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House Democrats Ramping Up Probe of Postal Service; Georgia Reports, Third Cherokee County School Closes Temporarily Due to Virus; Speaker Nancy Pelosi Calling for House to Return from Recess; Interview with Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) about the U.S. Postal Service Funding Bill; Former Republican Presidential Candidate to Speak at Democratic Convention; Thousands Pour into Streets of Belarus in Opposition to President. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired August 16, 2020 - 18:00   ET

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

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[18:00:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome to viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. This is a special edition of THE SITUATION ROOM.

Tonight, leaders in the House of Representatives are turning up the heat on the U.S. Postal Service. They're demanding the postmaster general testify before an emergency session to explain a series of major sweeping policy changes that are slowing down the mail to the point that it could possibly impact the U.S. presidential election. We're talking the removal of letter collection boxes in several states, the dismantling of mail-sorting equipment, closing post offices early and cutting overtime pay to postal workers.

President Trump very strongly does not want widespread mail-in voting, insisting it will lead to chaos and voter fraud. Just this weekend, he said that a mail-in election would take, in his words, months or years to get an accurate vote count, even though nothing, nothing, exists to support that assertion.

House leaders have not yet decided to take the rare move of coming back to Capitol Hill early from their summer recess but are looking at next week to put postal officials under oath and try to get some answers.

Let's go to the White House right now. Our White House Correspondent, John Hardwood, is joining us. John, along with everything else I just mentioned, there is a money factor to all of this dispute as well. Democrats say they wanting to boost funding to the Postal Service at this critical time but that's a political negotiation, it's also under way. So where do things stand right now?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's a big money factor, Wolf. And this is a longtime issue that's been percolating. The Postal Service has been underfunded, Republicans, as the anti-government party and not particularly interested in remedying those -- that underfunding. But now that we've gotten into an election, where, for very good reason, people getting sick of voting in person during this pandemic, the Postal Service needs a lot more service to handle mail- in balloting. The issue has really come to ahead.

Democrats have been trying to get an additional $25 billion that the Board of Governors has requested. Republicans have been resistant. And the more the president tries to raise doubts about mail-in voting, the more Democrats have got a significant lead, Joe Biden going into his convention this week, is up eight to ten points over President Trump. The more they think that the messing around with the voting system through mail-in balloting is the way that President Trump could mess up the prospects for Democrats to win.

So the heat the Democrats are generating has had some effect. The Postal Service is not going to eliminate many of those letter collection boxes in some states that you referred to and we also heard this from Mark Meadow, the White House Chief of Staff.

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MARK MEADOWS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: There is no sorting machines that are going offline between now and the election. That's something that my Democrat friends are trying to do, to stoke fear out there. That's not happening.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Are you saying that sorting machines have not been taken offline and removed? Are you asserting that that did not happen?

MEADOWS: I'm saying that sorting machines between now and the election will not be taken offline.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARWOOD: Now, Wolf, the $25 billion the Democrats have asked for has been part of this broader COVID relief package that has hung up in a stalemate. The administration, which is trying to downplay the pandemic itself, is not willing to fund the levels the Democrats are talking about.

But now, after insisting everything be part of a single package, Democrats are entertaining the idea of a standalone package for the Postal Service. And the reason is that they think this is a critical element of their ability to oust the Trump administration, gain power in November and remedy some of the problems that they've been talking about in the campaign.

The question is going to, can they generate enough pressure. And one of the pressure points that Democrats can use against Republicans is so many voters, in addition to mail-in voting, depend on the Postal Service for checks that they get in the mail, for prescriptions that they get in the mail. And we have seen that some Republicans are uneasy with the stance of the administration. We'll see over the next few days how that plays out.

BLITZER: We certainly will. All right, John Harwood at the White House, thanks very much. And tomorrow, House Democrats will hold a conference call to discuss ending the recess, returning to the U.S. Capitol to deal with the crisis surrounding the U.S. Postal Service. CNN has learned, by the way, they're eyeing and August 24th return, which would make it the first time in American history that either House of Congress was in session during a party's national convention.

