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President Trump Announces Operation to Increase Speed of Vaccine Development for Coronavirus; Reports Indicate Tension between White House and CDC over Data Gathering; Parts of New York and Georgia Reopening Their Economies; President Trump Announces Plan to Remove State Department Inspector General Steve Linick; Thousands Volunteer to be Exposed to Coronavirus in Trail to Help Develop Vaccine; Caravan Traveling to Glynn County to Seek Removal of District Attorneys Who Did Not Make Arrests for Shooting Death of Ahmaud Arbery; Celebrities to Help High Schoolers Celebrate Graduation. Aired 10-11a ET
Aired May 16, 2020 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[10:00:17]
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. We are so grateful to have you with us. It is Saturday, May 16th, 2020. I'm Christi Paul.
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Victor Blackwell. You are in the CNN Newsroom.
PAUL: And this morning we have some new developments to talk to you about in the high stakes race for coronavirus vaccines. As researchers around the globe are really scrambling to develop a working vaccine, President Trump formally unveiled his administration's, quote, "Operation Warp Speed." Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Its objective is to finish developing and then to manufacture and distribute a proven coronavirus vaccine as fast as possible. Again, we'd love to see if we could do it prior to the end of the year. We think we're going to have some very good results coming out very quickly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: You heard from the president there. The goal of a vaccine by the end of the year. This is an aggressive timeline that most health experts claim is unrealistic at best, at worse, potentially dangerous. We'll have more in a moment from scientists about why they believe overpromising could be detrimental.
There's also this new warning on the number of people who potentially will die in the U.S. as the plans to reopen continue. The director of the CDC is now forecasting more than 100,000 people will have died by the end of this month potentially. More on that in a moment as well. We're covering all angles. PAUL: We want to start with CNN's Kristen Holmes who's with us from
the White House right now. So Kristen, outlining the White House strategy here, the president said the country would return to normal with or without a vaccine. Walk us through what he said.
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christi and Victor. That's absolutely right. And he kind of really stuck to this point in the Rose Garden, continuing to say that the virus is going to go away without a vaccine. This is something that top health experts, including members of his own task force, have said is not true as recently as this week.
But that wasn't the only thing these health experts in the scientific community pushed back on. The other thing was the timeline. President Trump saying that Operation Warp Speed aimed to have hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine available to the public by the end of the year. And there's a lot of doubt that that could happen, particularly given coronavirus and the fact that we are still learning some of its impacts on the human body. Take a listen to what President Trump said on how he was going to get that done.
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TRUMP: Typically, pharmaceutical companies wait to manufacture a vaccine until it is received all of the regulatory approvals necessary, and this can delay vaccine's availability to the public as much as a year and even more than that. However, our task is so urgent that under Operation Warp Speed, the federal government will invest in manufacturing all of the top vaccine candidates before they're approved.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: So two notes I want to make about this. One of them being the manufacturing is a big deal, and there is a hold up there. We know the government has already started to procure some of these items needed, like needles and syringes. But it's not just the manufacturing. It's also the science. They have to actually develop and test that vaccine. And one other point that Dr. Fauci made earlier this week was that while it was possibly that a vaccine could come out in a short time period, there was no guarantee it could work, which really stressed out a lot of people in the medical community, particularly given the fact that there's an anti-vaccine movement. They don't want people to lose faith in vaccinations.
BLACKWELL: And this is just one element that's pushing this tension between the White House and the CDC. What else have you learned?
HOLMES: That's right. So we have some new reporting coming out about that tension. It's really on both sides here. And it surrounds two big things, which is how quickly the U.S. should reopen, and how the government collects data. So essentially, we've learned that Dr. Birx, who of course is very close to the president, has become a really key member of that task force, has been frustrated with the CDC. She has lashed out at the director, Robert Redfield, and she has said that you cannot trust the data coming out of there. Essentially, they're using an antiquated system to collect that data, which she says is dangerous because some of it doesn't come for weeks until after it was delivered. So essentially the community working off old data as we're trying to get a reopening here.
