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U.S. Pays $1 Billion to Secure Doses of Potential AstraZeneca Vaccine; New Analysis Shows Lockdown Delays Cost Tens of Thousands of Lives; CDC Director Raises Possibility of Second Round of Lockdown This Year; Trump Heads to Michigan After Threatening to Withhold State Funding; More Than 2 Million More Americans Filed for Unemployment Last Week; Lori Loughlin, Husband to Plead Guilty in College Admissions Scandal; California Sees Second-Highest Death Toll in a Single Day as More Counties Move to Reopen. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired May 21, 2020 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[09:00:15]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

As a country, we are not yet over the first wave of the outbreak yet, but the CDC director is already warning, and this is sad, but about a round two, if the country does not do a better job of tracking the coronavirus going forward. That means another lockdown is possible months from now.

And, listen, that's daunting. But this is also a disturbing and disappointing. A new model shows that if the U.S. had shut down just weeks earlier, just weeks, the U.S. would have prevented tens of thousands of deaths in this country. Think about that. Just weeks separated this country from life and death for so many Americans.

HARLOW: It really did. We learned that as states reopen and another study warns that we could see a surge in cases, especially in southern states, frankly something we're already beginning to see in some this hour and today the president is just hours away from a trip to Michigan, a state facing loud opposition to tight restrictions in place amid the pandemic. Also the state the president threatened to withhold funding from in a clash over mail-in voting, a move to keep people safe.

We're at the Ford plant that the president will go to today. Let's begin this hour, though, with our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen for more on the medical headlines.

Elizabeth, good to have you. Let's talk about pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announcing an agreement to make at least 400 million doses of a potential vaccine. Is that right?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And AstraZeneca is making the vaccine that's been developed by University of Oxford in England. And so we have various players here. They are one of eight vaccines that are in human clinical trials. Oxford expecting to begin those trials very soon. They told me before July 1st.

You know, this is one of several vaccines that have said we are going to make this many, we are going to make that many. And we don't know that all of them are going to work. It's called manufacturing at risk or parallel manufacturing. What it means is that you start making the vaccines before you know if they're actually going to work. If they're actually going to go on the market.

That means at the end of the day, we may have spent a lot of money on a vaccine that's going to sit in a warehouse because it doesn't work. But it also means, hopefully, that we've made a lot of the vaccine that will end up working so that when we do realize that it works, we can say, all right, let's get going, we've already made a large batch. And we need a lot of it because we're trying to vaccinate the world.

SCIUTTO: Yes, that's significant. Dr. Fauci and others have talked about that. That's the idea that, you know, if you reach that discovery point, then you already have a supply of it ready to go, granted that's a big if.

Tell us more about this new modeling that shows that tens of thousands of lives in this country could have been spared if the U.S. followed the example of other countries such as South Korea and lock down earlier.

COHEN: Yes, you know, at the time each country was deciding on its own when are we going to shut down. And many other countries shut down before we did. And so what this new analysis from Columbia University shows is that if the U.S. had shut down two weeks earlier than we did, we could have avoided 84 percent of the deaths and 82 percent of the cases. That is an extraordinary number.

Now, this is modeling. So we're not exactly sure that that would be the number. But I think it's clear that if we had shut down earlier, more lives would have been saved. I will say, I think if we all think back to that time, shutting down even when we did, seems like sort of a shocking notion to many people. Shutting down two weeks earlier. I don't think anyone in this country or not many people in this country were in that time frame yet. It still felt I think even to some folks at the CDC that this was somehow controllable. It turned out it wasn't.

SCIUTTO: Elizabeth Cohen, thanks very much as always.

Let's speak now to CNN's Nick Valencia for more on the latest warning from the CDC director Robert Redfield. This of course comes as there is some sniping at him, talk about the future of his job. What are we learning?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, really ominous warnings from the director of the CDC who hasn't really been that vocal, Jim and Poppy, over the course of the last several weeks. But all that changed overnight, giving an interview here, asked if we should be prepared for perhaps a second wave of this winter. This is what he told the "Financial Times," saying, quote, "I can't guarantee. That's kind of getting into the opinion mode. We have to be data driven. What I can say is that we are committed to using the time that we have now to get this nation as overprepared as possible."