[18:05:08]

I'm joined now by chair of the House Intelligence Committee, California Congressman Adam Schiff.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

Are you in favor of ending the congressional recess, calling the House back to Washington to deal with this crisis?

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Absolutely. I think we need to deal with the emergency needs of the Postal Service. Bear in mind, we provided funding for the Postal Service, we passed it in the House three months ago. It has sat on Mitch McConnell's desk ever since. Not just because the president and Republicans fear that if more Americans vote that they will lose, but also because, by and large, about half or more than half of the Republicans in the Senate don't want to do anything more to help the American people.

They don't want to extend unemployment compensation, they don't want to provide money for schools or states or cities or renters. They don't want to do anything.

But, certainly, the president doesn't want to improve the functioning of the post office because he thinks that higher turnout, more Americans voting is a bad thing for him personally, even if it's exactly what our democracy needs.

BLITZER: So what's the plan of action, Congressman? As far as the Postal Service, if you do return, all of you come back to Washington and deal with this, what would you want to see? A standalone piece of legislation focusing in strictly on the Postal Service right now?

SCHIFF: Well, look, I would like to make sure that we meet the needs, the broad needs of the American people right now who are suffering with access or lack of access to healthcare, lack of access to testing and also struggling financially. But we do need to make sure that the foundational right, the right to vote upon which everything else hangs in our democracy, is unimpeded during a pandemic. And that means that we need a healthy Postal Service and we need healthy mail-in secure ballots.

And the president is doing everything he can with his donor-made postmaster general to thwart that. It is part of a decades-long strategy of disenfranchisement, the doing away with the postal boxes, the doing away with postal stations in urban areas, the enactment of deliberately burdensome voter I.D. laws. All of this has been years and years in the making to try to disenfranchise people. So we're not seeing something new but we're seeing it with just breathtaking clarity and they're not even trying to hide it. The president is quite adamant that he just doesn't think he can win if more people can vote. And that is just a shocking betrayal of our democracy, but not a surprise from this president.

So we're going to keep the pressure on, Wolf. I think John Harwood is exactly right. We need to amp up the public attention to this, people need weigh in with their representatives and their senators and hold them accountable so that those members of Congress know if they get in the way of the Postal Service, if they undermine it, if they prevent veterans from getting their medicines from the V.A. and people getting their disability checks, they are going to pay a price as well as the president.

BLITZER: I want to turn to some other important issues. Interestingly, the president yesterday said he would, in his words, look at the possibility of actually pardoning Edward Snowden, who leaked classified intelligence back in 2013. What do you make of that?

SCHIFF: Wolf, it's really interesting, and I don't know what to make of it, because, of course, the president has been calling Snowden a traitor, saying that he should be executed. And now he's done this complete about-face. Really, inexplicably, where is this coming from?

I have to say, it makes you wonder because we know so little of what the president discusses when he talks to Putin and Snowden is, of course, finding his safe refuge in Putin's Russia right now, there are a lot of other things the president has said that have been inexplicable over time, things like the Soviets went into Afghanistan to fight terror. Well, that's a Russian propaganda narrative. So where is he getting this sudden fascinating newfound interest in the pardon for Edward Snowden?

I can tell you this. One common denominator of Trump pardons, he doesn't pardon anyone unless he thinks it's in his personal self- interest. So there's probably more to the story.

BLITZER: It's interesting. Your Republican colleague, Congresswoman Liz Cheney, she just tweeted this. And let me read it to you and get your reaction. Edward Snowden is a traitor. He is responsible for the largest and most damaging release of classified information in U.S. history. He handed over U.S. secrets to Russian and Chinese intelligence, putting our troops and our nation at risk. Pardoning him would be unconscionable.

She's not mincing any words at all. Do you agree with her?

SCHIFF: Well, you know, I certainly agree that what he did violated the law and violated it in a very serious way.

