tv Inside Politics CNN September 13, 2020 5:00am-6:00am PDT
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a sober warning about when life will return to normal. >> it is going to be well into 2021, maybe even towards the end of 2021. >> as shocking recordings reveal the president knew this in early february. >> it is also more deadly than even your strenuous flus. >> and now says this. >> i didn't lie. we have to be calm. i don't want to jump up and down and start screaming death, death. >> his democratic challenger says it was more than a lack of leadership. >> a life and death betrayal of the american people. >> and new polling in battle ground states show advantage
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biden. but there are still voters up for grabs. >> i want to vote for somebody other than donald trump, but i don't want to vote for biden. >> welcome to "inside politics." i'm dana bash. john king is off this weekend. and to our viewers in the united states and around the world, thank you for sharing your sunday. as the u.s. approaches 200,000 coronavirus deaths, president trump held a rally in an airplane hangar in nevada last night, where he boasted about the size of his packed crowd. and said this about the trajectory of the virus. >> now, having a vaccine is good, but we're rounding the turn regardless. we're rounding the turn. and it is happening. it is happening. you see. florida's way down. tex is now way down. arizona, governor has done a great job. >> an influential pandemic modeler predicts u.s. deaths doubling by the end of this
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year. >> people think that because the case numbers are sort of going down in the last three, four weeks, deaths are sort of being pretty flat, that the epidemic is over, it is certainly not. and when we look ahead into the winter, with seasonality kicking in, people becoming clearly less veg hra vigilant and it looks like a deadly december ahead of us in terms of the toll of coronavirus. >> this comes days after recordings of trump's conversationi ins with journali bob woodward reveals he knew early, in february, how transmittable and deadly coronavirus is. >> the air, you breathe the air and that's how it is passed. and so that's a very tricky one. that's a very delicate one. it is also more deadly than your, you know, your -- even your strenuous flus. this is deadly stuff.
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>> directly contradicted things the president said publicly about the virus in the days and weeks after those comments to bob woodward. >> in theory, when it gets warmer, it miraculously goes away. you do certain things that you do when you have the flu. view this the same as the flu. i think the one thing nobody knew about this virus is how contagious it was. it is so incredibly contagious. >> so let's put this in perspective, a study by columbia university says that acting one week earlier would have prevented 36,000 deaths. and two weeks earlier would have prevented over 80% of the deaths and cases in america. so with us today to discuss this, and much more, their expertise is dr. ashish jha, dean of the brown university school of public health, and dr. megan ranney, an emergency room physician and researcher at brown. thank you, both, so much for
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joining me this morning. i want to start by looking to last night and the president's rally that he had. not only what he was saying about the fact that he wants to believe or wants people there and around the country to believe that we're turning the corner on coronavirus, but what he did. looking at the pictures, the packed crowds which he was very, very proud of, angry at a reporter for not saying how big the crowds were and yun playing it. so given that versus the reality of what you both are seeing as scientists, how do you process that, i'll start with you, dr. jha. >> good morning and thank you for having me on. where do we begin? two points i think are probably worth making. one is, we're not rounding the corner. dr. fauci made that point on friday. and we are, you know, probably about as many days ahead of us as there are behind us. i think we have a long way to go
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before this pandemic is over. rallies like the one last night, unfortunately, just fuel more infections, especially when you look in that crowd and saw very few masks, little to no social distancing. it really is disturbing. and unfortunately it is happening to his own supporters. and it is mostly to me baffling why the president does this. >> and dr. ranney, one of the things that struck me about what the president said last night is they had to move venues because nevada officials didn't want him to have that kind of rally. he said, we're going to call it a protest, which i think actually resonates with people who are also seeing protests out there, you know. yes, they're outside, the protests i've seen recently, the majority have worn masks, but, still, that's resonating with some people, particularly those he's trying to reach. how do you square the reality that he's trying to create and the reality of this virus which can't be swayed.
