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CNN NEWSROOM
Texas Reports a Record 129 Deaths on Thursday; Hospitals in Miami at 95% Capacity; Georgia Governor Sues to Stop Mask Mandates; Critics Blast Trump for Lack of Strategy, Leadership; Hong Kong Cracks Down on Third Wave of Infections; India Reports More Than 1 Million Confirmed COVID-19 Cases; Virus Surges in Brazil; Warning from Bolivian Nurses: 'Everything Has Collapsed'; U.S. Breaks One-Day Record with 75,000+ New Cases; Trump Administration Increasing Anti- China Rhetoric; Russia Denies Hacking Attacks on Vaccine Developers; Imperial College Vaccine in Second Round of Human Trials; Brazil Now Reporting More Than Two Million COVID-19 Cases. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired July 17, 2020 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. I'm Michael Holmes.
[00:00:55]
And coming up here on CNN NEWSROOM.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We believe this president has great approval in this country. His historic COVID response speaks for itself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Historically low poll numbers and yet another staggering record high of coronavirus cases in the United States, as local officials struggle with face mask orders.
Also, vaccine research hack. Security officials accuse Russian hackers of a cyberattack on research centers. What the Kremlin has to say.
Also coming up this hour, Hong Kong's third wave. We're live in the city that is tightening restrictions again to combat its rising cases.
Welcome, everyone. We begin with breaking news. The coronavirus pandemic spiraling out of control still. More than 75,000 new infections in the U.S. That breaks the single-day record.
Let me repeat that. More than 75,000 new cases in the United States. Texas, Florida, South Carolina all reporting their most deaths since the pandemic began.
All the while, the leaders of several hard-hit states refusing to order the one thing almost every health expert agrees will help: face masks. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp even suing the mayor of Atlanta to stop her citywide mandate to wear one.
Meanwhile, President Trump spoke with the nation's top infectious disease expert for the first time in more than a month on Wednesday. Dr. Anthony Fauci says the country must address the surge in cases in Texas, Florida, California, and Arizona.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: You have got to do it correctly. You can't jump over steps, which is very perilous when you think about rebound.
And the proof in the pudding is look at what's happened. There really is no reason why we're having 40, 50, 60,000, other than the fact that we're not doing something correctly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: President Trump, for his part, barely mentioned the coronavirus during a White House event on Thursday. His press secretary keeping up the pressure on schools to reopen, with this rather startling line.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCENANY: When he says open, he means open in full, kids being able to attend each and every day at their school. The science should not stand in the way of this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Science should not stand in the way of it. New infections over the past week rising in 39 U.S. states. Only Maine and Delaware seeing cases decline.
Globally, the virus has now claimed almost 600,000 lives, more than 13.7 million people infected.
President Trump's so-called coronavirus testing czar says the U.S. needs to do a better job getting results quickly, so cities and states can decide how best to fight the virus. As it is now, some people wait 10 to 12 days, even longer sometimes, to get results. And what's the point of that?
Nick Watt with more of the day's headlines.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is Texas, now. Six months into this pandemic, refrigerated trailers deployed to store the dead. In Dallas, San Antonio, and down near the border, morgues are filling up.
EDDIE TREVINO JR., CAMERON COUNTY, TEXAS, JUDGE: I am pleading with everybody here in our neck of the woods, in our community. I need everybody to help us and do their part. WATT: And in Corpus Christi?
BARBARA CANALES, NUENCES COUNTY, TEXAS, JUDGE: We were doing fantastic at the end of May. We have just absolutely skyrocketed after Memorial Day.
WATT: Mid-May, the county was logging maybe a handful of new cases every day. Yesterday, more than 1,000.
A similar situation over in Miami, where hospitals are now at 95 percent capacity.
MAYOR FRANCIS X. SUAREZ (R), MIAMI: We're at the highest level of ventilators that we've seen through this pandemic.
[00:005:03]
WATT: Thirty-nine states are now heading in the wrong direction, with average case counts rising.
Today, Target, CVS, and Publix joined the growing list of retailers that will require masks in stores nationwide. Arkansas's governor just reversed course, now requiring masks in public.
Mask mandates now in at least 39 states, but not Georgia, where the governor just banned local municipalities from making them mandatory. He's now suing Atlanta's mayor, whose order is still in place.
MAYOR VAN JOHNSON (D), SAVANNAH, GEORGIA: I was furious. I was absolutely lost for words. It made absolutely no sense to me that, in a time where our corporate giants are mandating masks, where the state of Alabama is mandating masks, where the state of Florida about 120 miles south of us is the hot spot of the nation.
LT. GOV. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): The fact that we are arguing about masking, I don't understand that in the middle of a pandemic.
WATT: Example, this Utah county commission meeting got into masks in schools, and abruptly ended.
TANNER AINGE (R), CHAIR, UTAH COUNTY COMMISSION: We are supposed to be physically distancing, wearing masks --
(CROWD NOISE)
AINGE: -- and so --
WATT; The president kind of agrees with those boos.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to be putting a lot of pressure on open your schools in the fall.