You know, last night, I met with several CDC sources and they've really gone on the offensive of course the last 24 hours acknowledging that they haven't done enough or really a good job at all to control the public health message. Senior official at the CDC telling me that they have been working with state and local agencies all along, inferring that they've really been doing this behind the scenes without fanfare and much announcement by the White House.

[09:05:10]

Several officials that I met with last night saying that the CDC has been challenged. It's very challenging to work with this administration, that they're working within the confines and margins set, the boundaries set by the White House.

There was also some criticism lobbed towards Dr. Redfield, and that's not new. You know, we've seen this sort of vocal criticism from people within the CDC, questioning whether or not he's the right man for the job. Now no one questions him whether or not he's personally a likable man, they're just asking if he's the right man for this moment.

Now sources I spoke to that are closer to Dr. Redfield pushed back on that -- those allegations, those claims, saying that Dr. Redfield remains approximate to the response. He's been in -- nearly every single task force meeting and then he has a voice at the table. Really, though, it is this back-and-forth that we've seen play out with the White House.

The fact is, as Elizabeth Cohen just laid out, President Trump didn't take this virus seriously enough. The CDC tried to emphasize just how critical it was for national response. And right now that back-and- forth is playing out in the public eye -- Jim and Poppy.

HARLOW: Certainly is. Nick, thanks for the reporting.

Let's talk about all of these developments overnight with Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC.

OK. So I want to get your take on this modeling and, yes, it's modeling as Elizabeth Cohen laid out, but from Columbia University's team, the fact that having -- if we had social distance and lockdown starting March 1st, 83 percent of the deaths in the U.S. would have been avoided.

I get that we can't change things now. But it can inform us for the future. It can inform us if there is a second wave in the fall.

DR. RICHARD BESSER, FORMER ACTING DIRECTOR, CDC: Well, you know, I think it can inform us even before that. As we're seeing states getting people back to work, it's critically important that we have data at the community level to be able to identify if there is increased disease transmission. You need to know neighborhood by neighborhood. You need to know among black Americans, Latino Americans, Native Americans.

If you start to see an uptick, what this suggests is that you have to act quickly. You have to act quickly and move towards more social distancing. You know, we're seeing some declines across the entire nation, which may suggest there is some seasonality that we're going to get a bit of a reprieve during the warmer times and, yes, we have to be ready for the winter when respiratory viruses tend to be much more active.

SCIUTTO: Dr. Besser, there's been some positive news on vaccine trials this week. You had the NIH human trial on Monday, progress there as they then scale up to many more human subjects. And success in animal trial, but also after AstraZeneca news. I'm curious, place this in the context for our viewers how significant are these results and do they move up in your view the likely date that we will have a vaccine that all of us can take.

BESSER: You know, I'm very hopeful that we will have a vaccine. But predicting when that will be is really, really challenging. Vaccines usually take years to develop. And I'm not convinced that this one will be developed on a faster timeline.

I worry that a lot of the data we're seeing is cherry picked. You know, the data about the Moderna vaccine, it was eight patients out of 45. What about those other 37 that we didn't hear about? The news was good. But does it really mean that we're that much faster?

I'm excited to see that there is movement to manufacture, start to manufacture vaccine, even before the trials are done. But you never want to give a vaccine to people that you haven't done all the testing to make sure it's safe.

HARLOW: Sure.

BESSER: That you haven't done the testing to make sure that it's effective. And those things really take time.

HARLOW: Dr. Besser, you brought up seasonality, and the hope that in the warmer months at least this subsides. But I just want to get your take on something else that Dr. Redfield said to the "Financial Times," quote, "We've seen evidence that the concern is that it would go south to the southern hemisphere like the flu and what you're seeing is that's happening in Brazil now. And then when the southern hemisphere is over us, I suspect it will reground itself in the north."

I'm just interested in what the numbers out of Brazil are telling you right now. I think they just saw a daily spike of 20,000 new cases in a day.

BESSER: Yes, I mean, that's typically what you see with influenza. When it gets quiet here in the northern hemisphere, it's more active in the southern hemisphere, and vice versa. So it's really important that public health pays close attention to what's going on in the southern hemisphere.