[18:10:05]

In the long list of people who should be pardoned, he would not be on my list. So it is, I think, quite inexplicable that the president has done this about-face. You know, I will say this, I think that the Russians view it is in their interest to get him out of their country and one way to get him out of their country is for Donald Trump to the give him a pardon. But I can't understand why the president of all people has this epiphany now, apparently, about Edward Snowden.

BLITZER: We're our showing viewers, Congressman, some live pictures of the president and the first lady, their son, just arriving at Joint Base Andrews outside of Washington, D.C. They spent the weekend up in New Jersey at the president's country club up there. They're going to be boarding Marine One heading back to the White House. We'll continue to monitor that and see if the president stops and talks with reporters upon their arrival at the White House.

Congressman Schiff, as usual, thanks so much for joining us.

SCHIFF: Thank you, Wolf. Good to be with you.

BLITZER: CNN is following some breaking news in Texas right now. We're just getting in some reports that multiple police officers were shot in Cedar Park, that's just north of Austin, Texas, while responding to a call at a home. Williamson County Sheriff putting out a tweet just minutes ago asking residents in the area to stay indoors. CNN is working to get more details. We'll update you as soon as we get more information on this disturbing, very disturbing development.

Meanwhile, a number of schools in Georgia reopened this month, but after just a few days of classes, some have now closed their doors because of coronavirus. Are schools safe? Stay with us. You're in The Situation Room.

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[18:15:00]

BLITZER: Schools in Cherokee, Georgia, just north of Atlanta, reopened for in-person classes on August 3rd. But today, a third public school in Cherokee County is temporarily ending classes on site after 25 people at the school tested positive for coronavirus, and more than a quarter of its students are now quarantined.

CNN's Natasha Chen is joining us. What's happening with Creekview High School, that's in Cherokee County, Natasha, three schools in this county just outside of Atlanta temporarily closed after only two weeks of classes, tell us what's going. Update our viewers.

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf. Well, Cherokee County was one of the first districts around the metro Atlanta area to begin its school semester and we're hearing about Creekview High School that there are at least 25 positive cases with 500 of their students protectively in quarantine.

And consider that's 500 out of a total student body of 1,800. So that's getting close to a third of the students from that high school having to quarantine here. And the letter home to families this weekend explained that the temporary closure lasts for a little while. They are hoping to reopen the site on August 31st.

Taking a look at the overall context what's going on in Cherokee County, if we can pull up those numbers, there are a total of 3,981 confirmed COVID-19 cases, a total of 67 deaths and 370 people there hospitalized.

Of course, Cherokee County is not alone in this experience. Paulding County nearby, also temporarily sent students home after some positive test cases. They begin class tomorrow with a hybrid situation of both in-person and digital learning.

And I did speak to a parent a couple days ago, Wolf, who sent her daughters to the middle school across from Creekview High, she pulled them out of that district after just two days when her daughters told her that they had 30 to 40 kids in each classroom and a lot of them not wearing masks, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes. It certainly does not bode well for schools across the country that are beginning to reopen with in-class learning right away. Natasha, thank you very much.

Joining us now is CNN Medical Analyst, Dr. Celine Gounder. Dr. Gounder, more than 2,000 students, teachers, staff members across five states now have been quarantined after positive cases of coronavirus have been found at their respective schools. I want you to take a look at the trends from Georgia's Cherokee County. Maybe a slight downturn's in recent days but there's still no mandate on wearing masks at Cherokee schools.

So, you're a doctor, you're an expert in this area. What's your reaction?

DR. CELINE GOUNDER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, Wolf, this is what we've been saying now for months, which is that you really can't talk about reopening schools as long as you have widespread community transmission. And this is exactly how things have borne out, that in the absence of the public health measures needed to control the disease, things like wearing masks, which we know worked to prevent transmission, you're going to have ongoing transmission. And in schools you're going to see that just as you are in other public places. So, none of this is at all surprising.

