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Erin Burnett Outfront
Trump Tells Reporter To Take Mask Off, Reporter Declines; Key Model: 122,000 Lives Could Be Saved By Wearing Masks; Officials Fear Post-Holiday Surge: New Cases Averaging About 40,000 Daily, Double Average Going Into Memorial Day; Trump Accuses Harris Of "Political Rhetoric" On Vaccines Even As President Ties Vaccine Timeline To "Special Date"; Kamala Harris Meets With Jacob Blake And Family; Trump & Allies Repeatedly Caught Promoting Doctored or Misleading Videos to Smear Biden During Campaign. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired September 07, 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.
ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next, the President goes after a reporter for wearing a mask while praising another for not wearing one. This is the country is again at a crossroads when it comes to the deadly pandemic.
Plus, Trump accusing Kamala Harris of politicizing the coronavirus vaccine while at the same time tying a vaccine to the election himself.
President Trump also launching an unprecedented attack against his own top military commanders, accusing them of waging wars so others can make a profit, so what's he talking about? Let's go OUTFRONT.
Good evening and welcome to a special edition of OUTFRONT. I'm Erica Hill in for Erin Burnett.
Tonight, take it off. The President of the United States telling a reporter to take off his mask to ask a question. Then moments later applauding another reporter for not wearing one. Those exchanges part of a rambling, nearly 15 minute press conference. A press conference that was really more political rally, a political rally in disguise or maybe not so much of a disguise, filled with wildly inaccurate statements, including this one about the President's handling of the pandemic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are an absolute leader in every way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: An absolute leader in every way and that follows the President's tweet this morning, which he claimed he's getting, "Very high marks in our handling of the Coronavirus, especially compared to other countries and areas of the world."
Now, compared to other countries, the U.S. is leading in overall cases. When it comes to getting the virus under control though, when it comes to having a plan, not leading. The President continues to focus on a vaccine one that isn't approved or even available.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're going to have a vaccine very soon, maybe even before a very special day. You know what date I'm talking about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Well, we know what that date is, it's the election day. And yes, everyone wants a vaccine. But while we're waiting on that, we know what works, masks. And the President really still not advocating it. That's not an absolute leader.
The country, again, is at a crossroads. There's an opportunity here for the President. He can lead. He can put forth a plan to slow down the spread of the virus and most importantly, he can follow that plan himself or he can continue to undermine the nation's top experts like he did today when he disparaged, once again, one of the only tools that has been proven to stop the spread of the virus, a mask.
It's something that could also save as many as 122,000 lives by the end of this year, according to one influential model.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF MASON, REUTERS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Thank you, Mr. President. The issue of what happened when you were in France continues to be a story.
TRUMP: You're going to have to take that off, please. You can take it off. Your health, how many feet are you away?
MASON: I'll speak a lot louder.
TRUMP: Well, if you don't take it off, you're very muffled, so if you would take it off, it would be a lot easier.
MASON: I'll just speak a lot louder, is that better.
TRUMP: It's better, yes. It's better.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: The President, as you see there, trying really hard to get Jeff Mason to take off his mask. I'm going to speak with him in just a moment. Moments later, though, the President was praising another journalist for not wearing a mask.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just based on some of your recent tweets, sir, do you object ...
TRUMP: You sound so clear as opposed to everybody else where they refuse ...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Jeff Mason, Reuters White House Correspondent is OUTFRONT. Jeff, this is, of course, is not the first time that the President has tried to get you to take your mask off during a press conference. Of course, just on Friday, he was telling all of us to wear masks over the holiday weekend. When he's asking you to take that mask off, do you think it was really that he just couldn't hear you, couldn't understand you or was there a different purpose there?
MASON: It's a good question. I think he probably does have a little bit of trouble hearing and I think having had a microphone there, if the White House had set one up, might have helped. But my solution was just to speak a little bit louder and I think that took care of it in that case.
The fact that he ended up praising another colleague later who didn't have a mask on, though, does go to the mixed messaging that this President has employed on masks throughout the pandemic. He did start to embrace them more in the last month or two wearing one for the first time in public when he went to a military hospital.
But certainly for the first several months of the pandemic, that was not a standard for this president and as you noted in your introduction, it is very clear, the science is very clear now that wearing masks can have a huge impact.
HILL: Yes, it certainly is. I was really struck today in watching this press conference. The President really seemed to be using this time to air a variety of grievances. And what's fascinating too is that this was happening, of course, at the White House, and yet there were a number of moments that felt like that airing of grievances was really more of a campaign rally.
