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Erin Burnett Outfront
Trump Denies Knowing Proud Boys Hours After Saying At Debate "Proud Boys, Stand Back And Stand By"; Interview With Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC); Debate Commission To Change Format For Next Presidential Debate; Interview With Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA); Wisconsin Reports Highest Number Of COVID Hospitalizations; Allies Try To Defend Trump After He Refuses To Condemn White Supremacists; Trump Makes Baseless Voter Fraud Claims At Debate. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired September 30, 2020 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: May they rest in peace and may their memories be a blessing.
"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts right now.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next, Trump plays dumb claiming he doesn't know who the Proud Boys are after telling the right wing extremist group to 'stand back and stand by'. He also claims he's always denounced white supremacists. None of that though adds up.
Plus, the Presidential Debate Commission says they're changing the rules for the next debate. So what are the changes and will Trump comply?
And the head of an ER in Wisconsin with an alarming warning tonight saying 'the second wave is here and it is here with a vengeance'. That doctor is my guest. Let's go OUTFRONT.
And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.
And OUTFRONT tonight, (EXPLETIVE DELETED) the Proud Boys. Those are the words of a longtime Trump advisor to our Jim Acosta, after the President's latest attempt to explain why he did not denounce the far right neo-fascist group, the Proud Boys. The advisor saying, "F*** the Proud Boys. There, I said it, not that hard."
But it is hard for the President. It's hard to express that sentiment in any language. Trump today offering up a new excuse after failing to denounce white supremacist in last night's debate and telling the Proud Boys to 'stand back and stand by'. Today, his claim was ignorance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't know who the Proud Boys are. I mean, you'll have to give me a definition because I really don't know who they are. I can only say they have to stand down, let law enforcement do their work. Law enforcement will do the work more and more. As people see how bad this radical liberal Democrat movement is and how weak the law enforcement is going to come back stronger and stronger.
But again, I don't know who Proud Boys are. But whoever they are, they have to stand down, let law enforcement do their work.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So Mr. President, did you misspeak when you said 'stand by'? That's my first question.
TRUMP: Just stand by. Look, law enforcement will do their work. They're going to stand down. They have to stand down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: All right. So he tries to fix part of the problem by saying that law enforcement should take on his political enemy, fellow Americans, the 'radical liberal Democrats'. So fixing the problem of what he said last night is to say that some Americans should be fighting literally other Americans. That is a significant thing to say, so I don't want to like let that go unsaid.
But I really do need to also highlight the core of what you just heard there, which is the President of the United States also just said he does not know who the Proud Boys are. He said someone is to 'give him a definition'.
So I want to be clear, Trump not knowing who the Proud Boys are, a group that's organized around the belief that west is best does not add up. I mean, Chris Wallace, first of all, let's just take that last night gave him a definition last night at the debate. I want to play for you the exchange when Wallace asked Trump if he would condemn white supremacists and militia groups.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You want to call them? Give me a name, give me a name, go ahead - who would you like me to condemn?
CHRIS WALLACE, MODERATOR: White supremacists, white supremacists and right-wing militia.
TRUMP: Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something about antifa.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: So Wallace asked Trump if he's willing to denounce right wing militia and white supremists, supremacists and Biden gave Trump the name, Trump then repeated. He seemed to know exactly who the Proud Boys are. He ran with it.
And by the way, in return, this is what you see, the Proud Boys, running with what the President said. Celebrating the call out from the President of the United States by immediately sharing a new logo with the phrase stand back and stand by. And while Trump today claims he's never heard of them, here's a leader of the group.
This is according to The Washington Post, I'll show you, just sitting a few seats from the President in his rally in Miami. Rally in Miami. That's in February of 2019. And Trump's favorite channel, Fox News, which you remember he recently bragged he binged to watch for nearly as many as eight hours. He literally listed off the programs.
Well, they know who the group is. They talk about it frequently and they know who Proud Boys support.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What about people who are even more committed to Trump, they're called Proud Boys.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Among the Trump backers were armed members of the Proud Boys.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've heard from some people who are Proud Boys, these right wing groups who really are pro police.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OK. So the President wants us to believe that he's never heard of Proud Boys and needs a definition when he hears about them all of the time on Fox News and he knows what they stand for. And then of course, it was defined last night.
We have been here before. This is not the first time Trump has played the game of pretending not to know someone who is racist. Take David Duke.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Will you unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you don't want his vote or that of other white supremacist in this election?
TRUMP: I don't know. I mean, I don't know did he endorse me or what's going on, because I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OK. Does that sound familiar? It's just like Trump's claim about Proud Boys is not true now, that claim was not true then, all right?
[19:05:06]
"I don't know who David Duke is." Here's Trump talking about David Duke in 2000.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you say the party is self-destructing, what do you see as the biggest problem with the Reform Party right now?
