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CNN Live Event/Special
Kamala Harris Makes History as Vice Presidential Nominee; Barack Obama Delivers Blistering Attack on Trump; Obama Warns of Trump's Abuse of Power in DNC Speech; Trump Falsely Accuses Obama of Spying; Schools, Colleges Scramble to Contain Virus Outbreaks. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired August 20, 2020 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Welcome to special live coverage of a history making night 3 of the 2020 DNC. Of course, coverage continues here on CNN, all the way through. Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon here, for you and we have the privilege of reporting on quite a night.
Like we said, history making night for the V.P. nominee. And a history breaking night for former President Obama. He gave the heaviest assessment of President Trump we've heard in this convention.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: It was unprecedented, Chris, unlike we've ever heard or seen from a former president, criticism of a sitting president. We will talk a lot about that. The night did belong to, I would, say the former president but especially it belonged to Kamala Harris.
The first woman of color on a major party presidential ticket, Chris, accepting her groundbreaking vice presidential nomination in Delaware. That's something to celebrate, whatever your politics are.
This was about -- we always use that term "real Americans," this is what real America is about, the diversity that you saw taking place this evening.
CUOMO: You know, many years ago, in 1984, my father spoke about the promise of that election with Mondale and Ferraro, but it may have had a better chance of coming through today, where he said that we are going to have a nominee born not to the blood of kings but to the blood of pioneers and immigrants and we will have America's first woman vice president, a child of immigrants.
And she will open with one magnificent stroke, a whole new frontier for the United States. My father said that in 1984 about the ticket. But it is just as true today, and a lot more likely to win.
LEMON: I was a senior in high school and I remember that speech, in 1984. Yes, I was the class of 1984 and I've got to tell, you I watched your father give that speech. And I was in tears. Just as I watched, I don't know if you remember the speech Jesse Jackson gave and I was in tears, two great orators talking about, at least having premonitions about giving voice to what could happen in the future.
On this night, Kamala Harris, a Black American woman of Jamaican and Indian descent, look at that. A U.S. Senator, finally breaking those parts down, the glass ceiling, the nominee celebrating onstage.
You see her there with Joe Biden and Jill Biden and her husband, Doug. I have to say, this, Chris, and you understand, this is a powerful moment. You had a Black woman married to a white man, an interracial couple onstage and two different generations of Americans there, standing, there accepting her nomination as vice President of the United States. It's historic.
CUOMO: Absolutely and this is a litmus test for the country. If what you see on that stage speaks to you of what America is and what America was meant to be, you know, an experiment in diversity and love meeting its own definitions, then you get it one way.
If you look at it and you are bothered by it and you see it as some effort to force some different standard on you, then this is an election that is going to matter, because I believe that about this country.
I think we have given ourselves too much credit for all embracing the values of diversity and the idea of equality. I know it's in the founding documents. But I don't know that it's ever really been the reality here.
We have woken up to that in the last few years, last few months specifically, even this pandemic is waking us up to the reality that people in this country don't get treated the same.
If what you see on that stage shows you the promise of this country, that's one group of people. If you look at it and say, this is what you want America not to be, that's a different group of people, very much at odds.
LEMON: Are you reading my mind?
As I was coming up on the elevator to meet you, to do the show with you, I was thinking, if this is the America that you believe in, that you believe what the Constitution says, a more perfect union, that all men are created equal, right, then, tonight was -- exemplified that.
If you are a bigot, if you are one of the Proud Boys, if you are an anti-Semite, if you are a neo-Nazi, if you are the people who were marching in Charlottesville, that is your worst nightmare, what you saw on that stage, because the possibility of what's to become and what America could be and should be was -- is possibly coming to light and may come into existence on November 3rd.
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LEMON: That's your biggest nightmare.
CUOMO: This is a hard thing for people to hear but people who support Trump have made a deal with that type of animus.
There is no coincidence that many of the groups that you have mentioned, Don, support this president. It's not a coincidence that when Kamala Harris became the nominee, he made a birther point about it.
It's not a coincidence that, during Obama's speech, he was lying to the country in real time about President Obama. That's what he's about. It is working for him.
Will it work for him now?
We will see.
But we have never heard Obama, by the way, not known as a bare knuckle brawler, let alone do what he did tonight. No other former president I've ever heard say anything like what he did tonight in the setting that he chose and the darkness that he projected.
You know, this convention is not supposed to be a happy time, we are not in a happy time. This is a hard time. And he scared people tonight and rightly so. He scared them with the reality and the potential for what this sitting president is willing to do to win.