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>> yeah, it seems -- early on i thought maybe he was incompetent. now i think maybe he just doesn't care. the way he talks about covid-19 does not match any facet of the reality that we as healthcare workers have been living for the last six manies. nor the reality that we as public health professionals and scientists have been battling against. as dr. jha mentioned, our death rates, our case rates are also the same now as they were the beginning of the summer. to claim we're turning the corner makes absolutely no sense. and what he continues to say about bringing people together, closely, goes against every shred of scientific evidence that we have, which is that the most important thing in combatting this virus now is maintaining distancing, universal masking, and not bringing large crowds together from various areas.
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notn normally together. it is really as dr. jha said, it is baffling. >> let's talk about where we are right now with a confirmed cases in the united states. we have the case curve that we show. you look at this every single day, it does show for the most part there are days where it spikes. for the most part, it has been going down. what does this tell you, particularly as you keep in mind what dr. fauci is warning at the end of this week, which is that americans will likely not be able to get back to normal until late in 2021. so at least this time next year if not later. >> yeah, in terms of the case count, it is -- we're at about twice the level we were on memorial day. and schools are opening up, colleges are opening up. most of us expect that the case
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numbers start going back up again, we're down from the summer surroundinge, which is g thankful. but we have 40,000 to 50,000 people getting affected every day. a thousand americans dying every day. we're going to be spend morgue time -- spending more time indoors. we have a long way to go on this. we have to hunker down. we have to be smart about making sure we keep the cases under control. >> you mentioned indoors. dr. ranney, the cdc came out with a report this past week talking about the riskiest behaviors and now that we are -- have been living with coronavirus for six months, this should not be a big news flash to us, but nonetheless, it said adults who test positive are twice as likely to have dined in a restaurant indoors. what does that tell us about where we're going with the weather changing, and how things
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might change if people continue that kind of behavior. >> yeah, so that cdc report is one of many critical publications that the cdc has put out over the last six months. showing how this virus is transmitted, and how we prevent people from getting it. that report showed that people who go to restaurants, where they're eating unmasked, indoors, are more likely to catch covid than people that don't go to restaurants. there have been other studies that show, however, published by the cdc, that if you're indoors, and you're masked, for example, if you're in a hair salon, you can avoid catching covid. and this matters because it is the little bits of evidence that put together, help to guide us as to what we should do. what do i take away from the study? if you can avoid it, don't go indoors to restaurants, and try to avoid being unmasked when in an indoor area. it is why dr. jha and i and many others said for schools to reopen, it is essential for
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everybody to be masked. but it also, again, increases our concern about the winter months, when people are more likely to be spending time indoors and i know we're all getting quarantine fatigue, we want to see our friends, we want life to get back to normal, but we also need to protect ourselves and our families and our communities. so we do still need to avoid the indoor unmasked locations. >> so well said. it is understandably hard to wear a mask while you eat at a restaurant indoors, which is why i hear you recommending yot doing that and maybe choosing other ways to see friends when you're dining or maybe not dining, just hanging out. dr. jha, dr. ranney, thank you so much for your time this morning. appreciate it. and up next, 51 days until election day and the president spent the entire week playing defense. two intrepid reporters open up
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this past week's explosive new evidence that the president knew how deadly the coronavirus was in early february but decided to play it down has him playing defense now. >> they wanted me to come out and scream, people are dying, we're dying. no. no. we did it just the right way. we have to be calm. america will prevail over the china virus. as franklin delano roosevelt said, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. as the british government advised the british people in the face of world war ii, keep calm and carry on. that's what i did. >> and as far fetched
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comparisons to fdr and churchill drew derision from democrats, his opponent said this. >> it was all about making sure the stock market didn't come down, that his wealthy friends didn't lose any money and that he could say in fact anything that happened had nothing to do with him. he waved the white flag. he walked away, he didn't did a damn thing. think about it. think about what he didn't do and it is almost criminal. >> yesterday the public health -- a public health official told cnn that trump appointed communications officials at the department of health and human services push to change language in a weekly cdc report about the pandemic so that it wouldn't undermine president trump's political message. chief hhs spokesman michael caputo defended the move saying, quote, our intention is to make