WATT: Not one of the 20 largest districts in the country has committed to in-person teaching, but the state of Florida says it's ready, even as Miami's mayor pleads for federal guidance. SUAREZ: There was guidance in terms of reopening, in terms of the
gating criteria, but there wasn't any guidance in terms of what happens if there's a second spike, like we're seeing right now. How do you go backwards? What are the metrics? And so we're struggling.
WATT: Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: CNN medical analyst and epidemiologist Dr. Larry Brilliant joins me now from Mill Valley in California. Good to see you again, Doctor.
I've wanted to ask you about -- I mean, there's been a lot of criticism about the lack of a federal response, federal coordination, on everything from PPE distribution to overall strategy. You know, and that really still hasn't happened.
I'm curious. If you were sitting in one of those coronavirus task force meetings, what would you be saying?
DR. LARRY BRILLIANT, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, it's nice to be with you, Michael. You know, I've been doing this for 50 years, since the smallpox eradication program in India.
And this is actually the first time I've seen an epidemic or a pandemic where there was not a coordinated national strategy, where there was not a series of meetings coordinated and run by the Center for Disease Control, in coordination with the World Health Organization.
I think the politicization of this response has been the problem from the very beginning. The denial of it is a problem, the belief or the wish that it would disappear, the conflation of it with influenza, the kind of huckstering of snake oil, whether it was bleach or light or all these other things.
What I would do is I would professionalize the response if I was sitting in that coronavirus task force meeting. I would actually move the response from Washington to Atlanta, Georgia, to the Center for Disease Control.
Maybe because of the problems the CDC has had I would bring in an oversight committee made up of all the former heads of the CDC. And I would make sure that CDC had the money and the political power and will to run this the way we have to run every response to a pandemic or a global epidemic or a nationwide disaster, the way this is.
We would start off with a national strategy. You can't run a response to something that is global on a county by county or state by state basis. You make them compete with each other for scarce resources. That's the way I'd begin.
HOLMES: And that sounds like something that hasn't been happening. So yes. Testing is a good example of that, both in numbers and also in turnaround times, which seems utterly incredible this far into the pandemic, especially when it comes to turnaround times.
I mean, what good is a test result every eight -- eight days or even two weeks after it was taken? I mean, if you were positive, you've spread it. I mean, why do you think there is that delay? Is it inexcusable that it continues now, this far into this?
BRILLIANT: No, it's inexcusable. It's exactly as you say. If the test results are one week, then you have been spreading it for five or six days. What's -- what's the value of rapid action if you -- if you can't act rapidly?
I think the problem is, once again, the -- the lack of professionals running the program. CDC itself fumbled early on, and the reaction, instead of fixing the problem, was to first define those people who could get a test so narrowly that they had to come from China. They had to have had this set of symptoms and not the other, so people were not getting tested.
Then the response was to tell the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, to essentially open up their approval process to almost anybody who had an idea of a test, and we wound up with hundreds of different tests without having a tester of the tests.
HOLMES: Yes. Yes.
BRILLIANT: It's the Wild West of testing, I'm afraid.
HOLMES: It's extraordinary. It is extraordinary. And in the meantime, I think Florida has been reporting more cases every day than the European Union. If it were a country, it would rank fourth in the world.
I mean, we're seeing these sorts of numbers now weeks after shutdown, you know, with states now open and the numbers way worse than they were under lockdown. What's likely to happen with the numbers in the week to come -- in the weeks to come? You're not just cases, but of course, deaths that follow.
BRILLIANT: I don't know what will stop this in Florida. Ten thousand, 15,000 cases a week, 200, 300, 400 deaths, increasing. What you're seeing is the result of never really locking down, and then opening up what already had been closed, and doing it just before Memorial Day.
So you've got kids running out to the beaches on Memorial Day, behaving in a way that continued to make the epidemic grow. Then after that you, had Fourth of July.
And all along, the governor is saying what a wonderful job he's done and asking for accolades instead of perhaps, you know, being criticized for what he's done. He's created one of the worst epidemics in --
HOLMES: Just -- well, just finally, because that comes back to what you started with. And that is, you know, the politicization, and the fact of a lack of federal leadership. Because you've got states doing things, you know, it would seem, for political calculations and not being directed by -- on a national level. So some states are making horrendous mistakes, and other states will -- will, you know, be impacted by that, inevitably.
BRILLIANT: I don't really understand what the motivation is to pretend that an epidemic or pandemic is not real, to suppress cases, to give people the idea that somehow it's a hoax or a campaign against them.
Ultimately, we really are all in this together. Ultimately, this virus doesn't know the difference between someone who's black or white or rich or poor, Christian or Muslim or Jewish. I mean, this is an equal opportunity infector. It is not an equal opportunity killer, because people who have pre-existing conditions or older are so much more the victim. That's another reason why we should be taking extra care. That's our duty.
