Return to Transcripts main page
Erin Burnett Outfront
Trump Holds Rally in Iowa with Few Masks, No Distancing; Minnesota Traces 16 Cases to Trump Events Last Month; Early Voting Breaks Records in Multiple Counties Across Texas; Biden, Trump to Hold Dueling Town Halls After Debate Canceled; Lindsey Graham Raises Less Than Half of Dem Challenger's Record-Breaking $57 Million Haul; Feds Chased Suspected Foreign Link to Trump's 2016 Campaign Cash for Three Years. Aired on 7-8p ET
Aired October 14, 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: So important. Thanks very much for watching. I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM. You can always follow me on Twitter and Instagram @WOLFBLITZER. Tweet the show @CNNSITROOM.
Erin Burnett OUTFRONT starts right now.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next, Trump heads to another hotspot for a rally as another state that hosted Trump traces 16 cases to his events. And the first lady announces her son, Baron Trump, have coronavirus.
Plus, two Democrats challenging the biggest names in the Republican Party, McConnell and Graham, Jamie Harrison and Amy McGrath are OUTFRONT.
And an exclusive CNN report this hour, investigators shutting down an entire floor of federal courthouse over a secret investigation into Trump's campaign cash. Let's go OUTFRONT.
And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.
OUTFRONT tonight, Trump's super spreader event this way. That is the sign. You can see it right there that greets thousands of Trump supporters as they are making their way to the President's rally in Iowa tonight. The President's third campaign rally in three days in a state that has a nearly 20 percent positivity rate. And yet the scene is familiar, thousands of supporters packed together shoulder to shoulder.
I see a mask. I see one mask. You get the point. Social distancing, masks not happening. It looks like every Trump rally that we've seen in recent days including the one in Minnesota last month, the Minneapolis Health Department now tracing 16 cases of coronavirus to Trump's trip to Minnesota. It comes as the White House announces Baron Trump also tested positive for Coronavirus.
Now, his mother had it so you might expect that. The First Lady in a statement quick to say he's virus free, detailing her own experience with COVID and she added this important line. "I encourage everyone to continue to live the healthiest life they can."
Of course, when you are the President and the First Lady that is something one would set by example, he's attending a Trump rally with no masks and no social distancing, encouraging that, allowing that, attending that, creating that living the healthiest life you can is a Rose Garden event the Dr. Anthony Fauci called super spreader and put the President of the United States it seems in the hospital for three days living the healthiest life.
I'm asking a rhetorical question, of course. It is all part of the reckless approach that the White House has taken with coronavirus. And we are now learning tonight that the Trump administration is embracing a controversial proposal to build herd immunity. CNN learning senior administration officials have been discussing a petition called the Great Barrington Declaration.
Now, This was written by a group of unorthodox scientists. It calls for ending lockdowns and allowing the coronavirus to spread freely among young healthy people. They write, "We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity, i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable, and that this can be assisted by (but it's not dependent upon) a vaccine."
So how does this group believe they will reach herd immunity if not from a vaccine? I'll just to state the obvious here, through infection. They write, "Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal. Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally rather than from home. Restaurants and other businesses should open. Arts, music sport and other cultural activities should resume."
Now, look, we've all had these conversations at home, resuming life as normal sounds great, doesn't it? We all want that and we want it tomorrow. But we want like when it actually resumes to be normal. The devil is in the details though, because these doctors are saying their idea. This crucial point is not dependent on a vaccine.
So what they're depending on is to get 10s of millions of Americans infected. They don't have any mention and declaration of mask requirements or social distancing. The President himself has touted this idea of letting it rip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It would go away without the vaccine, George. But it's going to go away a lot faster with it.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS CHIEF ANCHOR: It would go away without the vaccine?
TRUMP: Sure, over a period of time. Sure, with time it goes away.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And many deaths. TRUMP: And you'll develop like a herd mentality. It's going to be
herd-developed and that's going to happen. That will all happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Trusted medical experts today the one after another slamming this idea of achieving herd immunity without a vaccine. Fourteen public health organizations in a statement condemned the idea saying it's not based in science, 80 researchers just wrote an open letter in the influential medical journal, The Lancet, in which they write the herd immunity approach to controlling coronavirus is 'a dangerous fallacy unsupported by the scientific evidence'.
And according to the Infectious Diseases Society of America, "Promoting the concept of herd immunity as framed in a recently circulated document," referring to the Great Barrington document, "as an answer to the COVID-19 pandemic is inappropriate, irresponsible, and ill-informed.
[19:05:05]
And there's this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: If everyone contracted it, even with the relatively high percentage of people who are without symptoms, Matthew, a lot of people are going to die.
