stylish in her own creative way. we are told she enjoyed poetry and art and was deeply devoted to her faith. may they rest in peace and may their memories be a blessing. erin burnett "outfront" starts right now. outfront next the president goes after a reporter for wearing a mask while praising another for not wearing one. this as the country is again at a crossroads when it comes to the deadly pandemic. plus, trump accusing kamala harris of politicizing the coronavirus vaccine while at the same time tying a vaccine to the election himself. president trump also launching an unprecedented attack against his own top military commanders accusing them of waging war so others can make a profit. what is he talking about? let's go "outfront." good evening and welcome to a special edition of "outfront." i'm erica hill in for erin burnett. tonight, take it off the

president of the united states telling a reporter to take off his mask to ask a question. moments later applauding another reporter for not wearing one. those exchanges part of a rambling nearly 50-minute press conference. a press conference that was really more political rally in disguise or maybe not so much of a disguise filled with wildly inaccurate statements including this one about the president's handling of the pandemic. >> we are an absolute leader in every way. >> an absolute leader in every way. that follows the president's tweet this morning in which he claimed he is getting, quote, very high marks in our handling of the coronavirus especially compared to other countries and areas of the world. now, compared to the other countries the u.s. is leading in overall cases. when it comes to getting the virus under control, though, when it comes to having a plan, not leading. the president continues to focus on a vaccine, one that isn't approved or even available. >> we're going to have a vaccine

very soon. maybe even before a very special date. you know what date i'm talking about. >> well, we know what date that is. it is the election day. yes, everyone wants a vaccine. what we are waiting on, we know what works, masks, and the president still not advocating it. that is not an absolute leader. the country again is at a crossroads. there is an opportunity for the president. he can lead. he can put forth a plan to slow down the spread of the virus and, most importantly, he can follow that plan himself. or he can continue to undermine the nation's top experts like he did today when he disparjd once again one of the only tools proven to stop the spread of the virus, a mask. it is something that could also save as many as 122,000 lives by the end of this year according to one influential model. >> thank you, mr. president. the issue of what happens when you were in france -- >> you're going to have to take that off, please.

you can take it off. how many feet are you away? >> i'll speak a lot louder. >> well, if you don't take it off, you are very muffled so if you would take it off it would be a lot easier. >> i'll just speak a lot louder. is that better? >> it's better, yeah. it's better. >> the president as you see there trying really hard to get jeff mason to take off his mask. i'm going to speak with him in just a moment. moments later though the president was praising another journalist for not wearing a mask. >> just based on some of your recent tweets sir -- >> you sound so clear as opposed to everybody elsewhere they refuse. >> jeff mason reuters white house correspondent is out front. jeff this is not the first time the president has tried to get you to take your mask off during a press conference. just on friday he was telling all of us to wear masks over the holiday weekend. when he is asking you to take that mask off, do you think it was really that he just couldn't hear you? couldn't understand you? or was there a different purpose there? >> it's a good question. i think he probably does have a

little trouble hearing and i think having had a microphone there if the white house had set one up might have helped. but my solution was just to speak a little bit louder and i think that took care of it in that case. the fact that he ended up praising another colleague later who didn't have a mask on, though, does go to the mixed messaging this president has employed on masks throughout the pandemic. he did start to embrace them more in the last month or two, wearing one for the first time in public when he went to a military hospital. but certainly for the first several months of the pandemic that was not a standard for this president. as you noted in your introduction it is very clear the science is very clear now that wearing masks can have a huge impact. >> it certainly is. i was really struck today in watching this press conference. the president really seemed to be using this time to air a variety of grievances. what is fascinating, too, is this was happening of course at the white house and yet there were a number of moments it felt

like that airing of grievances was really more of a campaign rally. >> reporter: yeah. the president didn't have any other events today for labor day while his opponent was out campaigning. although he does have a robust campaign travel schedule coming up. it is not that the president is planning to stay home. he did today and he used the backdrop of the white house as a setting for a news conference in which as you say he went off on many different topics criticizing very sharply vice president joe biden and senator kamala harris for their basically criticism of him on the vaccine. and also taking off a number of other grievances with regard to the economy, to russia, and to the atlantic reporting about his alleged comments about u.s. war dead. >> is it your sense, from your sources at the white house, that we will be seeing more of this briefing, sort of takes you back to the coronavirus briefings, right, which eventually stopped as we know. but are we going to see more of these briefings that are really just a rally in disguise?