TRUMP: Well, you've got David Duke just joined, a bigot, a racist, a problem. I mean, this is not exactly the people you want in your party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: I guess not then the people he wouldn't want in his party, things have changed. Trump calling Duke out. He knew exactly who David Duke was and he thought it was bad for a party at the time. And yet he told the American people years later, he didn't know who he was.
Trump then also today asked point blank, does he denounced white supremacists, here's his answer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But I'm talking about white supremacists, sir.
TRUMP: ... done in New York, like they've done in New York, I just told you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But do you denounce them? Do you denounce white ...
TRUMP: I've always denounced any form of any of that, you have to denounce ...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OK. This is not true. He has not always denounced it. Here's the tape.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does it concern you that many people saw that tweet as racist, and that white nationalist groups are finding common cause with you on that point?
TRUMP: It doesn't concern me, because many people agree with me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: All right. It should not be hard to just directly condemn racists and white nationalists. The President did not do it, though, when more than 65 million Americans were watching last night, so that's when he had the audience. He did not do it. It was a choice. He did it without, by the way, actually saying what it was. Notice he was like I always denounced it, he still didn't want to use the words.
He did it today to a reporter. This is just like how he refuses to wear masks at rallies. He knows that it sends a message to his supporters that masks are bunk and weak, that's why he doesn't wear it. He knows the example matters.
Then under pressure, once in a blue moon, he tries to say, oh, but my policy is wear masks. It's a same sort of thing with white supremacy. Kaitlan Collins is OUTFRONT from the White House tonight, M.J. Lee is
with the Biden campaign in Pennsylvania this evening.
Kaitlan, I do want to start with you. How big of a problem do you think Republicans think this is for the President?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erin, this is not what Republicans wanted to talk about the day after the first debate. They hope the message today would be that Joe Biden is this left wing radical socialist, this caricature that the President has portrayed of them.
And instead, they're being faced with questions about the President refusing to unambiguously denounce this group, this far right group that has endorsed violence, which the President now as part of his cleanup is still not denouncing them, still not condemning them, despite being given a second opportunity to do so. But instead is only distancing himself from the group saying he didn't know them much like, as you noted, he did with David Duke.
So Republicans today actually are distancing themselves from the President on this subject or they're breaking with him in a pretty sharp way. You saw that with Tim Scott, the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, John Thune, several others who are saying they denounce white supremacy and it would help them out a lot if the President did so as well.
And so we spoke with several people who had done debate prep with the President who helped him get ready for this first debate, want him to hit Joe Biden on China, his son, several other points and instead they're walking away. And one of the main takeaway is what the President said about this group and now this is the new cycle they're having to deal with while they are trying to win over moderate voters just about 30 days out from the election. That's not what they're focusing on today, because of something the President said.
BURNETT: All right. Kaitlan, thank you.
And I want to go to M.J. in Pennsylvania. So M.J., Biden asked today about the President's comments about Proud Boys, what was his message?
M.J. LEE, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erinf, Joe Biden, as you know has been on a train all day making stops in Ohio and Pennsylvania and we're in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. This is going to be his final stop of the day. He is going to be attending a drive- in rally clearly spending all day trying to appeal to some of these rural white working class voters.
But you're right, earlier in the day, we did hear Joe Biden address what Donald Trump said about the Proud Boys last night on the debate stage and he said this should have been a moment of a wake up call for Americans. And he also said that that moment last night reinforced for him personally why he initially decided to get into the 2020 presidential race.
Remember, he has talked a lot about how - what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia in the summer of 2017. That sort of led him to make that decision to get into the race, thinking that this really was an important election for the battle for the soul of America. This is something that he talks about a lot.
I will also say that he said he himself had a personal message for this group, the Proud Boys. He said cease and desist, this is not who we are as Americans. I will also just quickly note that he also said to reporters that he hopes the debate commission can find some way to make sure that debates going forward are not filled with interruptions as we saw last night.
[19:10:07]
Clearly, the commission agreed. They said that they are looking forward to making some changes to make sure that future debates are less disorderly and not wanting to repeat what we saw last night, Erin.
BURNETT: All right. M.J., thank you.
And I want to go now to the House Majority Whip James Clyburn, a longtime friend of Joe Biden's. So Congressman, President Trump tonight says he does not know who the Proud Boys are and ask for a definition. Even though, of course, it is very clearly laid out on the news channel that he watches regularly and it was very clear made by Chris Wallace when talking about - he was saying, "Do you denounce white supremacists and right wing militias?" That was the quote from Wallace.
And the President did not denounce their mission today. He just changed his words from saying they should stand back and stand by to they should stand down. What's your reaction?
REP. JIM CLYBURN (D-SC): Well, thank you very much for having me, Erin. I've got two reactions to that. The first one is this. I seem to recall that Mr. Trump said he did not know who David Duke was and it was clear that they knew him very well and had referred to him often before.