But I will say that the distrust is on both sides of the aisle. Nick Valencia reporting with me on this story, talking to CDC officials down in Atlanta, who say that they've been really disappointed with Dr. Birx and her lack of really pushing back on some of the comments that President Trump has made that we know are untrue.
[10:05:02]
PAUL: All right, Kristen Holmes, thank you so much. We appreciate it. And be sure to visit our website, CNN.com, you can get more of Kristen's reporting there as we're just getting some of that in now.
So you might be wondering how realistic is the end of the year plan for a vaccine. Dr. Leana Wen is with us now. She's an emergency physician, former Baltimore health commissioner. Dr. Wen, always appreciate and grateful for your insight here. Thank you for being with us. So that right off the top, as we are just getting out of that conversation, do you believe a usable vaccine is realistic by the end of the year?
DR. LEANA WEN, EMERGENCY ROOM PHYSICIAN: Optimistic, maybe. Realistic, not at all. There are so many steps that have to work perfectly in order for that benchmark to be met, and I just don't see it. Even the idea of developing a vaccine that's safe and effective by the end of the year already would be the fastest that's it ever happened in human history. And then we're talking about also manufacturing it. Manufacturing 330 million doses is no small task.
And then we have to distribute it as well. We have to literally administer the vaccine, because it's not the vaccine that is going to saves lives. It's the vaccination. And frankly, seeing the response of the Trump administration thus far to try to get widespread testing, we've known for months that we need a lot of tests, and we're not even close to getting there. So I guess I'm not sure how we're going to ramp up the efforts to get this vaccine, even if it's developed in time.
PAUL: All right, Dr. Wen, I want to ask you about something that you wrote about harm reduction, and you think that that's where the country has gone, that we have -- we're not trying to eliminate the virus anymore as much as we're just trying to reduce the harm of it. You wrote, "We failed, with the lack of testing largely to blame instead of individual level containment, which would have had minimal effect on the economy. We had to employ societal level lockdowns to slow the explosive spread of the virus and buy us time until we developed the capacity to rein it in." so you're basically saying from the top levels here, they just weren't able to contain it. Would it have been effective, then, when you mentioned individual level containment, that struck a chord with me, and I wondered, would it have been effective to lockdown from the beginning, if we learn from what we do -- lockdown the 20 percent of the people who were most vulnerable to this and just let everybody else go about their business? And if that is possible, is it too late for something like that?
WEN: Well, Christi, what I would have done at the beginning, and again hindsight is 20/20, but what I would have done at the very beginning of the outbreak is identify each person who is testing positive so you don't even have to do the societal level lockdown at all. If you can identify every individual who as positive and then trace all their contacts, you can rein in the infection at that point.
We weren't able to do it, so we resorted to this societal level lockdown, but the point of it was to get the infection to a low enough level that that testing, tracing, isolation was going to work again. That was our strategy. But we essentially have decided that we're not going to follow that strategy anymore, that it's too hard. We've gone halfway, and people have made all these tremendous sacrifices, but somehow we've said we're just not going to do that anymore. We're going to reopen despite us not being ready to do so.
And as a result, I just want for us to be honest about that and say, OK, we've just decided that we're not going to eliminate the virus. We're going to try to live with it. And if that's the case, we need to switch to a strategy of reducing the harm. If there is risky behavior that's happening that none of us in public health think is a good idea. It's not a good idea that all these restaurants are open and bars are open, and people are not practicing social distancing, but if that's happening, let's at least do our best to reduce the transmission, as you said, protect the most vulnerable, but also each do our part, good hand hygiene, not have mass gatherings and social events as much as possible and try to reduce the risk to each other.
PAUL: Dr. Leana Wen, you've been such a strong voice in this. Thank you for being with us.
WEN: Thank you.
BLACKWELL: And across the country, we go to Polo Sandoval. He's in Binghamton, New York. Binghamton there along the southern tier of the state, one of the regions that can move to phase one now. Polo, what's that look like?
