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The Situation Room
Trump Touts His Health Care "Vision" but Plan Lacks Major Details; Trump Stands by Refusal to Commit to Peaceful Transfer of Power, Trying again to Cast Doubt on Integrity of Vote; CDC Now Forecasts Up To 24,000 More U.S. Deaths In Next 3 Weeks; Fauci Doubles Down On Young People Driving The Spread Of Inspection; Trump Stands By Refusal To Commit To Peaceful Transfer Of Power, Trying Again To Cast Doubt On Integrity Of Vote. Aired 5-6p ET
Aired September 24, 2020 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[17:00:00]
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you.
And very importantly CMS Administrator Seema Verma. Thank you, Seema.
A great friend of mine and a great friend of health care, frankly, Senator Bill Cassidy. Bill, than you.
Representatives, Michael Burgess and Greg Murphy, so instrumental. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks.
And many, many state and local officials are here with us. Thank you very much.
Since the plague arrived from China, we have seen our doctors, nurses, first responders, scientists and researchers at their very best. We slash red tape to accelerate the development of life saving treatments, reducing the fatality rate by 85 percent since April, incredible.
Overall, Europe has seen an almost 50 percent greater excess mortality rate than that of the United States. And despite Europe's punishing lockdowns, they're now seeing a huge surge, very sadly, in cases.
Under Operation Warp Speed, my administration is developing a vaccine in record time. It will be distributed before the end of the year and maybe quite a bit sooner than that.
Four vaccines are now in the final stage of clinical trials. It just about at the end, a lot of things are looking very good. It is the most ambitious vaccine program in U.S. history, probably in any history.
The vaccines are being mass produced in advance so they can be delivered within 24 hours of approval. The vaccine will be safe, and it will be effective. It will defeat the virus and it will end the pandemic.
The economy will surge to record highs. You see what's happening with the numbers that are coming out, records all.
Normal life will fully resume that will be great. And next year will be one of the greatest years and the history of our country from an economic and hopefully in many other ways.
When I was elected. I inherited a thing called Obamacare. Has anybody heard of Obamacare? It was terrible. That's the way I feel too.
It was terrible and very, very expensive, hurt a lot of people. Premiums were too high. Deductibles were a disaster.
Patients had no choice. You couldn't keep your doctor. But by far the worst part of Obamacare was this thing called the individual mandate.
As part of our largest ever tax cut in the history of the United States, we put in a provision to kill this worst provision of Obamacare, the individual mandate. It was a disaster and it was really the essence of Obamacare. It made you pay a tremendous amount of money in order to not have to pay for health insurance.
Think of that, you had to pay a fortune in order not to have health insurance. It was really terrible and so unfair to so many destroyed families.
We were able to terminate the individual mandate, but kept the provision protecting patients with preexisting conditions. That would not have been that particular law would never have been signed, if it were otherwise.
Obamacare is no longer Obamacare as we worked on it and manage it very well. We stabilized it, got premiums down very substantially. That was Alex and that was Seema and you did a fantastic job. But it's still unacceptable to me because it's too expensive and doesn't really do the job as well as we could have.
So, what we have now is a much better plan. It is no longer Obamacare, because we've gotten rid of the worst part of it, the individual mandate, and made it much less expensive. A lot of that was through good management. We manage it properly. We have tremendous people working on it.
Simultaneously with all of this, we are joining in a lawsuit to end this ill-conceived plan. I'm in court to terminate this really, really terrible situation. If we win, we will have a better and less expensive plan that will always protect individuals with preexisting conditions. If we lose what we have now is better than the original, the original version of Obamacare by far, much better, much better.
Again, we will always protect patients with preexisting condition. So today I'm laying out my vision for the future of American healthcare with the America First Health Care Plan. As we restore America to full strength, the first health care plan will be a core part of our national renewal.
[17:05:04] In a few moments, I'll sign an executive order outlining the three pillars of my plan and directing my administration to implement these critical reforms. The first pillar of my plan is more choice, more choice for the American patients.
The last administration severely restricted consumer choice through the greatest health care lie ever told, if you like your plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. You remember that 28 times that was stated by our president, but it turned out not to be true.
When I took office, more than 50percent of counties nationwide offered plans from only a single insurance company on the individual market. Starting next month, more than 90 percent of the counties will have multiple options to choose from, which is really some difference.
Under our plan, you'll have the freedom to shop for the option that is right for you and your family. These options include new affordable choices that cost up to 60 percent less than Obamacare, think of that 60 percent less.
