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Policing The Police: Debates Over Law Enforcement Reform In The U.S.; George Floyd Laid To Rest In Houston; Analysis Of The Weight And Influence Of Police Unions; Optimism On Wall Street, U.S. Recession Now Official; Coronavirus Update: Worldwide Covid Deaths Reach 400,000; Prince Andrew's Team Not Cooperating in Investigations on Jeffrey Epstein; Fatalities Show No Sign of Slowing in Latin America; Former U.S. Military Officials Publicly Critical of Trump; U.K. Becomes the New "Sick Man of Europe"; Indian Teen Cycled Injured Father 1,200 km Home. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired June 09, 2020 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. Welcome to our viewers joining us from around the world. Good to have you with us.
Coming up this hour on CNN Newsroom -- policing the police, the heated debate over just what needs to be done to rein in law enforcement in the U.S.
Day 100 of its coronavirus emergency, New York takes a major step towards a new normal.
Plus Britain's Prince Andrew and an American criminal investigation by U.S. justice department investigators are requesting, yet again, an interview with the prince.
It's been two weeks since George Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And two weeks of protests across the U.S. and around the world, calling for justice and reform.
In New York, a large crowd of demonstrators chanted, "Black lives matter" and "Defund the police," as they marched to the mayor's residence.
In Washington, about two dozen Democratic lawmakers including the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, knelt for more than eight minutes, a tribute to George Floyd.
That's how long the former officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck. Chauvin appeared in a Minneapolis courtroom via video link where a judge set bail at one and a quarter million dollars.
Los Angeles county is now the latest to ban police chokeholds.
George Floyd will be laid to rest in the day ahead in his hometown of Houston, Texas. Thousands of people turned out to pay their respects already on Monday.
CNN's Omar Jimenez has this report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As George Floyd's body arrives at the Fountain of Praise church in his home town of Houston, Texas, it was the public's last chance to say goodbye.
Former vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, visited with the Floyd family privately for over an hour, according to the family attorney.
It was two weeks ago to the day, this single cell phone video led to protests around the country -- and the world over more than just Floyd's death.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. GREG ABBOTT, (R-TEXAS): This is the most horrific tragedy I have ever personally observed. But George Floyd is going to change the arc of the future of the United States.
George Floyd has not died in vain.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ART ACEVEDO, POLICE CHIEF, HOUSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT: It's not about whether he was a soul perfect or not, it's about how he died. And he died unjustly.
And God uses us in ways we could have never imagined at birth. And I think He's going to use him to change the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JIMENEZ: In Minneapolis, a majority in the city council is committing to defunding and dismantling the city's police in favor of more community-based public safety. A pledge that city council president Lisa Bender says means acknowledging the current system isn't working.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LISA BENDER, CITY COUNCIL PRESIDENT, MINNEAPOLIS: What it would feel like to already live in that reality where calling the police may mean more harm is done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JIMENEZ: But not everyone is entirely on board. Including the mayor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR JACOB FREY, MINNEAPOLIS: We need a full-on cultural shift in how our Minneapolis police department and departments around the country function. Am I for entirely abolishing the police department? No, I'm not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JIMENEZ: It's a debate now playing out in places across the country, including in New York City, where Mayor Bill De Blasio now says they will be shifting some funding from the NYPD to youth and social services.
Back in Houston, a family and those that knew Floyd best continue to mourn.
And even at what was supposed to be the end of the public viewing period, people were still lining up as they had in some cases by the busload over the course of Monday.
Now Tuesday is when we see the funeral, the private ceremony that the family is doing with themselves and invited guests.
And whether you speak to protesters, family or more, they don't quite look at the burial of this as the end of George Floyd.
In some ways, they look at it as the beginning of a legacy that we are seeing play out in the protests and pushes for long-term change we are seeing across the country.
Floyd is expected to be buried by his mother.
Omar Jimenez, CNN, Houston.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: The head of the Minneapolis police union has called the protests a terrorist movement. Sara Murray reports police unions across the country appear to be a major obstacle to any meaningful reform.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: As protests across the country grow in the wake of George Floyd's death, elected officials under pressure to overhaul police tactics are pointing to a critical hurdle to reform, police unions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR JACOB FREY, MINNEAPOLIS: Let me be very clear. We're going after the police union, we need to be able to have the culture shift.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MURRAY: In Minneapolis, where four officers were fired and charged in Floyd's death, the head of the police union is a vocal supporter of President Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BOB KROLL, PRESIDENT, MINNEAPOLIS POLICE UNION: The Obama administration and the handcuffing and oppression of police was despicable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[01:05:00]
MURRAY: Lieutenant Bob Kroll called protesters a terrorist movement and vowed to fight for the officers' jobs in a letter shared by the former Minneapolis police chief.
In Buffalo, New York, the mayor says the police union pressured 57 officers to quit a special emergency response team after two of their colleagues were suspended for pushing a 75-year old protester.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR BYRON BROWN, BUFFALO: The Buffalo police union is on the wrong side of history. They are wrong in this situation. They have been a barrier to further police reform.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MURRAY: Government officials and labor experts say contract provisions make it tough to remove bad cops in police departments nationwide.
