Things being held up and wouldnt mind so much, thats my opinion, a very strong opinion. Reporter the emergency approval was held up by concerns among top government scientists who wanted more data before signing off. Though, two of trumps aides claimed they were slowwalking the approval. If they dont see the light, they need to feel the heat. Convalescent plasma, thats like going after bambi. Reporter the fda commissioner didnt address trumps attacks but praised him before later saying in a statement that the decision was made based on data and not politics. Thank you, mr. President , for your leadership. Reporter the announcement comes as cnn is also reporting that last month white house officials raised the possibility of granting a similar emergency authorization to use a vaccine before phase three trials are completed, raising concerns that politics is being put ahead of science. What they are doing is using covid to steal an election. Reporter the president is looking for good news as he heads into his Convention Week after it was revealed that his niece secretly recorded his older sister describing him as a liar with no principles. Oh, my god, im talking too freely, but, you know, the change of stories. Reporter President Trump is hoping to rewrite that narrative at this weeks convention. Ours is going to be a very forwardlooking convention. Reporter Kellyanne Conway said she will step down from her role at the end of the month to focus on her family as her husband will also pull back from his role in the antitrump group, the lincoln project. Reporter and, jake, thats not the only drama thats around the president. The new York Attorney general also made some developments about their investigation into the Trump Organization and whether they inflated the number of their assets in order to get loan approval. Today, the new York State Attorney general said they want to be able to speak to eric trump under oath and also get more documents from the Trump Organization after they said that eric trump abruptly canceled a scheduled interview with their office last month and also said recently they heard from the Trump Organization that they did not want to provide further documents to them. All right, kaitlan collins, thanks so much. Joining me now to discuss, dr. Paul offut. He also serves on the fda vaccine advisory committee. Dr. Offut, thanks for joining us. So you said that you were seeing bullying at the highest levels of the fda, which commissioner stephen hahn denies. Hahn says that he took an oath more than 30 years ago to do no harm. We heard from this chief of staff specifically talking about the fda. Take a listen. If they dont see the light, they need to feel the heat because the American People are suffering. This president knows it. So, you dont believe he was feeling the heat and he made his judgment accordingly . I think we have two pieces of evidence for that. The first was hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug which had never been shown to work for covid19 where i think that the administration looking for some quick, fast cure for all this pushed the fda for a drug for which we had no evidence. And now we know not only did it work to treat the disease, but 10 of people had heart arrhythmias can be fatal. Now we have round two. Weve had evidence that at least according to dr. Fauci and dr. Collins whos head of the nih was not adequate enough to show that the plasma therapy worked in a clear way for people who had covid19. Although i think it probably does have some efficacy. We dont have data showing that it has efficacy. The fdas job is to make sure that they would not approve a product until its been shown to be safe and effective. And this had not clearly been shown to be effective. And everybody had agreed to that a few days ago. Last night there was a change of heart by the fda without any new data. So one can only conclude that there had to be pressure on the fda. And looking at Donald Trumps tweets, you can only conclude that. And it is worrisome, especially as we move to the notion of a vaccine. We cant do that anymore. Theres too much at stake with the vaccine. So, i want to get to a vaccine in a second. But on the subject of hydroxychloroquine, obviously, that can do harm to an individual. So i understand what youre saying there. What is the risk of approving the blood Plasma Treatment . I understand that its not following scientific protocol. But i guess whats the worst thing that happens . Well, i think as a generally safe product, although we all know that once that any medical product that has a positive effect can have a negative effect. You are giving a lot of foreign protein to somebody who gets this plasma. You can always be surprised unpleasantly on what the side effects can be once you put it into a lot of people. I dont think thats really going to be the issue. Its more of an issue of we have another example of absent Clear Scientific evidence if something works that the fda is being pushed to approve it. And thats what worries me actually more than anything else. I dont think its going to increase or decrease the use of plasma therapy here. It just worries me that it sets yet another precedent to make you worry about the fact that the administrations willing to bully its sciencebased agencies. So now lets talk about a vaccine because i know that that is a big concern among many experts, many medical experts. Sources tell cnn that white house officials raised the possibility of a vaccine emergency use authorization that would take place before phase three trials of the vaccine were completed. So, again, completely in violation of scientific protocol. Ive heard this discussed as a way to help the president s reelection chances. Thats why people are pushing for it. Are you worried that President Trump is going to push a vaccine on the public before it is thoroughly ready and vetted and according to scientific protocols as a political gambit to win the election . Yes. I mean, im on this nih group that was put together by francis collins. And we recommended that the trial be a 30,000person trial. Roughly say 20,000 people get a vaccine, 10,000 get placebo. The reason for that is you want to have an excellent safety portfolio. The strategies that are being used to make these vaccines, whether its messenger rna or adenoviruses or new strategies, theres no experience with those vaccines. Those strategies have never been used to make a commercial product thats ever been used in this country. So you want to have an excellent safety profile and make sure that you have data on people who were elderly, people who have various medical comorbidities, africanamericans, latinx communities so that you can go to those groups and say we have excellent safety data here and you want robust statistically solid efficacy data. If we dont have that and we bring a vaccine out too early, i think we could scare an already skittish american public. Theres only two ways out of this pandemic. One is hygenic measures, you know, that s masks, social distancing, contact tracing. We havent been very good at that. The second is a vaccine. We cant mess this up. We cant scare people by putting a vaccine which hasnt been adequately tested out there because this, frankly, is our most important