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Remember, Victor, back in late March, that's when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued his executive order, and with that the New York pause component here that essentially closed all nonessential businesses. Fast forward now two months later to this weekend when about five New York regions, including this place where we are, allowed to begin some of that reopening, phase one.
However, that's only for a small percentage of the population. A majority of them, in fact, many of the people who live in New York City, they still have to remain home.
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SANDOVAL: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo extending the state's stay- at-home order through May 28th, maintaining restrictions for the more populated regions, including New York City, which have not hit all seven of the benchmarks by the state to begin the reopen process.
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO, (D) NEW YORK: If a region hits its benchmark at any time, regardless of the pause order, then that region can open. We're opening phase one in those five regions today.
SANDOVAL: That's allowing curbside retail, manufacturing, and construction work to resume and some more sparsely populated communities in the state hardest hit by the COVID pandemic. In upstate New York, building contractor Joe Dundon already busy fielding job calls.
JOSEPH DUNDON, OWNER, DUNDON CONSTRUCTION: I think the most I'm going to have on a job is four, maybe, and that's a lot different. We used to have 70 guys on jobs. So things might take a little longer, but at least we're going to be safe moving forward.
SANDOVAL: And New York's beaches will reopen in time for Memorial Day weekend with limited capacity and with the exception of New York City beaches. Neighboring states New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut also planning on opening up their shores. By Sunday, 48 U.S. states will have partially reopened. Despite a recent uptick in COVID-19 deaths across the state, Texas is on track to reopen exercise facilities and also expand capacities in movie theaters and restaurants as soon as Monday. And in Florida starting Monday, restaurant will be allowed to serve at 50 percent capacity, and gyms also slated to reopen.
GOV. RON DESANTIS, (R) FLORIDA: If you're inside, make sure you're doing the social distance. And then sanitize machines and surfaces after use.
SANDOVAL: Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and prevention unveiled new flowcharts designed to help communities and businesses decide whether they can reopen. The six short documents came after lengthier guidelines were shelved by the White House earlier this week. The CDC also issuing a new alert about a COVID related inflammatory illness reported among children exposed to the virus children. The agency putting an all call out to doctors across the country asking they report suspected cases. Federal health official say they're hoping to better understand the rare but potentially deadly condition.
DR. ROBERTA DEBIASI, CHIEF OF PEDIATRIC INFECTIONS DISEASES CHILDREN'S NATIONAL HOSPITAL: We're all putting our heads and cases together to really get an answer to what is driving this, the best treatments, and then we can then once we have those answers be in a better position to make data-driven recommendations.
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SANDOVAL: Back to Governor Andrew Cuomo. He also added that some of those regions that have entered phase one, it's important to remember that that doesn't necessarily mean that the problem is over. It's simply under control. And now calling on those local governments who decided to move forward with the slow, gradual reopening, to continue to monitor, obviously, the COVID numbers. If there's any uptick, Victor and Christi, you can expect that region to be put back on pause and those businesses to close again.
PAUL: Yes, it's a tough call. Polo Sandoval, thank you so much. Good to see you.
BLACKWELL: So we're coming close to Memorial Day weekend, and some Florida beach resorts are starting to reopen. This morning we spoke with Bill Waichulis, the general manager of the Pink Shell Resort and Marina in Fort Myers. And yesterday the Pink Shell started welcoming back workers and guests, but on a limited basis.
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PAUL: What are you eyeing right now? What are you paying real specific attention to as you reopen to try to determine what is going to be your new normal? As Victor said, what are guests going to see from this point on in your opinion?
BILL WAICHULIS, GENERAL MANAGER, THE PINK SHELL RESORT AND MARINA: The key for us is the social distancing. So we won't be operating the resort at 100 percent. Based off the chairs on the pool deck, the beach, six foot. Restaurants, the governor has opened up starting on Monday, which will be making that adjustment. But those are the new norms for us right now, is just to ensure social distancing throughout the resort. And our guests are doing it, and they're having a fantastic time.
