No Social Distancing, Few Masks Ahead of Trump Michigan Rally; U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll Tops 191,000 As Cases Near 6.4 Million; Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) Was Interviewed on the Fallout of Bob Woodward's New Book; CDC Forecast: U.S. Death Toll Will Top 205,000 By October 3; Medical Experts Slam Trump For Downplaying Pandemic Threat
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Athena Jones, thank you so much. You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, at Jake Tapper. You can tweet the show, at The Lead CNN. Our coverage on CNN continues right now. I will see you tomorrow.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM. We're following breaking news. President Trump is scrambling right now to defend himself from growing outrage over his recorded conversations with the journalist Bob Woodward. In a news conference that wrapped up just a little while ago, the president claimed he withheld vital information from the American public about the highly lethal nature of the coronavirus because he wanted to show, and I'm quoting him now, strength as a leader. Mr. Trump is even trying to shift the blame to Woodward claiming the journalist could have chosen to report on their conversations if he thought the threat was serious. The coronavirus pandemic has now killed more than a hundred and 91,000 Americans with nearly 6.4 million confirmed cases. And another 1,206 Americans died from the virus just yesterday. And this just in, the CDC has just published a sobering update to its death toll forecast between 205,000 and 217,000 dead Americans by October 3rd in just a few weeks. Let's begin our coverage this hour with CNN's Jim Acosta. Right now he's in Freeland, Michigan where the president is getting ready to hold a rally. Jim, the crowds, they're starting to gather. It's looking sadly a lot like other Trump rallies. No real social distancing and very few masks.</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Well, President Trump is campaigning in the battleground state of Michigan in just a short while from now. And as we can already see, many of these supporters at this rally are not social distancing. And as you said, many of them are not wearing their masks. But one thing these supporters do finally have is the truth that the president knowingly misleads the public about the dangers pose by the coronavirus. At a very news conference earlier this afternoon, the president claimed he was not lying to the American people about the virus.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): One day after bombshell recordings revealed the president intentionally downplayed the COVID-19 threat, Mr. Trump is claiming it was all about keeping Americans from panicking.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I didn't lie. What I said is we have to be calm, we can't be panicked. I don't want to jump up and down and start screaming death, death.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): The president is even trying to shift the blame to the journalist with the Trump tapes, Bob Woodward.</s>TRUMP: Certainly if he thought that was a bad statement, he would have reported it because he thinks that, you know, you don't want to have anybody that is going to suffer medically because of some fact. If Bob Woodward thought what I said was bad, then he should have immediately right after I said it gone out to the authorities so they can prepare and let them know. But he didn't think it was bad and he said he didn't think it was bad. He actually said he didn't think it was bad.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): Democrats aren't buying it with Joe Biden tweeting, "Donald Trump said he didn't want to tell the truth and create a panic. So he did nothing and created a disaster."</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): He hid the facts and refused to take the threat seriously leaving the entire country exposed and unprepared. He didn't want to cause a panic. Why? Because of the stock market.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): The president has used the panic excuse before way back in March. (on camera) What do you say to Americans who believed that you got this wrong?</s>TRUMP: And I do want them to stay calm, and we are doing a great job. If you could ask a normal question, the statements I made are, I want to keep the country calm. I don't want panic in the country. I could cause panic much better than even you.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): But here's the problem. In February, the president warned Woodward the virus was deadly but not the public.</s>TRUMP: It goes through air, Bob. That's always tougher than the touch. You know, the touch, you don't have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that's how it's passed. And so that's a very tricky one. That's a very delicate one. It's also more deadly than your -- you know, even your strenuous flus. This is more deadly.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): Even with Mr. Trump's admissions caught on tape.</s>TRUMP: I wanted to, I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down.</s>BOB WOODWARD: Yes</s>I -- TRUMP: Because I don't want to create a panic.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): Top administration officials are trying to tell the public, don't believe your own ears.</s>MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I actually didn't sense the president was downplaying anything. We were giving the American people the facts as we knew them, as we learned them every step of the way.