[19:05:00]
MASON: Yes. I mean, the President didn't have any other events today for Labor Day while his opponent was out campaigning, although he does have a robust campaign travel schedule coming up. So it's not that the President is planning to stay home.
But he did today and he used the backdrop of the White House as a setting for a news conference in which, as you say, he went off on many different topics criticizing very sharply Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris for their basically criticism of him on the vaccine and also taking off a number of other grievances with regard to the economy, to Russia and to The Atlantic reporting about his alleged comments about U.S. war dead.
HILL: Is it your sense and even from your sources at the White House that we will be seeing more of this briefing? I mean, this sort of takes you back to the coronavirus briefings, which eventually stopped as we know because of some of the statements that the President made. But are we going to see more of these briefings that are really just a rally in disguise?
MASON: Well, those coronavirus briefings stopped and then they did restart again, shorter versions in the White House pressroom. This was not that particular model today since he was outside and it was not one of his shorter briefings.
But yes, I think on the days that he does not campaign or isn't out traveling for the campaign that he still wants to get his message across and he has used the White House and use the podium, be it in the briefing room or be it today in front of the North Portico as a place to get that message out. And he starts with several minutes of his own comments and then take some questions and that's what he did today.
And to get back to your question, yes, I'm sure we'll see that again.
HILL: Yes. All right. Well, Jeff, good to have you with us tonight. Thank you. And I could hear you when you raise your voice, I could hear you really well. There you go.
MASON: Thank you.
HILL: Thanks.
As many Americans are out enjoying this holiday weekend, many experts are concerned about a new coronavirus surge. A spike in cases that could come in the next few weeks. Athena Jones is that OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ASHISH JHA, DIRECTOR, HARVARD GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE: I'm worried that any new surges will be potentially quite catastrophic.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT(voice over): Labor Day weekend seems like this dance party in San Francisco raising concerns among health experts and public officials that is surge in COVID-19 cases could soon follow, just like they did after previous holiday weekends.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR FRANCIS SUAREZ (R) MIAMI: We have seen, as you mentioned, spikes after long weekends, after spring break and so that's certainly a concern.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES (voice over): In fact, new coronavirus infections are averaging around 40,000 a day, double the daily average going into Memorial Day with cases on the rise in the northeast and in Florida. While states like North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri and Tennessee lead the nation in a seven-day average of new cases per capita.
Also of concern, flu season is almost upon us, which combine with coronavirus could present new challenges as experts worry people may be letting down their guard after months of restrictions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FMR. FDA COMMISSIONER: People are exhausted. People have been social distancing and wearing masks and staying home for a long period of time right now. I think that people's willingness to comply with the simple things that we know can reduce spread is going to start to fray as we head into the fall in the winter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES (voice over): With the federal government increasingly focused on the swift approval of a vaccine, two former U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioners tells CNN that while they think it's very unlikely that President Trump could pressure scientists into approving a COVID-19 vaccine, it's possible. A third former commissioner, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, says he has faith in the agency's scientific staff.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOTTLIEB: There is a very rigorous process around the development and approval of a vaccine. I don't think those people are going to be pushed around to make a decision that they're not absolutely confident in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES (voice over): The Wall Street Journal reporting pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are preparing an unusual joint pledge, promising not to seek approval for their vaccines until they have been proven safe and have effective. A move aimed at increasing public confidence in a vaccine if and when one becomes available.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ESTHER CHOO, PROFESSOR OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE, OREGON HEALTH & SCIENCE UNIV.: Yes, that was a tremendously important statement. The vaccine manufacturers know that trust is such an important component of distributing vaccine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES (voice over): Meanwhile, more than 33,000 COVID cases have been reported at colleges and universities in all 50 states, with some schools cracking down on students who violate safety protocols, including rules on congregating and mask wearing. NYU tweeting over the weekend that it suspended more than 20 students days after Northeastern University suspended 11 students without refunding their tuition.
(END VIDEOTAPE) JONES: And when it comes to younger students, CNN is tracking the
reopening plans of the 101 largest school districts in the country, 16 of which plan to start classes tomorrow including in Chicago, Houston Independent School District and Dallas Independent School District. Of the 16 districts that begin classes tomorrow, 14 are starting the year entirely online. Erica.
HILL: Wow. Athena, thank you.
[19:10:02]
OUTFRONT now Dr. Jonathan Reiner, Director of the Cardiac Cath Lab at George Washington University Hospital. He also advised the White House medical team under President George W. Bush. And Dr. William Schaffner, former CDC official and now a Professor of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Good to have both of you with us.