Contracts can limit officer interrogations in misconduct allegations, require the destruction of officers' disciplinary records, and prevent superiors from considering those records in promotion or removal decisions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN SMITH, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON LAWYERS COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS & URBAN AFFAIRS: Chiefs will say, "You know, I was forced to promote this guy and I know that this officer's problematic. Because three years ago and falling right outside of the period protected in the contract, there were five incidents that really caused me heartburn."
And that is troubling, given the awesome authority that police have over people's lives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MURRAY: Officer discipline is often handled through arbitration, where outside arbiters can overrule the police chief. Often on technicalities buried in the contract, experts say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEITH ELLISON, MINNESOTA AG: We need reform in the area of the police union to make sure that the chief can actually have disciplinary control over the force. (END VIDEO CLIP)
MURRAY: Police unions say they work to secure better pay and benefits for their officers, and that they have a duty to defend their members.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE GAMALDI, NATIONAL VICE PRESIDENT, FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE: So I think what we need to do is we need to slow down a bit, and understand that nobody hates a bad officer more than a good officer because it makes us all look bad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MURRAY: They're also politically powerful, using a war chest of membership dues to fund litigation, back political candidates, and lobby against legislation that could put limits on policing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MURRAY: Now on Monday, Jim Pasco, the executive director for the National Fraternal Order of Police told CNN that they want to be part of a constructive process and they're willing to listen to anyone.
He said we're talking with the White House, we're talking with Democrats, we're talking with Republicans, we're talking with activists. We'll talk to anybody that we feel is truly interested in making a difference.
Sara Murray, CNN. Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: And joining me now is CNN law enforcement analyst and former police commissioner for Philadelphia, Charles Ramsey.
So, Mr. Ramsey, thanks for being with us.
CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Thank you. It's good to be here.
VAUSE: Now, I just would like to know. As someone who has run a police department, a very big one, what's your experience been in dealing with police unions?
RAMSEY: Well, unions -- depending on the city and depending on the contract but they have gotten far more powerful over the years.
I recall when unions first came into existence in policing back in the early 1970s. Compared to now, there really is no comparison. The early unions didn't have nearly the power and the strength that they do now.
But many unions, particularly those on the east coast -- Philadelphia, Boston, New York -- have a tremendous amount of power. And that influences a lot of what we're dealing with now in terms of problem officers, our inability to be able to remove them from the force or really discipline them in any meaningful way.
It's not that you can't do it at all but makes it very, very difficult.
VAUSE; You mentioned the city and the contract. I want to talk about the contract for a moment because here's part of CNN's reporting.
"Some police union agreements have outlined how long police leadership must wait to investigate an incident --
RAMSEY: Yes.
VAUSE: " - how they can ask the police officer, and what they can ask, and how quickly the department must complete an investigation. Taken together, it puts the disciplinary power in the hands of the unions, which are set up to protect police officers' jobs."
How is that a police department would agree to essentially legally tying their hands in the first place?
RAMSEY: Well, it's not so much the police department agrees, the city agrees. I mean, when you go into a contract negotiation, at least in the places where I've worked, you're at the negotiating table in most cases but the city attorneys are the ones really running it. And it's the city that actually signs off on it.
So oftentimes, the department will argue against it but the city winds up agreeing. Oftentimes, it's try to minimize the amount of a pay raise that officers get or what have you. But over time, management rights erode and erode to a point where it becomes very difficult to really manage a police department.
VAUSE: At the federal level, House Democrats, they have a reform bill. Among other things, it would make it easier to take legal action against offending police officers, it would place a nationwide ban on chokeholds. It would create national registry to follow fired cops. Lynching would become a federal crime.
Now with regard to the idea of tracking a fired police department. That's interesting. Because just over the weekend, a Florida chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police made this offer to hire the 57 police officers who resigned from the Buffalo PD -- they resigned in protest because two of their colleagues were suspended for knocking over an elderly protester.
[01:10:00]
And the six officers in Atlanta, also accused of excessive use of force.
On Facebook, they posted this.
"Lower taxes, no spineless leadership or dumb mayors rambling on at press conferences. Plus we got your back."
A similar offer was made to the Minneapolis police as well. This seems to get to the very heart of the problem with the unions. They seem totally out of step with what the vast majority of people are thinking when it comes to what is and is not acceptable.
RAMSEY: They are out of step and that's going to cause them some serious problems. They haven't recognized that the environment has changed and they need to change along with it. I mean, there's no balance any longer.
When you have systems in place like arbitration, for an example, where good cases are overturned on a regular basis. There was -- decisions, oftentimes, are not made public and you wind up getting a problem officer back over and over again.
I've had a couple cases where I've literally fired a police officer twice for different offenses. But you fire them once, they go to arbitration, get their job back and then they do something else that rises to the level of termination. You terminate them again and the union fights it. But fortunately, the second time, it actually stuck.
VAUSE: Well, many are now talking now about defunding the police. And U.S. president, Donald Trump, he tweeted this.
"Law and order, not defund and abolish the police. The radical left Democrats have gone crazy."