LEMON: Roll it, Mr. Director.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have sat in the Oval Office with both of the men who are running for president. I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies.
I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously.
But he never did. For close to four years now, he's shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.
Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't. And the consequences of that failure are severe: 170,000 Americans dead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Heavy. Heavy. Heavy words, heavy moment and, look, what did the president have to come back at him with?
"Obama spied on me, his campaign spied on me, Obama didn't have a campaign, he was term limited."
Oh, he just misspoke, all right, great.
He wasn't spied on, either, and you know who says that?
His own people, the guy he put in charge of the FBI, Christopher Wray, says he wouldn't call the surveillance that was going on spying. And there is no proof that the president had anything to do with it because there were FISA applications.
And if he doesn't think that they had good reason to look at Paul Manafort, that he doesn't understand anything about law and order. And he knows all these things, Don. He's lying to people anyway but, more importantly than the man and the message, is the moment.
My brother, these are heavy days, people are getting sick, two out of three of us now know somebody who's had COVID.
LEMON: And that's what this election is going to be about. But I have to say, we should -- we're talking about the former president a lot. And this was Kamala Harris' night, we are going to pay her -- give her honors, because she deserves it.
But I cannot really speak enough about how unprecedented this is, what the former president did.
I talked to you last night, Chris, and said to you, there is this gentleman's agreement that current and former presidents have. You don't criticize a sitting president. You barely criticized the president before. You may say that we are in this mess because of his administration digging a hole.
But after you leave office, you don't criticize the sitting president. That's a gentleman's agreement.
The president had been, you know, criticizing, I guess, you know, without saying his name in a roundabout way, President Trump; talking about the democracy being on the line.
But what I said to you last night is that I don't think he had any other choice but to say President Trump's name tonight, especially considering how his wife, Michelle Obama, the former first lady, feels about President Trump and how she says and writes about in her book, him putting her family in danger, her children.
The current president had no other choice. He had to do it. And I think he wanted to go further. First of all, I don't think he wanted to do, it I think he felt he had to do it. But I think since he did it, I think he was holding back a little bit. I think he wanted to go further, he wanted to call him out on his you-know-what, his ish, as we say, call him out more, tell people about the lies that he tells every single day.
His own people believe those lies. His own people know that he will cheat to win.
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LEMON: And it is OK with them that he cheats to win. The former president said it, this administration, this president,
especially considering the trick that he tried to play without the American people knowing about it, hoping they wouldn't say anything, with the post office, will do anything to win, even destroy the democracy. Here's the former president, watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Any chance of success depends entirely on the outcome of this election. This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that's what it takes for them to win.
So we have to get busy, building it up by pouring all our efforts into these 76 days and by voting like never before for Joe and Kamala and candidates up and down the ticket, so that we leave no doubt about what this country that we love stands for today and for all our days to come.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: A good echo there of what Michelle Obama had said about, go get your ballot, a good dovetail with what Kamala Harris had said --
LEMON: A call to action.
CUOMO: Yes, about, ask yourself, why don't they want us to vote?
Why do they make it harder to vote?
Why do they have questions about maybe it being too easy to vote?
You know, this is a very direct message during a dark time and, by the way, being a fellow Philadelphian, the home of 1776 and saying 76 more days, this is not a time for subtlety.
What you were saying about saying his name or what I call the Voldemort effect, you know, he who shall not be named, it's no time for subtlety.
We are literally dying because of governmental inaction. Our kids aren't going to go back to school in many places because of governmental inaction. And we don't have any answer that will change those things anytime soon.
Now I don't know what Biden's plan is, he and Kamala Harris are going to have to say it, I know they'll say they'll do more. We'd better hear it, it's time to make the case.
But tonight, she didn't just make history because of what she is. She's going to add to this ticket because of how she is. This woman is a prosecutor in chief. She will throw straight punches that will land directly in the face of Donald Trump.
And she does it with facts, she's done it in hearings, she's done it in the debates. That's what she's going to add to this ticket. Yes, she makes history by identification and rightly so. We should be proud of it as Americans, that we are able to embrace diversity still, even in an environment of such division.
But it's how she will conductor herself during this campaign that I think does Biden the biggest favor.
LEMON: Let's talk about more fact checking. You mentioned that him tweeting tonight in all caps, you know, about spying, you know.
CUOMO: Every part of it is wrong.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: -- "Obama didn't have a campaign." So that's wrong.
LEMON: "He spied on my campaign and got caught."