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): The Woodward book has GOP senators running for cover with Iowa's Joni Ernst telling CNN, "I haven't read it, I haven't seen it, so give me a chance to take a look". And John Cornyn of Texas praising Mr. Trump saying, "He's done as good a job as you can under the circumstances". But there are other pressing questions for the president's ways in the Woodward book as to why the president thought it was a good idea to tell the author about what sounds like a top-secret nuclear weapons system.</s>TRUMP: But I have built a nuclear -- a weapon -- I have built a weapon system, weapon system that nobody's ever had in this country before. We have stuff that you haven't seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before. There's nobody. What we have is incredible.</s>ACOSTA: Now, all afternoon we have watched hundreds Trump supporters enter this airport hangar in Saginaw, Michigan without any mask. There are some using masks, but they are few and far between. And as this hangar gets full or crowded throughout the afternoon, people are simply unable to practice any kind of social distancing. They are now crowding up to the barricades behind us right now, Wolf. It's as if these Trump supporters have been listening to the president downplay this virus all along. Wolf?</s>BLITZER: So disturbing indeed. So disturbing. Jim Acosta, thank you very much. Let's get some more in Bob Woodward's new book from CNN's Jamie Gangel. Jamie, Woodward learned in early February that the president knew how deadly this virus was. Why did he wait so long to expose how the president was actually misleading the American people?</s>JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: So, Wolf, just to give you some context, when he asked that question on Feb -- when the president discussed that on February 7th, Woodward actually thought they were going to be talking about the impeachment that night. He had just been acquitted. Instead, Trump was focused on the coronavirus. But remember, that was very early on. We really had no idea of any of this. I remember thinking that the virus was a China problem, not something we had. And the reality is that Woodward did not realize until May what Trump was talking about. Because in May he discovers that on January 28th, there was a top secret briefing with Trump's National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien in which O'Brien and his deputy Pottinger warned the president that this was the threat of his presidency. And we have some of that audio from May when Woodward confronts Trump about that January 28th meeting.</s>WOODWARD: So now I understand --</s>TRUMP: Because it was too early.</s>WOODWARD: Your new national security adviser O'Brien said to you on January 28th, Mr. President, this is going -- this virus is going to be the biggest national security threat to your presidency. Do you remember that?</s>TRUMP: No. No.</s>WOODWARD: You don't?</s>TRUMP: No, I don't. No, I don't. I'm sure if he said it, you know, I'm sure he said it. Nice guy.</s>GANGEL: Wolf, sort of a classic Trump pushback. I also just checked with Woodward on two things that have come out of the White House today. It is clear that they are scrambling to push back on the president's own words. And we heard just earlier the president say that Woodward didn't think it was bad and he actually said that. He said that. I just checked with Woodward, he said he never said that and he has the audiotapes. Second thing we've been hearing from the White House today that the president gave Woodward his cell phone. That is not true. Woodward was not given his cell phone. And I have here the president said that these were very short phone calls. I actually have a list of all of the phone calls, all of the dates. There were -- there's an addition to the 18th calls, there is a 19th call. It is almost 10 hours of interviews here. Many of them over a half hour long. Some of them an hour. And frequently, it was Trump calling Woodward unexpectedly. Wolf?</s>BLITZER: So, they had 19 conversations whether in person or on the phone. Is that right?</s>GANGEL: That's correct. There's a 19th phone call that happens after Woodward was done with the book, and the president calls him to try to find out what's in the book.</s>BLITZER: Very interesting. You know, Jamie, CNN has learned that everyone in the president's inner circle thought it was a very good idea for the president to speak with Woodward. Listen to what Trump just said about the interviews. Let me play this.</s>TRUMP: Bob Woodward is somebody that I respect just from hearing the name for many, many years, not knowing too much about his work, not caring about his work. But I thought it would be interesting to talk to him for a period of, you know, calls, so we did that. I don't know if it's good or bad. I don't even know if the book is good or bad.</s>BLITZER: So, what are you learning, Jamie, about why the president even agreed to have Woodward write this book and to cooperate in the book?