Dr. Reiner, you heard the President there. He wanted Jeff Mason to take that mask off. And as Jeff talked about, this wasn't the first time the President has done that at a press conference, despite his own advice, even heading into the holiday weekend on Friday. The President, Dr. Reiner, at this point is so clearly not a fan of something that we know works.
JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Right. And if you look at media from around the world, when you look at other world leaders when they make public appearances, they all wear masks. So he continues not to model the kind of behavior that would save lives in this country.
I think historians are going to note that one of the maybe the greatest error in our pandemic response and we've had a panoply of errors is the failure to get the entire country to wear masks. And when you look at countries where the mortality is a fraction of what it is in the United States, the common theme from the very beginning of the pandemic was universal masking and it's really a lost opportunity.
He could have made this the country's patriotic duty. This could have been like cowboy up. This would have been mask up. He could have had MAGA masks and he still fails to get it. And he's made it part of his brand, no masks.
HILL: Dr. Schaffner, as you look at that, right, and so the message that's being put out and the mixed messaging, frankly, we will hear sometimes the President saying you should wear a mask, remember social distance and have that mask on when you can. But then the fact that he doesn't and that he'll roll his eyes at a reporter and praise another one for not having their mask on. I mean, is it too late at this point or is there still a chance that we can salvage, Dr. Schaffner, perhaps something that could be a sort of cowboy up mask up moment to bring the country together and try to defeat this?
WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, PROFESSOR, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: Yes. Erica, I think it's a vain hope. It hasn't happened yet. And even today, you get all of these disparaging unspoken messages and spoken messages about masking.
I think we have to hope that our governors get more committed to wearing masks and to having the entire states, all of their states and the population wear masks. So we're hoping that governors and mayors will pick up the slack and really do that.
We're in a marathon. We're not in a sprint. It's very, very important that we continue to have all of the social distancing, mask wearing, avoiding large groups. We're all very concerned that the behaviors this weekend will be an accelerant and spread COVID virus even further. And as you said in your intro, flu is on the way. That will double the danger.
HILL: And that is definitely a concern.
Dr. Reiner, you said there's been a panoply of errors. I just wrote down, you said the President today said we're an absolute leader in every way. Is there a measure, any measure that you can point to, Dr. Reiner, where you'd say, yes, the United States is leading. Yes, the President has led on this.
REINER: Yes. We are the world's leader in COVID deaths. For the millionth time, we are 4 percent of the world's population and 21 percent of the world's COVID mortality. The way to look at this, you can look at this on a per capita basis.
So our 190,000 deaths in the United States works out to be 580 or so deaths per million population in the United States. Look at our neighbor to the north, look at Canada. They're a smaller country, they've had 9,000 deaths, but per capita-wise, that's 242. It's exactly half our mortality.
Look at a country like Japan, a big country, 130 million people in Japan. They've had only about 1,300 deaths in that country. That's 11 deaths per million population. It's been an abysmal failure. The virus went all over the world. It didn't just come to the United States.
But because of that panoply of errors and our failure to learn from our mistakes, our failure to get the country to social distance and to mask up has kept us in the realm of about a thousand deaths per day, a thousand deaths per day and we cannot learn from our own mistakes. Yes, we are the world's leader. This is American exceptionalism, except not the way you want it to be.
HILL: Certainly not the way you want it to be. Dr. Schaffner, you mentioned flu season, it's right around the corner. With flu season looming, with a virus that's not under control, I mean, just how concerned are you?
[19:15:06]
SCHAFFNER: Well, we're all concerned and that's why we're all promoting influenza vaccination. We're headed into the latter part of September. That's the time along with the entire month of October and maybe the first couple of weeks in November when we're urging everyone to get vaccinated against flu. That's something we can do something about.
You can protect yourself, you won't be a dreaded spreader of flu and we can take some of the strain off our health care facilities. The recommendations are very simple. If you're older than six months of age, get flu vaccine, please do it this year. It's more important than ever. We're all voting that.
HILL: Can I ask you one quick question on the vaccine? Someone asked me this earlier today, the mist or the actual vaccination, the shot in your arm, Dr. Schaffner percent, are they both equally effective this year?
SCHAFFNER: Well, the shot in the arm is great. The mist is available for use. It works especially well in children and young children, so it's available for you. The spray vaccine is available to you up to the age of 50.
HILL: All right. Great to have you both with us. Always appreciate your insight. Thank you.
SCHAFFNER: Thank you.
