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Trump Nominates Judge Amy Coney Barret As Supreme Court Justice; Interview With Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI); Pennsylvania's Mail- in Ballots Under Early Scrutiny; Sen. Schumer Addresses Trump SCOTUS Nominee. Aired 6-7p ET
Aired September 26, 2020 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that is exactly what is happening with the shoe being on the other foot now. So, I expect to see her own words coming up in this confirmation hearing as well on that point.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Abby and everybody else, standby. We have a lot more of our special coverage here in THE SITUATION ROOM.
[18:00:12]
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
BLITZER: And welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. This is a special edition of THE SITUATION ROOM and we begin with the breaking news.
The President of the United States making his third nomination to the US Supreme Court only 38 days before the November 3rd Election. Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a historic nomination that could cement a conservative majority on the court for many, many years. He made the announcement just a little while ago in the last hour in the White House Rose Garden, nominating Judge Coney Barrett to fill the chair left vacant by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The President praised Judge Coney Barrett for her keen intellect, piercing legal analysis and generous spirit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Amy Coney Barrett will decide cases based on the text of the Constitution as written. As Amy has said, being a judge takes courage. You are not there to decide cases as you may prefer, you are there to do your duty and to follow the law, wherever it may take you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: All right, let's get some more on the President's choice of Judge Amy Coney Barrett and where this process heads from here.
I want to bring in Jeremy Diamond. He is over at the White House for us. Phil Mattingly is up on Capitol Hill. That's where the attention will now shift to Judge Barrett's confirmation process. Phil, we've learned some details have already been set aside for Senate hearings. I'd like you to stand by, again, our viewers up to speed on that. But Jeremy Diamond, you're there at the White House first. I want to set the scene for us what exactly happened -- for viewers who are just tuning in right now. It was a very moving, powerful ceremony in the Rose Garden. Lots of people there and once again, very few of them wearing masks and they were pretty crowded together.
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, listen, President Trump came out and really emphasized the importance of this pick. It is rare that a President actually gets the opportunity to nominate three Justices to the U.S. Supreme Court.
But the President has indeed had that chance today by nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett and in doing so, the President is potentially going to reshape the Supreme Court for decades to come, and all of those important decisions that will come from the highest court in the land.
The President repeatedly emphasizing the importance of this for a number of things, including Second Amendment rights, for example, which is something that the President highlighted for law and order issues, which is also a key component, of course, of the President's campaign.
And so while the President was certainly focusing on the legacy impacts of all of this, that it will have, this is something that he has brought up privately and publicly repeatedly stating that nominating Justices to the US Supreme Court is perhaps the most important thing that he does as President aside from matters of war and peace.
The President was also focused on the electoral impacts and that is something that Republicans and Democrats are all chewing over this week as they process this decision by the President to not only nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett, but also to try and confirm her before Election Day.
The White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, a few moments ago telling a group of reporters that he hopes that if this confirmation goes smoothly, that Judge Coney Barrett couldn't be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court by November 1st, critically, that would be before the November 3rd election.
And so there is this huge question of what the impact will be on the right and on the left. Of course, it is a galvanizing issue for the President's conservative base. It always has been. It's been a key part of his appeal to conservatives, and particularly social conservatives over these last several years.
But there will also be an impact on the left side of the political spectrum with issues like this Obamacare decision that is soon coming up. And also, of course, this broader issue of reproductive rights.
So certainly a lot is at stake, and Wolf, one of the things that was not mentioned by the President here today, and you wouldn't expect it to be is that a CNN poll this week showing that six in 10 Americans believe that it is the president who is elected in this next election, who should actually fill this seat vacated by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and that it should not be filled before that election takes place.
BLITZER: I am very personally curious about this. Jeremy, you were there in the Rose Garden and we saw a nice crowd. People sitting in in the Rose Garden very close together, very few of them wearing masks Alex Azar, the Secretary of Health and Human Services I saw, he did put on his mask others did not.
[18:05:10]
BLITZER: Were everyone in in the Rose Garden, were they tested for coronavirus before allowed in? Because they all got pretty close to each other and several of them got pretty close to the President.
DIAMOND: Yes, this event followed the protocol that the White House has been following for several weeks now, which is that only a certain number of people who are attending this event are actually tested for coronavirus, and that is the people who are going to be closest to the President.
