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Cuomo Prime Time
Trump Falsely Says "Every Statistic" Shows Kids' Immune Systems Handle Coronavirus Well; Trump Rails Against Voting By Mail; Georgia Teacher Resigns After Being Forced To Work At School While Students Go Virtual. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired August 05, 2020 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, ANDERSON COOPER 360: You can also get alerts on the CNN app.
The news continues right now. Want to hand things over to Chris for CUOMO PRIME TIME. Chris?
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST, CUOMO PRIME TIME: Anderson, thank you very much.
I am Chris Cuomo and welcome to PRIME TIME.
The President has revealed to us his method for getting rid of the pandemic. There's no need for testing, except to test our ability to simply wish it away.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: It's going away. No, it will go away, like things go away, absolutely. It's--
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well--
TRUMP: --no question in my mind. It will go away.
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CUOMO: Yes, tell the families of the dead!
The answer is, as he likes to say, it is what it is, this answer, pathetic and painfully indicative of why we are stuck with all these cases. He really wants you to believe "Things are getting better" without having to do anything to make that the reality.
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TRUMP: Much of the country's in really good shape. We see the red spots and we have them in red, you know, the COVID areas. But the country's in very good shape. And we're set to rock and roll.
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CUOMO: "Rock and roll!"
Yes, rock, roll, continue taking on water, and eventually sink, thanks to having no one at the damn helm. I am not going to stop calling out his inaction, his lies and his hypocrisy because it's making us sick. And it's putting our kids behind.
Take a look at the map. Nearly 5 million cases, and counting, we lead the world. Hospitalizations are up in too many places. Governors are forced to band together to get rapid tests that the Federal government keeps promising and not delivering. Death projections, adjusted to add more than expected again and again.
His only solution, lie about the reality, defy what should be done, and deny his responsibility.
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TRUMP: If you look at children, I mean, they're able to throw it off very easily. And it's an amazing thing. Because some flus, they don't. They get very sick, and they have problems with flus, and they have problems with other things. But, for whatever reason, the China virus, children handle it very well.
Their immune systems are very, very strong. They're very powerful. And they - they seem to be able to handle it very well, and that's according to every statistic.
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CUOMO: It is not according to every statistic. I know for a fact that he knows not to say, what he's saying to you, right there. And with our kids!
Children have died from this virus. Do they usually? No. Do they die the way adults do? No. But that's not the point of comparison. They are not immune. They get sick. They get infected. They generally do have lighter or no symptoms.
But after age 10, the best research we have, at this point, tells us they are just as likely to spread Coronavirus as anyone else. And he knows it. I know he was told that. It is the best reckoning by his own Task Force.
Why would he lie to you about it? Why would he put you in the position to expose your kid that way? How can we deal with a President who lies so much?
Facebook removed one of his videos from his personal page because of what he said on State TV this morning, making these same BS claims that kids are almost immune, because it violates their harmful COVID misinformation policy.
What our President is putting out, about children, is so violative of their decency standard, that they pulled it. Just think about that.
Trump's Campaign account also posted the video on Twitter. Twitter made it delete the tweet before it could tweet again.
They can't even live up to the social media standards! How is he able to live up to the standard that we demand right now? He violated their standards. He's violating us, especially our kids.
If we are lucky, most big populations will see kids going back to school part time, at best, in the fall. And that sucks. And it didn't have to be this way. So many of you are going to be compromised, you're not going to be able to work. Somebody's going to have to sacrifice.
You may be first up to lose your jobs as a result. I don't see Congress giving any protection for that, any kind of safety, to provide for the needs that are now going to become necessary, required to deal with the reality. And why? At the root of all of it is this President's stubborn refusal to act.
Now look, some of it's on you too, and people - me, not me so much, in this case, because I was sick already, and I do the distancing, and I wear the mask, even though I have the antibodies.
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But too many of us are not doing those things. But at the top of my list has to be the President. He sets the tone. He made it too OK for too many to ignore these things for too long. And he refuses to step away from his stupid early denials, because he is who he is.
And yes, this pandemic is what it is. It is a deadly virus. It will keep going. Hearing that it is in rural areas right now is not strange. That's what it does. It is only slowed down by quick detection and conscientious behavior.
If we do that right, this is the maddening part, this is the maddening part, for me, if we did the right things, for a month and a half, a month and a half, and what does that mean?
We slowdown in areas where there's a lot of case explosion. You back off some of the abilities that we have right now. I know that's not good. I'm thinking long game, OK?