CUOMO: He did not spy on your campaign. Obama, there is no proof that he directed any activity of any kind of surveillance towards this president.
And if the president wants to play the game of, oh, well, he's the president, well, then he has a hell of a lot to answer for because, as president, on his watch, institutions have been doing screwy things and for bad reason.
Is that his fault?
He doesn't want to own the pandemic. But he wants Obama to own surveillance he had nothing to do with, that went through a FISA court.
And what they were looking at and who they were looking at were people who gave the reason to it. It wasn't about the Trump campaign, Trump was never picked back. He put his pit bull, Nunes, on this.
Nunes did a whole discovery on this. And he found, yes, a couple of these staffers may have been picked up in conversations, collaterally. That happens, by the way, when you're doing surveillance. Usually, if I'm surveilling you talking to somebody, I'm going to pick up the person you're talking to --
LEMON: You're making too much sense right now.
CUOMO: No but you've got to say because every time he --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: There's another one.
CUOMO: -- he tells a lie, have to check the lie with the truth.
LEMON: You got to check the lie with the truth many times, because, that old saying, the lie goes around the world before the truth gets out of bed.
Another one he talked about, he said, why did you endorse Joe Biden so late and you didn't want to -- there it is. "Why did you refused to endorse Slow Joe until it was all -- "
CUOMO: Remind me which former president has endorsed him?
LEMON: You took the words out of my mouth. That's exactly -- and you know this, I asked you this earlier, is it unusual to endorse someone up until almost the time of the convention?
CUOMO: No, and not only is it not unusual, it would've been wrong for Obama to jump in early, because if you respect the process, especially in a party -- again, no time for subtlety.
If the Democratic Party wants to reflect what this country looks like and is about then getting an old white guy was a challenge. Now I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm not saying Joe Biden is the right guy or the wrong guy. It's not my, place but what I'm saying is for Obama to jump in early, for his boy, when it supposed to be a fair process, that would've been wrong and he would've been rightly criticized for it.
He did the right thing staying out, Joe Biden had to make his own way.
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LEMON: I think it's interesting how he does the Slow Joe thing -- they were talking about Joe Biden's acuity or whatever.
Have they ever seen the president give a speech or try to read a teleprompter or say "thigh land" and "yo semite."
CUOMO: Yo, Semites!
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CUOMO: The only Jewish park in America.
LEMON: "United States of America," like what are they talking about?
Have they ever seen this president try to speak English or deliver a sentence with correct grammar or a complete statement or string a thought together?
CUOMO: There is no worry about hypocrisy when you are looking to bring hateration in this dancerie -- Mary J. Blige.
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LEMON: We have a lot to discuss and we're going to give Kamala harries her due tonight and there were also other speakers, other people who spoke tonight, Chris Cuomo.
You get me fired up and ready to go.
(LAUGHTER)
LEMON: You know who that is (LAUGHTER)
LEMON: So listen, now that the Obama floodgates have officially been opened, how far will he go after President Trump in the run up to the election?
And how low will Trump go in response?
Three party power players. There they all are, fired up and ready to go -- after the break.
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SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I am here tonight as a testament to the dedication of generations before me, women and men who believed so fiercely in the promise of equality, liberty and justice for all. I accept your nomination for Vice President of the United States of America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: That was Kamala Harris embracing her history making moment. Let's bring in now Terry McAuliffe, Karen Finney, Ryan Lizza.
If you didn't know there wasn't an audience there, you wouldn't know. I think she delivered the speech perfectly. Everything was on time I think except for the applause and -- but that's what we're dealing with right now.
Good evening everybody. Thank you for joining.
Karen, I have to start with you. Obviously, Black woman. This must have been -- I've been hearing people, "I'm in tears," "This was amazing," she's the first woman of color on a major party ticket accepting the V.P. nomination as a Democrat.
Seeing a Black woman, a woman of Jamaican-Indian descent, daughter of immigrants on stage, I'm sorry to keep building this up for you.
KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You're trying to make me cry again.
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FINNEY: I'm wearing mascara for you.
What are you trying to do to me? Oh, I mean, she called the roll. She said the names. She told the history. I loved that she recognized that part of what made this moment possible was Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I mean, she said all the things. Right?
After such a beautiful video, featuring her sister, her stepdaughter and her niece in such a beautiful family --
LEMON: Her mother.
FINNEY: -- her mother and the American journey.
Oh, I was all kinds of (INAUDIBLE) crying. My phone was blowing up with so many Black women, many who you know, who were part of this journey, supporting her in this effort, supporting a Black woman.