>> reporter: well, the coronavirus briefings stopped and they did restart, shorter versions in the white house press room. this was not that particular model today since he was outside and it was not one of his shorter briefings. but yeah. i think on the days that he does not campaign or isn't out traveling for the campaign that he still wants to get his message across and he has used the white house and used the podium be it in the briefing room or be it today in front of the north portico as a place to get that message out. he starts with several minutes of his own comments and then takes some questions. and that's what he did today and to get back to your question, yeah. i'm sure we'll see that again. >> all right. good to have you with us tonight. thank you. i could hear you really well. >> thank you. as many americans are out enjoying this holiday weekend, many experts are concerned about a new coronavirus surge, a spike

in cases that could come in the next few weeks. athena jones is out front. >> i'm worried that any new surges will be potentially quite catastrophic. >> reporter: labor day weekend seems like this dance party in san francisco, raising concerns among health experts and public officials that a surge in covid-19 cases could soon follow. just like they did after previous holiday weekends. >> we have seen as you mentioned spikes after long weekends, after spring break, and so that's certainly a concern. >> reporter: in fact, new coronavirus infections are averaging around 40,000 a day, double the daily average going into memorial day. with cases on the rise in the northeast and in florida, while states like north dakota, south dakota, iowa, missouri, and tennessee lead the nation in a seven-day average of new cases per capita. also of concern, flu season is almost upon us, which combined with coronavirus could present new challenges as experts worry

people may be letting down their guard after months of restrictions. >> people are exhausted. people have been social distancing and wearing masks and staying home for a long period of time right now. i think people's willingness to comply with the simple things we know can reduce spread is going to start to fray as we head into the fall and winter. >> reporter: with the federal government increasingly focused on the swift approval of a vaccine, two former u.s. food and drug administration commissioners tell cnn that while they think it is very unlikely that president trump could pressure scientists into approving a covid-19 vaccine, it is possible. a third former commissioner dr. scott gotleib says he has faith in the agency's scientific staff. >> there is a very rigorous process around the development and approval of a vaccine. i don't think those people are going to be pushed around to make a decision they are not absolutely confident in. >> reporter: "the wall street journal" reporting pharmaceutical companies are

making an unusual joint pledge, pledging not to seek approval for the vaccines until they have been proven safe and effective a move at increasing public confidence in a vaccine if and when one becomes available. >> that was tremendously important. the vaccine manufacturers know trust is such an important component of distributing vaccines. >> reporter: meanwhile more than 33,000 cases have been reported at colleges and universities in all 50 states with some schools cracking down on students who violate safety protocols including rules on gathering and mask wearing. nyu tweeting over the weekend it suspended more than 20 students days after northeastern university suspended 11 students without refunding their tuition. when it comes to younger students cnn is tracking the reopening plans of the largest school districts in the country 16 of which plan to start classes tomorrow including in chicago, houston, and dallas independent school district. of the 16 districts that begin

classes tomorrow, 14 are starting the year entirely online. >> athena, thank you. outfront now dr. jonathan reiner director of the cardiac katherine lab at george washington university hospital and also advised the white house medical team under president bush and now professor of infectious disease at vanderbilt medical center. good to have you both with us. you heard the president there. he wanted jeff mason to take that mask off. this wasn't the first time the president has done that at a press conference despite his own advice even heediading into the holiday weekend on friday. the president is clearly not a fan of something we know works. >> right. if you look at media from around the world, when you look at other world leaders when they make public appearances they all wear masks. so he continues not to model the kind of behavior that would save lives in this country. i think historians are going to