Mask, social distance, hygiene, don't crowd, all right, we do those things, in the hard-hit areas, not everywhere, in the hard-hit areas, and this Federal government gets off its ass and starts like crazy to do everything it can to get the rapid testing up and going.
MAGA, MAGA, MAGA, get our manufacturing going, the way you promised, end the carnage, which is the pandemic, the way you promised, let us catch up to the U.K. and our situation will change.
If we could get that kind of rapid feedback, everything would change. We could safely send our kids back to school. This isn't me. This is his own top guy with Infectious Diseases. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The only way you're going to win the race is that when all eight are rowing in unison. You get one that catches a crab, as it were, with, an oar goes that way or don't row, you don't win.
So, as long as you have any member of society, any demographic group, who's not seriously trying to get to the end game, of suppressing this, it will continue to smolder and smolder and smolder, and that will be the reason why, in a non-unified way, we've plateaued at an unacceptable level.
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CUOMO: What is Fauci saying? The only way you get through it is together as ever as one.
And, if you want to stay with the boat metaphor, who's the coxswain? The President. He plans where we go. He sets the course. He sets the pace. Right now, he has us rowing in circles, and this boat is taking on water.
Let's bring in Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
And Sanjay, just to check one of the boxes, again, the best science we have, at this point, is this accurate?
Do kids get sick? Yes. Do they get sick as often as adults? No. Do they tend to have lighter symptoms or be asymptomatic as much or more than adults? Yes. Over the age of 10, do they transmit the virus as easily as adults? Yes.
Is that - am I wrong about any of that?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: No. That's what the data shows.
And I'll just put one more number in there, Chris. We were looking this up today. There's about - between 250,000 and 350,000 kids, people under the age of 18, who have become infected with this virus since the beginning, so in - here in the United States.
So, it's a significant number of young people who have been carrying this virus, and 18-year-olds to 29-year-olds, slightly older, make up one of the greatest sort of majorities when it comes to overall infections. So, yes, everything you said is right, and they can transmit, just like adults, if they're 10 and older.
CUOMO: And if anything, the need for testing is even more sensitive in that population because they can't give you the feedback. They don't know whether they're sick or not half the time. So, now they're going to expose.
You saw the latest numbers, right, that in certain school districts, where they're measuring, up to a third of their teaching and staff--
GUPTA: Yes. CUOMO: --population, either themselves or have someone there in direct care-of who are vulnerable. So, you have to be able to detect quickly there, or you're just setting yourself up for disaster.
GUPTA: You have to be able to test. I mean, this is the thing. Even if you look at those original gating criteria that came out in April, they talked about the fact that OK, we want to see a 14-day downward trend.
And think about your own communities you hear about this, a 14-day downward trend in overall numbers, a 14-day downward trend in these types of symptoms, you want to have positivity rates going down for 14 days.
And, at the bottom, the last gating criteria was, you got to make sure you have adequate testing, and that usually means being able to test large groups of people, who are entering into society again. And schools fit that bill. Most schools can't do this right now, Chris. I mean--
CUOMO: Believe me!
GUPTA: --months of talking about it--
CUOMO: I know!
GUPTA: --and schools still can't test.
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CUOMO: I mean I'm hearing it. Look, and what I said, I just don't see any better outcome than most of the populations, where you have significant density in cases. You're lucky if your kids' going to be back part time.
And, let me tell you, is it better than nothing? Yes, depends on how you look at it. But kids are going to be behind. And inequities and inequalities that exist in our society are going to be exacerbated by this. And it doesn't have to happen.
The U.K. approved. It's not like they're the tip of the spear of scientific development. They were able to do this. They did it in less than two months, why can't we?
GUPTA: Yes. And the other thing I'll point out, Chris, I think that there is, over the next few weeks, and you and I have been talking about testing for some time, I think the message is starting to get heard.
I had a lot of calls today about testing. There will be some emergency use authorizations increasing for what is known as antigen testing. We could talk a lot about that at some point. But antigen testing gives you quicker results. It's cheaper and all that. The problem is that--
CUOMO: Accuracy.
GUPTA: --it's not as sensitive - yes, accuracy. So, how do you solve that problem?
Well what they're saying is you can do more of them. And if you're able to test more frequently, it's still not going to be a perfect system, but you're going to start to reduce your sort of disparity in terms of accuracy. So, that's one way to sort of tackle this, and continue to iterate to make these tests more accurate at the same time.
