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Don Lemon Tonight
President Trump Says Coronavirus Task Force Will Continue; At Least 43 States Partially Reopening By This Weekend Despite Continued Spread Of Virus; President Trump Blames Obama For Poor Coronavirus Response, Even Though Obama Administration Left Behind A Pandemic Playbook; President Trump Says Administration Will Continue Legal Fight To Eliminate Obamacare; Black Americans Account For Disproportionate Number Of Coronavirus Deaths In The United States. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired May 06, 2020 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Thank you for watching. "CNN TONIGHT" with D. Lemon starts right now.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Listen, they love the applause, we know that. They love the accolades, but more than anything, I think the most important thing that you said in all of that is what do they want most?
They want us to stay at home because they realize the best thing that they have right now is for people to stay at home and to socially distance themselves from other people so that they can keep the cases down until there is something that works on this virus enough to keep people from getting sick or until there is a vaccine.
And that's it. That's what they want the most. So, listen to the people who are on the front lines. And, Chris, I have to say, you know, you and I bicker, we joke around. That was really great of you to do that. So, I applaud you. But more than anything, I think you'll appreciate this, I applaud the nurses.
CUOMO: They deserve it. And I know that you will do them justice as well, you always do. You know how to look out for people. You are a rare heart, my brother. You are a rare heart. I love you. I wish you a good show. I hope it's good because it's got to overcome that tie.
LEMON: This is my, you know --
CUOMO: I don't know what that is.
LEMON: One that you didn't --
CUOMO: I'll give you back this tie because you need it.
LEMON: One that you did not steal from my office.
CUOMO: That's for sure. That tie is safe.
LEMON: Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.
CUOMO: I love you. Have a good show.
LEMON: All right. You as well. Thank you. Have a good evening. I love you. Thank you so much.
This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon.
We have got a lot of breaking news for you tonight. A lot tonight on the coronavirus that has killed more than 73,000 Americans. And on this administration's bumbling response to all of this, but I want to take a moment, I want to take a moment just to put this into perspective for you.
States are reopening all across the country right now, at least 43 of them, with the president cheering them on. Even though they haven't even met his own guidelines. Here's the messaging from the White House. From this president. Is, we can't stay closed forever. He said it again today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We can't keep our country closed down for years. And we have to do something.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Well, nobody is suggesting that America stays closed for years. But for the past six weeks, a majority of Americans have been doing the right thing. Taking action to flatten the curve. Staying at home. At great cost to themselves. Their families and the economy.
Millions of people have lost their jobs. Millions of kids are out of school. Millions of businesses are closed. And some of them may never reopen. Millions of us are isolated from our very own loved ones, our friends, our neighbors.
Americans have done all of that, making sacrifices that we couldn't have imagined even just a few weeks ago. But this administration did none of the things that they should have done for us in January and in February. When quick, decisive action could have done something to stop the spread of this virus.
Yes, the president, as he loves to remind us, restricted travel from China. He calls it a ban, but that was not a ban. Only foreign nationals who had been in China during the previous 14 days were banned. U.S. citizens and permanent residents were not.
And then there is a testing debacle that still hasn't been solved. Sloppy lab practices at the CDC led the agency sending test kits that didn't work to state and local public health labs. That was in early February. And on March 6th, exactly two months ago, the president said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Anybody that needs a test gets a test. We -- they're there. They have the tests, and the tests are beautiful.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Well, that is still not true tonight. And that's two months later. It's absolutely not true that anybody who needs a test gets a test. And on that same day, on March 6th, I want you to listen to what the president's counselor in chief, I guess you can call her Kellyanne Conway, chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow, they were both saying this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: It is being contained. And do you not think it's being contained in this country?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not a doctor. I'm a lawyer.
CONWAY: You said --- you said it's not being contained. So, are you a doctor or a lawyer when you said it's not being contained? That's false. You just said something that is not true.