For example, we're opening up short term plans that are much cheaper than Obamacare. And that can be customized to your individual needs. We're also offering association health plans that allows small businesses to pull together --
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: All right. We're going to continue to monitor what the President of United States is saying. He's outlining his -- what they're calling his vision for healthcare reform here in the United States. He's got a bunch of ideas. We're going to go through a lot of the specifics.
We want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm wolf Blitzer in the Situation Room.
Jim Acosta, our Chief White House Correspondent has been getting an advanced look at what the President has in mind.
He's been promising a specific plan. As we know, for the last few years, he keeps saying it's coming up within two weeks, by the end of the month. He is not releasing some details of what he has in mind. But he's not releasing some of the specifics.
For example, if Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, Jim, goes away, how does he mandate insurance companies, whether BlueCross BlueShield, Kaiser or the other insurance companies to provide the benefits for those individuals who do have preexisting conditions?
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Wolf that is a very important question. And administration officials have been walking reporters through some of that this afternoon.
The Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar was talking to reporters about this earlier this afternoon. He is saying what the President is expected to say and do in North Carolina in just a few minutes. They are saying the President is going to sign an executive order that makes it clear that people who have preexisting conditions will be covered under this new Trump health care proposal.
Now, keep in mind if the Affordable Care Act, which is the law of the land right now is struck down at the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments for and against the Affordable Care Act, which is also known as Obamacare. After the election, if that law is struck down, it is believed by healthcare experts, Wolf, that that part of the bill, that part of the law, I should say, that protects people with preexisting conditions that would go away. As Obamacare goes away that coverage for people with preexisting conditions would go away.
And what the White House is saying, what the administration is saying is that this new executive order would essentially make it clear to health insurers across the country that no, you still have to keep coverage going for people with preexisting conditions.
Wolf, there is no guarantee baked into this executive order that these insurance companies will continue to do that. And what a lot of healthcare experts have said is that you will need new legislation, a new law passed to make it clear to the insurance companies that they have to continue providing coverage to people with preexisting conditions.
And so while the President is saying, I'm going to sign this executive order that states these companies have to do this. There's no guarantee that they have to do that.
The other thing we should point out, the President's health care proposal as far as we can tell right now does not account for the millions of people who would lose their coverage under Obamacare if it's scrapped, who get that health care coverage through the expansion of Medicaid. Remember, Obamacare not only covers people with preexisting conditions, that tends to be the big part of the discussion, but it also expands the Medicaid program. That's the program that provides health care coverage to the poor. That would presumably go away if the Affordable Care Act is struck down at the Supreme Court.
The White House, the administration hasn't really said how they would provide coverage to those people. They're talking about expanding coverage through health care pools and so on, that people can buy into. But if you're if you're strapped for money, especially in this pandemic ravaged economy that is difficult to -- that's going to be difficult for people to deal with.
[17:10:13]
And so, there's a whole slew of areas in the Affordable Care Act, Wolf, that that just aren't being addressed by the Trump administration if that law is overturned at the Supreme Court. Of course, the provision that for -- that protects people with preexisting conditions. That is a very big part of all of this, because there are so many millions of Americans across the country who fit that category.
BLITZER: And now millions more who have unfortunately had coronavirus issues, that would be defined as a preexisting condition as well.
Sanjay Gupta, Dr. Sanjay Gupta is with us as well.
Sanjay, we know that the election November 3, November 10, the U.S. Supreme Court is supposed to hear arguments whether or not to allow the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare as it's called, to continue and then they'll make a decision. If they reject it and say it's unconstitutional it goes away.
And all the experts I've been speaking to, if there's going to be new legislation -- there's going to have to be new legislation in the House and the Senate signed into law by a president to make sure that people with preexisting conditions can still benefit from one of the major achievements of the Affordable Care Act.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right.
And that was, you know, the most popular part of the Affordable Care Act was this idea that people who had preexisting conditions could not be discriminated against in terms of getting insurance or having their premiums be exorbitantly high. They had to have the same sort of rates as everyone else.
But you know, one thing you may remember, Wolf, and you know we've been covering this for 11 years now, since 2009, part of the reason that worked under the Affordable Care Act is because there was also an individual mandate as Jim Acosta was just talking about.
You know, the individual mandate said everyone had to have health care insurance. So people were, you know, buying health care insurance, and that helped pay offset the costs of covering people who had preexisting conditions. That's sort of how it worked. You needed one to have the other.
And what you're hearing, at least so far is this idea that we want to keep the best part, which everybody wants certainly, no discrimination against for preexisting conditions, but how you going to pay for it or how are you going to get insurance companies to do it if they're not also getting, you know, the individual mandates gone. So they're not getting those customers anymore.