Ninety-nine percent of the employees we called immediately came back. The small percentage are caring for a family member or didn't have child care. So they're not physically able to come back, but they will be coming back in the following month when they can make those arrangements. But our employees were excited to return back to work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: The Pink Shell Resort had to furlough 240 employees back in March. So we're wishing them well, and hope that everybody does well as they all get back to normal.
BLACKWELL: It takes a lot of work to get back on track.
PAUL: New normal.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
Friday night surprise from the White House. President Trump moves to fire State Department Inspector General Steve Linick. We'll talk about that.
PAUL: Also, the class of COVID-19 is graduating with distance. Tonight a few foundations and one former president are trying to foster togetherness at the same time. More on that later this hour.
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BLACKWELL: President Trump is removing another inspector general. The president gave House Speaker Nancy Pelosi notice of his intent to fire State Department Inspector General Steve Linick. That's in 30 days. He would be the third government watchdog fired or replaced in the last 45 days.
PAUL: This removal is raising questions this morning after the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee says Linick had opened an investigation into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. CNN White House reporter Sarah Westwood with us now. So with that in mind, Sarah, is the White House giving any clarity as to the decision-making for the president on this one?
SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Christi, they're not yet. There's still a lot we don't know about why the State Department watchdog was removed late last night. We know that in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday evening President Trump wrote that he no longer had full confidence in Steve Linick, that is the State Department Inspector General. And that move is already drawing criticism from Democrats, including Speaker Pelosi.
[10:20:01]
I want to read you part of the statement that she issued yesterday. She said "The president's late-night weekend firing of the State Department Inspector General has accelerated his dangerous pattern of retaliation against the patriotic public servants charged with conducting oversight on behalf of the American people. Inspector General Linick was punished for honorably performing his duty to protect the Constitution and our national security as required by the law and by his oath."
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel said shortly after the firing that he had been made aware that Linick had opened an investigation into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and a Democratic congressional aide tells CNN that that investigation was related to allegations that Pompeo had used a political appointee inappropriately for personal tasks for him and his wife. A source close to Linick said they were not aware that such an investigation had been opened. The State Department and the Office of Inspector General did not respond to a request for a comment. So a lot of confusion about the status of that investigation, if it was in fact opened.
As you mentioned, this was the third inspector general who the president has removed just since April. That has also included the Intelligence Community Watchdog and the acting I.G. at the Pentagon, Christi and Victor.
PAUL: Sarah Westwood, thanks for breaking it down for us.
BLACKWELL: So nearly every state will be reopened in some way by Monday. So let's go back to the beginning. Remember, Georgia was early on to allow barbershops and salons and tattoo parlors to reopen. How are things going across the state now? We'll check it out. PAUL: Also, thousands of people are volunteering for what's called
"human challenge trials." People would be intentionally infected with coronavirus to help researchers study it. We have a look at how those trials work next.
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[10:26:13]
PAUL: So three weeks after Georgia's Governor Brian Kemp began lifting lockdown restrictions, the state is seeing a downward trend right now in new coronavirus cases.
BLACKWELL: CNN's Natasha Chen is in midtown Atlanta where more stores are reopening. Natasha, we're getting closer to, let's call it a brunch hour. What are you seeing?
NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Not a whole lot, Victor and Christi, at this moment in time. But if you look to this direction here, yesterday we saw a lot of people coming in to that restaurant. Now they've kicked up their music. So we expect that there will be another small crowd there today.
There is a big difference, though, between the different businesses here at Atlantic Station, because over here on this side we have a restaurant that's doing just takeout at their window. And you can sit down at those chairs, but you won't really have full-service. And that's a decision that this independent owner made. Here is what she said about how she looks at the situation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CINDY SHERA, OWNER, THE PIG AND THE PEARL RESTAURANT: I'm excited to open. But I'm also, reacting to the customer base that comes and dines with us. And we're not seeing people running back out into the streets right now. I think you're seeing that out maybe more in the suburbs, in urban environments, where there's a little more saturation, I guess, we'll say, and density. We're seeing a lot more caution, and we're reacting to that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHEN: And we have heard about certain restaurants in the metro area that have seen a lot of cars or that people are packed there. Remember, this week Georgia Governor Brian Kemp actually relaxed restaurant rules a bit so you can now have up to 10 people per party at a table instead of six.