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sure that evidence, science-based data drives policy through this pandemic, not ulterior deep state motives in the bowels of the cdc. joining me to discuss this, the best in the business, "new york times" white house correspondent maggie haberman and national editor of the cook political report, amy walter. maggie, let me start with you. we both know michael caputo. it is kind of, i think, classic that he's not denying that they are changing this very long-standing weekly cdc report. what he's doing is sending a signal, we're trying to prevent the deep state from taking over. but what scientists are saying that he's doing, scientists who say that no administration has ever done this before is that they're trying to -- maybe the science comply with the reality that the president talked about in rallies like last night,
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forgive me. >> dana, this has been a constant for six months now. a little over six months as we have been seeing response from the administration to this pandemic. there has been a huge concern that whenever this administration has had the opportunity, that they have tried to massage the messaging, they have treated messaging as the most important thing as opposed to the actual science. and certainly you can see that mess annual co message comes from the top, look at twhat the president said, those leaders were telling the public the threat they were facing and then saying to deal with it. this is very different than just, you know, massaging a message. this is trying to suppress scientific data and, again, as we heard from the tapes of the president with bob woodward, that's been the president's goal this whole time. people suspected it, there were concerns about it and there is the president acknowledging it. there is no surprise.
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>> it isn't, but, you know, it is important as you know because you report on so much of this to keep shining a light on it. on that note, amy, one of the things that the president said in defending not going public with what he knew about the fact that the coronavirus is so transmittable in an airborne way, knew that in early february, he didn't want to create panic or fear in this country. but, remember, when he came down the fame ous ous escalator at t tower, he's done that on other issues. watch. >> when mexico sends their people, they're not sending their best. they're bringing drugs. they're bringing crime. they're rapists. we'll get rid of the crime. right now you walk down the street, you get shot. they will be met with fire and fury, like the world has never
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seen. they want to destroy your suburbs, rioters and vandals, rampaging through all -- in all cases democrat-run cities. >> do you think given the president's history of, you know, basically fearmongering on issues like that, that people who he needs to reach are going to buy that that's the reason he didn't tell people how deadly the pandemic was. >> it was a interesting walk down memory lane there, dana. it goes to what so many of us have been saying from the very beginning, which this is a president who likes to meet every challenge with a punching back. and with rhetoric, and you can't defeat a virus by massaging your message or by sending out angry tweets or by deflecting attention to the inadequacies of your opponent.
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this is here, it is here to stay. there was a really short moment where the president was getting a big bump in his approval rating at the very beginning of this pandemic when he was coming out, with the scientific officials and it was sort of going along like a sort of typical executive response to a crisis. and then discipline faded, he wasn't interested in that reality of what the virus was, we heard the conspiracy theories, the attacks on science, and from them on in, what we have seen is president's approval ratings drop, opinions of the way the president handles it, of course, have also been dismal, majority of americans think he's doing a terrible job on this. to me the real question too is, you know, where is the spotlight as we get into october and november? is it on the crisis of coronavirus? or on something else? >> that's a big -- that's a huge question. but while we are so -- right now
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it is impossible to imagine the coronavirus not being the overlay to everything that we're doing. it could change. we have seen that happen before. i want you to listen to some of what our colleague jim acosta heard from trump voters at rallies this past week. >> why are you not wearing a mask? >> there is no covid. it is a fake pandemic created to destroy the united states of america. >> the president said to bob woodward there is a virus, the coronavirus, and it is deadly. >> that's his opinion. >> does it worry you at all to be in this crowded -- >> i'm not afraid. the good lord takes care of me. if i die, i die! we got to get this country moving. >> maggie, to me, this is so classic, frankly a disconnect between what people who like president trump want to like
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president trump see and hear about him and things he's saying, versus, you know, what other people who either are on the bubble or don't like president trump or just basically listening to science see. and i know you have been covering this president since he was a candidate, you know, more than five years ago and have seen and heard voices like that on different issues since then. is this -- i feel like the reason i wanted to ask you about it, this is such a important disconnect we can't lose sight of as we get closer to election day. >> it is true, dana, we can't lose sight of the fact there is a sizable chunk of voters who believe only what they hear from president trump. what is interesting is that jim was trying to say the president told bob woodward xyz, but for the president's followers, if they don't hear the president say it, even if it is a tape, if they don't see a visual of him talking and video from his rally and something along those lines,