LARRY KUDLOW, DIRECTOR, U.S. NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: So far it looks roughly contained. And we don't think most people -- I mean, the vast majority of Americans are not at risk from this virus.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: On March 6th, the reported coronavirus death toll was 14. With some 227 confirmed cases. Right now, there are more than 73,000 deaths and over 1.2 million cases.
This virus is far from contained, even now. And the false promises, the confusion, it's just continued. Reaching a low point with the president shocking his own task force when he said this less than two weeks ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[22:04:56]
I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do, either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you're going to test that, too. Sounds interesting. Right.
And then I see the disinfectant. Where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets on the lungs --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Every single time it's like the first time you've seen it, right? And that is why we are in no position to reopen safely. After months of misinformation and confusion. And the president who even now refuses to listen to the experts, the people on the front lines. Listen to what happened just today when Sophia Thomas, the president
of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, who works at the community health center in New Orleans, spoke up about shortages of PPE.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SOPHIA THOMAS, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF NURSE PRACTITIONERS: I think it's sporadic -- I talk to my colleagues around the country, certainly there are pockets of areas where PPE is not ideal, but this is an unprecedented time, and the infection control measures that we learned back when we went to school, one gown, one mask for one patient a day or per time, this is a different time. And I've been reusing my N95 mask for a few weeks now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: You heard that. That nurse on the front lines being so careful to avoid being too critical, yet the president, look at his face first while she's talking and then -- but the president jumped right in to contradict her.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Sporadic for you, but not sporadic for a lot of other people.
THOMAS: No, I agree, Mr. President. Absolutely.
TRUMP: Because I've heard the opposite.
THOMAS: Yes.
TRUMP: I've heard that they are loaded up with gowns now. You know, initially we had nothing. We had empty cupboards. We had empty shelves. We had nothing. Because it wasn't put there by the last administration.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: And there it is, the last administration. The president's favorite refrain. Blame Obama. When in doubt, blame Obama. Barack Obama is not the president. Hasn't been for more than three years.
So, bought a car and you didn't fill it up for three years and then you say, we ran out of gas. Why didn't the last guy fill it up? Does that make sense? No, it doesn't. Anyone with common sense knows that. But he keeps saying it.
Donald Trump is the President. And if he had been paying any attention to preparedness, if he actually thought the government didn't have what it needed to fight a pandemic, he had more than three years to address that. More than three years to fill up the car with gas. Very simple. And the fact is he didn't do it.
And then there's the president's about-face on the Coronavirus Task Force. Now he says maybe it's not winding down after all. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Yes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you explain the change between what you said yesterday about winding down the task force and --
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Well, I think, Yes --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- different from what you said yesterday.
TRUMP: Well, I guess if you think, we're always winding it down, but, you know, it's a question of what the end point is, but I think it is a change. A little bit. I thought we could wind it down sooner. But I had no idea how popular the task force is. Until actually yesterday -- when I started talking about winding it down, I got calls from very respected people saying, I think it could be better to keep it going.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Popular. Let me say it louder for the people in the back. It is not about popularity. It's about getting the facts from the experts. And let me say it for everyone who is listening who is part of the president's apologists.
People were criticizing these Coronavirus Task Force meetings and saying that they shouldn't run live, not that he shouldn't do them at all, but that they shouldn't run live without fact checks. That was the criticism. Not that they shouldn't do them. They should do them.
But the president shouldn't be allowed to just drone on and on and give misinformation in real time that we had to scramble back and then double check and then give fact checks when many, many millions of people would believe some of the stuff that he had said and it was wrong.
That's what the criticism was. They leave out the word live when they say people had criticized the networks for running them, live.
[22:10:04]
Not running them, running them live without fact checking.
With the coronavirus briefings now scaled back, we're hearing a lot less from those experts now. The president says Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx will remain on the task force.
An administration official telling CNN there is no friction right now between the president and his aides and Dr. Fauci. Another adviser says Fauci has rankled aides to the president, adding, quote, "he has served his purpose."
