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Trump to Sign Modest Police Reform Executive Order Today; North Korea Blows Up Liaison Office; COVID Cases Trending Down in Northeast, Uptick in South and West; MLB Commissioner "Not Confident" About 2020 Baseball Season. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired June 16, 2020 - 05:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[05:00:20]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was a sacrifice for people to see that Black Lives Matter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: The widow of a man shot and killed by Atlanta police is speaking out.

President Trump is expected to sign an executive order on police reform in a matter of hours.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news, smoke in the sky as North Korea just blew up an office it uses for talks with South Korea. A live report is now just moments away.

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world, this is EARLY START. I'm Laura Jarrett.

ROMANS: Good morning. I'm Christine Romans. It is Tuesday, June 16th, it is 5:00 a.m. exactly here in New York.

With hundreds of thousands of protesting nationwide for police reform, President Trump today is set to sign an executive order calling for only modest changes. Sources briefed on the order say, it mainly leans on Congress to do the heavy lifting because the president doesn't want to alienate the police officers. Officials say among other things, the executive order includes incentives for police department to send mental health officials on calls.

Chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Laura, later today, the president is expected to unveil a new executive order aimed at curbing police brutality across the U.S. The new executive order is expected to call for It will add a new database to track police misconduct, and the White House is also calling on law enforcement agencies to refrain from using police chokeholds.

Here's more of what the president had to say.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And we're going to have some solutions, I think some good solutions. Some of it, as you know, it's about great people. We need great people in our police departments and we have mostly great people. I would say that. I would say that with certainty we have mostly great people. I know so many of them, law enforcement, but we -- we will do better, even better. And we're going to try and do it fast.

ACOSTA: And the president also weighed in on the increasing cases of the coronavirus, telling reporters that if the U.S. were to stop testing for the virus, there would be few if any cases left. That, of course, is not accurate. The reason why there's an increase in cases is because there's been a spike in infections -- Laura and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JARRETT: All right. Jim Acosta, thank you so much for that.

Last night, Atlanta police released audio of the 911 call asking officers to come to the Wendy's where they ultimately shot and killed Rayshard Brooks. The call adds new details to the explanation previously given by police that a restaurant employee had called to say a man was asleep in the drive through lane there. Listen to what else that employee had to say.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

OPERATOR: All right. Do you need police, fire, ambulance out here.

CALLER: Police.

OPERATOR: All right, tell me what's going on.

CALLER: I have a car. He's in my drive through. I tried to wake him up but he's parked in the middle of it. I don't know what's wrong with him.

OPERATOR: Is he breathing, ma'am, do you know?

CALLER: Yeah, he woke up, looked at me and I was like, you've got to move out the drive through because people can't -- they're going around him, and he's in the middle of the drive through just right there.

OPERATOR: All right.

CALLER: Yeah. He's right here. Cars going around him.

OPERATOR: OK. All right. Ma'am, does he appear to have any weapons?

CALLER: Ma'am?

OPERATOR: Does he appear to have any weapons from where you can see him?

CALLER: No, no. I think he's intoxicated.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

JARRETT: The department also released the disciplinary records for the two officers involved here. Garrett Rolfe, the one who shot Brooks, had one use of force complaint back in 2016 for which he was given a written reprimand and several citizen complaints where no action was taken. The other officer, Devin Brosnan, has no disciplinary history and two firearm discharges including Friday's incident.

Rolfe was fired on Saturday, Brosnan is on administrative duty.

ROMANS: The widow of Rayshard Brooks is speaking out now and she has one question for the Atlanta police officers who were involved in her husband's death.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOMIKA MILLER, RAYSHARD BROOKS' WIFE: Do they feel sorry for what they taken away? That's what I want to know. If they had a chance to do it again would they do it the same way or would they do it totally different?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Miller tells CNN she's not angry at the officers who killed her husband because he was a very forgiving person and he would not want her holding all that anger in her heart, she said.

JARRETT: Breaking overnight, police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, say they detained multiple suspects after a person was shot during protests in the city's old town district. Authorities say there were reports of vigilante groups instigating violence at the protests. Governor Michelle Grisham said on Twitter, quote: The heavily armed individuals flaunted themselves to menace protestors. Officials say the victim is in critical but stable condition.

