Trump Says States Aren't Opening Fast Enough As 15 States Still Seeing Increases In Death Toll; Trump: Shutdowns Are Causing More Problems "Than The Virus Itself"; Task Force Credits Shutdowns With Reducing Cases
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next, President Trump says states aren't opening up fast enough, blaming Democrats as deaths are still up in 15 states and Trump's own top testings are warned things could get worse very quickly. Plus, President Obama saying something we've never heard him say like this before. Coming out talking about Trump saying he treats the presidency like a reality show and is incapable of growing into the job and that's just the start of it. And Kamala Harris about to accept the historic VP nomination as we're getting our first look at what she will be saying tonight. Let's go OUTFRONT. And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, the breaking news, Trump's coronavirus testing czar sounding the alarm tonight warning of coronavirus outbreaks and pleading with Americans to take warnings seriously.</s>ADM. BRETT GIROIR, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH, HHS: We need to be absolutely diligent about adherence to public health recommendations or else we could have flares and outbreaks. This thing could turn around very quickly if we're not careful.</s>BURNETT: Giroir warning that the crisis could turn around really quickly and get a lot worse if we're all not careful. And yet here was the scene today at an event for the Vice President Mike Pence. In a crowded room, he was not wearing a mask, mingling with people who are not social distancing. There you see him, right, not a mask. Most people not wearing masks, not social distancing. Look, that's the one thing we know will stop the virus, mask work as well as a vaccine, that's from Trump's own coronavirus task force. But you see this, this is today, in a room almost no masks, no social distancing, the Vice President not wearing one. And it's crowded scenes like this which we, of course, see at every single Trump event, including yesterday in Yuma, Arizona, setting an example for other large gatherings. That is where the virus spreads and that is what causes death. This country is still reporting an average of 1,000 deaths a day, 15 states reporting an alarming increase in daily death toll. And it is why at one point at least 30 states had to pause or rollback their reopenings. They went ahead and did it really quickly, including a lot of red states. But moments ago, the President going after cities and states he says specifically run by Democrats that shut down. He says their numbers 'aren't even good', which happens to not be true. I mean, here in New York, we all know, right? Once the epicenter of virus and death, a state run by a Democrat, a state that has been incredibly slow to reopen, today announced one of the lowest positivity rates anywhere 0.78 percent. In the city, 0.24 percent and the President's own task force even acknowledging that the shutdowns were crucial in bringing down the case number of deaths, right? Dr. Birx saying I wish we'd done more and longer shutdowns, it could all be over. Well, Nick Watt is OUTFRONT live in Los Angeles. And, Nick, the President's words are simply not reflecting the reality on the ground today.</s>NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Erin, what really struck me is we just heard from Kansas about five more clusters connected to colleges and universities, then we heard the President playing down the risks to college students saying that the likelihood of them getting seriously sick from COVID is less than or equal to the seasonal flu. He was extolling the virtues of in-person learning over iPads and actually said that closing colleges might kill more people than it saves.</s>REV. JOHN JENKINS, PRESIDENT, NOTRE DAME UNIVERSITY: We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of positive cases of COVID-19 in our first weeks' back on campus.</s>WATT (voice over): One hundred fifty-five cases confirmed in just the past two days. Undergrad classes now online-only for the next two weeks, but students are staying on campus. COVID cases now confirmed that colleges across at least nine states, more than 350 people are now in isolation at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, the college has hired contact tracers.</s>DONDE PLOWMAN, CHANCELLOR, UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE AT KNOXVILLE: That's how we found out about this first cluster and they told us where it was. So we knew it was a party off campus.</s>WATT (voice over): The WHO says now isn't the time for recriminations over parties like these. It's time for education.</s>MARIA VAN KERKHOVE, WORLD HEALTH ORG. EPIDEMIOLOGIST: We just need to make sure that the messages that are getting out particularly to young people, particularly to children and young adults, that you are not invincible to this virus.</s>DESIREE CADY, SON HOSPITALIZED WITH COVID-19: He would shiver and it was warm. And then he would get hot when it was cold.</s>WATT (voice over): Desiree Cady's athletic 19-year-old son at (inaudible) contracted COVID-19 reportedly suffered serious heart complications.</s>CADY: There was a point that I actually thought that I may lose him.