And in this instance for him to ask them to stand down gives credence to them. That's not what he was asked. He was asking whether or not he would denounce white supremacy. I'm still waiting on this man to denounce white supremacy, not just the Proud Boys, that's just one group of white supremacists.
BURNETT: Yes.
CLYBURN: And I want to say to all the listeners here, please remember this deflecting. We've got to stop letting this guy get away with this. There was not any antifa or any leftists that walked into manually in the church and kill those nine souls. That was not a leftist, 17-year-old, walking the streets up in Kenosha, Wisconsin, carrying an AK-47 and shooting two people to death.
I have yet to hear this president denounce either one of those perpetrators. One, of course happened before he came into office. But he is very much a part of the second one. Maybe I missed something, but I have not heard it.
BURNETT: No. Today, the Proud Boys in that specific case, members went on an online forum as I showed, they changed their logo to stand back and stand by, celebrating his comment last night. They then commented on - this is on their site, President Trump told the Proud Boys to stand by because somebody needs to deal with antifa.
Then another quote, "Trump basically said to go after f--- tyhem up. This makes me so happy." And The Washington Post looked at their membership. Then they saw a spike in membership since Trump's comments last night. It actually impacted that. What does that say to you?
CLYBURN: That says this President is a recruiter for white supremacist groups. That's what he is and that's what he's demonstrating every day. He knows exactly what he's saying, but this is not the first time. My goodness, he has a history of this.
I saw some media today just laying out a plethora of racist things he has said over the years, going all the way back to his apartment building discrimination and the central part five. This guy is just bad news and I would hope that the people of this country wake up before it's too late. This democracy is under threat and this country cannot afford four more years of this foolishness.
BURNETT: So you referenced and I showed there that even today, when he was saying I denounced it, it was it generally. He didn't he didn't say the words.
CLYBURN: No.
BURNETT: And last night when Chris Wallace asked directly, do you condemn white supremacy, he did not answer the question. He would not answer the question. The one time that we could find that he has condemned white supremacy directly was actually in an interview that I did with him on the phone. It took me asking three times and I wanted to play it for you to ask you something very specific about it. Here it is, Congressman Clyburn.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: There's a white nationalist Super-PAC. They say they've started a robocall campaign in Iowa. It urges voters to vote for you because of your proposed temporary ban on Muslims, does that shock you? Do you denounce that?
TRUMP: Nothing in this country shocks me. I would disavow it, but nothing in this country shocks me. People are angry. They're angry at what's going on. They're angry at the border. They're angry at the crime.
BURNETT: When he says, "We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture, vote Trump," you're saying you disavow that. You do denounce that.
TRUMP: Well, you just heard me. I just said it. How many times do you want me to say it? BURNETT: A third would be good.
TRUMP: I said I disavow.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[19:15:08]
BURNETT: He was very loud and clear, I will say Congress, and that's the last time you did an interview on this program. That hit a nerve. And why do you think it that is? This issue should be so cut and dry, someone is doing robocalls saying we need smart, well-educated white people, there should be no prompting.
CLYBURN: Well, Erin, I think you know me pretty well and I'm not going to play word games here today, but I'm tempted to. To disavow is very passive, to denounce is active, I want to hear it denouncing, not a disavow. He's very passive.
BURNETT: And the word choice matters so much, which he knows.
CLYBURN: Absolutely. Absolutely.
BURNETT: All right. Well, Congressman, I appreciate it. And I appreciate that really thoughtful notation about the word. All right. Thank you, sir. Good to talk to you.
CLYBURN: Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Bye-bye.
BURNETT: Next, the Presidential Debate Commission announcing it's making changes to avoid some of this at the next debate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Mr. President, please.
TRUMP: No, (inaudible) ...
WALLACE: Mr. President ...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Plus, former vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine on what Biden must do before the next debate.
And Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen on why it is so hard for his old boss to condemn white supremacist.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:20:08]
BURNETT: Tonight, President Trump lashing out after the Commission on Presidential Debates says it'll be making changes to the next Trump Biden debate because of last night's debacle. The President tweeting, "Try getting a new Anchor and a smarter Democrat candidate." There is no question though that the problem started with the
President.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: How are doing? This guy paid ...
TRUMP: Well ...
BIDEN: ... a total of $750 in taxes.
TRUMP: It's wrong.
BIDEN: How many ...
WALLACE: Sir.
TRUMP: (Inaudible), it's just a wrong statement.
WALLACE: No, I understand. You've agreed to the two minutes, so please let him have it.
I'd like you to ...
TRUMP: And we will protect people with pre-existing conditions.
WALLACE: ... Mr. President, I'm the moderator of this debate and I would like you to let me ask my question and then you can answer (inaudible) ...
TRUMP: Go ahead ...
(CROSSTALK)
BIDEN: And by the way, my son ...
