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First Move with Julia Chatterley
U.S. Lawmakers Called To D.C. Over A Post Office Funding Fight; Japanese Economy Contracts For The Third Straight Quarter; Crowds In Belarus Heckle The President As Protest Grow Over Recent Elections. Aired 9-10a ET
Aired August 17, 2020 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:09]
JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN BUSINESS ANCHOR, FIRST MOVE: Live from New York, I'm Julia Chatterley. This is FIRST MOVE and here is your need to know.
Postal politics. Lawmakers are called to D.C. over a Post Office funding fight.
Record recession. The Japanese economy contracts for the third straight quarter.
And Belarus boos. Crowds heckle the President as protest grow over recent elections.
It is Monday. Let's make a move.
Welcome once again to FIRST MOVE. Great to be back with you and lots coming up in the show as always, including the Digital Minister of Taiwan, we're
going to be talking trust in technology and how you establish that. Critical of course, and you can expect the sound of unity this week as the
Democratic Party kicks off its unconventional convention. It's going to be virtual, of course, too.
Will the markets see Biden backtrack or will they soar to new Harris highs? Just one of the questions we'll be asking today.
The NASDAQ and S&P futures inching closer to fresh records. Goldman Sachs arguing that the S&P can rise a further six percent by yearend. JPMorgan
telling investors to stick with equities, too. Both banks incorporating election risks in that view, too.
That said, pay attention to the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett reducing bank holdings like Wells Fargo and JPMorgan while investing in precious
metals in miner, Barrick Gold. An interesting signal perhaps about the economic perils going forward, too.
Evidence of that all across Asia overnight as well as I mentioned, Japan reporting its biggest growth drop on record. Thailand, meanwhile, also
reporting its worst GDP numbers in some 22 years.
Chinese stocks, however, rallied more than two percent after the Central Bank injected fresh liquidity into the financial system.
Meanwhile, Singapore says it will provide near $6 billion in fresh financial aid to support the economy there. If only the U.S. Congress could
give fresh financial aid for struggling Americans too its stamp of approval. Certainly right now, the only stamps they are talking about
belong to the beleaguered U.S. Postal Office.
The key question now is whether the current mail melee could actually be a key to unlocking a wider stimulus bill? Let's get to the drivers to find
out.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has recalled lawmakers early from summer recess as the fight over the U.S. Postal Service builds. Democrats are
pushing back against changes made by a new Trump appointed head of the service. They say the measures have slowed the mail ahead of the November
of election, which will see millions of extra people potentially vote by mail.
Christine Romans joins us now on this story. Christine, I'm sure a lot of international viewers will be going, what on earth is going on here?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
CHATTERLEY: The problem is more people are likely to vote by mail given we're in the middle of a pandemic, but these changes have seen the Postal
Service come out and say, actually in 46 states, they may not be able to service Postal votes the way that they would like to in time for the
election.
ROMANS: And people are reporting that they are already feeling a difference in their mail service. They are not getting their medications on
time. They are not getting in an important check in the mail that then delays them being able to pay their rent.
So the consistency of the American mail service is really, really incredible here. The motto is, "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of
night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their rounds." And that's something that is very part of the American persona.
It is, wherever you live in this country, the mail will get to you. That's not the same can be said for some of these private package delivery
companies.
So, the fact that people are starting to feel some decline in service because of changes that a Trump appointee and the Trump administration are
making to the Postal Service is very noticeable.
Add in to that the idea that we are in a pandemic, and there are people -- people who have immunosuppressed diseases, people who maybe have children
at home, people who are afraid of waiting in long lines of a lot of other people for an election, who will want to vote by mail and may not be able
to get that done swiftly or in the statutory time. That's a real problem here.
So there is a bipartisan board of governors that had recommended $25 billion to be ready for mail-in voting and for an election where the Post
Office would have a bigger role, and they would like to see that money there, and President Trump has said out loud he doesn't want that money to
go to the U.S. Postal service because then there could be better voting by mail. So, he said that out loud.
Now, you've got Nancy Pelosi bringing the House back, and maybe, just maybe, as you pointed out, this big controversy and fight now over more
funding of the mail service might actually be part of a new initiative for comprehensive stimulus overall.
[09:05:18]
CHATTERLEY: I mean, there are so many questions there, Christine, over whether just given the short time now between where we currently lie and
the elections whether they are even providing any money in the short term will help facilitate the Post Office in getting those postal votes in and
counted, quite frankly.
But the bigger question here as well is, does it therefore provide some key to unlock broader stimulus? I cannot believe, I've been away for a week,
Christine and we've seen no movement and now lawmakers have all gone home. Meanwhile, millions of Americans are struggling to pay the bills.
