.
BURNETT: All right. Drew, thank you.
I want to go now to Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, top expert in the country on testing.
And, you know, Drew points out no national plan on testing. Now you've got governors of now seven states working on having tests to detect the virus in 30 minute. It's awful we're at this point right now. You've got the states trying to band together to do this at this point. This is where we are with no national plan.
Could this be successful, governors at this point getting together to try for something like these 30-minute tests?
DR. ASHISH JHA, DIRECTOR, HARVARD GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE: Thank you for having me on. I think it can be successful. First of all, it is not a preferred plan. A preferred plan would be a national plan. A true federal effort helping -- and again, you would have to work with states because the states are different and have a lot of different needs.
[19:35:06]
But that's really not what is happening. That's not what we're getting from the federal government.
So, I think this is plan B and I think it's a pretty good one. Personally I am thrilled that the states have come together. Many of us have been working behind the scenes to try to enable something like this --
BURNETT: Yeah.
JHA: -- and it's great to see that it's really bipartisan.
BURNETT: So, is the technology there. I mean, you know, the other day, you and I were talking, you said you want a world where people can wake up in the morning, spit on a special strip of paper, two minutes later, you know, you've got the virus or you don't.
Now, if that kind of thing happened, we could open schools. We could open the economy. I mean, talk about transformational and the best thing to happen to an economy in a depression.
Does that technology exist?
JHA: It does exist. It does exist. It's amazing, right? That strip of paper of technology exists. These antigen tests that give you results in 15 minutes exist.
And the bottom line is that if you just leave it to the market, they will ramp up and produce millions of tests in the next year or two. We don't have a year or two. We've got to get it now.
And that's why we need the hand of the government really creating a market, helping with supplies, making it happen. If the federal government isn't going to do it, and it's very clear they're not going to do it, these states are coming together saying they're going to work the companies, they're going to create the marketplace. I think it's the job of Congress to help states out with the resources and other things so that the states can take the lead.
BURNETT: So, Dr. Jha, President Trump tonight suggested that the United States carrying out more random testing for the virus compared to other countries. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUM: We are testing at a level that no country in the world -- and I've spoken to the leaders of the world, and they'll ask me about it. No country in the world thought it would -- it's even believable that we're able to test so much, 61 million versus, you know, most countries don't even test. Do you know when they test?
When somebody's feeling badly. If somebody is feeling badly, they're symptomatic, that's when they test. That's a big difference. With us, we go around and looking because if we find, we find spots, we find hotspots.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Is that -- is that right? I mean, that we are doing this amazing randomizing testing?
JHA: So, it's not quite right. First of all, on a per capita basis, we're not number one at all. And that's what matters.
Second is our outbreak is much, much bigger. So, we need to be doing more testing and we're still falling behind.
Third, there are all sorts of surveillance testing programs that other countries have that they're doing. But because they've managed to bring their outbreaks under much better control, they don't have to do quite as much of it. But the idea we're the only ones do surveillance is not true. There are lots of countries that are doing it.
We are not winning this game. We have more cases. But more importantly, we have more hospitalizations and more deaths than any other country in the world. So, no matter how you slice it, we're doing pretty poorly.
BURNETT: All right. Dr. Jha, thank you.
I should point out, New York state, 1 percent, the lowest prevalence rates in the country. I was at an urgent care today and they said seven to 10 days. That's in a place where you don't even have it widely prevalent. No symptomatic, they don't want you if you don't have symptoms.
Ad next, breaking news, President Trump calling an explosion that tore through Beirut an attack. Dozens are now dead. So, was it an attack or not? It's a big thing to say.
Plus, she wrote a powerful obituary of her husband blaming the president and other politicians about his death. Why? I'm going to ask her. She's our guest.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:42:26]
BURNETT: Breaking news, Tropical Storm Isaias wreaking havoc across the East Coast, widespread damages in states including New York, Virginia and New Jersey, Pennsylvania. Right now, more than 3 million customers without power and at least two deaths being blamed on the storm in North Carolina, where Isaias made landfall as a hurricane overnight. You can see what's left in one town, Windsor, North Carolina, the buildings, towns, cars, utter destruction.
The Democratic Governor of North Carolina Roy Cooper joins me now.
Governor, I'm sorry for this, you know, amidst this -- that the virus battle to have this happen, two deaths in your state, a tragedy. You've got nearly 100,000 people without power the last time we checked, with major damage which we just showed. And this is happening while you're dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.
How hard has it been to have this --this at the same time?
GOV. ROY COOPER (D-NC): Well, it's been difficult. This storm slammed into our state as a category one hurricane. We do mourn the loss of two lives, over a dozen people injured, a lot of damage.