WALLACE: Mr. President, wait a minute, Mr. President your campaign agreed to both sides would get two-minute answers uninterrupted. Well, your side agreed to it and why don't you observe what your campaign agreed to as a ground rule, OK, sir?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OUTFRONT now Brian Stelter. So Brian, what are you learning, are they going to make changes at the next debate?
BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes. This has been embarrassing for the Commission and they are looking at what to do differently, but they haven't announced anything yet. This is a gentlemanly, old fashioned can't we all just get along commission, but it exists in a bloodsport world and information war world, a shameless, cruel, ruthless world. They've got to make changes.
So one area of focus is the microphone, will the mics be cut off if the candidates interrupt each other. But even that won't be a full solution, Erin, because even if we can't hear Trump at home, Biden will still be able to hear Trump. So that's one of the possible solutions being talked about, but so far they say no decisions have been made.
BURNETT: And Chris Wallace told The New York Times today and what I thought was an incredibly self-aware introspective thoughtful conversation ...
STELTER: Yes, yes.
BURNETT: ... "I'm just sad with the way last night turned out. I never dreamt that it would go off the tracks the way it did. I'm a pro. I've never been through anything like this."
STELTER: Wow.
BURNETT: And by the way, he did also then go on to say he thinks cutting the mics is a bad idea, because one mic will pick up the other person's voice and just like you pointed out, the other people will hear it.
STELTER: Still hear it.
BURNETT: He had all sorts of reasons why I thought that that was not going to be a good idea. But I have a lot of respect for Chris Wallace.
STELTER: Yes.
BURNETT: Was there anything else or more he could have done to control it?
STELTER: Well, he could have set the tone more from the very beginning. Fox News says no moderator could have done it better than Chris Wallace did. Maybe that is true. But Wallace is admitting to a failure of imagination. He failed to imagine what Trump would do, how you would destroy the debate format.
And that's been the problem all along, Erin, the Trump years have been a failure of imagination. I hope all of the election boards out there that are thinking about Election Day, I hope they don't fail to imagine just how bad it could get.
BURNETT: All right. Brian, I thank you.
And I want to go now to Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2016. Knows what it's like to deal with the failure of imagination and its consequences. So Senator, let me ask you, the Trump campaign, when these changes are coming out, whether they're going to do the mics or whatever they're going to do, whatever they're discussing.
Their quote was, "They're only doing this because their guy got pummeled last night. President Trump was the dominant force and now Joe Biden is trying to work the refs. They shouldn't be moving the goalposts and changing the rules in the middle of the game."
What's your response to that?
Oh, it looks like we just lost Sen. Kaine. So here's what we're going to do, I'm just going to stall for a second or two and see if we can get him back. If we don't get him back in a second or two, because we have a packed show with a lot coming up. We will take a break and we will come back because I'd rather have a whole bunch of stuff jammed in and out of order, so you get all the stuff rather than miss something. What did you say, Susie (ph)? We have Senator came back.
OK. So Senator ...
SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA): Hey, Erin.
BURNETT: ... OK. I'm sorry, we got you back. I wasn't sure whether I was going to have to have an unexpected commercial break there, OK. Let me just ask you, I don't know if you heard my quote, but Trump was saying they're only trying to change the rules because their guy got pummeled and they're now trying to work the refs, what's your response to that?
KAINE: Look, President Trump showed three things. First, as a president he can't be presidential, the challenger looked like the President and Trump looked like the desperate challenger, which was completely bizarre. Second, he, as a sitting president, said he wouldn't accept the outcome of an election if he was unhappy with the results.
I lived in a military dictatorship in Honduras 40 years ago. That's a dictator behavior, not democracy behavior. And third, as you guys have covered well with Congressman Clyburn, he wouldn't condemn white supremacy, which we painfully know in Virginia because it was the same stunt that he pulled after the horrific killing of Heather Heyer and two-state troopers in Charlottesville on August 2017.
BURNETT: So one thing that set last night's debate apart, there were many things, but there was name-calling and it was nasty. I was watching with my young children at one point having a conversation about how grownups could be acting like that, right?
KAINE: Yes.
[19:25:03]
BURNETT: And some of them did come from Joe Biden. Here's a couple of examples.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Folks, do you have any idea what this clown is doing?
TRUMP: (Inaudible) ...
BIDEN: Will you shut up, man?
TRUMP: (Inaudible) ...
BIDEN: You're the worst president America has ever had, come on.
TRUMP: Hey, Joe, let me ...
BIDEN: It's hard to get any wording with this clown. Excuse me, (inaudible) ...
TRUMP: And let me just say, Joe ...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Senator, that sort of trying to get in it with him did not work, it didn't work for Marco Rubio, remember the hands, they tried to handle that, Ted Cruz, it didn't work to get into the mud. Would you tell Biden to keep doing that or to pull that back?