Of course, we know that the President's senior aides who interact with him on a daily basis, anyone frankly, who interacts directly with the President is tested. But most of the people in the audience today were not tested and many of them arrived with masks on, some of them took the masks off as they actually took their seats and began mingling with others.
And I think Wolf, the most notable exception to this mask wearing was Dr. Scott Atlas, the President's coronavirus adviser. He is of course not an immunologist, not an expert in infectious diseases or epidemiology, but he does have the President's ear and he is advising him in ways that contradict what most public health experts say about the coronavirus. And that was frankly evidenced in the fact that you saw Dr. Scott Atlas, not wearing a mask, interacting with other people in the crowd who were presumably not tested for coronavirus.
Wolf, it is really remarkable. We need to remind people, we are still in the middle of this pandemic.
BLITZER: We certainly are, almost a thousand people -- a thousand Americans died yesterday from the virus here in the United States.
And Alex Azar, I did -- when he was sitting there, I saw him put on the mask. But as we showed our viewers when he was leaving, he clearly took off that mask, almost everyone else was walking around, fist bumping and all that kind of stuff without masks.
Standby. There you see him near the top of your screen. He is smiling as you walked away. He clearly took off his mask after wearing it while he was seated.
I want to go back up to Phil Mattingly up on Capitol Hill. So Phil, we've learned some dates have already been set aside for Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. Tell us about that. What's the process that Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, Lindsey Graham, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee that they are putting forward?
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You mentioned Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the best way to look at things from here on out is this is Mitch McConnell's ballgame with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham taking the lead or playing a lead role for McConnell over the course of the next several weeks.
Wolf, to give you some context, I was texting with a Republican official who has been involved in several Supreme Court confirmations and we were going through the schedule I'm about to talk about, and I said it's very fast, and he responded, that's lightning fast.
And here's what is being laid out at this moment. By Tuesday, Amy Coney Barrett, the new nominee is expected to be on Capitol Hill to meet with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Shortly thereafter, she will meet with Lindsey Graham as well. And that is part of the usual process. The nominee comes up, meets with as many senators focusing on the Senate Judiciary Committee who will take up the nomination, but also other senators as well, if they want to meet with her in the lead up to those nomination hearings.
In those hearings, right now, according to sources who had seen the tentative schedule are already set up to start on October 12th. There will be a four-day hearing process, opening statements followed by two days of questions, then outside witnesses as well. That four-day process is in line with past precedent, at least over the course of the last of -- the recent history.
What's a little bit different is how quickly it is coming up -- October 12 through October 15 and what that would tee up is exactly what Jeremy was talking about he heard from Chief of Staff Mark Meadows that she could be confirmed by November 1st. That would essentially tee up a floor vote process that would start on October 29th.
Lightning quick, Wolf. They want to move fast and there is precedent for nominees moving through the process in a matter of a couple of weeks, or in a matter of maybe 30, 40, 45 days. So they're falling within that.
But given the time period, given how close it is to the election and given the fact that Republicans want this done, they plan to get it done, Wolf. But the reality is, there is little to nothing Democrats can do to stop this process. They can slow it down procedurally on the Senate floor, perhaps some of the things they can do in the Judiciary Committee to slow that process down as well.
But so long as Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader has a majority in the United States Senate, we know for a fact 51 of the 53 Republican senators want to move forward to a vote.
My understanding of the course of reporting over the last probably five, six, seven days is if it was going to be Amy Coney Barrett, all 51 of those senators are expected to end up voting in favor of that nomination, and as long as that stays the way it is right now over the course of those hearings, over the course of those meetings. Right now, McConnell can move things through before the nomination or before the election -- Wolf.
BLITZER: He certainly can. All right, Phil, thank you very much. Jeremy, thanks to you as well. I'm going to get back to both of you. Right now, I want to bring in one of the Democratic senators who will be questioning Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a Judiciary Committee member, Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii. She's joining us.
Senator Hirono, thanks so much for joining us. I know you're busy right now. So give us your immediate reaction to this pick by the President?
[18:10:02]
SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D-HI): They want to make sure that whoever they picked and it didn't even matter whether it was a man or a woman because the Judiciary Republicans are prepared to vote for whoever the nominee is, but they want to make this person -- push this person through to steal yet another Supreme Court seat to vote down the Affordable Care Act. That is one of the first things that's going to happen with this nominee.