It would be crazy if this was all about actually abolishing police, but it's not. As Senator Kamala Harris explained, I think, on Monday on THE VIEW.
Here she is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, (D-CALIF): We have confused the idea that to achieve safety you put more cops on the street instead of understanding to achieve safe and healthy communities, you put more resources into the public education system of those communities, into affordable housing, into home ownership. Into access to capital for small businesses, access to healthcare regardless of how much money people have.
That's how you achieve safe and healthy communities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: I'd just like your thoughts on this because I also wonder if we've asked too much of police departments. We've loaded them up with way too many responsibilities. Now might be a good time to get back to basics.
RAMSEY: Well, we have asked too much of police officers. I mean, we're first line in just about everything whether it's substance abuse, whether it's homelessness or people going through a mental health crisis. And it's not that police shouldn't have some responsibility to respond to some of those things but we shouldn't necessarily be the lead on it.
I think what Democrats have done and what demonstrators have done is use a poor choice of words. I mean, they used the term "defund" when actually what they're talking about is reallocating funds. And they need to talk about it in those terms.
If they want to reallocate some money, for an example, that had been provided to police to provide coverage for schools and they decide that they don't want armed police in schools, they'd rather have private security or they want to use that money for more school counselors or school psychologists Substance abuse, maybe they want substance abuse counselors and they redirect money that had been given to the police department to actually deal with substance abuse issues.
I mean, they'd make some sense with some of that. But the way they explain it is the problem.
And so when you start talking about defunding, disbanding. I mean, those are terms that really frighten people. So they need to be clear when they talk about what they plan to do.
VAUSE: Absolutely.
RAMSEY: And not only that -- if I can add one thing. If you're going to draw money, it shouldn't just be from police. The rest of city government, you need to rebalance your budget in order to be able to provide money to those social services that are critically needed.
But it doesn't all have to come of the police budget.
VAUSE: Good point about the wrong word. Good idea, maybe, but certainly a bad choice of words.
Mr. Ramsey, Charles Ramsey, thanks for being with us. We appreciate it.
RAMSEY: Thank you.
VAUSE: Well, now to the other crisis we're following.
The World Health Organization says now is not the time for any country to take its foot off the pedal in this battle against Covid-19.
The WHO says 136,000 cases were reported Sunday, the most in a single day so far.
Globally, Johns Hopkins says coronavirus cases now top seven million. More than 400,000 people have died.
Still, a new study suggests these numbers could have been much worse noting that lockdowns, travel restrictions, and social distancing may have prevented at least 500 million infections across six countries including China, Italy, and the U.S. In Europe, the U.K. has begun 14-day quarantines for those entering the country from abroad and some parts of Spain have entered the final phase of the Government's de-escalation plan as the country reported no new coronavirus deaths on Sunday.
Brazil, meantime, has the second highest number of cases. Second only the U.S. But there are still questions about whether the government's numbers can actually be trusted.
CNN's Shasta Darlington explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Over the weekend, Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, was accused of trying to hide the severity of the coronavirus pandemic after the Brazilian health ministry stopped reporting cumulative figures for cases and deaths.
Well, faced with widespread backlash, on Monday they reverted to providing comprehensive figures. More than 15,000 new infections, bringing the total to over 700,000. This comes after Bolsonaro threatened to withdraw Brazil from the World Health Organization over what he called political and ideological bias.
On Monday, the WHO warned that Sunday marked the most Covid-19 cases in a single day so far during the pandemic. With many of the cases coming from the Americas.
Meanwhile, in Mexico, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, says he does not plan to get tested for Covid-19 even though a high-ranking member of his administration, who he'd recently been in contact with was infected.
And in Guatemala, 18 people who worked in the presidential house have tested positive for coronavirus, although both the president and the VP say they have tested negative.
Shasta Darlington, CNN, Sao Paulo.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSER: And then, on Day 100 came a new beginning, with New York City now emerging from coronavirus shutdown. But in other parts of the United States, the number of infections is still on the rise. That story, when we come back.
Also, while there's optimism on Wall Street, there's grim news from the World Bank. Details ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSER: The United States is approaching two million coronavirus cases. And while some areas are still seeing spikes, New York City is now taking its first cautious steps towards reopening, and what could be a new normal.
CNN's Erica Hill is there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, MAYOR, NEW YORK: This is a triumphant moment for New Yorkers who have fought back against this disease. This was the epicenter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Today, New York City marks a major milestone, phase one of reopening.
Construction can resume at more than 30, 000 sites. There's curbside pickup for retail.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, it's fantastic.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Some 400, 000 people expected to be back on the job, many commuting by train or bus. Subway riders reminded to wear a mask and try to keep their distance.
The city also says it will conduct 35, 000 tests a day. Overall, New York state and much of the northeast trending down when it comes to new cases over the past week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-N.Y.): New Yorkers bent the curve by being smart.
HILL: The death toll is slowing across the country. Yet in a dozen states, deep red on the map, there's a sharp increase.
Overall, new cases are up in 22 states including Florida which added more than 1,000 cases a day for five straight days last week. Arizona, California, Texas, and Michigan also on the rise.
[01:20:00]
While testing is up, so is the number of people who are out.