But North Carolina knows how to prepare for storms and hurricanes. This time, we had to do it with a mask on. When you have a pandemic and a hurricane, it's double trouble. And we have spent the last few months preparing for a hurricane, hoping it would never come, but knowing in North Carolina we are susceptible to having them.
And I'm proud of the way our emergency management approached this, making sure that our shelters did screening for COVID, that we had personal protective equipment there, that they were social distancing. And we were ready and we're glad that the storm is gone, and we're ready to begin the recovery process.
BURNETT: So, you know, you talk about COVID and the testing you were doing in shelters. I had mentioned a bipartisan group of governors getting together for these rapid antigen tests where you do a lot of them. You might get some false positives and negatives, but you find out a lot of people that had it that you wouldn't with the other testing , right, because it's very quick.
And we have six states -- moments ago, I know you -- we learned you're the 7th joining this. Now, I guess I'm asking you, Governor, is obviously you wouldn't have needed to do this if there were a national testing plan, right? If people in your state had access to fast, frequent testing, even for asymptomatic people.
How much is the federal government's failure on this issue, testing, hurt your state?
COOPER: It's hurt a lot. We wish there had been a better federal testing strategy.
[19:45:01]
In North Carolina, we worked very hard to get testing out. But we find problems with supply chain. We find problems with personal protective equipment.
So, as governors, we've had to step up and do the job. We've done that in North Carolina, and now, we're bonding with other states here to try to use our collective power to do this.
It would be better if we had a strong national strategy that would get ahold of the supply chain. And, you know, it's hard to trace when there is so much time, turn around time, in the testing. We've got to do better here for sure.
BURNETT: So, the RNC was criticized over the weekend. You know, they were saying the events in North Carolina could be closed to the press. Obviously, there was the whole thing the president called you backward and tried to move as much as he could to Florida.
But there's still some parts happening in North Carolina. And the chairwoman of the RNC, Ronna McDaniel, yesterday said that this whole issue of the press is actually not on them, it is on you, Governor Cooper.
Here's how she put it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RONNA MCDANIEL, RNC CHAIRWOMAN: We want the press there, but this isn't an RNC decision. This is a Governor Cooper of North Carolina decision that's limiting how many people we can have in a room.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: I guess they're saying because you're currently in a phase where you can't have more than ten people in an indoor space.
Is she right on this being your call then?
COOPER: Absolutely not. The RNC has changed their mind so much on this. First in Charlotte, then in Jacksonville, then back in Charlotte. How are they going to have it?
One thing that hasn't changed is North Carolina's commitment to public health and safety. We're willing to work with them on a safe convention, and look forward to doing that. But in North Carolina, we've been able to keep our numbers down. We have not seen the spikes that other states have because we've taken pro-active action.
I put in a mandatory mask mandate back in June. That has shown positive effects. We've taken the dimmer switch approach where we've stayed in our phase two.
BURNETT: Yeah.
COOPER: These are the things that are positive and the way you keep your numbers low. And we're not going to have a whole lot of people gathering together and spreading virus in a way that the RNC had talked about doing it, with the president telling me he wanted a full arena. We were not going to have that here.
BURNETT: All right. Well, Governor Cooper, I appreciate your time, and I thank you, sir.
COOPER: Sure. Thank you.
BURNETT: And I want to go to breaking news now, a massive explosion in Beirut. Seventy-eight people at least killed, thousands have been injured, thousands. Huge blasts rocking the city. Conflicting reports about what caused it.
President Trump coming out, calling it a terrible attack.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REPORTER: Are you confident that this was an attack and not an accident?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, it would seem like it based on the explosion. I met with some of our great generals, and they just seem to feel that it was. This was not a -- some kind of a manufacturing explosion type of event. They seem to think it was a attack, it was a bomb of some kind.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Ben Wedeman is OUTFRONT in Beirut.
So, President Trump came out and said he thinks this was an attack, which is a huge thing to say. Thousands injured, death toll likely to climb. What are you hearing about what caused the blast?
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What we understand is that there was a warehouse in Beirut port that contained more than 2,000 tons of ammonium nitrate that had been confiscated by the authorities back in 2014 and was being kept in that warehouse. Where exactly it was confiscated from, we don't know.
But what is blaringly obvious is that it has caused a massive explosion in this city. It was seven hours ago that that blast took place, and I'm still hearing ambulances whaling in the background. At least 4,000 people wounded. More than 70 killed.
Now, no Lebanese politician -- and this is a country where speculation is a national sport and conspiracy theories are a hobby. No one, at this point, has actually pointed the finger in any particular direction. Obviously, often times the fingers are pointed at Israel.