The Supreme Court is going to hear the Affordable Care Act case November 10th, so they want the person, their person, to be sitting there, to listen to the arguments and make a decision.
And the expectation is, of course, that she is going to strike down the Affordable Care Act in the midst of a pandemic, leaving millions and millions of people without healthcare.
And I tell you, Wolf, the President shows us every single day that he doesn't care about our healthcare as he continues to have these super spreader events where nobody is wearing a mask and the only people who gets tested at the Rose Garden are the ones who will physically be closest to him so that he can be protected. So that's what's happening.
BLITZER: You use the word "steal" that they want to steal the seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.
HIRONO: Yes.
BLITZER: They're not doing anything, the Republican majority that is illegal. They're going through the process. They are the majority, right?
HIRONO: Yes. But you know, what Mitch McConnell might -- makes right and unless two more Republican senators develop a conscience and say they're not going to vote for anyone until at least after the election, he can push as many people as he wants, which is exactly what he has been doing.
So here we are, you know, in the midst of a pandemic, with millions of people out of work, we should be dealing with the House passed Heroes Act. He sat on that bill for four months, and yet, he can just push through the Supreme Court nominee, why? Because they want her in place to vote down the Affordable Care Act near and dear to the heart of this President and the Republican majority.
BLITZER: The White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, just said, Senator that he hopes Amy Coney Barrett will be confirmed by the Senate before November 1st. The election, of course, is November 3rd. So what's your reaction? Is there anything you and your fellow Democrats realistically can do assuming 51 out of the 53 Republican senators are on board? Is there anything you can do to stop this?
HIRONO: What I have been doing is, we may not be able to stop it. We can slow it down. But the American people need to know what's at stake in this nomination. And what's at stake is their very healthcare.
So they're going to be one day with Amy Barrett voting down the Affordable Care Act protections. They will be sitting at their kitchen tables, wondering how the heck they're going to pay their medical bills. That's what's going to be happening. That is what's at stake for the American people.
And I'm going to use every moment to get that across. And of course, I will question Judge Barrett under oath as to her other views because she has very closely held views that will impact a woman's right to choose. And certainly she's already expressed her, basically, you know, willingness to vote down the Affordable Care Act as well as other Supreme Court precedents.
BLITZER: So you will -- will you or won't you be willing at least to meet with her, give her the courtesy of meeting with her before the hearings, and get to know her a little bit? Clearly, you say you'll participate in the hearings, and you'll ask some tough questions, but are you willing to meet with her, which is a courtesy Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate earlier today on CNN, he said he would give her that courtesy.
HIRONO: I will not be meeting with her. I will take the opportunity to question her when she is under oath.
BLITZER: Do you think she is qualified? She has got a pretty amazing personal story, obviously, a wonderful family. But given her legal background, a clerk on the Supreme Court for Justice Scalia, a Law Professor at the University of Notre Dame, a Court of Appeals judge right now, is she qualified to be on the Supreme Court.
HIRONO: The issue is whether or not her closely held views on issues such as the Affordable Care Act, such as abortion rights, can be separated from her ability to be a fair and objective Justice.
Obviously, the Republicans and the President is counting on that not being the case, which is why they want her on the Supreme Court so fast so she can vote down the Affordable Care Act and next on the hit list will be reproductive rights. She has an antipathy to reproductive rights.
She also is more than willing to not follow Supreme Court precedent, and Roe v. Wade is a Supreme Court precedent.
BLITZER: I'll just read to you, while I have you, for a moment Senator Hirono, Harvard Law Professor, former Supreme Court clerk, Noah Feldman who is well known. He writes this in an op-ed. He writes, "Barrett is a sincere lovely person. I never heard her utter a word that wasn't thoughtful and kind, including in the heat of real disagreement about important subjects. If you do believe in an ideal judicial temperament of calm and decorum, rest assured that Barrett has it. I'm going to be confident that Barrett is going to be a good justice, maybe even a great one, even if I disagree with her all the way."
What's your reaction when you hear Professor Noah Feldman say those words?
[18:15:34]
HIRONO: The issue is whether she can be fair and objective as a Justice because she will be on that court, if confirmed for decades. She will be making decisions that impact our lives, starting with whether or not we're going to have the protections of the Affordable Care Act. She will be making decisions on whether or not a woman will have a right to control her own body. She will be making decisions based on other Civil Rights issues, including LGBTQ rights, on workers' rights, you name it.