HOLMES: Yes, exactly. Doctor Larry Brilliant, always an honor to have you on, sir. Thank you so much.
BRILLIANT: Thank you for having me.
HOLMES: Meanwhile, Hong Kong trying to stop its third wave of coronavirus infections. One health official says a lot of the spread comes from staff and customers at restaurants.
The government tightening its social distancing guidelines, mandating masks on public transport and so on.
Now, on Thursday, the city reported 67 new cases, all but four of them coming from community spread. Cases have been rising steadily over the past two weeks, and health experts warn the worst is yet to come.
Will Ripley is in Hong Kong for us.
Good to see you, Will. I mean, the context is fascinating in terms of how countries not called the U.S. have handled this. Hong Kong has never seen 100 cases in a day, but now imposing sweeping measures to keep the uptick in check. It just shows how seriously they take it.
WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Michael. Sixty-seven cases yesterday, a record high for this pandemic. And you know, you hear people talking about it with great concern in Hong Kong, because the mindset here is different.
Yes, the numbers are so low. A lot of places around the world would consider 1,700 cases, you know, a victory. That's -- Hong Kong doesn't even have that yet, or just around 1,700. It hasn't hit the hundred- case-a-day mark yet. And yet the city is shutting down even more so than it did at the previous second wave back in March and April.
The reason they're doing it, Michael, is because Hong Kong has taken on a policy very early on to aggressively try to prevent COVID-19 from infiltrating here. Because people remember what it was like during the SARS outbreak and the hundreds of people who died here in Hong Kong.
So the city has shut down its borders and effectively prevented the imported cases from coming in through a pretty stringent testing regime at the airport. People are tested for COVID-19. They are not allowed to leave until they get the results, and then most people have to quarantine at home for 14 days, unless they're flight crew or diplomats.
[00:15:19]
But yet, that hasn't been enough to stop this now spike in community spread, which public health experts have attributed directly, Michael, to the recent easing of social distancing measures and people starting to feel comfortable again.
HOLMES: Yes. I mean, so in the broader picture, what -- what makes Hong Kong officials more concerned about this outbreak versus the others?
RIPLEY: Because these are cases that are -- that are being spread within the community. And this is a densely-populated city of seven million people.
Previously, most of the cases were imported. They were isolated and identified people who tested positive, went straight to hospital. But now there are people walking around, an unknown number, who are positive, who probably don't know it, and who may be spreading the virus to other people. And that could be dozens of people. It could be more. They don't have any way of knowing.
So what -- what Hong Kong is trying to do is really up the amount of testing, in addition to all of the social distancing, you know, and other kind of regulations, including you get fined if you -- if you don't wear a mask when you take the MTR and whatnot.
However, the -- the fact that they don't necessarily know who all these people are, it makes it impossible to fully isolate these cases. So for example, taxi drivers is one cluster that they've identified. They're offering taxi drivers free COVID testing today, but it's voluntary. And frankly, some taxi drivers might have the mindset that they don't want to get tested, because that would mean two weeks or more out of work. You know, they figure if they're not showing symptoms, they want to keep going. That's a dangerous mindset.
But there are people who have that and aren't going to get tested voluntarily, which is really concerning for public health officials, because they say it puts a lot of other people, including especially the elderly, at risk.
HOLMES: Yes. Yes, good point. People have got to make a living, and that's a calculation, unfortunately.
Will Ripley in Hong Kong. Good to see you, Will. Thanks.
We will take a quick break here on the program. When we come back on CNN NEWSROOM, coronavirus spreading like wildfire in Brazil. And experts say it's just going to get worse. We'll talk about why when we come back.
And also, India has its biggest spike yet for daily COVID-19 cases. We'll see what the country is doing to try to stem the tide.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Some worrying news out of India, which is reporting the most COVID-19 cases after the U.S. and Brazil. India now reporting more than a million cases and more than 25,000 deaths. The health ministry does say that more than 630,000 people have recovered from COVID-19 so far.
CNN's Vedika Sud joins me now, live from New Delhi. Yes, some good news there, but plenty of bad, as well.
[00:20:03]
VEDIKA SUD, CNN PRODUCER: We just got those figures, and they aren't very encouraging, are they? India has now officially surpassed the million confirmed cases mark of COVID-19 cases.
But along with that, the health ministry has come out and said, You know what? Only a third the total number of cases remain active, and most of these cases are from 10 of the 36 states and union territories in India.
So we talk about ten states and union territories where most of the cases lie across the country as of now. I did speak with a lot of experts, medical experts, and they say, you know what? This is the time you have to be more vigilant than ever.
And remember, this comes at a time when over 400 million people, across three states in India, are under conditional lockdown.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUD (voice-over): On March 24, India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, announced the country's first lockdown to counter the spread of coronavirus. India had recorded over 500 COVID-19 cases and 10 deaths, until then.
Three and a half months later, according to Johns Hopkins University, India has the third highest number of cases in the world.