DR. TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, WHO DIRECTOR-GENERAL: Allowing a dangerous virus that we don't fully understand to run free is simply unethical. Letting the virus circulate unchecked therefore means allowing unnecessary infections, suffering and death.
DR. WILLIAM HASELTINE, GROUNDBREAKING HIV/AIDS RESEARCHER: Herd immunity is another word for mass murder. That is exactly what it is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: All right. So they're saying what we've all learned. I mean, this whole idea of separating society out, I mean, most people have had this conversation, could we do it, but this idea that you could do it and only infect healthy young people with no underlying conditions and separate out the rest of it, it doesn't work. Here's a simple but I think powerful analogy.
Society is like an omelet. People with underlying conditions are mixed in everywhere. A lot of people who have them don't even know who they are. You cannot unscramble the omelet enough to prevent hundreds of thousands or millions of unnecessary deaths. And even if you are still OK with that, keep this in mind, the economy will close back down when that happens and death climbs in those populations. It will. You can't get the economy back. Jim Acosta is OUTFRONT at the President's rally tonight in Des Moines
where they approached and saw that big Billboard. Jim, you have been talking to the President's supporters there. Obviously, we can see - that one picture we had I saw one mask. What are they telling you?
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Erin, the President as you've been explaining is super spreading his way to election day and this crowd in Des Moines, Iowa is by and large not wearing masks. They are not practicing social distancing. But we talked to some Trump supporters on their way into this venue and they told us they're not worried. They don't think they're going to get sick and here's some of what they had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA(off camera): Any health concerns with COVID going around and being at a large event? What do you think about that, sir?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I care about people. I don't want to give it to them if there's a chance you might be carrying it around, myself. I'm not worried. I figured the sooner we all get it, the sooner we'll be done with it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: And there are some COVID contradictions going on at this event tonight, Erin. We should point out the Governor of Iowa Kim Reynolds, who was at this rally earlier this evening has already issued a proclamation in the state saying people should avoid large crowds and do social distancing. That is not happening at this event that she is attending right now.
The White House Coronavirus Task Force has also advised the state of Iowa to avoid having large crowd type events like the President is having here this evening. So the President, the Governor and all in attendance here tonight are flouting recommendations coming from the Governor of the State and the White House Coronavirus Task Force is just stunning and reckless. Erin.
BURNETT: All right. Jim, thank you very much. I want to go now first to Kaitlan Collins at the White House. Kaitlan, the White House, obviously, showing a lot of interest in this herd immunity plan, the Great Barrington plan that I was just laying out.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And Erin, the idea that they've even been receptive to this idea goes against what people on the taskforce, leaders on the task force like Dr. Anthony Fauci have been saying for months now, which is that this is not an idea that is realistic here in the United States, unless you wanted to get to it by going through all of these thousands of preventable deaths and severe illness among people.
Because this idea of herd immunity is basically - that's been embraced and pushed by these scientists, embrace by the White House is that it would spread among a younger, healthier population while protecting the elderly and more vulnerable populations. But what we have heard from so many scientists time and time again is that they believe this would cause an innumerable amount of deaths that would basically be unnecessary.
And so you heard from Dr. Anthony Fauci, we've heard from other experts who say this would amount to mass murder. But we also heard from the Infectious Diseases Society of America today who said this would be irresponsible and ill-informed for anyone to pursue this position. Because, of course, they say that right now they believe only about 90 or excuse me, 10 percent of the American population has gotten this.
That means 90 percent is still susceptible to getting coronavirus and so you've already seen how many people have died if it's only been about 10 percent that has gotten it. And as Sanjay Gupta said earlier, he believes it'd be about 60 percent to 70 percent of people in the United States would have to get COVID-19 in order for herd immunity to be achieved.
And so you can already do the math on what exactly the death count on something like that would be.
BURNETT: Right. You'd be looking, obviously, over a million. Thank you very much, Kaitlan.
And I want to go now to Dr. Ian Lipkin, Director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University. The scientist behind the movie Contagion. And, obviously, you yourself have recovered from coronavirus and you were quite sick, Doctor.
So let me just ask you this overall idea and I just want to put it out there.
[19:10:04]
This is an idea a lot of people watching have probably seriously entertained, because there's this hope that, well, if you just separate out a certain group of people, we can protect them and everybody else can go back. I don't want to pretend that people haven't had this conversation, because they have. But when you look at it, it doesn't work that way, why?
DR. W. IAN LIPKIN, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR INFECTION AND IMMUNITY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: Well, as your other speakers have said, this is ill-informed and it's also unethical. It's predicated on the notion, first of all, that infection results in protective immunity, we don't understand immunity in this disease at all. So some people will recover, many people we have some examples now where people become reinfected. But let's accept for the moment that you can achieve immunity once you've been infected, there's still problems.