The TSA screened more than 400, 000 people on Friday and Saturday, the most in nearly three months.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. RYAN STANTON, EMERGENCY MEDICINE PHYSICIAN: Where we've seen areas that have significantly increased have been areas that either one, are very popular for a lot of people to flock to or areas that opened up very early. (END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: The CDC warning large gatherings, including protests, could put people at risk.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For me, the moment that I chose to protest, I was willing to die for this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Officials urging protesters to get tested.
A third of the new cases in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, announced on Saturday were traced to one person who attended several beach house gatherings on the New Jersey shore.
And at least six colleges including Texas Tech and Auburn reporting athletes who returned to campus have tested positive. Many were asymptomatic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTINE BRENNAN, USA TODAY SPORTS COLUMNIST: How many COVID cases will we accept to have our college football this fall?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Tough questions as Americans decide what they're willing to risk for a return to normal.
A new modeling study published Monday in the journal "Nature" found that as many as 60 million infections may have been averted here in the United States because of different shutdown measures that were put into place.
The lead author of that study noted the individual sacrifices that people had made across the country, the impact that it had, saying it was one of the greatest gifts that had been given to humanity.
Back to you.
VAUSE: Well, (INAUDIBLE) large-scale shutdowns around the world prevented more than half a billion coronavirus infections.
Ordering schools to close and people to stay home through early April helped prevent as many as 285 million more cases in China, 60 million more in the United States.
The researchers did not look at how many deaths may have been prevented. They acknowledged how difficult the shutdowns have been but say sacrifices resulted in one of humanity's greatest collective achievements.
U.S. stocks rallied again on Monday, apparently driven by a surprise drop in the unemployment rate last week. The NASDAQ closed at an all- time high, the first of Wall Street's main indexes to recover from the pandemic's market crash.
Numbers suggest there is growing optimism for a swift rebound, that V- shape recovery. But the U.S. unemployment rate still over 13%, and the rally came on the same day that economists officially declared the U.S. is in recession, has been in recession for a while.
John Defterios has details now for us from Abu Dhabi.
So with the markets, if ever there was proof the stock market is no longer reflective of what happens in the real world economy, it would seem to be now.
JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: It certainly seems that way, with the evaluations and the rallies, John. But it does boil down to two clear choices.
Either look back or at the present or look six to nine months down the road. And that's the bet the investors are making right now.
Because there's three trillion dollars of liquidity into the financial markets with low interest rates and there's no other place to park the money right now. So the NASDAQ actually hit a record, the S&P 500 is now back into positive territory. That broad index was in a bear market in March, so that's quite a snap back, course. And the Dow Industrial's added another 1.7 percent.
All in the day the National Bureau of Economic Research, the arbiter of recessions, said officially it's there. It said it started in February and we know that we're in a contraction of the second quarter so it was an easy call.
And it brings to an end, John, 128 months. The largest expansion of the U.S. economy ever.
And what led to that? The global financial crisis, low interest rate, liquidity and then Donald Trump came in and cut taxes on corporations and the high end, hoping he can extend this expansion till November 2020.
Now, the pandemic has set in. We have record spending and the multi- trillion dollar question that we often talk about, John, what happens after? What's the price to pay for the average consumer with higher taxes to relieve this deficit and debt that we see right now?
VAUSE: Yes. That's a question with everything right now. What comes next?
But we do know that the World Bank is actually predicting that what comes next is a pretty big contraction of the global economy. More than five percent.
DEFTERIOS: Well, you know what is unique this time around, John, is that it's happening to everyone in this pandemic. Some have it more severely than others, of course, but they're saying better than five percent.
So that's something we haven't seen for 80 years since the great recession of the 1930s.
And we also have always depended on the emerging markets for the last 20 years, for sure. China, India, South East Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Lo and behold, they said for the first time in 60 years, a contraction of two and a half percent. And they're not hit equally, that's for sure.
Latin America, they were slow to respond to the coronavirus and heavily dependent on commodity exports, of course, they're going to contract better than six percent this year.
I'm in the Middle East and North Africa because of the oil crisis linked with the pandemic, a contraction of four percent.
[01:25:00]
DEFTERIOS: Ironically, China got it first but they should grow one percent this year and Southeast Asia's much better positioned than Africa and Latin America at this stage, John.
So something we'll probably again not see in our lifetime. Something hitting equally all across the world for this contraction of five percent. It's a monster.
And we don't know what's going to happen to people coming back into the economy and also the major cities of the world. We've had this migration in the major cities, I think there's going to be people moving out as a result of what we've seen in this pandemic.
VAUSE: Yes. It's something we haven't seen with, yes, everyone being hit at once. Let's hope we don't see it for a while.
John, thank you. John Defterios there in Abu Dhabi.
DEFTERIOS: Yes. Good to see you.
VAUSE: Well, Cuban doctors who helped fight the coronavirus in Italy returned home on Monday to much fanfare. Greeted with applause and cheers at the airport, many lined the streets of the capital, Havana, as the doctors made their way to quarantine.
CNN's Patrick Oppmann, has more now on the homecoming.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Cuban health care workers returning from fighting the coronavirus in Italy are receiving a heroes welcome upon arrival back here in Havana.
