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Nearly Half of U.S. States Report Increases in Virus Cases; New York City Enters Second Phase of Reopening; NASCAR Investigates Noose Found in Bubba Wallace's Garage; Bolton Says He Hopes Trump is a One- Term President. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired June 22, 2020 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: COVID-19 cases are climbing, and now more young people are testing positive.

[05:59:53]

PETER NAVARRO, : We are filling the stockpile in anticipation of a possible problem in the fall.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we're going to continue to open up and not open up safely, we're going to continue to see increased cases.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: John Bolton casting President Trump as an uninformed, erratic liar.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has done something that is very, very serious in terms of American national security.

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: I think Putin thinks he can play him like a fiddle. I don't think he's worried about Donald Trump.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Welcome to our viewers around the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Monday, June 22, 6 a.m. here in New York. Alisyn is off. Erica Hill here with me this morning.

Great to have you here, Erica.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.

BERMAN: This morning, exactly what public health officials have been worried about. A serious coronavirus surge across the country.

This morning, 23 states are seeing a rise in the number of cases. You can see them in red right there. Eleven with growth of more than 50 percent. Nationwide, cases have risen more than 15 percent. And despite what

you hear from officials, this is not just about more testing. This is a substantial increase in the rate of people getting sick and an increase in the number of people who are so sick that they're in the hospital.

The White House now acknowledges that they're preparing for a second wave in the fall, less than a week after Vice President Pence said fears about a second wave were overblown. The states of particular concern this morning include Florida and Arizona, where President Trump is holding an event tomorrow. You can see the spikes in the cases there.

HILL: We are also following -- also following breaking news this morning involving NASCAR. A noose was found in the garage stall of Bubba Wallace. He's the sport's only top-tier black driver.

NASCAR has launched an investigation, but this comes, of course, just weeks after the Confederate flag was banned at NASCAR events and properties.

Also developing overnight, New York City's mayor announcing this statue you see of Teddy Roosevelt at the Museum of Natural History will be removed.

We have a lot to get to on this Monday. Let's begin with CNN's Rosa Flores, who is live in Miami on the pandemic.

Rosa, good morning.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Erica, good morning.

The White House continues to send mixed messages regarding the COVID- 19 pandemic, but here's the thing. States continue to report a record number of COVID-19 cases as the United States is about to hit a grim milestone: 120,000 American fatalities.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES (voice-over): The Trump administration says it's preparing for a possible second wave of the coronavirus after a week of downplaying the recent surge sweeping across nearly half the nation.

NAVARRO: We are filling the stockpile in anticipation of a possible problem in the fall. We're doing everything we can beneath the surface, working as hard as we possibly can.

FLORES: Last week, Vice President Mike Pence said in a "Wall Street Journal" op-ed that panic over a second wave was overblown. And on Saturday, President Trump said this to supporters about coronavirus testing.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So I said to my people, slow the testing down, please. They test, and they test. We had tests of people who don't know what's going on.

FLORES: His staff leader said he was joking, but the increase in cases within at least 23 states is very serious for many state leaders.

MAYOR KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS (D), ATLANTA: Do you think the people, the 120,000 families out there who are missing their loved ones thought it was funny?

FLORES: With a focus now on Florida as a possible epicenter of coronavirus, Governor Ron DeSantis is now admitting the recent spike in cases isn't only due to testing while highlighting a shift in just who's receiving positive results.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): Increasing or being flat, the number of people testing positive is accelerating faster than that. And so, you know, that's evidence that there's transmission within those communities, particularly the 20s and 30s.

FLORES: While some officials say more young people are being diagnosed due to widespread testing, others suggest it's because they failed to follow social distancing measures.

Either way, health experts sending this warning.

DR. WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, PROFESSOR, DIVISION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: These people tend to be less symptomatic. They get less ill. And they tend, therefore, to be spreaders. They can spread it among their fellow workers, their family members.

FLORES: There's also a surge in Arizona, where Trump is scheduled to hold a campaign rally tomorrow. Cases nearly doubling there over the past two weeks and passing the 50,000 mark.

Still, Republican Governor Doug Ducey says he has no plans to slow the reopening of the state.

In Phoenix, city council voting to make masks mandatory in public for its residents, with the county also issuing an order. Phoenix's Democratic mayor says she hopes the president will comply during his visit, despite repeatedly avoiding masks at other events during the pandemic.