HILL: OUTFRONT next, Sen. Kamala Harris meeting with Jacob Blake, the Wisconsin man shot in the back seven times by police. This as the President zeroes in on his law and order message.
Plus, an extraordinary attack. The President going after his top military commanders. What our service members saying tonight?
And Michael Cohen in a damning new tell-all, claiming President Trump once said Hispanic voters like black voters in his words are too stupid to vote for him. I'll speak with a man who worked very closely with Mr. Trump in the casino business. Does it sound like the man he knows?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:20:43]
HILL: Tonight, President Trump demanding an apology from Kamala Harris for politicizing, in his view, the coronavirus vaccine, as he makes an unfounded claim about Joe Biden's health. M.J. Lee is OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
M.J. LEE, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Fifty- seven days until election day and the coronavirus vaccine is front and center in the 2020 campaign. President Trump, again, politicizing the ongoing development of a COVID-19 vaccine, suggesting at a White House news conference that it could happen before election day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: So we're going to have a vaccine very soon, maybe even before a very special day. You know what date I'm talking about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE (voice over): Out on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden saying he defers to scientists on the matter and criticizing Trump's public statements about a future vaccine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's said so many things aren't true. I'm worried if we do have really good vaccine, people are going to be reluctant to take it. So he's undermining public confidence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE (voice over): Biden's running mate, Kamala Harris, also expressed skepticism over the weekend about whether a vaccine pushed by Trump can be trusted.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he's talking about. I will not take his word for it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE (voice over): Comments that prompted Trump to call on Harris to walk back her remarks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: ... should immediately apologize for the reckless anti-vaccine rhetoric that they are talking right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE (voice over): This as Republicans continue to focus on the issue of law and order. Vice President Mike Pence campaigning in La Crosse, Wisconsin, warning that there would be violence and chaos under a Biden administration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Joe Biden would double down on the policies that have literally led to violence in our major American cities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE (voice over): Some 200 miles away in Milwaukee, Harris, in her first solo campaign trip as Biden's running mate, meeting with the family of Jacob Blake.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: ... what they've endured and they just do it with such dignity and grace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE (voice over): And later gathering with labor leaders trying to drive up Democratic turnout in a Midwestern state that Hillary Clinton neglected to visit and ultimately lost in 2016. Monday's flurry of campaign activities coming on the heels of both parties' national conventions.
A CBS News YouGov poll showing Biden leading Trump nationally, 52 percent to 42 percent, unchanged from the margin before the convention.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Donald Trump ignored the warnings, refused to prepare and fail to protect our nation and now more than six months in, he still doesn't have a plan. No plan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEE: Now, as we head into the final stretch of the general election, we're about to see a busy week on the 2020 campaign trail with both campaigns focusing on the battleground states. We are going to see President Trump campaigning in states like Florida, North Carolina and Michigan. Joe Biden will also be in Michigan. And Kamala Harris just announced that she's going to be in Florida on Thursday.
And Erica, interesting about Friday, both Biden and Trump are going to end up in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. This is to commemorate 9/11. And remember, Joe Biden told reporters last week that if he had the opportunity to meet with Donald Trump, he certainly wouldn't turn it down, Erica.
HILL: It'll be interesting to see if that materializes. M.J., thank you.
I want to bring in now Astead Herndon, Political Reporter for The New York Times and CNN Political Analyst. And Gloria Borger, CNN Chief Political Analyst.
Astead, today the President said the Biden campaign is politicizing a vaccine as M.J. reported, which is remarkable given that in the very same briefing, as we just heard, the President teased more than once a vaccine could be ready in time for a 'very special date', election day. I don't know if he's accusing the Biden campaign of pulling a page out of the Trump campaign playbook.
ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. I mean, this is the White House trying to have it both ways. The President has not been shy about his desire to have a vaccine specifically for election day and his advisors and kind of top allies have kind of talked about the possibility of that vaccine helping him politically before November. He then is trying to spin it back on Sen. Harris after her comments over the weekend and now saying that she should apologize for what he calls anti-vaxxer comments.
[19:25:05]
Now, those comments aren't going to get criticism because she, and the way that she kind of presented the ability to trust a vaccine, and she doubled down on it the next day and saying that she would need a credible source to give her confidence around that. Whether or not that those comments are going to be received well by others, we know that this White House has been one that has openly politicized the vaccination process and in some reporting shows has put pressure on scientific organizations.
So this White House is not the authority of the vaccination process, because it's the one that's been most publicly engaging in.