The answer is not to say, "Hey, look, we just don't have enough tests. You're going to have to sort of predict whether or not you have this and guess." That's not going to work.
And you've already seen, where I live here in Georgia, you hear about schools on the second day, kids test positive. Bunches of groups are quarantined.
CUOMO: Got 250 staffs--
GUPTA: 260 people.
CUOMO: Yes. 250 are home.
GUPTA: And then--
CUOMO: Sick or quarantining. I mean--
GUPTA: That's what's - that's the situation right now.
CUOMO: And a lot of them, you're not even going to know for a week.
So, the idea of a 14-day trailing average is actually getting protracted when you think about it because you don't get test results for five days, seven days, 10 days, in some of the cases. So, how do you get 14 days when you don't even know for five days, seven days or 10 days?
Now, on the science side, just very quickly, in terms of our evolving understanding, we think about antibodies. You see people losing antibodies that seem somewhat in correspondence or correlation with what degree of symptoms.
Now we're talking about T cells.
GUPTA: That's right.
CUOMO: Fauci said T cell immunity might explain why some people already have protection against COVID, even if they didn't have it, and they don't have antibodies.
Difference between T cells, and antibodies, and why we care?
GUPTA: Yes, this is fascinating. Antibodies are easily measurable. Everyone's heard about antibodies. Now, those are the cells that actually go bind to the virus.
T cells are sort of the core sort of component of the sort of the adaptive or memory immune system. They sort of trigger everything. They have components that can actually go and go after the virus itself, but typically they'll start antibody production. They'll start the immune system sort of revved up.
If you have T cell reactivity, what that means is that the T cells are already sort of primed, they're ready to go. As soon as it sees the virus, it can start to rev up that immune system and stop the infection.
Now, why would somebody have T cell reactivity that's never been exposed to the Coronavirus? That's been a big question lately.
And what seems to be the case is that if you've had exposure to other Coronaviruses, many of which cause common cold like symptoms, you may have T cell reactivity as a result of that.
And what some studies are showing, Chris, is that up to 40 percent of the population, we just study still, but 40 percent of the population may have some component of T cell reactivity. So, this could be very good news.
CUOMO: Yes.
GUPTA: We don't know yet. We got to see how effective these T cells would be. But it could mean that there is more immunity out there circulating than we realize.
CUOMO: And it would be an answer to the question of people we all have in our lives, who say, "You know, I had a little something. But I just had the test"--
GUPTA: That's right.
CUOMO: --"and I don't have the antibodies."
And maybe they have the T cells. We'll see. We're evolving our understanding. We learn as we go. What we know already, the faster you get results back, and the more you test, the better chance you have of ending this soon and helping our kids.
Sanjay, thank you very much, brother, I'll talk to you soon.
GUPTA: You got it, Chris.
CUOMO: All right, look, again--
GUPTA: OK, buddy, take care.
CUOMO: --you got to keep saying it, because we're not attacking it enough.
If we could test people, and get results, in under a couple of hours, like they're doing in the U.K., this isn't pie in the sky, think about how it would change, where we can go, and what we can do.
Work, totally different, if you're able to track in that kind of time, and separate people out, and figure out who's healthy and who's not.
School, that is the big obstacle for getting kids back right now, new possibilities in all the major areas just because of that. So, the question becomes, why can the U.K. have it and we can't?
Governors are done waiting. Ohio's Governor is among them. What they are forced to do and why they are doing it, next.
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CUOMO: Seven states are coming together to get rapid tests. Now, they include governors from both parties, why? Why didn't they do this sooner? What were they waiting for?
One of the governors involved is Governor Mike DeWine, Republican from Ohio. You've seen him on the show often.
Governor, welcome back to PRIME TIME.
GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): Thanks, Chris. Good to be back.
CUOMO: What is the basic answer to my question? What were you, and Governor Hogan in Maryland, and others, waiting for that you've decided "It's not going to happen, we have to do it?"
DEWINE: Well I think all of us have been reaching out. I know, in Ohio, we're doing everything we can. We're trying to build our own testing capability with our own labs, frankly, working with universities, working with hospitals.
We're also been contracting with anybody that will contract with this, and - but there's shortages. There's shortages of all kinds of things.
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And so, when we started talking to several companies, about this antigen testing, this quick testing, Larry Hogan called me, and he said, "Hey, I know you're talking to some of them. We're talking to some of them. Why don't we go together, and let's just get a number of states?"