No signs right now that the doctor is going anywhere, but that didn't stop the president from sidelining Dr. Fauci, preventing him from answering questions from House Democrats today while allowing him to testify before the Republican-controlled Senate next week.
But listen to this really telling comment from the president about the task force.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: People want to be on the task force. They want to be on everything, you know? I've never seen anything like this. Anything having to do with this, they want to help. Everyone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
TRUMP: The biggest people. They want to be on it. They want to be on the committees. They want to be on the financial committee or the sports committee. I've heard -- heard, that's all I do. I get calls from people, the biggest people, they all want to be on. Enemies of mine. People that don't like me want to be on the committees. I said, that's strange.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: The biggest people. It tells you a lot about the way this president thinks that he calls it strange that people who don't like him, people he thinks of as enemies want to help in the midst of one of the worst crises this country has ever seen.
That's what we're supposed to do. We are supposed to put aside personal grudges when there is a life-threatening pandemic. We're supposed to rise above politics, ideology, personal grievances. Put other people ahead of ourselves.
Think about our fellow Americans. That's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to try to help when people are hurting. Does that seem strange to you? Because it seems strange to the president. That is what is strange here.
And then there's what the president said today about wearing a mask himself. Like millions of Americans. He says he wore one when he visited the Honeywell mask factory yesterday, but he can't help it if you didn't see him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Yes, I put -- I had a mask on for a period of time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We didn't see you in a mask.
TRUMP: Well, I can't help it if you didn't see me. I had a mask on but I didn't need it. And I asked specifically the head of Honeywell, should I wear a mask. And he said, well, you don't need one in this territory. As you know, we were far away from people, from the people making the masks. They were making the masks.
But I did put a mask on and it was a Honeywell mask, actually, and I also had a 3M mask and I had about four other masks. But I did have it on. I don't know if you saw it or not, but I did have it on. (END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: OK. So, he says he wore a mask. He says he can't help it if you didn't see him. So, let me ask you a question, to the people at home. Do you think that President Donald J. Trump, darling of the New York tabloids, reality TV show host and president, a man so obsessed with ratings, he will relentlessly brag even about those of his pandemic task force briefings, the ratings and so on and who reportedly spends up to eight hours a day watching TV coverage of himself doesn't know when there is a camera on him?
He can absolutely help it that we didn't see him. If he wanted us to see him in a mask, he would have. But of course, that would have shown leadership. And we all know that at this point that mask can be inconvenient. They can be uncomfortable. And they're not meant to protect us from the virus, they're meant to protect us from spreading it to others who are more vulnerable.
That's a really good reason for all of us to keep wearing masks. And it's a really good reason for the president to be seen wearing one. To lead by example.
A lead researcher running a clinical vaccine trial says don't expect a vaccine before next spring. We also learned tonight there are almost four times more states where coronavirus cases are rising or staying the same than states where cases are falling. So, what does all of this mean for you? That's next.
[22:15:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: President Trump reversing himself today, now saying the White House Coronavirus Task Force will continue indefinitely just a day after he said he would start winding it down.
I want to bring in CNN White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins. Hello, Kaitlan. Thank you so much for joining. I appreciate it. Listen, we've been discussing this. I've been curious about it now for over a week now.
So, the president is now disbanding the Coronavirus Task Force, but he is making it clear he is moving on with reopening, regardless of -- what is going on? I'm not sure. What's happening?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Don, often, you know, we hear about times when the media coverage drives the president to make a decision, but we don't often see him say it so plainly as he did today.
Where after yesterday there were reports about this task force winding down its work. The vice president said that could come as soon as by the end of the month. And then overnight as the president watched this coverage, he said that's what changed his mind to now make it go on indefinitely. That decision came as a surprise. To some people who would thought
that they were actually going to move forward with changing how the task force was working. And so now the president says it's going on indefinitely. He says Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci are going to stay on in their current roles, though he said the vice president may name some new people to it next week.