BLITZER: Is this so-called back to classrooms experiment failing as far as you can tell, Dr. Gounder? Should we stop trying to make it work while the numbers of coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, deaths, keep going up?

GOUNDER: Well, just as the solution to reopening the economy is through good, public health work. The solution to opening schools is through the basics of public health. And that was really something that's been ignored, that's been rushed, that hasn't been done the way it needed to be done.

So, we really need to go basics again. We need to be doing widespread testing, wide-scale testing, we need to be isolating people who are infectious from those who are not. And, by the way, there is really actually a great news yesterday from the FDA. They just approved, or gave emergency use authorization to a saliva-based test that would really allow us to dramatically scale up testing.

[18:20:07]

And this is really groundbreaking, if you want to be trying to control the spread of the disease in communities.

BLITZER: Another 1,029 Americans died yesterday, Dr. Gounder, from the coronavirus. And some perspective on this, I mentioned this, I posted it on Twitter a little while ago. Back in March, the U.S. and South Korea, each had about 90 confirmed coronavirus deaths. Now, the U.S. nearing 170,000 confirmed deaths while South Korea has a total of 305 confirmed deaths, just 305 confirmed deaths. They have a population of about 52 million people.

So how does the U.S. get out of this terrible trajectory? What did we do wrong? What did South Korea do right?

GOUNDER: Well, South Korea, like many other countries in East Asia, have had prior experience with diseases like SARS, as well as avian flu and so on. And they understand very well the importance of wearing masks. That's a part of their normal cultural practice in the winter months, when you have cough cold, flu season. And so that's something that we have really underappreciated here in this country.

And, again, the things like testing, isolation, contact tracing, we haven't invested in those things. If anything, we've really underinvested in public health for decades and continue to do so during this entire period and haven't done the work necessary to contain the virus.

BLITZER: Yes. I think it's fair to say South Korea, the national government there, all the experts, the medical experts, they knew exactly what needed to be done. Clearly, here in the United States, we didn't know what needed to be done and we're suffering big time right now with no end in sight.

Dr. Gounder, thanks so much for joining us.

Top Democratic lawmakers want the U.S. postmaster general to testify before Congress next week about mail slowdowns and the impact it could have on the U.S. presidential election. We're taking a closer look at the controversy.

And I'll speak live with the West Virginia senator, Joe Manchin. There you see him. He's got lots to say on this really critical issue.

Stay with us. You're in The Situation Room.

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[18:25:00] BLITZER: Here in Washington, Democratic leaders are ramping up their investigation into the United States Postal Service, calling on the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, and the chairman of the Postal Service Board of Governors, Robert Duncan, to testify before lawmakers next week.

House Democrats fuming over what leaders called sweeping and dangerous operational change aimed at slowing down the mail to sabotage the November presidential election.

CNN's Abby Philip joining us right now. Abby, the Postal Service has now backtracked on their restructuring moves. You're following this very closely, doing a little of reporting on it. What can you tell us?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. It seems a lot of public outcry over the last several days has resulted in the Postal Service saying that the moves that they were making to remove these drop-boxes, these blue drop-boxes that you'll see in your community where mail can be picked up, they were going to remove hundreds of those cross the country. They are no longer going to do that, they announced.

But also there was the issue of sorting machines, massive pieces of equipment that sorted thousands of pieces of mail. There were nearly 700 slated for removal. And just today, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows says that they will no longer move forward with removing anymore ahead of the November election.

But, Wolf, CNN has obtained internal documents that seem to indicate that about 95 percent of those pieces of machinery were already slated to have been removed by this point. So it's not clear whether Meadows' announcement will have a real substantive difference in terms how many of those machines will either be returned to service or will be left where they are.

And meantime, there's the question of congressional action. And take listen to what Meadows said about whether he'd be willing to work with Democrats on funding the Postal Service.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: If this Postal Service issue is one that everybody can come together on, why not have a standalone bill? You seem to suggest you don't want to do that. You want it to be part of a bigger package.

But let me ask you just a broader picture about voting by mail.