The notion that only older people are susceptible is simply not true. If you look at the number of people who are less than 65 years of age, we've lost at least 40,000 of them so far in the U.S. alone. So that's not a small number. In addition, some of those younger people have lingering symptoms for
months, some 20 percent of them. Cognitive difficulties, crippling fatigue, other sorts of problems of that sort.
Furthermore, if you think in terms of what's required to achieve herd immunity, we're talking about somewhere between 60 percent and 80 percent of the population. So we have a population of 330 million. Let's say we're just talking about the adults, 75 percent. That's 250 million people.
To get 70 percent of those people infected, would require that as 175 million people become infected and of those, a hundred million would probably have disease. The most conservative estimates that we have for case fatality is around 2.5 percent. That means we could lose over 2 million people and we could have over 35 million with severe sequelae.
So the whole concept that we're going to get there without a vaccine is frankly obscene.
BURNETT: So when you hear that Great Barrington group meets with Alex Azar, Secretary of HHS, and obviously Scott Atlas, the President's - he's neuro radiologist from Stanford. He's now advising on coronavirus. He's been on this show adamantly opposed to any sort of mask requirements. He's also embracing this idea. What do you think when you hear this coming out of the White House?
LIPKIN: Well, this reflects the problems that we've had with leadership on a wide range of fronts. But we have very good people who are on the task force to whom our leaders should be listening. Fauci is one, Birx is another, frankly Redfield is also had excellent things to say.
We all right now need to hunker down, wear our masks, engage in physical distancing until such time as we have both a vaccine and drugs that we know are easily taken and are effective. And that's sometime in the future, but it's not an impossible situation for us.
If we actually engage in protecting ourselves and one another, we'll get there. So I think that we will see the first vaccines for people who are on the frontlines before the end of the year. Shortly thereafter, those people who are very vulnerable will get the vaccine by summer or fall of next year, we will all have an opportunity to have a vaccine.
So the other thing we need to focus on is getting people to be willing to take the vaccine, which is another thrust of our work. But this declaration is - it's unfounded.
BURNETT: All right. Well, Dr. Lipkin, I appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on the show.
LIPKIN: Thank you. Bye-bye.
BURNETT: And next, people across the country waiting hours to vote early. We are live in Texas with the voters. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The man himself is turning this, turning a lot of red-voting people into blue for this election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Plus, I'll speak to two political newcomers taking on two of the most powerful Republicans in the nation, Jamie Harrison crushing Lindsey Graham in fundraising and Amy McGrath about her fight to unseat Mitch McConnell.
And why did an investigation into Trump's campaign finances shut down an entire floor at a federal courthouse? Our exclusive report.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:18:32]
BURNETT: Breaking news, a record-breaking number of voters and counties across the U.S. and in Texas. More than 14 million ballots already cast across the United States. And people have been waiting in line, weeks before election day up to 10 hours in some places to vote early.
Ed Lavandera is OUTFRONT live in Richardson, Texas. It's a suburb of Dallas. So Ed, when you look at Texas and you see lines like the ones we see in the pictures, you're talking to people, who are these voters? What are they telling you?
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What it tells you is that there's a great deal of enthusiasm and probably not a lot of undecided voters left out there. We've spoken with dozens of voters over the last couple of days on these first two days of early voting and there's a great deal of intensity as to what they see.
Obviously, we're here in Richardson, Texas. A great deal of focus on these types of suburbs in Dallas and Houston. These are the areas where political operatives will be watching very closely as the votes unfold. These are the areas of Texas where it's believed that President Trump has alienated reliably Republican voters. These are areas of Texas that have been Republican for decades.
And what you see is at least from a Republican standpoint is alarming number of people switching over. Here's a little bit of a sample of the voters that we spoke with today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I work in an environment where families can't even come see their children with COVID because they're sick. He leaves the hospital to wave at his supporters.
[19:20:06]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're voting for peace and tranquility. Again, the man himself is turning this. Turning a lot of red-voting people into blue for this election.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've voted Republican on my life, but I don't know. I think there's more Republicans that are moving to the other side a little bit in this election.
LAVANDERA(off camera): Do you mind if I ask you who you're voting?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Trump.
LAVANDERA(off camera): Trump?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
LAVANDERA(off camera): And why are you voting for President Trump?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because I feel like really that whatever he said he had to do, I think he's completed the majority of them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAVANDERA: And Erin, we'll be frank here. They're still Republicans and Democrats, anyone talking honestly about the situation here in Texas will tell you that it is still a long shot for Joe Biden to win this state. But Jill Biden has spent the day here yesterday campaigning in El Paso, in Dallas, money is being spent here in the state.
This is something that Texas voters are simply not used to in a presidential election year. And I think one thing to look at very closely, the number of newly registered voters in this state has jumped by about 2 million in just the last four years. So the big question is how are those voters going to turn out?