[22:20:02]
But, Don, the real question is, you know, what does it look like going forward? Because we already knew they had scaled back their briefings. The question is, you know, what is the president's -- how much are Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci around the president? Does that look any different going forward?
LEMON: OK. So, he's not disbanding. He said I am and now he's saying he's not. And he says because he didn't realize how popular it is.
COLLINS: Right.
LEMON: But the two main -- so most of the people are staying, but he may add some more people. OK, will the president listen to the experts or is he turning to loyalists and his gut for guidance, as Dr. Anthony Fauci -- Dr. Fauci has not been sidelined, correct?
COLLINS: Well, Dr. Fauci hasn't been sidelined, the question is how much is Dr. Fauci around the president? Because if he's not coming to the West Wing for these task force meetings regularly that's a question that some people have raised.
But also, when it comes to who the president is listening to, Don, he's wavered on that. We've seen him in the past go with the recommendations of Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, especially when it came to that Easter deadline that he was throwing around in the month of April, you'll remember.
But the question is, do other aides convince him that it's time to start listening to the more economic-focused advisers about reopening the country and stop listening as much to those advisers who are talking about what the guidance is going to be going forward for states, what that's going to look like.
So that's another thing to keep an eye on as the president says this task force is going to continue in the form it is now. You know, is it still meeting in the same way that it has been for these last several months?
LEMON: OK. So, Kaitlan, I'm wondering, I have not heard a good reason for the White House -- from the White House about why Dr. Fauci is being blocked from testifying in the House.
I mean, I heard from -- I heard Kayleigh McEnany, the spokesperson today saying that he's going to be allowed to speak in the Senate, but Democrats will be able to ask questions, but Republicans would also be able to ask questions in the House. So that doesn't seem like a good reason to me to not be able to
testify in the House. What -- have you heard a good reason from the administration?
COLLINS: Well, they added a new dimension to it today by saying that the Democratic chairwoman when she called the chief of staff Mark Meadows and she spoke with him that she really couldn't elaborate on the details of what that hearing was going to look like.
And they said that is why they blocked Dr. Fauci from going. Of course, the president said yesterday it was for political reasons because the House is led by Democrats and he believes this committee is full of what he called Trump haters.
So, he made clear why he wants Dr. Fauci to testify in the Senate but not necessarily the House. Though, of course, obviously the subject matter of that hearing was going to be the coronavirus, and the response that you've seen from the administration. Which Dr. Fauci has played a leading role in.
But what was interesting today is when that hearing did still go on without him on Capitol Hill is that the leading Republican on it, Don, said he too wanted to hear from Dr. Fauci, that he supported the chairwoman's request to have Dr. Fauci come.
He thought the testimony would have been good. He said not only for the committee, but for the country to hear from him. So, it wasn't just the Democrats on that panel that wanted to hear from Dr. Fauci.
LEMON: Yes. Kaitlan Collins, thank you very much. I appreciate your reporting.
President Trump blaming his predecessor throughout this crisis. He did it again today, but the Obama administration handed him a pandemic playbook before leaving the White House.
Obama National Security Adviser, Susan Rice is here to talk about that. She's next.
[22:25:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: The White House saying it's nonsensical to suggest every American be tested, even though President Trump claimed two months ago anybody who needs a test gets a test.
The president so far failing to take responsibility for this country's abysmal response to testing, and repeatedly blaming the former President Barack Obama.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: What we inherited from the previous administration was totally broken, which somebody should eventually say. Not only were the cupboards bare, as I say, but we inherited broken testing. The last administration left us nothing.
The last administration left us nothing. We didn't have ventilators. We didn't have medical equipment. We didn't have testing. The tests were broken.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So here to discuss is a former national -- former national security adviser to the -- in the Obama administration, excuse me. If I can get my mouth to work tonight. Ambassador Susan Rice. Ambassador, thank you so much for joining us. So, I'm just going to -- I'm just going to ask you, I'm going to speak to you as if, you know, what he said was true. Why did you guys leave him with nothing, empty shelves, nothing and no test kits?