note that one of the, maybe the greatest error in our pandemic response, and we've had a panoply of errors, is the failure to get the entire country to wear masks. and when you look at countries, where the mortality is a fraction of what it is in the united states, the common theme from the very beginning of the pandemic was universal masking. it is really a lost opportunity. he could have made this the country's patriotic duty. this could have been like cowboy up. this would have been mask up. he could have had maga masks. he still fails to get it. and he's made it part of his brand. no masks. >> doctor, as you look at that and the mixed messaging being put out, we will hear sometimes the president saying you should wear a mask. remember social distance, you know, have the mask on when you can but then the fact that he doesn't and he'll roll his eyes at a reporter and praise another one for not having their mask

on, is it too late at this point? or is there still a chance that we could salvage dr. schaffner perhaps something that could be a cowboy up mask up moment to bring the country together and try to defeat this? >> yeah, erica, i think it is a vain hope. it hasn't happened yet, and even today you get all these disparaging, unspoken messages and spoken messages about masking. i think we have to hope that our governors get more committed to wearing masks and to having the entire states, all of their states have the population wear masks so we are hoping that governors and mayors will pick up the slack and really do that. we're in a marathon not a sprint. it is very, very important that we continue to have all the social distancing, mask wearing, avoiding large groups. we're all very concerned that

t the behaviors this weekend will be an accelerant and spread covid virus even further. as you said in your intro, flu is on the way. that will double the danger. >> that is definitely a concern. you said there's been a panoply of errors. the president said today we are an absolute leader in every way. is there any measure you can point to where you'd say, yes. the united states is leading. yes the president has led on this? >> yeah, we are the world's leader in covid deaths. all right? and for the millionth time we are 4% of the world's population and 21% of the world's covid mortality. you can look at this on a per capita basis. our 190,000 deaths in the united states works out to be 580 or so deaths per million population in

the united states. look at canada. they are a smaller country. they've had 9,000 deaths. but per capita wise that is 242. it is exactly half our mortality. look at a country like japan, big country, 130 million people. they've had only about 1300 deaths in that country. that is 11 deaths per million population. it's been an abysmal failure. the virus went all over the world. it didn't just come to the united states. but because of that panoply of errors and our failure to learn from our mistakes, our failure to get the country to social distance and to mask up has kept us in the realm of about a thousand deaths per day. and we just cannot learn from our own mistakes. yeah, we are the world's leader. this is american exceptionalism except not the way you want it to be. >> certainly not.

dr. schaffner you mentioned flu season is right around the corner. with flu season looming, with a virus that is not under control, i mean, just how concerned are you? >> well, we're all concerned and that's why we're all promoting influenza vaccination. we are headed into the latter part of september. that is the time, along with the entire month of october, maybe the first couple weeks in november, when we're urging everyone to get vaccinated against flu. that is something we can do something about. you can protect yourself. you won't be a dreaded spreader of flu. we can take some of the strain off our health care facilities. the recommendations are very simple. if you're older than 6 months of age, get flu vaccine, please do it this year. it is more important than ever. we're all promoting that. >> one quick question on the vaccine. someone asked me earlier today. the mist or the actual

vaccination shot in your arm, dr. schaffner? are they both equally effective this year? >> well, the shot in the arm is great. the mist is available for use. it works especially well in children and young children. so it is available for you. the spray vaccine is available to you up to the age of 50. >> all right. great to have you both with us. always appreciate your insight. thank you. >> thank you. outfront next senator kamala harris meeting with jacob blake the wisconsin man shot in the back seven times by police. this as the president zeroes in on his law and order message. plus an extraordinary attack, the president going after his top military commanders. what are service members saying tonight? and michael cohen in a damning new tell-all claiming president trump once said hispanic voters like black voters, in his words, are too stupid to vote for him. i'll speak with the man who worked very closely with mr. trump in the casino business. does it sound like the man he

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tonight president trump demanding an apology from kamala harris for politicizing in his view the coronavirus vaccine as he makes an unfounded claim about joe biden's health.

