Trump Wants to Restart Rallies, Claims He Is No Longer Contagious; Pelosi Says Trump Is in An Altered State Right Now
TAPPER: We're back with our POLITICS LEAD today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggesting today that President Trump may be in an altered state and may have impaired judgment right now due to his coronavirus infection and the medication he's taking. CNN's Manu Raju is live on Capitol Hill. Manu, walk us through exactly what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is claiming.</s>MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: She's been raising concerning or questions at least about the medication the President has been taking and questioning his erratic behavior, particularly, the way he's walked away from stimulus negotiations, suddenly pulled the plug on that, then suggested he wanted to move ahead. Again, raising questions about whether or not the President is being impacted any way about all his. Even today, Jake, suggesting perhaps he may call to invoke the 25th Amendment, which of course, is that procedure under the Constitution that would require a majority of the cabinet as well as the Vice President to say the President is incapable of doing his job. And that would lead to the Vice President immediately becoming President. She said she'll talk more about this tomorrow. But what Pelosi was asked today was how to explain the President's recent behavior and she said this.</s>NANCY PELOSI (D-CA) SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: The President is, shall we say, in an altered state right now. So, I don't know how to answer for his behavior. There are those who say that when you're on steroids and/or if you have COVID-19, or both, that there may be some impairment of judgment. But again, that's for the doctors and the scientists to determine.</s>RAJU: So, the President just tweeted about Nancy Pelosi suggesting the 25th Amendment is something she wants to talk about saying, crazy Nancy is the one who should be under observation. They don't call her crazy for nothing. Of course, that's the President's nickname of the House Speaker. When I asked the House Speaker are you actually going to call to invoke the 25th Amendment, she would not say -- she said that is something we're just going to discuss tomorrow. So, we'll have to see what she ultimately decides to do here -- Jake.</s>TAPPER: All right, Manu Raju, thanks so much. Rick Bright, a former Trump administration official is going to be speaking to us later in the show. And we'll ask him what he makes of all this. He's a scientist. And joining me to discuss is CNN's Nia-Malika Henderson and Abby Phillip. Nia, what do you think? Is it appropriate for the House Speaker to publicly question the President's judgment and mental state right now? I mean he is battling a potentially fatal illness and he is on serious medication as far as we know?</s>NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: That's right. And he is behaving rather erratically. Of course, it's kind of hard to tell with this President because this President often behaves erratically, changes his mind on important issues as we've seen him do here with stimulus talks off and on, as well as the debates. But I think if you're Nancy Pelosi you are watching a President at a critical time in this country, at a critical time in his reelection just days out of the hospital and on this medication. And you're also seeing his doctors not be transparent about his status, his health status. It's also clear that this President, at least so far, I'm not sure, have we seen him live and in person talking? I know he called into the "Fox News" network and talked to an anchor there for some time. But that in some ways, I think, could be alarming as well. As much as he is declaring that he is cured and he is feeling younger than he has, you know, in years, his behavior does suggest that there is something maybe more serious going on. And so, I think she's there raising questions and I think a lot of Americans also have questions and want answers from his doctors.</s>TAPPER: Abby, without question everything Nia said is correct. The President is behaving erratically, he's on serious medication that could theoretically cause that. And yet, there's no chance in hell that the President's cabinet is going to invoke the 25th Amendment even though Speaker Pelosi said she's going to discuss that tomorrow. That's the amendment used to remove unwell presidents from office. And if you look at the President's Twitter feed right now, he's retweeting all these members of Congress from the "looney tunes caucus" talking about Nancy Pelosi staging a coup. I mean was this wise of her to talk about?</s>ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, she's poking the bear. Nancy Pelosi knows how to get under Donald Trump's skin. She knows that this is something he's very sensitive about, both his health and also the implication that he could be removed from office by members of his cabinet or members of his own party. And so, I do think that she's throwing something out there that she knows is going to cause the President to act even more erratically. Whether or not this is a serious thing, I think, is almost beside the point. We are less than a month away from a presidential election. But in terms of the ability to distract President Trump from a lot of things that are going on, to be honest, it seems that's what this is really about. I have no doubt that Nancy Pelosi believes that President Trump is impaired. But I also think that she knows that there is no chance that this is going to happen.</s>TAPPER: Right, I think that's smart, your suggestion that she's trying to poke the bear. Nia, President Trump called in to "Fox Business" for nearly an hour earlier today. Among his remarks he called Senator Kamala Harris, the vice presidential nominee on the Democratic side, calling her a monster, calling her unlikable. The President has serious problems with women voters right now. I don't know that that's the wisest approach to call a woman politician a monster and unlikable. What do you think?</s>HENDERSON: It's not the wisest approach. It's terrible. Listen, he is doing terribly among women of all races. We tend to focus on white women, but you think about older women, older African-American women. And so, this won't help him. He doesn't seem to have any real strategy. He's doubling down on all of the things we know about this President, and that is to traffic in sexist rhetoric, racist rhetoric as well. And you have I think those two things converging in what he is talking about and claiming about Kamala Harris. I thought Kamala Harris was fairly good last night, and I'm sure he watched that and I'm sure he's a bit threatened by Kamala Harris. He clearly does go after -- particularly goes after women that he feels sort of threatened by. And I think that's what's going on here. And listen, it won't help him with women. He's bleeding support among women. Many of the women who voted for him, particularly white women in 2016 are fleeing that party. And so, I think you'll see more of that with those comments. But again, this is the President we've come to know, particularly when it comes to women of color.</s>TAPPER: And Abby, President Trump now suggesting that he may have contracted coronavirus from Gold Star families at an event that he held on September 27th, Sunday. Gold Star families, people who lost a loved one in combat. Take a listen.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They come within an inch of my face sometimes. They want to hug me, and they want to kiss me. And they do. And frankly, I'm not telling them to back up. I'm not doing it. But I did say it's like, you know, it's obviously dangerous.</s>TAPPER: Abby, the timeline makes no sense based on what we know about the President's infection that he got it from the Gold Star families. But the idea, the obscenity of blaming this on people who have lost a loved one in war is just beyond the pale.</s>PHILLIP: It's ridiculous. But I think we should also remind people that when Hope Hicks was diagnosed with the coronavirus, one of the first things the President Trump said about that situation was that perhaps she got it from greeting members of the military in the course of her official duties as an adviser to the President. So, this is not the first time the President has floated these kinds of ridiculous theories. And in fact, it is probably more likely that the President put these Gold Star families in danger by having a massive event at the White House the day before in which we know at least nine people -- who later contracted the virus attended that event both outside and inside.</s>TAPPER: All right, Abby Phillip and Nia-Malika Henderson, thanks to both of you. New coronavirus numbers are in. I wish I had good news for you, but I don't. It's not just in a handful of hotspots. Stay with us.