But it really is a mixed bag. If you are talking about the suburbs, we visited Avalon Mall about a week or so ago when the retail shops began to open. We just got an update from their general manager and staff just yesterday talking about how now most of their restaurants are back opened, more than half of their retail shops, and they see an increase in foot traffic as well. That's in the suburbs outside Atlanta. And so if we want to look at how this is playing out with the health
impact, let's take a look at the numbers here. We have a seven-day average graph here showing the general pattern of daily new cases. And what we're seeing is that it's unsteadily trending downward a bit. The good news is that you're not seeing a huge spike in daily cases, and you're also not seeing a huge dramatic decrease either. So it's good or bad news, depending on how you look at it.
And there are people locally, especially officials, like the mayor of Atlanta, really cautioning people to still stay at home if they possibly can, despite the fact that things are open, because, she says, if we stop being vigilant about it, the graph can change and shift again in the coming weeks. So three weeks is a good time to see that the good news is there hasn't been a dramatic increase, but people like her also don't want to see that happen in the coming weeks. Again, preliminary data, and we're waiting to see the entire picture. Victor and Christi?
BLACKWELL: Natasha Chen for us there at midtown, Atlanta, at Atlantic station, thanks so much.
PAUL: Thanks, Natasha.
So the White House, as we've been talking, is looking to fast track a vaccine. Experts say their end of year timeline is unrealistic. But researchers do have some tools to speed things along.
BLACKWELL: One of those, if they choose to use, it's called the human challenge trial. And CNN's Drew Griffin explains what it is.
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DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He donated a kidney last summer. Now Abie Rohrig is ready to medically volunteer again, this time as a human guinea pig in a vaccine trial designed to infect volunteers with a virus the world has never known.
ABIE ROHRIG, HUMAN CHALLENGE TRIAL VOLUNTEER: Just like the nurses and the doctors on the front line, I'm willing to take some risks myself if it means that we can move through this as a nation and a world.
GRIFFIN: He's 20-years-old, lives in New York, has seen what the pandemic can do, and has signed up online to be a volunteer in a potential COVID-19 human challenge vaccine trial. Unlike other vaccine trials, in a challenge trial a group of volunteers would first be injected with a potential vaccine, and a second control group would be injected with a placebo. After allowing sufficient time for the volunteers who got the vaccine to hopefully build up immunities, it's all challenged. All the volunteers, those with and those without the vaccine candidate, are intentionally contaminated with coronavirus. Risky, potentially even deadly, yes, all of that. But it also might be a quicker path to an actual vaccine for the rest of us.
This is designed to get some people sick. MARC LIPSITCH, HARVARD, T.H. CHAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: That's
right. The intention is to make some people, at least infected.
GRIFFIN: Marc Lipsitch, Harvard epidemiologist, is one of the scientists whose idea of using a challenge vaccine for a COVID-19 is now gaining interest from the World Health Organization.
LIPSITCH: This could shave months off the time required to evaluate a vaccine. The goal is to do the fastest responsible and scientifically valid way of evaluating the vaccine.
GRIFFIN: Multiple vaccines could be tried at the same time, controls put in place for proper medical care for all the volunteers. And by selecting only young, healthy adults, Lipsitch says the chances of someone dying is extremely low.
LIPSITCH: But it is not zero. And that's why this is an altruistic act to volunteer for this.
GRIFFIN: It's not just the risk, it's the unknown risk says Professor Robert Read at the University of Southampton in the U.K. He's in favor of the idea but insists there would need to be full disclosure.