HILL: Gloria, today the President also making a baseless claim about Joe Biden's health, saying that the voters should really look a little bit closer at Kamala Harris. Take a listen to this moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Everybody knows he doesn't have a clue. In primetime, he wasn't good and now it's not prime time. You have to look at her a little bit more closely, because obviously Joe's not doing too well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: It's not the first time, of course, that the President has tried to raise this as an issue, paint Joe Biden as unfit for office, that he's too old. Of course, Donald Trump is 74, Joe Biden is 77, I believe. So how is this a winning strategy for Donald Trump?
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I don't think it is a winning strategy for Donald Trump. And when we saw Joe Biden, for example, riding his bicycle, if you'll recall, in Delaware and he's now done press conferences with people. He spoke with me for the documentary. So this notion of his cognitive ability comes out of some Donald Trump, I don't know, dream.
And every time the President mentions the cognitive ability of Joe Biden, it reminds people that the President himself took a cognitive test and keeps talking about how well he did on it and it raises questions about, well, why did you even do that. And by the way, senior citizens who vote in elections do not like it when Donald Trump criticizes Joe Biden for being old.
HILL: Now, that's something to think about.
BORGER: Yes.
HILL: Mike Pence today really talking law and order, as we saw earlier today in Wisconsin and this is something we know the Trump campaign is really going all-in on. But there's more polling out, not just a Fox News poll we talked about on Friday, Astead, but now the CBS News YouGov poll that shows Wisconsin voters disapprove of the way President Trump is handling these protests. But again, this is another strategy we're looking in as a campaign, the campaign is really going all-in on this, Astead.
HERNDON: Exactly. I mean, this has been the strategy of the campaign and they have doubled, tripled, quadrupled down on it. But they're swimming uphill politically. Voters have repeatedly said that they do not trust the way the President Trump has handled both protest and race relations that they see him as someone who has worsened that and not made it better, and that they have embraced kind of large portions of the themes of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Not necessarily some of the largest systemic reform efforts, but want to see kind of things of police reform or folks seeming like they're coming together. That is what the Biden campaign has banked on. But this from Trump and Pence is a strategy of white grievance and backlash. It is an attempt to kind of pit suburb against city, to pit rule against us urban, to pit white against black and they think that that is going to drive up the base turnout and in the kind of other suburban and rural regions and that that could win them some voters back in the suburbs.
That is against the evidence that we have because repeatedly, voters and including white voters and swing voters, have said that even if they do not embrace the full thing of the Black Lives Matter movement, they have not found that as a reason to support the President and the campaign. They're still going after this message even though we have not seen it really changed voters' minds.
HILL: It'll be interesting to see if any of that does change in the coming days.
Gloria, you have a new documentary in 31 minutes about Joe Biden, as we're learning more about both candidates. People may think they know a lot about Joe Biden, but even you discovered some new things. I just want to play a clip from the documentary.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BORGER (voice over): It was audacious if not arrogant for Biden to run as a 29-year-old underdog candidate of change against a well-liked Republican senator named Cale Boggs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is your last name?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Miller.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Miller. I know you have Miller family.
TED KAUFMAN, FORMER UNITED STATES SENATOR: He had been governor of the state for two terms. He had been member of Congress for three terms and he was running for his third term in the United States Senate. Cale Boggs was loved. I mean, he was loved.
BORGER (voice over): Once again, Biden asked Valerie to run the show.
VALERI BIDEN OWENS, SISTER OF JOE BIDEN: I remember saying to him, "Joey, I don't. I can't run a statewide campaign. I don't know how to do that."
BORGER (voice over): She reached out to a local Democratic Party activist Ted Kaufman.
[19:30:05]
KAUFMAN: So, I went down and talked to him.
I said, so, you're running on civil rights. You're running on environment. You're running on tax reform. Those are really good issues. And there's silence.
And I said, but I don't think you have a chance of winning.
BORGER (on camera): You said what?
KAUFMAN: I don't think you have a chance of winning.
BORGER: And his reaction to that was?
KAUFMAN: Just come and help me. We'll see. We'll see.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: So you are taking folks through his history of public service. But, again, you know, as I alluded to, I mean, covered Joe Biden for a long time, right?
BORGER: Yeah.
HILL: He's been around a long time. But there are new things to learn. What surprised you this time around?
BORGER: Well, first of all, the breadth of his career is sort of stunning when you see that he ran as a candidate of change in 1972 and younger voters were all gung-ho for Joe Biden and now, of course, if he were -- and he became one of the youngest members ever elected to the Senate and now if he were to win the presidency, he'd be the oldest person ever elected to the Oval Office.