>> reporter: 57 days until election day and the coronavirus vaccine is front and center in the 2020 campaign. president trump again politicizing the ongoing development of a covid-19 vaccine suggesting at a white house news conference that it could happen before election day. >> we'll have a vaccine very soon maybe even before a very special date. you know what date i'm talking about. >> reporter: on the campaign trail in pennsylvania democratic presidential nominee joe biden saying he defers to scientists on the matter and criticizing trump's public statements about a future vaccine. >> he has said so many things that aren't true. i'm worried if we do have a really good vaccine people will be reluctant to take it. he is undermining public confidence. >> reporter: biden's running mate kamala harris also expressed skepticism over the weekend about whether a vaccine push by trump can be trusted. >> and it would have to be a credible source of information

that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he is talking about. i will not take his word for it. >> she should immediately apologize for the reckless anti-vaccine rhetoric that they are talking right now. >> reporter: this as republicans continue to focus on the issue of law and order. vice president mike pence campaigning in la crosse, wisconsin. warning that there would be chaos and violence under a biden administration. >> joe biden would double down on the policies that have literally led to violence in our major american cities. >> reporter: some 200 miles away in milwaukee harris in her first solo campaign trip as biden's running mate meeting with the family of jacob blake. >> what they've endured, and they just do it with such dignity and grace. >> reporter: and later gathering with labor leaders trying to drive up democratic turnout in a midwestern state that hillary

clinton neglected to visit and ultimately lost in 2016. monday's flurry of campaign activities coming on the heels of both parties' national conventions. a cbs poll showing biden leading trump nationally, 52% to 42%, unchanged from the margin before the convention. >> donald trump ignored the warnings, refused to prepare. and failed to protect our nation and now more than six months in he still doesn't have a plan. no plan. >> reporter: now as we head into the final stretch of the general election we are about to see a busy week on the 2020 campaign trail with both campaigns focusing on the battleground states. we are going to see president trump campaigning in states like florida, north carolina, and michigan. joe biden will also be in michigan and kamala harris just announced she is going to be in florida on thursday. erica, interesting about friday

both biden and trump will end up in shanksville, pennsylvania to commemorate 9/11 and joe biden told reporters last week that if he had the opportunity to meet with donald trump he certainly wouldn't turn it down. erica? >> it will be interesting to see if that materializes. m.j., thank you. i want to bring in a political reporter for the "new york times" and cnn political analyst gloria georger. today the president said the biden campaign is politicizing the vaccine which is remarkable given that in the very same briefing as we just heard the president teased more than once a vaccine could be ready in time for a, quote, very special date, election day. i don't know if he is accusing the biden campaign of pulling a page out of the trump campaign playbook? >> yeah. this is the white house trying to have it both ways. the president has not been shy about his desire to have a vaccine specifically for election day and the advisers and kind of top allies have talked about the possibility of that vaccine helping him politically before november.

he then is trying to spin it back on senator harris after her comments over the weekend now saying she should apologize for what he calls anti-vaxxer comments. those comments are going to get criticism because of the way she kind of presented the ability to trust a vaccine but she was, she doubled down on it the next day in saying that she would need a credible source to give her confidence around that. whether or not those comments will be received well by others we know this white house has been one that has openly politicized the vaccination process and some reporting shows putting pressure on scientific organizations. this white house is not the authority of the politicization of the vaccination process because it is the one that is most publicly engaging in it. >> gloria today the president making a baseless claim about joe biden's health saying voters should look a little closer at kamala harris. take a listen to this moment. >> everybody knows he doesn't have a clue. in primetime he wasn't good.