Dr. Rajish Parikh, who has co-authored a book on the pandemic, says India's 1.3 billion population is just one of the reasons for the rising numbers. He says India needs to aggressively ramp up testing.
DR. RAJESH PARIKH, CO-AUTHOR, "THE CORONAVIRUS": One of the challenges in India, the inequity and health care, the penetration of testing services. So there are multiple variables. But if there is one that we could clearly identify, I would still say it is testing.
SUD: While India's capital, New Delhi, has recently reported the highest COVID-19 numbers amongst cities across the country, its government claims the situation is slowly improving.
"Delhi was expecting 225,000 cases by 15 July, but we are in a much better situation than what the mathematical projections were indicating," says Delhi's chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal.
But Dr. Deven Juneja, who works on the front line at a top private hospital in Delhi, advises caution in the coming weeks.
DR. DEVEN JUNEJA, MAX SUPER SPECIALTY HOSPITAL: We cannot let our guard down. Unless we start seeing community immunity going up, until that point of time, there is always going to be a risk of resurgence.
SUD: Despite an extended lockdown across the western state of Maharashtra, it remains the worst affected state in India. It's capital and India's richest city, Mumbai, has recently seen a dip in COVID-19 infections, which according to experts, could witness another surge after lockdown rules are relaxed.
DR. SHIVKUMAR UTTURE, PRESIDENT, MAHARASHTRA MEDICAL COUNCIL: We can talk about the people (ph) only when we completely open up the lockdown, and especially when the lifeline of Mumbai that is there (ph), will we start.
SUD: With over 26,000 daily infections being reported since the 9th of July, some states and cities in India are reentering lockdown conditions.
Currently, the movement of over 400 million people across the country has been restricted.
PARIKH: This is the fact on. You will see cases going down in some areas, cases coming up in other areas. And we will have to be vigilant.
SUD: It took India just four days to add roughly 100,000 cases to its COVID-19 tally this week. The big challenge will now to be to control new infections after areas under lockdown open up.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SUD: And here is why the medical experts are asking Indians to be as vigilant as possible. It's just one state that's topping the charts, as far as COVID-19 cases is concerned. The state of Maharashtra, in itself, has more cases than the country of Spain or Italy.
Back to you, John [SIC].
HOLMES: All right. Vedika Sud, thanks so much. Appreciate that.
All right. There are now more than 2 million coronavirus cases in Brazil, the virus spreading so rapidly the case count doubled from one million in less than a month.
Brazil's government counts nearly 40,000 new cases a day and says that that had been -- that had been spared the worst of the outbreak, are now seeing rapid increases.
More than 76,000 people have died. Critics blaming the federal government and President Jair Bolsonaro for focusing on the economy and fighting lockdown restrictions. Shasta Darlington with the story. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yet another grim milestone for Brazil. The total number of COVID-19 infections now over 2 million.
The South American nation registered more than 45,000 new cases on Thursday, and 1,322 additional deaths, bringing the total death toll to over 76,000.
Experts have said they don't expect the pandemic to peak in Brazil, until sometime in mid-August. Nonetheless, we've seen a shift from big cities like Sao Paulo to smaller cities and towns.
Indigenous communities have been particularly hard hit. But even rural states like Mato Grosso in the west are facing crisis. The government there says they've run out of intensive care beds.
[00:25;07]
Meanwhile, Brazil's most famous patient, President Jair Bolsonaro, remains in semi-isolation at the presidential residence. He posted a video on social media this week, saying he's taking the controversial malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, and he says, doing very well.
Nonetheless, he tested positive a second time when he took another coronavirus test.
He says he'll take a follow-up test in coming days in the hopes of getting back to work.
Shasta Darlington, CNN, Sao Paulo.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Peru is the second hardest hit country in Latin America in the Caribbean, after Brazil. Just one day after Peru resumed domestic flights, it reported nearly 4,000 new coronavirus cases.
So far, there have been more than 340,000 confirmed infections in the country, and the virus has killed more than 12,600 people.
And doctors and nurses in Bolivia say they are completely overwhelmed by coronavirus cases. The country has more than 52,000 of them and nearly 2000 deaths. It has one of the highest number of per -- of deaths per capita in the world, in fact. The virus ripping through the government, as well.
CNN's Rafael Romo with that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Voicing anger over a lack of resources, hospital nurses in El Alto, Bolivia, say the situation is dire.
MARY TICONA, PROTESTING NURSE (through translator): We collapsed almost two months ago. We are attending to our people as we can, in stretchers, wheelchairs, however we can attend to them. But we have collapsed.
ROMO: A sign at the El Alto hospital tells those seeking care, there are no more beds to receive patients. Anyone hoping to be seen may face a very long wait.
Amid a wave of new coronavirus deaths, workers dig mass graves, as cemeteries across the country exceed capacity. Many morgues are also full. And some crematoriums are working around the clock, sending plumes of smoke into the air.