So, that's been the problem all along, Wolf. That's why the Affordable Care Act came the way -- together the way that it did, you needed one to have the other.
BLITZER: Yes. And the President simply can't do all this through an executive order. He's going to need legislation, assuming if in fact, the Affordable Care Act goes away.
You know, Gloria, this is such a critically important political issue right now. We know that the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is making healthcare so important going into next Tuesday's, for example, first the presidential debate. GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. And we know that when you look at polling, the American people trust Joe Biden by about 20 points more than they do Donald Trump.
Look, this is an election year document. If it is a document it's a wish list, not grounded in anything. I mean, they say that they want Congress to pass this legislation by January 1, but they haven't written any legislation. Congress can't get together on anything at this point.
And we know one of the reasons the President isn't able to outline really specifically what he wants is that Republicans themselves can't agree on how they would fund any kind of massive health care reform. They tried to do it in 2017. It fell flat on its face.
And right now, what we heard the President say, generally was, you know, we can do this through what he called good management. What does that mean? You're talking about billions and billions of dollars.
And when he says he hates the individual mandate, and that was terrible, what he is effectively saying is the mandate required that people have health care, and that that's how you paid for things like preexisting conditions.
So what he is saying is, what I hate about that Obamacare is that it told Americans, you know, you really -- you got to have health care. And so I don't understand. The President's talking out of both sides of his mouth here.
And you'll see as he goes down his list, all of it is an election year wish list. So we can put something out there. He called it his vision, because it has nothing specific in it.
BLITZER: That's very important, indeed. All right, it's his wish list, basically. But there are a lot of details how to implement it that are vague, if at all.
All right, Gloria, standby, there's more breaking news we're following in the Situation Room. President Trump deepening, deepening existential concerns right now about the American democracy.
Just a little while ago, he once again refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, should he lose the presidential election. And he tried once again to cast doubt on the overall integrity of the vote here in the United States.
Also Dr. Anthony Fauci and the FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, they are both pushing back on President Trump's claim that he, the President, could override the FDA on vaccine approval.
[17:15:08]
Dr. Fauci says interference in the process by sources outside of science is in, Dr. Fauci's word, "troublesome." While Dr. Hahn says the vaccine decision will be based on science and data, and not politics. Let's talk about all of this and a lot more with a former National Security Adviser to the President, Retired General H.R. McMaster.
General McMaster, thanks very much for joining us. Your new book, and I want to put the cover up on the screen, very important new book, I've gone through it, "Battle Grounds, The Fight to Defend the Free World."
Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for your service. And thanks for writing this book.
Let's talk about some of the issues facing the American people right now. The President, for example, very worrisome, refusing, I never thought I'd see this or hear this, refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he were to lose the presidential election. Did you ever think you would hear that coming from a president of the United States?
H.R. MCMASTER, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: No, Wolf. This is very disappointing. And really, this is something that, that our Founders feared, you know, if you go back to the Federalist Papers and look at what James Madison and Alexander Hamilton wrote about, they wrote about the danger of factions and how factions, which they meant political parties, if we identify with them, more than we identify as our -- with our republic, that that could lead to violence and so forth.
So I think we just all have to, you know, we have to demand that our leaders restore confidence in our democratic principles and institutions and processes. And of course, it's the administration who has responsibility to secure the election process. And there's been a lot of work done, you know, within that administration to do it after the lessons of the 2016 election.
And I think it's -- the comments are very unfortunate, Wolf. And as you mentioned, you know, that our elections have been under attack in the past, let's not attack them ourselves, right?
BLITZER: Yes.
MCMASTER: Let's come together as Americans and execute a process that we can have confidence in.
BLITZER: Yes. It's so worrisome indeed.
And General, if the President were to lose the election on November 3, and if he were to refuse to concede, and this is a hypothetical, but you're a military guy, what role would the U.S. military have to play in that type of scenario?
MCMASTER: Absolutely no role, Wolf. And those who suggest that the military would have any role in transition, they are being equally irresponsible. And I heard some of the comments, for example, by Vice President Biden, not in recent days, but much earlier.
And of course, going back to our Founders again, we should remember George Washington's grandparents fled the English Civil War. And it was for that reason that at our founding, General Washington and then President Washington made sure there was a very bold line between the military and politics. The military should have nothing to do with partisan politics, and nothing to do with even any talk, any talk about a transition between administrations.
BLITZER: Yes. And the fact that we even have to ask a question like that is so worrisome in and of itself. I never thought I would have to ask if the U.S. military were to have to get involved in dealing with this.