</s>GANGEL: So first of all, I think the president now has a picture of what's in the book by just our reporting. I also note that on that 19th phone call, Woodward told the president that it was going to be, quote, a tough book. But to go back to why the president wanted to do these interviews, if you read the book, there are anecdotes throughout where it is clear the president wants to impress Bob Woodward. He says things like I would be honored to have a good book from you. He also clearly thinks it's important that he's speaking to Bob Woodward. His wife, the first lady Melania, comes in during one phone call and you hear Trump say on the audio tapes, honey, I'm talking to Bob Woodward. And there you see that picture in the Oval Office., this is one of the Oval Office interviews, all of the things on the resolute desk. Bob Woodward writes in the book, he calls them props, and there are pictures of the president with the North Korean leader. There are different papers he had signed. And Woodward calls them props that were put out there to try to impress Woodward. And he was so surprised because he has interviewed so many presidents before -- I think it's nine previous presidents and not one of them ever had anything on the resolute desk. And one of the things that you read about in the book is, Trump insists on giving Woodward a poster sized photo of Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. He says, this is my only copy, but I'm going to give it to you.</s>BLITZER: Jamie, you're doing amazing reporting for us. You're one of the few reporters out there that's actually read the entire book and we're grateful to you for everything you're doing. Thank you very much, Jamie Gangel, reporting for us. Let's get some analysis right now from the former CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden. Dr. Frieden, thank you so much for joining us. And as you heard the president is insisting, he has done what he calls the best job responding to this pandemic. You say the U.S. is a global laggard on this front. So, what led you to reach a very different conclusion than the president?</s>DR. TOM FRIEDEN, FORMER CDC DIRECTOR: U.S. has a history of very effective health and public health action in this country and around the world. And yet our death rate is five times the death rate of Germany and even greater proportion higher to South Korea or other countries that have really crushed the curve, Singapore, New Zealand, Iceland. But compare us with Germany, another developed country with a decentralized government that faced the virus coming in. That's really what we could have done. We could have had one-fifth of the deaths we have had. And part of this is a failure to communicate, Wolf. It's interesting to hear the discussion of panic because this has been studied. We know how to prevent panic when it comes to health emergencies. There are the principles of public health risk communication. There are five of them. Be first, be right, be credible, be empathetic, and give people concrete practical things to do to protect themselves, their families, and their communities. These are five essential things. If you don't give people concrete practical useful things to do, they will do other things that aren't useful and constructive. But underlying all of this, I think is the failure to recognize that we are all in this together. We can still do better. We can control the virus, we can save lives, we can get jobs back, but that means having an organized response. That means leveling with the American people, telling people what we know when we know it.</s>BLITZER: And the president, I don't know if you saw this, but about half an hour at that news conference claiming the U.S. is doing great right now when it comes to fighting the coronavirus. I checked with the Johns Hopkins University, just yesterday, another 1,206 Americans died from coronavirus. Another 1,200 Americans died just yesterday. You saw our report from Jim Acosta just now. He's with the president, he's getting ready for this upcoming rally in Michigan. Attendees there, they're not social distancing, very few are actually wearing masks. How disturbing is it at this stage knowing what we know for a complete disregard of the ongoing pandemic? And it is ongoing right now, thousands of Americans are expected to die in the coming weeks and months.</s>FRIEDEN: Well, on the one hand, the progress really is within our grasp. And it's very unfortunate that masks have been made into anything other than what they are. They are a way of protecting other people and protecting ourselves. They're an inexpensive effective way of getting our jobs back, getting our educational system back, of getting back to the new normal as soon as possible. At the same time, I'm afraid. I'm afraid that we're getting inured to the number of deaths. Twelve hundred deaths is a catastrophe and that's just one day. We will past 200,000 deaths in the beginning of October by all estimates. And this is a number that is just almost inconceivable. You know, in New York City where I work and live, there were 25,000 extra or excess deaths from COVID and related causes in just a few months. In a whole year, there's usually about 50, 55,000 deaths. So this is an enormous number of people dying and it's tragic to recognize that if we just had a more organized, well-led response with clear communication, many of those deaths could have been avoided and we can still do better. We can still make sure that we tamp the virus down, we prevent it from spreading, find it quickly, stop it from spreading, protect people so that we have fewer deaths and more jobs.</s>BLITZER: And we can't pretend it simply going away. That is so, so dangerous. Dr. Frieden, thank you for joining us. We'll clearly stay in touch with you. Up next, we'll have more in the fallout from Bob Woodward's new book and his stunning recorded conversations with the president, 19 conversations. I'll speak with a key member of the House Democratic leadership, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. There you see him. We have lots to discuss. We will when we come back.