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they don't believe it. this is where the president's messaging on this has been so significant in terms of the vast number of people who support him not wearing masks, not taking safety precautions, not listening to guidance from state officials and the majority of the public in the u.s. is afraid, does support mask wearing, does favor taking safety precautions. the president has this group of people who really only listen to him, and yet just mention this only for the purposes of the election we're facing, they're not a majority of the country. and he is suggesting to this group of people that only he is right and that has serious health implications, number one, in terms of the election, they're not enough to re-elect him, and he seems to have never quite learned that. >> real quick, amy, we're out of time, your thoughts on that. >> he's trying to rerun the 2016 campaign except that it is not 2016. he's the guy in charge and there
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aren't enough voters to be able to do that again. >> great to talk to you both. we -- i could talk to you all day. maybe we'll talk offline. amy and maggie, thank you so much. have a great day. coming up, congressional stalemate, will people suffering from the effects of the pandemic have to wait until after the election for a second stimulus check? we'll talk about that next. you can take a personal assessment and get matched with a customized plan. the assessment takes things into account that matter to you the most. on my plan, whole wheat pasta and potatoes are zero points. on the app, we love the personalized recipes. we found so many new favorites! with 24/7 live coaching, you get connected to an amazing coach, who can answer any question you might have.
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familiar quandary, how to answer for a president who remains popular with their shared base. on friday, republican senator susan collins of maine walked that tight rope during a debate. >> i believe that the president should have been straightforward with the american people. the american people can take hard facts. i have said since the beginning that the president's performance has been uneven. >> republicans and democrats on capitol hill remain billions of dollars apart as relief negotiations falter. this as a survey of small businesses by goldman sachs paints a stark economic picture. it says 94% say they applied for and received loans since the pandemic began six months ago, but a third say they need congressional relief by the end of this month to keep their doors open. joining me now to discuss that and more is chrissy houlahan of
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pennsylvania. thank you for joining me this morning. my first question is about the unemployment insurance that expired in july, the paycheck protection program, which ended last month. it seems there is not much of a chance that the coronavirus relief bill is going to see the light of day, when it comes to a deal by the november election. so what do you tell your suburban philadelphia constituents who need this help and you're not getting it done with members of congress across the aisle? >> sure, thanks for having me. this is a team sport that requires the senate and the house to play nicely together. right now what we're seeing is the house has put forward a piece of legislation that more than three or four months ago at this point in time it is the senat senate's turn to respond. we have seen senator mcconnell has 36 years experience in doing this. he needs the votes to move
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pieces of legislation forward. what he did last week was pretty cynical. he didn't have his own caucus on board. so i very much when i return to washington tomorrow want to get something done. i'm a former entrepreneur myself and very much believe in making sure we're supporting our businesses. but we need to play nicely together to make that happen. >> on that note, chester county is one of the counties you represent in pennsylvania. 1,501 loans given out, the third most in pennsylvania. so given that, and i know you're hearing from your constituents, where are you willing to compromise? >> sure, i'm incredibly willing to compromise as having been an entrepreneur myself. i know small and mid-sized businesses are in pain. i put together legislation with representative upton of michigan, bipartisan, bicameral, for the paycheck protection program, for forgiveness of that program for those people who have gotten loans sub $150,000,
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that's 86% of the people who got that loan. and so i remain incredibly willing to work across the aisle and across the senate and the house to make sure we're helping our small and midsized businesses. >> let's talk about the election. you are one of many fresh mamen democrats who flipped from red to blue. listen to what the president said last night in neve knecht. nevada. >> want to destroy your suburbs. look what i've done for your suburbs. you know what i've done. does anybody want to have somebody from antifa as a member of -- as a resident of your suburb? i don't think so. that was michigan, not nevada. in general, you hear that kind of message every time the president is out.