But I want you to listen, General McMaster, listen to the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of what she said earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): He admires Putin. He admires Kim Jung-on. He admires Erdogan in Turkey. He admires people who are perpetuating their lead, their role in government.
But it reminds him you are not in North Korea, you are not in Turkey, you are not in Russia, Mr. President. And by the way, you are not in Saudi Arabia. You are in the United States of America. It is a democracy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: You know, General, you've seen other countries firsthand. Other countries democracies, democracies deteriorate into authoritarian regimes. That slide is happening in places for example like in Turkey and Belarus. What does it say to you that the Speaker of the House of Representatives is making that type of comparison?
MCMASTER: Well, I think it's an opportunity to celebrate, Wolf, because we're not a monarchy, we're not a dictatorship. We have equal branches of government.
And let's take a minute at least to celebrate it, even as we're concerned about protecting our democracy against dangers as we become more partisan, as we become more polarized. Let's celebrate the fact that our founders had the foresight to -- in connection with separation of powers and checks and balances on power.
And again, this is a lesson they took from the bloody wars of the 17th century. It was foremost in their minds as they formed our government. So we ought to demand more from all of our leaders in the executive in connection with the president, certainly of our Congress, and we ought to have faith also in our judiciary.
[17:20:00]
And a process will bear out, Wolf. We have to have more confidence in it. And our leaders have to be more responsible in supporting that separation of powers and that peaceful transition in our democracy, which is foundational to our republic, Wolf. BLITZER: Yes, because we've seen and sadly other democracies, individuals democratically elected once they're in power, things deteriorate, Erdogan in Turkey, for example. We've seen that Putin in Russia, there were democratic elections, we've seen that deteriorate.
And now there are fears, but you say there are unwarranted fears here in the United States, God forbid that could happen. You say that's unwarranted.
MCMASTER: It's unwarranted, Wolf, we're stronger than that, we're better than that. And what it's going to take, I think is for all of us to come together with a strong voice of support for our democratic process. We are in a country in which the people have a say in how they're governed.
And no matter how frustrated we are, and these are all the range of issues that we're confronting these days, it's worth taking a moment for the positive message that we live in a representative government where we all have a say. And we can demand better from our leaders in terms of responsible voices.
I would say, on both ends of the spectrum, to be supportive of our democracy, supportive of our republic. And to not prioritize this narrow, vitriolic partisanship over who we are as a people.
BLITZER: The FBI Director, Christopher Wray, testified before Congress today that he and the U.S. intelligence community, law enforcement community have never seen any kind of coordinated, coordinated national voter fraud by mail or otherwise. That seems to debunk just one of the many claims the President Trump has been making about the upcoming U.S. election. He claims that they're making -- Wray claims that what the President is doing right now would be if there were any such problems would be making it easy for Putin to interfere in the U.S. election system and to sow political dissent to create that chaos here in the United States.
So, if all this discussion by the President, for example, continues to try to undermine the upcoming election, whether by mail or ballot, going to polling places or dropping off your ballots in some sort of location, what do you fear the worst case scenario for our country would be?
MCMASTER: I think the worst case scenario, Wolf, is a lack of confidence in the result of the election. And what's so regrettable about this is the Trump administration did a lot to secure our elections after the problems in 2016, after we saw how Russia had conducted the sustained campaign of cyber enabled information warfare against us. So, new organizations have been stood up.
The federal government was working and is working very hard with states to secure the infrastructure. And of course, our cyber forces are much more active, much more capable, have much more authorities to counter this kind of Russian and other subversion.
In fact, we saw it in 2018, Wolf. I mean, it was a tremendous difference in performance. So instead of raising doubts about the sanctity of our elections, why doesn't the Trump administration take credit, take credit for what they've done to secure them and increase our confidence in the results?
Wolf, you know, I think we should be less concerned about who wins. And we're concerned about what we do to each other --
BLITZER: Right.
MCMASTER: -- if parts of our polity, our society don't have confidence in the result.
BLITZER: That's precisely --
MCMASTER: That's what Russia is banking --
BLITZER: That's what Russia is definitely wants. So they want to sow political dissent as much as chaos here in the United States as they possibly can, because they say that -- they see that as weakening the United States at home and abroad.
In your important new book, "Battleground, The Fight to Defend the Free World," you note that in 2016 both the Trump and Clinton campaigns exercise what you described as, "poor judgment that made it easier for the Kremlin to undermine confidence in the electoral process."
Who do you believe, General, is a greater threat to American election security in the 2020 election? Greater threat right now, would it be China or Russia?
