Former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean joins Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman to discuss how the DNC should compete to take on President Trump in the 2020 election.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: New developments on the campaign front. President Barack Obama finally coming out and endorsing his former running mate, Joe Biden, for the presidency. And a lot of people are wondering what that will do to the race for 2020 as President Trump continues to respond to the coronavirus crisis and whether or not Obama's boost could be enough to bring Joe Biden back to the top.

For more on that, I want to bring on former DNC chair and former presidential candidate Howard Dean, who joins us now on the Google Hangout along with our own [INAUDIBLE]. And first up, Mr. Dean, when we look at this, what would you say about the impact of President Obama coming in here and endorsing Biden? A lot of people have been waiting for this. But I think the way that he came out and did it, kind of trying to unite Democrats here, saying that it's time to get behind Joe Biden might be enough. What's your take?

HOWARD DEAN: Yeah. I think it's important for him to do that. The really big endorsement was yesterday, when Bernie endorsed Joe very, very warmly. That-- that is going to be a real boost. You'd expect that former President Obama to come in and endorse his former running mate who is going to be the nominee of the Democratic Party. It would have been shocking if he hadn't done that.

And Obama is a unifying figure. He, of course-- and we have an incredibly divisive head of state right now. There are an awful lot of people who wish Barack Obama were still president. And some of them still think of him as the president given what we've got.

So it's a good thing. It's not news making really so much. And Biden is now-- I think it's fair to say that, because of what Sanders did and what Obama has done, is now had unified the Democratic Party behind him. And that's very important. And it's very early for him to do that. That's unusual.

- Governor, do you see any fundraising challenges given the recession now and also, of course, social distancing going into these elections?

HOWARD DEAN: Well, we won't be able to do fundraising the way we have. And there's two problems. One, you can't do the traditional everybody gets together and donates some money. That's fine. That was going by the boards anyway, except for the really big donors. And that's not how most people raise their money anymore.

The more serious problem is that a lot of people who give small donations are going to lose their jobs. And many have-- already have lost their jobs so that the young idealistic people who might maybe give $5 every couple of weeks, which really adds up as Bernie showed, that-- that donor sector is going to be a problem. And they can make it up by elbow grease, but it's not going to be easy.

- And who do you see being on the VP ticket? I know you like Stacey Abrams. You've talked about Kamala Harris as well. What do you make of the VP slot?

HOWARD DEAN: I think, you know, there's-- there was an article-- I've forgotten which magazine it was in online-- with 10 women. And all of them were incredibly well-qualified. So I'm incredibly glad it's a woman. Our core base is women, people of color, and people under 35. So that's the box we have to check.

We don't really have a geographic box, although obviously somebody from the Midwest, I think, is probably going to be of great interest to Joe. But we do have-- we've got to get young people out. We have to get people of color out. And we have to get women out.

And so I think Joe's got to consider that as he picks a running mate. But the two most important things are not anything most people are going to consider. One, the person has to be capable of being president of the United States. And two, the person has to be compatible with Joe Biden. That's not essential, but it's very helpful.

ZACK GUZMAN: And when you look at it, I mean, you know, there's a lot to ask right now, in a time of crisis, for the next president who will be coming in here or whether or not President Trump gets re-elected. But he was talking a lot about the division currently between the federal and the state level in responding to the crisis.

And there was a moment of contention yesterday, when he was addressing questions about who has authority to address the problems right now. He claimed he had total authority, which was surprising-- disturbing to some, when you think about even conservatives and the way that they look at government. But I do just want to read one of the tweets that he posted today in response to all this.

He said, quote, "Tell the Democratic governors that 'Mutiny on the Bounty' was one of my all time favorite movies. A good old fashioned mutiny every now and then is an exciting and invigorating thing to watch, especially when the mutineers need so much from the captain. Too easy!" You, as a former governor, I'm curious to get your take on the way that the president is taking this stance in a time of crisis and the way that he's trying to kind of position his authority above all else.

HOWARD DEAN: I think most governors believe the president's incompetent. And I am-- I believe that, too. And I don't think we really give a damn what the hell he says. The truth is I knew from the get go that our governors in general, both parties, are competent, qualified people. There are a couple of exceptions who are doing silly things.

And then our public health people at the state level are competent, qualified people. And they've made very good decisions. Mike DeWine in Ohio, who I don't agree with anything on, has done a terrific job on the coronavirus issue and has not paid any attention to Trump. Trump is-- he has said-- I don't even watch his stuff, because he says something different every five minutes. And he knows nothing.