MEADOWS: And don't get me -- don't get me wrong -- yes. Okay, don't get me wrong.

TAPPER: Your own folks --

MEADOWS: I'm all about piecemeal. If we can agree on postal, let's do it. If we can agree on stimulus checks, let's do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: And that is also a walk-back for the administration after last week. President Trump said he did not initially want to fund the post office because he thought that funding the post office would mean also allowing them to process millions of vote-by-mail ballots.

BLITZER: It's interesting. We're just word, Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, has just sent out a letter to her colleagues about the Postal Service, a pillar of our democracy, she says, it delivers prescriptions, social security checks, paychecks, tax returns, absentee ballots to millions of Americans.

And as a result, she says, that is why I am now calling upon the House to return to session later this week to vote on Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Maloney's Delivering for America Act, which prohibits the Postal Service from implementing any changes to operations or level of service it had in place on January 1, 2020.

So their announcing this, Abby, that they're going to come back, the House of Representatives, later this week to deal with this issue.

[18:30:00]

There's been a lot of pressure on both the House and the Senate to get back, end their recess and deal with these critical issues.

PHILLIP: That's right, Wolf. It's a significant development to bring the House back into session. We should keep in mind, this week and next week are the two conventions, the Democratic and Republican conventions. So bringing Congress back to deal with this issue would be a change of practice from recent history, but it shows how significant this issue is for Democrats.

Pelosi also in that letter saying that she wants her members to have a day of action on Tuesday showing up at local post offices to really call attention to this issue, but, again, what remains up in the air is whether there will be any bipartisan progress on funding the Postal Service. Democrats had wanted to fund it to the tune of $25 billion. That is also a funding request based on what the Postal Service itself has said it needed to deal with some recent financial issues. But it's not clear whether there is any momentum on the Republican side to do the same.

Although, Wolf, we have heard some criticisms from some moderate Republican senators, like Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, about these changes that are taking place all over the country including in many Republican parts of the country as well -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Good reporting as usual, Abby. Thank you very much.

I want to bring in the West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.

Senator, so you just heard the Democrats wants to bring back the House of Representatives to address this Postal Service crisis. I think it's fair to say it's a crisis under way right now. Should the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, end the Senate's recess as well? SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): We should have never left, Wolf. It's

ridiculous. We're leaving -- we left at a time in critical mass, as far as in my state of West Virginia. People with unemployment running out. We had hospitals that were closing, three hospitals closed. We got children basically helpless more than ever before, need to be address. Just broadband high speed, they want us to do distant learning or telehealth, we have no connectivity. We've been trying to work with that.

And when I talk to my colleagues on the other side, they're saying they agree. Let's do something. Well, if they're fighting over one large package and you can't put it together because now they're talking, well, if you can piece it together, and that's a matter of how we get it done but we have to be there in order to get it done. We can't do it from home. I mean, everyone's home right now but we're all working, we're all doing Zooms as we're doing with you now, but we're doing it with each other also.

And the bottom line is, we could be in D.C. making some decisions and making some things happen. And it has to. If we continue this -- if we continue this discourse that we have right now in this toxic atmosphere, God help us all. And the attack on the Postal Service was just the straw that broke my camel's back.

BLITZER: It's a terrible, terrible situation. The minority leader, Senator Schumer, said he and the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were actually looking at an option now. This is a little bit different from what they used to say of a standalone Postal Service funding bill. Get the money to the Postal Service, deal with all the other issues in separate legislation.

The White House says they're open to that as well. Mark Meadows, he was on CNN earlier today on "STATE OF THE UNION." He says they're open to that. What's your view?

MANCHIN: Well, I heard Mark say that this morning. If he's open to that, you know, and I spoke to Mark before. He's been open to speak to things. But the bottom line is, let's do them then. If you're not going to close anything I can tell you what happened in West Virginia. And what happened in West Virginia, 21 post offices were notified. Now it might have been a mistake, but three post offices had put up signs that they were closing.

