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Cuomo Prime Time
Second COVID-19 Infection Confirmed In White House Staffer; California To Allow All-Mail Voting In November; Father and Son Facing Murder Charges In Jogger Shooting Appear In Court On What Would Be Arbery's 26th Birthday. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired May 08, 2020 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Hey everybody, I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome back to PRIME TIME.
I know this is our normal time. But we did 8, and now we're doing a second hour, which is actually our regular hour. Hey, why should anybody - anything be clear these days? Everything's confusing.
The President should be more worried about this virus. And, in fact, I argue to you, he is more worried than he's telling you. How do we know? Because look how he's reacting to it being in the White House. It's not just one case now. It's two among White House staffers.
Today, he revealed that the Vice President's Press Secretary has it, Katie Miller. She is the woman without the mask in the picture in front of your face. She is the wife of one of his top aides, Stephen Miller.
Now, look, I hope that there are light symptoms, and they pass quickly, and no one else in her family gets it, OK? Her diagnosis comes a day after confirmation that the President's personal valet tested positive. This thing spreads. That's why you need testing and tracing.
What is their response in the White House? "Everybody's got to get tested every day, and we have to trace. Where was Katie? Who was she with? And the valet, who was he with? We have to trace it." Exactly!
So, why does this President downplay testing as unreliable or overrated when he's having it done more than ever around him? Why is he saying that tracing isn't necessary, and that this thing is just going to go away, when everything that's happening around him shows the truth? And, by the way, he's still not a 100 percent safe from this. He doesn't want to wear masks. He's not even, you know, letting other people to protect him from exposure. So, let's take that to our Chief Doctor, Sanjay Gupta.
First things first, we only have one President, OK? And if people around you are getting cases which, let's be honest, was inevitable, right, the way this thing spreads, what has to be done for him, whether he likes it or not?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well so the testing is important. And, you know, there's obviously been a lot of discussion about it. But I think the point you're making -- the correct point is that you obviously would rather not get the infection in the first place. I mean nobody wants it.
He is, being that he's in his 70s, he's more vulnerable to have more of the serious sickness, if he does get infected. So, you don't want to get this. And that involves protecting him like you'd protect anybody else.
Challenge about the White House is that it's very hard to maintain physical distance over there. People are in close proximity. I've been over there. You've been over there. Even at those press briefings, you see how close people are.
It's a contagious virus. It's not inevitable that people will get it. But, you know, it's a contagious virus. And the closer you are without protection, that's a problem, so testing, yes.
But the mask thing, Chris, I mean it's not perfect, but we do everything we can to mitigate the spread, to decrease the amount of virus you're putting into the environment.
So yes, people around the President should have - should have masks on. I mean this is like Secret Service. I asked Ambassador Brooks about this. Secret Service is there to protect the President. Who's protecting him from the - from the virus, and who's protecting everyone else for that matter?
CUOMO: And does he have to have a mask on also? He was getting some heat about that. He said I had one on backstage. I couldn't wear it around the elderly veterans because it was blowing off. What is the reality of what we need there?
GUPTA: The guidance is that you should be wearing a mask, if you're going to be in that proximity of people where you can't physically distance. I mean that's it. I mean, frankly, you know, we are getting into a situation now where most people probably want to wear masks in public. Period!
I mean, you know, it's - it's a very contagious virus. We are still, you know, having many people who become infected obviously. We need to do everything we can to try and slow down the spread. I mean this is all I can say. I mean, you know, I know people are going to say, "Well, you know,
it's - I was 6.5 feet away," and trying to find the loopholes in this, and we can keep doing that.
I remember having a conversation with you a couple months ago where people were saying it's OK to be running in close proximity to people on the Embarcadero, and that that's fine, because it says exercise outside, but they weren't still keeping physical distance. And now, it seems silly to have done that.
We're going to learn so much, Chris, that three weeks from now, the idea that we're arguing about hair salons and wearing masks is going to seem silly. It's just going to seem silly.
We're really focusing on the trivial aspects of this. "He should wear a mask. People should get tested. We should contain this virus." All that stuff is true. It will remain true. You know, we're just not doing some of this stuff that we can do.
CUOMO: Look, here's the thing that bothers me. The mask thing, look, you are right. I'll give people little bit of space and a little bit of a learning curve because we've been all over the place with masks, so I get it that there's a little confusion. They'll get up to speed.
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Here's what I can't accept, OK? This President has been going contrary to fact and common sense from jump about testing.
The only reason he doesn't like testing is because it reveals the truth of a situation he wants to go away. And the more we test, the more we see it is not going away that there is no databases for reopening right now other than his enthusiasm.
And the reality of it, Sanjay, I don't usually talk politics with you. But the reality of it is look at what they're doing in the White House. If testing doesn't mean a damn thing, then why are they testing the hell out of everybody, every day?