KAINE: Erin, when you're debating against somebody who will break every rule no matter what they are and then just lie repeatedly, that is so tough. I mean, I know this, when you debate with somebody who can just look in the camera and lie, it's really hard. I thought Joe did a pretty good job in terms of kind of what a human can do in often rising above it and kind of shaking his head and laughing it off.
But then at some point, you just can't let the blows land on your chin and not respond. And look and some of that was very sincere. You're the worst president we've had. There's a lot of evidence 200,000 plus deaths, millions of jobs lost, social division that we haven't seen since the 1960s. There's a lot of evidence for that proposition. It's a painful truth, but it doesn't mean it's not a true statement.
BURNETT: So next, we're obviously going to see the vice presidential debate coming up and you, of course, debated Vice President Mike Pence.
KAINE: Yes.
BURNETT: And I remember being there for that. Have you spoken to Kamala Harris yet and what are you going to tell her about debating Mike Pence, who is a very different, very professional debater?
KAINE: Erin, Mike Pence was a media personality for many years before he was in politics. He's good at this. So I'm not going to tell you what I'm telling Kamala, but I will just lay out a reality about this debate. In 2016, remember, both tickets neither were incumbents.
So Hillary and Donald were both saying, OK, we're not president but here's what we'll do. So it was largely a campaign about here's what we want to do. But this is a different year 2020, the Trump-Pence ticket, they're incumbents. So a lot of the debate is about what have you done.
Remember, on February 26th, Donald Trump asked Mike Pence to take on the most important job of his life, running the American response to coronavirus, being ahead of the task force. At that time, there had been no deaths in the United States, 200,000 deaths later, I think you're going to see a prosecutor and Kamala Harris, but the evidence on the table. Are you really saying that 200,000 plus deaths is a good response, millions of jobs lost or a good response, social unrest, that's a positive?
And so I think what you'll see in this debate, which was very different than four years ago, is an incumbent ticket is asking to return and the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris ticket is saying are you better off than you were four years ago? I mean, the answer is clearly no.
BURNETT: All right. Sen. Kaine, I thank you for your time tonight.
KAINE: Absolutely, Erin. Good to be with you.
BURNETT: All right. You too.
And next, an alarming Coronavirus surge across the country and I'm going to talk to an ER doctor, head of the ER actually of this hospital who said the second wave is here. It's here with a vengeance. They've had people waiting in the halls.
And Trump's former fixer, Michael Cohen, is OUTFRONT, why he says Trump was not misspeaking as his defenders claim when it comes to white supremacy and the Proud Boys, and what does he know about this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I paid millions of dollars in taxes, millions of dollars of income tax.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:32:42]
BURNETT: President Trump heaping praise on his response to the coronavirus during last night's debate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: People that would not be necessarily on my side said that. President Trump did a phenomenal job. We did. Our country is coming back incredibly well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: And yet, 19 states currently seeing a rise in virus deaths over the past week. More than half the country averaging an increase in cases.
Erica Hill is OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GOV. TONY EVERS (D), WISCONSIN: We have got to put the brakes on this pandemic.
ERICA HILL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Wisconsin just reported its highest daily number of coronavirus-related hospitalizations.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're in deep trouble.
HILL: The White House Task Force recommending the state increase social distancing to the maximal degree possible and boost testing at universities.
DR. RYAN WESTERGAARD, WISCONSIN BUREAU OF COMMUNICABLE DISEASE: It's safe to assume that the virus is everywhere, so everyone needs to be -- to change their behavior.
HILL: It's one of 26 states reporting an increase in new cases over the past week, nearly the entire northern half of the country.
DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: And those trends indicate increased activity, increased transmission of the disease and places where we really need to test and trace and lock down and make sure that we get it in check.
HILL: New York City focusing on several neighborhoods where cases are surging.
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK CITY: The numbers can change rapidly in the right direction. So, we're going to keep working daily, hourly, to make that change.
HILL: Hundreds of police officers and city employees dispatched to those areas, offering free masks and reminders about how to stop the spread.
Meantime, restaurants can now open for indoor dining at 25 percent.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need more to survive, but this is a step in the right direction.
HILL: New numbers from the CDC showed infections in 18 to 22 year olds increased 55 percent in August and early September as many return to campus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colleges have been frankly a real challenge point for transmission.
HILL: Ohio's largest public school district plans to start in-person learning October 19th. Miami-Dade's staggered reentry begins October 5th.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We should always try to get children back to school. The risk of going back is dependent on where you are.
HILL: Researchers say phase one data from Moderna's vaccine trial shows an immune response in older adults as seven former FDA administrators warn the Trump administration is undermining the agency's credibility and public confidence.
[19:35:04] Political intrusion, they write, only prolongs the pandemic and erodes our public health institutions.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HILL: We're also getting a new timeline for that Moderna vaccine, the CEO telling a conference a short time ago that they won't have the necessary data to file for emergency use authorization with the FDA until November 25th at the earliest, Erin.