The other ones had notifications to cutting back hours. So whoever made the mistake, there was an intent from somewhere that throttle back the Postal Service. Now, I'll accept that as a mistake, but that was one heck of a mistake. And I'm going to tell you one thing, that got me fired up more than anything I've ever been fired up before, to see how anybody could put themselves ahead of the vital necessities that people have.

This a lifeline to West Virginias, Wolf. They have nothing else except basically they get their medicine that way, they get their checks that way, they communicate that way, and especially if you're in rural America. Anywhere in rural America or rural Appalachia. And if you don't have good connectivity, this is it. And the Postal Service is sometimes the last public place that we have in many little communities.

And they talking about shutting them down? Come on. This is America. This is not some other third-rate country. This is ridiculous.

BLITZER: It's so critical, Senator. Especially for seniors who rely on getting their Social Security checks through the mail, on veterans who get their prescription drugs through the mail. It's hard to believe, as you correctly say, this is happening right now here in the United States of America. And I want you to listen to what Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna said on CNN earlier today. I'll get your reaction. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): This is more serious, in my opinion, than the Ukraine issue. This is more serious than Russian interference. You have a postmaster general who's deliberately removing mail sorting machines, coincidentally in battleground states, and maybe disenfranchising millions of people.

[18:35:08]

It is unacceptable. We need to immediately have him removed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: What do you think?

MANCHIN: I agree. I don't think he should have ever been there. But if he's there now, we ought to get rid of him because I can tell you, where he comes from and basically the deliberate moves that he's made right now, he's taking orders from somebody. But he had to be in lockstep with it also. He had to think this was the right thing. In private America, maybe. This is a public service that the country has depended on for hundreds of years.

My goodness, this is who we are, it's the fabric of America. And you're taking away the one communication that we have that's owned by the people and we the representatives are just supposed to make sure they have that guarantee. I was in a post office on Friday. There was a priority mail. And one man had to drive it for two hours. You tell me the private sector would have done that? He made sure that person had that private mail. You know?

He made sure it was delivered and he took it himself. So I see the dedication of the Postal Service and I see the postal workers. The people in West Virginia love our post office. We love our postal workers. If we can just get Washington to get their head out of their butt and start working with us to make it as effective and as efficient. But it's never going to be able to compete on the private market.

We're not intended to do that. This is a service. It's public service. It's not private profit.

BLITZER: And let's salute all the postal workers out there. And I'm sure you agree, they are essential workers throughout this entire coronavirus pandemic. They've been working, they've been delivering the mail, and we are all grateful to them, no doubt about that.

Senator Manchin, thanks so much for joining us.

MANCHIN: Thanks for having me, Wolf. And take care. The United States Postal Service, it is the lynchpin to what we do in America and how we continue to operate in this country.

BLITZER: You guys got to get -- Democrats and Republicans, the House and the Senate --

MANCHIN: We're going to.

BLITZER: The White House, you got to get your act together in the coming days and deal with this and deal with this quickly because it's a real crisis here in the United States.

Once again thank you so much.

MANCHIN: We're ready to go back. We should go back.

BLITZER: All right. Good to hear that.

MANCHIN: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Meanwhile, the Democratic National Convention, as everyone by now knows, starts tomorrow. The list of speakers includes a former Republican presidential candidate. The former Ohio governor John Kasich, there you see him, he's standing by live. We have lots to discuss. He's going to be addressing the Democratic National Convention tomorrow night.

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[18:41:34]

BLITZER: The Democratic National Convention officially kicks off virtually tomorrow night. We're told the party's plan is to deliver a message of unity so much so that Republican and former GOP presidential candidate John Kasich is slated to speak. The former Ohio governor, John Kasich, is a CNN senior commentator. He's joining us now.

Governor, thanks so much for joining us. So what's your message? What are you hoping to send when you address the Democratic convention tomorrow night?

JOHN KASICH, CNN SENIOR COMMENTATOR: Well, Wolf, I'm not going to give away my speech. I want people to watch. But you know, look.

