Biden accepts Dem nomination in career-defining speech; Trump claims vote by mail will be a “catastrophe”; Postal Chief: No plans to bring back removed sorting machines; CDC predicts nearly 195,000 COVID deaths in U.S. by Sept. 12;

The Lead with Jake Tapper

CNN

News

3.5 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2020

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Postal Chief: All ballots can be delivered “securely & on time”; Postal Chief who donated to Trump campaign says he never discussed changes with Trump or WH; Colleges in at least 19 states see outbreaks on campus; Biden vows to lead America out of darkness in DNC speech; Campaign Aide: Not sure if Biden will hit campaign trail this fall, “new confidence” he can reach voters in other ways; Trump slams DNC as “darkest” & “gloomiest” convention in history; Trump vows to send sheriffs & law enforcement to polls on election day; All eyes on Trump after Biden’s well-received nomination; Six-year-old girl is the youngest to die from virus in Florida; Researchers: Mandatory mask policy also leads to increased social distancing & hand washing; W.H.O., UNICEF to release new guidance for kids & masks; Trump approves additional funding to help rebuild Iowa; Thousands of Iowans without power nearly two weeks after storm; Fitness trainer uses his decade behind bars to inspire clients; W.H.O.: No country can just “ride this out” waiting for a vaccine; To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the lead. I'm Jake Tapper. We begin today with our national lead. We are 74 days out from an unprecedented presidential election happening in the middle of a deadly pandemic with the President of the United States yet again this afternoon
0:14.7	railing against vote by mail a process we should point out that has been part of this
0:19.5	nation's history since the US Civil War. Today President Trump, with zero evidence, claimed
0:24.9	that the election will be an embarrassment and a catastrophe because of vote by mail,
0:29.1	while his Postmaster General was elsewhere stating the exact opposite in congressional testimony.
0:36.0	As we head into the election season, I want to assure this committee and the American public
0:42.0	that the Postal Service is fully capable and
0:44.3	committed to delivering the nation's election mail securely and on time.
0:49.2	This sacred duty is my number one priority.
0:53.0	Postmaster General Louis de Joy, a Trump donor, attempted to calm fears over ballots being delayed in the mail, and he stood by the vote-by-mail process, which has been used safely by millions of Americans
1:05.0	by him not to mention at least six members of the Trump Cabinet the Trump Press
1:09.6	Secretary the Vice President of the United States and in this video released by the Trump campaign
1:14.8	to encourage Republicans to vote by mail by the president himself.
1:18.6	De Joy testified today that he has committed to processing all mail-in ballots as first-class mail promising that 95%
1:26.5	of ballots would be delivered in one to three days. De Joy earlier this week had announced
1:29.7	that he would pause changes to the Postal Service that he was making to avoid quote even the
1:34.6	appearance of any impact on election mail but these are photos of mail sorting
1:39.5	machines that were already removed before De Joy's reversal.
1:43.2	Today De Joy said there are no plans to put those machines back in service.
1:48.1	CNN's Pamela Brown joins me now to talk about this and Pamela De Joy tried to make it clear that the U.S. Postal
1:54.6	Service is prepared to handle this massive volume, tens of millions of mail-in
1:59.6	ballots and that all Americans he said should be allowed to vote by mail.
	...

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