Trump Doubles Down, Won't Commit to Peaceful Transition; New York State Will Review Any COVID Vaccine
LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump embedding seeds of doubts about the election results in the minds of Americans. It could be working.</s>ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: And an erosion of trust at the state hardest hit by coronavirus says you cannot trust a vaccine approved by the Trump White House. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is EARLY START. I'm Abby Phillip, in for Christine Romans this morning.</s>JARRETT: Abby, so great to have you.</s>PHILLIP: Hey.</s>JARRETT: I'm Laura Jarrett. It's Friday, September 25th. Happy Friday, everyone. It's 5:00 a.m. here in New York. Thirty-nine days until the election. And we begin this morning with President Trump escalating his threat to topple a pillar of American democracy. After first refusing to peacefully commit to the transfer of power, he loses the election. The president dug in.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So, we have to be very careful with the ballots. The ballots, that's a whole big scam. We want to make sure the election is honest, and I'm not sure that it can be. I don't know that it can be with this whole situation, unsolicited ballots. They're unsolicited, millions being sent to everybody.</s>JARRETT: OK, here's the thing. These are not unsolicited ballots. In 41 of 50 states, voters have to request a mail-in ballot before one is set. Only a handful of states automatically mail ballots to all registered voters. Even the president's own FBI director say mail-in ballots pose no real threat to a free and fair result.</s>CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: Now, we have not seen historically any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it's by mail or otherwise.</s>PHILLIP: And, remember, 25 states are already voting despite President Trump's continued baseless warnings about voter fraud. Republicans seem compelled to respond to the idea he wouldn't step aside peacefully if not re-elected.</s>REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: No questions. No qualms. No concerns. It's going to be peaceful.</s>SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): People wonder about the peaceful transfer of power. I can assure you, it will be peaceful.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There will be a peaceful transfer of power.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There will be a peaceful transition of power no matter what anybody says.</s>PHILLIP: This from the same Republicans who just did a complete reversal on whether to hold a vote on a Supreme Court justice in an election year and they said little to nothing about the steps this administration is currently engaged in. CNN has learned that the Trump campaign and Republicans at the state and local level are trying to make it harder for voters to cast a ballot, harder for states to count them and more likely that the final counts will be challenged in court. That includes key swing states like Wisconsin and Michigan.</s>JARRETT: And in an extremely unusual move, the Justice Department announced Thursday it's investigating a handful of military ballots that it says were discarded in Pennsylvania. But what's even more unusual about this is that the press statement revealed seven of the nine ballots were cast for Trump. Meanwhile, election officials and voting experts want to make sure the president's baseless claims don't take hold.</s>JOCELYN BENSON (D), MICHIGAN SECRETARY OF STATE: We need voters of all backgrounds to know that whoever they cast their vote for, their ballot will be counted and their vote will be secure.</s>BENJAMIN GINSBERG, REPUBLICAN ELECTION LAWYER: I spent 38 years as a Republican lawyer going into precincts looking for evidence of fraud. There are to be sure isolated cases, but there is nothing like the widespread fraud that would somehow invalidate an election.</s>JARRETT: The truth is, the system has never been tested like it will be. It already is. 25 states already have ballots in the mail, including Florida where the president has actually been encouraging people to vote by mail. A CNN tally shows a whopping 71 million ballots nationwide either requested or set to be mailed automatically. That's far more than the 50 million pre-election day ballots cast in 2016.</s>PHILLIP: President Trump's threat to intervene in vaccine approvals is already having real effects. New York state will create a task force to conduct its own review of coronavirus vaccines.</s>GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: Frankly, I'm not going to trust the federal government's opinion and I wouldn't recommend to New Yorkers based on the federal government's opinion.</s>PHILLIP: New York officials don't generally play a role in approving drugs or vaccines, but they could delay distribution in the state if they believe the vaccine was not safe. This erosion of trust is already having big consequences.</s>ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: How big of a problem is growing skepticism?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, it's enormous, because once we do develop a vaccine, obviously, we want people to accept it. What's not represented is the skepticism and the concern in the medical profession, they're very concerned. I hear that almost literally every single day.</s>JARRETT: A key model used by the White House now projects more than 371,000 coronavirus deaths in the U.S. by January 1st. That's 7,000 lest than before yet still there could be 3,000 deaths a day by the end of the year. Nearly 100,000 people could be saved if most people would just wear masks. Right now, about half of them are wearing them. The average immune cases are up 27 percent in two weeks. Now when people are heading indoors for the season, a reality check from Dr. Anthony Fauci.</s>DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Given the fact that we have never gotten down to a good baseline, we are still in the first wave. Rather than say a second wave, why don't we say are we prepared for the challenge of the fall and winter?</s>JARRETT: Now a big loss in all of this, America's children. Remember what President Trump said earlier this week.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Nobody young, below the age of 18, like, nobody. They have a strong immune system. Who knows? Take your hat off to the young because they have a hell of an immune system. It affects virtually nobody.</s>PHILLIP: So, let's take a look at what happens as he said that. Up to 27 colleges and 15 states have now switched from in person to remote learning. Just yesterday, the ruby red state of Tennessee released data showing significant learning losses for K-12 students following school closures. This week, CNN reported that a number of people needing food assistance has tripled since the pandemic began. In the New York area alone, the New York City area, the campaign against hunger this year compared to 3 million in a typical year. That is a lot of hungry children. And unemployment remains staggeringly high. Families have faced job losses and eviction. So, that idea that the virus affects virtually no one except for the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions really does not hold up.</s>JARRETT: All right. Breaking overnight, a federal court ordering the Trump administration to drop plans to rush the census to a conclusion and extending counting for a month. Now, the Census results determined future congressional districting and how federal funding is divvied up across the country. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had ordered the Census Bureau to finish counting by September 30th, one month earlier than originally planned so the first set of results could be delivered to the president by the end of the year. The ruling is expected to be appealed.</s>PHILLIP: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be laid to rest today. First, she'll be moved from the U.S. Supreme Court steps to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, becoming the first woman in history to receive the high honor. Joe and Jill Biden are expected to pay their respects today. And you can hear President Trump was greeted with jeers and boos as he paid his respects on Thursday. He's expected to nominate her replacement tomorrow.</s>JARRETT: New overnight, more protests in Louisville after a grand jury failed to indict a single police officer in Breonna Taylor's death. An unlawful assembly was declared last night but the protests were peaceful. Some vigilantes did clash with demonstrators at one point, risking a repeat of the deadly violence we witnessed in Kenosha after Jacob Blake was shot. There are growing calls for more information about the Breonna Taylor investigation. The city of Louisville said they're working with Kentucky's attorney general and the FBI to determine what can be released without interfering in the ongoing investigations. Still, representatives for Breonna Taylor's family are running out of patience.</s>BENJAMIN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR BREONNA TAYLOR'S FAMILY: We do believe it was a cover-up from the go. They always intended to sweep this under the rug as if Breonna Taylor's life didn't matter, and it continues a long pattern in America that they disrespected and tried to marginalize the lives of black women but Breonna's legacy will be that black women lives matter, too, America.</s>JARRETT: Tamika Palmer, Breonna Taylor's mother, posted an illustration of her daughter on Instagram with the hashtag, #thesystemfailedBreonna.</s>PHILLIP: You may have predicted it, Florida would be the focal point of this election, but you may not know how. CNN reports coming up next.