So just think about that. And think about that career that not only goes through the Senate, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, vice president to where he is now and look at the book ends of his life, which are -- which is the tragedy right after he won that Senate seat when his wife and young daughter were killed in a car crash to the death of Beau Biden at the age of 46.
And you look at this man and the one thing that didn't really surprise me but kind of, the amount of people who when I asked them about Joe Biden, the first thing they talked about was how he had reached out to them at one point or another in their lives when they were grief- stricken or were suffering. And that -- and a number of that and the stories that these people told were kind of stunning actually because he spends an awful lot of time almost being a minister, pastoral if you will, in addition to being a candidate for president. HILL: All right. We will be watching for more. Gloria, Astead, thank
you both.
BORGER: Sure.
HILL: And be sure to stay with us. Gloria's special report "Fight for the White House: Joe Biden's Long Journey" coming up right here at 8:00, and then at 10:00, Jake Tapper has the second in our back-to- back documentary night, "Donald Trump's Presidency".
OUTFRONT next, a stunning attack the president going after his top military leaders but why? Plus Michael Cohen's tell-all about the president claims that Trump said black and Hispanic voters are too stupid to vote for him.
I'll speak with another man who worked side by side with Trump for years. Why he says that is the Donald Trump he knows.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:36:43]
HILL: Tonight, President Trump launching an unprecedented attack on his own military leaders.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm not saying the military is in love with me. The soldiers are. The top people in the Pentagon probably aren't because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: He also continues to deny reporting that he called Americans who died in battle losers and suckers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The story is a hoax. Who would say a thing like that? Only an animal would say a thing like that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: OUTFRONT now, CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr, and retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, former Army commanding general for Europe and the 7th Army.
Barbara, you have covered the Pentagon for many years. Can you put this in perspective how unprecedented it is for the president of the United States to attack military commanders?
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, presidents -- I think General Hertling would agree with this -- presidents often get irritated with their generals because they want -- presidents want quick wars. They want a quick win. They don't want to leave troops overseas. Mr. Trump very focused on bringing troops home. That is one thing.
But what he did today was something indeed unprecedented and very different. He said that top commanders and in that you could include the secretary of defense are sending troops to war in order to keep defense contractors rich, to keep them in the pink with defense contracts. It is worth remembering at this moment it is Mr. Trump who has facilitated the sale of billions of dollars of U.S. defense weapons from U.S. defense contractors overseas, especially to countries like Saudi Arabia.
There is simply no evidence that the U.S. military, the top commanders, chairman of the joint chiefs, secretary of defense are sending troops overseas in order solely to keep defense contractors rich. They do it at the actual orders of President Trump to defend and keep America safe.
HILL: General Hertling, it was really stark to hear the president say, well, you know, the rank and file, they're with me but it's the top brass who are not. I know that you can come at this from a number of perspectives and you can speak much more freely because you are retired. But active duty service members have also been reaching out to you today urging you to speak because they can't. What are you hearing?
LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yeah, that's true, Erica. I won't go much into that but I have had folks reach out to me and say continue talking about this because it is devastating to the morale and welfare of our military. That is not just the higher ranking folks. It is some of the more -- the senior enlisted and some of the lower ranking folks as well.
It was interesting to me during the president's commentary today that he was defending the fact that he hadn't done the things he was accused to doing -- accused of doing, and that is insulting the military. And he did that by insulting the military.
So, it was insulting to me as a former general officer. I will tell you that as a former soldier going into combat that the military industrial complex was not even a portion of my thought process. It was incredibly disconnected from anything I did.
All I wanted was the equipment and the resources to fight the battles that, by the way, I'll continue with what Barbara just said, we are told what to do by our elected officials.
[19:40:10]
So if there's bad strategy, bad involvement in foreign wars it is because the political masters have sent us to do their bidding. We attempt in every way possible to conduct the operations and the tactics but they are the ones who send us there or relieve us in the first place.
There were so many things that were bad about this. One of the things that struck me, if I may, Erica --
HILL: Yeah.
HERTLING: -- was this was kind of like fighting an insurgency. President Trump has already gone after the intelligence community bicep rating their leaders from those who were in the trenches. He has separated the FBI, claiming the leaders at the FBI are terrible but everybody in the FBI is good.
Now he is attempting to do the same thing with the military. The generals are all bad. They're working for the military industrial complex but all you soldiers still love me, right?
It is a continued divisiveness within the organization and it's not who we are as a people. It's not who we are as a nation.
