Debate Commission To Change Format For Next Presidential Debate; Interview With Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA)
BURNETT: Tonight, President Trump lashing out after the Commission on Presidential Debates says it'll be making changes to the next Trump Biden debate because of last night's debacle. The President tweeting, "Try getting a new Anchor and a smarter Democrat candidate." There is no question though that the problem started with the President.</s>JOE BIDEN (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: How are doing? This guy paid ...</s>TRUMP: Well ...</s>BIDEN: ... a total of $750 in taxes.</s>TRUMP: It's wrong.</s>BIDEN: How many ...</s>WALLACE: Sir.</s>TRUMP: (Inaudible), it's just a wrong statement.</s>WALLACE: No, I understand. You've agreed to the two minutes, so please let him have it. I'd like you to ...</s>TRUMP: And we will protect people with pre-existing conditions.</s>WALLACE: ... Mr. President, I'm the moderator of this debate and I would like you to let me ask my question and then you can answer (inaudible) ...</s>TRUMP: Go ahead ...</s>BIDEN: And by the way, my son ...</s>WALLACE: Mr. President, wait a minute, Mr. President your campaign agreed to both sides would get two-minute answers uninterrupted. Well, your side agreed to it and why don't you observe what your campaign agreed to as a ground rule, OK, sir?</s>BURNETT: OUTFRONT now Brian Stelter. So Brian, what are you learning, are they going to make changes at the next debate?</s>BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes. This has been embarrassing for the Commission and they are looking at what to do differently, but they haven't announced anything yet. This is a gentlemanly, old fashioned can't we all just get along commission, but it exists in a bloodsport world and information war world, a shameless, cruel, ruthless world. They've got to make changes. So one area of focus is the microphone, will the mics be cut off if the candidates interrupt each other. But even that won't be a full solution, Erin, because even if we can't hear Trump at home, Biden will still be able to hear Trump. So that's one of the possible solutions being talked about, but so far they say no decisions have been made.</s>BURNETT: And Chris Wallace told The New York Times today and what I thought was an incredibly self-aware introspective thoughtful conversation ...</s>STELTER: Yes, yes.</s>BURNETT: ... "I'm just sad with the way last night turned out. I never dreamt that it would go off the tracks the way it did. I'm a pro. I've never been through anything like this."</s>STELTER: Wow.</s>BURNETT: And by the way, he did also then go on to say he thinks cutting the mics is a bad idea, because one mic will pick up the other person's voice and just like you pointed out, the other people will hear it.</s>STELTER: Still hear it.</s>BURNETT: He had all sorts of reasons why I thought that that was not going to be a good idea. But I have a lot of respect for Chris Wallace.</s>STELTER: Yes.</s>BURNETT: Was there anything else or more he could have done to control it?</s>STELTER: Well, he could have set the tone more from the very beginning. Fox News says no moderator could have done it better than Chris Wallace did. Maybe that is true. But Wallace is admitting to a failure of imagination. He failed to imagine what Trump would do, how you would destroy the debate format. And that's been the problem all along, Erin, the Trump years have been a failure of imagination. I hope all of the election boards out there that are thinking about Election Day, I hope they don't fail to imagine just how bad it could get.</s>BURNETT: All right. Brian, I thank you. And I want to go now to Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2016. Knows what it's like to deal with the failure of imagination and its consequences. So Senator, let me ask you, the Trump campaign, when these changes are coming out, whether they're going to do the mics or whatever they're going to do, whatever they're discussing. Their quote was, "They're only doing this because their guy got pummeled last night. President Trump was the dominant force and now Joe Biden is trying to work the refs. They shouldn't be moving the goalposts and changing the rules in the middle of the game." What's your response to that? Oh, it looks like we just lost Sen. Kaine. So here's what we're going to do, I'm just going to stall for a second or two and see if we can get him back. If we don't get him back in a second or two, because we have a packed show with a lot coming up. We will take a break and we will come back because I'd rather have a whole bunch of stuff jammed in and out of order, so you get all the stuff rather than miss something. What did you say, Susie (ph)? We have Senator came back. OK. So Senator ...</s>SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA): Hey, Erin.</s>BURNETT: ... OK. I'm sorry, we got you back. I wasn't sure whether I was going to have to have an unexpected commercial break there, OK. Let me just ask you, I don't know if you heard my quote, but Trump was saying they're only trying to change the rules because their guy got pummeled and they're now trying to work the refs, what's your response to that?