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is that working with voters where you are in the suburbs outside of philly? >> i feel like that is largely heard as fearmongering and in effect race-baiting. i don't think it is resonating. what is resonating is the fact that you and i are talking to each other through a screen now and are sitting in our homes and have been since march and not able to return to our businesses to a large degree and do still have quite a lot of covid here. this is the america that president trump's administration has brought us and that resonates with us. we would like to be leaving our homes and going back to our communities and our work and our schools and this is not possible. i think we're a very civil and decent community in chester and berks county and we value diversity indifference. i think that message is not resonating with our voters here. >> as you know, absentee ballots in your part of pennsylvania will start to go out this month. notwithstanding the president's
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baseless claims about fraud. my colleagues and i did some reporting this week that the trump campaign is relying on so-called voter vault, that the gop started building 12 years ago to identify voters and get their absentee and early ballots back. are you confident that the biden operation can compete with that in crucial pennsylvania suburbs where you are? >> i think it is important and a responsibility and privilege of all of us to make sure we vote. i hope both campaigns are working to make sure people can vote securely and safely, because that's our privilege and our right to do that. i know the biden campaign is working here in pennsylvania, as they are in many other states, swing states, to make sure we are able to encourage people to be able to vote from their home if they need to and in person if they would like to. i'm very hopeful we'll have a good get out the vote process
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here in appearanpennsylvania. >> i'm guessing you like other democrats are concerned about the way it is going to go down for lots of reasons, especially the fact that, again, he just did it last night in nevada, focusing on the nevada officials there, but he does that in pretty much every state. he, i mean the president, is trying to raise doubts about election results. >> yes, and i do worry about that. i would encourage people watching, i would encourage you in the media, i would encourage politicians to know this probably won't be over on election evening. we won't know the results as we typically do on the election evening and i would encourage people, all of us, to wait to be patient as if our lives depended it on on it. the vast majority of people are mailing in their votes from home. >> chrissy houlahan of pennsylvania, thank you for joining me this morning.
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i appreciate it. >> you're really welcome. have a good rest of your day. >> thanks, you too. more voters choose joe biden in new polling, but the president leads on an issue key to his re-election. up next, we'll talk to top pollsters from each party about where the race stands with seven weeks to go. i wanted my hepatitis c gone.
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four years ago, president trump wasn't my -- we're saying go beyond that rhetoric and go with that record of accomplishment. >> he had the opportunity to grab this bull by the horns and instead he let it run all over. >> voters in some key states say as you just heard, well, as you saw, some undecided voters, we'll see now, that they prefer joe biden to president trump. the former vp leads in minnesota, wisconsin, and is within the margin of error in new hampshire and nevada, where president trump traveled last
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night for a rally. in all, president joe biden's margin is larger in these four states than hillary clinton's was four years ago. still there are some bright spots for president trump's re-election effort. one poll shows him winning latino voters in battleground, florida, and he holds an advantage on economic issues in pennsylvania. with us to share their analysis of the state of the race is ed goles and margy o'mara. thank you for coming on this morning. ed, what are those battleground horse race polls telling you, any surprises? >> i think no surprise. there is no question that the president has dug a pretty deep hole here in recent months. we see some bouncing back and obviously the national data showed that it is down by 7.5