[05:05:03]

ROMANS: The NYPD has reassigned about 600 plain clothes police officers that target violent crimes. Their new roles effective immediately will be neighborhood policing and detective work. We get more on the department's transformation from CNN's Brynn Gingras.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Laura, Police Commissioner Dermott Shea called this a seismic shift within the NYPD saying this is 21st century policing. Basically, this means that the anti-crime units within the NYPD are no longer. Six hundred plain clothes officers are going to be transferred to the detectives bureau, to neighborhood policing, other units within the NYPD. Now there is an anti-crime unit, or there used to be, in every single

precinct of the NYPD and 77 precincts in all. And essentially, the jobs of these plainclothes officer was to go after violent offenders, be somewhat proactive of finding violent acts. So, this is going to be a big change. But as you can imagine, those officers, their jobs came with a lot of negative interactions sometimes with the public. And that's partly why this decision is being made, because even some of those officers were involved in some very notorious shootings that involved police in New York City's history.

Now, Dermott Shea acknowledged the fact that the gun violence has gone up in New York City. He says there is a risk to this decision, but he says he wears that risk on his shoulders. He now says that the NYPD is going to have to rely on their own brains, the technology, the data and not force to get the job done. You can imagine the PBA, the police union that represents police officers for the NYPD had a lot to say about this.

And a fiery response to the commissioner, to the city the president there said in part in a statement, our city leaders have clearly decided that proactive policing isn't a priority anymore. They chose this strategy. They will have to reckon with the consequences.

Again, this decision by the police commissioner goes in effect immediately.

Christine and Laura, back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JARRETT: All right, Brynn, thank you so much for that.

And breaking overnight. South Korea officials say North Korea has blown up a joint inter-Korean liaison office. The explosive message just the latest sign of sharply rising tensions on the Korean peninsula.

CNN's Will Ripley joins us live with the very latest.

Will, just explain how significant this is.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So this is located a very short distance from President Trump and Kim Jong-un (AUDIO GAP) hands at the military demarcation lines. This is the joint industrial complex where North Koreans work for South Korean companies. It's basically (AUDIO GAP) I visited back (AUDIO GAP)

I've seen the building that they've been using as the inter-Korean liaison office. The whole industrial park (AUDIO GAP) for months because of the coronavirus. North Korea decided (AUDIO GAP) and blow up the office in a dramatic statement. (AUDIO GAP)

This is not North Korea blowing up something in South Korea. (AUDIO GAP) across teh border. Angry North Korea has said (AUDIO GAP) after South Koreans launched (AUDIO GAP) leaflets that were basically (AUDIO GAP). Kim Jong-un's younger sister is calling the shots since this started

bubbling up in recent days. That's also North Korea (AUDIO GAP). Her more public image, strengthening up her image and building up her credibility (AUDIO GAP) inside and outside North Korea (AUDIO GAP) confrontation.

JARRETT: All right. Will, thank you so much. I know you'll stay on top of this for us.

ROMANS: All right. Volatility has officially returned to Wall Street. The Dow swung more than 1,000 points before closing up 158. Investors worried about the resurgence of coronavirus cases in the U.S. and that cluster in Beijing, in China.

Now, stocks recovered though after the Federal Reserve launched its Main Street lending program to help small businesses. That volatility is a sign to Washington that more stimulus is needed. Over the weekend, economists at Goldman Sachs says the bank sees Congress enacting stimulus in four key years, more targeted small business relief, enhanced unemployment benefits, additional stimulus checks to consumers, and $250 billion of aid to states.

The White House advisor Peter Navarro says President Trump wants a new $2 trillion package with the focus on buy American, hire American, but top Senate Republicans aren't embracing that suggestion. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says there will be no decision on new stimulus until July.

Senator Chuck Grassley said Congress needs to spend greater time on transitioning people who may soon see their enhanced benefits dry up, Laura.

[05:10:02]

JARRETT: All right, Christine. Well, still ahead, President Trump is pushing ahead with a rally this week in Tulsa despite a spike in coronavirus cases in Oklahoma. More on what that could look like next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JARRETT: The Trump campaign is hoping to pack every seat in the house at a big rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. On Saturday, it won't require people to maintain social distance or wear a mask, even though the administration's top health officials strongly recommend both measures. Tulsa has had more than 1,400 coronavirus cases and county health officials say they are, quote, concerned about the upcoming rally.