ROMANS: I know. Welcome back, by the way.
CHATTERLEY: Thank you.
ROMANS: We're in the very same spot where we were the last time I talked to you, which is how incredibly important -- all of the data of the last
week also showed that the American economy avoided a depression because all the stimulus money flowing, and now, it's not flowing anymore. So the
trajectory of the recovery depends on what they do.
Bringing back the House, an important first step here. There have been a couple senators who said they would like to continue to talk. They would
like to come back and continue to talk as well, but I mean, time is of the essence here.
It's interesting because the President is sort of taking a victory lap, and just looking at the rebound in jobs and in retail sales and saying, look, I
built it once, I'm building it again.
The point is, that was all built on record stimulus, right? On $600.00-a- week checks, on $1,200.00 checks to households, on small business loans. That's all dried up.
You want to keep that recovery going? You've got to get Washington out of its dysfunction.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, please. Christine Romans, thank you so much for that. We'll keep discussing it, no doubt.
All right, the U.S. Commerce Department says, it is taking further steps to prevent the Chinese tech giant, Huawei from accessing American equipment
and software.
Selina Wang is live in Hong Kong for us. Selina, great to have you with us. Great to be back in action with you as well. Talk us through what we know
on this.
SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Julia, it is great to be with you. So these lines just crossing right now, so the Trump administration is trying
to further hamper Huawei's abilities to work with U.S. companies.
They're adding 38 more affiliates to this entities list and the Commerce Department says that they have evidence that Huawei was using these
affiliates and third parties to evade some of the earlier bans that were put on this company.
Again, there are many, many Huawei affiliates that are already on this entities list, which means that companies need a special license to be able
to sell to Huawei.
This also just comes days after the Trump administration ended a general license that would have allowed some U.S. companies to continue working
with Huawei, and set against this context of the Trump administration continuing a series of assaults against Chinese companies on the grounds of
national security.
You are seeing bans on companies like WeChat, on TikTok as well, all on the grounds of national security.
Now, all of these companies, of course, have refuted those claims. Most recently you also had the Trump administration putting out another
executive order saying that ByteDance has 90 days now to divest the U.S. operations of TikTok or to sell that to a U.S. company.
When I talked to security experts, when it comes to a company like ByteDance, they say that the security risks are there, but they're largely
hypothetical, and that selectively banning apps may not be the way forward.
They say the question that the U.S. should be asking instead is how do we make the app ecosystem more secure overall and how do we better govern the
massive amounts of data that many of these companies are collecting regardless of what countries they're from?
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I mean, there are so many challenges here. Of course, you mentioned the backdrop as well. The postponement, it seems, of virtual
trade talks between the United States and China might actually not be a bad thing in light of the technology challenges which the Trade Representatives
actually don't cover, and, of course, China is behind on making agricultural trade purchases, too.
WANG: Julia, that's a great point. Amid these broader disputes that we're seeing, whether it is technology, the COVID pandemic, human rights, trade
relations are actually the one stabilizing factor.
Despite everything that's going on between these two countries, it still seems to be largely intact. Now, Reuters cited unnamed sources that this
was delayed because of scheduling services, because the United States wanted to give China more time to boost more U.S. purchases in order to
improve the optics of the deal.
According to CNN Business calculations, China in July alone bought more than 4.6 metric tons of soybeans from the United States, and Larry Kudlow
has said that China has substantially increased its purchases of U.S. goods.
[09:10:07]
WANG: That being said, most analysts do not expect it to be feasible for China to actually meet the commitments that were signed under this Phase 1
Trade Deal given how weak the global economy is right now.
According to Nomura, as of the end of June, China had only reached one- fifth of its commitments for 2020.
Despite that, however, David Dollar from the Brookings Institute, he makes the point that Trump is not just going to scrap this deal. It is an
important part of his reelection campaign and scrapping it would likely damage the stock market and it is in the best interest of both countries,
given the damage caused by the pandemic to keep that trade relationship intact.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, avoid asking difficult questions at this moment in time, Selena, and your point as well about the 90 days for ByteDance divesting
U.S. TikTok as well, that gets us past the election as well.
Interesting. Selena Wang, thank you so much for that. Sorry, Selina Wang, sorry, I keep doing that. Selena, great to have you with us. Thank you.
All right, let's move on to Japan reporting its worst drop in GDP on record. Its economy shrank nearly eight percent in the second quarter.
Kaori Enjoji has all the details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAORI ENJOJI, JOURNALIST: A painful reminder of the virus's toll on Japan's economy, which registered the most catastrophic three-month plunge
on record.
The GDP in the second quarter of this year dropped 7.8 percent, plunging the world's third largest economy deeper into recession.