She would -- she will be making those decisions and that is what we should be concerned about.
If she can be fair and objective and not allow her very strongly held views to -- she can separate those from her ability to be fair and objective, that's another question.
That is -- but that's the concern I have. And it clearly, as I said, Wolf, she is being put on that Court really fast so that she can vote down the Affordable Care Act, after sitting in the court to hear oral arguments on November 10th. That's what the people of America should know.
BLITZER: We'll see what happens on that front, and as we always say, you say it, and I said, we're heading towards Election Day, November 3. Clearly, elections have consequences, elections for the President of the United States, elections for senators here in the United States. And we'll see what happens on that front.
Senator Hirono, thank you so much for joining us.
HIRONO: Thank you.
BLITZER: So voting in many states already has begun and the request for mail-in ballots are already shattering records. Now, there are some legal battles that are underway in key swing states about how votes should be cast and counted this election cycle. The Attorney General of Pennsylvania standing by live, we will discuss that and more when we come back.
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[18:21:22]
BLITZER: Pennsylvania, certainly a key battleground state in this election and it's now in the spotlight over their mail-in ballot system.
The state Supreme Court has ruled that ballots that arrive without their inner envelope, so-called naked ballots, should be thrown out. Based on error rates in previous elections that could be potentially more than 100,000 mail-in ballots are at risk.
I want to point out that President Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 by just 44,000 votes. The Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro is joining us right now. Attorney General, thank you so much for joining us. How concerned are you about getting inaccurate vote count in Pennsylvania. These ballots and the voting are going to be critical.
JOSH SHAPIRO (D), PENNSYLVANIA ATTORNEY GENERAL: The voting is going to be critical and people's participation is going to be critical and I'm not concerned at all. I think it's a matter of educating voters about how to vote by mail, how to vote at in early voting center, or how to vote in-person on November 3rd.
And Wolf, look, I brought a ballot with me. This is a Pennsylvania ballot. It looks like this, you fill it out. You fold it up. And you stick it in one of these secrecy envelopes. Because of course, we want our ballots to remain secret in the process. You sign the back of the outer envelope, you put it all in, and you mail it in on time.
A constituent of mine named Megan from Pittsburgh, she equated it to a wedding invitation with that extra internal envelope.
This is not hard. This is not controversial. This is simply voting.
Now the President, he is trying to sow doubt in this process. He is trying to create this chaos about voting, when in fact, it's a simple thing to do for legal eligible voters. And it's our job to educate the voters on the best way to do that. But I'm confident that our institutions, no matter what kind of attacks are leveled by the President against it will withstand those attacks, and we will have the proper winner declared on or shortly after Election Day here.
BLITZER: And those ballots and those two envelopes, you have to request those in Pennsylvania. They're not just sent out to millions of people blindly, right?
SHAPIRO: That's exactly right. You get to decide in Pennsylvania, how you want to vote. If you want to vote at the polls on November 3rd, you simply go there. If you want to vote from home, doing it by mail, you request your ballot, it's mailed to you. You fill it out, and you mail it back.
BLITZER: Now, if people don't trust the mail right now, there are a lot of people who don't trust the mail right now, are there drop off locations where they can simply vote at home, put it in the envelope, put it in the second envelope and go someplace to drop it off?
SHAPIRO: Yes, that's exactly right. I want to -- I want to touch on two things you said, first about the trust in mail-in and second, about how else to vote. If folks want to go to an early voting center and vote in-person, they can do that.
If they want to leave their mail-in ballot at a legal drop box that are positioned around our Commonwealth, they can do that as well. But I recognize that there are a lot of people who have concerns about mail right now. I do as well. That's why I've led a coalition of states in suing Louis DeJoy, the President's handpicked crony for Postmaster General, because he made illegal changes to our mail back in July, which has slowed up the mail.
I've talked to a veteran out in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, who is waiting extra days to get his prescription drugs, a small business owner in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, who have been waiting for a check for several days simply because Postmaster General, DeJoy made illegal changes to the flow of mail. And of course, people are worried about how that's going to impact election mail.
[18:25:04]
SHAPIRO: We've sued DeJoy to try and get him to reverse those changes from July. And importantly, because I don't trust him, or the President, or the word that they put forth, we want an independent monitor, to be placed at the Postal Service to ensure that these illegal changes that were made, get rolled back, and the mail can begin to flow on time.