To see it happen, in some ways I'm almost speechless but I just have to say, to have someone see us and hear us and feel us and know our experience, it's forever changed the history of Black women in this country.
LEMON: If you're sitting at home, because sometimes I can read, I know what people are feeling and saying, if you're sitting at home, saying, oh, my gosh, is that big of a deal?
Think about how many other women of color have been nominated to be the Vice President of the United States. Think about that. Think about how many women have been on the ticket either as vice president or president. Not a whole lot.
So to downplay this moment I think would be silly and not meeting the moment and giving the moment its due.
Terry McAuliffe, Kamala Harris gave the most important speech of her life and, like the former president Barack Obama, she brought a sense of urgency. Take a listen and we'll talk.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: And years from now, this moment will have passed.
And our children and our grandchildren will look in our eyes and they're going to ask us, where were you when the stakes were so high?
They will ask us, what was it like?
And we will tell them, we will tell them not just how we felt; we will tell them what we did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Terry?
TERRY MCAULIFFE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: What a night. You couldn't duplicate what happened tonight. The historic nature of the first woman of color to be nominated for Vice President of the United States.
And tonight she really introduced herself to the American public, she had run for president but not enough folks were paying attention back then. She talked about her whole background of being a daughter of immigrants, her whole life story. It was so impactful.
Put that on top of having President Barack Obama, who is probably one of the most even-keeled people you'd ever meet, (INAUDIBLE) out there today against Donald Trump like -- when President Obama came in and campaigned for me, he gave me talking points to go after my opponent.
He wouldn't do it. he said nice things about me. For him today to go out and do what he did and lay it out there really shows Barack Obama is concerned about our nation's democracy.
He said Trump could not grow into his job because he just was unable to do.
It was a historic night and then the whole issues of gun violence, of violence against women, climate change, this was really a night for everyone.
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MCAULIFFE: This is something that makes the Democratic Party very proud in the message we deliver to the America today.
LEMON: My mom said she wanted President Obama's angry interpreter to come out and speak tonight. She wanted to see some Keegan Key as well talk about the former president. But I think he did a good enough job on his own talking about the former president. I'm surprised he went as far as he did.
MCAULIFFE: This is unique but he's an even keeled person. But he is so angry about what's going on to our country. He feels for the people whose lives have been uprooted. As he talked about the loss of jobs and millions of people who now have COVID.
And President Trump just sits there and does absolutely nothing. He hoped that President Trump could rise to the occasion and be president, as he said tonight, he couldn't doesn't have the ability to do it.
LEMON: Thought he would rise to the job and he couldn't.
Ryan, I want to bring you in. President Obama's speech was not the typical convention speech. Right?
I don't know if it was his best speech oratory but it was maybe his most significant speech because he took on the president directly. He broke the conventional norms about criticizing a sitting president. He said democracy is on the line.
How did you see it?
RYAN LIZZA, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think that's it. Everyone points to the 2004 speech and hope and change and there's not a blue America and a red America, that almost seems like political cliches with the seriousness of what he was talking about tonight, where he's basically saying -- not basically -- he is saying that his successor is a threat to American democracy.
We've never had a president come out and just say that. And a whole party organized this week around that belief.
I just want to say one thing about what you were struggling with before is talking about this Obama speech, talking about the seriousness with which he's approaching this issue.
And you know, also talking about the history of Kamala Harris and the importance to African American women that this moment represents. You know it's like a family having a funeral and a wedding on the same day and you don't know which way to go when discussing it.
I think what we will look back though -- and this speech by Obama, it was just historic. We've never had a president laid out that way. And I think the obstacle that Democrats have is -- when you have John Kasich, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, all personal and ideological differences between all of them are wide. You have liberals, socialists, and conservatives all agreeing that Trump needs to go because democracy is threatened.
Then Obama putting a exclamation point on that. Yet the obstacle is that almost half the country doesn't actually believe that.
So how do Democrats who believe that in their bones, grab that second half of the country by the lapels and get them to see that?
I think that is the struggle for Biden and this convention.
LEMON: So, Karen, let's talk about this. I think he was speaking directly to Americans but I think in a special sense, in some way, African Americans -- Ryan touched on it just a moment ago -- it was like speaking to a family. Right?
Where he talked about our ancestors, then he talked about the young people who are out there on the streets, who have been out there on the streets this summer, fighting for change.