The drop translates to nearly 28 percent annual rate of decline, the worst since modern record keeping began in 1980. Japan joins the likes of the
U.S., the U.K. and many others that are struggling to grow as world trade slows.
About half of Japan's economic activity comes from consumption, and that's been slow to rebound after a national emergency ended nearly two months
ago. A surge in new virus cases since mid-July, economists say could spell further trouble ahead.
Japan has logged about 19,000 new infections in the last two and a half weeks, about a third of the total number of cases since the pandemic
started.
With many state relief measures set to expire at the end of September, all eyes are now on whether the Japanese government will announce new stimulus
measures to keep the economy afloat.
Kaori Enjoji for CNN, Tokyo.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHATTERLEY: All right, let me bring you up to speed now with some of the other stories making headlines around the world.
The President of Belarus says he is willing to share power and change the Constitution, but not under pressure from the streets. Protesters are out
again today in Minsk after a rally at the weekend demanding Alexander Lukashenko step down, and the opposition leader now in exile say she is
ready to lead the nation.
CNN's Frederik Pleitgen is live in the capital, Minsk. Some incredible size rallies over the weekend. The difference in size it seems between the anti-
government protests and those seemingly supporting the government, Frederik, where do we go from here?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Julia. You're absolutely right. It certainly was a historic weekend here in
Minsk, and certainly in all of Belarus with the opposition drawing a crowd of about 100,000 people to their rally.
And then you're absolutely right. Alexander Lukashenko, the longtime leader of this country, he tried to have a counter demonstration, where
apparently, he had to bus in a lot of the demonstrators and still that demonstration was much smaller than the one that was held by the
opposition.
Now the opposition is actually continuing its pressure on Lukashenko. What you're seeing behind me is a strike at government TV and for a very long
time, state TV in this country was actually a propaganda arm of Alexander Lukashenko. But now, the reporters, the anchors and essentially, the camera
operators actually are saying no more. They want to report truthfully, they say, on what's going on here in Belarus, on the protests, and also of
course, on the detentions and the beatings that have been taking place.
Now, the opposition is demanding that Lukashenko step down and allow for new transparent elections. As you mentioned, he has sort of hinted that he
might be willing to share power, but nobody here in the opposition at least believes that that is really true.
The big decisive factor actually, in all of this could be economic pressure. There's a general strike going on today. There's a lot of
factories that have walked on.
Lukashenko tried to go to one of those factories and speak and he was actually shouted down there, which is something that would have been
unheard of only a couple of days ago in this country, people calling for him to go away, go away. And then he sort of left the premises there.
So the opposition is certainly keeping that pressure up. They say they are not going to go away. This is not going to stop until Alexander Lukashenko
allows for new elections.
And they do believe Julia, that economic pressure could be what makes the difference here. Of course, Belarus, large parts of this economy are state
owned, and if large parts of that economy are not working, that certainly does to a great deal increase the pressure on Alexander Lukashenko and his
regime -- Julia.
CHATTERLEY: It certainly does. Fred, thank you so much for that report there. Fred Pleitgen in Minsk.
All right, still to come here on FIRST MOVE, the U.S. health chief called Taiwan a leader in global health during a recent visit. We're heading then
next to see what the U.S. may have learned. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:18:19]
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE live from New York where U.S. stocks are on track for early session gains after a profitable week for
cyclical stocks last week, those that do well, when economies improve.
The Dow was the big winner in fact last week, rising almost two percent. The S&P 500 posted its third straight weekly advance driven by gains in the
likes of energy and consumer stocks. So those are the cyclicals I mentioned.
The old school, Dow Jones Transportation Index up over 10 percent in fact, too, this month back to positive territory for the year.
Winners outpaced decliners by a two to one margin, another sign perhaps that more firms are participating in the broader stock market rally and not
just those big cap tech stocks that we've seen in recent months.
This comes despite the World Health Organization reporting a record daily increasing COVID-19 cases. This weekend, almost 300,000 new cases in a 24-
hour period. That number includes a resurgence in countries previously considered to have the virus under control.
South Korea warned it is facing its worst outbreak in six months, with a new cluster originating in a large church. New Zealand has delayed its
election amid a second lockdown after three months without a single case.
What about Taiwan? Well, they were praised by the U.S. health chief Alex Azar for its COVID response during a recent visit there.
Technologies were discussed on FIRST MOVE before played a crucial role in Taiwan's response to handling the virus.
I'm pleased to say, joining us now once again, Audrey Tang, Taiwan's Digital Minister. Minister Tang, a pleasure to have you on the show once
again.
Firstly, I just want to ask how is Taiwan doing? Are you still maintaining control of the virus outbreak?