If tracing is over - is hyper-reactive here, then why are they tracing so much with their two cases? You know, why are they acting in the exact way that people like you are asking for them to act with respect to the entire country?
GUPTA: They're doing it because it's the right thing to do now, right? They know they need to test. They know they need to trace. Everybody knows this.
There's no, you know, the medical community isn't always with one voice on everything. But so far, on most of the stuff that's been happening with testing and tracing, they've been speaking with one voice.
Maybe they say the exact number of tests, some will say suggest one number, a million a day, others will suggest 500,000 a day. The fact is that we need to test and trace. And, by the way, if the point is that we want to ultimately bring down the number of cases, that's what it's going to take.
Yes, it might expose that there are more cases than we realize in the - in the beginning. But that might also show us that maybe the - the lethality rate, the - the fatality rate is lower as well.
If there's a lot of people out there carrying the virus, who aren't getting sick, that's data. That's important data. And it might actually be a little bit calming data because it may bring down the fatality rate in this country. But the way to really bring the numbers down ultimately is to test.
CUOMO: Right.
GUPTA: To test and to trace, and then to hopefully treat.
CUOMO: And look, it's a quick argument to win. Any of you who are saying I'm not being fair to the President, that he takes it serious - he means what he says, it's going to go away, then right now, that's what he should be saying.
"I'm not going to get tested every day. This is going to go away. It's not a big deal. We're not going to trace and test. It's OK. It's not - it's overdone. We'll be all right." He's not saying any of that.
He's taking all of the best advice to do all the testing and all the tracing because when it comes to him, he's acting in a way that he doesn't act when it comes to you.
Now, let me ask you something else that is about medical in nature.
At first, Kawasaki syndrome seemed to be this kind of esoteric thing that was popping up a little bit, but we don't really know if it's related. Now, there are more kids getting sick. Is this just us paying more attention to Kawasaki syndrome or do we believe that there is a reason to see some type of overlap with this virus?
GUPTA: Yes, it's a good question, Chris. I mean, you know, you always do worry about observer bias in a situation like this, when everything is COVID, then everything must be related to COVID, and that could be the situation here.
But I don't know. It's looking more suspicious because there were 15 kids. Your brother was talking about 73 children who had some form of this inflammatory disease.
Kawasaki's is sort of think of that like a inflammatory disease of many different systems of the body, primarily affects blood vessels, and that's what can make it so dangerous, including the blood vessels around the heart, the coronary blood vessels.
I think we have some pictures of the rashes and things like that that people develop. But nevertheless, in that first series of 15 patients, four of the children did have active virus, the diagnostic tests came back positive.
Six of the kids had antibodies to the virus, so 10 now of the 15 had some relationship to the COVID disease. Five didn't seem to have it. Did they miss it? Was it a false negative? You don't know, because again, the testing is not perfect here.
But the idea that this disease, even in its aftermath, even in its recovery phase, Chris, which you know about, could still be lingering in some way, it could still be causing inflammation, that's something we need to know.
We need to figure out whether these kids need to be treated with some sort of anti-inflammatory - not Aspirin, by the way. Don't give kids Aspirin. I think most parents know that.
But if kids do need to be given some kind of inflammatory - anti- inflammatory, when to give it, might it have a benefit here, this is what investigators are looking into it. It is still rare, Chris, even with the numbers that we've seen this past week. It's still a very rare thing. But we would do well to keep an eye on it.
There was an alert that went out two weeks ago, I was on this alert, went out to all the hospitals in the U.K., said basically "Be on the lookout for Kawasaki disease, may be related to Coronavirus." We are starting to now hear that in the United States.
CUOMO: Look and it could be, and again, some of this is speculative. But they're seeing enough data points, and they're going to look at it, that this virus beats you down in a way that makes you more susceptible to other things.
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And that may include with kids who have been somewhat vulnerable - invulnerable to this, thank God, this disease called Kawasaki. So look, we'll see. We need more data. But it's worth being worried about, especially when you got a 5-year-old boy passing away from the complications.
GUPTA: That's right, yes.
CUOMO: Sanjay, thank you so much for making sense of the situation. God bless you. Have a great weekend.
GUPTA: You too, buddy, take care.
CUOMO: Big move in California ahead of November's election, and it's because of Coronavirus. Mail-in ballots now available for all. It's a controversial decision. I'm not sure why.
Let's look at it through the context of Ohio's primary less than two weeks ago. Ohio is actually more advanced when it comes to mail-in balloting, and time, and leeway, and the Governor there extended the time in that key battleground state, and they wound up doing all-mail, as a test run.