And then he says, "I have seen that same spirit rising these past few years, folks of every age and background who packed city centers and airports and rural roads so that families wouldn't be separated."
And then he talked about the Black Lives Matter movement and he talked about how the young people -- which I've been saying as well. Those young people are pulling us into the now, pulling us into the future. And the old folks are fighting it.
And he is saying, no, this is what democracy should look like. This is what America should look like. This is what America was destined to be. And if you don't go out in this election and make a difference then we may not see that America for quite a long time or it may be the end of the republic because this administration will do whatever it can, even if it means cheat to win.
FINNEY: That's exactly right. Look, I think part of the reason as we look back at this, the reason we will say that Obama gave the speech that he gave is because he speaking to the moment that we are in.
When you have a president who is moving mailboxes, who is messing with people getting their medicines, who has made it clear he will do anything to win, you know, this is all hands on deck moment. This is like a leave it all on the scale, moment like Michelle Obama told us earlier in the week. Bring a paper bag dinner and breakfast and lunch if you have to.
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I think they both just felt -- and I think so many speakers tonight felt like it better -- you've got to say it. This is your moment to say it, so I'm going to say it plain as I can, I'm going to say it as clearly as I can, as directly as I can.
And I think it was important to balance that kind of message that speaks to, you know, Democrats, as well as what they've also been trying to do in this convention, which is this, you know, building a bridge to -- and speaking when I do think a lot of them have been in focus groups where former Trump supporters will say, I thought I was going to get change, but this isn't what I meant. It's too mean. It's too divisive. I don't like it.
And so I think that's part of why it's also trying to speak to people and -- and voice what they're feeling, and I think that's what we saw tonight and over the last several nights.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Terry, I think it was significant. I thought the most significant moment was -- of this -- of President Obama's speech was his administration has shown it will tear down democracy, tear our democracy down if that's what it takes to win. That is a remarkable thing to say, Terry.
TERRY MCAULIFFE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There's no question, and there is no -- let's be clear, Don. There is no low that Donald Trump will not go. He mentally cannot get it through his head that he could go down as a one-term president of the United States. Mentally, emotionally, psychologically, Donald Trump cannot deal with that.
And he's going to try and do anything he can to steal the election, to do what he has to do. And listen, we know what he's going to try and do. On election day, he's got a hope all his people go vote in person, and that night he can declare himself the victor. There's 100 million ballots to be counted that have been cast around the country. He's going to say, Oh, they're all from Russia and China, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm the winner. This is it.
We know what he's trying to do. We have lawsuits going on all over the country. I don't want to chill anyone from thinking they should not get out and vote. They need to do it early, in those states that have early vote. Do it in person; do it by mail. But Don, listen, there is nothing he will not do. He will use our
military if he has to. He will do anything to keep that job, and that's why I think you've seen all of these speakers.
LEMON: Final word. We lost Terry.
Listen, fasten your seatbelts. The next 76 days, they're really going to be something like you have never, ever seen before. Terry, thank you. Ryan, thank you, and Karen thank you so much. Celebrate. I'm celebrating with you. All the -- all the ladies in my life and the women in my family of all ethnicities are celebrating with you, so enjoy this moment. Congratulations. OK?
FINNEY: Don, thank you.
LEMON: Thank you.
We're going to stay focused on this -- the historic nature of this night, but up next, we're also going to take a closer look at the astonishingly false claims by this president while a former president was addressing America. We'll be right back, right after this.
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CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: As a matter of fact, this is a dark time. A pandemic is killing us, making countless sick, crushed the economy for workers, keeping our kids from normal school life in too many places, and we have a president who refuses to lead us through it. He actually told us, I take no responsibility. He is more intent on tearing us apart, despite it being a time that we are desperate for unity.
In this context, former President Obama took a message to Philadelphia, the place of our founding. The founding of a democracy. And he gave a grave moment a grave message. He called out Trump by name, and Trump issued a furious thread of tweets in all caps.
Question for us now is did Trump's tweets help make Obama's case against him? Jeremy Diamond joins us now.
He was tweeting in real time.
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: He was, and that just tells you that he was watching this speech, as he has been many others this week. But this speech perhaps, Chris, hit home for the president more than any other, because the president and the former President Obama have had this kind of ongoing relationship. A push and pull, if you will, that kind of defines this moment that we find ourselves in American history.
You know, President Trump rose to power, in many ways, in contrast, in direct contrast to former President Obama. In fact, many of the president's aides still tell me today that they believe that former -- then-President Obama's speech in 2011 at the White House Correspondents Dinner, where he mocked then-businessman Donald Trump openly, was at least one of the reasons that helped push Donald Trump to run for president.