[09:20:12]
AUDREY TANG, TAIWAN'S DIGITAL MINISTER: Definitely, there continue to be no local transmission or local confirmed cases. We just had a rather
successful election for the Kaohsiung mayor, so everything is going fine.
CHATTERLEY: And talk to me about the visit by the U.S. Health Secretary, Alex Azar. He praised Taiwan's response. What do you think he took away
from the visit?
TANG: Sure. So there's a Memorandum of Understanding to expand the collaboration on vaccination on making pharmacies and also making sure that
after he visited, I think a mask production facility, we will also support the blueprints that makes sure that everybody in any jurisdiction can make
this kind of, like, two million medical masks a day, automatic plants by themselves.
CHATTERLEY: You know, it's interesting when you were last on the show, you told us about the incentive structure that you'd created for people
quarantining, a huge fine if they break it, small amounts of money on a daily basis if they stick to it there.
TANG: Yes, that's right.
CHATTERLEY: The track and trace system that you put in place as well. Do you think those things are scalable in somewhere like the United States?
You have a 24 million person population versus -- what -- 330 million? Is it scalable?
TANG: Well, I think ideas that are worth spreading are scalable. And for example, when we first introduced medical mask rationing, we know that it's
not useful unless people also wash their hands thoroughly with soap.
So we say that you wear a mask to protect you, yourself from your own unwashed hands and that's a way to connect medical mask and soap together
in a single message because otherwise it doesn't work.
So this kind of ideas, memes, if you will, of course, are scalable. And as for the digital fence that we talked about last time, I think what made it
so successful is that in Taiwan, we already have the idea of people in earthquake zones, in flood areas and so on, they are used to receiving SMS
messages based on their location without anything like GPS or Bluetooth tracking.
So it's something that people are familiar with and we repurposed that. Of course, in every jurisdiction, people are used to different sort of
technologies that is re-appropriation of your will of the appropriate technology. That is the important part with people's trust.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, you know, I think the differentiating factor at the core of what you've done is open lines of communication between the people and
the government.
And I'm glad you mentioned masks because while I was preparing for this interview, I read something else that had been done at the beginning with
masks when convenience stores were running out, a hacker developed using Google Maps a system of identifying where masks were available and where
they'd run out and that tool went viral.
TANG: Yes, definitely. And it's entirely not government's technology. It's entirely civic technology. And just as you described, because people were
very confused as of which medical mask selling pharmacies still have them and still not. And so Howard Wu, that's the name of the person and Fijian
Qiang (ph) both from Tainan, made their own version of the map.
So you can see this is actually live streaming data that which pharmacies still have plenty of masks that are green; red if they run out of masks,
yellow if there's something in between. And all we did was to make sure that they have the steady supply of data refreshed every 30 seconds instead
of every day like most Freedom of Information Acts are.
Because when it is every 30 seconds, people queuing in line can keep each other honest. If I swipe my National Health Insurance card, people queueing
after me would expect the number to drop by nine per two weeks, or 10 if I'm a child, and if rather does mask availability stock increases, they
will call 1-922, the toll free number right there. So it calms everybody down.
CHATTERLEY: So just to be clear, because I think you're underplaying your involvement in this. This was a civil tool that was created. It went viral,
you very quickly said, actually, this is not something that we need to be doing with convenience stores, we should incorporate this into the National
Health System and the pharmacies and make this a tool that anybody in the country can use.
TANG: That's exactly right. The original version that is done by Howard Wu and Finjian Qiang (ph) was what we call a user generated content, meaning
that it relies on people who volunteer to report whether it has masks or not.
So if there's not enough volunteers in any region, it is not as useful. And we just said in our Cabinet mask meeting -- we have a mask meeting every
week. I told the Premiere of this new tool and said that this is something that I call reverse procurement.
The civil society has a better idea than we do, so we've become their vendor. We implement their API and making sure that the pharmacies, as we
described, automatically refresh the numbers so the map can be displayed.
And the best thing is that even for people with blindness and people with other disabilities, they can use voice assistance like Siri or Google
Voice, or chat bots, or any of the 140 different tools to access the same information.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, and the important point was, as well, you allow this to be open source, so people could update it for the visual impairment
improvements.
You also trust the people not to abuse the medical system data. There's a two-way street here, which is part of the challenge of doing what you've
done here is that there's trust on both sides. How do you ensure that?
[09:25:53]
TANG: Yes, I think when the government trust the people, sometimes people will trust back, sometimes -- or some people don't, but that's fine, as
long as we keep honoring our API, that's Application Programming Interface that makes sure that all the differences between the data that we have on
our system and the differences, for example, in the pharmacies, because in many pharmacies in the beginning, instead of swiping each NHI card at the
beginning, they would give out this number of plates and keep the NHI card at a pharmacy.