There they are, there are 52 doctors, nurses and organizers who since late March were in Italy, one of the hardest-hit regions, fighting the coronavirus and now have returned home. And they're being cheered on as they drive through the streets of Havana. And they're heading to an isolation center where they will spend the next two weeks in quarantine to make sure that they did not bring the virus back home with them.
This is one of what is called a medical brigade in Cuba. Cuba says now that they have 27 of these brigades around the world helping to fight the coronavirus.
This program is not without controversy though because the U.S. government says that these doctors are not paid enough, that they're used as propaganda by the Cuban government, and that the Cuban government should essentially stop this kind of program.
The people we have talked to here say that, as the world confronts a common problem of this pandemic, that it's time to band together and that Cuba will send help to anywhere it is needed.
People here have another reason to celebrate right now which is that Cuba, as of Monday, has now gone nine days without a reported death from the coronavirus.
And the island's government says they are finally getting a sense that things are under control and are beginning to think about reopening this island that has basically been cut off for more than two months from the outside world.
The question is, the challenge is, how to do that without exposing people here to further danger.
Patrick Oppmann, CNN, Havana.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Well, for months U.S. prosecutors have been pushing to question Britain's Prince Andrew about his friendship with the convicted pedophile and sex offender, the late Jeffrey Epstein.
And now, after getting nowhere, they may go over his head.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:30:31]
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody. Thanks for staying with us. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
I'm John Vause with the headlines this hour.
Protests over the death of George Floyd in police custody are now entering their third week. Floyd will be laid to rest in the coming hours in his hometown of Houston, Texas. Los Angeles is just the latest U.S. city moving to ban police from using chokeholds on suspects.
Coronavirus cases now top seven million worldwide. That's according to Johns Hopkins University. More than 400,000 people have died. The World Health Organization says 136,000 cases were reported Sunday, the most in a single day so far.
North Korean state media announced an end to all communications with the South -- the first step apparently in a total break in all contact with Seoul. It allegedly stems from North Korean defectors spreading propaganda pamphlets on the border of South Korea.
U.S. prosecutors have made multiple requests to interview Britain's Prince Andrew about his friendship with the late sex offender and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Lawyers for the British royal say he's willing to answer questions but on his terms. But it seems for the U.S. prosecutors those terms are not acceptable.
Max Foster has details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MAX FOSTER, CNN LONDON CORRESPONDENT: Our source tells us that U.S. federal prosecutors have requested cooperation from the U.K. government in their ongoing investigation into Epstein's alleged crimes and his associates.
Now, the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York wouldn't confirm or provide any more detail on that. But Prince Andrew's lawyers have come back to us saying that any pursuit of an application for mutual legal assistance would be disappointing.
They said in a statement that the Justice Department had told them that the Duke is not and never has been a target of their criminal investigations into Epstein and that Prince Andrew has, on a least three occasions this year, offered his assistance as a witness.
Prince Andrew's team criticized what they described as a breach of confidentiality and they suggested this was more about publicity for the Department of Justice.
Epstein died in August 2019 whilst awaiting trial on federal charges that he sexually abused underage girls and that he ran a sex trafficking ring. Prosecutors have continued to pursue investigations of people who they believe helped Epstein carry out his alleged crimes.
Prince Andrew is under pressure to answer questions about his relationship with Epstein, but also specifically about allegations made by one of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Now she alleges that she was forced into sexual encounters with the Prince while she was underage.
In a 2015 federal court filing, Giuffre alleged that Epstein forced her to perform sex acts with several prominent men, including Prince Andrew in 2001. All of those men have denied the allegations.
Now in November, the BBC interviewed Prince Andrew and he denied ever meeting Giuffre, but later he did add that he was willing to help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations if required.
Prince Andrew's team though provided zero cooperation, according to U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Berman in Manhattan in January. And then two months later, Berman added that Prince Andrew had completely shut the door on voluntarily cooperating.
But Prince Andrew's team on Monday refuted that. They said that these statements were inaccurate and they should never have been made.
Max Foster, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Still to come, as India begins easing its coronavirus lockdown, we'll talk to a journalist about the challenges she has faced reporting from the hardest hit parts of the country.
[01:34:17]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: Latin America is losing its battle with the coronavirus. The number of cases there rising faster than anywhere in the world.
CNN's Matt Rivers has the latest now from the region.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's been a bad week for many countries in Latin America. In its hardest-hit countries -- Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Peru -- the combined case total now tops one million.
In Brazil, the crisis is horrific, roughly 650,000 cases and counting, the death toll now third highest in the world, officially surpassing Italy and likely to overtake the United Kingdom soon.
But Brazil's leader remains unfazed. As people are dying, the president struck a now familiar note criticizing lockdown measures.
"The poor are becoming miserable and the middle class are becoming poor," he says. "Everyone in Brazil is becoming insane."
His focus? The economy. The IMF estimates Brazil's economy will shrink by 5.3 percent by the end of the year and that unemployment in the country could reach an all-time high.