now it is not primetime. you have to look at her a little more closely. obviously joe is not doing too well. >> it is not the first time of course the president has tried to raise this as an issue, paint joe biden as unfit for office, that he is too old. of course donald trump is 74. joe biden is 77 i believe. how is this a winning strategy for donald trump? >> i don't think it is a winning strategy for donald trump. when we saw joe biden for example riding his bicycle if you'll recall in delaware and he's now done press conferences with people, he spoke with me for the documentary. so this notion of his cognitive ability comes out of some donald trump i don't know dream? and every time the president mentions the cognitive ability of joe biden it reminds people that the president himself took a cognitive test and keeps talking about how well he did on

it. it raises questions about why did you even do that? by the way, senior citizens who vote in elections do not like it. when donald trump criticizes joe biden for being old. >> something to think about. >> yeah. >> mike pence today really talking law and order as we saw earlier today in wisconsin. this is something we know the trump campaign is going all in on. there is more polling out not just the fox news poll on friday but now the cbs poll that shows wisconsin voters disapprove of the way president trump is handling these protests. again, this is another strategy. as a campaign, the campaign is really going all in on this it said. >> exactly. this has been the strategy of the campaign. they have doubled, tripled, quadrupled down on it but they are swimming uphill repeatedly. voters have said they don't

trust the way president trump has handled both protests and race relations. they see him as someone who has worsened that and not made it better. and that they have embraced large portions of the thieves of the black lives matter movement. not necessarily some of the largest systemic reform efforts but want to see things of police reform or folks seeming like they're coming together. that is what the biden campaign has banked on. but this from trump and pence is a strategy of white grievance and backlash. it is an attempt to pit suburb against city, rural against urban, white against black. they think that is going to drive up the base turnout in the rural regions than could win them some voters back in the suburbs. that is against the evidence we have. repeatedly voters including white voters and swing voters have said even if they do not embrace the full thing of the black lives matter movement they haven't found that as a matter to support the president and the campaign.

they are still going at this message even though we have not seen a really change in voters' minds. >> it will be interesting to see if any of that changes in the coming days. gloria you have a new documentary in 31 minutes about joe biden as we're learning more about both candidates people may think they know about joe biden. even you discovered new things. i just want to play a clip from the documentary. >> reporter: it was audacious if not arrogant for biden to run as a 29-year-old underdog candidate of change against a well liked republican senator named cal boggs. >> what is your last name? >> miller. >> i know the miller family. >> he had been governor of the state for two terms, a member of congress for three terms, and was running for his third term in the united states senate. cal boggs was loved. i mean, he was loved. >> reporter: once again biden asked valerie to run the show. >> i remember saying to him,

joey, i can't run a statewide campaign. i don't know how to do that. roipd she reached out to a local democratic party activist ted kaufman. >> i went down and talked to him. i said, you're running on civil rights. you're running on environment. you're running on tax reform. those are really good issues. silence. i said, but i don't think you have a chance of winning. >> reporter: you said what? >> i don't think you have a chance of winning. >> reporter: and his reaction to that was? >> just come and help me. we'll see. we'll see. >> so you are taking folks through his history of public service. as i alluded to, i mean, covered joe biden for a long time, right? he's been around a long time. but there are new things to learn. what surprised you this time around? >> first of all the breadth of his career is sort of stunning when you see that he ran as a candidate of change in 1972 and younger voters were all gung ho

for joe biden and now of course -- and he became one of the youngest members ever elected to the senate and now if he were to win the presidency he'd be the oldest person ever elected to the oval office. so just think about that. think about that career that not only goes through the senate, chairman of the judiciary committee, chairman of the foreign relations committee, vice president to where he is now and look at the book ends of his life which is the tragedy right after he won that senate seat when his wife and young daughter were killed in a car crash to the death of beau biden at the age of 46. you look at this man and the one thing that didn't really surprise me but kind of, the amount of people who when i asked them about joe biden the first thing they talked about was how he had reached out to them at one point or another in their lives when they were grief-stricken or were