MCMASTER: Well, I would say the greater threat is ourselves, Wolf, followed by Russia. Because Russia doesn't create these divisions. Russia doesn't create this, you know, vitriolic discourse that they take advantage of. They don't create the divisions along issues of race and inequality of opportunity or the hot button issues of immigration or gun control. We move to the extremes, or at least our political elites do and sometimes even our media does, when certainly the pseudo media and social media move to those extremes and then Russia exploits it.
So they don't create the vulnerabilities. They exploit those vulnerabilities.
So, I think I would say first of all, and as I recommend in "Battlegrounds," don't be our own worst enemy.
Second, we have to pull the curtain back on Russian activity in particular. You know, Putin's weak. Russia doesn't have a lot going for them right now. So Putin's model is to drag us down so that he's the last man standing.
[17:25:08]
And so we all have agency over this. We have authorship over our future, Wolf. And it's time for us to come together to reject, you know, nonsensical vitriol, to go back to facts, and to come together as Americans.
And maybe, Wolf, maybe even talk first on these issues about what we can agree on before we talk about what we disagree on.
BLITZER: You know, it was a really, potentially very significant in the Bob Woodward book, you work very closely with then Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, what did you make of Woodward's reporting that Director Coats could never shake the feeling that Russia, that Putin and Russia had something on President Trump and that's why he was always so reluctant to blame Russia or criticize Russia, and even defend Putin against the U.S. intelligence community?
MCMASTER: Well, you know, I think what's worth noting, Wolf, is that there's a big gap, right, between what the President says about Putin and what his administration, under his direction, has done to confront their destabilizing behavior. I mean, that you know, the audio doesn't match the video. I wish it would.
I think at times, what the President does is he says, hey, I have a great relationship with Xi Jinping, you know with Kim Jung-on, with Vladimir Putin. And so he attempts, you know, what people recommend in negotiation theory is to separate the relationship from the issues at hand.
But what I think what that does is, for Putin in particular, is it allows him to sow these conspiracy theories, to deny even his most egregious aggression, whether it's the poisoning of his opponent Navalny, or whether it's the poisoning of Skripal in the U.K., whether it is disrupting our elections, whether it's sowing disinformation and trying to pull Americans apart from each other. So I think it's really important with Russia to call it as it is and to help explain to the American people what their actions are, because as I explained in "Battlegrounds," this is a strategy of disruption for Russia, but also one of denial.
BLITZER: I just want to --
MCMASTER: And it actually -- it's implausible denials is what it is, Wolf.
BLITZER: I just want to be precise, General McMaster, so you disagree with the President, you disagree with the Attorney General Bill Barr, when they insist that China represents a bigger threat to the U.S. upcoming election interfering in the U.S. election than Russia. You see Russia as a bigger threat than China?
MCMASTER: Well, Wolf, I should say, I don't see the intelligence now. I do see evidence, Wolf, though that China's getting better.
In fact, what China has done is they've taken a few pages out of the Russian playbook, right? The way that China would try to influence us in the past is coopt elites and dominate the narrative. Now they're picking up on the Russian disinformation and propaganda.
And what China's doing even maybe more than Russia is targeting local elections, especially really in agricultural areas now to try to bolster opposition against Trump around issues like tariffs and so forth. And so, I think, you know, I think if they're both a problem, I'm just not in a position to judge which one is most dangerous. I think Russia is much more practiced at it.
BLITZER: Yes.
MCMASTER: And certainly, when I was privy to what was really happening was it was the greatest threat.
BLITZER: And so when you were national security advisor and privy to the most sensitive intelligence, you saw Russia as a bigger threat on this specific issue than China.
Let's talk about --
MCMASTER: On the specific issue, right.
BLITZER: Yes.
MCMASTER: On the specific issue.
BLITZER: On the specific issue, of course, election, insecurity or interference, whatever we want to call it. I want to quickly --
MCMASTER: Right. And Wolf --
BLITZER: Yes.
MCMASTER: -- I would say, Wolf, if I could just quickly, it's bigger than the election, because the disruption of an election or reducing our confidence in it. That's just one tactic in a broad strategy to drive us apart from one each -- from one another and reduce our confidence in our democracy.
BLITZER: Yes.
MCMASTER: So --
BLITZER: And if that's their mission --
MCMASTER: -- it is really, I think the way to think about is --
BLITZER: They're succeeding.
MCMASTER: -- it's cyber enabled information warfare against us is what it is.
BLITZER: I want to talk about the pandemic, the coronavirus pandemic with you, General. It has major, major national security implications on what's going on here in the U.S. The President suggested the White House could override the efforts by the FDA to enact more rigorous standards to approve a coronavirus. If this makes people scared to get vaccinated, what impact will that have on our ability, eventually God willing to come out of this crisis and be a strong powerful nation?