So, how did it go? Mixed results. But I want to hear from the man-in- charge, Governor Mike DeWine. How does he feel it went? What does he think is the instruction for the rest of the country? Next. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
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CUOMO: All right, so this is really important, as we put eyes on November, and the all-important presidential and all the elections that are on the slate.
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In California, the Governor wants voters to mail-in their ballots in November, exclusively. He passed an Executive Order today that makes California the first in the nation to do this for a November contest, which of course, you know, includes the presidential ballot.
Now, the way it will work is that they will send ballots to all 20 million-plus voters there. This is an idea that California did not create. We just saw a test run of it in the Ohio primary. So, let's bring in the Governor of that key swing state, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine.
Guv, always a pleasure.
GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): Good to see you, Chris.
CUOMO: So--
DEWINE: Hey, Chris, by the way, that was - can I just say that was a great piece on tracing. People are going to get really familiar with tracing. It's nothing to be afraid of. And I think you guys explained it very, very well. Very important!
CUOMO: And I won't be your advocate. But I will pretend to be, just so you have some culpable deniability.
It is not fair to ask you to do it, and not give you the money to do it. It is very expensive to get these workers, train them, deploy them, aggregate the data, make the calls, and the follow-up.
And to ask states to do it, and not give you the money to do it, is basically asking you not to do it. So, I hope that changes.
DEWINE: Right.
CUOMO: I know you want to cooperate.
DEWINE: Well but--
CUOMO: And I know you want good relations. But it's a tough mandate.
DEWINE: But we can use the money, Chris.
CUOMO: Yes.
DEWINE: That Congress and the President gave us, the Coronavirus money coming at us, and we're going to - we're going to use that money.
So, you know, we're out hiring people now, and our health departments are hiring people. So, it's important. And we're excited about doing it. We hope to stand up about 1,800 people in Ohio doing this. And if it takes more, we're going to get more.
CUOMO: If they offered you 10 times that, I'm sure you'd take it because the more and the faster you get the data from people, the more confidence they'll have to go out. Reopening doesn't restart the economy. People going out, the consumer is what restarts it, not the supply side.
DEWINE: No, no, no, you're--
CUOMO: And you're seeing in polls.
DEWINE: --you're absolutely right.
CUOMO: Even in Ohio, people are nervous.
DEWINE: People have to have confidence.
CUOMO: You know, we've seen recent polls.
DEWINE: People have to have confidence.
CUOMO: Right. Even from your own local paper, they have a poll out, The Plain Dealer, I think, saying, you know, people are really nervous about getting back out there, and with good reason.
You're not giving them reason not to be worried about it. You don't see the data. You don't see the trends. Why would they believe and go out? They're not going to believe politicians, even a straight shooter like DeWine.
DEWINE: Well one thing we have done is we think we - as we open the different businesses, we've got great protocols.
And so, we're able to assure people at least, you know, we've come up with the best protocols based upon what science says, what - what our health community says, and what the business people who are actually doing it, or the professionals, or who are actually doing it.
So, but it is a matter of confidence, and people have to feel confident, or they're not going to - they're not going to go out, and they're not going to, you know, get a haircut, or they're not going to go - go to the restaurant, or whatever it is. CUOMO: So--
DEWINE: No doubt about it. It's confidence.
CUOMO: So, looking at what you just did in the primary, from a balloting perspective, I read all these different reviews of it. They're criticisms, things that should have been done sooner, and how you deal with everybody getting a ballot, and giving people an option to go online, and get a ballot, figure out how to keep that secure.
But overall, do you believe, for November, you can approach something like an all-mail-in situation or enough mail-in ballots so that anyone who doesn't want to go in-person would still be able to exercise their franchise?
DEWINE: Well the good thing about Ohio law, in regard to this Coronavirus, is that people have four weeks to vote, and they can vote absentee. No, they don't have to give any reason they just want an absentee ballot.
They also can go in on certain days to the Board of Elections. They can go in, and even the weekend before, they can go in. So, it's - it will have the ability to spread it out. But anybody can be at home, and know during that whole period of time, if I - if I send an application in, I can get a ballot. I never have to leave my home.
And, you know, what we hope is that we'll have that four-week period of time, and then we'll have the regular election, where people, for 13 hours in Ohio, can go vote. So, we think we're in pretty good shape as we - as we move towards that - that November election.
CUOMO: All right, and again, we'll have to see what it looks like, as we get closer, the safeguards that are needed.
DEWINE: Sure.
CUOMO: The optionality for people, and we'll keep talking about it. It is a good dialog to have. One of the silver linings of this is, you know, I have open rapport with governors all over the country, I wouldn't have had otherwise.
And, as people know, media is not your friend. You know, you can't trust them. Relationships matter that people know they can come on the show, and talk about things, not get their head chopped off.
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One of the things that is coming up in Ohio about how you reopen, you're doing messaging about masking. You got pushback, as we talked here on the show. You've made some accommodations for that.