So there has been this push and pull, and there is no question that President Obama gets under President Trump's skin, perhaps like no other.
And what we saw from the president this evening was responding in a way that is natural to him, and that was going to Twitter, all caps, airing of grievances, and of course, airing a series of falsehoods and conspiracy theories.
Let's begin with the first one here, Chris, which was this notion the president tweeting in all caps, again, "HE SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN, AND GOT CAUGHT!" Both of those statements patently false by the president here. There is no evidence linking President Obama to surveillance or spying on President Trump's campaign. And he certainly didn't get caught, because of course, there was nothing illegal that President Obama did.
Of course, the president here seems to be referring to that counterintelligence investigation that did look into the Trump campaign in connections with Russia.
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And as we saw just this week, of course, by -- in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report, which is a Republican-led panel, that shows that Paul Manafort, one-time President Trump's campaign chairman, was sharing internal polling data with a Russian operative.
And of course, we know that Russia actively interfered in the 2016 election in order to help Donald Trump and to hurt Hillary Clinton.
But as you said, Chris, ultimately, the president's response tonight really just goes directly to the point that we heard, not only from former President Obama but also former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tonight and from many of the other speakers at the DNC this entire week.
CUOMO: Well, he's making a point, though.
DIAMOND: And that is that President Trump is not the man for the moment.
CUOMO: And look, you know, you've got to take the president at his own words, not just the former president but the current president. He knows the answers to the questions that he asked. He knows he's making false assertions. He's been told.
You know, the FBI was looking at Manafort, even before the campaign. And they were looking at Carter Page even before the campaign. Those are the guys that they were looking at through the FISA. And you know, you want to talk about unmasking, you want to talk about all these procedures, but he knows the answer.
He knows that any president coming out during a primary process would be unusual. Not waiting until a primary is over. He knows. He knows Kamala Harris didn't call Biden a bigot, but he says it anyway.
So Jeremy, the question is, do you think this is just regular form for Trump? Or are the voices around him saying, Oh boy, this is really getting to him?
DIAMOND: Well, there's no question that over the last month or so President Trump has begun to recognize how careless his chances are for reelection. It took him longer than it took most political observers and most aides inside his own campaign.
But the president is now at a point where he recognizes how difficult it will be for him to get reelected. And I also think he recognizes the power of President Obama's oratory, and that is one of the ways in which President Obama constantly gets under President Trump's skin, because of the fact that he knows that he is not the same kind of orator that Obama is. He's not able to deliver one of those kinds of searing, high-minded speeches. There's no question President Trump has his skills as an orator, but they are of a completely different variety. They're much more of the rabble rouser variety that we see of him so well on the campaign trail.
But I do think, to this point, that President Trump's response tonight did exactly what Democrats were hoping to get out of him, which was to get a response, and to get a response that, frankly, plays into all of those things that the Democrats were talking about at the convention here, that President Trump is not the man for the moment, that he's unfit to serve as president.
And also it feeds into the problems that many Americans have had with the president. Even some of his supporters, whenever I go to the president's rallies: Oh, I wish she would tweet less. And this is the exact way that the president chooses to now respond, of course.
And beyond that, of course, it's not just the tweets. It's even earlier today, when we heard President Trump praising the QAnon conspiracy theory.
CUOMO: Yes.
DIAMOND: Because many of his own supporters believe in that, and fore solely that reason, of course. And so it does seem like, as we are hearing this message from Democrats, President Trump continues to prove Democrats' case, as they see it, at least, in terms of him not being fit for office. Democrats are certainly getting the contrast that they would like here.
CUOMO: It doesn't seem to be anybody who sets up as an enemy to the institutions of our democracy that he doesn't want to shelter, in one way or another, if they want to support his candidacy.
Jeremy, thank you very much.
You know, Don, I think one of the interesting aspects of this is not just as simple as him taking the bait. I don't think he's tweeted anything tonight in the context of what's going on with this convention that is true. You know, usually it's he's spinning it. He's taking his own thing. He's taking advantage with the facts; he's being a little misleading. But he's just saying things that he knows aren't true, in succession.
LEMON: Yes. Well, is that really new?
But tonight, there is a sense of desperation, and even beyond tonight. I think Jeremy is -- you asked Jeremy the -- the right question. And I'm paraphrasing here.