President Trump only beat Hillary Clinton by 800,000 votes in this State four years ago.
BURNETT: Wow. All right. Thank you very much.
So I want to bring in Gloria Borger now, our Chief Political Analyst and Astead Herndon, our Political Analyst and National Political Reporter for The New York Times.
So Astead, more than 14 million votes cast so far, you've heard Ed, even in Texas, huge amount of voter enthusiasm and your voter registrations are more than double Trump's margin of victory in Texas last time around, not saying Texas is in play. He wasn't saying that, but these are important numbers to pay attention to. And obviously, you see Democrats as the primary casters of these early ballots on the map right now. You could see this in the battleground states.
So what do you read into that? There's this out there that OK, well, Democrats are going to vote early, but then the Trump voters are going to flood on election day. Is that fair to expect?
ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. I think some of these numbers are worth noting and some of them we have to wait a little longer to really know what they mean. We do kind of expect Democrats to lean more into voting early, leaning more into voting by mail in certain states and it's not a surprise that we're seeing that level of enthusiasm.
And we do expect a kind of a Republican, the kind of base of Trump will do more in-person voting on election day. But the point about Democratic enthusiasm is not one that just starts this week or last week in early voting. We have seen since 2016, a wave, a overwhelming amount of evidence that says that Democrats have been newly engaged by the by the Trump era.
That was evident the day after the inauguration with the Women's March, it was evident in the midterm elections that saw the House flip and it's been evident in those down ballot races since. So I think that that is going to continue.
The problem for President Trump and I think that sometimes we forget this is the margins and the - of his victory in 2016, while large in the electoral college was miniscule in these days. It was not a kind of overwhelming resounding rejection of the Democratic nominee and that's what something that he's going to have to overcome.
BURNETT: So Gloria, tonight, in that context, the Republican Governor of Massachusetts, Charlie Baker, put out a statement saying he will not vote for President Trump. Now, look, he's a moderate. He's in a very liberal state. There's no question of which way Massachusetts goes. We know that he didn't vote for Trump or Clinton in 2016.
So I give all that context to say, OK, it's not a surprise, but for him to come out and say this explicitly, is it a sign of a problem for the President in terms of his ability to broaden his support?
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Sure. It's a sign of exhaustion by sort of rank and file Republicans and repulsion at Donald Trump quite honestly. I mean, you have Republicans, John Kasich, Cindy McCain, Colin Powell, Chuck Hagel, the list goes on and on.
Rank and file Republicans some of whom have endorsed to Joe Biden in a full throated way, some of whom have just said, well, look, I'm not going to vote for Donald Trump. But what you're seeing is a Republican Party here struggling to kind of find itself and define itself, other than by Donald Trump.
And the way these people can do this is to tell the American public look, we're not defined by Donald Trump. We're exhausted by him and we want to turn the page on this very quickly. It's easier for these people to do this than it is for a Republican senator who might be up for reelection in a state like Iowa, for example, who believes like Joni Ernst says that she needs Donald Trump in order to win reelection. We'll see how that goes for her.
But these people are coming out now in droves and saying, look, we have had enough.
[19:25:02] BURNETT: Right. I mean, I guess in some cases I'm sure based upon
conviction and others perhaps on they want to be on the record before - what they expect will be a Biden win, so they want to get out ahead of that.
Astead, instead of a debate tomorrow night, we're actually going to see Biden and Trump holding town halls at the same time, separate places, separate networks. We've never seen anything like this before. Now, the first debate was obviously a mess and we learned nothing and it was unpleasant.
But by separating the two candidates when Trump decided he wasn't going to do this debate, is this actually gonna end up being better that we're going to have a more informed conversation, because they're each on their own?
HERNDON: I think there's a possibility. I don't think you can get less informed than the first debate, so we have nowhere to go but up. But I think that when we look at tomorrow, both town hall styles allow voters to ask candidates questions directly and we've seen Biden participate in these, we've seen Trump to a lesser extent to that. And I think that that gives folks an opportunity to at least hear from them in advance of what we do think will be another debate coming soon.
But let's remember that these have not oftentimes serve the President well, because he invites his own controversy in these things. Now, he may not be going directly at Biden one-on-one but he is sure to get questions on topics he likes to likes to stay away from. So many of his interviews were with friendly interviewers and kind of folks who were kind of being spoon feeding him, layup questions for so long.
When he gets out of that bubble, we've seen the President struggle.