There's a new concern that the State, and I want you to be able to respond to this, Guv, "The State is encouraging companies report workers who don't return, so we can kick them off unemployment."
Is that what you're asking? DEWINE: Well that's not - yes, it's not quite right. Yes, I mean it's - it's the law that's been in Ohio for a long time.
It's basically if you - somebody gets unemployment, and then you call them back to work, and if they don't come back to work, then they can lose their unemployment. So, it's nothing--
CUOMO: But that's like a malingering law.
DEWINE: I don't know if it's a malingering law. I think most states have that.
CUOMO: Right, for malingering.
DEWINE: It's not anything we encourage to do.
CUOMO: People who can work.
DEWINE: Yes.
CUOMO: But don't, so they're not on the public dole when they could be working. But isn't this different because--
DEWINE: That's an old term, Chris.
CUOMO: Well I'm an old guy. This aged me, Guv.
DEWINE: Malingering.
CUOMO: Look at my hair.
So, but if somebody's worried about the pandemic, and worried about the virus, and exposing their family, or themselves, and they don't want to go back to work, don't you want to put in place some kind of accommodation, given the special circumstances?
DEWINE: Well we certainly have asked employers to take that into consideration. And, you know, if someone is afraid to go back to work, then no one should be going into work.
I mean one of the things that we have in place, we have a 113 health departments, and we've made it very clear, if your place of work, you don't think is safe, you should be reporting that to the Health Department.
I can tell you people have done that in the past, and we encourage them to do that in the future. We've come up with some very, very tough, not guidelines, but mandates, for businesses. Every employee is supposed to wear a mask.
My wife, Fran made that for me.
CUOMO: Let me see it.
DEWINE: I wore it.
CUOMO: Let me see it. Your wife goes out of her way to make it.
DEWINE: Yes.
CUOMO: And you give it a half a second on television? Come on!
DEWINE: Yes, pretty thing, come on, there we go.
CUOMO: Very - that's over your eyes. What are you doing, Guv?
DEWINE: There we go. Fran made it.
CUOMO: There you go.
DEWINE: OK.
CUOMO: Very nice, very nice, well done. That is - and I like that it's two-sided.
So, how do you make sure that it works fair for both sides? I get called back to work. I don't want to go. I hear bad things about it. I show up. And there things aren't being done the right way.
Now they report me. And all of a sudden, my unemployment is cut. Unless I know the system well enough to get ahead of it, how do you protect a worker for being acted on by an employer unfairly? You said "Well they can go and say that it was unsafe place."
But once you have your money pulled, you are at a disadvantage as the worker. So, how do you protect them in this situation?
DEWINE: Well I think we have to watch that. You know, look, most - most employers want a safe place because they want to be able to attract employees to come. If people don't think it's safe, they're not - they're not going to come.
But by having the ability, in Ohio, for someone to call in, and make a report, it can be an anonymous report to the local Health Department, so that employee couldn't call in - could call in, they wouldn't have to say who they are, and our health departments will go out, and we will inspect.
It's so important that people feel safe, and that they actually be safe at work. These are - these are people who are, you know, who are doing it every single day. So, you make an interesting point. But I think that - I think the system that we have in place does, in fact, work, and will work.
CUOMO: Yes. I don't have any reason to question it.
I'm just saying that obviously the deference should be on the side of the worker because they don't have the power of what the employer does, especially if reporting them gets their money pulled, and there's no real appellate mechanism that works, they're going to be in a hole as soon as somebody drops a dime on them.
The House Republicans are trying to limit orders issued by the Ohio Department of Health to 14 days. You need legislative approval for any extension.
You are a brilliant example of keeping politics out of health policy thus far in your State. Why allow politicians to decide anything about what a Health Department thinks?
DEWINE: Well I've got a great Health Director, as you know, Dr. Amy Acton.
CUOMO: Yes.
DEWINE: We've followed her advice. We, not only her advice, but we pulled in every expert that we could find to make those decisions. But Chris, I've - I've made it very clear, and we've had protesters at her house.
CUOMO: Right.
DEWINE: And we've had people who were upset.
And I've said to the protesters, "Look, you know, the buck stops with me. I'm the Governor. I'm making the decisions, you know, leave my Health Director alone, and - and come after me. Demonstrate against me. Complain about me. Don't - don't go after her."
You know, what the House of Representatives did, I think, was a mistake. And I've made it very clear that if that bill ever got to my desk that - that I would veto that. This is a--
CUOMO: Because some people are playing some weird politics.
DEWINE: We've had basically--
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CUOMO: You know, you have this beautiful mask that your wife made, and I know why you're wearing it. I know you're making an example. I know it's not easy for some people to want to wear a mask. But you're - you're leading the way, even if it's not popular.