But you said, is it a sign of how he feels over the -- you know, he's felt over the last few days, or at least coming -- going into this election? I was on with Anderson earlier, and Anderson asked me about this whole thing that he has with Goodyear Tires. He's upset because of something they said, that they couldn't --
CUOMO: Big company in a swing state.
LEMON: In a swing state. That they couldn't wear shorts or attire that had political jargon on it. A "Make America" -- a MAGA hat or a MAGA shirt or something like that. And the president is calling for Goodyear's cancellation.
He's supposed to be against cancel culture. He's -- he's the one, and his party, and his followers, are the ones who call Democrats or anyone who's not a Republican, or who doesn't get on the Trump train, snowflakes. He is the biggest snowflake of them all, and the way he's acting now is a sign of desperation. He is desperate.
He is tweeting and saying things exponentially now that aren't true. He just used to do in rapid succession. Now it's, you know, machine gun fire, all things that are not true. You can go through and fact check almost anything he says, and most of it is -- is not true. He's tweeting -- he's tweeting stuff, and cosigning QAnon.
What -- what kind of world do we live in where even Republicans are saying, These people are -- it's a bunch of whack-jobs, yet he is cosigning it?
CUOMO: If it is good for him, then it is good for all.
LEMON: Chris, it is not good for him. It is good for his ego, because he believes that these people support him.
CUOMO: That's right.
LEMON: They're going to say crazy, wacky things about people he calls --
CUOMO: That's right.
LEMON: -- Democrats and people who are not his supporters. But that's not going to change anything.
CUOMO: That's why he'll say the guys with the guns in Michigan, who said they don't want to wear the mask, Oh, you should talk to them.
LEMON: But look --
CUOMO: They're probably good people. There are good people on both sides.
LEMON: Yes, but let me finish this.
CUOMO: We should keep the statues.
LEMON: Let me finish this.
CUOMO: Go ahead.
LEMON: Even his own people know he's lying. He's not expanding his base. He is desperate.
Look at the polls. He's making mistakes. You do not cancel a job- giving company, a job-creating company in a swing state when you are wanting to be reelected. You do not support conspiracy theorists. You do not support white supremacists and racists. You -- you don't call for the cancellation of people when that is everything that is supposed to be against what you stand for.
This -- he is desperate, trust me. And again, as the former president said, he will do anything he can, even if that means destroying this democracy to win.
CUOMO: I've got a -- I've got a question.
LEMON: It is what it is, as the former first lady said. It is what it is.
CUOMO: It is what it is, no question about it. But you know, I'm going to have Harry Enten come in and look through the numbers. How can a president who sees Black Lives Matter as a leftie movement --
LEMON: It's not a political movement.
CUOMO: -- be doing better with black voters than he was against Hillary Clinton? How is he doing better now after saying Black Lives Matter is a leftie movement? I don't get it. But we'll talk to Harry about it. Let's take a quick break.
LEMON: Yes, all right. You believe that?
CUOMO: Laughing Don.
LEMON: I don't believe it. It ain't true. Sorry.
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[00:51:50]
LEMON: The coronavirus really front and center in politics and at the Democratic National Convention.
U.S. COVID cases already passed the five and a half million mark. New outbreaks in schools could speed up the climb. This is just a snapshot of some of the major colleges and universities reporting positive cases. Some seeing just a few but others, like the University of Notre Dame, now report more than 200. And that's just two weeks into the semester.
Meantime, COVID fears continue to plague K through 12 schools. The most worrisome at the moment, Mississippi. Nearly 2,000 students there have been forced into quarantine due to possible exposure. This is serious.
Let's discuss now with Dr. Leana Wen, who oversaw school health for more than 480 schools in Baltimore.
Doctor, thank you so much. I appreciate you joining us.
As more colleges and universities are reporting these cases, and many are -- they're still holding off on going fully virtual. They're hoping that isolation and quarantine, that that's enough. Do you see the systems in place to do -- to do that? To keep people from getting sick? To keep students safe?
DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Yes, it's going to be really challenging. What we are discovering is that opening schools, reopening schools is the easy part. Keeping them open and doing that safely, that's the hard part.
And I think it's going to take a combination of factors. There's institutional. So the school has to have all these factors in place. What you mention about tasting, contact tracing, also isolation and quarantine.
There's the individual responsibility, as well. People will have to recognize that their own actions are going to influence whether the school will be able to stay open.
And then ultimately it's a societal responsibility, because it's just really hard to keep schools open when you have virus that's escalating throughout the community.