</s>WATT (voice over): Across this country, COVID-19 infection rates are still very high but falling. Unclear if that trend will continue, plateau or rise again, like a roller coaster. Interesting to note that testing is down nationally and as the President has said ...</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When you do testing to that extent, you're gonna find more people, you're gonna find more cases. So I said to my people slow the testing down please.</s>WATT (voice over): The bottom line many, many lives are still being lost. Texas accelerated past 10,000 COVID-19 deaths, Florida fast approaching that same sorrowful statistic. Meanwhile, FDA emergency authorization for treatment using blood plasma from the recovered is now reportedly on hold after a number of federal officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci argued the data is still too weak. This according to The New York Times.</s>DR. LEANA WEN, FORMER BALTIMORE HEALTH COMMISSIONER: This really underscores one of the problems in the pandemic that, of course, everybody is desperate and we want a hopeful treatment. And when you're really ill, of course, you want to do everything possible. But at the same time, we cannot take shortcuts in the research.</s>WATT: So colleges are clearly a focus right now, but Gov. Cuomo of New York today warning that opening K through 12 will be even more problematic. Why? Well, because more school kids go home in the evening to their families or their extended families and could potentially be spreading the virus to those older people, Erin.</s>BURNETT: All right. Nick, thank you. And OUTFRONT now Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Dr. Jonathan Reiner, of course, of the GW Cardiac Cath Lab and advised the White House medical team with George W. Bush. Sanjay, so the President tonight says the shutdown is causing all of these problems where he specifically was calling out Democratic cities, but then he went on to say, the suicide and drug abuse, other issues that the shutdown has caused far more problems than the virus itself, that's the quote from the President. Is that true?</s>SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, no, it's not true. I mean, it is fair to say that if you earn a significant shutdown for a prolonged period, there have been some models that suggest that drug abuse and suicide rates would go up. But there's two points to make, one is that we've never really been shut down in this country, not like other countries as Ambassador Birx was talking about Italy, for example. At any given time maybe half of the country was shut down. The other thing is you got to keep in mind, Erin, in this country now as things stand. This disease which didn't even exist a year ago in the United States is now the third leading cause of deaths in the United States. It is far greater risk than any of those other things and the numbers, as you know, continue to go up, that's just over six or seven months.</s>BURNETT: Right. And as you point out right at the third leading cause of death, you can actually see those numbers. Now, Dr. Reiner, this point about the this convalescent plasma. According to The New York Times, the FDA emergency use authorization for that plasma is on hold because Dr. Fauci and others thought that the evidence that was out was too weak. So the President was asked about it today and he said something pretty incredible, because I want to again just emphasize what I just said Dr. Fauci and others say that the evidence is too weak. Here's what the President said.</s>TRUMP: It could be a political decision, because you have a lot of people over there that don't want to rush things because they want to do it after November 3rd and you've heard that one before. But I've heard fantastic things about convalescent plasma.</s>BURNETT: OK. So let me just make it loud and clear, a lot of people over there at the FDA, on the task force our political, don't want him to win so they're holding back something that's an amazing cure that could work, that's what he's saying. What do you say, Dr. Reiner?</s>JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, this is very interesting story. And let me just start by saying no one wants this to work more than me, maybe Sanjay. But other than Sanjay, no one wants this to work more than me. We're desperate for an effective therapeutic. And the President has been teasing this for the last few weeks at his presser saying big news on therapeutics coming soon. I think he's been anticipating that the FDA would grant an emergency use authorization for convalescent plasma. Look, the problem is that although it's been given to about 60,000 people in this country, we don't have randomized clinical trial data and the existing data is super weak. But I was encouraged, actually, by doctors Fauci and Collins, standing up to the FDA, standing up to what must be immense political pressure to approve this because we don't have the data. And we need this kind of scientific leadership as we roll out vaccines to tell the public that this is safe and effective. So the fact that Fauci and Collins have put the brakes on this, encourages me there are adults still at work in this administration. I hope we do the clinical trials. There was an op-ed in The Washington Post a few weeks ago by four former FDA commissioners, desperately urging us to do the randomized clinical trials to understand whether it works or not and we need to get it done.