suffering. and a number of that and the stories that these people told were kind of stunning actually because he spaends lot of time being a minister, pastoral if you will in addition to being a candidate for president. >> we'll be watching for more. thank you both. be sure to stay with us. gloria's special report fight for the white house, joe biden's long journey coming up at 8:00 and then at 10:00 jake tapper has the second in our back-to-back documentary in on the donald trump's presidency. up next a stunning attack the president going after his top military leaders but why? plus michael cohen's tell all claims president trump said black and hispanic voters are too stupid to vote for him. ♪ ♪ ♪

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tonight president trump launching an unprecedented attack on his own military leaders. >> i'm not saying the military is in love with me. the soldiers are. the top people in the pentagon probably aren't because they

want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy. >> he also continues to deny reporting that he called americans who died in battle losers and suckers. >> the story is a hoax. who would say a thing like that? only an animal would say a thing like that. >> out front now cnn's correspondent barbara starr and former army commanding general for europe and the 7th army. barbara, you have covered the pentagon for many years. can you put this in perspective how unprecedented it is for the president of the united states to attack military commanders? >> reporter: well, look. presidents i think the general would agree with this, presidents often get irritated with their generals because they want -- presidents want quick wars. they want a quick win. they don't want to leave troops overseas. mr. trump very focused on bringing troops home. that is one thing. what he did today was something

indeed unprecedented and very different. he said that top commanders and in that you could include the secretary of defense are sending troops to war in order to keep defense contractors rich. to keep them in the pink with defense contracts. it is worth remembering at this moment it is mr. trump who has facilitated the sale of billions of dollars of u.s. defense weapons from u.s. defense contractors overseas especially to countries like saudi arabia. there is simply no evidence that the u.s. military, the top commanders, chairman of the joint chiefs, secretary of defense are sending troops overseas in order solely to keep defense contractors rich. they do it at the actual orders of president trump to defend and keep america safe. >> general, it was really stark to hear the president say, well, you know, the rank and file, they're with me but it's the top brass who are not. i know that you can come at this from a number of perspectives and you can speak much more

freely because you are retired. but active duty service members have also been reaching out to you today urging you to speak because they can't. what are you hearing? >> that is true, erica. i won't go much into that but i have had folks reach out to me and say continue talking about this because it is devastating to the morale and welfare of our military. that is not just the higher ranking folks. it is some of the more senior enlisted and some of the lower ranking folks as well. it was interesting to me during the president's commentary today that he was defending the fact that he hadn't done the things he was accused of doing and that is insulting the military. and he did that by insulting the military. it was insulting to me as a former general officer. i will tell you that as a former soldier going into combat the military industrial complex was not even a portion of my thought process. it was incredibly disconnected

from anything i did. all i wanted was the equipment and the resources to fight the battles that, by the way, i'll continue with what barbara just said, we are told what to do by our elected officials, so if there is bad strategy, bad involvement in foreign wars it is because the political masters have sent us to do their bidding. we attempt in every way possible to conduct the operations and the tactics but they are the ones who send us there or relieve us in the first place. there were so many things that were bad about this. one of the things that struck me, if i may, was this was kind of like fighting an insurgency. president trump has already gone after the intelligence community bicep rating their leaders from those who were in the trenches. he has separated the fbi, claiming the leaders at the fbi are terrible but everybody in the fbi is good. now he is attempting to do the same thing with the military. the generals are all bad.