So there would be a discrepancy between the mask map level and the pharmacy's level, and the important thing is that the people trusted the
local pharmacist. And when the pharmacist called that toll free number line telling us that we need to change our program, we need to take into account
their different schedules, pressing a key to disappear from the map, and many other feature requests.
We made sure that we take it into account every week. So we have this very fast iteration that every Thursday, we roll out this new system that takes
care of the things that were reported by the pharmacist and people on the ground in the previous week.
So this rapid iteration, I think, is the main thing that garners the trust and earns the trustworthiness.
CHATTERLEY: Yes. It's just a whole another level of digital innovation and coordination, quite frankly and I do believe that actually, Mr. Wu, who was
originally developing this was handed a $26,000.00 bill from Google for using the maps, which I believe they waived in the end.
Mr. Tang, I want to ask you something else, because I know that you taught yourself, you were homeschooled from 14 years old, and there are millions
of children all around the world that won't be going back to school in the coming weeks.
And I just wanted to get your advice and your wisdom on how best to motivate yourself as a young person trying to study from home.
TANG: Yes, I think first of all, enjoying, like food and drink and music together doesn't have to be in the same physical space.
In the hackathons, we will all order pizza or something, so even though we're just alone at home or two or three people in a small room, we would
just enjoy the same food and drink together anyway. And so that created this co-presence framework for people to feel that they are together.
And I think the next thing is also to choose a problem, a structural problem that concerns everybody, so that even though you may just do a
little bit of, for example, the visualization for the map and the next person improves it a little bit like for people with blindness or people
with hearing issues, people with colorblindness, everybody feel that they can add on something that's greater than each individual and that will make
sure that you don't burn yourself out or you don't lose interest in that particular issue.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, don't burn out. Minister Tang, always great to have you on the show. Thank you so much.
TANG: Thank you
CHATTERLEY: Audrey Tang there, Taiwan's Digital Minister.
TANG: Live long and prosper.
CHATTERLEY: Likewise. Coming up next on FIRST MOVE.
A national convention unlike any we've seen before. Democrats go virtual as a new poll points to the race for the White House timing. We've got the
latest. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:32:07]
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE. The trading is underway on Wall Street and stocks are beginning the session with gains as we anticipated.
Tech, which underperformed the broader market last week is strongest out of the gate today though stocks do remain near record highs.
That said market participants fear that the uncertain U.S. presidential race has the potential for creating some degree of volatility going
forward.
What about the stocks in the news today including Chinese internet giant jd.com? They are reporting a better than expected 30 percent revenue rise
in the second quarter. Rival, Alibaba will be reporting on later this week.
And a multibillion dollar deal in the pharmaceutical sector, too. Sanofi buying Specialty U.S. drug firm, Principia Biopharma for $3.7 billion.
All right. The top stories today, the latest CNN poll suggesting the race for the White House is tightening. The survey has Joe Biden's lead over
President Trump cut to just four points. Democrats will hope they can regain momentum with a National Convention that kicks off in a few hours'
time.
The challenge is pretty unique for many reasons. For the first time, that convention will be virtual. Jessica Dean is in Wilmington, Delaware where
Joe Biden lives and joins us now.
Jessica, it's virtual. It's coming from all over the country, not just one place at this time around. What should we be looking for?
JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is going to be really something, Julia, as the Democrats work to pull this all together,
remotely. So here's what we know so far. There are four main set stages. One here in Wilmington, Delaware, where you mentioned Joe Biden's hometown.
Of course, that's also where Biden and Kamala Harris will be giving their speeches.
Then in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the convention was originally supposed to be, Los Angeles and New York. From there, they will have speakers spread
out all across the country at different landmarks, historic landmarks, and then they've sent production kits to people at home to film themselves live
reacting.
And the whole idea being that there will be a production crew and directors and producers who will be able to monitor hundreds of feeds coming in from
all across the country to pop up reaction shots like you would normally get within a convention center.
But there's no question about it. It's going to have a very different energy. We're used to having thousands of people inside an arena cheering,
music, all those sorts of things, the balloon drop -- all of that, of course, going by the wayside, but the convention goes on.
So it will be two hours of programming. The speeches will be much shorter. I'm told two to five minutes when typically they can run 15 to 20 minutes,
so much shorter speeches.
And tonight, we're going to hear from quite the spectrum of speakers. It's all about unity and projecting unity across the Democratic Party, but also
America, so that and they are going to have Bernie Sanders, of course, the kind of the key figure of the liberal -- most liberal part of the
Democratic Party, all the way to John Kasich, who is a former Republican Governor of Ohio, who's going to be speaking at the Democratic Convention.