DR. ROBERT READ, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON: This case is different. We're not able to quantify the risk to the volunteer. And when we take informed consent from them, we will have to say to them that we cannot say exactly what is going to happen to them.
GRIFFIN: You're going to be infected with something for which there is no treatment for at this time.
ROHRIG: Right.
GRIFFIN: Does that give you pause?
ROHRIG: It certainly gives me pause. And I don't want to be naive or arrogant, and I don't want to hide myself from the fact that there is a serious, not at all trivial risk to me doing this.
GRIFFIN: Despite the risks, 16,000 people from more than 100 countries have already signed an online form saying they're interested in becoming volunteers. That includes U.S. Army veteran, businessman, husband, and father of four, John Gentle of Alabama.
JOHN GENTLE, HUMAN CHALLENGE TRIAL VOLUNTEER: Yes, I am putting more people directly related to me at a greater risk if something were to go wrong. But I feel like the risk is low.
GRIFFIN: So far the challenge vaccine trial is hypothetical, but John Gentle, Abie Rohrig, and 16,000 others say they are ready if needed to take the risk if it means they can be part of ending the COVID-19 pandemic.
Drew Griffin, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE) BLACKWELL: Selfless to consider that you would be infected to hope to find a vaccine.
PAUL: Yes.
BLACKWELL: There's a group of drivers now making their way from Atlanta to Brunswick, Georgia. They're driving right now. The message they want to send with their trip.
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[10:37:57]
PAUL: Well, the USGS is reporting a 4.3 magnitude aftershock in Nevada. This is just a day after the state was hit by the biggest earthquake that was dealt there in decades.
BLACKWELL: The 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck early yesterday. Check out the damage it was able to do to this highway. Officials there say it's the biggest quake in almost 70 years. It hit a remote area, more than 200 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But the USGS got thousands of reports from people who felt it. And this swinging chandelier is in a building in Fresno, California, where one of the reports originated.
PAUL: So right now there is a protest on wheels making its way from Atlanta to Brunswick, Georgia. It's called a justice caravan, that's what the demonstrators are calling it. They're making the trip to both honor Ahmaud Arbery and protest the handling of his case.
BLACKWELL: They plan to rally at the Glynn County courthouse this afternoon. They're demanding the resignation of two district attorneys over what some are calling a mishandled investigation.
PAUL: Arbery was allegedly shot and killed by suspects Gregory and Travis McMichael in February. Last week the Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrested both of those men and took over the case. CNN correspondent Martin Savidge is in Glynn County. He's following all the developments today. What are we expecting, Martin, at the rally? Do we know if Ahmaud Arbery's mother will be there?
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Morning, Christi, morning Victor.
Yes, we haven't heard about family members attending. They often have appeared at events like this. And as you point out, it's a caravan for justice. There are many people, who despite the arrests that have been made, are greatly dissatisfied with how the original investigation was handled. And if you remember back, it was over months from when Ahmaud Arbery was killed before anyone was taken into custody. And that actually didn't happen as a result of local authorities. It happened because the Georgia Bureau of Investigation got pulled into this case. It was the governor that originally suggested that the GBI was needed.
[10:40:04]
And it was only about two days, or 36 hours, actually, from the moment the GBI got involved that they determined you need to make arrests in this particular case. So many look back at the first two D.A.s and say there was something wrong then. Why is it that neither one of them saw what, of course, the GBI saw and decided that they had to make an immediate arrest once they got on the ground.
All of this has been playing out, of course, for the family of Ahmaud Arbery. They are relieved to see some movement in justice, but at the same time so much is being talked about their son. And it wears on them, both physically and mentally. We had a chance last night to hear from Wanda Cooper-Jones. She is the mother of Ahmaud Arbery. And you could tell, as you listen to her answer, that it is truly a strain on all of them. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WANDA COOPER-JONES, AHMAUD ARBERY'S MOTHER: It makes me very angry that my son's life was -- his life was taken so senselessly, and they didn't respect him. They didn't respect his life at all. He was just a nobody to them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAVIDGE: It is expected that the protest group will show up here around 2:00 in the afternoon. We'll wait and see just how many are here, but it's bound to be another very emotional day. Christi and Victor.
