CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Interview with Governor Andrew Cuomo

Interview

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Our next guest knows tonight better than most what it's like to watch COVID cases climb and what it takes to bring them under control. It's the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo who presided over the nation's first and worst eruption and oversaw what was ultimately a successful effort to contain it.

He has just written a book about it, "American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic." And we're glad that the Governor could join us tonight.

Thanks so much for being with us. As you look at the pictures from this Trump rally in Pennsylvania, massive crowd, few people wearing masks or social distancing other than those folks behind him who have been handed masks.

I mean, New York borders Pennsylvania. This could impact New York. When you see these images, what do you think as somebody who is in a leadership position?

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): Yes. Anderson, you think, this is incredible. I'm in disbelief. I can't believe this is the President of the United States.

The only problem is, this has been the recurring nightmare. Right? We've seen this for the past seven months. Your previous commentary. Yes, the President does not tell the truth. Point A.

Point B, he does not tell the truth about COVID. Point C, he has been in denial from day one. He's been reckless with his own behavior and with the behavior of the country, and he has actually made this COVID pandemic worse.

So yes, it's outrageous. But we've seen outrageous since this began. Really, we've seen outrageous for four years, right?

[20:10:22]

COOPER: I guess, I'm just stupid or naive, because I just -- I don't understand how knowing you can save 40,000 Americans lives in the next, you know, five months, by most of us wearing masks that just seems like something leaders could rally us all to do. And I know, look, you've been, you know, pushing mass from the get-go, I just don't understand as a citizen, how this is not a national priority. It just seems -- I don't know. I'm just -- I mean, I'm naive, I guess. But it's just it's sad to me.

CUOMO: No, no, no, no, no. Anderson, you are right. The disconnect is, you are logical and you are responsible and you're talking about a person and an administration that is not logical and is not responsible.

New York was the first state in the United States to do a mandatory mask law and the President was vociferous on the other side. One of the main problems I've had all through this is I'm putting forth best practices and good health advice. And the President has been arguing against everything every step of the way.

And this nation is so politically polarized that this back and forth with the President and frankly, his irresponsibility on the issue, some people, a majority of his base believe it and have followed it. And that has actually aided and abetted this virus.

You know, what's tricky with this virus is it just takes one -- it just takes one -- it just takes one person in a crowd, one person at a party, one person at a bar to infect dozens, and when you have the President spreading this message of irresponsibility and the impact of just one or two people actually listening to him, you have this recurring viral transmission, which is where we are now.

COOPER: Let's talk about New York. How confident are you about where New York is right now moving into the fall and winter, which, you know, we've all been warned about and scared about?

CUOMO: Yes, well, okay. You can't be confident in this situation, right, for your points. You have the President of the United States running around sending the exact wrong message. I had COVID, I'm fine. Everybody can get COVID, everybody will be fine.

Sure. Everybody gets in a helicopter. Goes to Walter Reed, has millions of dollars and doctors and experimental treatment. Two hundred and ten thousand people did not have those services, and they're dead.

But he is running around the country with his irresponsible behavior, that's going to make it worse. In the fall, you also have -- it gets colder. People go inside schools, et cetera, so you'll see the viral transmission tick up.

I feel that we are doing everything we can in New York, and we are as prepared as you can be. We have one of the lowest infection rates in the United States right now, actually one of the lowest infection rates on the globe, Anderson, and we are highly sophisticated in spotting flare ups or mini clusters.

Our immune system is highly attuned in New York, because the new normal is you're going to constantly have these flare ups. The trick is going to be, do you have the ability to sense that flare up and get there quickly? Is your immune system, if you will, in the body politic, sophisticated enough, where you can detect it through testing, contact tracing, et cetera and then you can deploy resources there to snuff out the embers before it starts flame -- we have about a one percent infection rate?

COOPER: Yes, how do you how do you actually do that? I mean, you say, you know, I think positivity rate across the state at 1.4 percent, positivity rates in, you know, what they call Red Zone areas, I think jumped from 3.7 to 4.13 percent. How do you then go to those clusters? What do you do there?