So quite the spectrum there.
[09:35:15]
DEAN: And then, of course, the biggest speech of the night coming from former First Lady, Michelle Obama. Julia, you'll remember four years ago,
her speech at the Democratic National Convention went viral. It had a lot of people talking for a very long time, kind of become her, when they go
low we go high mantra, kind of became the mantra for a lot of people.
So we'll see what the former First Lady has to say tonight.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, can she achieve the same feat this time around? Jessica Dean from Delaware there. Thank you so much for that update.
Let's talk this through. We're now joined by Jim Messina. He was Barack Obama's campaign manager in 2012 and then his deputy Chief of Staff in the
White House. He's now the CEO of the Messina Group.
Jim, fantastic to have you on the show. United if only in their desire for the Democratic Party here to remove Donald Trump from the White House. What
are you hoping to hear from them this week?
JIM MESSINA, CEO, MESSINA GROUP: Well, I think a couple of things. You're exactly right. Right now, our party is defined by our hatred of Donald
Trump, and this week is about building a proactive message about where Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will take the country.
And so, coming out of this convention, the Democrats need to have voters understand very clearly what a Joe Biden presidency would be, and I think
that's the only goal for this week.
Tonight is especially important because as you said earlier, the most popular political figure in American politics is Michelle Obama.
She is the absolute star. She's got the highest approval rating. She speaks to independent voters and her speech tonight is really crucial for the
Democrats to start the Convention on a high note.
CHATTERLEY: In terms of policies, Jim, did they matter this week? Where do you see policy gaps for the Biden-Harris ticket?
MESSINA: No, look, I don't think so. We had -- you know, you've had almost no fight over the party platform. You've seen no sort of, you know, back
and forth between the wings.
We're united by Joe Biden, and by our absolute obsession with beating Donald Trump, and so Trump kind of papers over all of these things.
And you know, Biden has laid out some very clear plans. He built a platform process that involved progressive voices in the party like AOC, like
Bernie, like other folks, and so I think, you have united Democrats on the policy, and you'll see him really try to talk about the future, and try to
talk about what they're going to do, and really make it real for swing voters.
Because the problem is we've never done one of these virtual conventions. I think it is way past time. I think it's absolutely time to kind of blow up
the old thing. It was boring, it went forever.
And now do this in a new way, but we're going to experiment and I think this has a real possibility of getting actual real life voters involved in
what is traditionally just a bunch of party buses.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, keep it snappy and it might resonate more. You were the first, I think, to show what digital first looks like in terms of
campaigning, the Trump campaign harnessed that, too, to great effect in 2016.
How important is the digital spend that the Republicans are planning this week? They've said there'll be more eyes on their ads than there are on
whatever the D.N.C. are doing with their convention in the campaign here.
How important is that going to be, do you think?
MESSINA: Well, I think for Democrats, it's a concern, right? The Trump money machine is going to put everything they have this week on digital and
it's exactly what I would do if I was running his campaign.
Digital is now the most important tool in the arsenals for both parties since we can't have rallies, we can't go door to door, we can't do the
things we traditionally do in American politics.
So digital really is absolutely crucial, and you have both sides ramping up really hard.
I'm co-chairman of the biggest democratic Super PAC against Trump and we're going to match Trump dollar for dollar this week to make sure he doesn't
have a clean shot at these swing voters who are starting to wake up.
Traditionally, swing voters really start to wake up at the conventions and start to say, hey, what is this race? And who should I be for? And so
there's going to be a big contest this week for the eyeballs of American swing voters.
CHATTERLEY: We came in to this week as well hearing that the House is going to be recalled to debate perhaps even vote on measures to support the
Postal Service.
I think for our international viewers, they're sort of astonished by the debacle and the challenges that this represents, Jim. What do you make of
Postal voting and the debate that's going on in the United States right now, how important is this?
MESSINA: Yes, it's crazy. And Americans are surprised we're having this discussion, too. Never has the Postal Service been a political issue.
Usually, they are the people that bring you your mail.
And it's absolutely crazy, because in the COVID times, you know, what we've seen in the primaries is a huge expansion in people who don't want to go to
vote at the normal polling locations because of the virus fears. They want to vote by mail. It's a traditional thing that people can do if they need
to.
And you're seeing really big numbers of people try to sign up, and the fact that the Postal Service now is making it more difficult to get your ballot
is very anti-Democratic. It's absolutely crazy. You're seeing lawsuits all over the place on it.
And now Congress is going to have a hearing on a Saturday, which is very strange in American politics that Congress would work on a Saturday and
come back to D.C. and start to legislate to say to the Postal Service, don't be a partisan deal here. Let's make sure that every American can
vote.