BLACKWELL: Martin, we heard from the attorney for Arbery's family that there should be a third man, they believe, who should be arrested, and they say it's the man who recorded the video of the initial struggle and shooting. Any update on that man?
SAVIDGE: William "Roddy" Bryan is that man. He's the one that took the now infamous cellphone video. And yes, you're right, there are a number of people, in fact, many of the protesters that are likely to be here believe that he should be taken into custody as well because they believe he was not just there as a bystander, but that he was participating in some way. And the reason they believe that is that in the initial police account and also in subsequent statements from law enforcement, they have hinted that he was working or colluding with the McMichaels on that horrific day.
The one thing, though, that is pointed out by his attorney is that there wouldn't be anyone under arrest if that video had not been taken, and his attorney denies emphatically that that man was anything but just a bystander and witness to a horrible death on that day. Christi and Victor.
BLACKWELL: Martin savage for us in Glynn County. Martin, thank you.
PAUL: Thank you, Martin.
So no one could expect a pandemic, let alone high school seniors thinking that it would interrupt their school year and graduation. Of course, they didn't see it coming. There's a few foundations and one special guest who are trying to make up for that celebration that they're losing. That's next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAUL: So in this weeks' Food for Fuel, CNN's Lisa Drayer looks at healthy eating options that we can use at home during this pandemic.
[10:45:00]
LISA DRAYER, CNN HEALTH CONTRIBUTOR: Ultra-processed foods are those loaded with salt, sugar, fat, and plenty of other additive additives. They're not great for you. So here are my favorite tips to cut back.
First, supplement your meals with fresh foods. Trying adding a piece of fruit to breakfast or add a salad to any meal. Ideally, half your plate should be fruits and veggies, but you can start small. Chose whole grains over the refined kind. Swap brown rice for white rice. And go for whole grain bread instead of white.
And limit or avoid processed meats. That means bacon, ham, hot dogs, and sausage, which have been linked to an increase risk of cancer.
You can also substitute highly processed foods for healthier options. Instead of potato chips, try nonfat popcorn. It's crunchy but has the benefit of being whole grain and a good source of fiber.
And lastly DIY -- try making homemade versions of traditionally processed foods. Bake your own kale chips, mix your own granola, or whip up your own salad dressing.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAUL: Listen, I know that it feels tough. This pandemic means recent graduates cannot hold their ceremonies this year. So there's a group of foundations putting on the next best thing. There's a prime time special honoring all of you high school class of 2020 grads.
BLACKWELL: Yes. The LeBron James Family Foundation XQ Institute and the Entertainment Industry Foundation are hosting a Graduate Together event later tonight, at 8:00 eastern. They'll get to hear from former president Barack Obama. He gives a nationwide commencement addressment. And XQ Institute Cofounder and CEO Russlynn Ali joins us now from Oakland. Russlynn, thanks so much for being with us this morning.
RUSSLYNN ALI, CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, XQ INSTITUTE: Thank you, Victor.
BLACKWELL: We cannot let these accomplishments pass even during a pandemic without acknowledging them. How did this come together?
ALI: Thank you, Victor and Christi. It's so great to be here. This idea came from one of the most phenomenal school leaders I've ever met, Stacy Kane in Washington D.C. at Washington Leadership Academy.
[10:50:01]
She and I were talking just a little over a month ago. They're having their first graduating class, and she, like so many of her co-leaders across the country, is really wrestling with how to honor young people today, especially in this crisis. And the fact that they were missing out on the timeworn tradition of high school graduation, which is so disheartening. From that, here at the XQ institute and the Emerson Collective, we partnered with the Entertainment Industry Foundation, and then the LeBron James foundation came aboard, and so many others to honor and celebrate the nation's high school seniors. It's a phenomenal tribute coming together tonight.