HILL: You know, what is interesting, too, is the president was also talking about John Kelly's former deputy chief of staff in the White House who was the person responsible for telling the president they were not in fact going to the World War I cemetery in France a couple years ago, saying it'd be canceled, and he said he, quote, did not hear POTUS call anyone losers, but went on to suggest the sources for "The Atlantic" could be conflating stories.
You know, General, when I hear that, it sounds like he is suggesting the president may have made similar comments but perhaps on another occasion. But he really hung on to that today.
HERTLING: Yeah, he sure did. And that is troubling, but I go back to the point, Erica, we have seen multiple occasions of insulting the military, of degrading the military not just in terms of going to a ceremony in Paris, although that's the focus of this article, but there have been several other things in terms of degrading the generals, degrading the troops, taking away the ability for young soldiers who are immigrants trying to work on their citizenship to continue to serve, LGBTQ.
All these things are part of the denigration of the military, a force that represents the country. That's what's troubling. This one story is just an indicator of what's been happening for the last years.
HILL: Well, this one story the editor of "The Atlantic", Jeffrey Goldberg, sorry, Barbara, I can't speak today, who broke the story, telling CNN over the weekend he is expecting more reporting will come out in the days and the months.
You know, I know that there is not a lot we can say but is there a buzz within the halls of the Pentagon? Is there concern about what else may be coming out or even a sense of something that might be coming out?
STARR: Well, I don't -- I don't know that anybody here knows what may be coming next, but I think like across many sectors of America, people are wondering if there is not more to come if this is really all been told or not. But what I would observe here at the Pentagon, we are just days away
now from another year of remembering the 9/11 attacks in this building. There will be commemoration here. There will be commemoration at military bases around the world. Right now, the Pentagon focused on planning that ceremony later this week, focused on remembering those who died in the 9/11 attacks, an attack on the country that did lead to this era of wars and conflicts.
Thankfully, many of it, much of it is drawing to a close. But this is something that the military takes very much to heart and you do have to wonder how military families of the fallen are viewing the comments by the president.
HILL: Yeah, Barbara Starr, General Mark Hertling, always good to talk with both of you. Thank you.
HERTLING: Thank you, Erica.
HILL: OUTFRONT next, Michael Cohen claiming then candidate Trump was trying to suck up to Vladimir Putin by reportedly offering him a penthouse in a proposed Moscow Tower. But could that be true? A man who worked with Trump for years is my next guest.
Plus, President Trump loves to cry fake news. Tonight, a special report on the stories his president and his allies are pushing that just aren't true.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:48:20]
HILL: A new tell-all book from the president's former personal attorney calls the president a con man and a racist. Michael Cohen claiming Mr. Trump said this about Hispanics, quote, like the blacks they're too stupid to vote for Trump. They're not my people.
After Barack Obama won the presidential election, Cohen writes, Trump said, quote, tell me one country run by a black person that isn't a S- hole. They are complete F-ing toilets.
OUTFRONT now, Jack O'Donnell who was the president and chief operating officer of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino.
Jack, good to have you with us. Does this sound like the Donald Trump you knew?
JACK O'DONNELL, FORMER PRESIDENT & CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, TRUMP PLAZA HOTEL & CASINO: Well, thanks for having me, Erica. Unfortunately, because he is the president it is -- it rings very true despite what the White House is saying today about Cohen's lack of credibility because of his legal issues the portrait that he paints is 100 percent accurate from my perspective.
As the president the guy who was running his most profitable business, I spent a lot of time one-on-one with him and the racism came out on a regular basis. It's been quoted many times to me now when he said to me I can't believe I have a black guy counting my money. I only want, you know, short white guys with yarmulkes counting my money.
And he encouraged me to fire this individual who was the CFO simply because he was black. That was the reason.
So, Cohen's description, his characterization that Trump believes blacks have a lower intelligence is absolutely true.
[19:50:02]
He said these things 30 years ago, and there's no reason to doubt, you know, Cohen's characterization today.
HILL: You write about that, that instance you wrote about in 1991. There was another one that stood out as well, because you say in that moment, he also continued on saying, quote: I think the guy is lazy. This is talking about as you said was the CFO, and it's probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks, he said.
It really is. I believe that. It's not anything they can control.
Did you ever see any sort of an evolution or change or have a sense of where this came from? Is this something that was always part of, in your experience, who Donald Trump was, how he saw the world?
O'DONNELL: Well, yes. I think -- I think it is exactly who he saw the world and I saw this early on when I joined the organization. I questioned it early on because quite frankly was hard to believe that he could have this view.
HILL: You mean you questioned it to him directly?