BURNETT: All right. Thank you both. And next, I'm going to talk to two rising Democrats who are taking on two of the biggest names in the Republican Party, including Amy McGrath, who's trying to oust Mitch McConnell. What did she think about McConnell laughing off stimulus relief in their debate?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMY MCGRATH, DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL NOMINEE: The Senate went on vacation I mean, you just don't do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Plus, a CNN exclusive, federal investigators chasing a suspected foreign link to Trump's campaign cash for three years. So what happened to that investigation? Exclusive details ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:30:34]
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Tonight, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham losing the money war. Graham announcing he raised $28 in the third quarter for a Senate race. That sounds huge, but it is less than half of his Democratic opponent, Jaime Harrison's record breaking $57 million haul.
This comes as Republicans grow worried about President Trump's effect on down ballot races.
Tonight, we have two candidates joining us who are taking on two of the most powerful Republicans in the Senate. Jaime Harrison who I just mentioned is running against Lindsey Graham in South Carolina. And Amy McGrath, who is challenging the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky.
So, Jaime, let me start with you.
Senator Graham's campaign announced today that he's raised less than half of how much you have brought in. And the race right now is a toss-up according to "The Cook Political Report", which is one of the top groups that analyses political trends.
So, right now, today, how do you feel about your odds?
JAIME HARRISON (D), U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE RUNNING AGAINST SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: Well, Erin, I feel really good. The momentum is on our side. The energy is on our side.
People are ready to send Lindsey Graham home because he has forgotten about South Carolina. You know, the urgency that he has had to shepherd through the Supreme Court nomination, I wish he would have had that same urgency to get a COVID relief bill here in South Carolina. We've had 3,500 people in this state to die because of this virus, including my aunt. We've had over 150,000 infected, 750,000 lost their jobs, and many are losing their homes or being evicted from their homes. Many small businesses are going under.
And I really wish Lindsey can focus just a little bit of that energy and focus on the people here in South Carolina. But because he has forgotten that, it's the people of South Carolina that's in Washington, D.C., they're going to remind him on November 3rd and send him home.
BURNETT: So, you mentioned the coronavirus pandemic, which has, of course, been really important in your race, right? You brought a plexiglass divider to your debate last month with Senator Graham, which came just days after President Trump tested positive for the virus.
And you were supposed to debate again on Friday, but he wouldn't even take a coronavirus test, refused to take one. So, the moderator conducted individual interviews instead. There was no debate.
Why do you think this is? That he's doing this?
HARRISON: Erin, your guess is as good as mine. I just don't understand why he won't take this issue seriously. He didn't take it seriously from the start. You know, he started off saying, well, you know, success here is if
50,000 people die. And then, you know, 75,000. And he kept moving the goal line around.
And then, this is the same guy, Erin, again, I told you 750,000 people in a state of 5 million have lost their jobs. Lindsey Graham said, over our dead bodies will we allow a federal extension of the unemployment benefit. Well, the most you get here in South Carolina on unemployment is $327 a week.
So if you're a family of four and you are the only person who has a job in your family, how do you take care of your family and pay your rent and pay your car payment and all these other things with $320 a week? This is a guy who is just simply out of touch.
BURNETT: So, let me ask you about something that happened today in the Amy Coney Barrett hearing. Senator Graham making headlines because he referenced segregation during today's set of hearings, calling it, quote, the good old days.
Here he is. Let me play it for you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): One of the reasons that you can say with confidence that you think Brown versus Board of Education is super precedent is that you're not aware of any effort to go back to the good old days of segregation by legislative body, is that correct?
JUDGE AMY CONEY BARRETT, SUPREME COURT JUSTICE NOMINEE: That is correct.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Now, Graham told CNN he made that comment with, quote, "deep sarcasm."
What -- what do you think? What do you think when you heard it?
HARRISON: Well, Erin, maybe Lindsey was being sarcastic. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
But it just shows how out of touch he really is, because, you know, you take these comments with the comments that he just said a few days ago, which he said that black people in South Carolina, you know, if they aren't conservative, they can't go anywhere. I mean, it -- these things just don't make any sense.
This is also the same guy who said he would campaign and he actually did, with a woman who said, jokingly, she wanted to be on the front row of a lynching. You know, you represent a state of 30 -- 30 percent of the state are African-Americans.
[19:35:02]
Forty percent of black folks in this country came through the Port of Charleston because of slavery. You would think you would have a sensitivity to the type of language that you're going to use.
But it just shows that Lindsey Graham represents what I call the Old South. We're talking about building a New South, one that is bold, that is inclusive, that is diverse, where all of our voices are valued.
GRAHAM: All right. Jaime, thank you very much. I appreciate your time.
HARRISON: Thank you.
BURNETT: Jaime Harrison challenging, of course, Senator Graham.
And now, I want to go to Amy McGrath, who's running against the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky.
Amy, the polls where you are generally have showed you behind, but there has not been polling since President Trump's positive coronavirus test, hospitalization, or the death of the Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Have you seen a turn?