CUOMO: Yes. Now, this is interesting, because what we call a red zone is about four or five percent infection rate, right? That is lower than many states' infection rate. But relative to New York, we consider that a flare up.

How do we find it? Hospitalization data, testing data, and we do more testing than any state in the United States. So we get that granular data. We can get it down to the block level now, Anderson. I can look at your block and find out who was sick and when we see a small mini cluster, we call them, micro cluster, then we send in the testing resources, and we do a targeted restrictions, targeted close downs for that geographic area. And that is going to be the new normal going forward.

You know, the analogy to the human body works. The human body gets attacked by viruses, dozens of viruses every week. But the immune system can respond. Can a state's immune system respond quickly enough to those flare ups? That's going to be the challenge.

And in New York, we are very serious with data. We're very serious with testing, contact tracing, et cetera, and we deploy quickly because if you don't snuff it out, you don't camp out that ember, it will be a flame.

COOPER: Your book is about leadership during this crisis you and we're going to talk about it a lot, but I want to ask you, you have gotten criticism for the more than 6,000 people who died in nursing homes in New York from COVID.

Some of your critics have pointed to a directive back in March, releasing COVID patients into nursing homes as the root cause of the high death toll. Given what we now know, is that something you wish you would go back -- could go back and do over again?

CUOMO: No, that was -- that's been seized on by political opponents, frankly. They're doing with all the Democratic states and to all the Democratic governors. But it was wholly non-consequential. And we did a full report. It's by the numbers, it is non-consequential.

People in nursing homes died because this virus preyed on the sick and nursing homes were the feeding ground. When we first met this virus in the State of Washington, it was in a nursing home. And you look at any state, many people in nursing homes passed away because they were the most vulnerable population.

Here in New York, we are number 46, Anderson, out of 50 states in terms of percentage of deaths in nursing homes, 46 out of 50. And we had it worse than anyone, because we were ambushed by this virus because the Federal government kept calling it the China virus. Meanwhile, the virus came here from Europe, and they didn't even know it.

The virus left China. It went to Italy, France, Spain, and came here from Italy, France, Spain, and we never had a warning. So we're number 46 out of 50 in terms of percentage of deaths.

We've tracked what happened in nursing homes and the infection went into nursing homes from the working staff, when there was community spread back before anyone realized anything, when the Federal government was telling us that there was no such thing as asymptomatic spread that you had to have symptoms to spread it. That was wrong also.

So nursing home staff brought it in and that was the result.

COOPER: We're going to take a quick break. I want to talk about the book and about the some of the leadership lessons you learn during this crisis, and also the politics of this moment on Donald Trump that us, at least New Yorkers knew for years before he came down that escalator more than four years ago.

Later, we will have more day one questioning for the president Supreme Court pick with Senator and vice presidential nominee, Kamala Harris had to say. Judge Amy Coney Barrett and the grilling she got from Senator Amy Klobuchar, who joins us tonight as well.

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[20:22:08] COOPER: As we look at the President's live gathering in Pennsylvania

tonight, we're talking with the Governor of New York, New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, author of the new book, "American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic."

Governor Cuomo, the President is now claiming he is immune to the disease, saying he received what he calls a cure for COVID. That kind of messaging while certainly untrue, it certainly resonates with people more now because he has had the illness. Do you worry about people believing that? That there is now a cure that. That he is immune, and that everybody will be?

CUOMO: Yes, look, it's not true what he is saying, Anderson. But do we worry about the disinformation? Sure, we do. I mean, look, we are living with this virus and our response is one of the worst on the globe because of his disinformation.

I mean, and it's been consistent from day one, right? It was the virus is going to go away by Easter. It's going to go what way, it's a miracle. This was a Democratic hoax. Then he gets the virus, he says, the Regeneron was a cure. It was not a cure.

So yes, it's all disinformation, except some people believe it. And the way the virus works, the people who believe it and then won't wear a mask and don't do social distancing, they keep spreading it and that's why this country loses more people per day to COVID than many other industrialized nations on the globe, because he spreads disinformation and political polarization has now spread to public health disinformation.