Many countries, if you think about countries in Africa, don't have the testing capacity to really be able to look and it's one of the reasons why it's so important that wealthy nations like ours invest in testing, invest in public health systems around the globe.

[09:10:06]

It helps ensure the health of people everywhere but it also helps ensure the health of people here.

SCIUTTO: It's early, but 50 states are now reopening to some degree. Others started earlier. There's been some anecdotal evidence of an uptick in cases as a result of that in some states. Have you seen a broad set of data that shows you that outbreaks are increasing or growing as a result of reopening? Or is it too early?

BESSER: Yes, I think it's too early. There is a real lag. If you think about what it takes as you reopen, people start to have more contact with each other. If there is increased risk there, and there will be. But if it's significant risk, it can take a week, 10 days, before you're seeing an increase in people getting sick and then within that illness it can take another week for people to get sick enough to go to the hospital.

And then unfortunately, you know, it's something like a death indicator, that takes many weeks before you'd see movement there. So it's hard to tell. And I worry that we don't have the testing down to the level of each community, each population so that there could be increases that occur that you miss, in groups of people who are going back to work, in groups of people where their exposure is really increasing.

SCIUTTO: Dr. Richard Besser, always good to have you on to cut through the fog of all this. Thanks for joining us this morning.

BESSER: Thanks, Jim. Thanks, Poppy.

HARLOW: All right. We'll go to the president now. He is heading to Michigan. He's going to tour a Ford plant there, one that has been making ventilators and just started making cars and trucks again.

SCIUTTO: Yes. But it comes amid controversy. The president threatened yesterday to withhold federal funding from Michigan in a fight over mail-in ballots, which the fact show GOP and Democratic-led states are increasingly the availability of mail-in ballots.

CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez joins us now with details.

What is the president threatening here and are state officials there taking that threat seriously?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim and Poppy, that threat to withhold funding is centered on the secretary of state here in Michigan saying that they would be offering absentee ballot applications to all of their voters. And initially President Trump tweeted incorrectly at the time saying that there were absentee ballots being sent out and claiming it was illegal.

Again, we know both of those claims were not true. He later characterized it correctly as far as what was being sent out but in that same tweet, threatened to withhold funding from Michigan if they went down this voter fraud path as he described it, which it is worth noting that voter fraud by mail is pretty rare and there are other states like Texas that are offering similar things to all of their voters.

And all of that is separate from what we're expecting to see here Ypsilanti at this Ford plant behind me. A big question with the president's visit today is whether he will be wearing a mask, and that's significant specifically because it is Ford's policy here that all of their employees and people that come in and out should be wearing masks. They say they've communicated this to the White House and that the White House will be making their own determination as Ford tells us.

And this comes as now the state attorney general says well, if he doesn't wear a mask, that would put into consideration how they treat any future visits of the president to facilities here in the state.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA NESSEL, MICHIGAN STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL: If he fails to wear a mask, he is going to be asked not to return to any enclosed facilities inside our state. And I know that Ford hasn't asked him to do the same thing. But if he -- if we know he's coming to our state and we know he's not going to follow the law, I think we're going to have to take action against any company or any facility that allows him inside those facilities and puts our workers at risk.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: Now, I've spoken to one source in the facility who says they would prefer the president wear a mask, specifically pointing to the fact that when the CEO came and when union leadership came and others, that they followed safety protocols as laid out by Ford and that they would like to see more of that leadership by example -- Poppy, Jim.

HARLOW: I mean, Omar, it would be, I think, seen by many as a slap in a face if he doesn't. Ford made PPE, masks, gowns, ventilators, for the months that it was closed to protect people. I mean, you can't forget that.

Thank you very much for that reporting.

And again we're going to talk to Michigan's lieutenant governor later this hour about the president's visit and also that threat on funding.

Still to come here, another 2.4 million Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week. Will Congress do more to help? Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio who took on the Treasury secretary this week, he will join us.

SCIUTTO: Yes, 2.4 million people a week. At any other time, I mean, that would be news all by itself.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: And as more and more counties in the state prepare to reopen, California has seen now its second highest single-day death toll. What does that mean for reopening?

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[09:15:00]

SCIUTTO: Its highest single day death toll. What does that mean for reopening?