As the death toll rises, some volunteers are trying to collect bodies, assisting families who may be too poor to lay their loved ones to rest.
LUIZ FERNANDO ORTIZ, FOUNDER OF BRIGADAS AVEI/"GOODBYE BRIGADES": We are all being affected. I have family members in intensive care. We're trying to find a ventilator for my wife's grandfather to save his life. Everything has collapsed. The morgues, hospitals. It's a catastrophic situation.
ROMO: As Bolivia sees spikes in daily numbers of people dying from coronavirus, it becomes one of the world's worst affected nations in per capita deaths.
The country is also reporting record high infections, penetrating the highest levels of government.
Bolivia's interim president announced last week she had tested positive for coronavirus, now one of 11 high-ranking officials to have contracted COVID-19.
The spread of the virus through Bolivia's government is raising questions about upcoming election, delayed after widespread unrest last year led to the resignation of longtime leader Evo Morales.
Now, recent protests target the current interim president as one of Latin America's poorest nations, reels from the coronavirus pandemic.
Rafael Romo, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: As the U.S. shatters its single-day record of new coronavirus cases. We are learning President Trump is speaking to the nation's top infectious disease expert for the first time in weeks.
Also, rising tensions between the U.S. and China. There is more hardline rhetoric out of the Trump administration. And let's not forget: an election is coming up. Connections? We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:31:18]
HOLMES: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Michael Holmes. Appreciate your company.
Now, let's get you up to date on our breaking news this hour, the U.S. shattering another record for the most coronavirus infections in a single day. More than 75,000 cases reported Thursday.
Texas bringing in refrigerated trucks to serve as temporary morgues, because the usual ones are full. That state plus Florida and South Carolina setting new records for the most deaths in one day.
Hospitals in Miami at 95 percent capacity, and Los Angeles county posting its biggest single day jump in new infections.
Meanwhile, Georgia's governor is suing the mayor of Atlanta to stop her from requiring face masks in public. You can't make that up. Thirty-nine states now have some type of mask mandate.
Well, as cases soar across the United States, there is growing criticism that the nation still lacks a cohesive plan to curb the outbreak. Some people questioned if the pandemic is even on the president's radar.
CNN's Kaitlan Collins with more from the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The White House is insisting President Trump is focused on the pandemic, despite having no public events focused on it.
MCENANY: The president is routinely focused on the coronavirus.
COLLINS: Though public health experts and data are in high demand, the Trump administration has taken several steps to undermine both.
After the administration told hospitals to bypass the CDC and send their COVID-19 data directly to Washington, some of that data disappeared from the CDC's website.
Facing criticism for shielding data from public view, the Department of Health and Human Services reversed course and told the CDC to put the numbers back online.
After days of sustained attacks on Dr. Anthony Fauci by the president's own staff, CNN has learned Trump finally spoke to Fauci for the first time in weeks.
Fauci told "InStyle" magazine, "I don't like conflict. I'm an apolitical person. I don't like to be pitted against the president. It's pretty tough walking a tightrope while trying to get your message out."
Fauci added, "Sometimes you say things that are not widely accepted in the White House, and that's just a fact of life."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the biggest problems -- Today, a Republican governor is calling out Trump's response to
coronavirus. As he detailed his struggle to get supplies in an op-ed in "The Washington Post," Maryland's Governor Larry Hogan accused Trump of leaving states to fend for themselves. After Trump said this on a governors' call in March --
TRUMP: I haven't heard about testing in weeks.
COLLINS: Hogan said he had a one-word response: Really?
The White House pushed back on Governor Hogan today.
MCENANY: This is revisionist history by Governor Hogan, and it stands in stark contrast to what he said on March 19.
COLLINS: Instead of changing his behavior because several polls show Americans don't approve of his coronavirus response, the president is changing campaign managers.
He announced overnight that he's demoting Brad Parscale and putting deputy campaign manager Bill Stepien in his place. The move was widely seen as an acknowledgment of Trump's diminished standing, though the White House insisted otherwise.
MCENANY: We believe this president has great approval in this country. His historic COVID response speaks for itself.
COLLINS: Parscale's only response so far has been this ominous tweet, setting the book of Romans: "Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them."
(on camera): And as we were discussing Brad Parscale's departure, a senior White House official said, you know, Brad is not the one who downplayed coronavirus and refused to wear a mask. That was President Trump.
And the question is whether or not just changing who the campaign manager is really going to change the race when it's the candidate that some of them view as the problem and his refusal to change. Of course, that's just going to be a question for November.
Kaitlan Collins, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Joining me now from Washington, D.C., is Stephen Collinson, CNN Politics White House reporter.
Good to see you again, Steve.
I wanted to -- You've got a great piece on CNN.com. And I wanted you to speak to how the president is handling this national crisis in a political sense. I mean, it's extraordinary to see him promote food brands in the Oval Office from behind the Resolute Desk to support a supporter of his. A hundred and thirty-eight thousand Americans have died. What is he doing? Is there a strategy?
STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Michael, he's not really handling the virus and the national crisis at all. He's doing his best to ignore what is going on, despite the cascading figures of new coronavirus infections and the rising death toll that's making this crisis get much, much worse.
I think what's going on is the president appears to realize that he doesn't have the capacity to reign this in. He has never been a leader of all of America and brought the country together. So he appears to think that his best chances is to distract everybody and to try and, you know, push those issues which he thinks will get him reelected. Culture wars over statues, for example.
Today, though, you know, we have the president in the Rose Garden of the White House doing an event on rolling back regulations. And he was talking about how he'd reformed the rules that pertained to dishwashers. This is completely irrelevant in the teeth of the worst domestic crisis in the United States since World War II.
The question is, will he pay a price at the ballot box for this in three and a half months' time?
HOLMES: Yes. And yes, you mentioned the Rose Garden. That -- that was today. Yesterday, he was in the Rose Garden -- I think it was yesterday -- and -- and something that many people saw as a campaign event.
But more importantly, as again, you write in your article, he was rambling. You -- I think you said he was incoherent at times. Does it strike you that he's in control? And also, how -- how worried are Republicans themselves in Congress?
COLLINSON: Well, there are a lot of bad polls coming out right now which have the president 10 percent, even 15 percent down to Joe Biden in November's election. It probably won't get that bad even if Trump does lose the election, but those polls are really concentrating minds.
If the president were to even lose by 7 or 8 percent to Biden, he would sweep away a lot of those vulnerable Republican senators. Clearly, the Republicans have very little chance of winning back the House.
So there are a lot of concerned Republicans that we could see a Democratic sweep in November, and all of that would be down to the president's leadership during this crisis.
You know, everything that the president tries to do -- he tried to have a campaign rally a few weeks ago in Tulsa. That ran into the virus. He tried -- tried again in New Hampshire. That was another issue. You know, he travels around the country. Secret Service agents with him end up getting the coronavirus and have to quarantine. He's really boxed in. It's impossible to see, really, how his reelection campaign can -- can
succeed if he doesn't get the virus under control, which makes it all the more baffling that he's trying to ignore it.
We just had a few polls this week which show the president well below 40 percent. And the interesting thing about that was that, in those polls, even a majority of Republicans were saying he wasn't handling the virus properly.
Whether that is the start of the first ever erosion between Donald Trump and his fabled base, we'll have to see. But it's clearly a different thing. When the virus is going across the southern and western states that are Trump's heartland, than it was when it was afflicting, you know, Democratic New York.
So we could be seeing the start of a political turning point, but I think we have to wait a few weeks to see how that plays out.
HOLMES: And meanwhile, you know, he's insisting that schools reopen, no matter the risk. There is what seems to be a concerted campaign to discredit the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Fauci. Playing down the numbers, blaming testing for growth, which is not true, of course.
And -- and the thing about the virus is you can't hide the effects. It will catch up with you politically, because it will do what -- what it will do. Right?
COLLINSON: Right. And this virus calamity has really exposed all the liabilities of Donald Trump's style of leadership.
He -- The way he has served as president is to promote his own political goals, arguably over the goals of the wider nation of the United States. He has created alternative realities which fulfill his political goals. He's spread disinformation. He's lied about provable facts.
[00:40:10]
None of that so far, even in the impeachment saga over trying to get Ukraine to intervene in the 2020 election has not really hurt the president.
But when you have, as we have today, a new record of one-day coronavirus infections of 71,000, you're seeing death rates rise again. Nine hundred people have died in the United States from the virus over the last successive few days. Those are facts which cannot be explained away by the president. And perhaps that explains a little bit of what we were talking about earlier about why he's ignoring this.
He just simply does not know what to do to stop it. And he's not prepared to pay the political price that would be required to stop it, to lock down states again, which would harm the economy and, therefore, really jeopardize his chances of reelection. So the president is in a real box, and all the tools that he's used in
the past to ensure his political survival aren't working this time, as you say.
HOLMES: Yes. A box of his making. And as always, with -- with anything, these things are happening to him, not to the country.
COLLINSON: Right.
HOLMES: And he's invariably blameless.
Stephen Collinson, as always.
Check out Stephen's piece on CNN.com. Appreciate it. Thanks, Steve.
COLLINSON: Thanks.
HOLMES: The Trump administration increasing its anti-China rhetoric, with an eye towards the November election.
Tensions already high, of course, between the rival powers over issues including the coronavirus, Hong Kong and the disputed South China Sea.
There are reports the U.S. is considering a travel ban now on members of China's Communist Party. And while there is no official confirmation of that, the White House says all options are on the table.
And the U.S. secretary of state says there's discussion underway about how to push back at the Chinese Communist Party.
As I mentioned, Hong Kong is a major point of tension between Washington and Beijing. Our Kristie Lu Stout is covering the story for us there.
Kristie, let's -- tell me more about what we know about this possible travel ban on the Chinese Communist Party figures, what it means.
