Trump Defies Science and State Ban on Large Gatherings with Indoor Rally
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: So congratulations to the team. And also here in Jacksonville, this is the only game on Sunday that allowed fans. They had just over 14,000 in the stadium. They all had to wear masks. I was in there. They were following protocols, separate or staying away from each other. I'll tell you what though, the tailgate, a little bit of a different story. They had people park every other parking space, but it looked like a normal tailgate. We'll certainly have to wait and see how that goes.</s>ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN NEW DAY: Yes, understood. Okay, Andy, thank you very much. And New Day continues right now.</s>CAMEROTA: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is New Day. Coronavirus has killed more than 194,000 Americans and doctors are bracing for an uptick around Henderson, Nevada, after President Trump insisted on holding a crowded rally indoors last night. Thousands of people packed together, most not wearing masks. The rally was in open defiance of a state ban on gatherings of more than 50 people. Dr. Jonathan Reiner, who we will hear from in a moment, calls the rally, quote, negligent homicide. President Trump's last indoor rally was in June, in Tulsa. You'll remember that Trump supporter Herman Cain went to that without a mask and died weeks later from coronavirus. The Trump rally was in stark contrast to scenes at sporting events across the country Sunday as the NFL began its season with teams playing in large empty stadiums.</s>JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: All right. Happening now, historic wildfires ravaging the west coast have claimed at least 35 lives in California, Oregon and Washington. Dozens of people this morning are missing. Also evacuation orders underway right now in parts of Louisiana and Mississippi, as Tropical Storm Sally intensifies. It is expected to be a hurricane by the time it makes landfall tonight. We're going to begin this morning with the pandemic. Joining us now is the aforementioned CNN Medical Analyst, Dr. Jonathan Reiner. He's a professor of medicine at George Washington University and the cardiologist for former Vice President Dick Cheney. And, Dr. Reiner, you called at what the president did last night at this indoor rally with thousands of people, most, if not, many, not wearing masks, you call it negligent homicide. Why?</s>DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, that's what you call the actions of somebody who, through their negligence, causes the death of other people. We're in a pandemic. And Clark County, Nevada, has a lot of virus. So, with thousands of people, there is complete certainty that there are people in that crowd, probably asymptomatic carriers of the virus, who will spread the virus. So, what is the purpose of this, of this mass gathering? It's not in the interest of the public health. And I would respectfully suggest to the president that if he thinks it's safe to gather thousands of people in a pandemic without masks, then he should go down to the rope line and vigorously shake some hands at the end of the event. If he thinks there's very little risk to his attendees, then he should have no problem shaking some hands at the end of the event.</s>CAMEROTA: That's really interesting.</s>REINER: You won't see that.</s>CAMEROTA: Yes, that's interesting, Doctor, because what we did see was much of his staff wearing masks. And, you know, I mean, of course, the president took prophylactic hydroxychloroquine for two weeks. We know he's worried about catching coronavirus, but then these actions just fly in the face of what any, you know, considerate person would do for others. Here is where the numbers are for Nevada. I don't know if we have Clark County specifically, but in Nevada, you see it bouncing around. This is the seven-day positivity rate. So you can see it bouncing around. It hit a spike on September 9th. So, statewide, Johns Hopkins says that, yesterday, it was 8.5 percent positivity rate. I mean, just to give some context, New York is 0.9 percent, you know, after being so high, obviously, in March and April. So New York has brought it down to that but Nevada has not.</s>REINER: Right. And if you were trying to somehow increase the amount of virus in the community, what you would do is you would gather thousands of people shoulder to shoulder without masks and have them scream and yell and laugh for a few hours. That's what you would do. And that's what the president did. Look, he has been trying to create a narrative that runs counter to what we know is true, which is that this virus is rampant in this country and has killed now almost 200,000 people. And he does that by continually saying things like, we're turning the corner, we're just about done, we need to open up widely, we're not going to close down, and then having these mass events. So he's trying to create a reality that doesn't exist. So -- and this is exactly what he's been doing since he was warned on January 28th of the lethality of this virus. He's been playing it down. And now, with these rallies, he's really ramped up this kind of alternate kind of universe for him.</s>BERMAN: It's a really good point. And Dr. Anthony Fauci has had to correct the president, albeit, gingerly, because that's how Dr. Fauci does it. He says, I respectfully have to disagree with the idea that we've turned the corner. Dr. Fauci doesn't think we've turned the corner at all. He thinks the number of daily cases is still way too high, over 30,000 a day, if not, close to 40,000 a day. He thinks it now needs to be down to 10,000 a day. Dr. Peter Hotez, who we had on earlier, called the president's rally, anti-science, deliberately, probably, anti-science, trying to create this narrative that you just brought up, and I think that's an interesting way to look at it. He is trying to really warp discussion now. And we see another example of that in part of this new sound that we heard from Bob Woodward's interview on 60 Minutes last night, where you hear Scott Pelley's voice here first, but you also hear the president talk about what could have been done differently. Listen.