MAYOR KATE GALLEGO (D), PHOENIX: One of the reasons we have this growth in Arizona is complacency. We've had elected officials say that the worst was over a month ago. That was not the case, and we are seeing records of the type we don't want to break.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[06:05:04]

FLORES: Some of the hardest-hit areas are not requiring masks, and it is catching the attention of the CDC. So much so, my colleague Nick Valencia learning from the CDC that the agency is planning to issue guidance regarding masks.

Here in the state of Florida, Erica, Governor Ron DeSantis is not requiring masks statewide. Instead, he says that he is going to leave that decision to local governments -- Erica.

HILL: It would be interesting to see what those updated guidelines are. Hopefully, at some point soon from the CDC today.

Rosa, thank you.

This morning, New York City officially enters phase two of reopening. And this means, among other things, that restaurants and bars can use outdoor space for service with social distancing, of course.

All of this comes amid a steady drop of cases in the state, which of course, was once the country's epicenter of the pandemic.

CNN's Alexandra Field is live with those details. Good morning.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, there, Erica. Good morning.

It is a good day here in New York City. The picture in this state looking pretty different than a lot of other different parts of the country.

The positivity rate has shrunk to less than 1 percent. That means New York City can now proceed to phase two of the reopening. It means, among other things, that people can go back to their offices at 50 percent capacity.

New York City real estate will come back. Salons and barbershops will be open. I know a few people who have been looking forward to that. And, of course, the much-awaited fact that people will be able to sit outside at bars and restaurants across the city.

However, Governor Cuomo is warning that COVID, of course, is not over, that we need to keep an eye on the infection rate. That testing needs to continue. That we need to be aware of the possibility of infection coming in from other states, and that of course, people need to be vigilant about the possibility of a second wave of the virus.

To enforce social distancing here in New York, the governor has signed additional executive orders. That would mean that bars and restaurants could see their liquor licenses revoked if they do not comply with regulations. Businesses that don't comply with regulations could also be temporarily shut down.

And John, on a personal note. I'm very pleased to report that the coffee shop behind me will be opening in just another hour. You'll be able to find us sitting outside.

BERMAN: No question about that. Alexandra Field for us on the streets of New York, thank you very much.

All right. Breaking overnight, a really troubling story. NASCAR is investigating after a noose was found in the garage of driver Bubba Wallace. He is the only top-tier black driver in NASCAR. He pushed NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag just two weeks ago.

CNN's Dianne Gallagher is live in Atlanta with more. So what's going on here, Dianne?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, John, look, it shouldn't be too hard for NASCAR to find out who did this or at least narrow it down quickly.

Because the area where this was found, the garage stall, is limited to essential personnel only right now, due to the pandemic. So everyone who was in that area had some form of a credential, be they NASCAR staff, team members, health and safety personnel, track officials.

Now NASCAR made this announcement late last night. And I want to read to you part of their statement. They said, "We are angry and outraged. We cannot state strongly enough how seriously we take this heinous act. We have launched an immediate investigation and will do everything we can to identify the person or persons responsible and eliminate them from the sport."

Now, Bubba Wallace took to Twitter shortly after that, saying, in part, "Today's despicable act of racism and hatred leaves me incredibly saddened and serves as a painful reminder of how much further we have to go with this society and how persistent we must be in the fight against racism. This will not break me. I will not give in, nor will I back down. I will continue to proudly stand for what I believe in."

Now, Bubba Wallace, as you mentioned, called for the Confederate flag to be banned from NASCAR tracks. NASCAR followed suit this month.

This was the first race, or supposed to be the first race. It was postponed until 3 p.m. today, due to weather, where fans could come back and watch. Five thousand fans were going to be allowed into the track to watch. Again, it got postponed today.

Outside of the track, there were demonstrations, John. People who had Confederate flags outside. Somebody flew over with an airplane with a Confederate flag behind it, saying, "Defund NASCAR."

But look, he's received a lot of support. LeBron James, even Dale Jr. saying, "I hope Bubba wins today."

BERMAN: Yes, no question. Dianne Gallagher, I have to say, everyone watching this race, so much focus on it. Who would do this? Who would do this, knowing that so many people were watching? Clearly, wanting to send some kind of perverted message there. Appreciate it.

GALLAGHER: Yes.

BERMAN: All right. Officials in states across the south warning that more and more young people are testing positive for coronavirus. What that means for the broader pandemic fight, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. New this morning, 23 states seeing a growth in new coronavirus cases, including 11 states seeing spikes of more than 50 percent. Those are the states in deep red. Nationwide, cases are up nearly 15 percent.

Joining us now, CNN political analyst, David Gregory; and Dr. Aileen Marty. She's an infectious disease professor at Florida International University in Miami.

