Model Warns U.S. Could See 2K Daily Deaths by December; U.S. Postmaster General Denies He's Trying to Rig Election; What to Expect from Republican Convention; Two Tropical Storms Threaten U.S. Gulf Coast; Trump's Hold on Iowa May Be in Jeopardy
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): A new warning that the coronavirus death toll could explode yet again in the United States because some aren't getting the point, that large crowds without masks are not a good mix. We'll get into that this hour. Also --</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Democrats held the darkest and angriest and gloomiest convention in American history.</s>ALLEN: Not-so-sleepy Joe has President Trump repainting his DNC picture, while railing against mail-in voting and suggesting the election will be rigged or drag on forever. Also, this hour, a Kremlin critic believed to have been poisoned flown out of Russia. German doctors now trying to save his life and figure out what made him so sick. I'll talk with a Russian security expert about that. Hello, everyone, we're live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta. Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. I'm Natalie Allen and this is CNN NEWSROOM.</s>ALLEN: And thank you for joining us. The coronavirus pandemic keeps pushing case numbers and deaths higher in the United States, along with warnings that the death toll could nearly double by December if the U.S. doesn't shape up. According to Johns Hopkins University, more than 175,000 people have now died out of more than 5.6 million infected. One influential model predicts it could get much worse: 310,000 deaths by December. That's at least 1,000 Americans dead every day for the next three months. The model also warns that number could rise to a staggering 2,000 per day or more once December begins.</s>DR. CHRISTOPHER MURRAY, INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH METRICS AND EVALUATION: We have a worse scenario in what we release and that's many, many more deaths. And in fact, by the time December rolls around, if we don't do anything at all, the daily death toll in the U.S. would be much higher than the sort of 2,000 deaths a day we would expect by December. It could be as high as 6,000 deaths a day. So it really depends on what we do, both as individuals and what governments do.</s>ALLEN: But Dr. Chris Murray there and other health experts say that number could fall by 70,000 if people wore masks and adhered to social distancing guidelines. Researchers warn that super spreader events are driving the pandemic. This recent motorcycle rally in South Dakota has been linked to more than 2 dozen COVID cases.</s>DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: What we're hearing is that there's already been at least 26 people who have been confirmed to have been infected in three different states, including South Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska. Again, it's just give days since the rally ended. You well know that it can take a long time to get tested, to get test results back. So they expect these numbers to go up.</s>ALLEN: Coronavirus outbreaks have followed the school year. Nearly 1,400 cases have been reported on college campuses in at least 19 states. And a warning from the World Health Organization here:</s>DR. MICHAEL RYAN, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: It took three waves for the disease to infect most of the susceptible individuals and then settle down probably into a seasonal pattern. But this virus is not displaying a similar wave-like pattern.</s>ALLEN: Our Nick Watt has more on the latest, plus a look at how the pandemic is affecting some individual U.S. states.</s>NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Today, more COVID- 19 deaths logged in Arkansas than ever before.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are not back to normal. We have more work to be done.</s>WATT (voice-over): On average, more than 1,000 Americans have died every day for about a month now.</s>DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: Hopefully this week and next week, you'll start seeing the death rate really start to drop.</s>WATT (voice-over): His optimism is based upon the nationwide new infection rate dropping at the moment. But:</s>DR. AMY COMPTON-PHILLIPS, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I think we're going to see in the fall another spike. I just don't see it not happening, given the burden of disease that's circulating in the community today.</s>WATT (voice-over): There's a whiff already.</s>REDFIELD: Middle America right now is getting stuck. We don't need to have a third wave in the heartlands.</s>WATT (voice-over): Case counts climbing in Illinois, Iowa, South Dakota; now looking a little sunnier in the South. The rate of new cases now falling in Texas. Even so, today in Dallas:</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All the medical professionals were unanimous in their recommendation that there should be no in-person learning on September the 8th.</s>WATT (voice-over): Of the 101 largest districts in the nation, 64 now reopening online only, despite pressure from the president and some of his acolytes, who are not medical professionals. July 8th, the president tweeted this, "In Germany, schools are open with no problems." That day, 356 new cases in Germany; yesterday, more than four times that. New York crushed the curve, still nervous about schools.