The point here is, we need to have confidence in our institutions of government. The President attacks them relentlessly, from the Supreme Court to the Post Office, in so many other institutions of government.
And I've got to tell you, I believe fundamentally, America is stronger than Donald Trump, and it's going to be on each of us from the voter, to a United States Senator, to do our part to protect these institutions, to protect our democracy from the withering attacks that come from Donald Trump, attached by the way, fueled with conspiracy theories and all kinds of nonsense, you're going to hear more of that in about an hour or so here in my home, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Those attacks that come seek to promote this sort of chaos theory that he has, but I believe at the end of the day, America will rise up reject his type of chaos and protect our institutions from the Post Office to the Supreme Court.
BLITZER: Yes, and as you point out, the President now heading to Middletown, Pennsylvania for another political rally. We've got some live pictures we may want to show our viewers, a big crowd has already gathered there. There you can see, not much social distancing, Attorney General and certainly not many folks are wearing masks, at least we can see from this shot.
So the President getting ready for that political rally after his Supreme Court nominee was announced in the Rose Garden over at the White House.
Attorney General Josh Shapiro of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Thanks so much for joining us.
SHAPIRO: It's good to be with you. Thanks, Wolf.
BLITZER: Thank you, and the most anticipated moment of the election is coming closer and closer. Donald Trump and Joe Biden, they will face off in the first presidential event.
You could watch it all play out live on CNN. Our special coverage will begin Tuesday starting at 7:00 p.m. Eastern.
And in November, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments about the legality of the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act among other issues. The Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett has sharply criticized past judicial decisions upholding Obamacare.
We're going to take a closer look at how she potentially could change the balance of the court on so many issues. We'll be right back.
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[18:32:10]
BLITZER: If confirmed, Judge Amy Coney Barrett will undoubtedly bring a more conservative bent to the U.S. Supreme Court. And on one issue that she's been particularly outspoken on, that issue being the Affordable Care Act, which happens to be one of the first cases the justices have of their docket after the November 3rd election. At issue, once again, the legality of the individual mandate aspect of President Obama's signature health care legislation.
CNN Legal Analyst Elliot Williams is joining us right now, Elliot, the court will hear these arguments on November 10th, a week after the November 3rd election. It's possible that Judge Coney Barrett will be confirmed. She might be Justice Coney Barrett at that point. So what does that mean for the future of Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act as it's known?
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Sure, wolf. First thing, big picture, any discussion about any nominee, whether this were going to be Amy Coney Barrett or not needs to start and end with the process that got us here and how sort of hijacked and broken it was by the President of the United States and Congress, so that's the backdrop here.
Now, turning to Judge Barrett and her record, the President has made abundantly clear that he has a litmus test in effect on the Affordable Care Act. You can find the tweet. It was June 26, 2015, where he said any future judges that he nominates or any justices are going to do the right thing, unlike Chief Justice John Roberts did.
So he's clearly wanting distance from John Roberts who did rule previously in favor of the Affordable Care Act. So the President made clear what he wants out of the justice and we'd be well within our rights to assume that he got that in Amy Coney Barrett just by looking at her writings and records.
So in 2017, she wrote a law review article indicating and criticizing, once again, John Roberts' approach in upholding major portions of the Affordable Care Act. She signed a letter being incredibly critical of the contraceptive requirement and the Affordable Care Act.
So it's always risky to divine - I've worked for two federal judges - it's risky to divine how a judge will rule on any given matter, but she has a paper trail and she should be asked about it and she's made very clear with the Affordable Care Act on the line, where she stood on it, at least in the past.
BLITZER: We're told that they will hear the justices, whether there's eight or nine on November 10th. They'll hear the arguments, but a decision probably won't come from months, maybe until the spring, if the Affordable Care Act is struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court as unconstitutional, as you know, millions of Americans potentially could lose their health insurance and if the U.S. is still in the middle of a deadly pandemic, that would be especially awful. So walk us through this process, how it would actually work.
WILLIAMS: Sure. And you asked a very important question here because what's at issue here, there's three things that the Supreme Court is deciding.
[18:35:04]
Number one, whether Texas and 17 other states actually have a right to sue in the first place. That's called standing under the law. Number two, where you get to the technical parts of the law, whether this, the penalty, for the individual mandate for not having insurance, whether having any penalty in the law is unconstitutional.