In Mexico meanwhile, the outbreak is only getting worse. Daily records in new deaths and cases were reported this week. The curve not flattening but spiking. And yet its president, Andres Manuel Lopez- Obrador was out traveling this week. And as for fighting the virus, he had nearly useless advice.
"Don't lie. Don't cheat. Don't betray," he says. "That will help a lot in not getting the virus." Mexico has now more than 110,000 cases and roughly 13,000 deaths. And finally in Peru, grim sights. People collapsing in the streets, some dragged to hospitals by their family members. The less fortunate left to die. Experts are worried the situation will worsen as the case total there tops 190,000.
Oxygen needed to keep people alive is in short supply. Desperate Peruvians had turned online or to an emerging black market to purchase oxygen tanks.
Countries across Latin America have begun to reopen their economies in various ways. But the WHO is warning countries not to do so too fast. The agency says the transmission rate in Central and South America has not yet reached its peak.
Matt Rivers, CNN -- Mexico City.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Well, up next, hear from high-ranking former U.S. military officials, there's a lot of them, and the public criticism they have for their boss -- their old boss -- President Trump.
[01:38:55]
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VAUSE: A very long list of former U.S. military officials have done what they wouldn't normally ever do, publicly criticize a sitting president of the United States (INAUDIBLE) his response to the national unrest.
CNN's Jake Tapper reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: One of the nation's most respected living generals, unleashing over President Trump's handling of the nationwide protests.
COLIN POWELL, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We have a constitution. And we have to follow that constitution. And the President has drifted away from it.
TAPPER: Former Joint Chiefs Chairman General Colin Powell is just the latest voice in what has become a growing chorus of outrage from former prominent military leaders over Trump's threat to use military force to handle protests over the death of George Floyd.
POWELL: The most massive protest movement I have ever seen in my life, I think this suggests that the country is getting wise to this and were not going to put up with it anymore.
TAPPER: Retired four-star generals and admirals who normally avoid airing their political opinions are now forcefully speaking out one after another, including the President's first secretary of defense, retired Marine General James Mattis who has avoided criticizing Trump until now but just wrote his former boss quote, "is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people, does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us".
TAPPER: Mattis was quickly backed up by Trump's old chief of staff, retired Marine General John Kelly.
GEN. JOHN KELLY (RET), FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: He's quite a man, General Jim Mattis. And for him to do that tells you where he is relative to the concerns he has for our country.
TAPPER: Many of these men say the watershed moment to speak out came after Trump threatened to use active duty U.S. military against the very people they are supposed to protect.
ADM. MIKE MULLER (RET), FORMER JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: Our military should never be called to fight our own people as enemies of the state.
GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY (RET), FORMER JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: We have a wonderful relationship with the people in this country. And I thought it important to continue to work to try to keep that relationship sound and solid. And, you know, inflammatory language can be an impediment to that.
TAPPER: Others cited their tipping point as watching officers clear out peaceful protesters from outside the White House so the President could pose for a photo-op holding a bible.
ADM. WILLIAM MCRAVEN (RET), FORMER COMMANDER U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND: You're not going to use whether it's the military or the National Guard or law enforcement to clear peaceful American citizens for the President of the United States to do a photo op. There is nothing, you know, morally right about that.
GEN. JOHN ALLEN (RET) FORMER COMMANDER OF U.S. FORCES IN AFGHANISTAN UNDER OBAMA: That is what happens in an authoritarian regime.
TAPPER: The list of former top military leaders pushing back against President Trump continues to grow. All saying their decision to speak out boils down to where they're ultimate loyalties lie.
MCRAVEN: We all raised our right hand and we swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States. It is not to the President of the United States, it is to the Constitution.
TAPPER: Now for some of these former officials, their concerns over President Trump predated the recent unrest and go beyond his handling of the U.S. military.
Admiral McRaven, the man who oversaw the Osama bin Laden raid, wrote a scathing op-ed last year, accusing the President of assaulting, quote, "the intelligence and law enforcement community, the State Department and the press.
In 2016, General Powell called the birther movement Trump led against then-President Obama, racist and leaked emails. POWELL: The birther's movement had to do with the fact that the
President of the United States, President Obama, was a black man.
TAPPER: General Powell, whom Ronald Reagan saw is the future of the Republican Party and who served as secretary of state for George W. Bush is once again not voting for Donald Trump. Instead, he threw his support behind former vice president Joe Biden.
Why is it so important to you that President Trump not be reelected?
POWELL: Because I think he has been not an effective president. He lies all the time.
Every American citizen has to sit down, think it through and make a decision on their own. Don't listen to everybody out there, don't read every newspaper. Think it through and use your common sense and say, is this good for my country, before you say this is good for me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[01:44:51]
VAUSE: Well, as Europe scrambled to prepare for the coming outbreak of the coronavirus, the U.K. delayed, holding out for a time, and now according to Johns Hopkins University it has the second highest death toll in the world.
We're expecting an official announcement just hours from now that more than 50,000 people have died.
CNN's Nic Robertson looks back at opportunities missed.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I have today left hospital after a week in which the NHS has saved my life.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It's April 12th.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 10,612 have tragically died.