MCMASTER: Yes. Well, we have to have confidence in what our government tells us about the vaccine and everything else. I think all the checks and balances are in place, Wolf, I really do.
I think that that we ought to be confident that when the administration tells us OK, it's ready, it's going to be ready. And you know, what if there wasn't movement to do it early in a way that was whether it was unhealthy or risky, I think you would hear a cacophony of voices about that certainly.
[17:30:00]
I mean, the good thing about us and this is another thing to celebrate, is we are in a democracy, we do have freedom of speech. And so, I think that we have great investigative journalists, right? We have, you know, we have an open society. That's a strength for us that we ought to celebrate.
I do -- I am concerned about this discourse that draws really the process into doubt. Because I know that there are people who are very responsible who are working on this. And, you know, it's so sad. I mean, I just wish that the administration would be happy in taking credit for doing something astounding, Wolf, already. Already, they've streamlined the biomedical innovation process, not just for the vaccines, but for the therapies. It should be enough to take credit for that.
And so, I think of the areas that are critical to respond to a biomedical emergency or pandemic, this one of innovation, as we look back on it, it's going to be a plus for us.
BLITZER: That's right (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But I think we have to all have confidence that the process is going to be, you know, it's going to be respected.
BLITZER: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And it's going to be carried out in a responsible manner. I do have confidence in it.
BLITZER: Well --
MCMASTER: And I think we need voices across the political spectrum, to make sure that when it does come out, nobody doubts it, right?
BLITZER: Right.
MCMASTER: And that we can do what's necessary to get back on our feet, put this pandemic behind us and really cope with some of these crucial challenges we're facing.
BLITZER: Because it does have major national security implications. Near the end of your book, "Battlegrounds", General, you write this, and let me read it to our viewers. "Immigrants have been and remain one of America's greatest competitive advantages. A way to help overcome fractures in our society would be to talk less about who we do not want to come to America, and more about whom America needs." And I know you're reluctant to criticize the President. But that sounds like you're directly criticizing the President too, sadly, routinely disparages immigrants, especially from certain countries coming -- certain countries around the world. What do you say to that?
MCMASTER: Well, you know, it's a missed opportunity, Wolf. And what happens is all the -- you know, everything gets conflated, right, and we lose our understanding what really what we're talking about. We conflate immigration policy with illegal immigration and refugees with migrants, and we just need more precision in our discussion of these issues. And let's talk about the positive, let's talk about the strength of immigrants in our society, you know, those who have fled autocratic regimes who have come here to make a better life, those are the best Americans because they buy into rule of law and freedom of speech and religious tolerance. And just the -- our system, the beauty of our system that they all have a say in how they're governed.
And if you look -- whenever there's been a crisis in the world that people have had to flee, those immigrants have strengthened our society tremendously. They've been our greatest innovators and entrepreneurs. And so that's going to continue for us. There are too many people trying to immigrate into China, Wolf, and we ought to be proud of it.
BLITZER: Yes.
MCMASTER: Right? And I think we ought to talk more about how this is a strength of our nation.
MCMASTER: It certainly is. Very personal for me as the son of immigrants who came to the United States with very little, came to beautiful Buffalo, New York and had an opportunity. They thrived in this country. And they became so, so wonderful American patriots in the process.
Immigrants are important. We should not be belittling immigrants to our country, no matter where they're coming from.
The Former National Security Adviser, Retired General McMaster, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks so much for writing "Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World". We'll hope you'll come back.
MCMASTER: Thank you, Wolf. Pleasure to be with you.
BLITZER: Thank you.
Up next, I'll speak to our own Dr. Sanjay Gupta about the President's claim that he could potentially override the FDA on stricter vaccine standards. Plus, more on the Senate resolution reaffirming an orderly and peaceful transfer of power after President Trump refuses to commit. Should he lose the election? We'll be right back.
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[17:38:16] BLITZER: We're following breaking pandemic news, the U.S. death toll now topic 202,000 people as the country near 7 million confirmed cases. And the CDC is now projecting, get this, another 24,000 American deaths in just the next three weeks.
CNN's Nick Watt is in Los Angeles for us with the very latest. Nick, another very, very distressing forecast.
NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. And if it's true, it would mean that our average daily death toll is actually going to go up. And, meanwhile, you know, the closer we get to a possible vaccine, the issues of truth and trust just will not go away.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEX AZAR, SECRETARY, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: I want to reassure you and the American people politics will play no role, whatsoever, in the approval of a vaccine.
WATT (voice-over): Same interview, Secretary Azar falsely assured us the President has always promoted masks.