BURNETT: Wow. Erica, thank you.
Now I want to bring in Dr. Paul Casey. He's head of the ER department in Bellin Hospital in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
You just heard him in Erica's piece there.
Obviously, I know you've been getting national attention because of the sort of, frankly, desperate Facebook posting where you wrote this, Doctor: The second wave is here and it's here with a vengeance. All four Green Bay hospitals are close to capacity. Our ICU has been full for several times this week.
For the first time in 16 years I have been a medical doctor, our ED has had to place patients in the hallway. This occurred twice in the past week. If you have not accepted the seriousness of this pandemic, now is the time to start. The life of a loved one could be at stake.
Dr. Casey, do you know what you're describing here are images many Americans were deep in the past and yet you're seeing it now -- record high hospitalizations, not with enough space, issues with capacity. Tell me more about what you're seeing.
DR. PAUL CASEY, MEDICAL DIRECTOR OF EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT, BELLIN HOSPITAL IN WISCONSIN: So, Erin, first of all, thank you for having me. This is a very important topic. Over the course of the past two to three weeks, we have noticed a marked rise in COVID patients coming into our hospitals in Green Bay. And this comes in the wake of what we thought -- we thought we were doing well.
You see from my graph that early on in the pandemic in March and April, we had a nice little bell-shaped curve that rose and came down. And by the third of June, we had one inpatient with COVID-19 in our hospital. Then Fourth of July came, we saw a rise there. Then Labor Day came and you saw another rise. And then over the past two weeks, we've seen a remarkable rise in the COVID cases in Brown County.
What that has resulted in as a marked increase in patients coming to my emergency department to the point that as you mentioned for the first time in 16 years that I've been here, we've had to put patients in hallway beds. For those of you who don't know what those are, a lot of big city hospitals don't have capacity. Their hospitals full upstairs and they have to board patients in the ED waiting for a bed.
I never envisioned having to do that in a small community like Green Bay. We've done it twice in the last ten days. Not only that, filling up our hospital because in May, we realized that patients did not receive adequate care because we had to shut down the hospital in March in anticipation for this huge wave that we were seeing in other states.
So, we reopened everything back up, started doing elective surgeries, opening up clinics to the point that we were already very, very busy.
BURNETT: So, so, you know, let me just ask you because the president -- there's going to be rallies in Green Bay where you are this weekend with these numbers. We've gotten used to what we're seeing at the president's rallies, a lot of people, very little mask wearing, no social distancing. From a medical perspective, how concerned are you about these events?
CASEY: So, for all of us in the medical profession, any time we see people congregating in any venue without masks at close distance in the middle of a global pandemic that's making a surge in our community, we become extremely, extremely concerned.
BURNETT: So, you've said if 90 percent of people wore masks, we could end this surge, right? That's what we end from the White House -- the experts on the White House task force, right? They say directly that masks will work better than any vaccine to try to give people a sense of how they are.
Last night, the president mocked the vice president for wearing a mask. I want to play that for you, Dr. Casey. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I mean, I have a mask right here. I put a mask on, you know, when I think I need it.
I don't wear a mask like him. Every time you see him, he's got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from me and shows up with the biggest mask I've ever seen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: So, Doctor, I don't want to be political about it. I just want to ask you about the masks. When people mock masks, what do -- how does that make you feel when you know they save lives?
CASEY: As a physician who's dedicated his life to caring for others, that makes me angry because we have very few tools in our tool box right now to handle this pandemic. And the mask, in my opinion, and the opinion of a lot of other physicians, is the single most important thing we can do to stem the tide of this pandemic. Those of us who work in a hospital setting are a testament to that principle.
[19:40:04]
For six months, I've been wearing a mask 12 hours a day on my clinical shifts and I have not gotten infected. I've been -- I've been face to face with multiple patients infected with COVID-19 and I and my fellow health care workers have not gotten infected. So, for people to say masks are ineffective defies logic. It makes
those of us in the health care field very angry.
BURNETT: Very justified in that.
And, Dr. Casey, I appreciate your time. We are -- we are thinking of you and having to go through this as you're going through it now, saving those lives. Thank you, sir.
CASEY: Thank you so much, Erin. Thank you.
BURNETT: And next, Trump's former right-hand man, Michael Cohen. He is OUTFRONT.
Why he says it is so hard for Trump to condemn white supremacists.
Plus, President Trump claims something is going on in Philadelphia when it comes to voting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Because bad things happen in Philadelphia, bad things.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: New tonight, team Trump using excuses to defend these remarks from President Trump last night when he did not condemn white supremacists or far right groups like the Proud Boys when given an explicit opportunity.
[19:45:08]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: What do you want to call them? Give me a name. Give me a name.