they're working for the military industrial complex but all you soldiers still love me, right? it is a continued divisiveness within the organization and it is not who we are as a people. it is not who we are as a nation. >> you know, what is interesting, too, is the president was also talking about john kelly's former deputy chief of staff in the white house who was the person responsible for telling the president they were not in fact going to the world war i cemetery in france a couple years ago saying it would be canceled and he said he, quote, did not hear potus call anyone losers but went on to suggest the sources for the atlantic could be conflating stories. general, when i hear that it sounds like he is suggesting the president may have made similar comments but perhaps on another occasion. but he really hung on to that today. >> yeah, he sure did. and that is troubling, but i go back to the point, erica, we have seen multiple occasions of insulting the military, of

degrading the military not just in terms of going to a ceremony in paris though that is the focus of the article, but several other things in terms of degraith the generals, degraith the troops, taking awatt opportunity for young soldiers who are immigrants working on their citizenship to continue to serve. lgbtq. all these things are part of the denigration of the military a force that represents the country. that is what is troubling. this one story is just an indicator of what's been happening for the last years. >> this one story the editor of "the atlantic" jeffrey goldberg who broke the story telling cnn over the weekend he is expecting more reporting will come out in the days and the months -- you know, i know that there is not a lot we can say but is there a buzz within the halls of the pentagon? is there concern about what else may be coming out or even a sense of something that might be

coming out? >> well, i don't know that anybody here knows what may be coming next but i think like across many sectors of america, people are wondering if there is not more to come if this is really all told or not. but what i would observe here at the pentagon, we are just days away now from another year of remembering the 9/11 attacks in this building. there will be commemoration here. there will be commemoration at military bases around the world. right now the pentagon focused on planning that ceremony later this week, focused on remembering those who died in the 9/11 attacks, an attack on the country that did lead to this era of wars and conflicts. thankfully much of it is drawing to a close. but this is something that the military takes very much to heart and you do have to wonder how military families of the fallen are viewing the comments by the president.

>> barbara starr, general, always good to talk with both of you. thank you. >> thank you, erica. out front next michael cohen claiming then candidate trump was trying to suck up to vladimir putin by reportedly offering him a penthouse in a proposed moscow tower. could that be true? a man who worked with trump for years is my next guest. plus president trump loves to cry fake news. tonight a special report on the stories his president and his allies are pushing that just aren't true. ♪ ♪

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a new tell all book from the president's former personal attorney calls the president a con man and racist. michael cohen claiming mr. trump said this about hispanics, quote, like the blacks they're too stupid to vote for trump. they're not my people. after barack obama won the presidential election cohen writes trump said, quote, tell me one country run by a black person that isn't a s hole. they are complete -- toilets. jeff o'donnell who was the chief operating officer of trump plaza

hotel and casino. good to have you with us. does this sound like the donald trump you knew? >> thanks for having me, erica. unfortunately because he is the president it is -- it rings very true despite what the white house is saying today about cohen's lack of credibility because of his legal issues the portrait that he paints is 100% accurate from my perspective. as the president the guy who was running his most profitable business i spent a lot of time one-on-one with him and the racism came out on a regular basis. it's been quoted many times to me now when he said to me i can't believe i have a black guy counting my money. i only want short white guys with yamakas counting my money and encouraged me to fire this individual who was the cfo simply because he was black. that was the reason. so cohen's description, his

characterization that trump believes blacks have a lower intelligence is absolutely true. he said these things 30 years ago. there's no reason to doubt cohen's characterization today. >> you write about that instance you wrote about in 1991. there was another one that stood out as well because you say in that moment he also continued on saying, quote, i think the guy is lazy laziness is a trait in blacks. it really is. i believe that. it is not anything they can control. did you ever see any sort of an evolution or change or have a sense of where this came from? is this something that was always part of, in your experience, who donald trump was, how he saw the world? >> well, yes. i think it is exactly who he saw the world and i saw this early on when i joined the organization. i questioned it early on because