AZAR: The President has been clear since this April guidance.
WATT (voice-over): And offered unflinching praise for the President.
AZAR: Thanks to President Trump, we're in such a better place than we were five, six months ago.
WATT (voice-over): Last night, President Trump said this about possible strengthening of FDA criteria for a vaccine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you OK with that?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, actually, we're looking at that. That has to be approved by the White House. We may or may not approve it.
WATT (voice-over): Apparently, the FDA or HHS would normally sign off.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: On the normal circumstances, that decision is theirs. The Secretary approves it and that's it. Something that comes from without that is not a scientific consideration would be troublesome.
WATT (voice-over): Meanwhile, in our actual life and death fight against this virus --
DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CHIEF OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES, MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL: We've squandered our summer. We went into this summer with 20,000 new cases a day and we're now double that.
[17:40:03]
WATT (voice-over): Yesterday, more than 1,000 lives lost to COVID for the first time in over a week. And average new case counts arising in 21 states. Look at that huge red chunk of the country.
DR. ALI KHAN, DEAN, UNIV. OF NEBRASKA MEDICAL CENTER'S COLLEGE OF PUBLIC HEALTH: As you look at that map, what you're seeing is an inconvenient truth, which is that many states allowed schools and colleges to reopen when they had not gotten their disease under control.
WATT (voice-over): CDC data shows this summer people in their 20s accounted for more than 20 percent of infections.
FAUCI: Right now, the infections in the country, a driven more by young people 19 to 25.
WATT (voice-over): And the virus appears to be mutating to become more transmissible, but mercifully, not more deadly, according to one new preprint study. New reality, United will soon offer COVID-19 tests at San Francisco Airport for travelers to Hawaii so they won't have to quarantine when they land.
And New Years' Time Square will be virtual this year. You're watching the want to be upbeat promo.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WATT: Now, here in Los Angeles, the West Coast epicenter of COVID, officials are pretty optimistic. They see some progress in most of the metrics, but they have noticed a small uptick in new cases. And that's got them worried coming as it does a couple of weeks after Labor Day when a lot of people were out and about, they say they are going to keep an eye on that number. Wolf?
BLITZER: All right, Nick, thank you very much. Nick Watt reporting.
Let's get some more in all of this. Our Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is with us. Sanjay, I want to talk about the President's threat to override the FDA and authorizing a new coronavirus vaccine. You asked Dr. Fauci about that earlier today. I want to play this exchange, listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: But what would you do if you really felt with regard to this critical issue of the vaccine that for political reasons, they were not abiding by FDA guidelines that makes sense?
FAUCI: If the FDA, career scientists come out and say, this is what we should do. These are respected, trained people who are much better at models and statistics and all that other stuff than any of us are. If they look at it, and say, we really feel strongly we should go this way. I would back the scientist, I would have to do that as a scientist. And I would express that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: It sounds like Dr. Fauci won't be afraid to speak out of the President were to overrule the scientist. I assume that your impression as well.
GUPTA: Yes, I mean, he was pretty clear on this point, Wolf. I mean, you and I were both watching, I think, Real Time when President Trump talked about this. You asked even Dr. Collins, the head of the NIH afterward about this idea that the White House could influence the FDA's guidelines on basically showing that this vaccine is safe. And Dr. Collins sound like he had never really heard of that sort of thing happening.
What's an issue here, Wolf, is that the vaccine trials underway. In order to prove that it's safe, the FDA has said they think that they need to wait around two months, that's when most side effects occur. So let's wait two months and see if we're seeing those side effects. Obviously, if you wait two months, that's going to take this later into late November, early December. And that's when you heard President Trump yesterday saying that he might not approve those guidelines. And that was, you know, that's obviously concerning to people like Dr. Fauci and others.
BLITZER: So concerning. Sanjay, I want you to stand by, we have more to discuss.
But also coming up, more on the breaking news. President Trump standing by his refusal to commit to the peaceful transfer of power if he were to lose the presidential election.
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[17:48:53]
BLITZER: We're following multiple breaking stories here in "The Situation Room" including President Trump this afternoon once again casting doubt on mail-in voting and not saying whether he would actually accept the results of the upcoming election and peacefully transfer power if he loses. This comes as state officials are trying to reassure voters across the country about the integrity of the voting process here in the United States.
CNN's Kristen Holmes has been looking into the impact of the President's remarks in some key battleground states.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TRUMP: The Democrats are trying to rig this election.
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Across the country, election officials are concerned that President Trump's baseless claims of fraud and a rigged election are already working.