</s>GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): They're still working out what the plan would be. I would have a lot of questions. Parents do have a lot of questions. This is a risky proposition no matter how you do it.</s>WATT (voice-over): Kicking up to college level, cases now confirmed on campuses in at least 19 states, some reverting to remote learning. Gatherings like this proving a problem. Penn State's president asking the question, "Do you want to be the person responsible for sending everyone home?"</s>WATT: In New York state, Syracuse University has just imposed an interim suspension on 23 students after a gathering in a quad there. And in Purdue, Indiana, they have suspended 36 after an off-campus party. At Purdue, they plan to test every week all staff on campus and have random tests of students throughout the semester -- Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.</s>ALLEN: Now we turn to the race for the White House. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is looking to build on momentum coming off of his party's national convention this week. He and running mate Kamala Harris are highlighting what sets them apart from President Trump. The two gave their joint interview on Friday. Biden says he would handle the coronavirus pandemic more effectively and says no measure is off the table.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you be prepared to shut this country down again?</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I would be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives because we cannot get the country moving until we control the virus. That is the fundamental flaw of this administration's thinking to begin with. In order to keep the country running and moving and the economy growing and people employed, you have to fix the virus. You have to deal with the virus.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So if the scientists say shut it down?</s>BIDEN: I would shut it down. I would listen to the scientists.</s>ALLEN: Mail-in voting is another contentious issue, with the White House threatening to veto a proposed bill that would provide funding to the Postal Service. It's likely to come up at next week's Republican National Convention. President Trump is already giving a preview of how he plans to counter Joe Biden's messaging. Our Jim Acosta has more about it from the White House.</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Eager to get back on the attack, the president took aim at the theme running through Joe Biden's speech at the Democratic convention that the trump administration has been a time of darkness.</s>TRUMP: They spent four straight days attacking America as racist and a horrible country that must be redeemed. And yet look at what we have accomplished until the plague came in. Look at what we have accomplished and now we're doing it again. Where Joe Biden sees American darkness, I see American greatness.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): It was a carefully scripted rebuttal to a Biden speech that surprised even some Trump allies as nowhere near sleepy.</s>BIDEN: This is our moment. This is our mission. May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here tonight, as love and hope and light join in the battle for the soul of the nation.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): And yet in front of a crowd of conservative activists, many not wearing masks, the president warned a Biden administration would lead to the same unrest on the streets that happened on Mr. Trump's watch.</s>TRUMP: I'm the only thing standing between the American dream and total anarchy, madness and chaos and that's what it is.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): The president reprised his attacks on mail-in voting, predicting they will lead to chaos on election night.</s>TRUMP: And they all think I'm trying to steal an election. Just the opposite. I want the fair results of an election.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): At a Senate hearing on mail slowdowns, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump ally, denied he's trying to rig the election for the president after recent revelations that processing machines have been removed at postal facilities across the country.</s>SEN. GARY PETERS (D-MI): Will you be bringing back any mail sorting machines that have been removed since you have become postmaster general?</s>PETERS: Will any of those come back?</s>LOUIS DEJOY, U.S. POSTMASTER GENERAL: There's no intention to do that. They're not needed, sir.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): DeJoy conceded he and Mr. Trump recently met, but insisted their conversation was not about the election.</s>PETERS: Did you discuss those changes or their potential impact on the November election with the president or anyone at the White House? And remind you, you're under oath.</s>DEJOY: I have never spoken to the president about the Postal Service, other than to congratulate me when I accepted the position.