Political correspondent Abby Phillip has a preview from Tulsa.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Laura, and, Christine, President Trump's rally here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is still planned for Saturday. And we are now learning some more about how the campaign is going to handle the coronavirus cases here as cases in Oklahoma continue to go up.

[05:15:02]

The campaign now said they are going to be providing guests with temperature checks and hand sanitizer and also facemasks, they are not however going to require that those facemasks be worn.

And we do still do expect about 20,000 people to be in the arena behind me, the BOK Center. Those folks, according to President Trump, he wants them to be shoulder to shoulder, and he said he wants every seat full in that arena. He is also now talking about adding overflow seating at a nearby convention center for 40,000 more people.

The campaign keeps saying that hundreds of thousands of people have RSVP'd to this event. We should not however, you can RSVP the event from anywhere in the world, virtually. But typically, these campaign rallies have lengthy, lengthy lines. At the same time, we're also hearing from Oklahoma health department officials who say, you know, they'd really prefer that this campaign rally not be held during this time of the pandemic but the campaign is adamant that it will go on.

President Trump said it's going to be a celebration. He has been urging his supporters to show up on that day as part of the celebration of the restarting of the campaign season at least for him -- Laura and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Abby for us in Tulsa, thank you so much for that.

You know, Oklahoma where that campaign -- that rally will take place on Saturday is one of eight states seeing coronavirus cases surge by more than 50 percent.

CNN's Erica Hill has the latest on the pandemic across the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ERICA HILL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Laura, good morning.

Parts of New York state will be moving into phase three today. That means the number of people at gatherings can increase from 10 to 25. Across the river in New Jersey, the governor warning that all options are on the table if businesses do not comply with the regulations for social distancing.

As we look around the country, the Northeast is a pretty good story. The cases are trending down, but in the South and West, we are seeing an uptick. In Texas, the city of Austin actually extending its stay at home order now through August 15th, noting this high rise in new cases. They're in a stage four risk.

And Monday was also a record high day for hospitalizations in the state of Texas. University of Wisconsin said they can have in person classes this fall. Meantime, Ohio state and Indiana, announce pledges if their athletes want to participate in athletics.

And as we're talking about sports, the commissioner of Major League Baseball asked about a 2020 season, he said he's not confident it's going to happen. That did not sit well, Christine and Laura, with the Major League Baseball Players Association.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JARRETT: Yes, we will cover that shortly. Thank you, Erica.

The number of reported coronavirus cases has now reached more than 8 million, with more than 430,000 deaths at this time.

CNN has reporters around the globe bringing you the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEVEN JIANG, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER: I'm Steven Jiang in Beijing, where the number of newly confirmed coronavirus cases has now reached 106 since last Thursday. Almost all of them linked to this now closed huge wholesale food market.

You know, authorities here are conducting extensive contact tracing and mass testing for anyone who had visited this market since May 30th. It's a daunting task, though. According to state media, they have tracked down some 200,000 people in this category.

The worry now is if the city is going to see a spike of new cases in the coming days and how many infected people may have already left town.

SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Shasta Darlington in San Paulo.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro spoke to his Russian counterpart on Monday. He and Vladimir Putin said they discussed the measures to slow the spread and impact of COVID-19 as well as broader bilateral cooperation. Brazil surpassed Russia last month as the country with the second highest number of cases behind the United States. Brazil reported 20,000 new coronavirus cases on Monday.

ANNA COREN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Anna Coren in Hong Kong. After more than three weeks of no new cases of covid-19 in New Zealand, with authorities believing the country had managed to eliminate the virus, the Ministry of Health today announced two new cases. They are both women who had traveled from the U.K. via Australia, allowed in on compassionate grounds to visit a dying relative.

It's a major blow for the country that has aggressively tackled the virus. Only last week, New Zealand lifted almost all domestic coronavirus restrictions. It's also a cautionary tale on the challenge countries are facing trying to reopen in the midst of a pandemic still spreading around the world. ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Atika Shubert in

Mallorca, Spain. Schools here now have the option to reopen to students if they meet certain coronavirus safety standards. At one school that we visited, that meant temperature checks at school gates and classes with 15 students or less with desks two meters apart.

[05:20:04]

Masks were mandatory in the hallways, and students had to wash their hands with alcohol solution before and after each class. One fourth grader told me the hardest part about coming back to school now was not being able to hug your friends.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: Oh, yes, absolutely.