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HARLOW: More absolutely devastating news for the economy, 2.4 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week alone. Just sit with this number for a minute. That means that nearly 40 million Americans have filed for jobless claims since just mid-March. This comes as every state has loosened restrictions and more people are going back to work. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin pressed on that earlier this week by Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D-OH): There has been no national program to provide worker safety. The president says reopen slaughter houses, nothing about slowing the line down, nothing about getting protective equipment. Is how many workers should give their lives to increase the GDP or the Dow Jones by a 1,000 points?

[09:20:00]

No worker should give their lives to do that, Mr. Senator. And I think your characterization is unfair.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Senator Sherrod Brown is with me now, and the numbers, senator, have just gotten worse. They've gotten worse. Census this morning out with data, 47 percent of households have lost income, children, Brookings says, more than 17 percent of American parents say their children don't have enough to eat. The White House says we're going to rebound, and the second half is going to be so much better and it's going to be a great recovery. But what about these people right now?

BROWN: That's right. I am -- majority leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell has said there is no urgency in doing anything more now. I worry about people that are going to be evicted from their homes, where they -- 25 percent of people who rent pay more than half their income in rent, and that was prior to the pandemic. So they need help. We need more help with food banks, and we need to extend unemployment benefits because clearly the economy is not going to snap back come July. And I don't understand. I mean, my favorite Abraham Lincoln quote is,

"I need to go out and get my public opinion bath, and I don't think that Senator McConnell and their leaders in this country, and particularly the president are going out and really seeing the pain out there, and want to do something about it, sense of urgency.

HARLOW: You have been pushing for more stimulus, including more direct aid, direct checks to households on a quarterly basis. The University of Chicago and Stanford just came out with some numbers last week that were jaw-dropping. They think 42 percent of the jobs lost in this are never going to come back. So, if that's the case, stimulus only goes so far, right? It's a structural problem then. What do you do?

BROWN: Well, it's a structural problem, but you want money in people's pockets for two reasons, directly in their pockets, whether it's unemployment or whether it's a quarterly stimulus check. So that as the economy begins to rebound, they have money to spend in the workplace and then into businesses, so businesses can prosper and the economy can grow.

I mean, we know there are things we can't predict. But we can predict that money and consumers pockets lead to something good for the economy. I can't help but thinking, I would talk to a grocery store worker in Cincinnati, a couple of weeks ago, who said, you know, they call us essential workers, but he said they don't pay me like it, and they don't protect me in the workplace.

HARLOW: Yes --

BROWN: And that really is -- put -- that's the reason for the pandemic pay we've talked about, that those workers should get more money, they'll then be more bigger-spending consumers. All of that is going to stimulate the economy. But the money has got to go through the pocket -- through the hands of workers, not just go to corporations and hope it trickles down, which you saw in the Mitch McConnell way.

HARLOW: Well, you bring up an interesting point, and I thought about this a lot. I thought about it when I was at our local grocery store in Brooklyn yesterday, right? And that's the question of hazard pay. Do you -- is there an appetite in Congress now, enough of a bipartisan appetite, to try to -- and do you think it would be prudent to try to pass something that mandates hazard pay for people on the front lines?

BROWN: Yes, called pandemic pay, hazard pay, hero's bonus, whatever term. Yes, I mean, the house already passed with a pretty strong vote pandemic pay of up to -- I believe their number was up to about $10 an hour for those workers. And you think who they are, they aren't just the nurse and the person -- the -- you know, the respiratory therapist at the hospital. It's the person that does the laundry and changes the bed linens.

It's the grocery store worker, it's the bus driver, 145 bus drivers have died of coronavirus. It's the person doing research in a medical lab, it's all kinds of the child care worker and the home-care worker who are woefully underpaid in this society. But they're exposed every day, they go to work, they work for low wages, then they go home and think about the anxiety that they have there that they might be bringing this virus into their families.

So we've got to -- if they're called essential, then we've got to make them -- we've got to treat them like they're essential.

HARLOW: The Congressional Oversight Commission, I know you know said this week and found that Treasury has spent little of the $500 billion that has been specifically appropriated to lending, you know, direct facilities from the Fed and Treasury to businesses and state and local governments. Is there any argument for a pause given that?