COOPER: What have you learned about leadership in all of this? I mean, you look at the President, he said, look, you don't want to panic people. I think back to, you know, the daily news conferences you would hold, which I found just very kind of honest and raw. And you said what you knew, you said what you didn't know, and I don't know, I think for a lot of New Yorkers, it felt like, oh, we are all part of this. We are all in this together.

CUOMO: Yes, look, I think -- I think that's right. Intuitively, I knew going in, Anderson that credibility has to be earned. You know, institutions have lost credibility. It's not enough to say, I'm the governor, I represent New York State. Even you know, I'm from the media. I'm from this network. People discount that now.

The credibility is more personal than anything else, and you have to earn it, you have to prove it. And this was a unique moment in time, it still is. People are scared. That's what this is about. It's about the emotion. It's not really about the information first. It's about the emotion first.

[20:25:10]

CUOMO: And you have to connect with that emotion and you have to show the same vulnerability that they were feeling. And I went first, frankly. I communicated 100 percent genuine, authentic, my emotional truth, my personal truth. I was feeling everything other people were feeling with my daughters

and my family and my mother and I was afraid and I didn't know where we were and I felt like we were living in a science fiction movie, but I trusted the people.

I gave them the information. I never sugar coated anything. I don't believe what Trump says, well, I didn't want to panic people. You're not a babysitter for people. You're a representative.

People deserve the truth and the facts. And by the way, they are responsible and they are smart. And if you give them the truth and the facts, they will respond.

And that's what New Yorkers did. You do it in a way that empowers people and unifies people, but our state, Anderson that has so many divisions, Upstate, Downstate, Democrat, Republican, sexual orientation, religions, we were united in a way that I've never felt it. And it actually was inspiring to me and it gave me energy.

And that's what keeps me going. That's what the book is about. When you give people information and you trust them, they respond in kind. I believe that.

And that's the hope that keeps me going with all this President in the White House and all this politics. People are good and people are smart and I'm trying to go right to the people and give them the information because I believe they will act responsibly when they get the information that they believe, unfiltered.

COOPER: I know it's impossible to say, when do you think the next time in New York City anybody can walk into a restaurant, eat inside, not have to wear a mask, just have a normal night out in a restaurant with other people?

CUOMO: It would -- it would have to be you'd have to develop a vaccine, people would have to believe it's a vaccine. You'd have to be able to administer to 20 million people. It would be months and months or a year, at least -- at least, I believe before you get to that full normal, if you will.

COOPER: You mentioned your daughters. In your book, you write about how you tried to make a $10.00 bet with your daughters that President Trump will lose the election, but will then claim voter fraud as the reason he lost and the Attorney General will bring a suit that ends up the Supreme Court, but the court will rule against him.

Your daughter did not take the bet, but you wrote that you put even money on that today. Are you still sure of that today?

CUOMO: Do I see a scenario where Trump loses the election? Yes. Do I believe he will accept loss? No. Do I believe Bill Barr is his political tool? Yes. Do I think they want to confirm this Supreme Court Justice so that they own the court? And do they think that they could bring a case on voter fraud, which they have been talking about for weeks, Anderson, right? Yes. They always -- you always know where they're going if you listen to

them. They've been building this voter fraud case. They go to the Supreme Court, like Bush v. Gore, and I think they think they'll win at the Supreme Court. I think that's their hope. And that's why they want this confirmation now, even though it's a political liability.

I believe that's their plan. I don't believe they think they're going to win on Election Night. I think they are planning to win at the Supreme Court. And my optimistic self says the Supreme Court is going to think about the Supreme Court first and their integrity, and they're not going to want to look like a political shill. But that's what the wager is about.

COOPER: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, appreciate your time. The new book, "American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from COVID-19 Pandemic" just came out. We appreciate your time.

CUOMO: Thanks. Thank you, Anderson.

COOPER: Thanks, Governor.

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