ROBERTSON: The U.K. on its way to becoming the "sick man of Europe".
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 20,000.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 30,000.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 40,261.
ROBERTSON: It was here, St. Thomas' Hospital, where the NHS saved Johnson's life. But how did it come to this? The U.K. with the highest COVID-19 death toll so far across the whole of Europe. Germany, France, Italy, Spain -- were all weeks ahead in their coronavirus experience. Johnson told the nation the country was ready.
JOHNSON: Very well prepared. ROBERTSON: But neither he nor the country were.
JOHNSON: I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were actually a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody.
ROBERTSON: Europe was shutting down all major sporting events but not the U.K.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is not a major way to tackle the epidemic.
ROBERTSON: The government also appeared to have another agenda but later denied.
PATRICK VALLANCE, U.K. CHIEF SCIENTIFIC ADVISER: Build up some degree of herd immunity as well so that more people are immune to this disease.
ROBERTSON: It's about now the government begins to realize mistakes are being made. A scientific study based in part on Italy's COVID-19 experience predicts as many as a quarter of a million people could die.
Johnson's response is slow.
JOHNSON: We need people to start working from home.
ROBERTSON: The death toll is 71.
Then another four days, another half step.
JOHNSON: We are telling pubs, bars, restaurants, clubs to close.
ROBERTSON: Finally after a further three days --
JOHNSON: You must stay at home.
ROBERTSON: But the die is cast. Infections over those vital three weeks rocketed. By March 27th, the death toll 1,091. Government experts are still underestimating what is coming.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we can keep deaths below 20,000 we will have done very well.
ROBERTSON: but it won't. The U.K. is late to the international scramble for PPE, test equipment and ventilators. Hundreds of health care workers would die. Untested elderly were sent from hospitals to care homes where outbreaks ran rampant. And the controversies kept coming.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We agreed that we should go for a short drive, to see if I can drive safely.
ROBERTSON: Johnson's chief adviser, flouting lockdown guidelines.
JOHNSON: Anyone who can't work from home to be actively encouraged to go to work. ROBERTSON: And when the PM began easing the lockdown, it backfired,
parodied by a popular comedian.
MATT LUCAS, COMEDIAN: UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you can work from home, go to work. Don't go to work. Go outside. Don't go outside.
ROBERTSON: Faith in the government's ability to handle COVID-19, the very thing that it needs to keep infections down, is badly eroded. So how did the U.K. become the sick man of Europe? That is something everyone here is going to want accountability on. For now though, they will settle for a healthy nation.
Nic Robertson, CNN -- London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: In the coming hours, Moscow will begin lifting quarantine restrictions for the first of three stages of reopening. That means hair salons, veterinarian clinics and cemeteries will soon be back in business.
(INAUDIBLE) and using a controversial app which tracks people's movements. Moscow has reported almost 200,000 coronavirus cases since the pandemic began.
India recorded the biggest daily spike in new cases over the weekend. Still coronavirus restrictions are being eased. Places of worship, restaurants, malls -- all allowed to reopen in some parts. But the state of West Bengal which recently saw a devastating super cyclone, a lockdown has been extended until the end of the month.
For many migrant workers in India, the nationwide lockdown costs them their livelihood. Many were left stranded, no money, no home, no family.
CNN's Vedika Sud has the story of one teenage girl who went to remarkable lengths to get her injured father back home.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VEDIKA SUD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: When India's lockdown was announced, 15-year-old Jyoti Kumari Paswan was determined to take her father back to their village in eastern India. As a migrant worker, Manuch (ph) Paswan hadn't earned a penny since an accident in January left his knee severely injured.
"I've been taking care of my father ever since he met with an accident," she says. "When the lockdown was announced, we were left with little food and money to survive."
Her plan was ambitious and almost unbelievable. After her reluctant father gave in, they used their little savings to buy a secondhand bicycle. And then there was no looking back.
[014957] SUD: Jyoti took the lead while her father rode pillion for the city of
Gurugram near Delhi for almost 750 miles, the approximate distance between New York and Chicago.
Dependent on volunteers along the way for food and water, they battled heat and hunger. Jyoti's father says they traveled without eating for almost two days. With the exception of a short ride on a truck, the Paswans made it to the village on their own strength after seven long days.
"My braver daughter has brought us home, I'm proud of her. Had it not been for Jyoti, we would have died of hunger", Says Mohan Paswan.
Once home, Jyoti's story went viral. Local politicians came knocking on her door. She was even gifted a new bicycle. The teenager received an invite for the cycling federation of India for tryouts for the national team.
"I will keep practicing and then head to Delhi for the trials," says an excited Jyoti.
Her exceptional determination caught the attention of Ivanka Trump who lauded Jyoti's endurance through a tweet. For social activist like Harsh Mander, Jyoti's travails ought to be acknowledged but not celebrated. He says the system has failed migrant workers like Jyoti and her father.
HARSH MANDER, SOCIAL ACTIVIST: It is not a problem that Indians lack the capacity to (INAUDIBLE). What it lacked was the compassion and the will. And that is what makes it so awful (ph).