O'DONNELL: Well, oh, I certainly said things to him directly. You know, when he -- when he made these comments to me, I chastised him for it, you know, and told him he shouldn't be talking like that and I hoped he wasn't serious with what he was saying. He made it very clear that he was serious.
But early on, it became clear he had trouble with just not black people but people of color generally, and I did get the feeling that attitude was developed based on his history with his family and the housing where they purposely, you know, kept, you know, black and Puerto Rican people, in particular, away from housing or they tried to.
HILL: Another moment in the book that Michael Cohen writes about that I want to get your take on, are these plans for a Trump Tower in Moscow which were moving forward because the president didn't think he was going to win the election in 2016, and so was looking at this Trump Tower Moscow, and according to Michael Cohen, wanted to give Vladimir Putin this penthouse apartment for free so that he could really suck up to Putin is the way Cohen puts it.
Does that ring true to you, too?
O'DONNELL: Well, Erica, I think it's very clear that Donald Trump doesn't do anything where there is not a financial benefit for himself. So running for the presidency, win or lose, he was going to find a way to capitalize, and so that makes perfect sense to me.
Of course, he wins the election and now it just four years of the continuation of what can I get out of this at the end financially? Because that's really all that drives him. And, you know, that's just a fact of like you know this about Donald Trump the minute you spend time with him.
HILL: Jack O'Donnell, appreciate you joining us tonight. Thank you.
O'DONNELL: Thank you, Erica.
HILL: OUTFRONT next, how President Trump and his campaign are using doctored and misleading video to try to sway voters.
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[19:56:59]
HILL: New tonight, a top Trump campaign official is accusing Biden of ignoring reporters and, quote, meandering along. But what official ignored is that Biden was walking through the cemetery where his son, Beau, his first wife and daughter are buried. The tweet was met with widespread criticism. And it's far from the first time team Trump misused videos to try to smear Biden.
Tom Foreman is OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A woman shoved into a subway train under the heading Black Lives Matter Antifa. This video was retweeted by President Trump twice this year, once with where are the protests for this?
But hold on authorities say. That video almost a year old was simply a random attack involving a man known to police.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wake up, wake up.
FOREMAN: Another video pushed by the White House seemingly showing Democratic challenger Joe Biden asleep but that interview was doctored to hide the fact the subject was actually singer and actor Harry Belafonte.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is your wakeup call, Harry.
FOREMAN: Team Trump in the final two months of the election is pushing a storm of misleading and deceitful material, never mind that the president so often complains about --
TRUMP: Fake news. Fake news. The fake news. The fake news.
FOREMAN: In the wake of social unrest, top Republican Congressman Steve Scalise shared a video of a disabled activist talking with Joe Biden, deceptively edited to suggest Biden wants to defund the police, a position Biden has not taken. Scalise admits reediting was wrong, but stands by the claim.
REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): So, you know, look, we sent out the video again, the full video, in fact, if anybody wants to see it.
INTERVIEWER: Who do you think is pulling Biden's strings? Is it former Obama people?
TRUMP: People that you've never heard of. People that are in the dark shadows.
FOREMAN: The president with no proof has said Biden is beholden to mysterious forces. And when Biden quoted and questioned the Trump campaign claim --
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: You won't be safe in Joe Biden's America and what's their proof? The violence we're seeing in Donald Trump's America.
FOREMAN: -- Team Trump deceptively cut out and tweeted just one part.
BIDEN: You won't be safe in Joe Biden's America.
FOREMAN: Twitter called that misleading. The Trump campaign called it a joke.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HILL: Tom is with us now.
So, Tom, how is the Biden campaign reacting to these tactics?
FOREMAN: Well, basically, what they're saying is this is what you get with Donald Trump. But they're also trying to answer them as they come up one at a time. They said, no, this isn't true. This isn't a fact.
It's important to bear in mind last June, not this June, a year ago June, 2019, Joe Biden shortly after he announced his campaign said, look, we will not tolerate in our campaign open disinformation, the manipulation of video and pictures that are doctored to give a false impression. We think that that is wrong. And we certainly don't tolerate dirt given to us by foreign governments on our political opponent.
That is something he raises the bar for, the Trump campaign clearly has a different view of all of that and every time they get called on it, Erica, as you know, they have some answer why they think it's perfectly OK.
HILL: Yeah, I have a feeling we'll be fact checking more of those.
Good to see you, my friend. Thank you, Tom.
FOREMAN: Good seeing you.
HILL: Thanks to all of you for joining us.
CNN's special report "Fight for the White House: Joe Biden's Long Journey", begins right now.