CHRIS WALLACE, DEBATE MODERATOR: White supremacists and right wing militia.
TRUMP: Who do you want me to condemn?
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Proud boys.
TRUMP: Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what. Somebody's got to do something about Antifa.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: The president's trade adviser said do not blame the president for that, right, given the direct opportunity to denounce, didn't do it, blame Chris Wallace.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PETER NAVARRO, WHITE HOUSE TRADE ADVISOR: The president said -- he started to say of course he would denounce that and Wallace cut him off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: And then we heard this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He said stand back, stand by. He wanted them to get out of the way. He wants law enforcement to do their job.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He said stand down, stand back, and that means that we're coming for you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: All right. OUTFRONT now, Michael Cohen. He is author of the new look "Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump."
And, Michael, look, you know, I've talked to you so many times over the years. You know the president so well, his lawyer for a dozen years, with him every step of the way in the 2016 campaign when you and I both know this was a recurrent issue.
So, all the conversations you've had with him, why is it so hard for him to just denounce white supremacy and to call it by name?
MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER PERSONAL ATTORNEY TO TRUMP, AUTHOR OF "DISLOYAL": There's really no answer for it other than the fact that he's just an Archie Bunker racist, and the fact that the press, meaning the CNNs and MSNBCs and ABCs, NBCs of the world are telling him that they want him to denounce it.
So, like a petulant child, he just won't do it. And he'll dig his heels in even deeper and fight you tooth and nail, even though he knows it's wrong. It doesn't matter because Donald Trump doesn't care about anyone or anything other than himself.
BURNETT: So, Michael, in conversations you've had with him over the years, you know, earlier on, you know, we were saying, you know, he said -- oh, I don't know who David Duke is.
Well, actually, the tape existed that showed he knew who David Duke was and when he was part of the Reform Party said, I don't want this guy, this guy any parts of our party because he's a racist and a bigot.
What does --
COHEN: Right now, he doesn't know who the Proud Boys are and, you have, of course, the talking points that Jason Miller was saying and Navarro and everybody else.
What happens is they send out a sheet. Here are the talking points that we want you to give out into the media.
And like the Stalinistic sense that he has, repeat it over and over and over again, hoping that he's going to be able to confuse the American people and that, oh, yeah, it had nothing to do with Donald Trump. It had only to do with Chris Wallace.
I mean, the man opens his mouth and everything that comes out of it is either racist or a lie. It's incredible.
BURNETT: So, we saw -- you know, "The Washington Post" is reporting that the Proud Boys had a surge in membership spike today, Michael. I don't know if you heard that earlier on in the show.
And then Congressman Clyburn was on and made it very clear, right, that the president, he said, is a recruiting tool. He is actually recruiting white supremacists.
The president is not stupid. He knows this, right? He knows it and he's fine with it? I mean, what else would explain it?
COHEN: So, I have a different theory on to it. I think he's doing it on purpose, because if you look at who the Proud Boys really are, they're an army.
They look like an army. They dress like an army. They behave like an army.
And what banner? What flag are they carrying? They're carrying the MAGA flag.
So, this is now in Trump's mind, this is Trump's army and he's going to use them when he loses and he's going to use them in order to try to keep control of power. I mean, it's a crazy notion, but there's no other explanation because you're right. He's not stupid. He's misguided, but he's not stupid.
BURNETT: So, stand by to you was stand by, when I need you.
COHEN: Oh, 100 percent. Stand by for me because he knows he's going to lose the election.
Look what he was saying on your -- you were showing the clip before. He's now (INAUDIBLE) attacking, there's a problem with the ballots in Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. He knows he's going to lose Pennsylvania.
So, what's he going to do? All right, Proud Boys, they're taking away your Donald Trump. They're taking away your Make America Great Again flag.
He basically took the Confederate flag and he sub-planted it with a MAGA flag. It's crazy.
BURNETT: Interesting.
So, Michael, you know, because you've known him for so well and I'm just thinking about conversations with you about this issue and other issues, one thing that the you knew about more than anyone else, right, obviously, Stormy Daniels, all of these things. During the debate last night, President Trump claimed --
COHEN: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Stormy who?
(LAUGHTER)
BURNETT: That he paid millions of dollars in taxes in 2016 and 2017. So, we've all seen "The New York Times" report that he paid $750 in those years in taxes. He says, no, it was millions.
Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Is it true that you paid $750 in federal income taxes each of those two years?
[19:50:05]
TRUMP: I paid millions of dollars in taxes, millions of dollars of income tax.
WALLACE: No, Mr. President --
TRUMP: Go ahead.
WALLACE: -- I'm asking you a question. Will you tell us how much you paid in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017?
TRUMP: Millions of dollars.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: He says millions of dollars. The report is $750 in those years. Do you believe he lied last night, Michael?