[09:40:41]
CHATTERLEY: Jim, I have about 20 seconds left. Is this a pivotal enough issue to affect an election result?
MESSINA: It could be. The last time in the election, Donald Trump won three states by a total of 77,000 votes. So this is really close. Your own
poll shows it has raised tightening. You know this could be very close and not getting access to your ballots is a very serious challenge.
CHATTERLEY: Yes. That's why it needs discussing. Jim, great to have you with us. Jim Messina, the CEO of Messina Group and former Obama campaign
manager. Sir, great to have you on the show. Thank you.
All right. Still to come, with a vaccine remaining the best hope of beating coronavirus, there has been some concerning news on participation in the
U.S. trials. We've got the details, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE. Researchers at Yale believe a newly developed test will speed up coronavirus testing in the United
States.
The Food and Drug Administration on Saturday granted emergency authorization for the university's saliva test, which doesn't require swabs
or other collection devices.
The country however, is still struggling with test delays and shortages. Diane Gallagher reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Growing concern that the U.S. is testing less for coronavirus, even as over 1,000 Americans die
daily from the disease. The average number of coronavirus tests per day dropping by more than 68,000, compared to the last two weeks of July.
That's according to the COVID Tracking Project.
[09:45:16]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, PROFESSOR, DIVISION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES AT VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: It may be testing fatigue or a
sense that why should I get tested if the results don't come back for a week because they're not useful.
This virus is still spreading widely in the communities. It's not under control yet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GALLAGHER (voice over): As testing has slowed, positive rates increased over the past week in 36 states as of Friday, according to Johns Hopkins
University's Coronavirus Resource Center.
In California, nearly 8,000 new cases reported on Sunday alone. The seven- day positivity rate nearly seven percent.
In Illinois, the State's Governor announcing new restrictions will take effect tomorrow in an area across the border from St. Louis. The Metro East
region showing an eight-day average positivity rate above eight percent.
And Chicago's mayor warning her city is seeing a steady increase in cases, fueled by people ages 18 to 29.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR LORI LIGHTFOOT (D), CHICAGO: We've just got to break through the young people that they're not immune to this virus.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GALLAGHER (voice over): Meanwhile, as schools and universities continue working on their reopening plans, several reporting outbreaks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. DEBORAH BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE COORDINATOR: If we want to have everything working and football and schools, we need to get
the community spread of this virus down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GALLAGHER: In Arizona, one school district is canceling in-person and online classes, due to a large number of staff absences. The J.O. Combs
Unified School District in San Tan Valley, Arizona, says it does not know when instruction will resume.
In Georgia, Cherokee County shutting down a third school due to a cluster of cases. More than a quarter of the students at Creekview High School in
quarantine.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reporting a fourth cluster of cases, this one based in a residence hall.
And at Oklahoma State University, an off-campus sorority house locked down after reporting 23 cases.
This large gathering at an off-campus housing area near the University of North Georgia going viral, sparking concern, because no face masks are
visible. Masks are not mandatory in Georgia.
School outbreaks not concerning White House senior adviser and Trump son- in-law, Jared Kushner, who has young children.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JARED KUSHNER, SON-IN-LAW OF DONALD TRUMP: We absolutely will be sending our kids back to school, and I have no fear in doing so.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHATTERLEY: And now, new concerns over a possible delay in vaccine development. Scientists have not managed to recruit enough black or Latino
volunteers for the clinical trials.
CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has all the details for us. Elizabeth, great to have you on the show. Lots to discuss there.
Let's talk about the recruitment for these trials and what not getting enough people from minority communities volunteering will mean in terms of
potential delay.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So Julia, the Federal law and N.I.H. policy say you have to have diversity in clinical trials.
Ideally, you want the participants in your trial, in this case, there will be 30,000 per trial to reflect the population that is getting sick.
But when we take a look at these numbers, you'll see that is not what is happening.
Let's take a look. So, 350,000 people have registered online in the U.S. to be a part of these clinical trials. Only 10 percent of them are black and
Latino. But more than half the cases in the United States are among people who are black or Latino.
And so Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the N.I.H., he gives this first trial a C grade for recruiting minorities. And it's a big problem, because
there is a point at which the panel of experts, the Safety Board, that's monitoring these trials might say, hey guys, you are not getting the
numbers that you need, we need to take more time and as we all know, we are trying to get a vaccine quickly -- Julia.
CHATTERLEY: So you turned to other countries potentially to be able to sort of boost the minority participation in these trials, or does it have
to be United States based only?
COHEN: You know, it's an interesting question and many trials are being done outside the U.S., but this first one with Moderna, that one is being
done in the U.S.