</s>BURNETT: Sanjay, what do you say from all of the source you've talked to? I mean, the President just basically directly saying that people at the FDA and Dr. Fauci would rather not have a cure so that (inaudible) from winning.</s>GUPTA: It's totally ridiculous. I mean, you cannot disentangle anything from politics nowadays. As Dr. Reiner mentioned, there's all sorts of different reasons that they would want the additional data. And keep in mind, this is an FDA that did give emergency use authorization to hydroxychloroquine not that long ago despite having basically no evidence around that. So the fact that they're clamping down on this, taking this seriously with guidance from Dr. Fauci and Collins, I mean, the FDA still is its own autonomous agency. They act on their own. Dr. Fauci and Dr. Collins don't control the FDA, but clearly there's a message being sent here that we're going to be very, very clear in terms of what we're going to even give emergency use authorization to.</s>BURNETT: Yes. I mean, it's stunning. And by the way they had to then rescind that emergency use, which they had done under political pressure at the first place.</s>GUPTA: That's right.</s>BURNETT: So Dr. Reiner, The Vice President today mingling with supporters, no mask, people in the crowd, tons of them no masks, no social distancing. Look, I still can't believe we're seeing these kinds of things. Yesterday, 18 percent positivity rate in Yuma, Arizona. The President of the United States is there, no mask, people in the crowd no masks, no social distancing. Polls show 68 percent of Americans feel more embarrassed than proud by the U.S. response to COVID, 62 percent of Americans say the President should be doing - it should be doing more. Obviously, mask would be the most basic thing he could do. What do you make of the poll?</s>REINER: Well, numbers have bad in the United States, a lot of people have died, 170,000 people have died. A lot of people in this country have been directly affected by this virus in terms of someone dying. Everyone's been directly affected, but in terms of either knowing someone directly or knowing someone who knows someone who's died of this virus and it's just going to get worse and there's no way to hide those numbers. Today, the President singled out New Zealand and say they're having a big outbreak there. New Zealand had has six new cases today. Six.</s>BURNETT: Yes.</s>REINER: So let's look at this in perspective. When I saw the Vice President in that crowd, I worried for his safety. Unless he's been vaccinated himself, wading into a crowd like that, it poses a substantial risk. He needs to be a little more careful.</s>BURNETT: Yes. It's amazing just what that shows. And by the way, I love how he brings up New Zealand. They have a surge. They have six cases. They shut most of the country down so that they won't have any more. I mean in the lockdown way more than our country has experienced. Sanjay, meanwhile, we have the opposite. Schools are reopening, colleges like Notre Dame had more than 200 students with the virus. So you've had these clusters in-person classes there now on hold. But the University of Illinois now says it's got an emergency us from the FDA for a rapid saliva test, their own that they figured out. So does it work? I mean, could this be the game changer for schools?</s>GUPTA: Well, I think this is a bright spot. They got this emergency use authorization by basically saying that they - it was a bridge from the Yale saliva test that was recently was approved under emergency use. This is really interesting, Erin. So this is a school, University of Illinois, they created their own test. It's a saliva based test. It does require a lab, but basically what I've read, we talked to them today. They can do 20,000 tests a day. Their plan is to test the entire student body every twice a week, so every few days. And basically that's in conjunction they're going to be doing tracing and isolation and quarantine as necessary. It's a positive step, I think for sure. It's probably still incremental. Ultimately, I think the kind of test that is really accurate and acts more like a pregnancy test, so you get your results really quickly. There's no lab that it's got to be sent to. It's going to be the key. But you're seeing these independent organizations now step up and I think it's gonna make a big difference. We don't know whether U of I can stay open still because college kids are going to be college kids but I think it can make a big difference.</s>BURNETT: Pretty incredible though when you just see that ingenuity that it was there and that it could happen and yet still as a country people are waiting 10 days or more to get test results back. It's appalling. An appalling indictment of our government on so many levels. Thank you both so much. And next, former President Obama tonight coming out and speaking like we have never heard him before. Primetime across this country will say President Trump has no interest in putting in the work it takes, accusing him of treating the job like a reality show, a joke. Plus, we're getting brand new excerpts from Sen. Kamala Harris' speech which she will be delivering tonight. And the video that we'll be introducing her this evening, we've got a preview of that for you. And a night of women who are, well, they have been hitting Trump for a while and we'll see it tonight, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Tonight we now know what they will say.