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): The president has yet to provide any evidence there will be fraud on election night and yet he's vowing to send police officers to polling stations.</s>TRUMP: We're going to have sheriffs and we're going to have law enforcement and we're going to have hopefully U.S. attorneys and we're going to have everybody and attorney generals.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): On the pro-Trump QAnon movement:</s>JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Will you dismiss it? Will you dismiss it?</s>MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just did, John.</s>BERMAN: No, you didn't.</s>PENCE: We dismiss conspiracy theories out of hand.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): Vice President Mike Pence tried to dance around questions about the baseless conspiracy theory.</s>PENCE: I don't know anything about that conspiracy theory. I don't know anything about QAnon and I dismiss it out of hand.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): The president is doing some dodging of his own, insisting that he hasn't been speaking to his former chief strategist Steve Bannon, who has been charged with defrauding donors to a private wall project on the border. But sources tell CNN Mr. Trump and Bannon have spoken in recent weeks, despite what the president has said.</s>TRUMP: I haven't been dealing with him for a long period of time, as most of the people in this room know. I haven't been dealing with him at all.</s>ACOSTA: Over the weekend, the president will be gearing up for his convention next week. Aides are calling the theme to the convention a, quote, "return to American greatness," a title that suggests the president is still in damage control mode as the nation is still reeling from the pandemic -- Jim Acosta, CNN, the White House.</s>ALLEN: Natasha Lindstaedt joins me now to talk about the convention season here in the U.S. Good morning, Natasha.</s>NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: Good morning.</s>ALLEN: To listen to Biden and then to listen to Mr. Trump, it almost sounds like the United States is on two different planets. The Democrats painted a dark future if Trump is elected. We heard the same from Trump if Biden is elected. What do you expect from him with the convention this coming week? Will the president continue to paint a dark future under a Biden presidency?</s>LINDSTAEDT: I think that's what Trump is going to do. I think the main theme of the Republican convention, if Biden is elected, because Biden is, according to Trump, a puppet of the Democratic progressive wing of the party, that all of our cities and all of our suburbs are going to be completely taken over by unrest and chaos. He is painting a picture that the world will be in an unstable place if Biden is elected. And I think the convention is going to look very different from the Democratic convention, which though it did talk about something I've never heard a convention talk about, which is the threat of Democratic backflight (ph), that a candidate, the incumbent is actually leading the country down to democratic decay. The Democrats also focused on optimism and on unity. We saw how in the way they were reaching out to median voters and moderates and independents, I don't think we will see that in the Republican convention. I think it will be playing to Trump's base. It won't be trying to reach out to independents. It won't be about a message of unity. I think one of the best examples of that is the fact they are including this couple that had brandished weapons on protesters. I think that really is a good representation of what the convention is going to be about. But I think one of the biggest differences is also going to be that the Democratic convention, equally showcased Harris, other Democratic Party members and Biden. I think we see that the Republican convention will be all about Trump. The party of Trump can be very personalistic. And Trump will feature heavily in every single day.</s>ALLEN: If he is only sticking to appealing to his base, will that hurt him in the November election? Won't he need bigger numbers beyond his base?</s>LINDSTAEDT: I think the strategy of the Trump team is to really motivate the base and just ensure that all of them vote. At the same time, trying to engage in voter suppression, trying to ensure that whoever would support the Democratic Party does not vote. And part of that is by trying to undermine the Postal Service and to make it harder to vote by mail.</s>LINDSTAEDT: But this is the first time in my lifetime that</s>ALLEN: Natasha, thank you so much. We started to lose your audio there. We really appreciate you joining us. Natasha Lindstaedt for us. Tune in for live coverage of the Republican convention Tuesday at 7:00 in the morning in Hong Kong and 12:00 am in London and here in primetime in the United States. We'll have full coverage and analysis also on cnn.com. Coming up, Iowa helped Donald Trump win the presidency in 2016. But are voters there having second thoughts about the upcoming election? We'll talk with them. Plus, a frequent foe of Vladimir Putin is going to get medical treatment in Germany after falling into a coma. We'll tell you how Alexei Navalny's supporters got him out of Russia. Was he poisoned? We'll talk with an expert on Russian security coming up.