But not every politician is like that. I tried to have this guy. I tried to give him a fair hearing on the show tonight, and they bagged out at the last second.
Nino Vitale, I'm afraid he's one of mine, he sounds like an Italian guy, him saying he's not going to wear a mask because "I'm made in Jesus' image, and Jesus didn't have one," I mean is that who you want being able to control Health Department policy?
DEWINE: You know, look, look - well, you know, he has a right to say that, and people have the right not to wear a mask. But--
CUOMO: Doesn't make it right that he said it.
DEWINE: Well what - what we're trying to do is explain to people, and you've made it very clear on your show, and we try to do this every press conference that when you wear this, you're not wearing it for yourself. You're wearing it for the other person.
CUOMO: Yes.
DEWINE: And if we all do that, it's going to add an extra layer of protection. Look, we're going back to work in Ohio, and across this country. And so, our risk is up.
I mean it's just - it's a fact when we start intermixing more, and doing more things. And so, it's so very important, much more important than any of it was before that we keep the social distancing that we wear that mask to protect that other person.
If we do those things, we're going to be able to bring the economy back, and we're going to be also be able to protect people. But we got - we have to do it. And it's more important today that we do it than it - than it was two weeks ago when we were not starting back and opening things up in Ohio.
CUOMO: Right, because you're looking good--
DEWINE: So, that's - that's my message to our Ohio viewers. It's - this is it - this is important.
CUOMO: Well look, also Governor, your mandate has been expanded. You're one of the governors who has risen to the top as a National Leader on this. My audience is not Ohio-specific. There are people watching you--
DEWINE: Oh, I know. I know.
CUOMO: --all over the country and the world because, thus far, you have done the job of balancing that you haven't made it binary, we go back to work or we stay healthy. You are fighting very hard to find ways to go back to work while balancing public health.
And my job, obviously, is to make sure that that continues, and I appreciate you using this platform to make the case for what you're doing in your State, Governor Mike DeWine. I wish you good health. I send the best to your wife and your family, and thank you.
DEWINE: You as well. Thank you, Chris.
CUOMO: All right.
DEWINE: Thank you very much.
CUOMO: All right, be well.
The other big story, of this night, today should have been Ahmaud Arbery's 26th birthday. Instead, his family and the nation, are now watching, as a White father and son face murder charges in the shooting death of an unarmed Black jogger. And that is the key word, jogger. I know, Black is also a key word, But I'm saying in the facts here.
You know what Arbery's father calls this shooting? "A lynching." It's a strong word, especially for an African-American to use. Why? Marcus Arbery on the day that should be his son's birthday joins us next.
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CUOMO: All right, you cannot lose sight of this shooting death of the jogger in Georgia.
Today would have been Ahmaud Arbery's 26th birthday. To celebrate him, people across the world took to the pavement in the "IRunForMaud" movement. They ran 2.23 miles because he was killed on February 23rd.
Last night, just after we got word of the arrest of a father and son in the shooting, Gregory and Travis McMichael, I spoke with Ahmaud's sister, Jasmine, to share memories of her brother.
Tonight, I'm joined by Ahmaud's father, Marcus Arbery, and Family Attorney, whom I know very well, Counselor Benjamin Crump.
First of all, Sir, Counselor, always good to see you.
Mr. Arbery, I'm very sorry to meet you under these circumstances. And I'm not going to take up a lot of your time. There'll be plenty of time for us to talk. There's a lot ahead of us in this situation.
But what do you want people to know about your son and what this means to you?
MARCUS ARBERY, AHMAUD ARBERY'S FATHER: I just want people to know that he was a very good young man. And he loved the people. And I just want people to remember him as a good-hearted young man.
And he was the type of young man, if he had $1, and you need that $1, he would give it to you. That's just how good his heart was.
And I don't see him work the whole week, 40 hours, and if you need his whole check, he'd give it you. And I see - I don't - my son has done all the (ph) working give you a whole check up, you know, but that's just how good at heart he was.
Everybody loved him. If you knew him, you would have seen he was a very remarkable, good young man. And, you know, to see him just get lynched like that by a racial mob like that, it's just devastating to our family. CUOMO: These are heavy words for you to use. Why do you see it as a lynching by a racial mob?
ARBERY: When you come at a young man, you jump on a back of a pickup truck with a shot gun, a pump shot gun, and a .357 Magnum, in a pickup truck, that's like racial movie (ph), and you follow him like he was an animal, and gun him down like he was an animal.
He's trying - and all he's doing is running, and he was trying to avoid you all, and he just tried to stay out of your all way, you all just kept on pursuing him and blocking him in with that truck, and he didn't have no chance. All he did was just try to defend himself. He had no win.