So, we've got Michigan, and a number of other states. They're coming together. And the whole idea is to be able to guarantee them, "Hey, we're going to buy a lot of these, and we're going to buy a lot of these, as long as we're in this virus. So, ramp up, we'll give you the contract, and let's get going."
CUOMO: So, you guys are designing what's called an output contract, which is where a company can rely, that if they can make a certain number of their product, in this case, the tests, they will be bought, and that is going to be a shared responsibility by the treasuries of the different states. That's the easy part of the mechanism.
The hard part of the mechanism is the political will. And look, I think you've been very good at being sensitive to Party and President. You don't go looking to pick fights.
But I really do believe things have changed, Gov. And if we don't call this for what it is, you're going to wind up doing everything by yourself. And we both know it's insufficient and it's the long way home.
The President says, "I've given DeWine, and Hogan, everything they ask for. It's about them. They stink at their job. It is not about me. We're doing everything we can."
Now, Governor, isn't that untrue?
DEWINE: Well, I don't think he's said "We stink at our job." I haven't heard that anyway. But look--
CUOMO: He has said "The governors aren't doing the job. I've given them everything they asked for."
That includes you. I respect your decency. But I think it's got to be mixed with candor, Gov. Otherwise, people are not going to get why you need to do what you're doing.
DEWINE: We're doing what we're doing because it's the best way to go get these - this. And look, we're going many different ways that I've said.
We're trying to build our own capacity. We've doubled the testing in Ohio. We're averaging now about 22,000 a day. But look, we ought to be double that. And we ought to double it--
CUOMO: Yes, at least.
DEWINE: --we ought to double it again. So look, what - I heard what you said in the earlier part of the show.
If we had enough testing, it would be the freedom that people want. It would take away the questions about going back to school. In Ohio, we've let our school districts make their own decision. 635 school districts, they're all making their own decision.
A lot of them, the urban ones, where we've seen the most spread, they're the ones that are going online. And we have other schools that are doing that. We have other schools that are going to try to start back in.
And so, but if we had more testing, we could do a lot of things with more testing. We can save a lot of lives.
CUOMO: Yes.
DEWINE: But we also can allow people to do more things in their lives that they want to do.
CUOMO: And you guys are partnering with "The Rockefeller Foundation." They've had their own plan for a while.
DEWINE: Yes.
CUOMO: We've talked to them on the show. They make this point also.
The Federal government is the biggest pocket. They are the ones who could not only use the Emergency, the Production Act that they have at their disposal, but they have the biggest pocket.
They could be doing this for the states. They could have created their own supply. And they haven't. And "The Rockefeller Foundation" has been clear about that. That's where it should have begun.
And now, you have your own State, saying, they don't even want to use the Federal numbers because they don't think they're tracking them fairly in terms of testing.
I mean, how is the Federal government not part of your problem?
DEWINE: Chris, I think when this thing is over, you and I have talked about this before, one of the lessons is going to be that we have neglected public health.
And Democrats and Republicans have done it. Everybody has done it. We've neglected public health. We've done it - we neglected it at the State levels, all the states, we've neglected it at the Federal level. We can't let this happen again.
But we're in this now. We're right in it. We're trying to play catch- up ball. As I said, we doubled our testing in the last six weeks in Ohio. But we've got to double it again and then double it again.
CUOMO: Because you haven't had your response time.
DEWINE: And we're doing everything that we--
CUOMO: Right? That's the coefficient here. And I'm not faulting you. I get the realities of testing.
DEWINE: Well--
CUOMO: I hear about them in the State all the time. But you're testing more--
DEWINE: Well it's-- CUOMO: --but the results are still taking a long time because they're not quick tests.
DEWINE: Well, they're not quick tests.
CUOMO: Right.
DEWINE: Some of the - some of the tests are coming back in 24/48 hours.
CUOMO: Few.
DEWINE: Some of them, particularly with the commercial labs - no, it's more than that. But some of them are six days or seven days or eight days. That's not satisfactory at all. But it's not just the length of time, Chris, as you know.
CUOMO: Accuracy.
DEWINE: It's the number of tests and the--
CUOMO: Yes.
DEWINE: Well it's not just accuracy. It is accuracy. But it's the number of tests that we can do. So, we've got to double what we have. And we got to do it very, very quickly.
CUOMO: I know. And you'd be doing it a lot faster with the Federal government.