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points to biden. if you look at most of the battleground states -- the margin of error. >> and, margy, one thing i mentioned is one of the polls this week shows that joe biden is trailing with latino voters. underperforming even hillary clinton who lost florida. how much of a warning sign should that be for the biden campaign campaign? >> i think in all situations it is important that all voters be reached out to. for some voters like latinx voters, other groups too will be late decider and you don't need attention and need outreach like every other audience. i think the overall big picture shows biden to be strong right now across a variety of states with a variety of different demographic audiences and on a variety of key issues. more trust biden than the president on a whole host of issues, uniting the country, the
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coronavirus, even law and order they're tied which is something that trump talks about a lot. so i think you see a lot more signs here of biden strength. >> well, interesting before we move on to another topic, cnn has confirmed a report this morning the washington post that michael bloomberg is pouring $100 million into florida to help with the whole host of constituencies there. but maybe the most important is what we were just talking about, to try to help joe biden and other democrats with latino voters. ed, let's talk about the candidates' unfavorable ratings. in 2016, both candidates, more than a majority, said that voters didn't like them. donald trump, hillary clinton. now, donald trump's unfavorable numbers are much higher than joe biden's. people like biden more than trump. as a gop pollster, how much does that matter? >> well, it matters a great
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deal. what we saw in 2016 is for the first time nominee for either party was over 50% unfavorable. we were showing 24% of the electorate disliked votes going into the election day. 19% according to the exit polls who voted on election day disliked both candidates. the race came down to who would win a majority of the voters to put him up at the top, they moved at the last minute toward trump. what you've seen the entire four years of the trump presidency is this unfavorable rating has not gotten below 54% or above 58%. today he's right at that 55% unfavorable. as opposed to 2016, biden is much more favorable. in fact, he's net favorable. and there is only 7% that dislike both candidates and even with that group of voter, biden is winning 58% of them. a little bit different dynamic,
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it is part of what the trump campaign needs to do is to raise the -- but one thing that benefited trump with that 24% of the electorate who like his policies but don't like his persona is that the key thing moving those voters was the economic issues. they heard very little on that issue in the last few months because of the pandemic and the racial unrest. and he has to get back to that. much more so than law and order. >> much more so than law and order. and, margy, final word for you, if he does get back to the economic issues, that could be a potential problem for joe biden because especially if he's looking at polling, that's still the one area, policy area where donald trump is still doing relatively well. >> i looked at the cross tabs from the new york times poll and
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part of the reason trump was doing better on the economy relative to all the other issues where he trails biden is because of the intensity among republicans, while there were a few democrats who would, you know, give trump the benefit of the doubt on the economy. the difference there is really intensity of party and the other thing i think is worth noting is the collapse, if you look at the intensity, in poll after poll, almost half the country is strongly unfavorable toward the president, and he's been underwater his entire presidency. >> that is clearly an area where both pollsters agree that the president's unfavorable, or the fact that people dislike him is a big problem, especially compared this year to joe biden. we'll see how that plays out. thank you, both, for getting up
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early. appreciate it. >> thank you. and the newest pandemic problem coronavirus and colleges, the innovative way one university is trying to detect outbreaks before they start. that's next. with unitedhealthcare medicare advantage plans, you can take advantage of free eye exams and free designer eyewear. ♪ wow ♪ uh-huh free annual eye exams, designer frames and prescription lenses. it's time to take advantage. ♪ wow ...i felt i couldn't be at my... ...best for my family. in only 8 weeks with mavyret... ...i was cured. i faced reminders of my hep c every day. i worried about my hep c. but in only 8 weeks with mavyret... ...i was cured. mavyret is the only 8-week cure for all types of hep c. before starting mavyret your doctor will test... ...if you've had hepatitis b which may flare up and cause serious liver problems during and after treatment. tell your doctor if you've had hepatitis b, a liver or kidney transplant,... ...other liver problems, hiv-1, or other medical conditions,... ...and all medicines you take. don't take mavyret with atazanavir... ...or rifampin, or if you've had certain liver problems.