PAUL: Your heart is so in this. I can tell you are chomping at the bit for this. And I know that all of these kids are going to appreciate it so much. In fact, I wanted to point out, as I understand it, you actually asked young people to submit entries so they could be part of this, and you had more than 5,000 kids do so. So what are they doing?
ALI: We did. Well, this was about young people from the start, right. We curated all of the content with young people in mind. We had a student advisory committee to help us secure everyone from the speakers to the artists participating. And yes, we sent an open call out to the nation's high school seniors asking them to participate with essays, with videos, with words of wisdom. And over 5,000 did. So tonight, alongside these megastars and notable influencers across our country, you will see well over 1,000 high school seniors represented, alongside artists and musicians performing and speaking words of wisdom and heartfelt and hard won advise to the nation's graduating class.
BLACKWELL: It's interesting. I think most people cannot remember who spoke at their high school graduation ceremony. This class has former President Obama. We don't know what he's going to say, but we know what they need to hear. They need a moment of catharsis, some encouragement, some context as well. You mentioned the other people, the other celebrities who will be there. Give us a few names.
ALI: You mentioned LeBron James. There's Malala. There is Kevin Hart, of course, President Barack Obama, we are so thankful for gifting us his words of wisdom. We have Olivia Wilde, the Platt Brothers, the Jonas Brothers. Just so many, Yara Shahidi, just an amazing array of influencers and celebrities and spokespersons on behalf of our generation, this generation sharing their words of wisdom. I don't want to give it all away, Victor.
BLACKWELL: Yes, I just wanted a few names.
(LAUGHTER)
BLACKWELL: Just a --
PAUL: That was a few.
BLACKWELL: -- tease the appetite.
ALI: I can keep going.
BLACKWELL: We'll stop there.
Before we go, just quickly here, I understand that this event is one part of a broader conversation. We don't know what will happen in the fall. But some schools will have to rethink what high school is --
ALI: Yes.
BLACKWELL: -- what that will be. Tell us about what happens after the event tonight.
ALI: Well, here at XQ we have been reimagining the high school experience for young people for a very, very long time. We work with communities to help them dream big about what high schools can be. Now in this moment the entire country will come together to help us use our creative ingenuity to redesign the high school experience, to meet young people where they are, to ensure that we prepare them with rigor and relevance for life in the future to achieve all of their dreams. The work is just beginning. And now, more than ever, we must redesign our high school system so that our young people are prepared for an uncertain future. It'll be the first time in 100 years that we've done so, and the time is now more than ever.
BLACKWELL: Russlynn Ali, thank you so much for being with us.
ALI: Thank you, Victor.
BLACKWELL: Listen, we graduated many moons ago, but we will be there tonight with every other member of the class of 2020. Thanks so much and good luck tonight.
ALI: Thank you, and solidarity to them.
PAUL: Thank you.
ALI: Thank you.
PAUL: Thank you. I love her heart is so in this. Don't miss this special event. It's tonight at 7:00 p.m. right here on CNN.
And we want to honor the class of 2020, too. We want to wish you good luck. We are hoping for the best. As Victor said, it's been a long time since we've been there, so I wanted to give a shout out to one, Mr. Ben William Mera (ph) there in Bellview Ohio, wearing shorts under his cap and gown. It was an event to say the least for us, Victor. How about you?
[10:55:00]
BLACKWELL: Yes, I was wearing probably another 75 pounds under my cap and gown.
(LAUGHTER)
PAUL: And look at you now.
BLACKWELL: This is my graduation day from Milford Mill Academy there in Baltimore County. And shout out to the class of 99. I'm not afraid to say it. So thanks so much. Congratulations class of 2020, and be sure to watch tonight at 7:00.
PAUL: You're going to do great things. You are going to do great things, we know this.
Thank you so much for being with us. Don't forget to tweet us @Christi_Paul, @VictorBlackwell. We're also on Instagram.
Much more ahead in the next hour of CNN's Newsroom. Fredricka Whitfield is up next after a quick break.
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