JOCELYN BENSON, MICHIGAN SECRETARY OF STATE: We need voters of all backgrounds to know that whoever they cast their vote for, their ballot will be counted and their vote will be secure.
HOLMES (voice-over): But some Republicans are following the President's lead, taking steps to cast doubt on the election's integrity and influence the vote. In Michigan, a conservative group known for their protest operation gridlock against the governor stay- at-home order --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are organizing the effort here in Michigan to guard the vote.
HOLMES (voice-over): Encouraging ardent Trump supporters to sign up as poll workers in the Democratic stronghold of Detroit. Not to just work polls, but to monitor the count week.
[17:50:09]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've seen how the radical left tried to get rid of President Trump through the now completely debunked Russian collusion.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And then by a phony impeachment hearing, the only thing that's left for them is to cheat in November.
HOLMES (voice-over): In Pennsylvania, the state Republican Party pushing back on a report of Republican state officials suggesting that if results were too delayed, the legislature run by the party could determine who won the election instead of the popular vote. The party says the official was just responding to certain election scenarios with facts, not divulging plans.
Also, in Pennsylvania, the Department of Justice is looking into nine discarded military ballots, something already catching the attention of the White House.
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I can confirm for you that Trump ballots, ballots for the President were found in Pennsylvania and I believe you should be getting more information on that shortly.
HOLMES (voice-over): Ahead of the election, both parties tied up in the courts and swing states over voting access for mail-in voting to drop boxes. As Democrats argue to expand voting access amid the pandemic, Republicans say they are protecting the laws already in place. But this is just the prelude to what legal experts believe it will be an ugly post-election battle.
BEN GINSBERG, REPUBLICAN ELECTION LAWYER: I spent 38 years as a Republican lawyer going into precincts looking for evidence of fraud. There are to be sure, isolated cases, but nothing like the widespread fraud that would somehow invalidate an election or cause anyone to doubt the peaceful transfer of power.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: And so, just to make this very clear, election officials continue to warn the American people that it is unlikely that there will be a result on election night. And the worst-case scenario is that this drags on and this is lasts for days, maybe weeks. But the one thing that I continue to hear from these election officials and they want us to reiterate this to voters that if that does happen, it doesn't mean that there's widespread fraud, it just means this is the system going through the first time it's ever had a pandemic something like this. Wolf?
BLITZER: Good point. Kristin Holmes reporting, thank you.
Let's bring in our Chief Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin. His latest book, by the way, is called "True Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Investigation of Donald Trump". There you see the cover.
You know, Jeffrey, the President is so worrisome refusing to say whether he'll accept a peaceful transfer of power if he were to lose. You wrote an extensive article in The New Yorker about this possibility. Walk us through some of these scenarios. How might this actually play out?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Wolf, there are now 200 lawsuits around the country aimed at trying to settle or change the rules for the election. Any one of which could wind up in the Supreme Court either before or after the election. It is possible as those who remember Bush v. Gore in 2000, that the losing candidate on when all the votes are all counted, after November 3rd, could challenge how the votes were counted, or if there was a recap.
But perhaps the most chilling possibility is that a state legislature under the Constitution could simply take a vote to award a state's electoral votes to one candidate. This is something that Republican state legislators are actually considering they haven't committed to doing it. But in North Carolina, in Wisconsin, under the Constitution, the legislatures -- legislators could say, you know, this election was too corrupt, too unreliable. We simply are going to award the electoral votes to the President of the United States, those Republican legislators. It's possible under the Constitution, and it's under consideration.
BLITZER: What would it mean, Jeffrey, for American democracy if the President of the United States were to refuse to conceive an election and actually were to try to stay in office?
TOOBIN: Well, I don't think there is any way the President could stay in office after the Electoral College met. And awarded its -- and the electoral votes were counted in early January and given -- and the -- the announcement was made that Biden had won the election. The President doesn't have to participate in the rituals of transfer of power. He doesn't have to ride in the limousine, with the new president, as all presidents have done in the modern era, from the White House to the Capitol.
But the real issue is will the President go to court? Will he go to the state legislatures? Will he go to Congress and try to overturn what appears to be a definitive victory for Joe Biden?
[17:55:08]
Obviously, we don't know if there will be such a definitive victory. But if there is one, the President does have options legally to extend the controversy.
BLITZER: Yes. The fact that we're even discussing this is so worrisome. Jeffrey Toobin, thank you very much.
There's more breaking news coming into "The Situation Room". The White House Chief of Staff refuses to explicitly say President Trump will accept election results and other president has once again refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. Should he lose the election?
We'll speak to the White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. He's standing by live. We'll discuss. We'll be right back.
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