[John Berman, Cnn New Day:] Come out before Election Day, and it clearly has. But
[Alisyn Camerota, Cnn New Day:] The language is different in those texts you're saying than what we heard on that
[Berman:] Well, there's that. And I'm just saying, we don't know what scandals are anymore.
[Camerota:] Great point. Yes, great point. And you never know how they're going to affect the race. New Day continues right now.
[Berman:] Happy anniversary. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is New Day. And this morning, the White House is a coronavirus hot spot. And Dr. Anthony Fauci says the outbreak there did not have to happen.
[Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director, National Institute Of Allergy And Infectious Diseases:] Take a look at what happened this week at the White House. That is a reality, right there. And every day that goes by, more people are popping up that are infected. It's not a hoax. It's an unfortunate situation when you see something like that, because that could have been prevented.
[Berman:] That's the reality and it's a reality that's getting worse, seemingly, by the hour inside the White House. Not to mention the nation. Dr. Fauci is warning that hundreds of thousands of Americans could die this winter. So, as we noted, the situation getting worse in the White House, the president's senior adviser, speechwriter, Stephen Miller, the latest White House aide to test positive. It's hard to keep count at this point, depending on how you count. He's the 21st person in the president's orbit to become infected. Now, The New York Times reports that even though the White House created the impression President Trump was being tested every day, he was not. Tonight, behind Plexiglas, the vice presidential debate. Senator Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence, the Pence team ultimately relented to the safety precautions that the debate commission and Senator Kamala Harris were asking for. People are nervous that Mike Pence could be infectious, even though he has tested negative.
[Camerota:] How could they not be? I mean, how could they not be?
[Berman:] This morning, we do have some new details about what the debate will look like.
[Camerota:] Also this morning, millions of Americans are in desperate need of economic relief. But President Trump ended negotiations in a single tweet. The Federal Reserve chairman warns that without relief, the economy and a recovery are in danger. Overnight, President Trump appeared to backtrack on that tweet, but where he stands is anyone's guess at this hour.
[Berman:] Joining us now, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, and Maggie Haberman, CNN Political Analyst and White House Correspondent for The New York Times. And, Maggie, this morning, we do want to start with you because you have a report out this morning which goes behind the scenes, I think, the last 24 hours, of the White House inside the White House and paints a picture of confusion, to say the least. What's going on there.
[Maggie Haberman, Cnn Political Analyst:] I think confusion is the right world, John. People have been told very little information about who has tested positive, who could have been in the vicinity of various people who were infected. People are not telling each other the truth. And, look, we've seen this over the course of the last four years, where advisers in this White House are not always honest with each other, but right now, we're talking about an infectious disease. And one of the areas of finger-pointing is how this all began. The president, in particular, allowed people to believe that Hope Hicks, his senior adviser, had been the one who infected him when, in fact, it may very well have been the other way around. There's anger that Kayleigh McEnany appeared to blame Hope Hicks in her statement yesterday when people believe who McEnany would have been more symptomatic earlier if it came from Hope Hicks. There is just a lot of frustration. And finally, John, we have reporting with senior officials acknowledging that the president was not being tested every day. They had created the impression that he was and that created this false sense of security in the bubble around him.
[Camerota:] That is so important, Maggie. Because, obviously, all reporters have been asking for days now, when was his last negative test?
[Haberman:] Right.
[Camerota:] That would help everybody understand if they'd been exposed, what the contact tracing should look like, and they never would answer it. The White House was, again, comically evasive about when his last negative test was, and your reporting is so helpful for us to know, it wasn't daily. We don't know if he was tested before the debate. We don't know if he was tested before the Amy Coney Barrett event.
[Haberman:] Right, Alisyn. We've been told that he was tested before the debate. But, again, because they will not release any information or logs or anything, I don't know what their practice is about keeping track of when his last negative test was. So we have to take them at their word, but they should understand by now by just saying, trust us, is not going to be sufficient for a lot of people.
[Berman:] So, Sanjay, I want to play you on that issue of the last negative test and what it means for the health of those who have been anywhere near the White House or near those who have been inside the White House over the last week. This was Deputy Press Secretary Brian Morgenstern last night with Erin Burnett. Listen.
[Brian Morgenstern, White House Deputy Press Secretary:] I have not asked him or the doctors, you know, to go back through the records of things like that. I'm not sure. But as I said, we look at it from a contact tracing, sort of forward-looking exercise.
[Berman:] Sanjay, they're not contact tracing the Amy Coney Barrett event. They're only going two days backward from the president's showing symptoms, which we think was Thursday. To me, that leaves just so many people potentially in the lurch. What do you see there?
[Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Cnn Chief Medical Correspondent:] Yes, no, and I think a lot of those people probably right now are saying, you know, if we're not being contact traced, if we're not being given a call by somebody to say, we did have close contact with somebody, we may just all need to be in quarantine and because they're not giving anymore specifics on this. So it's, it's really concerning. I mean, these are when it comes to the last negative test of the president, as you point out, it's critical information. And it is known. I mean, what we're asking, somebody knows the answer to that, probably Dr. Conley, who was administering the tests. I mean, this is known, it's a national security issue, because it's the president. It's known, for sure. And I should point out, with regard to the debate last Tuesday, and even with regard to the debate tonight, you know, we've looked at the protocols that the Cleveland Clinic put forth and it's interesting, because there's three things that are worth pointing out. One is that you have to have had a negative test within 72 hours of the debate, which is really surprising that that's what the Cleveland Clinic is asking as opposed to asking for a negative test the day of the debate. Also, we just have to present it. Meaning, it's the honor system. There's no reviewing of the test by the Cleveland Clinic. And, finally, it could be any of these authorized tests. It doesn't have to be the sort of gold standard PCR test, it could be one of these antigen tests, which we know it could have a significant false negative rate. It's a pretty porous system they've set forth with regard to testing as a safety measure at the debates.
[Camerota:] Maggie, talk about national security. I mean, what's happening this morning? We know that Joint Chiefs are in quarantine and then the picture that you paint of what's going on behind the scenes at the White House, it's a virtual ghost town. People staffers, if they do show up, are in PPE. It's hard to see how the business of the country as well as national security is being done right now.
[Haberman:] One thing I want to say, Alisyn, it's staffers who are in close contact with the president are in PPE. People are not wandering around the west wing, per se, in yellow gowns and goggles and masks. And those are generally people who are either cleaning or people who are coming in close contact with the president in areas of the residence. The president, as we've been told, so far, has not gone to the Oval Office, although he wants to. In terms of national security, look, in this day and age, people can stay in touch in various ways. And we know this. But it is symbolically bracing just about the spread of this virus around the top leadership of government in Washington that you have so many people quarantined right now.
[Berman:] Again, the joint chiefs were quarantined this morning. And, Maggie, one more quick question to you before we jump back into the medicine with Sanjay. You know, I don't know if the steroids are affecting the president's thoughts at all. I'm certainly not qualified to say. What jumped out to me in your reporting though was that there are people inside the White House, staffers, who are wondering whether it's affecting his thinking. Just talk about that for one second.
[Haberman:] Sure. Look, it's I'm clearly not a doctor and neither are you. I have no way of knowing whether the president is indeed being affected by the medicine he's on. But the people I spoke with at the White House yesterday are very aware that he's on heavy-duty medication. And they have been wondering if any of it could be affecting his mood and how he's acting. One of which is this and Sanjay would know more about this than me, but one of which is the steroid that he's taking, which appears to be related to lung capacity. And it is known as a pretty heavy-duty medicine that can give you a false sense of energy, a sense of euphoria and that can eventually wear off. And then it's not clear how the person is feeling. We should note, we did not see the president yesterday. We didn't hear from him in what we had anticipated was a possible videotaped statement that was never released.
[Camerota:] If only we had a doctor around that we could oh, Dr. Gupta, thank goodness you're here. Dexamethasone, that steroid that we're talking about, how long do you think the president will be on it? And is it known to cause mood swings?
[Gupta:] Yes. Well, it is known to cause mood swings. I mean, this is a well-known side effect of the medication, you know. And ask anybody, I prescribe this medication even within the world of neurosurgery for other indications, obviously, than COVID. But that's one of the things we counsel patients on, it will keep you up at night, make you ravenously hungry, it can make people quite manic. Everybody responds to things differently and it depends what the baseline is. It also the people that are going to be best-knowing whether or not this is affecting somebody that way are the people who are closest to him, that know what the person is like off the meds and then on the meds. So this is a medication that we know a fair amount about. We don't know how long he's going to be on it. It's interesting, it is typically given to people who are critically with COVID. What happens is, you get the disease, the infection is spreading, and then the body responds. And sometimes the body responds in a very robust way, creating lots of inflammation. That can be the problem, that sort of later stage. That's usually when you bring in the steroids now and say, let's really quell down the inflammation. He was given it quite early. Why? Was he sicker than we thought? Were they just trying to be aggressive with him? But it makes it harder to understand or know how long then he will stay on these medications. And you don't just come off of it. With steroids, you've got to wean off of it over a period of time.
[Berman:] And, look, as we said, we didn't see him, we didn't hear from him yesterday. That's why these questions are out there percolating. What we did get were tweets that somehow hard to explain, unilaterally pulling out of negotiations over relief and then seemed to contradict it overnight. This is why those questions linger out there this morning. So, Sanjay, thank you. Maggie Haberman, thank you very much. The vice presidential debate tonight, the only one we're going to get. What should viewers expect? Joe Biden's deputy campaign manager joins us next.