BROWN: Well, there is an argument that the administration has been incompetent partly because they put people like Jared Kushner, they put family members in charge, they fire the people that know what they're doing and bring political hacks in. They were very slow getting unemployment checks out. They haven't near, they were too slow in getting the individual payments to people, particularly seniors and disabled people.

There's too much urgency in what needs to be done. There's too many people about to be foreclosed on --

HARLOW: So --

BROWN: Too many people -- no, I mean, we've got to move forward and do this.

[09:25:00]

HARLOW: Let me ask you one final question that I've been thinking about a lot. And that is, they're calling this a "she" session, right? If the great recession hit men more, this is hitting women more. The unemployment numbers for women are higher, minority women are taking an even bigger hit. And when this question in families comes, when Summer camps close, and if school doesn't go back to normal in the Fall, you know, and the two-parent working household, who goes back to work?

We know the brunt of the child care is going to fall on women. So, I guess my question to you is, do you agree with economists who say we cannot have a full recovery until there is universal child care?

BROWN: Yes, universal child care and sick day policy. My daughter's children Summer camp in Columbus was just canceled for the whole Summer. They thought maybe the second session would be open, they canceled it, she told me last night. You know, we don't have library -- generally in the Summer, child care is always hard in this country, in part because policy-makers mostly look like me, and you know, are not female.

But they don't think enough about it and don't have outspoken daughters like I do. But you know, in the Summer, usually at least libraries are open, rec centers are open, feeding programs are open with enrichment, programs around them, most of those are closed now. So, when we talk about putting people back to work, we've got to think

about this question of what do parents do, and how productive are they in the workplace, really, Poppy, when you're always thinking about your child not having, not in a particularly optimal situation home? Well, you're here right now, your husband is with your children --

HARLOW: Yes --

BROWN: So you feel comfortable. If you were in a different situation --

HARLOW: Yes --

BROWN: And had to focus on your child while you were always thinking in the back of your mind --

HARLOW: Of course --

BROWN: What's happening with my kids, my 12-year-old is watching, my 8-year-old, that kind of thing.

HARLOW: It's an impossible situation, the fact that, you know, my husband and I can flip-flop and take care of kids at different parts of the day, that's not the reality for most -- for most Americans. So Senator Brown, thank you. We'll be watching to see what is done on that front.

BROWN: Thank you.

HARLOW: Jim?

SCIUTTO: Important interview at an important time. We do have breaking news in to CNN. And that is that the actress Lori Loughlin and her husband will now plead guilty in the college admissions scandal. They had been holding out for a number of months as others had pled guilty. CNN's Brynn Gingras has the latest for us. Brynn, what more do we know and will there be prison time served?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there will, Jim. Of course, this is a stunning development as this famous couple, two of the more famous names associated with this case that broke out more than a year ago are pleading guilty and essentially saying, yes, we are going to go to prison. They took plea deals with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston, Lori Loughlin is going to face two years in prison if a judge agrees, in addition to $150,000 fine and other requirements of that plea agreement.

Her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli is going to face five months in prison and $250,000 fine. Mossimo Giannulli pleading guilty to two charges while Lori Loughlin pled guilty to -- will plead guilty to one. They were both facing each three charges. Now, this is all going to happen in court at a later date. But, again, another stunning development as they are now the 23rd and 24th parents to plead guilty in this huge case. Jim?

SCIUTTO: To be clear, Brynn, two years or two months in prison? GINGRAS: I'm sorry, did I say two years? Two months. Sorry --

SCIUTTO: OK, yes --

GINGRAS: Yes, thank you --

SCIUTTO: But I just want to be clear because that would have been enormous. Brynn Gingras --

GINGRAS: Right --

SCIUTTO: Thanks very much on this important story.

HARLOW: Yes, wow, what a development. All right, so California records its second highest daily death toll as the majority of counties move forward with reopening. We'll have a live update there.

SCIUTTO: And we are moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street. U.S. futures sliding this morning amid release of the new job numbers. Although, green arrows there now. Stocks had rallied, you'll remember, Wednesday, with the Dow finishing up more than 360 points. Investors continue to be hopeful about the reopening of the economy, how quickly the economy bounces back.

We're going to keep a close eye on those numbers. They move and they change quickly.

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