So, when President Trump seems to confidently state that it was an attack, he has given a lot of ammunition to people here who will obviously point it -- point their fingers in many directions. And one of them is Israel - Erin.
BURNETT: Look, it's incredible he would be the first to come out and say that. Obviously the information doesn't appear to be there yet.
By the way, I want everyone to know, the reason Ben is standing where he is -- that's our bureau in Beirut. That's what happened where Ben is standing and how severe the damage is across all the city of Beirut.
[19:50:03]
Ben, thank you very much.
Up next, a woman blaming the president and other politicians for her husband's death, writing in his obituary shame on you. She has a message she wants everyone to hear, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Tonight, shame on you. That is the message, the quote from the family of Texas resident David Nagy. He died from coronavirus.
In his obituary, which immediately garnered thousands of likes and shares on social media, Nagy's family blames President Trump and the Texas governor for his death and they write in part in his obituary and I quote: Family members believe David's death was needless. They blame his death and the deaths of all other innocent deaths on Trump and Abbot and all the other politicians who did not take this pandemic seriously and were more concerned with their popularity and votes than lives.
OUTFRONT now is Stacey Nagy. She is David Nagy's wife, his widow who wrote this obituary.
And, Stacey, look, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for your loss, a few months ago, a loss that you never thought would have touched you. And I'm truly, truly sorry for that.
[19:55:03]
So, tell me about this, why you why -- you felt the need to write this?
STACEY NAGY, LOST HUSBAND TO CORONAVIRUS, BLAMES TRUMP AND GOV. ABBOTT: Well, I was very -- I was very distraught and very angry. Having seen how people are reacting to this pandemic, or not reacting to the pandemic, listening to things that Trump and the other politicians were saying, not setting examples by wearing masks and so forth.
And I felt that had things been handled properly from the very beginning, we would not be where we are now. And had the public been listening to the medical professionals and done what they should have done, we would not be where we are now.
So, consequently thousands of people have died. Now, I am heart broken over this, of course. His family, his kids are heart broken over it. But in addition to us, I think about all the other families, all the other people that lost husbands and wives and mothers and fathers, and children. You know, they are going through the same thing.
And it's frustrating when you know that somebody's died that didn't need to die or at least they didn't need to die in the way they did and the time that they did.
BURNETT: Yeah.
NAGY: So, I was -- after this whole thing happened, I was -- I was so angry and I just had this need to express myself and to put blame where blame belongs.
So I wrote my little obituary and I posted it in my little town's little newspaper, and hoped that a few of the residents would read it and start wearing masks. And I had no idea that it would have, you know, turned out the way it did. I had no idea that it was passed around and people have been reading it and so forth.
(CROSSTALK)
BURNETT: You do have a message in it about masks specifically. I know you just mentioned it. But you wrote, also to blame are the many ignorant, self-centered and selfish people who refuse to follow the advice of the medical professionals, believing their right to not wear a mask was more important than killing important people.
Do you that -- you know, from the responses that you've gotten, has this changed how some people are behaving?
NAGY: Yesterday, yesterday evening, I went on to Facebook and started reading live messages and the majority of comments were in my favor. The majority of comments that people believed the same way I believe and they gave me an attagirl for doing it. They said, good for you coming out and saying it, you know?
But there were some people that gave negative comments. They said such things like oh, her husband didn't really die. This is all just made up. And this is just made up to make Trump look bad because we are getting close to an election, and stuff like that, which is not the case.
BURNETT: So, you know, we just showed some pictures of your husband, you know, with the grandchild and of course, with you.
NAGY: Yeah, that is his grandchild.
BURNETT: Yeah, a couple of weeks ago he was alive and a couple of months ago, you would have thought you had a lot of time left, many years. Tell me about him.
NAGY: Oh, Dave, was a character. He was really, really a character. He was a fun-loving person and he loved his family dearly, he loved all of his children, his grandchildren, his great grandchildren.
He loved me, he loved his dog dearly. He loved to tease people when we would go places, he would like to kid around with the waitresses or the store clerks and things like that. He was, he was a wonderful person.
You know, I could be in the kitchen washing dishes at the sink and he would come up and start kissing the back of my neck. You know, giving me chills in the back of my neck. You know, and he just, he was the love of my life. And I love him. He was a part of me. And I just, I -- I feel lost without him.
BURNETT: Well, I am really sorry. I am so sorry for your loss. And I thank you for sharing a little bit of him, his life with all of us. Thank you, Stacey.
NAGY: Thank you.
BURNETT: And thanks to you for watching. Anderson starts now.