COHEN: I believe any time he opens his mouth he's lying and he definitely did not pay millions of dollars -- I paid millions of dollars during those years. I paid $3 million while he paid $1,500, and as I've said so many times now, and yet, I get hit with tax evasion.
Well, if I'm going to -- if I was charged with 36 months, how many is he going to get? Three hundred and sixty months? Is he going to get 360 years? Who knows?
I mean, it's crazy. It's an absolute lie. And all he has to do is release the tax returns if he's going to show that he paid millions but he didn't. He just didn't.
He believes that if he says it over and over and over again, that we're going to believe it. Yeah, Donald Trump, he's rich. He's rich. So, we're -- we definitely accept it.
Yeah, he paid millions, sure he did.
BURNETT: Michael Cohen, thank you.
COHEN: Thank you, Erin.
BURNETT: Next, President Trump says bad things are happening in Philadelphia when it comes to voter fraud. Pennsylvania's attorney general is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:55:22]
BURNETT: And tonight, the president relentlessly sowing doubt in the election outcome, this time with accusations of fraud in Philadelphia.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully because that's what has to happen. I am urging them to do it.
As you know today, there was a big problem. In Philadelphia, they went into watch. They were called poll watchers, very safe, very nice thing.
They were thrown out. They weren't allowed to watch. You know why? Because bad things happen in Philadelphia. Bad things.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OUTFRONT now, the attorney general of Pennsylvania, Democrat Josh Shapiro.
So, Attorney General, let me ask you, you heard the president's accusation there, right? There were people in there, poll watchers, very safe, very nice. They were thrown out, you know why? Because bad things happen in Philadelphia, bad things.
What actually happened with those poll workers in Philadelphia?
JOSH SHAPIRO (D), PENNSYLVANIA ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, first off, Erin, I think the president needs to quit whining, quit lying and quite messing with Philadelphia or the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He said, you know, bad things happen here in Philadelphia.
Well, you know what happened in Philadelphia? Democracy happened in Philadelphia. And it's the very democracy that he's trying to undermine with his lies, and his purposeful misstatement of what's really happening on the ground.
Let me break this down for you because I'm the attorney general of Pennsylvania. I don't deal in tweets and nonsensical sound bytes. I deal in facts and evidence.
Under our state law in Pennsylvania, at an early voting center, which is the location that was in question here --
BURNETT: Uh-huh.
SHAPIRO: -- no candidate, no party is entitled to have a poll watcher. That's entitled at a polling place on Election Day.
The law simply doesn't allow for poll watchers at these facilities. Indeed, the Republican in charge of administering elections in the city of Philadelphia acknowledged this yesterday and said, look, it's like having a poll watcher requirement when you fill out your ballot at the dining room table. It just doesn't exist.
BURNETT: Okay.
SHAPIRO: The president continually lies, Erin, to suit a narrative, to create this sort of chaos in our voting system, and it's designed, I fundamentally believe, for one purpose, which is to try to make the voters feel powerless in this process, to make them feel like their vote isn't going to count, and that's simply not the way our democracy works.
BURNETT: It has definitely raised a lot of questions about the process, right? And, you know, we saw that with those ballots in Pennsylvania, right, nine ballots which the Department of Justice put the press release about, right? They said they were all for Trump. It turns only seven of them were.
So the press release from Barr's Department of Justice was an error, and then the investigation, the election officials said it was a mistake, not fraud, the ballots were discarded.
SHAPIRO: Right, right.
BURNETT: But the president brought it up again last night, Attorney General. Here's what he said about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They're sending millions of ballots all over the country. There is fraud. They found them in creeks. They found some with the name Trump, just happened to have the name Trump just the other day in a wastepaper basket. They are being sent all over the place.
They found ballots in a wastepaper basket three days ago and they all had the name -- military ballots. They were military. They all had the name Trump on them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: They didn't all have the name Trump on them, right? I'll just -- again, I'll make that point.
But let me ask you, whether you can guarantee that there isn't a wider spread problem happening, right? I know that you're going to say that's not fraud, I understand that, right? It doesn't appear to be fraud in any way, but is there a widespread problem with mail in ballots in Pennsylvania right now?
SHAPIRO: No. Look, the president keeps calling these ballots a disaster. These ballots are our democracy. And our system works.
The problem we have right now is a president that keeps putting forth these crazy, nonsensical conspiracy theories, which is doing nothing to help this process and everything to undermine it. He's undermining his own law enforcement officials like he did in Luzerne Country just the other day, those ballots that you referenced where there was a clerical issue, not a criminal issue.
It's what he's trying to do in Philadelphia, to create this doubt to suit a narrative that simply doesn't exist, Erin.
BURNETT: All right. Attorney General Shapiro, appreciate your time. Thank you so very much.
SHAPIRO: Good to be with you. Thank you.
BURNETT: You, too, sir.
And thanks very much to all of you for being with us.
"AC360" with Anderson begins now.