BLITZER: Give us a little nugget.

KASICH: Yes, I can't give you too many nuggets. It's really not that long but it's an opportunity to say to people that everything in life doesn't revolve around your political party. That it's OK to take off a partisan hat if you think it's for the good of the country, and you know, part of the reason I'm doing this, Wolf, is we all sit around and talk about how we like bipartisanship until we see it and then we don't like it so much.

And you remember that book about Abraham Lincoln, that famous book called the "Team of Rivals" where he actually invited people in who didn't agree with him. Look, I happen to believe if you could get people with different points of view to sit around the table and to be respected in terms of what they say, you can learn something and I also know in our country nothing big ever gets accomplished when we're fighting.

So, you know, I really wanted to do this. When they asked me, it took me time to think about it, examine my conscience. I'm an American before I'm anything else, and that's what I want people to think about.

Wolf, there's so much fighting going on. I thought it was waning a little bit. But now, I mean, families are continuing to fight, friendships are being lost over this. It's crazy. So anyway, I hope you like what I have to say.

BLITZER: We'll be watching obviously --

KASICH: Hope you watch.

BLITZER: Of course we will. We'll have special coverage of all of this.

Do you sense, Governor, there are a whole bunch of other Republicans out there who have the same conscience as you call it, and do you actually foresee a significant number of Republicans voting for Biden in November?

KASICH: Well, I -- look, you're going to have -- you know, a prominent congressman is going to come out and declare, let him do it. I think he's going to do it tomorrow. I happen to know that there are some former George W. Bush people who are organizing and they're not going to vote for Trump, and I think they are going to vote for Biden.

There is just deep concern that the party has ceased being a party of addition. A party to give everybody a chance to rise. That there's too much fighting. There's too much derision. There's too many tweets. And, you know, it doesn't lead us to a very good place because the country, as you know, Wolf, is divided as we've ever seen it. But what I see today is somewhat different in the past, and that is people talking through clenched teeth.

And I don't even mean political activists. I mean just normal people. And it's -- you know, it's funny, Wolf, had I come out and said I was an atheist, it would have had a lot less impact than when they found out I'm a speaker at the Democrat convention. This just doesn't make sense to me. It's the way I was raised. It's not the way I grew up and it's not the way politics has been for me.

BLITZER: I spoke with the former Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel, the last hour. He says there's a good chance Biden Republicans as he calls them may actually turn out to become lifelong Democrats. Do you think that's possible?

KASICH: You know, I don't think so. I like Rahm Emanuel. He's a very smart guy.

[18:45:03]

But look, I'm staying as a Republican. I have no intention of becoming a Democrat, but I am a growth Republican. I am a Republican that believes that sometimes government may be -- it's not a "never." Sometimes it's a last resort and not a first resort.

But as you know, Wolf, when I was the governor out here, we balanced budgets, we ran surpluses but I also expanded Medicaid because I wanted people to have health care. I'm concerned about the environment. There's -- Wolf, here's what's happening. There's a whole generation now, a new generation, they are millennials and Gen X-ers and the baby boomers are trying to hang on and they're not going to be able to hang on. We're going to see change.

And the job of the baby boomers is to educate or make some points to the earlier generation about the things that we think America, what makes America work well, but for those that want to hang on to today or hang out, or hang on to 40 years ago with Ronald Reagan, forget it. It's like putting your finger in a dike. It doesn't work. So I think the Republican Party is going to have to change because if it doesn't change I don't think it's going to exist because we can't be a party of negative. It has to be a party of growth and opportunity for everybody.

BLITZER: Can we assume, Governor, that you will endorse Joe Biden for president of the United States?

KASICH: Oh, yes. I wouldn't be speaking. It goes hand in hand. Of course. I wouldn't be there just to kind of say, well, I'm going to vote -- you know, I'm going to write in Wolf Blitzer, although that might be cheers and maybe some jeers. I don't know.