LEMON: So let's talk about the University of Notre Dame. One, the schools going virtual. But it's only two weeks, two weeks, and it's after more than 200 positive cases already. I mean, that's pretty astounding.
Should that be the threshold? At what point do schools need to say, You know what? This is it? We're going to go fully remote?
WEN: Yes. I think for every institution, it's going to be different, because it's going to depend on their capabilities. Do they have enough testing? What's their plan that they already have in place for isolation and quarantine?
I think it also depends on whether most of their students live on campus, and they have more control, if you will, over those on-campus students versus if they live off-campus. It's hard to make them isolate and quarantine and then trust that they'll do so off-campus. And so I do hope, though, that all schools, all universities are
watching these initial places that are having these outbreaks, because they all have to have a plan. And I hope that they will establish their metrics in advance, so that it will be really clear to everyone when it's time to to pull the plug and go to all virtual instruction.
LEMON: Let's go to Massachusetts now, announcing that -- just announcing that it's going to require kids enrolled in public schools and daycares to get a flu vaccine. How significant is that as we enter the fall?
WEN: It's really important, because I do fear that, come the fall, we're going to face this double whammy of flu and COVID. And anything that we can do to reduce either of these is going to be really important.
[00:55:08]
And so certainly, wearing masks, hand hygiene, physical distancing is important, but then you have the addition of the additional flu vaccine. That the flu vaccine is 40 to 60 percent effective. It's certainly not 100 percent effective. But if you can reduce flu by that much, that's significant. And I hope that and would expect that other -- other states and other locales are going to follow suit, too.
LEMON: Let's see. There are about 16 vaccines out there that schools require. Why hasn't this been one of them in the past?
WEN: Yes, it's a good question. I think that, you know, usually perhaps the thought is that the flu season isn't -- it's bad, but it's pretty difficult every time to get every one of these students vaccinated every year, as opposed to these other vaccines that are done on a much less frequent basis.
And -- but I think this is a different situation now. We're in the middle of a pandemic, and this is one not simple step but necessary step that's going to be important come the fall and winter.
LEMON: Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate it.
I don't know if my co-host, Chris Cuomo, is there and ready. I want to ask him a question if he is around. Chris, are you there?
CUOMO: I'm always here, just in case, Don.
LEMON: Let me ask you, and you may not want to say this on television, because I know that you're --
CUOMO: It's good that you're asking me on television.
LEMON: You're thinking about what to do with your Cha-Cha and what to do with Mario. Have you decided about sending them back to school yet?
CUOMO: We are probably going to succumb. And I put it that way on purpose. You know my wife very well. You know she's been doing all the research and paying attention. I have been taken out of the process because of my disgust. I can't believe these schools.
Now, my kids go to private schools, OK? We pay a lot of money. These are supposedly the best institutions that there are, the best minds. Lots of resources. No ideas, no ideas. All this available public space that could have been used. They did it in 1918 during the pandemic in New York city: teaching outside, finding tents, finding ways to put kids together. Finding resources. Especially schools with money.
But instead, everybody has fallen back to the hedge of a hybrid, which to me is the worst of both words. We'll let the kids go sometimes, so they can get exposed to each other in a testing environment that we can't really count well.
And then they get to come home and disrupt the home life, as well, for people who have to work. My wife runs her business out of the house. There are going to be problems now.
So we're going to have to go along to get along. But the frustration is we didn't have to be here.
Now I've got my oldest. Don knows my family very well, so he's heard all this. But you know, it's no time for subtlety. I keep saying that.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: My oldest is getting ready to go to college. This was her big year. And yes, it's good to learn hard lessons about life. It's good to know it doesn't just coast along the way you want it to. But now SATs are optional. Spending all this money on the tutors so the kid can do well on the test, and now the test is not going to count, you know? The application process, you can't visit any of the schools.
The other kid is starting high school. My son is going to start high school and not be meeting anybody.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: He's going to be doing it at home. The kids stink doing it at home. They're not these self-starting kids. You know my kids. They're like me, like a bunch of saplings (ph). You know, I've got a 10-year- old who's going into fifth grade.
LEMON: Yes. Well, listen, at this moment, I'm glad I don't have kids.
CUOMO: And it's all because --
LEMON: I want them.
CUOMO: -- we didn't do what we needed to do.
LEMON: But we didn't do it right. And we've got much more to talk about. We're going to continue this conversation.
The former president, Barack Obama, mentioned this, as well. This is a subject we're going to continue to tackle the next couple of hours. We're here on CNN. And they'll do it even after Chris and I leave tonight. We'll be right back.
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