Again, I don't care about Trump. I don't care about the President. I don't care who the President is. What I care about is that more and more communities, like the ones you're seeing in your State, where our kids are now losing.
It's not just us. It's not just economic productivity. It's not just "We can't hang out." It's not just that our teenagers are pissed at us. The kids are going to fall behind now because of this. And it didn't have to be this way.
And still, within six weeks to eight weeks, we can get where the U.K. is. They turned an entire country around, in terms of testing in two months.
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You're not at fault, Gov. But you're trying to figure out a solution when it should have been provided for you. That's all I'm saying. I wish you well. You are always welcome on the show to make the case. And I hope the consortium works--
DEWINE: Thanks, Chris.
CUOMO: --and grows.
DEWINE: Thank you. Good to be with you. CUOMO: Be well, Governor.
DEWINE: Thank you.
CUOMO: And look, I feel for the governors. I feel for the governors. Because you go at the Federal government, you go at Trump, you lose. He'll find some way to make you pay. He'll call you out. He'll frustrate your existence. I get it.
But we're all frustrated in our existence, because we're not doing the things we could. It shouldn't be seven states. It should be 50.
Now, the election, this is all going to culminate in an election, right? Well, let me tell you something. If you care about the election, you have to care about the process. And you better be paying attention to mail-in voting. Why? It is the key for people who are afraid to go to the polls.
The President fears, mail-in voting will mean more participation, and participation by those who do not like him. So, he is against it, except where he thinks it might help him. Yes, that is the truth, and that is the hypocrisy. It's that obvious.
I can prove it. And I can help you understand how big mail-in voting will be, in determining the next President, next.
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CUOMO: The President is on a crusade against mail-in voting, kind of. Look, what he's doing is as stupid as it is dangerous. That's not even an opinion, all right? And here's the proof.
First and foremost, this is a danger, in terms of your life, why? Well we've seen too many times, during this pandemic, people, usually Black and Brown, standing in long lines, risking their health to vote.
But since we know that apparently doesn't matter to this President, because he keeps encouraging you to do things that are bad for you, it's also dangerous in terms of his political survival, why?
He's pinning this whole nonsense on a distinction without a difference. Listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Absentee voting, great. But this mail-in voting where they mail, indiscriminately, millions and millions of ballots to people, you're never going to know who won the election. You can't have that.
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CUOMO: This is what we call a baseless assertion, meaning, he has no proof, why? Because what he's discussing has never happened. And we have mail-in ballots in every cycle.
Now, if you are so worried about getting the ballots right, why not, Mr. President, tell your big-money donor, who you gifted the job of Post Office, to make it easier, not harder, to get ballots delivered faster? While you're at it, tell Senate Republicans to approve the money, the Post Office desperately needs, to ensure exactly this type of responsibility.
Now, here's my bigger point. "Absentee, great! Mail-in, bad!" That's what the President wants you to believe. Wrong!
First of all, depending on what State you live in, one could mean the other. Some states use the terms interchangeably. Generally, absentee just means you're not in the County where you live on Election Day. Mail-in covers any system where you send your ballot through the mail.
Now, for the majority of the country, that doesn't even matter. You can vote by mail, no matter the reason. Some places, you have to have a conviction - condition, some states are dealing with that right now, especially because of the pandemic.
But this idea that one of these two mail-in methods is somehow ripe with fraud, and the other is perfectly safe, is just BS. Again, this has been studied time and again. There is no incident of substantial voter fraud. Even his own, phony mail fraud commission couldn't find anything. They had to disband it.
Now, while we're at it, his own Intel guys, and the FEC, the Federal Election Commission or Committee, whatever it is, they've both said his theories are fugazi.
But what about Paterson, New Jersey, you say? Three men have been charged, you say, with messing around during a City Council election.
Yes, and to be fair, the case is still working its case through the system. But let's assume they did it. I argue to you, it shows the exact opposite of what he's using it for. He's saying, "See, it's broken."
Now, I'm saying, "No, look it works." They cheated, theoretically, right, allegedly, but they got caught. Why? Because that's the rule, when it comes to voting by mail. There's a whole lot more security.
Once your ballot is in the mail, it makes no difference whether it's called absentee, or mail-in, and they have better ways of catching you. How? Protocols, signature, bar code, verification, envelope tracking, they're all already in place, OK?
So, if anything, it's safer. And in the places that have those things, I include Nevada, which for some reason, the President took time to hammer today.