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the new coronavirus hot spots, college towns. data published by "usa today" on friday show that of the country's worst covid-19 outbreaks over the past two weeks, 19 are college towns. and take a look at this graphic from the "new york times" showing cases in college counties rising as cases in counties without colleges dropping. at the university of arizona now open for three weeks, they are uniquely staffed to tackle an outbreak. their president is a doctor, and their head of campus re-entry is a former surgeon general. but even they have seen their positive testing rate rise to a high of 8.8% this week. and joining me now is dr. robert robyns, who is the president of the university of arizona, also, as i mentioned, a medical color,
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a renowned cardiac surgeon. thank you so much for joining me. i want it. i want to start with what you just saw, cases climbing in college towns. where you are university of arizona, the highest positivity rate was wednesday, 8.8%. so, dr. robyns, as somebody who was an 18 to 21-year-old once who understands what happens on college campuses, wasn't the spike entirely predictable? >> absolutely, dana. thanks for having me today. and you're absolutely right. when i was thinking about this back in march and was first interviewed about the re-entry which we're now three weeks into on our campus, this was my biggest concern. and of course we were all young one time. it's totally expected. we're going to continue to test, trace, and treat the students, our faculty and staff and to try
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to mitigate as much as possible. we're transitioning from the prevention mode into the treatment mode. >> well, but you said you're transitioning from prevention to treatment, but one of the prevention notions i would think would be limiting off-campus parties, limiting socializing. is that even something that is remotely enforceable at a big university like university of arizona? or are others like yours across the country? >> well, we can try, and we are working with the city of tucson, the mayor's office, the county, both the university police force and our neighborhood organizations. and we have made aggressive efforts to limit large gatherings, which would be a defiance of city ordinance. so we're aggressively going after parties in particular and large gatherings. because as you all know, that's
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where these highest rate of transmissibility is. we're lucky that our bars are not open, that we have face covering policies. so we're continuing to try to prevent. and one of those mitigation efforts is to break up these parties and to hold students accountable through our student code of conduct. >> how do you do that? what if somebody's caught breaking the rules? >> well, they get a warning. and then if they are repeat offender, then there are issues of interim suspensions and even expelling them from school. >> wow. you mentioned masks are required. i want to go through some of the other prevention methods that you've already put in place. masks, dorms are at 65% capacity with no more than 5,000 people. testing is required once students and faculty get to campus. only 50% of courses are held in
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person with a cap on how many students per class, voluntary anonymous contact tracing through an app. and this is one of the most interesting wastewater coronavirus surveillance at all dorms and some academic buildings. so, given all of that that you have put in place, do you have a sense that they are starting to work, these prevention methods, or more to the point, in some of these cases, that testing methods are working? >> yeah. i think a combination of all of those things, and ian pepper who heads up our wastewater-based epidemiology has expanded his scope to not only our dorms but the student unions. and we're even talking to off-campus high-rise units to begin to do wastewater-based testing. and of course the big issue here, dana, is trying to identify the asymptomatic positives. it's trying to find the needle
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in the haystack. luckily we've got waste-water-based epidemiology to know that you shed the virus in wastewater up to seven days before you're symptomatic. so if we can go in and identify the asymptomatic students and then isolate them, then we think that we can decrease the transmissibility of this deadly virus. >> and how far along is that wastewater testing right now? do you have any sense of whether or not that is a real preventive measure? because that's something that dr. giroir on a federal level and others have said could be a real key at big population centers like yours at college campuses. >> yeah. we are deep into this. and we've had several dorms. i think there are up to seven or eight where we've found major viral concentration in the wastewater. and we've gone in and tested every one of the students there and found the positives and then
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isolated them into an isolation dorm. i know admiral giroir, we worked together in texas when i was there. he's doing good work. and i think he's right. this could be scaled. and we're using it again to get to those students who don't even know they're sick. the ones that are sick will go get tested and they will take themselves out of circulation. it's the asymptomatic individuals who have no idea they're spreading this virus like crazy. >> that's it for "inside politics." hope you can catch the show weekdays as well. and up next "state of the union" with jake tapper. his guests are white house trade adviser peter navarro, los angeles mayor eric garcetti, and democratic congresswoman val demings. thanks again for sharing your sunday morning.
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up in flames. wildfires ravage california, washington, and oregon, displacing families and destroying homes. are these apocalyptic fires the new normal? los angeles mayor eric garcetti joins me to discuss next. and facing facts as the election nears. new revelations about what president trump knew about coronavirus. >> i didn't lie. what i said is we have to be calm. we can't be panicked. >> with health experts saying life might not be normal until the end of 2021. who will voters choose to lead them through this pandemic? i'll speak to white house trade adviser peter navarro next. the presidential candidates are out campaigning. my exclusive i
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