And Professor, I want to start with you because of what we're seeing in Florida and, frankly, Arizona, as well. This is not about more testing. This is about more people getting sick. The rates of positive tests are going up.

I think we have these graphs. We can put them up on the screen here. You can see the percentage of new tests that are positive in Florida rising more than 10 percent, and 10 percent is a concerning number. In Arizona, it's twice as bad as that, where you can see the positivity rates in testing there, over 20 percent now. What does that tell you?

DR. AILEEN MARTY, INFECTIOUS DISEASE PROFESSOR, FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY IN MIAMI: It tells me that people are not practicing social physical distancing, they're not wearing their masks, they're not paying attention, and they're not believing that there's a problem. Which is unfortunate, because the problem is very real.

[06:15:03]

HILL: And David, among those apparently not believing that there's a problem, we have to say, is President Trump. And we heard from him over the weekend, of course. Which, you know, Peter Navarro tried to downplay as a tongue-in-cheek move by the president, saying, you know, I told them to slow down the testing.

But I actually think it's very clear that -- and we have heard the president say repeatedly, David, he doesn't want the testing, because he doesn't want to see those positive numbers.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. And this -- you know, this is a moment in this virus that requires leadership at the state and the national level so dearly, because of what the doctor just said. Which is, we have been in lockdown for several months. It's summertime. People are moving around. People are -- need to get back to work.

You have a lot of young people congregating as -- as the weather is warm and not thinking that you have to have this continued vigilance. And so we're living in communities where we're going through phases of reopening.

And I think that means for a lot of people, again, a layperson's perspective. It just feels like, OK, are we done with this yet? And that's where there has to be vigilance. That's -- that's hitting you every day from the authorities about what you have to do, so that we don't have to revert back.

BERMAN: Yes. One thing that's clear when you look at the map and see the number of states in deep red -- 11 states in deep red, increases of 50 percent in new cases -- the virus isn't done with us. So no matter what people think and how sick of it they are, coronavirus is nowhere near done.

Look at those states in deep red again. Arizona, Texas, Florida.

And Professor, the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, he brought up the fact that in Florida, one of the dynamics that is being seen is that it is more and more young people who are getting sick.

Now, I think he said it to indicate, well, the mortality rate among young people isn't as high, so maybe this isn't as serious. That may be so, that young people don't die in the same rate as older people do who get sick. However, it does create different complications if young people are starting to get sick.

MARTY: Yes, that's right. It creates all kinds of different complications.

So there have been some interesting studies that reveal that these people who are asymptomatic, they develop antibodies, but they don't develop very good antibodies. And the studies show that these antibodies vanish in two to three months, suggesting that they can be reinfected.

And worse than that, we're actually concerned about a phenomenon called ADE, which can happen. So that if you're infected once, you don't -- you know, your antibody levels are not very good, et cetera, you can have this kind of secondary hit the next time that you encounter the SARS-2 virus.

And you have to remember that we already know there's more than 10,000 SARS-2 virus varieties out there. And the one that's dominating right now, for example, in Beijing is one that we first saw in Europe, became very dominant here in the United States, and it's very nasty in the sense that it really is tricking the immune system quite a bit.

So what I'm saying, to summarize, is that the second -- the next time these people are infected, they may have a worse disease than the first time.

HILL: There's also the fact that, while the president may want to pretend this isn't happening, David, we did hear that the White House is, in fact, preparing for a second wave.

That's important to note, that that was actually admitted. Because there are people who are recognizing how very important this is and that the virus is not done with us.

GREGORY: Right. And again, I just think the -- the effect on the psyche of states and communities around the country, if there have to be lockdowns in the fall, it's going to be significant.

The fact that a lot of schools, you know, in the school work that I do and having kids and talking to schools are not preparing for a full reopening in the fall, indicates the fear of the continuation of the first wave or a new round of cases as it coincides with flu season.

This is going to have a tremendous impact on all of us, on how we move around, how we work. So -- and from the point of view of whether it's vaccine research and development or just the messaging to the public, as well as other treatment development or just the messaging to the public, as well as other treatment development that the federal government is responsible for, it is an important admission, because, frankly, certainly, the president who was just thinking about his re- election seems almost to be done with this.

We're not hearing from our public health experts on a near-daily basis, which we need to. Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx have kind of disappeared from the scene. The -- the task force is not doing regular briefings. Those things can't go away in the middle of a pandemic. So we're all just sort of left to figure it out and do our own risk analysis.

BERMAN: All right. David Gregory, Professor, thank you both very much for being with us.