SUSAN RICE, FORMER U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well, Don, I'm smiling because, you know, he keeps repeating these lies and they're all designed to distract and deflect from his own and his own administration's failures.
You did a great riff earlier in the show explaining how stupid it is for somebody three and a half years into their administration to basically take the keys to the car and complain that the prior owner didn't leave a full tank, but the fact of the matter is we did leave a full tank.
Independent journalists who visited the national strategic stockpile in late 2006 -- '16 validated that it was, indeed, fully stocked, and so that wasn't the problem. Nor were tests the problem because, of course, as everybody should understand, you can't create a test for a virus that doesn't exist.
And this virus emerged in late 2019, early 2020 on Donald Trump's watch, so no prior president could have left a test that would have been appropriate for this particular virus. So, this is all just throwing sand in the gears.
LEMON: OK. So, President Trump has, you know, he's repeatedly blamed former president and the administration that you worked no for, but you left a 69-page playbook for the Trump administration and you called it a pandemic for dummies. So, what was in that plan that would have helped if it had been followed, Ambassador?
[22:30:05]
RICE: Well, first of all, Don. We didn't just leave a playbook. We had understood clearly as frankly did the Bush administration before us. That a pandemic was inevitable. President Obama gave a speech in 2014 as we were dealing with the Ebola epidemic warning of precisely this. I established an office at the National Security Council in the White House for precisely this sort of thing called the Office of Global Health Security and Biodefense. Its sole purpose was to prepare for this kind of event.
We also left them a pandemic for dummies playbook, as I like to call it. 69 pages of questions to ask, things to check. Do we have the supplies? Do we have the surge capacity? Do we have the testing? All of the things that are standard in this kind of scenario.
We had experts that we had posted to China to be inside our embassy to work to be early warning systems. The Trump administration removed those people, so they dismantled the office we established in the White House. They moved people out of China. They discarded the playbook.
They were not focused on the reality that a pandemic was not just going to happen sometime, but could happen any time. And that's why they were so flatfooted. Besides the fact that it didn't accord with the president's great narrative of a new trade deal with China, of everything being honky dory, the stock market high, et cetera.
So they deflected and delayed and didn't take the months of January and February to prepare as they must. And we have lost thousands of lives and our economy is far worse off than it would had otherwise been had they been on this from day one.
LEMON: Why do you think he likes to make the former president the scapegoat and blame the president -- the former president and your administration on -- for everything, really? Why is that?
RICE: I can only assume and infer that President Trump has some extraordinary insecurity in relation to Barack Obama. Everything that Obama stood for, decency, family values, unity, a country that stood tall and proud, not by dividing but by uniting, is the antithesis of who Donald Trump is. And he's clearly threatened by it. And he clearly likes to use Obama as a foil for all of his failures.
But, you know, there is no covering up from the fact that this administration was not ready, wasn't ready with the testing, wasn't ready with the equipment, wasn't ready with the orders to -- to shut down the economy when that was necessary. And they're making even bigger mistakes today as they give the governors and localities carte blanche to do whatever they want to do. Takes no responsibility.
I mean, this is the thing, Don. Donald Trump says I -- he takes responsibility -- no responsibility at all. For anything. So you got to therefore blame somebody. If it's not Obama, it's China, the World Health Organization or whomever, but the pattern is the same, it's never his responsibility, even 3.5 years into his presidency.
LEMON: Ambassador Rice, President Trump today saying that he's still fully committed to fully striking down Obamacare. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Obamacare is a disaster. But we've run it very well. And we've made it barely acceptable. It was a disaster under President Obama. And it's very bad health care. What we want to do is terminate it and give great health care.
(END VIDEO CLIP) LEMON: What would getting rid of Obamacare or the affordable care act,
same thing, many people don't know it's the same thing. What would that mean while the country is in the middle of a pandemic?