LT. COL. AMY MCGRATH (RET.) (D), U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: Well, I have. And I think what you saw two nights ago in the debate is you have a senator who came back here to Kentucky and all he had was excuses for his failure to get a coronavirus relief bill passed.
And this is, you know, this is what Kentuckians care about. We have here in Kentucky a million Kentuckians that have filed for unemployment sometime in the last six months. We have 300,000 Kentuckians who don't have health care. And we have a senator who, you know, in the debate when I challenged him on his failed leadership, you know, because he's not just a member of the Senate, he's the leader of the Senate who can't get it done in the middle of a national crisis.
You know, he started to laugh. And I think that it's just -- it shows you that he has been there in Washington too long. He's a part of the problem so much that he doesn't even know what the problem is any more. Everything is about politics for him.
BURNETT: So, let me play that moment. You know, you mentioned the debate. You're talking about the stimulus bill, and here is his response when you were speaking about why isn't there a stimulus bill? Here's what happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCGRATH: The House passed a bill in May, and the -- the -- the Senate went on vacation. I mean, just don't do that.
(LAUGHTER)
MCGRATH: You negotiate. Senator, it is a national crisis. You knew that the coronavirus wasn't going to end at the end of July. We knew this.
I mean, I just think that you've got -- and here's the thing, if you want to call yourself a leader, you -- if you want to call yourself a leader, you've got to get things done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: So he did laugh and continued to laugh as you were speaking. What was your feeling as to why he did that?
MCGRATH: Well, I mean, I think he's just -- it's like he's laughing at Kentucky. You know, our problems here are real. And he's incapable of seeing them, because, you know, if you take a step back, you would not be ramming through a Supreme Court justice right now. You would be negotiating for aid.
He didn't see the urgency to negotiate for aid, more aid, back in the spring. And all summer long, it didn't do anything on this, and here we are today with, you know, so many Kentuckians that need help. And I think what it shows in the debate is when you put us side by side, you see somebody and my fellow Kentuckians can see that, you know, he's not somebody that is listening to them and not somebody who is working for them.
BURNETT: All right. Amy, thank you very much.
And I do want to make it clear to all of you, we have invited both Senators Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell to join us. I hope they will and talk about their races, and their side of them. Both have so far declined, though. But let me make it clear, they're welcome on OUTFRONT any time.
And next, a CNN exclusive, a secret investigation into Trump's finances that lasted three years, and we now know what it was about. Just tonight, you'll see that exclusive.
And coronavirus killed his father and seven other family members. Now it's taken away his livelihood.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is what's left of ten years of hard work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:42:29]
BURNETT: OUTFRONT now, an exclusive new report, CNN has learned that federal prosecutors, including special counsel Robert Mueller, spent more than three years investigating whether money flowing through an Egyptian state owned bank could have backed millions of dollars that Donald Trump donated to his own 2016 campaign.
Now, ultimately, Mueller's team was not able to obtain all the information it needed, nor could the U.S. attorneys in D.C. who continued the investigation until this year, deciding not to pursue charges.
Senior justice correspondent Evan Perez is OUTFRONT.
And, Evan, let's go through what we know and don't know. This is not something that we had any idea about until today, right?
EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Tat's right, Erin.
This investigation was conducted with the utmost secrecy, given the sensitivity. It started soon after Trump won the presidency in 2016, continued until this summer, and has never been described publicly.
Now, we spoke to more than a dozen sources familiar with the effort, in addition to what we learned in newly released court documents and hints from public records. But two of the sources told CNN that FBI investigators first became interested in the case after intelligence, including from an informant, suggested that Trump's last-minute $10 million injection into his campaign less than two weeks before the 2016 election could have been backed by money that came overseas through an Egyptian state owned bank.
Now, it's not clear that investigators ever had concrete evidence of a relevant bank transfer, but multiple sources said that there was sufficient information that justifies seeking a subpoena in court, and to keep the investigation open, even after the Mueller investigation ended.
This investigation of a potential campaign finance law violation began with the FBI and the U.S. attorney in Washington before special counsel Mueller took it on, and it was largely conducted by Mueller's team of investigators. When Mueller was done, the investigation continued.
It was handed back to the U.S. attorney here in Washington who soon afterwards told the court that it was still a robust probe, but they never felt that they got all of the records that they needed from the Egyptian bank. It was just this summer that the case was closed with no charges filed.
Now, among the chief questions that prosecutors sought to answer but never did was whether Donald Trump was supported by or indebted to a foreign power.
Special counsel Robert Mueller had no comment from the story, but we got a comment from senior adviser to the Trump 2020 campaign, Jason Miller, who said, quote, President Trump has never received money from Egypt.