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Three men with guns, an unarmed Black, African-American man, didn't give him no chance. The color of his skin, it just, that's just I'll recall for racism is, hatred is, and that's - that's no place in this wrong (ph) for that. That's - that's just at the runner that's just got to get around him (ph).
That's why I want these men to stay in jail. I don't want them to bond out. I just want them to get life sentence. We just don't believe in killing. I just want them to suffer like how my family is suffering.
I want them to see my son's face every day they do time. I want them to see his face. I just want them to just suffer hard because I just don't believe in no death, you know what I'm saying, I just want you to stay locked up, so in a month, you won't get out here and kill nobody again.
CUOMO: It is a - it's a really interesting degree of mercy when you're feeling your worst that even now you don't want to see death for the men who did this. You just want them--
ARBERY: No.
CUOMO: --to be punished.
ARBERY: Yes.
CUOMO: Look, the only right way to do this is - I understand how you feel. I want to talk to Benjamin Crump about some of the legal aspects of this early on because it's not fair for you to have to deal with it, Mr. Arbery.
Now Ben, you can handle this stuff. You know what's going to happen.
BENJAMIN CRUMP, ARBERY FAMILY ATTORNEY: Right.
CUOMO: The defense here is going to be this kid is not who he's being made out to be. He was running away. He was running away from the scene of a crime, and maybe even one of these guys knew him from an earlier case against him that was referred to in a recusal letter from this guy, Barnhill, who was one of the prosecutors who recused himself.
What do you make of that first set of allegations, "Running away, leaving the scene of a crime, they knew him from an earlier case?"
CRUMP: Chris, we've been here before whether it's Trayvon Martin, or Tamir Rice, or any other cases that just were unjustifiable, unnecessary deaths, and when you think about when they kill our children, they then try to assassinate their character.
And I know that that's what they're going to try to do for Ahmaud Arbery. But the truth of the matter is we have the objective evidence. You have that now in one tape when they ask, "What is he doing wrong?" They never answer it because he wasn't doing anything wrong. He was simply jogging, Chris.
And the fact that we have that video, that video that we cannot unsee once you see this lynching in 2020, not 1920, Chris, but 2020, and the fact that it took 74 days for them to arrest these killers, even though they had the video evidence.
And I want to be clear for the record, Chris Cuomo. It wasn't because they saw the video, they being the law authorities that made them arrest these killers.
It was because we the people saw the video, and made them arrest these killers. We the people refused to remain silent once we saw the unbelievable lynching of a young Black man in America in 2020.
CUOMO: Right. Listen, I hear you about it, the tape, the fact that they've had it, the video is damning.
I know you heard me last night say to Jasmine, Arbery's - Ahmaud's sister that I'm sorry it took me this long to get on it. I should have known better, especially with all the experience that you and I have, let alone all the other cases.
But look, I'm going to look at the case forensically because the only way to get justice is give the benefit of everything that can be brought up. I'm not doing that in front of Ahmaud's father.
Mr. Arbery, God bless, I'm sorry for your family's pain. I hope that justice provides some solace and that justice is served.
Ben Crump, I'm always a call away with what happens in this case. We will not leave it until it meets its resolution. I promise you that.
CRUMP: Thank you so much, Chris.
CUOMO: All right.
And again, Mr. Arbery, my best to the family, if we can help.
I want to talk about the legal aspects. I'm not doing it in front of his father, all right? We have one of our best, Laura Coates. She knows the prosecution side of this. Laura, you play the prosecutor. I will push up what we're going to
hear here, OK? And to repeat a little of it, just real quick for people, yes, there is a - a private citizen can make an arrest law in Georgia.
You have to witness a crime. You have to be able to do it safely. You cannot use force in detaining somebody, let alone unnecessary force. They don't have a defense under that law.
Stand-your-ground is also at place in Georgia. You don't get to start an altercation repeatedly the way they did, and then rely on stand- your-ground. Just for you saying that online, you're not lawyers or you're not getting the law right.
[21:40:00]
Now Laura, first pushback, "We know this guy. One of us had something to do with a case before on him. He was described to us as somebody who would have been part of some criminal spree in our area. And when we came up on him, just to ask him questions, he ran."
LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You absolutely have no right to believe you can usurp the role of police. If these two men believed that he was somebody who was a suspect in a crime, they had a phone call to make. It was called 9-1-1.
The fact that one of them was a former investigator, a former police officer, Chris, I ask you, I'm a former prosecutor. Does that mean I can walk into any courtroom in America and indict someone because I think I know what this case is about? No. There are proper channels to pursue.
And one of the things that every prosecutor, and frankly, every member of law enforcement to look at this case, and say, if you believe that there is somebody that requires police attention, you should call three numbers. It's the easiest thing to learn.
And again, you mentioned two things, Chris, I really want to highlight here. One of them is yes, there is a citizen's arrest law in Georgia.