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TRUMP: If you look at what they're doing in Nevada, no signature. You take a look at the signature, and there's no verification of signature.
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CUOMO: Oh, yes? Then why, just in the last month's primary, did Nevada toss out more than 6,000 ballots because the signatures weren't exact? Fact, OK? Another fact, no election has ever suffered from significant mail fraud, as he wants you to believe.
The irony, you know what has been cited for fraud numerous times, Trump and his businesses. That's real. He's had to settle a lot of cases about fraud. But our balloting has no similar contagion. Facts versus someone cited for fraud.
Then, the way states are currently set up, listen to this, the way they're currently set up actually helps Trump, why?
Well we know the ballots that get tossed out, the most, tend to come from who? Young voters and minorities, why? There's a whole theory about it. Who gets tossed out the least? Older people and White voters. Now, what works better for his base?
Not that the political reality is stopping this President from ranting about all this to the Fox and Friendlies to - but I got to give him credit. He can get a message through to his people. He's a tremendous communicator. But that message is actually suppressing his own voters.
Voting by mail traditionally is pretty evenly split between the two parties.
But, this year, because he keeps bashing mail-in voting, like he did masks, just like his people won't wear masks, even though it's good for their own health, they're saying that they don't want to vote by mail, even though it may be good for their own health.
Democrats are jumping at the chance. It's especially true in Trump's new home state of Florida, which along with the fact that he's down in the polls is why he insists only Florida and now maybe Arizona should be doing vote by mail. I mean it is so obvious and ugly, that it is just sad.
Florida, home of the Hanging Chad, just the last midterm, they needed an unprecedented three statewide recounts to figure out who won. But that's the State, he says, where they can get it right, because they have a strong Republican Governor, DeSantis, the guy not being straight about the pandemic.
And all this is before you get to the year that they left 1,000 uncounted ballots in a warehouse, or when they sent out incomplete ballots, or that Russians actually did hack into their election system in two different counties. But he insists, voters there should send in your ballots.
Of the 35 states, where you can vote by mail, without an excuse, 20 have Republican Governors. Why no love for them? The answer is in the map, the electoral one.
He knows the road to re-election gets a whole lot harder without Florida and Arizona. He's blowing all of this smoke just for himself, and to your disadvantage, even if you're a Republican, even if you're a Trumper, but you don't live in the right place. And now, he's blowing his trumpet again about schools, lying about our
kids, as he goes along to get them open at any cost. Ready or not, here we come. That's where he wants us to be. Not with our schools! Not on our watch!
The largest school system in Georgia, they are ground zero for what happens, when you open up, ready or not. A teacher in the district just quit her job, so she doesn't have to be put in danger. She's here with a warning. Better heed it, next.
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CUOMO: "So, what happens if we go back to school? How bad can it be?" "Well, have you seen what's happening where they're doing it?"
Georgia, three days, after some schools reopened for in-person classes, what did they see? In the Cherokee County School District, which is just north of Atlanta, four COVID cases were reported.
"So what?" Three of them were students. The youngest was in the first grade. Another is in a kindergarten teacher. "So what? Three kids and a student? So, what?"
Well what happens to the other kids in each one of those classes? What happens to their families? What happens to the staff who are in there? What happens to the teachers? Permutations, exponential! And how long did it take to get those responses to the tests? How many days of contact in the middle? See, all those goes into the analysis. Now, you got a mess.
Meanwhile, this is the scene in one Georgia high school. Students are packing the hallways. Few have masks, why?
Because this is what happens, when you don't have a better plan. This is how we behave, because it's how we know how to behave. So, it's begging more questions on safety. They now have 250 students and staff sick or quarantining in the State.
And yet, as we saw last week, people remain divided on the how? Parents, last week, protested in Gwinnett County, Georgia's largest school district, for in-person learning, even though 260 employees have tested positive or recently been exposed.
In light of this, the County is calling for teachers to begin working in schools, even as classes kick off virtually next week. Now, one teacher says that requirement has given her no choice but to resign, because there's no plan in place to keep her safe.
Ashley Newman is that teacher in Georgia, and we welcome her here.
That sucks that you had to quit your job. You're young. I know you love the job.
ASHLEY NEWMAN, TEACHER WHO RESIGNED OVER WORK-FROM-HOME BATTLE: To save it, yes (ph).
CUOMO: I know that you worked a lot of - a lot of time and went to a lot of school to get the job.
NEWMAN: Absolutely.
CUOMO: Why is this, your only choice?