way out of this pandemic. And i worry about this administration which hasnt been attentive to good science. Do you think it potentially could cost human lives if the vaccine is released early either because it hurts some people because it hasnt been thoroughly vetted scientifically or because it creates an unsuredness by the public . Youre testing 20 to 100 people. When you do a phase three trial youre testing tens of thousands of people. Each time youre reducing uncertainty. Youre not eliminating uncertainty. Youre reducing uncertainty so that when you put it into 20 million people, 100 million people, youve at least done a good job of reducing as much uncertainty as you can because you dont want to have to get lucky. And i think when youre asking to test it in only 5,000 people, 8,000 people, have sort of a substandard safety portfolio, youre asking to be lucky. Most people who get this vaccine are going to be healthy young people. They are not the ones who are most likely to die from this virus. So you have to make sure you have an adequate safety profile especially with vaccines with which we have no commercial experience. And very briefly, sir, you dont have any confidence that the head of the fda, stephen hahn, would stop that from happening . He wrote a viewpoint piece where he promised he would hold this vaccine to a High Standard of safety efficacy, promised he would put it in front of the vaccine advisory committee. Im choosing to believe that when he said that, he meant it. Thank you, dr. Paul offit. Coming up, what scientists are learning about the first documented case of a person who seems to have gotten coronavirus twice. Plus, President Trumps brief 52minute remarks as the Republican National convention kicked off his wide range of rambling lies and mistruths that show that we are definitely in for a wild ride before election day. Stay with us. Under rumbles ] [ engine rumbling ] [ beeping ] [ engine revs ] uh, you know theres a 30minute limit, right . 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And in a surprise appearance at the Convention Site in North Carolina this afternoon, the president delivered a rambling speech filled with misleading and false claims about voter fraud and democrats and a suggestion possibly joking that he could serve for the next 12 years. Cnns ryan nobles is live outside the Republican NationalConvention Location in charlotte, North Carolina. Ryan, is this what the conventions going to be like, or will there be more of an effort to temper some of the president s more, shall we say, troubling impulses . Reporter well, jake, this convention now only just a few hours old, and if weve learned anything from what weve seen already today, that this is Donald Trumps convention, and everything that we see from here on out is going to be something that comes directly from him. He is going to drive the messaging. He is going to drive the story of this convention, and that was on full display this afternoon and this morning. Its important to point out that the president s aides said leading up to this convention that it was going to be very different from the democratic convention. They accused the democrats of putting on a convention that was filled with doom and bloom and talking about all the bad things going on in the country and that this convention was going to be filled with hope and optimism. The president showed none of that today during this 52minute speech where he complained about a wide variety of things of accusations that president obama and his administration were spying on his campaign, talking about the potential of voter fraud, complaining about a wide range of things and talked very little about the hope and optimism that he would bring over the next four years. The other thing we should point out is that while his campaign will attempt to spend each day with a frame for each event, theyre going to talk about certain issues that they want to highlight, ultimately all of these speakers have one of two things in common. Theyre either related to President Trump, meaning that his wife or his children or they are a group that have pledged their undying loyalty to donald trump. Rick scott from South Carolina, the senator from there is going to be one of the speakers. Nikki haley, his former u. N. Ambassador, the current republican chairperson. You also have congressman steve scalise. His son donald trump jr. , matt gaetz and jim jordan. These are all individuals who, above all, support donald trump. So as the president tries to make the case about Building Back the economy, building on the accomplishments that hes had over the past four years, one thing is clear about this convention, jake, and that it is all about donald trump, and youre either with him or you are against him. I would say that South Carolina senator tim scott has been willing on occasion to break with President Trump. But i take your point, ryan nobles. The biden complain planning to counter republicans at every step this week not only by lining up live events with Speaker Pelosi but also planning for senator Kamala Harris, the partys Vice President ial nominee to deliver another attack on President Trump and his administration. Cnns jessica dean joins me now live. This attempt at counterprogramming, it started i guess with the first joint interview with biden and harris. Reporter thats right. We saw biden and harris in their first joint interview last night. Jake, they covered a host of issues. One thing that former Vice President biden was asked very directly about were these attacks by President Trump and his campaign on his mental fitness. Biden giving a response weve heard multiple times from him when its heard to that question, which is just watch me. He asked the person meme to watch him, how mentally and physically fit he is. He says hes up for the challenge and told people again watch him. Were going to see more from the dnc and the Biden Campaign really working hand in hand this week. Were going to see ads in battleground states and nationally on cable from the dnc attacking President Trump and laying out their version of what has happened over the last four years and what they consider to be his lack of leadership. Were also going to see these events with big keynote speakers from the democratic party. And then again we are expecting to hear, weve been told, Kamala Harris to make a strong case against donald trump. But its unclear right now if thats a bigger event. She had a Virtual Event that was smaller today with a very particular group of people. Would this be a bigger event . That remains to be seen. Jessica, the Biden Campaign says the former Vice President has not been tested for coronavirus, though people who come in contact with him are tested. I have two questions for you. First, have they explained why he hasnt gotten a test . And, second, they seem to be handling the question in an odd way. Whats going on with that . So lets go to your first question first. He hasnt shown any symptoms. They have said that at one point he said he didnt want to take a test from somebody who might need it since there were limited tests at that time. We heard from his Deputy Campaign manager. Listen to what she had to say to that question. We have put in place incredibly strict protocols