For him to argue with Anthony Fauci about infectious diseases is a joke. And Trump is a joke. So he can say whatever he wants. I bet he's never seen "Mutiny on the Bounty" any more than he's ever read the Bible or the Constitution of the United States. And I think most governors aren't going to pay any attention to him. And they're going to do what they have to do, because governors are acting with science in mind, not hocus pocus and BS from the White House.

- And Governor Cuomo of New York had talked about rapid tests being a way of getting people back to work while still managing the crisis. I know you're a physician. What do you think about this idea of rapid tests, whether they be antibody tests, COVID-19 tests?

HOWARD DEAN: He's right in theory. The problem is we don't have rapid tests that work well enough yet. And that's a major problem. The best thing the Trump people could do is get out of the way. Jared-- Jared Kushner being the czar of this recovery is a joke, because all they're doing is shelling out contracts to the people they like without regard to whether they have any competence or not.

We do need rapid testing. That was the big mistake the administration made in the very beginning. Because when you know-- we don't even know how many people really die from this disease. We know a number, but we don't know with the percentages. Because if you don't know the percentage of people that have the disease, you can't tell what the percentage is of the people who are dying from it. So we do need rapid testing.

We also have made an assumption here, if you talk about rapid testing that is. We are assuming this virus is like most other viruses, which means that if you get it, you are immune to it for a period of time, maybe even a lifetime after you get it. We don't know that for a fact about this virus.

So there's an awful lot of speculation, some of it which is even from doctors. And I don't think doctors should speculate. I think they should be clear about what we know and what we don't know. We don't know if this really leads to immunity. We suspect it does. We don't know if humidity, i.e. the summertime, is going to reduce the amount of virus. We don't know that. We suspect it won't in this particular virus. But we don't know.

The other thing I think most Americans are forgetting, now that the numbers are starting to get better in a number of states, is that flattening the curve is a wonderful thing, because it means if you get sick, you can use the health care system better. Flattening the curve is not going to reduce the number of infections. We're still going to get infected. We're just going to get infected-- it's going to take longer.

That's a good thing, but it doesn't mean we're going to get less infectious. We have a long way to go. We should listen to the scientists. And you should turn off Trump whenever you see him on the television, because he know-- he's a total ignoramus about health care.

ZACK GUZMAN: Now the points you're making on the front of cases and everything else are very, very true. And when you look at that, that's kind of, I guess, why it matters to dig into the idea of the federal government on the state level approach here. Because as we get further along, obviously there are going to be hotspots that need different plans than other places in the country.

So when you look at that, I do think it is important to realize and to really focus in on-- on what you would do with your expertise and your experience as a governor here when you look at that. It doesn't necessarily need to be that the president and governors need to be so misaligned on this or so contentious, so problematic when you think about how he's worked so far with Governor Cuomo and everything else. So what would be your advice to some of the governors here who might be dependent on federal help but also wanted to look at more--

HOWARD DEAN: Pay attention to the science and things will get better. In Vermont, they're pretty good. We've got a governor who's a Republican who's doing a great job. We've got a health commissioner, who I trained with, who's doing a great job who was a chief resident the year after I was there. And that's the case in many states, regardless of party.

So pay attention to what the public health people say. Pay attention to what the governor says. This is not a political farce. This is a serious epidemic. And we should talk to serious people about what they know. And we should pay attention to the experts.

- And Governor, so many people have lost their jobs. And there are a lot of people that are very scared right now. What do you see on the other side of this? What are some of the changes that we may see, for good or bad, on the other side of this?

HOWARD DEAN: [INAUDIBLE] well, that's a really interesting question. And I hope you guys spend a lot of time on this in the program, because there's going to be some huge dislocations. First of all, commercial real estate. Law firms and businesses of all kinds have now discovered they really only need half the space they have. So what does that do to the commercial real estate?

Second of all, education. We now discover that you can do distance learning. It's not as good as sitting in the classroom. But there are an awful lot of people who can't afford to $50,000 or $60,000 a year college slot who now can get a pretty good education distance learning. That's going to change everything.

Third, public education. Very expensive. I bet you there's a whole lot more distance learning. Distance learning is absolutely not a substitute for good school learning. But it is something that could augment it. And would that save money in the public education sphere? So these are just a few of the major disruptions that we're going to have as a result of this experience.

ZACK GUZMAN: There you go. Former Governor Howard Dean, thank you so much for breaking all that down. Appreciate you taking the time to chat with us, sir.

HOWARD DEAN: Thank you.