But you have to actually have witnessed a crime, or have immediate knowledge, not that you think the other day you may have seen someone who matched a description. He may have put his hand down his pants at some point a few days ago. There may have been a gun missing a couple months ago.
You have no way to tie this person, and yet, you still pursue with a shot gun, trying to cut him off, he's jogging down the middle of the street, at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, and you believe that you have every right to stop him.
Yes, there's a citizen's arrest law. But you have to be able to pick - turn the person over to the police.
And, by the way, somebody being confronted in this way, after being hunted down, has no requirement to stop for you. The idea of having to stop for a police officer requires just that, a police officer.
If you don't have that, every single person, who decides that they themselves can do the law better, can be a part of the Wild Wild West, can be the Sheriff around these here parts, whether they have a badge or not, would then be able to stop anyone for any reason, detain them for as long as they felt it was necessary, which is akin to kidnapping, and false imprisonment, and then decide--
CUOMO: Right.
COATES: --whether the person's response has satisfied them. That can't stand, Chris.
CUOMO: And on the 9-1-1 call, you hear them being asked, "What did he do? What did he do?" They don't have a good answer.
Now, I'll tell you, in terms of why did this take so long, I got to tell you, I take Crump's position. This tape being seen by people like you, and me, and media, and going to Governor Kemp, and saying, "What the hell," and him saying, "We need answers," I think that changed the calculus.
This guy, Barnhill, who wrote a letter recusing himself, which was the right move, he says in the letter, "There is video of Arbery burglarizing a home immediately preceding the chase, and confrontation."
That's not true. There is video of him entering a construction site, not taking anything, and walking out like in - almost an attractive nuisance situation, where you go in there, you look, there's a dock, you walk down to the dock. I know you're not supposed to be there. I know it's trespassing.
But if that's the best thing they have, first of all, why did Barnhill characterize it that way, when any cursory investigation would show that's a BS reckoning, and what does that tell you about the disposition of how the police and authorities apparently took this situation from jump?
COATES: No, really the first issue here is why is a prosecutor who's recused himself offering any statement whatsoever about a case? If you've recused yourself, based on a conflict of interest that you have perceived or one that has been--
CUOMO: Fair point.
COATES: --relayed to you, you should not be commenting on a case, the very notion and the reason we have recusals is because you are now perceived as inherently biased, and cannot be an objective messenger of the facts, or relayer of any information.
So, for him to put it out there what he believes to be the facts of this case, and having recused himself, is really poisoning not only the well, but a potential jury pool, and inserting himself in a way that really undermines the overall credibility and objectivity of the office, which was already in question because, you know, one of the things to keep in mind here is not just the delay.
I know people thinking to themselves, "Well we can't hold a Grand Jury law. You got this stay-at-home orders in places at least until June 12th in Georgia," this case happened on February 23rd, the killing happened on February 23rd.
There wasn't a stay-at-home order until April. So, what transpired between February to April is the clear moment you say to yourself--
CUOMO: Nothing.
COATES: --well what were the tactics? What were the decisions? Exactly.
Well what was taken place was they had time to make a letter, a letter by a recused prosecutor, who had no business inserting himself, similar to people who have no business making a citizen's arrest when 9-1-1 was an available option.
CUOMO: Laura Coates, thank you for putting the mind to this matter, appreciate it.
COATES: Thank you.
CUOMO: Thank you. Great asset to have!
All right, Sean Penn is here tonight. He has a relief organization. He is not a known face fronting for a PSA or something, not that there's anything wrong with that. He's got an organization that is helping tens of thousands of Americans, while also making the jobs of first responders easier.
[21:45:00]
I haven't seen anything like it happening anywhere else. And it is something that can be put anywhere in the country. He is our Ameri-CAN tonight. We're going to get after it with Sean Penn, next.
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CUOMO: Easy choice for Ameri-CAN tonight. Oscar Winner Sean Penn, has nothing to do with his acting, his organization, CORE has set up Coronavirus testing sites in Atlanta, Detroit, all over California. They're expanding to the Navajo Nation. Why the Navajo Nation? It's
the third biggest concentration of cases in the country on that Reservation. We have the President of the Nation here to talk about it.
Sean Penn, thank you for taking the time to be with us tonight.
SEAN PENN, CO-FOUNDER, CORE: My pleasure to be with you, Chris.
CUOMO: So, what have you figured out about how to do this easily, efficiently, and repeatedly?
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PENN: Well we had the benefit of being in California where the leadership of Governor Newsom and the Mayor of San Francisco, Mayor Garcetti of Los Angeles, in the case of Los Angeles with the Los Angeles Fire Department had set up very good systems of testing.