[19:45:03]
BURNETT: I mean, pretty incredible, when you say, among the chief questions prosecutors sought to answer but never did was whether Donald Trump was supported or indebted to a foreign power. It is stunning that there is such a question and we still do not have the answer to it.
One way that answer could be obtained is getting more of the financial statements of this president.
PEREZ: Right.
BURNETT: I mean, was there never discussion among this investigation of getting subpoenaing the president's own financial records?
PEREZ: Well, multiple sources, Erin, tell us last year, federal prosecutors in Washington proposed pushing for the president's financial records. The decision went to then U.S. attorney, Jessie Liu, who after weeks of poring over the records, decided to reject the subpoena request.
Now, sources tell us that Liu decided that there wasn't enough evidence to meet the standard for the subpoena. Interestingly, she did not close the case.
Now, as for the Justice Department, here's what a senior Justice official told CNN in response to this reporting. Quote: The case was first looked at by the special counsel investigators who failed to bring a case. And then it was looked at by the U.S. attorney's office and career prosecutors in the national security section who also were unable to bring a case. Based on the recommendations of both the FBI and those career prosecutors, Michael Sherwin, the acting U.S. attorney, formally closed the case.
BURNETT: So, Evan, the special counsel's office was known for keeping these things very secret, right? You remember this whole floor, everything was secret. There were never any leaks about this, even after the case closed.
Why do you think that was?
PEREZ: Well, you know, the Egyptian investigation was never actually mentioned overtly in the Mueller report. It's listed among 11 cases that Mueller transferred to other prosecutors when the investigation ended. But the entry was on this was redacted.
The only public indication was this secretive court proceedings over a subpoena that Mueller's team issued to an unnamed foreign company for records. Mueller's team had the court locked down an entire floor of the federal courthouse, allowing attorneys to enter and exit without being seen.
Now, neither the company nor the details of what prosecutors were after was ever publicly disclosed. But CNN is told that it was a fight with the state-owned Egyptian bank. By the way, Erin, a spokesman for the Egyptian president did not comment for this story.
BURNETT: Right. And, of course, we should be clear, state-owned Egyptian bank does go directly to the Egyptian President Sisi. Thank you very much, Evan.
You know, let me say this investigation continued under Bill Barr's Justice Department.
One more question here, did prosecutors explain why it did go under Barr?
PEREZ: Well, you know, here's what we know. We know that they told the court that the investigation was continuing robustly.
Quote: They said even very much a live issue. We know about the consideration of the subpoena, but that's about it, until it was close. The fact of the matter is, that the case was closed without investigators really getting an answer to their ultimate question, which was, Donald -- was Donald Trump supported by or indebted to a foreign power?
BURNETT: All right. Evan, thank you very much.
And that crucial question, right? I mean, we know right now from "The New York Times" reporting, $400 million in debt due the next few years by Donald Trump, to whom we don't know.
Norm Eisen, we saw him every day during President Trump's impeachment trial, a special counsel for the House Democrats, joins me now.
So, Norm, you know, let me just -- let me just -- all of this you just heard from Evan, three-year investigation still unable to answer the most crucial question, was Donald Trump supported by or indebted to a foreign power. We don't know the answer to that after all this?
NORMAN EISEN, FORMER COUNSEL TO HOUSE DEMS DURING TRUMP IMPEACHMENT TRIAL: Erin, it's shocking. You know, you would think after four years there would not be any new revelations to alarm us.
But here's another one, because these questions of foreign money have swirled around Donald Trump from the very beginning of his administration, and they continue to come out with payments from the Philippines, India, Turkey, millions of dollars revealed by "The New York Times." and now this allegation.
This is the worst of the Trump scandals, because it features questions, and they are just questions. But it features questions about foreign influence, national security, and illegal campaign cash, and what effect that might have had, and the darkness, the opacity. It is yet another disturbing and unanswered set of questions.
BURNETT: Yeah, I mean, it certainly is. I still find it amazing, you know, whatever the real answer is here, that the U.S. intelligence services themselves never knew who that money was owed to, such that we understand at this time. You obviously were the ethics czar under President Obama and so, you know this story well.
For years, President Trump has claimed the Obama administration was conspiring against him and spying on him, and outing key Trump officials, including the former national security adviser Michael Flynn, you know, that so-called unmasking would backfire on President Obama and Joe Biden, show they were conspiring to destroy Trump.
[19:50:12]
Here's just some of what he has said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's a big thing going on right now, which is spying, and it's -- you can call it anything you want, the unmasking, and the spying. And to me, that's the big story.
They used the intelligence agencies of our country to try and steal an election.
This was at the highest level of treason, and Obama and Biden got caught spying on my campaign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: According to "The Washington Post," though, Norm, the investigation ordered by the Attorney General Bill Barr into this issue, the outing of Flynn and others, has wrapped up and found no wrong doing and there will be no charges. Your reaction?