And then three, if you find it unconstitutional, does that mean that the whole law is void, you throw the whole thing away and this is including for all these people that need health insurance or you keep the law in place, but just take out that penalty for the individual mandate.
That's called severability, that thing where you just take a scalpel in effect and carve out the unconstitutional provision. If the whole thing struck down, Congress needs to act and they need to step in. They've had opportunities.
I don't know how many times Congress has tried to repeal and replace Obamacare and has consistently failed. But there are significantly popular provisions in the law, namely, pre existing condition protection, namely the provision that allows kids who are 26 years old to stay on their parent's insurance. You got to figure out some fix for those otherwise they sort of vanish and leave many, many people without insurance coverage.
BLITZER: That's really an important point as well. Elliot Williams, as usual, thank you. Thank you very much.
So what would the U.S. Supreme Court possibly be doing as far as the Affordable Care Act is concerned during a deadly pandemic? What would that mean on emergency room physician on the front lines of the pandemic is standing by to discuss, we'll be right back.
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[18:40:35]
BLITZER: On November 10th, just a week after the November 3rd election, the U.S. Supreme Court scheduled to take up the latest challenge to Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act as it's called. Presumably, they will do it with a new Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett on the bench.
In a 2017 law review article written before she joined the Seventh Circuit Appeals Court, Judge Amy Coney Barrett criticized the 2012 opinion of the Chief Justice John Roberts and she wrote this and I'll put it up on the screen. "Chief Justice Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute."
Dr. Megan Ranney is joining us right now. She's an Emergency Room Physician at Brown University. Dr. Rennie, thanks so much for joining us. We're in the midst of a very, very deadly pandemic, almost another thousand Americans died here just yesterday. How concerned are you that an estimated, what, 21 million Americans potentially could lose their health insurance if the ACA, the Affordable Care Act, is repealed?
DR. MEGAN RANNEY, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY: Yes. Wolf, it's a joy to be here with you. The potential for the repeal of the ACA will create certainly chaos for hospitals and healthcare providers, but more importantly, it is going to create unmitigated chaos, confusion and poor health for millions upon millions of Americans. Not just those who are covered by the ACA, the 20 million who you mentioned, but also all of the other people, those 26-year- olds or 25-year-olds who are on their parents' plans, all of the people with pre existing conditions who've been able to get insurance because of the ACA.
And let me mention in the midst of COVID, I am worried that the 10s of hundreds of thousands of Americans who have been infected by COVID and have survived could lose their insurance if the ACA is overturned. So the potential repeal of this act has just such immense implications for our country's health. I can't overstate how concerned I am.
BLITZER: And you see this every day as an emergency room physician, Dr. Ranney. I want to show you this image I took. This is the Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar just a few days ago. He was on CNBC and you see behind him on the HHS screen, there's the words beat the virus, wear a mask.
Now this is him today in the Rose Garden. He put on a mask briefly, but then he was walking around, you see him in the middle of your screen there, no mask, shaking, fist bumping, it was very close quarters. It's hard to understand what he was encouraging mask use, saying it's so, so important just a couple days ago and then we see him in the Rose Garden not wearing this mask. And we know that wearing a mask will save thousands and thousands of lives. What goes through your mind as an emergency room physician?
RANNEY: As an emergency physician, listen, Wolf, I worked today in the ER. I saw dozens of patients, many of whom I was concerned may have had COVID. I put masks on every patient when they walk in the door of my emergency department and I wear a mask for the entire time that I'm there, both to protect me and to protect my patients.
We have study after study that shows like you said that 80 percent to 90 percent of cases could be prevented if everyone was universally masked, it's what my kids are doing at school. And so for one of the leaders of our country, of our health and human services to be walking around without a mask just sends the wrong message. Now, to be at the Rose Garden, presumably, everyone who's been there who's close to the President has theoretically been tested.
So you could argue that maybe it isn't necessary in that circumstance, but it sends a message to everyone who's watching it. It is essential for all of us who hold positions of influence in health care or in government or just in media to wear masks when we're out in public, to send that right message, because that's the only way that we are, right now, that we are going to combat and succeed against this virus.