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it is an incredible revelation, first reported by "The New York Times." That the Trump administration is weighing this sweeping travel ban on the over 90 million members of the Chinese Communist Party and their family members, as well.
As you mentioned, that CNN has reached out to the White House, to the Department of Homeland Security, to the U.S. State Department for comment. We have not received comment from them.
But we have received comment from China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Its spokesperson, Hua Chunying (ph), saying that the plans, if true, are, quote, "pathetic."
Now, if this sweeping travel bland [SIC] -- ban is implemented, who does it affect? Again, 90-plus [SIC] members of the Communist Party, plus they're family. We're talking about an estimated 200 million people. It would be the political elite, as well as rank-and-file members of China's Communist Party.
It would also be business people, including Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba. The billionaire, arguably the most famous capitalist in China, is a member of the Communist Party.
Huawei's founder, Ren Zhengfei, would also be on this list, as well. As well as the editor in chief of ByteDance. That's the owner of TikTok.
This sweeping ban, if implemented, would also affect additional Communist Party members, for example, academics and scientists and doctors like the Dr. Li Wenliang, the COVID-19 whistleblower. Yes, the ophthalmologist from Wuhan who sounded the alarm early on. He was a member of China's Communist Party.
Now, this comes at a time of just increasing and escalating tension between the U.S. and China over Hong Kong, over human rights abuses in Xinjiang, over Taiwan, over trade, over the tech war and the fate and future of TikTok and Huawei.
And if this travel ban does go through, it would be one of Trump's toughest actions yet against China. And analysts say China would almost certainly retaliate, Michael.
HOLMES: Yes. Extraordinary stuff. Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong, we appreciate it. Thanks very much.
All right. Real Madrid have captured the Spanish league title with a 2-1 win over Villarreal in La Liga play on Thursday. Star striker Karim Benzema scoring both goals for Real.
Legendary Real Madrid star Zinedine Zidane wins his second title with the club as manager. And that, of course, goes along with his crown as a player back in 2003.
Los Blancos ended a two-year hold on the Spanish crown by archrivals Barcelona. The coronavirus pandemic halted play from March 10 to June 11, and when La Liga returned, it was without fans. But they still look pretty happy.
Still to come, no doubt every country impacted by coronavirus wants access to vaccine research, but Russia is accused of trying to steal it. We'll go to Moscow for some answers.
[00:45:02]
And we'll take a look at that hunt for a vaccine. Trials at London's Imperial College said to be advancing. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Serious hacking accusations against Moscow and indignant denials from the Kremlin. The allegations from three western allies involve coronavirus vaccine and treatment research at institutions around the world. They say hackers backed by Moscow are trying to steal work on the pandemic. Senior international correspondent Matthew Chance reports for us from
Moscow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Well, it is an extraordinary allegation. The Russian spies have been hacking into organizations, trying to find a coronavirus vaccine in the U.S., Britain, and Canada. And one which has drawn angry denials here in Moscow.
Russia has nothing at all to do with these attacks is what the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told state media earlier on.
But the latest allegations are that a hacking group known as, amongst other things, Cozy Bear, linked to Russian foreign intelligence services, or the SVR, exploited software flaws to access vulnerable computers and then used malware to upload and download files from infected machines.
U.K. security services say vaccine research has not been hindered by those attacks.
But coronavirus research is, of course, a particularly sensitive area at the moment, with nations racing to find effective treatments. Russia is, of course, one of those nations. It's one of the highest number of coronavirus infections in the world. And Moscow has plowed vast resources into trying to find a vaccine.
So on one level, it wouldn't be surprising if the country's intelligence services were also focused on finding out as much as possible about what research other countries may be engaged in.
Russia, though, says its own vaccine program is already at an advanced stage, and that the allegations of spying are, according to one senior Russian official, merely an attempt to tarnish the Russian coronavirus vaccine, which may yet become the first in the world.
Matthew Chance, CNN, Moscow.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Some of that vaccine research does look to be promising, which is good news. Human trials advancing to a second round at London's Imperial College.
And one of the researchers told the U.K. Parliament the chances of finding an effective vaccine are high.
Now, as you can see, the team at Imperial College is one of many research groups around the world racing to produce a coronavirus vaccine.
Nina dos Santos has more on all that research.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Justine, in her 30s,
is receiving an experimental new vaccine against coronavirus.
JUSTINE ALFORD, VACCINE TRIAL VOLUNTEER: And that's it?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's it.
DOS SANTOS: She'll get a second booster shot in two weeks' time, and if all goes to plan, should become immune.
[00:50:03]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, this goes under your tongue.
DOS SANTOS: She's one of around 300 volunteers who have been tested for coronavirus and deemed eligible to take part in this stage of human trials at Imperial College, London.
(on camera): Justine, how do you feel?
ALFORD: I feel really good, actually. It will definitely be something to tell the grandkids over supper one day.