SUD: Amid India's lockdown, hundreds of thousands of migrants have been making desperate journeys on foot to get home. Some have even lost their lives. Jyoti's father hopes state governments will soon take notice of homeless migrants like him and help in their struggles, as they face an uncertain future.
Vedika Sud, CNN -- New Delhi.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Barkha Dutt is a "Washington Post" columnist, has been reporting on the pandemic from India's front lines, spending nearly three months there on the road, traveling 60,000 (ph) kilometers, covering a dozen states. That's a lot of distance. She is with us from New Delhi.
So Barkha -- what prompted you to actually head out onto the streets and actually, you know, literally follow this story all around the country?
BARKHA DUTT, "WASHINGTON POST: Well, John -- the moment India announced the lockdown, and this was going to be 1.3 billion people under a lockdown, making it the world's largest lockdown, I kind of sensed as a journalist that I could not sit at home or inside my studio and get a sense of what was really happening out there. And hours later, I saw what was clearly the biggest exodus -- mass exodus of people since the partition of India. There are estimates that there are 45 million migrant workers in India, and almost all of them have walked hundreds of kilometers, gone onto cycles, got onto the back of trucks, got inside crowded trains and made their way home.
And as I walked with them, I knew that this humanitarian crisis was in this country going to be a bigger story than the coronavirus pandemic. And the only way to tell it was to walk every step of the way with India's most impoverished citizens as they struggled amid hunger and starvation, children without (INAUDIBLE) -- little children carried on the heads of their parents back home.
So that's what made me literally get out and get on what I'm calling the COVID train, but it's really more a story of poverty and class divides than it is even about the virus.
VAUSE: They are the poorest of the poor. And obviously the conditions and the treatment which, you know, they have gone through has not been great. And also, what we saw in Vedika's story, this little girl who went home to dad, he's a migrant worker. She managed to get him home.
From what you've seen, what do you think would have happened if she hadn't been able to do that?
DUTT: You know, I was listening interestingly to your story about the 15-year-old who put her father on the back of a cycle and then (INAUDIBLE). When Ivanka Trump tweeted a lot of us were really offended. And we were as offended by those in our own government who tried to celebrate what this girl had done.
Not because we want to take away from her, her strength and her courage but because she went (INAUDIBLE) tragedy, right. She, a poor girl, had (INAUDIBLE) to a cycle because she had no food where she lived and worked which is here, the capital city, where I am presently coming to you live from.
And, you know, when I was talking to her, I interviewed her, she said (AUDIO GAP) there were nights when they went hungry. It's easy to romanticize in a way the grit that our young people, our poor citizens have shown, but we have to acknowledge that this has been a failure of policy and this has been an abdication as it were of the state.
And it showed a kind of elite callousness and a kind of failure of political imagination that is going to haunt this country even more -- even more than the spiking numbers of the pandemic at this point.
[01:54:52]
VAUSE: When you talk to these migrant workers and, you know, these are as you say, they're the poorest of the poor, you know, within India. And, you know, where do they sit within society, because you say the way they've been treated throughout this lockdown and this pandemic will haunt India, you know, for a very long time to come but where do they sit within the Indian society. Do people there care? DUTT: So let me explain to your viewers what's a migrant worker. Very
simply, this is a poor person who lives in a village, doesn't think that she or he can get a good source of income there, comes to the city to work but doesn't have prominence (ph) from here.
So for example, if there's a building come up or (INAUDIBLE) coming, they would live on the premises of that makeshift arrangement as it is coming up. They are daily wagers. They earn, you know, in about 200 rupees, which is less than a couple of dollars a day typically.
And when the lockdown was enforced, despite multiple government orders saying that they should not move, and asking their employers to pay them, they were simply not paid.
And I call them India's invisible. I call them the nowhere people. The reason I call them that is, where they work is not where they have a vote. And where they vote, they've been forgotten by their government. They're kind of between two homes.
And you know, every worker that I met and worked with said one thing to me. They said that we know that as we travel and there's no social distancing possible, sometimes hundreds of them would get on to the back of little trucks. And I would say aren't you scared that the virus will kill you? And they would say to me we're aware that the virus can kill us, but we would rather die at home. And if we stay, the poverty will kill us first.
So I think what has happened with the tragedy of India's migrant workers is that it has shown up our class divides. It has shown up many people of my class to be unfeeling. You know, there are domestic workers who work in our kitchens, for example, many of whom are migrant workers, but we have stigmatized this class today.
We have acted as if this virus is coming from the poor, as if this virus is coming from the (INAUDIBLE) and not letting their domestic (AUDIO GAP) leaving them without wages.
And I remember an interview with a domestic workers who said what is this justice. This virus came from the rich on an airplane into the country and it's the poor who're on the streets. So I think this is a matter of shame for us as a society.
VAUSE: Barkha -- we're out of time but you have taken incredible risks to yourself, to your own health to tell the story. So, well done. And we look forward to seeing more on this.
DUTT: Thank you.
VAUSE: So thank you. Barkha Dutt there from "The Washington Post".
DUTT: Thank you.
VAUSE: Appreciate it.
DUTT: Thank you very much.
VAUSE: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause.
But I will be back, another hour right after this.
[01:57:19]
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