BLITZER: Yes. There's all these studies that have shown that if 95 percent of the American public wore masks when they're in public outside, no social distancing or inside, it's even more dangerous when you're around a whole bunch of people, 10s of thousands of lives in the next few months could be saved here on the United States. Dr. Ranney, thank you so much, as usual for joining us.
[18:45:05]
And any moment now, we're standing by and we're told the President of the United States leaving the White House. Leaving the White House, the President stopped and spoke to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before boarding Marine One. We're about to get that tape. We understand he answered reporters' questions, we'll share that with you when we come back.
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[18:49:51]
BLITZER: There's more breaking news coming into THE SITUATION ROOM right now. Only a few moments ago, the President spoke on the South Lawn of the White House before leaving for a political campaign rally with his supporters in Middletown, Pennsylvania.
[18:50:03]
This, of course, comes one hour after he formally publicly nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. Here's what the President has said in his exchange with the reporters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: (Inaudible) with Amy and her family and she's going to have an amazing future. I think it's going to go quickly, I hope. But I think she's got a great future. Brilliant.
When the professor at Notre Dame, one of the most highly respected, said 'the best student' he's ever had, that means something. And first in her class and all of that. So it's a great honor. Today was a big thrill.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you expecting fireworks at her confirmation fight?
TRUMP: I think it's very hard. I mean, I don't know how they can do it. The question was: "Do I expect any fireworks at the confirmation?" I think it's very hard. Where? What could you say? The best student, best academically, great judge, great professor. The highest recommendations, so I think it's very, very hard for them to do it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, how do you feel about a majority of Americans wanting to wait until after the election?
TRUMP: Well, I don't think they know Amy, when they get to meet her and get to see her. But this is just something, we have a lot of time, because if you really look, we don't have to do it before. But I think this will be done before the election and I think it'll send a great signal to a lot of people. But she's outstanding and I'm glad you could be there.
So we're going to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and there's going to be a lot of people there, and that's good. And I think we're doing very well. Thank you. We're leading in Pennsylvania. We're leading in Florida. I think we're leading everywhere.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, on another topic: Do you have confidence in Director Wray?
TRUMP: Well, he disagrees with us on a couple of things. We'll see what's going on.
But if you look at the ballots, they found ballots in a garbage can and they had the name 'Trump' on them. They were cast for Trump and they found them in a garbage can. They found many ballots, as you know, in a riverbed, in a state, in a certain state. They had another case where a thousand ballots were sent, but not single, they were sent double, so you get to vote twice.
This whole thing I've been telling you, this whole ballot scam is going to cause a lot of problems for our country. I want to see a very peaceful transition, but it's got to be a legal process. When you get thousands of ballots sent to people and they're double ballots, where you get two votes and that's just one of many problems.
Go back and look at the Iowa primary, Democrat primary. They still don't know who won. I mean, if you look at it, it was a disaster, using this system. And I don't think they know who won yet. Many ballots were missing. There was fraud. Look, we can't do this and that was a relatively small number of people. We can't do this to our country.
So we're going to see. We're going to watch, and we're watching very closely. The U.S. attorneys are watching, the Attorney General is watching, the sheriffs are watching, local police is watching. And it's a very sad thing.
Also, Bloomberg, Bloomberg can't go to Florida and pay people to vote. He's paying people to - he committed a crime if he does that and he has done that. So he understands that. So, that's it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you getting ready for the debate? And are you going to go on the attack against Biden at the debate?
TRUMP: Well, I can't tell you what I'm going to do. I mean, I don't know. I'm going to go to the debate. Steve is just asking, "Will I go on the attack?" I have no idea. I have no idea how he's going to be. He's always different when he comes out, because he's on a different medication, I guess. But he's always very different when he comes out. So I have no idea what's coming out.
But I've been doing this for a long time, but he's been doing this for 47 years; I've been doing it for four years. There's a big difference.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you be comfortable if abortion becomes illegal in certain states?
TRUMP: You're going to have to talk.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you be okay if abortion becomes illegal in certain states as a result?
TRUMP: Well, that's going to be up to all of the justices. They're going to see. I never discussed that with Amy. This is something that - because it wouldn't be appropriate to discuss. They're going to have to make a decision, and that's going to be for the judges to see.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did she tell you whether she believes Roe v. Wade (inaudible) ...
TRUMP: Say it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the confirmation hearing going to be on October 12th?