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NEWMAN: My daughter. I have a 4-year-old. And I don't feel comfortable sending her back because the cases are skyrocketing in Gwinnett County. We have over 18,000 just in our County right now and--
CUOMO: Your President says, "Don't worry. Your kid will be fine if she gets it. Their immune systems are very strong. And you wash your hands. Put a mask on, if you want. You'll be OK."
NEWMAN: We don't know that for sure. A lot of kids have been home with someone, since March, because they haven't been in school. And my honest opinion is that we don't have enough research to really back that statement yet. And that's where I'm at.
CUOMO: What's the plan in your school right now?
NEWMAN: So, I recently resigned. The plan in the district is to push forward, get back to face-to-face, starting at the end of August. And the County's saying that "Oh, well, we're watching, and we're talking to the health experts."
Well the truth is that Harvard weighed in on our County, and they said, "No, that's absolutely not the case that they have too many cases per day per 100,000 people that they should be under a stay-at- home order right now. No one should be going to school in Gwinnett County."
CUOMO: What's the deal with testing?
NEWMAN: The testing is slow here. The testing is taking time. It depends on where you go. It depends on - it really - it's luck of the draw at the moment and--
CUOMO: What are you hearing about turnaround times for tests?
NEWMAN: Anywhere between - I got it done in a day. And it took me nine days, 10 days to get my results back.
CUOMO: And in terms of going back to school, how many kids in a class?
NEWMAN: Generally 30 in elementary.
CUOMO: Still, now? They weren't going to cut the class size down?
NEWMAN: Well, it depended on who signed up for digital learning, and who signed up for in-person.
This whole argument about it being teachers versus parents is nonsense. That's not the reality that we're actually dealing with. This is a community issue. This is because we're getting constant changes to what we should be doing, and none of it is data-driven.
I'm a data-driven educator. And Gwinnett's known for being data- driven. And we're not given any research or any information or who they're talking to about these major decisions. It's just, "Here's a new change. Deal with it."
CUOMO: You are a teacher and a parent.
NEWMAN: Yes.
CUOMO: So, you would be checking both boxes. I mean, your kid's a little young. You're - well although four years of age, you probably started her in school too. So, what are you going to do with her school-wise?
NEWMAN: Well, my husband and I didn't feel comfortable sending her back. So, we're going to keep her home. And I'm going to keep an eye on her.
And, at the moment, my plan is to keep advocating for the educators that are not being heard.
We ran a peaceful car protest at the Central Office today. And their response was that "Our students are our - are our biggest - our biggest audience, they're the people we need to be supporting." And my question is, "Why not teachers as well?" Why can't we support
everybody? Why can't we do what's best for the community, so that this domino effect finally stops?
CUOMO: Would it make a difference to you, if they could get test results back in 90 minutes confirmed, and that you could test the entire class every day?
NEWMAN: That would be - that would be ideal, of course.
But the other issue that we're facing here, in Gwinnett, is that we're not knowing about where the cases are taking place. They're putting it under the umbrella of medical liability, and we're not allowed to know where these - where the outbreaks are taking place.
So, it's all word of mouth with teachers right now. The County won't announce where these situations are taking place.
CUOMO: Now you got people like you, not that rare a species, by the way, teacher and parent, where even if you found a new job where, in a school, where they were testing, well some private school, a Catholic school, something like that, Christian school, you may not even be able to take the job because your kid's going to be home.
NEWMAN: Right.
CUOMO: Because you're not care - you'll feel like taking her to school.
So listen, I feel very badly about your situation, Ashley.
NEWMAN: Thank you.
CUOMO: And I want you to stay in touch with us, about which way it goes for you, what you're seeing in your community and what you're hearing.
NEWMAN: Absolutely.
CUOMO: And we wish that you find a good solution for yourself and your daughter and soon.
NEWMAN: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. We'll stay in touch.
CUOMO: No, I appreciate you. Thank you for being a teacher, Ashley Newman.
Can you believe we're in this mess, just because we can't get our act together and get the right kinds of testing? Now she's got to derail her own life, leave her kid home?
And, at the same time, imagine having to deal with this, and racism, all in one experience for you and your family? That is the reality for an innocent Black family that was pulled out of their car in Colorado, at gunpoint, by police.
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Children put in handcuffs, forced to lie down on the ground, it was hot, by the way, on the ground, scared out of their minds, and for what? What did they do wrong? I'll give you a hint. They got an apology. But this is a story of when an apology is not enough.