DOS SANTOS: And here's why. This is what Justine has just received. It works quite differently to other vaccines. It doesn't contain a full, albeit weakened copy, of COVID-19. Instead, just a tiny piece of genetic material.
The hope is that now that genetic material has found its way into one of her muscle cells, her body will be encouraged to produce antibodies, thereby conferring immunity to coronavirus.
(voice-over): The vaccine is based on a synthetic strand of self- replicating code, or RNA. It's a technique that has never yet been brought to market but one which could transform the way future vaccines are made.
DR. KATRINA POLLACK, SENIOR CLINICAL RESEARCH FELLOW, IMPERIAL COLLEGE, LONDON: That allows the vaccine to be very scalable, and that's exactly what you need when you've got a pandemic and you are talking about not just vaccinating millions but, potentially, billions of people.
DOS SANTOS (on camera): This is something of a gamble, though, isn't it? This is very, very high science.
POLLACK: That's true to say that. That makes it very exciting.
DOS SANTOS (voice-over): And part of the answer as to whether this method will work lies 250 miles north of the capital.
LUCY FOLEY, BIOLOGICS BUSINESS UNIT DIRECTOR, CPI: Look at this container here. This is a 5-liter drum. This could potentially contain up to 5 million doses in there.
DOS SANTOS (on camera): And how long will it take this production facility, when everything's up and running, to make a bottle like that?
FOLEY: So the process that we're working on developing would take two weeks to make the -- the product and then encapsulate it so that -- so that it can go into humans.
DOS SANTOS (voice-over): Before they can do that, these scientists in Darlington are figuring out how to go from the experimental phase to a product that can be mass manufactured.
FOLEY: Imagine stirring a cup of tea with a spoon and then stirring a bucket with a spoon. You wouldn't get the same mixing effects.
DOS SANTOS (on camera): So how quickly could you scale this up?
FOLEY: If you look at more traditional vaccine, you'd be looking at around an 18-month program. For this vaccine, we're looking between four and six months to get it to scale, the manufacturing process ready.
DOS SANTOS (voice-over): The vaccine will still have to be tested on thousands more in locations where the virus is still circulating.
This is among 23 vaccines in clinical trials worldwide, and one of several using RNA. But with billions of people to protect in this pandemic, developing a vaccine in such small doses could make a big impact soon.
Nina dos Santos, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: More than six months already since coronavirus first appeared. It feels so much longer, doesn't it? Latin America, Africa, and India have some of the biggest outbreaks. Others are fighting their second or even third wave. We'll take a closer look when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Coronavirus first appeared in China more than half a year ago now. And while parts of Asia and Europe have the virus under control, apparently, other areas, of course, still struggling to contain it. One of them Brazil, which is now reporting more than 2 million cases.
CNN's Nic Robertson reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro announcing he tested positive again for COVID-19, saying he's doing better. But his country isn't.
His anti-lockdown speeches helped thrust his Latin American nation to second worst in the world, after the United States, surpassing two million cases Thursday and 76,000 deaths.
Fellow brick (ph) nation India also in the worst throes of the pandemic. Third in the global ranking of cases, recorded its highest daily infections Thursday: 32,695, more than 24,000 dead so far. More than 400 million people there reentered lockdown conditions this week.
[00:55:20]
And on yet another continent, Africa, South Africa facing rising caseloads, overwhelming under-resourced hospitals. Some staff short of PPE, refusing to show up, fearing for their lives.
Developing nations are being the hardest hit. Latin America and the Caribbean the worst: 3.5 million infections, 150,000 deaths.
Peru, which this week reopened domestic flights, second to Brazil, nearly 4,000 new cases Thursday.
In Chile, some reason for hope. New vaccine trials could begin August.
Half a planet away in Japan, fears of a second wave. Tokyo going onto the highest state of alert as hospitalizations rise.
Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong facing a possible third wave: over 60 new cases Thursday with social distancing measures eased.
Australia's Victoria state, also facing a new wave of infections, had its worst daily rise, 317 cases.
Meanwhile, Europe on the downside of its first wave, facing rising unemployment. More than 600,000 lost jobs in the U.K. alone, as experts forecast nearly 120,000 U.K. COVID deaths this winter. Local, not national lockdowns here becoming the norm. And finally, the P.M. agrees to an independent inquiry into his handling of COVID-19.
BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Of course, Mr. Speaker, we will seek to learn the lessons of this pandemic.
ROBERTSON: This as some leaders facing protests over their handling of COVID-19.
For several days, Serbs in Belgrade took to the streets, angry at their government's handling of lockdown. And in Israel, P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu facing protests as a second COVID-19 wave buffets his tiny nation. He promises massive government handouts as infection rates hit a new daily record.
In Spain Thursday, the nation paused to remember their COVID-19 losses. As much-needed tourists to nations got drunk, ignored social distancing, forcing a resort to shut down.
Nic Robertson, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: I'm Michael Holmes. Thanks for your company. But don't go anywhere. I'll be right back with another hour of CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) END