RICE: Don, the answer is obvious. If you take health care coverage away from millions of Americans, at a time when they need it most, the suffering will be enormous. I can't imagine a more callous, inhumane step than to pursue as the president is this case to try to eliminate the affordable care act.
Millions of Americans who are already suffering will just suffer more. And if the president is -- if President Trump's intent is to throw millions more Americans' lives into misery on top of the misery we're already suffering, bar in excess of what needed to be the case, then let him go do it. I think the American people will hold him accountable for it.
LEMON: Ambassador Rice, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Be safe.
RICE: Thank you. You too.
LEMON: President Trump acknowledging there could be more deaths as the country reopens, but the people who could pay the ultimate price for that bargain are the most vulnerable and the ones who have been on the front lines keeping our country running.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:00]
LEMON: Tonight, a leading coronavirus researcher saying we shouldn't expect a vaccine until a year from now. Let's discuss with the doctor who has been answering a lot of questions for us. CNN medical analyst Dr. Kent Sepkowitz, professor of medicine and infectious diseases at Weil Cornell Medical College. I think I got that right tonight. Doctor, thank you so much. I appreciate you joining us.
So, Dr. Sepkowitz, a lead researcher overseeing a clinical vaccine trial won't know definitively if any of the vaccines will work until April or May of next year. Does that mean we should expect some form of distance, social distancing and wearing masks until then?
DR. KENT SEPKOWITZ, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Yes, I think we're stuck with it. The vaccine, you know, much sooner than that would be incredibly lucky. Very unlikely but not impossible, you know, those who want to hang on to hope, but it's a little bit, you know, like hoping the Mets are going to win the World Series. I mean, it's plausible. It's unlikely. We can hope, but I think we should also prepare. So I -- my main concern with talking about vaccines, and I think that they're exciting and they're fun to think about.
[22:40:20]
But if we think they're coming and therefore we can lower our guard and we can pay less attention and we don't have to do all this boring stuff like social distancing, like wearing masks, like thinking about what's going to happen every second of the day.
LEMON: Yes.
SEPKOWITZ: You know, I think it lulls us to sleep, and that's dangerous.
LEMON: Well, I want to be hopeful. You know, listen --
SEPKOWITZ: Me too.
LEMON: Yes, I want to be hopeful, so I hope it comes early, but, you know, I'm reasonable here. So, listen, doctor, the White House is saying that the notion that everyone needs to be tested is, quote, nonsensical. Which is interesting because they all have access to tests whenever they want, but they're talking about how people would have to be tested over and over and over again, right? From a medical point of view, how do you see it?
SEPKOWITZ: We have to test everyone and probably repeatedly. It's preposterous to think we can reopen the country safely without knowing who's got what. I likened it to trying to cross a busy street with your eyes closed. You can't do it. You have to know what's going on. It's just so fundamentally absurd that I think we've lost track of how preposterous an idea this is that we don't need the tests. It's completely illogical. Not acceptable.
LEMON: Did hearing today that the task force is going to stay in place, did that -- did that offer you any peace of mind?
SEPKOWITZ: No, I think that this has been mostly a political crisis for the president. It's not been a medical one.
LEMON: Really?
SEPKOWITZ: It's not been a humanitarian one. And so from that perspective, I guess someone got in his ear and said, you know, this is a better way to proceed. He's let us know how disinterested he is in us as citizens, but also in the problem, which is really a tough problem. I mean, even a very engaged human as the president would have a hard time with this. This is tough business.
LEMON: Yes.
SEPKOWITZ: One who is as uninterested and as disinterested creates a very, very unique challenge.
LEMON: Well, you know, maybe you're right. Because the moment he felt it didn't serve him, right, because he said it's not worth his while he said, ah, done. We're not going to do the updates.
SEPKOWITZ: Change the channel.
LEMON: Yes. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it, doctor.