quite frankly was hard to believe that he could have this view. >> you mean you questioned it to him directly? >> well, oh, i certainly said things to him directly. when he made these comments to me, i chastised him for it and told him he shouldn't be talking like that and i hoped he wasn't serious with what he was saying. he made it very clear that he was serious, but early onn, it became clear he had trouble with just not black people but people of color generally and i did get the feeling that attitude was developed based on his history with his family and the housing where they purposely, you know, kept, you know, black and puerto rican people, in particular, away from housing or they tried to. >> another moment in the book that michael cohen writes about that i want to get your take on, are these plans for a trump tow near moscow which were moving

forward because the president didn't think he was going to win the election in 2016, and so was looking at this trump tower moscow and according to michael cohen, wanted to give vladimir putin this penalty house apartment for free so that he could really suck up to putin is the way cohen puts it. does that ring true? >> erica, i think it's very clear donald trump doesn't do anything where there is not a financial benefit for himself. so running for the presidency win or lose, he was going to find a way to capitalize, and so that makes perfect sense to me. of course, he wins the election and now it just four years of the continuation of what can i get out of this at the end financially? that's really all that drives him. and, you know, that's just a fact of like you know this about donald trump the minute you spend time with him. >> appreciate you joining us tonight. thank you. >> thank you, erica.

"outfront" next how president trump and his campaign are using doctored and misleading video to try to sway voters.

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new tonight a trump campaign official is accusing biden of bandering along but biden was walking through the cemetery where his son, beau, his wife and daughter are buried. it's the first time team trump misused videos to try to smear biden. tom foreman is "outfront". >> reporter: a woman shoved into a subway train under the heading black lives matter antifa. this video was retweeted by president trump twice this year, once with where are the protests for this? but hold on authorities say. that video almost a year old was simply a random attack involving a man known to police. >> wake up, wake up. >> reporter: another video showing joe biden asleep but that interview was doctored to hide the fact the subject was actually singer and actor harry

bellefonte. >> this is your wakeup call, harry. >> reporter: team trump in the final two months of the election is pushing a storm of misleading and deceitful material, never mind the president so often complains about. >> fake news. fake news. the fake news. the fake news. >> reporter: in the wake of social unrest, top republican congressman steve scalise shared a video of a disabled activist talking with joe biden edited to suggest biden wants to defund the police. a position biden has not taken. school lea he stands by the claim. >> look, we sent out the video again, the full video, in fact, if anybody wants to see it. >> who do you think is pulling biden's strings? former obama people? >> people you have never heard of. >> reporter: the president with no proof has said biden is behold to mysterious forces and when biden quoted and questioned the trump campaign claim.

>> you won't be safe in joe biden's america and what's their proof? the violence we're seeing in donald trump's america. >> reporter: team trump deceptively cut out and tweeted just one part. >> you won't be safe in joe biden's america. >> reporter: twitter called that misleading. the trump campaign called it a joke. >> tom is with us now. tom, how is the biden campaign reacting to these tactics? >> reporter: basically, they said this is what you get with donald trump. he says no, this isn't true. this isn't a fact. it's important to bear in mind last june, not this june, a year ago june 2019 joe biden shortly after he announced his campaign said look, we're not tolerate open disinformation, m manipulation of video and pictures that are doctored to give a false impression. we think that is wrong. we won't tolerate dirt given by foreign governments on our

political opponent. that's something he raises the bar for, the trump campaign clearly has a different view of that and every time they get called on it, erica, as you know, they have some answer why they think it's perfectly okay. >> have a feeling we'll be fact checking more of those. good to see you, thank you. >> good seeing you. >> thanks for joining us. cnn's special report "fight for the white house joe biden's long journey" begins right now. >> announcer: the following is a cnn special report. he's gone from a young politician with swagger. >> they said we think you should run for the senate. i said i'm not old enough. >> to a young father suffering great loss. >> my brother looked at me and said she's sad, isn't she? >> he's an irishman with a life story that reads like a greek tragedy. >> how can you experience the worst thing imaginable twice in one lifetime? >> his career has been