[06:20:05]

Former national security adviser John Bolton now says that President Trump does not deserve another term. A stunning new interview with a man who was working in the White House just months ago. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: Developing this morning, CNN has learned President Trump is very upset over the poor turnout at his Tulsa rally over the weekend. This comes as former national security adviser John Bolton speaks out at his first TV interview, stressing he believes Mr. Trump poses a danger if he's re-elected.

CNN's Joe Johns is live at the White House with more for us this morning. Joe, good morning.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Erica.

John Bolton was the president's longest-serving national security adviser, but that did not stop him from granting a sharply critical interview about the president that aired over the weekend.

[06:25:00]

Bolton's book release is scheduled for tomorrow. And he really leveled just a brutal indictment of the president of the United States on issues ranging from what Bolton called his incompetence to his deference to dictators.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS (voice-over): President Trump's former national security adviser, John Bolton, not holding back, describing the president as incompetent and solely focused on his own re-election.

BOLTON: I hope it will remember him as a one-term president, who didn't plunge the country irretrievably into a downward spiral we can't recall from. JOHNS: A federal judge is allowing tomorrow's release of Bolton's

book, "The Room Where It Happened," to proceed, despite the White House's repeated attempts to stop its publication, claiming it contains classified information.

NAVARRO: He has done something that is very, very serious in terms of American national security. And he's got to pay a price for that.

BOLTON: I am confident that there's no national security information, no classified information in the book.

JOHNS: Bolton highlighting the president's relationship with North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.

BOLTON: The idea that just this oleaginous layer of complements to this brutal dictator would convince him that you could make a deal with Donald Trump, I thought, was both strikingly naive and dangerous. He told Kim Jong-un we would give up what he called the war games on the Korean Peninsula.

JOHNS: And recalling his reservations about the now-infamous summit in Helsinki with Vladimir Putin.

MARTHA RADDATZ, ABC NEWS: You were worried about leaving him alone in the room with Vladimir Putin. Why?

BOLTON: Because I didn't know what he would say.

JOHNS: Bolton also confirming what the president has repeatedly denied, that Trump wanted dirt on his political rival, Joe Biden, in exchange in military aid to Ukraine.

BOLTON: He said it to me directly, that that's what he had in mind. And I'll say again, I think it was widely understood at senior levels in the government that that's exactly what his objective was.

JOHNS: Bolton's book release coming on the heels of a chaotic weekend for the president's re-election campaign. The president's rally in Tulsa saw far fewer attendees than the campaign projected, with the local fire marshal counting the general admission crowd at just under 6,200.

TRUMP: You are warriors. Thank you. We had some very bad people outside.

JOHNS: Trump and his team falsely claiming that his supporters were prevented from entering.

MERCEDES SCHLAPP, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: There were protests who blocked the mags (ph). And so we saw that have an impact in terms of people coming to the rally.

CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Protesters did not stop people from coming from that rally. The fact is --

SCHLAPP: Oh, absolutely, they did. JOHNS: Several CNN teams on the ground said they did not see any

prolonged activity by protesters that prevented attendees from gaining access to the rally.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: And as we noted at the top, a Trump adviser said the president is very upset about the rally. Our reporting is that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are also, quote, "pissed about it."

Some of the blame appears -- appears to be centered on Brad Parscale, the campaign manager. A Parscale representative said that's not true. But Parscale himself has not commented.

Erica, back to you.

HILL: Joe Johns with the latest for us. Joe, thank you.

David Gregory is back with us. Also joining us, CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Eliot Williams.

You know, David, I'm just curious. What is your takeaway in terms of the headline that stands out for you from that interview with John Bolton? What we're learning about this book and the story that he has to tell.

GREGORY: I just think this is such a self-destructive period right now for the president. Of all the times, of all the controversy of his time in office, this just appears to be the worst. It really appears to be the low point.

You have somebody who worked with him very closely, who describes a pattern of corruption, who describes someone who's frankly not fit for the job, who's -- who doesn't know enough to be at the helm of our national government. That's what I thought was so damning. A combination of corruption and, frankly, not knowing enough to be doing the job and not to be curious enough to figure out what he doesn't know.

You know, the fact that there's no governing philosophy, that there's unpredictability, there are people who can find some merit in that. But these other pieces, the obsession with his own standing and a ton of focus on his re-election, I just think, is beyond the bounds.

BERMAN: I want to play the sound again from when the former national security adviser, someone who worked in the Trump White House, for well over a year, says that he doesn't want the president re-elected. Martha asked him how history will remember him. Listen to what John Bolton said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOLTON: They failed, utterly to --

I hope it will remember him as a one-term president who didn't plunge the country irretrievably into a downward spiral we can't recall from. (END VIDEO CLIP)

END