SEPKOWITZ: Thank you so much. LEMON: President Trump -- absolutely. President Trump saying that the
country needs to reopen, even though some people are going to be, his words, affected badly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The people of our country are warriors, and I'm looking at it. I'm not saying anything is perfect, and, yes, will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open and we have to get it open soon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Affected badly. But with many of America's most vulnerable communities already being devastated by the coronavirus, who's going to hurt the most by reopening? Let's discuss. Art Caplan is here. He's head of medical ethics at the NYU School of Medicine.
And Dr. James Hildreth is here as well, infectious disease expert and president and CEO of Meharry Medical College. Thank you so much, doctors. I appreciate you joining us, both of you. Dr. Hildreth, you first.
Black Americans, 13.4 percent of the population. New study showing -- we talked about it last night. Counties with higher black populations account for almost 60 percent of covid deaths and a Pew study from April found that African-Americans far more likely to know someone killed or hospitalized by coronavirus -- by the coronavirus. I mean, black Americans are suffering far more than others. Talk to me about that. What's going on here?
DR. JAMES HILDRETH, INFECTIOUS DISEASE EXPERT, PRESIDENT/CEO MEHARRY MEDICAL COLLEGE: So, Don, thank you, first of all, for the opportunity to be here with you tonight. We've got biological reasons overlaid with social reasons why this is happening. When people have compromised immune systems or they have underlying conditions such as heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and they smoke, the virus just wreaks havoc in those -- the bodies of those individuals.
Plus, we have social conditions where people are living in multi- generational houses. They're working on the front lines where they cannot protect themselves very well. When you put those two things together, I think minority communities and poor communities have just been ravaged by the virus.
And actually based on what we saw in China, which is a racially homogeneous nation, we could have predicted this and it was predicted that this would happen. But this is not a new problem. It's been the problem of America for many decades.
LEMON: All right, I want to bring this in, because the Pew study also found that black and Hispanic Americans had been hit hardest by wage and job losses. So they are also more likely to be financially devastated.
[22:45:09]
ARTHUR CAPLAN, GLOBAL INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC HEALTH, NYU: Well, that's right, Don. And the president when he says, look, there are people that are going to be badly affected, what he means is dead. It's morally despicable, and I say this as an ethicist, not to protect the lives of Americans as you open up the economy. We all understand the need to do that, but you can't just right off the vulnerable.
Who's dying here? Minorities, the elderly, my mom died in a nursing home nine days ago. The rate in Connecticut last week was about 80 percent of people who died were in nursing homes. We see our workers at meatpacking plants, driving busses, the people who clean the hospital, the people who do the laundry, they're the ones affected. Many of them are poor. Many of them are minority.
It's despicable, to use a term that came up in an earlier election, not to protect the weakest among us. And I don't buy this argument that, well, we'll just write off the elderly, for example, and then we'll all go bowling and get tattoos.
LEMON: Sorry about your mother, Art. Really sorry about your mom. You doing OK?
CAPLAN: Yep.
LEMON: Yes.
CAPLAN: My sister less so. She spent the last week tapping on a window trying to say good-bye to my mother at the nursing home, so rough.
LEMON: It's been really rough for a lot of people because you don't get to say good-bye -- I have a friend. I know we're drifting off a little bit, but for so many -- when you think about African-Americans are losing so many people. Some of those people are in nursing homes.
Some of those people are not sheltered in place with their family members. So they don't get to say good-bye, they aren't having funeral services or home-going services, you know, as we say, and it's really tough in so many ways.
So, we appreciate you saying that and our hearts and our thoughts and our prayers are with you and your family. So thank you for sharing that. Dr. Hildreth, another study looked at San Francisco's mission district and found that 95 percent of those who tested positive for the coronavirus were Latino, 90 percent reported being unable to work from home. They have no choice but to risk exposure or lose their jobs.
HILDRETH: And, Don, this is a really serious problem, because I think it's, as your other guest said, it's unethical to ask people to continue to work without giving them the means to protect themselves, and by that I mean masks, making sure that public transportation is safe.