TRUMP: It looks like it. They'll be putting that out very shortly. Lindsey Graham will be putting that out very shortly. But it's going to go fast. We're looking to do it before the election, so it's going to go very fast.
Thank you all. See you in Harrisburg. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[18:55:02] BLITZER: He's heading out to Pennsylvania, actually he's going to be in Middletown, Pennsylvania. That's where the political campaign rally is set to take place later tonight.
Jeremy Diamond, you're there at the White House where as we did hear the President say, "I want to see a peaceful transition." Then he said, though, it's got to be X, Y and Z. It's got to be - he's, obviously, very, very concerned. He says about the ballots.
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And I heard very similar comments from the President last night when I was at his rally in Newport News, Virginia. The President there kind of walking back those comments from earlier in the week where he refused to say that he would support a peaceful transition. But at the same time, Wolf, still telling his supporters essentially, that the only legitimate outcome of this election is one in which the President is crowned the victor.
And that is not only false because there are a myriad of ways that Joe Biden could win this election without any fraud, without any cheating. And there's, of course, no evidence of any kind of widespread voter fraud. But it's also potentially dangerous because it sets up a scenario where at least a third of the country that follow the President's every word and perhaps as much as half of the country might not believe the results of the election, because of what the President is saying if indeed, Joe Biden defeats Donald Trump at the ballot box on November 3rd.
Wolf, the President also discussing the Supreme Court nomination process making very clear that he wants to see this nomination, this confirmation happen before the November 3rd election and he was asked a question about whether he expected any fireworks, any controversy as Judge Amy Coney Barrett goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee for her hearings.
The President said that he doesn't expect it. He doesn't see how that's possible given Judge Coney Barrett's record and stellar recommendations from some of her former bosses, from the former Justice Antonin Scalia. But nonetheless, the President as he did earlier in the day in the Rose Garden, raise the fact that Justice Kavanaugh's confirmation, the President also expected that to be smooth sailing. And of course, it was anything but that because of course of that sexual assault allegation that came forward during that time, that was not something that the White House had expected.
So the President kind of nodded to that fact, acknowledging that there could be some kind of a surprise in the confirmation process. But nonetheless, the President and the White House expecting that Judge Amy Coney Barrett will be confirmed to be the next Justice of the United States Supreme Court before the November 3rd election. That is certainly their goal and that is what they are pushing for here, Wolf, with his much shortened timeline, in terms of the confirmation process that we're going to see unfold in the next few weeks.
BLITZER: All right. Jeremy, standby. Jeffrey Toobin is with us as well. So when the president says I think it's going to go quickly, Jeffrey, the confirmation process, he's probably right, given the Republican majority in the Senate.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: He is. But can we also just do our job as journalists and talk about some of the lies he just told. I mean, the problem with the Iowa caucuses was that there were corruption in mail-in ballots. It was a caucus. There were no mail-in ballots.
I mean, the lying he has done about our election processes are so pernicious and so constant and I think we should just try to do our jobs at least a little bit. I know it's hard because he tells so many lies, but I mean that cascade of lies he just told about mail-in ballots is something that we should acknowledge and do our best to try to monitor.
BLITZER: You're absolutely right. We get used to all of that the distortions when he said we're leading in Pennsylvania, leading in Florida, we're leading everywhere. Well, according to almost all of the polls that not necessarily true.
It looks like they're very close contest in those key battleground states in Florida and Pennsylvania, although some of the most recent polls in Pennsylvania show that Biden is ahead and you're right, as far as the ballots are concerned. There were a few, a handful of ballots thrown into a garbage can by mistake. There wasn't any crime there, right?
TOOBIN: There was no crime there. And he tossed us off this thing about a thousand ballots here, a thousand ballots here, that is not true. That is not true and what he said about the Iowa caucus is beyond bizarre.
BLITZER: All right. Hold on, one moment, the Senate Democratic Leader, the Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer is making his statement on the Amy Coney Barrett nomination.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: First, the loss of RBG, the Great Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is so meaningful to all of us for the great work she has done on behalf of women and so many others. I feel a special neighborhood pride in Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She went to Madison High School, which I attended as well and we feel her loss.
And to replace her with Amy Coney Barrett, who would undo almost everything that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had done and to ignore her dying wish that the next president select the nominee is so wrong.
[19:00:00]
Why is the Amy Coney Barrett nomination so troubling? The American people should make no mistake about it.