They don't have trial sites set up, at least not right now, outside the U.S., and it is no quick feat to set up a trial site. You have to do a lot
of structural work. You have to get permissions et cetera, et cetera. So right now, they have 89 sites and they are all in the U.S.
CHATTERLEY: Wow. Okay. I was going to talk to you about saliva, but I've burned up all of my time now, but I thought that was an important question
to ask. We shall reconvene.
COHEN: Yes.
CHATTERLEY: Thank you for that. Elizabeth Cohen.
COHEN: Sounds good.
CHATTERLEY: Okay, coming up on the show, Warren Buffett gold bug? The Oracle of Omaha says goodbye to banks, and hello to bullions. That's next.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:52:01] CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE where U.S. stocks now are mixed in early trading. Let me give you a look. The S&P 500 is so close to making or
hitting a fresh record high. We'll watch that throughout the session.
But two of the leading U.S. banking stocks are pushing lower this morning after a surprise move by Warren Buffett. Clare Sebastian joins me now.
Clare, I'll just clear my throat quickly so I can continue talking. He is paring his bank stocks and he is buying bullion, but it's a tiny size as a
proportion of the fund. We have to have context here, too. Talk us through it.
CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I think this is raising questions not so much because of the scale of what he's done, but because
of how it sort of jars the previous pronouncements that he's made.
He said back in May several times during the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, never bet against America. He also said that banks weren't a major
concern of his right now. That doesn't mean that they couldn't become that in the future, but he didn't see major problems as of now.
Now clearly, in some ways that view has changed. As of this month, he has now reduced his holdings in Wells Fargo by 26 percent and JPMorgan by 62
percent. But he's not getting out of the sector entirely. He is still increasing holdings in Bank of America.
So look, this smacks of a worry about the recovery, perhaps a worry about the sun setting on some of the stimulus measures because they were propping
up a lot of the sort of delinquent loans that banks were putting on their books.
And then we have the diversification into the precious metals, gold with Barrick Gold. But to be clear, he is not actually buying gold, he is buying
a gold miner. Gold prices up by about a third since their March lows.
But Barrick Gold itself is up by some 70 percent. So, this clearly, you know, a sort of good looking stock to Berkshire Hathaway, but he been very
dismissive of gold in the past, so a lot of people looking at this and thinking, has his strategy changed -- Julia.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, in a world of global money printing, it is one of the safe assets perhaps going into precious metals. It is 0.3 percent of
Berkshire's holdings, so I think we have to hold the line on calling him a gold bug right now. Maybe at some point he'll invest in Bitcoin, too and
then the transition will be complete.
He didn't move his holdings of Apple though, I note.
SEBASTIAN: Yes. So this is something that he admits he was a late investor into Apple and he is sticking his ground. It is interesting, Julia, when
you look at the broader market and the way the tech stocks have led Goldman Sachs, in their weekly note, they pointed out that the five largest stocks
-- Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, which Berkshire Hathaway has also invested in -- Google and Facebook -- accounted for 14 percentage points of the
market's 51 percent rally so far.
That's five stocks out of 500. I think that really puts in perspective where we are. And while they have sort of moderated and lost some ground in
the past few weeks, they continue to be the leaders there and I think it's likely that you won't see that strategy from Buffet changing for a while.
CHATTERLEY: This is such a great point to make, Clare that around those five big tech stocks, they are around a fifth of the broader market now in
terms of weighting, so if you look at their strong performance this year and then you deduct that from the overall market performance, it gives you
a very different picture in aggregate for the stock market rally that we've seen this year if you exclude those big winners.
SEBASTIAN: Yes. And they have been what a lot of people have called the sort of lockdown work from home trade, you know, a lot of them,
particularly Amazon is one great example of this, have benefited from people being stuck in their homes, having to order things and their ability
to scale in this climate.
The big have been getting bigger and sort of leaving the smaller ones in their wake. I think, you know, what we've started to see over the past
couple of weeks, it is a bit of a rotation out of tech stocks and into sort of the more value stocks that we see. The likes of Boeing and Caterpillar
and all of that, and that is smacked of some increased confidence in the recovery.
But, Julia, I think it's safe to say that as we enter this next stage with sort of the Sugar Rush that some have called it from the reopenings waning
in the hopes for a vaccine taking over as the main driver of growth in the stock market, I think we're going to continue to see volatility there.
Yes, it is going to be an interesting final quarter of the year. Clare Sebastian, thank you so much for that.
All right. That just about wraps up the show. You've been watching FIRST MOVE. I'm Julia Chatterley. Stay safe.
And I'll see you same time, same place tomorrow.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:00:00]
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