All right. Thanks to all of our reporters for those reports.

New doubts this morning about whether we'll ever see Major League Baseball this year. Why players are disgusted according to their union.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Welcome back.

Several players from the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans have tested positive for coronavirus. [05:25:01]

According to NFL network, none of the players were in the team facilities and both clubs followed all the required health protocols. The league allowed teams to reopen the facilities on May 19th as long as they met certain requirements.

JARRETT: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell now supports any team that decides to sign Colin Kaepernick.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGER GOODELL, NFL COMMISSIONER: Well, listen, if he wants to resume his career in the NFL, that obviously is going to take a team to make that decision, but I welcome that, support a club making that decision and encourage them to do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: The 32-year-old Kaepernick has not played since the 2016 season. He was basically forced out when he kneeled during the national anthem to protest racial inequality as a member of the San Francisco 49ers back then.

Commissioner Goodell tells ESPN if Kaepernick decides not to play, he's welcome to help make the league make better decisions going forward. ROMANS: Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy says he's looking

forward to making some changes after one of his star players slammed for wearing a t-shirt with a logo of right wing news outlet OANN.

Chuba Hubbard, the nation's leading running back last year tweeting, I will not stand for this. This is completely insensitive to everything going on in society, it's unacceptable. I will not be doing anything with Oklahoma State until things change.

In a follow-up tweet, yesterday, Hubbard posted this video with coach Gundy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE GUNDY, FOOTBALL COACH, OKLAHOMA STATE COWBOYS: We had a great meeting and made me aware of some things that players feel like to make our organization even better than it is here at Oklahoma state. I'm looking forward to making some changes and it starts at the top with me.

CHUBA HUBBARD, RUNNING BACK, OKLAHOMA STATE COWBOYS: I'm not someone that has to tweet something to make change. I should have went to him as a man and I'm all about action so that was bad on my part, but from now on, we're going to focus on bringing change and that's the most important thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: All right. OANN, a previously obscure far right cable network, has gained more attention recently by floating conspiracy theories amplified by President Trump.

JARRETT: The head of the Major League Baseball Players Union says players are, quote, disgusted after Commissioner Rob Manfred expressed new doubts about the 2020 baseball season. Negotiations between the players and owners have been bogged down over money so far. And after saying last week he was 100 percent sure about the season being played, in an ESPN interview Monday, Manfred backtracked.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROB MANFRED, MLB COMMISSIONER: It's just a disaster for our game. Absolutely no question about it. It shouldn't be happening and it's important that we find a way to get past it and get the game back on the field for the benefit of our fans.

INTERVIEWER: Would you describe your feelings as confident that there will still be a season?

MANFRED: I'm not confident.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: All right. Dozens of Major League Players teamed up for a video in support of Black Lives Matter and the fight against racial injustice. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been told that our peaceful pleas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were not made.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the right time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the right way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been told to wait.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But we remember when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That the word wait.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Has almost always meant never.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will wait no longer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll make our voices louder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For all of us who can.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And for those who cannot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eight minutes and 46 seconds is enough time to live to me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To do what is right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To say something.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To acknowledge the pain of the black community.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have cheered for us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But we need you to cheer with us now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: That video is the latest call to action from top athletes across the sports world.

JARRETT: All right, Christine, and here's one from your home state. A picture of solidarity in Iowa as an entire high school baseball team kneels national anthem. The coach of the Des Moines Roosevelt team says he stands by the players' decision to take a knee. Iowa is the first state in the nation to resume high school sports since the coronavirus shutdown.

ROMANS: Good for them. This is real generational. I mean, a lot of young people are thinking hard about what kind of country they live in and trying to make any kind of -- make their voice heard.

JARRETT: Yeah. It's a real change. It's great to see in young people.

EARLY START continues right now.

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ROMANS: All right. Good Tuesday morning. This is EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

JARRETT: And I'm Laura Jarrett. About 29 minutes past the hour here in New York.

With hundreds of thousands calling for an overhaul in policing, President Trump today is said to sign an executive order calling for only modest tweaks really. Sources briefed on the order say it mainly leans on Congress to do the heavy lifting because the president doesn't want to alienate the nation's police officers.

But here's the thing, this is the same president who said to a group of police officers in New York just about three years ago this --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: When you see these thugs.

END