EISEN: Well, it's the flip side of the Egypt story, Erin, because that's a story that raises the question, why didn't the Trump Justice Department under Bill Barr and these Trump U.S. attorneys pursued those Egyptian campaign allegations and the failure of Bob Mueller to drive forward. Here you have, yes, you have the toxic Trump lies, 20,000 of them. These are some of the worst.
Yes, you have Trump's attacks on his enemies using all of his power. But there's a good news aspect to this. The rule of law survived.
Apparently, Mr. Bash, the U.S. attorney appointed to investigate this, did the right thing and he has strong Trump ties.
So, between the two stories --
BURNETT: Yeah.
EISEN: -- you have one that shows the challenges of the rule of law and one that shows the strength of the rule of law. The American people are about to make a decision which work in that road will they go down.
BURNETT: All right. Norm, thank you very much. And I should say, you know, as we leave here, the reporting, of course, tonight, the president saying if you would reappoint Barr if he's reelected, I'm not happy with the evidence I have. I can tell you that. I'm not happy of a man who has been more loyal than anyone but he doesn't like stories like that.
OUTFRONT next, the personal toll of the pandemic. The virus killed this man's father and seven of his family members and now it has taken his livelihood. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:55:41]
BURNETT: Tonight, not a single state in the country trending in the right direction with coronavirus infections. Wisconsin's new cases are up more than 100 and 43 percent from a month ago. New Mexico more than quadrupling. Hospitalizations also up. the human impact is devastating, nearly 8 million cases on record. More than 216,000 Americans have died.
Miguel Marquez is OUTFRONT with a story of one family's heartache.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICARDO AGUIRRE, LOST FAMILY MEMBERS & BUSINESS TO COVID-19: I don't want to cry just because I know god has something better for me.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ricardo Aguirre.
AGUIRRE: It's hard not to. It's just, you know, the --
MARQUEZ: The coronavirus killed his father and seven other family members, he says. It t took his business. It sickened him, his wife, who was then four months pregnant and two of his kids.
AGUIRRE: I felt very incompetent. A man that -- not be able to go back to where he was.
I lost my dad. It's very hard. It's hard.
MARQUEZ: He doesn't know how they contracted the virus. They wore masks and use sanitizers constantly. It swept through his family in May. His father fought the virus for months.
AGUIRRE: My dead, unfortunately, you know, he passed away on September 11th in my arms at 3 30 in the morning. It was very hard because we, we did everything together. Forty-two years being by his side.
His mother is home and still fighting the effects of the virus. Now he spends his days shuttling her to hospital visits and helping his wife, now eight months pregnant, dealing with an ever increasingly pile of bills -- all of this with little income and no health insurance.
(on camera): You don't have medical coverage?
AGUIRRE: I don't have medical coverage at all. It's just too much.
MARQUEZ: Even Obamacare, even -- you can't just afford anything?
AGUIRRE: I can't afford it. It's just too much. It's literally another house payment.
MARQUEZ (voice-over): Aguirre and his family built Tacos Y Tamales Puebla. He had a food truck, a prep kitchen in downtown Phoenix and a long list of corporate and wedding clients.
AGUIRRE: This is what's left of, 10 years of hard work.
MARQUEZ (on camera): You are living the American dream?
AGUIRRE: Yes, I was.
Come visit us. As you can see, we are busy.
MARQUEZ (voice-over): When COVID-19 cases in Arizona jumped and the economy jumped down, Aguirre watched all his catering job scheduled for the next year evaporate. His food truck was repossessed. He couldn't pay rent on his prep kitchen.
(on camera): When did it all come to a halt?
AGUIRRE: March 17th.
MARQUEZ: COVID.
AGUIRRE: Yes.
MARQUEZ: Overnight.
AGUIRRE: Yes, just like that.
MARQUEZ (voice-over): Aguirre would like the president understand just how devastating the illnesses for some.
(on camera): When he says don't be afraid of COVID, don't let it dominate your life -- what do you say to him?
AGUIRRE: May God continue to bless you and your family.
MARQUEZ: But how does a real world deal with COVID?
AGUIRRE: It's bad. It's bad.
MARQUEZ (voice-over): Aguirre is now looking forward to the big day in November. November 7th, the day his first daughter is due to be born.
AGUIRRE: We felt that we were ready financially and we were ready emotionally to take care of another human being.
Now with this going on, I just asked God for strength to get me by another day.
MARQUEZ: The real toll of the coronavirus on one American family.
Miguel Marquez, CNN, Phoenix.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: Absolutely heartbreaking. There's no one that can watch that and not be moved. Thank you so much for joining us.
"AC360" begins now.