</s>KAINE: Look, President Trump showed three things. First, as a president he can't be presidential, the challenger looked like the President and Trump looked like the desperate challenger, which was completely bizarre. Second, he, as a sitting president, said he wouldn't accept the outcome of an election if he was unhappy with the results. I lived in a military dictatorship in Honduras 40 years ago. That's a dictator behavior, not democracy behavior. And third, as you guys have covered well with Congressman Clyburn, he wouldn't condemn white supremacy, which we painfully know in Virginia because it was the same stunt that he pulled after the horrific killing of Heather Heyer and two-state troopers in Charlottesville on August 2017.</s>BURNETT: So one thing that set last night's debate apart, there were many things, but there was name-calling and it was nasty. I was watching with my young children at one point having a conversation about how grownups could be acting like that, right?</s>KAINE: Yes.</s>BURNETT: And some of them did come from Joe Biden. Here's a couple of examples.</s>BIDEN: Folks, do you have any idea what this clown is doing?</s>TRUMP: (Inaudible) ...</s>BIDEN: Will you shut up, man?</s>TRUMP: (Inaudible) ...</s>BIDEN: You're the worst president America has ever had, come on.</s>TRUMP: Hey, Joe, let me ...</s>BIDEN: It's hard to get any wording with this clown. Excuse me, (inaudible) ...</s>TRUMP: And let me just say, Joe ...</s>BURNETT: Senator, that sort of trying to get in it with him did not work, it didn't work for Marco Rubio, remember the hands, they tried to handle that, Ted Cruz, it didn't work to get into the mud. Would you tell Biden to keep doing that or to pull that back?</s>KAINE: Erin, when you're debating against somebody who will break every rule no matter what they are and then just lie repeatedly, that is so tough. I mean, I know this, when you debate with somebody who can just look in the camera and lie, it's really hard. I thought Joe did a pretty good job in terms of kind of what a human can do in often rising above it and kind of shaking his head and laughing it off. But then at some point, you just can't let the blows land on your chin and not respond. And look and some of that was very sincere. You're the worst president we've had. There's a lot of evidence 200,000 plus deaths, millions of jobs lost, social division that we haven't seen since the 1960s. There's a lot of evidence for that proposition. It's a painful truth, but it doesn't mean it's not a true statement.</s>BURNETT: So next, we're obviously going to see the vice presidential debate coming up and you, of course, debated Vice President Mike Pence.</s>KAINE: Yes.</s>BURNETT: And I remember being there for that. Have you spoken to Kamala Harris yet and what are you going to tell her about debating Mike Pence, who is a very different, very professional debater?</s>KAINE: Erin, Mike Pence was a media personality for many years before he was in politics. He's good at this. So I'm not going to tell you what I'm telling Kamala, but I will just lay out a reality about this debate. In 2016, remember, both tickets neither were incumbents. So Hillary and Donald were both saying, OK, we're not president but here's what we'll do. So it was largely a campaign about here's what we want to do. But this is a different year 2020, the Trump-Pence ticket, they're incumbents. So a lot of the debate is about what have you done. Remember, on February 26th, Donald Trump asked Mike Pence to take on the most important job of his life, running the American response to coronavirus, being ahead of the task force. At that time, there had been no deaths in the United States, 200,000 deaths later, I think you're going to see a prosecutor and Kamala Harris, but the evidence on the table. Are you really saying that 200,000 plus deaths is a good response, millions of jobs lost or a good response, social unrest, that's a positive? And so I think what you'll see in this debate, which was very different than four years ago, is an incumbent ticket is asking to return and the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris ticket is saying are you better off than you were four years ago? I mean, the answer is clearly no.</s>BURNETT: All right. Sen. Kaine, I thank you for your time tonight.</s>KAINE: Absolutely, Erin. Good to be with you.</s>BURNETT: All right. You too. And next, an alarming Coronavirus surge across the country and I'm going to talk to an ER doctor, head of the ER actually of this hospital who said the second wave is here. It's here with a vengeance. They've had people waiting in the halls. And Trump's former fixer, Michael Cohen, is OUTFRONT, why he says Trump was not misspeaking as his defenders claim when it comes to white supremacy and the Proud Boys, and what does he know about this.</s>TRUMP: I paid millions of dollars in taxes, millions of dollars of income tax.