There are so many things we can do to keep people protected and to send folks back to work who are in essential jobs, we have to have these people doing what they're doing, but to not give them the ability to protect themselves, to me is just totally unacceptable.
And we see that all over the country. Meatpacking plants, factories, everywhere you look this is happening. We have to find a way to -- to protect these individuals.
LEMON: Dr. Hildreth, Art, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
CAPLAN: Thank you.
LEMON: We'll be right back.
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[22:50:00]
LEMON: At least 43 states are reopening by this weekend with coronavirus still spreading. Some view reopening the country as a tradeoff between a wrecked economy or a resurgence of the virus. But a team of professors at the University of Chicago believe there's another option.
So joining me now is one of those professors, Katherine Baicker, she is the dean of the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. And we are grateful that she is here. Thank you, Catherine. I should say, thank you. Thank you, Dean.
KATHERINE BAICKER, DEAN, HARRIS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: Thank you.
LEMON: So, your research is so interesting. You write in part that some businesses like some people are super spreaders which means that most of the disease spreading risk generated by the economy is concentrated in a small portion of it which means that we can resume a lot of economic activity with minimal risks. Which businesses are super spreaders?
BAICKER: Well, that's exactly the point that we were trying to make that there's a huge amount of variation business to business in the risk posed with people coming in spreading the disease. And if you can find those places that are low risk, you can start to open the economy with them and get a lot of the benefit of economic activity at minimal health risk. And we found some things that were kind of surprising.
Fast-food restaurants are very busy, but people don't stay there very long. Gyms aren't very crowded but people tend to stay longer. Sit- down restaurants are both kind of crowded and people stay for a long time so those might be particularly important places to take precautions against spreading the disease.
It's also important to think about the draw that different businesses have. People come from all over to go to a mall, but they tend to go to convenience stores or grocery stores only in their local neighborhoods. So thinking about all of those different factors along with things like whether people are touching the same objects, whether there's personal interaction between the employees and the customers, all of those are going to be really important in starting to restart the economy in a smart way.
LEMON: I get what you're saying which is surprising I thought of that. Because I was wondering why are malls reopening, right? Malls are reopening in many places. And I said how does that make sense? Because people touch everything. You're going to try on clothing and all those things you're going to be touching things and look at it. Do I want to buy this? What about this make up?
You know, Do I want to do this perfume or cologne. So, explain why a florist, I think I understand this. A florist is low risk because there aren't many people working there, right? You're not exactly touching the flowers, right?
They're doing it and then they're basically shipping them out to people and you can wipe down the vase with the vase that comes into your house. But an electronics store is high risk, because you kind of need to touch it and figure it out and see if this works and that works. Am I right?
[22:55:10]
BAICKER: Right. Because even when people go to florists to pick up flowers, they don't tend to hang out for that long. And picture going to a florist yourself. There aren't usually a lot of people jostling each other and in the same space. It tends to be a one at a time kind of thing.
LEMON: And you can wear a mask and gloves and do your work as a florist, but go on.
BAICKER: Exactly. So, both the customers and the employees, they are pretty easy ways to keep people safe, whereas businesses where people are touching a lot of the same things and where people are browsing for longer. You mentioned electronics stores.
Think about the appeal when you're wandering through the aisles to stay longer, to examine different things versus if you're going to buy, you know, garden products. You're just picking up the thing you need and walking out.
And in fact those places are more likely to be outside. So you also want to think about which businesses are indoors versus outdoors and how can the business modify the way it does business as usual to a way that's more compatible with not spreading the disease. So, you mentioned people wearing masks and gloves. Lots of places are experimenting with curb side pickup, or with metering people into the grocery store or the Target, so you don't have too many people there at the same time to create a lot of inadvertent touching and mixing.
LEMON: Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.
BAICKER: Thanks for the chance.
LEMON: We'll be right back.
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