We have a mother here, who wants to tell you what happened, and what it means, and how these two pandemics came together in her life, next.
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CUOMO: What I'm about to show you is disturbing. Let me set the scene.
It's Sunday. You take your 6-year-old daughter, teen nieces, and sister, out to a nail salon, for a girl's day, right? We could all use that right now. Then, out of nowhere, the cops run up on you, guns drawn, and you're all forced to lie, face-down in a parking lot.
Here's the video.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why are you doing this to me?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am--
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's kids. There's kids. They had guns drawn on kids, this is--
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CUOMO: Why? Well, turns out the car was mistaken for another stolen vehicle.
Because, you know, it's like the most common way to steal a car is to do it with a bunch of kids. That's usually how these teams work when they steal cars. I'm sure you've seen it all the time on Cops. I'm being sarcastic! Police are now apologizing to Brittney Gilliam, the only adult who you see there. She joins us along with her attorney, David Lane.
Thank you. And I am really sorry to have you on the show for this. I should have had you on the show for how people try to make good times during bad times in a pandemic. But, this brought us here.
First and foremost, Brittney, how are the little ones? How's the 6- year-old and then how are they - were they 12-year-old, 14-year-old, 17-year-old, how are they doing? Are they eating? Are they sleeping? How are they handling this?
BRITTNEY GILLIAM, MOTHER HANDCUFFED AT GUNPOINT WITH FOUR CHILDREN IN VEHICLE: They rarely eat. They rarely sleep. They are very in a traumatic state right now. So, it's not even just like how they're doing, because they're not doing good, at all.
I mean, who would? What kid would, what child would, what parent would in that particular position?
CUOMO: Who adult would? I mean, how are you doing?
GILLIAM: I have overwhelmed - overwhelmed with emotions right now. Besides being traumatized, by everything that happened, and having to see those kids go through that, not only me, but those kids, I'm traumatized. I'm not OK. I've got so many other different emotions going in my body right now. It's hard to swing.
CUOMO: What's the hardest part for you emotionally?
GILLIAM: I guess, trying to balance everything out, like hearing the video, it's like you feel powerless.
As a parent, you try to protect your child at every cost. And those were my kids. In that particular moment, those were my kids. And I felt powerless. I felt dehumanized. And I couldn't protect them, from anything that was going on. And it was all over a mistake.
CUOMO: What did you think was going to happen?
GILLIAM: I thought like one of us was going to seriously get hurt, one of the kids or me going to get hurt, because they came in with their guns drawn.
I felt like it - my life was flashing before my eyes like it's very difficult to put yourself in that pot of racism that happened that - and that it happened. But I have to put myself in that pot that I might not live another day, these kids might not live another day, over a mistake.
CUOMO: So, let's talk about the mistake. Tell us what happened.
GILLIAM: So, I was taking the girls to have like a little Sunday Fun Day. And we decided to go to the nail shop.
Now, when we had first got there, I didn't call the particular nail shop down. It was like down the street from the house. So, we just pulled up in the parking lot, in what is the same parking lot as the art goods store and the McDonald's.
And I had my niece go get out and check because, like I said before, I didn't call. So, she went to go - she got out the car, and went to go check, and see like if the nail shop was open, and she came back in the car, was like, "No it's not - it's not open."
So, I'm scrolling, I looked down, scrolling through my phone, and I'm like searching for other places to go. I find another place to go, and I call it like "Hey, can you get four people or five people in for this place (ph)," they tell me "Yes." So, I was trying to get ready to leave.
But then, before I did that, like I was just like, "Wait, give me a second." I'll park the car like the car was already in parked. And I rolled the windows down, and I turned the vehicle off.
So then, the kids were like, I just heard - I just seen a gentleman on my left side. And he looked at me, and he said something like "I'm going to record." And then first, I'm just thinking like "I don't know what he's talking about. But OK," like "Go ahead, record what you like."
But then like, I put my head, back down in my phone, and my niece starts screaming. I'm - so then I heard like "What's going on? What's going on? What's wrong dude?" And she's like "The police!" I said, "OK, what about the police?" She said, "They're behind us."
"Well they're probably just doing their - some type of an investigation. I'm not going to go looking or bother getting out the car, go look for anything and cause trouble." So, she's like "No, they've got - they have their guns drawn on us."
And so, I still happen to look out the window, and like I yell out at the officer, "Why do you have your guns drawn? What is going on?"