We went to them and asked, as an Emergency Response Organization, we have an infrastructure for it, what could we do? What - where - how could we help? On each of the test sites, you had 20 firefighters, L.A. firefighters who were doing the tests.
If you had a brushfire, you had need for some of those who were paramedics, and the other emergency response units, they wouldn't have been able to respond to the things outside those parking lots in the City where they were deployed to test.
So, we went in. They tested - they trained us into their program. We started testing a few weeks ago. We're up to a 100,000 tested.
We - and just that partnership between a government organization and an NGO was - seem to me to be the way this could be possibly done, replicated, so that, in fact, unlike what the Admiral, who is being touted as the Testing Czar said, which I think have a ludicrous lack of faith in the American spirit, in saying that we couldn't test every American.
We could test every American two times a week. The only missing element of that is the level of defense production focused on mass production of the PPE, as well as the tests, and some resourcing of the labs, and give - more robust lab response, micro labs. So we--
CUOMO: So, you believe this could be done all over the country with different NGO organizations? It doesn't have to be just CORE response. And you've put out a manual for how to do it. What are the main elements that'll make this work, say if people wanted to do it in New York?
PENN: Well whether it's New York, or a rural area, a suburban area, we need the manual so that it was as adaptable as possible.
The only - the only question mark in the manual is that, which the federal government could most certainly provide, which is these mass production of these - the materials they would need to do the tests. The testing itself is rather simple. Our job is to make sure that the efficacy of the test is lived up to and the administration of the tests, so that's - that's what we're very diligent about.
We have a slogan. "Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. And bloody is slippery." And we don't want to have a slippery finger on a hot trigger. We want to make sure that people are not getting a negative - a false negative.
And our teams of volunteers are extraordinary. So, what we've seen is that you can take - people have great will in these places, where are - we are already, as you said, in Atlanta, in New Orleans. We're in Detroit and all of the sites throughout California because we're also working with the Governor's project in Bakersfield, in Oakland, and the Napa Valley.
And there's no - and we only hire local to train and we pay them because a lot of these people have jobs also. So, it's kind of a stimulus for them. And they come out, and they work there. You know what's off.
CUOMO: Right.
PENN: And they quit (ph) because they care about their community. That's a replicable thing.
CUOMO: Let me ask you one quick thing before we go, which is the idea of what we're hearing from the White House that "You know what, testing is a little overblown, you know. It works. But you can't test everybody. And some governors think there's a better way than testing to know what's going on."
What do you believe about the reality of testing in terms of its value in getting us through this pandemic, and giving the confidence to reopen?
PENN: Well I'm not going to spend any time arguing. I'm not a scientist. My belief is in the scientists. And the testing does two central things.
One is it will tell somebody if they're positive or negative to COVID- 19. If somebody is positive, they immediately isolate, and then comes the contact tracing component.
The other part of it is that all the information provided from the people, who come in, and I think in great citizenry, especially the asymptomatics, who don't know for sure, come into test, that goes to the public health surveillance, and that's part of what we are told so is going to get us to a vaccine.
So, we're mission-focused on testing, and we're trying to be fluid. We may have to pivot, and we'll be ready to do that.
CUOMO: The reason this resonates with me so much is not just because the Godfather of one of my kids is a good friend of yours, and a good friend of mine, and told me about it, but that it is the linking mechanism between the federal government, putting it on the states, and the states not being able to do it all by themselves, and not getting the funding to do the same.
NGOs can fill a very important space. You are proof of performance in that regard. Sean Penn, I salute you as an Ameri-CAN, and thank you for being with me tonight. Let me know how I can help going forward.
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PENN: You're - you and your family are an extraordinary force for service here, and we thank you.
CUOMO: Thank you. You know you can get me. I'm a call away. God bless and good luck, be healthy.
PENN: Thank you.
CUOMO: All right, Sean Penn making a difference. Period! We'll be right back.
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CUOMO: Tonight's cheer for healthcare workers is a little different. Take a look and I'll explain.
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CUOMO: Woo! Thank you!
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CUOMO: I was finally in the City for when they do the cheer. I'm taking a shower. I start to hear all this noise outside, and I realize what it is.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST, "CNN TONIGHT WITH DON LEMON": Did you hear me?
CUOMO: I almost bust my ass.
LEMON: Did you hear me?
CUOMO: Getting out of the shower, and I start cheering for them, and recording it while I'm doing it. I had my thumb over the microphone.
LEMON: I wish - I wish you would have busted your "You know what." Did you hear me say? I wasn't sure I was on. I said, "Is that him?"
CUOMO: I was so pumped up. The whole block, everybody was at their windows. It was such a cool thing to see, and be a part of it. I was terrible at shooting it.
But what an amazing thing to witness firsthand how, you know, I'm on the Upper East side there, and the whole place came alive for them, because there are so many hospitals in the area.