BLITZER: Probably not. I'm curious, you're the son, correct me if I'm wrong, of a mailman. Is that right?

KASICH: My father carried mail on his back for about 30 years and I've had family -- my brother had worked there for a while. My mother worked in a post office for a while. And this whole business of we want to damage the post office is frankly -- it's crazy. I mean, we are going to have mail-in balloting. We have absentee ballots. You can't try to damage that institution in order to kind of affect an election. I think it's ridiculous. I just hope this gets resolved soon.

BLITZER: What do you -- I mean, when you see what's going on with the U.S. Postal Service, I was just speaking to Senator Joe Manchin. It's hard to believe that this is happening in the United States of America, where they're cutting back in all these vital areas. So many people out there rely on the Postal Service to get their medicine, their Social Security checks. Not just for voting. Right?

KASICH: Wolf, part of the reason why I am speaking at this convention is because there isn't anything that happens anymore, that I see happening, that surprises me. It goes on and on and on. I mean, a debate about whether somebody ought to wear a mask or not. I mean, did you ever -- I mean, can you believe how crazy that was? Then it's a conspiracy to get somebody to wear a mask? I mean, the list goes on and on about, you know, this person that's promoting conspiracy theories, going to be elected to the Congress, going to work with Republicans.

And the president says, well, she's going to be a real star. I mean, the whole -- everything that's happening has been shocking to me and that's what I try to tell my friends who are disappointed with me because I just don't think this is working for our country and we need a new direction.

BLITZER: And we will hear that new direction that you want to advance tomorrow night when you address the Democratic National Convention.

Governor, thanks so much for joining us.

KASICH: Always great, Wolf. Thank you for your work.

BLITZER: Thank you. Thanks for everything you do as well.

Tomorrow's Democratic National Convention kicks off with Joe Biden supporters across the Democratic spectrum. You're going to hear from the former first lady Michelle Obama, Senator Bernie Sanders, Governor Andrew Cuomo, many more. Governor Kasich as well, as you just heard.

Don't miss the first night of the Democratic National Convention. Our special coverage starts tomorrow night, 8:00 p.m. Eastern live here on CNN.

Meanwhile, election outrage pours into the streets of Belarus right now.

And just a few streets away, the newly reelected leader held a demonstration of his own. We have that story. Live from Minsk. We'll be right back.

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BLITZER: Today in Belarus, tens of thousands of people have poured into the streets in opposition to the government. At issue, the re- election which they're calling rigged of the country's President Alexander Lukashenko. And while this is happening, the embattled leader is organizing his own demonstrations to rival these protests in hopes of shoring up support after weeks of unrest.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen is in Minsk, the capital of Belarus -- Fred.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Wolf. Well, this could certainly be a historic moment in the history of Belarus and quite frankly, also for the future of Belarus. As you could see, tens of thousands of people have come out here for this opposition demonstration. It was called for by the opposition and many, many people followed that call.

Now the crowds here are extremely peaceful. Their message is usually very positive. Of course the main thing that they want is they want real, transparent, new elections after what they say was a sham vote last Sunday when Alexander Lukashenko claimed that he got reelected by garnering about 80 percent of the vote.

Now Lukashenko himself actually also had a rally today where he had to bus in people from other regions of Belarus. He claims that many, many people attended that rally. It's unclear how big the crowd actually was. He made an appearance at that rally. He still seems to show no signs of wanting to step down from power and continues to say that he believed that he won that contested election.

[18:55:04]

But the folks who are coming out here, and it is a lot of them, are saying that they do not believe that that is true. Again they want new elections to take place and they certainly believe that this is their moment in history where they have to step up -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Fred Pleitgen in Minsk for us. Fred, thank you very much.

Meanwhile, the Democratic National Convention starts tomorrow. Some Democrats are hoping for big gains, including in what was once a reliably red state. We're talking about Texas. But is that at all realistic? The former presidential candidate, the former mayor of San Antonio, Julian Castro, he's standing by live. We'll discuss.

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