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Hundred Dead, Hundreds Missing After Massive Explosion in Beirut; Homeless Americans Among Most Vulnerable in Pandemic; New York Times: Republicans Aid Kanye West's Bid to Get on 2020 Ballot. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired August 05, 2020 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Fire through different schools, through households. And so, I mean, I know that, that is I'm sure what school administrators are looking at, but it's not what parents are looking at, because they also see the harmful effects on keeping their kids at home.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: That's exactly right. And the economic impact on certain populations, and if kids get left behind. So Israel made a mistake because it assumed it could go back to the way it was. So let's be clear here. Number one, we are in the risk reduction phase. We are not in the risk elimination phase. Almost anything we do, we have to be able to pivot if there is a breakout.

The second is, we're not going back. So the idea of opening schools, the way President Trump speaks about it, just open schools. It assumes that we're going back to 2019. We're not going back. We're going through this. So that means we have to look at buildings and transportation, de-densification, masking no matter what.

A plan for if you have to go back online to limit contact intensity. So I want my kids in a classroom. I can spare a season of sports, right? You don't do football without contact intensity, singing, choir, things like that are going to have to be eliminated until we get community control. It sounds overwhelming. It was totally predictable. That's the frustrating thing for me, for people like me.

But we have unfortunately run out of time in some areas because they don't have the community-spread numbers that would make it responsible to open up schools. So we are going to look at differences in New England and New York, California is not doing it, but other places might be able to. But this was -- it could have been done, it can be done, off-calendar. So forget what September used to mean to us, maybe Summer goes through October. And we got -- we have to look at the solutions that Israel -- that Israel ignored.

CAMEROTA: Doctor, what are you seeing in your practice? What are you seeing? What are parents telling you?

EDITH BRACHO-SANCHEZ, PRIMARY CARE PEDIATRICIAN: Alisyn, I've been asking parent for the last few weeks, right? First, throughout this entire pandemic, I've been asking, do you guys have enough to eat? Are you at risk of being kicked out of your apartment? Remember in New York City where I practice, a lot of people rent apartments. And although they had been at risk, and although at times, they have not had enough to eat, when I ask them, what are you doing this Fall?

Are you sending your kids back to school? They look at me like I have lost my mind, Alisyn. And what they're starting to tell me is that they have started to quit their jobs. It is usually moms who are quitting their jobs so that they can watch their kids at home, and not only watch them, but teach them at home. Remember in New York City, they are actually giving parents the choice or it seems like they're giving parents the choice for now.

And so these parents are saying, no way, no how, I'm not changing -- I'm not sending my child to school. I'm going to do what's safest. And if that means that things are going to be even harder for my family, then that's the way it's going to be. And this is so worrisome, Alisyn, for so many reasons. And ultimately, I share Juliette's frustrations. We have failed the parents and the kids of this country. This was predictable. This could have been avoided.

KAYYEM: Yes --

CAMEROTA: Dr. Bracho-Sanchez, Juliette Kayyem, thank you both, really appreciate the current status report which is not promising. Thank you, we'll check back with both of you. So the death toll is still climbing after this huge blast in Beirut. More on the search for a cause and the search for people who are missing, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:35:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CO-ANCHOR, NEW DAY: Breaking overnight, the death toll is rising after the terrifying explosion that rocked the Lebanese capital of Beirut. The images simply horrifying. And there are new questions this morning about what exactly caused the blast. CNN international correspondent, senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman was in Beirut at the time of the explosion and is live there for us this morning. Ben, it is quite a scene in that entire city this morning.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and we're not that far from where that explosion took place shortly after 6:00 p.m. local time last night. As you can see behind me, some of the buildings simply collapsed in this neighborhood, almost every single window was shattered. There are lots of people that you see with bandages from the shattered glass. At this point, the death toll is tentatively somewhere above a 100, but they're still looking for bodies in the ruins.

More than 4,000 people killed, but this was an explosion the likes of which nobody in Beirut had ever seen before.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) WEDEMAN (voice-over): No one knows yet how many people died in

Tuesday's blast in Beirut. The destruction was so extensive, the shock wave felt across the city. The emergency services so overwhelmed, it was up to whoever could help to provide a bit of comfort to the injured. Open lots turned into field hospitals. The blasts happened just after 6:00 in the evening, with what started as a fire in a port warehouse, culminating with an explosion the likes of which war- scarred Lebanon has never seen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The whole house collapsed upon us, this woman says. In an instant lives were lost and livelihoods destroyed. Michel Haibe has come to see the wreckage of what was his electrical goods store.

MICHEL HAIBE, STORE OWNER (through translator): Forty years, says Michel, war, we've seen woes of every kind, but not like this. As if the economic crisis, coronavirus, the revolution weren't enough, this tops them all.

[07:40:00]

WEDEMAN: Life was already a struggle in Lebanon with its economy in free fall and coronavirus on the rise, and now this.

HADI SHAHLAWI, BAR OWNER: We got here an hour ago, and as you can see, it's completely and utterly destroyed. We've been open since October and we've been, you know, fighting every month with different circumstances, the economic situation, it's catastrophe. What's happening in Lebanon is catastrophic right now.

WEDEMAN: In the words of the Lebanese-American poet, (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) pity the nation. It's hot and we're tired, the city is in shock -- it's 4,000 injured. Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: All right, Ben Wedeman for us in Beirut, obviously communication is difficult. Ben was there for the blast yesterday, said he had never witnessed anything like it. Our thanks to him for being there. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: OK, John, back here in the U.S., homeless Americans are among the most vulnerable during the coronavirus pandemic. CNN's Alexandra Field has been on the streets looking into what they need. Alexandra?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, this is a perfect storm. You've got more families who have lost their jobs, making them more housing insecure. You've got families who are already on the streets or in shelters lacking economic opportunity to move into homes. And of course, if you are in a shelter or on the streets, it is as difficult as ever to keep yourself or your children safe.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FIELD (voice-over): This might be the worst time to be homeless in America.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Street medicine has become a very big part of what we do.

FIELD: And we probably haven't seen the worst of it yet. From New York with more than 92,000 homeless people to California with more than 151,000 homeless people, states and cities nationwide are scrambling to make shelters safer and cleaner, and they're sending medical teams into the streets.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just need to do everything we can to make sure that the virus is not spreading and protecting this really vulnerable population.

FIELD: In Denver, Colorado, there are COVID-19 test sites for homeless people who are less likely to be able to quarantine, isolate or access quality health care. In Phoenix, Arizona, they are fighting to solve those problems.

(on camera): If you can imagine someone that's living on the street, and life is already rough, it's Phoenix, Arizona, it's 110 degrees. And then, suddenly, they receive a diagnosis of positive for COVID. You know, what do they do next? Phoenix is unique, and that we have a place where they can go.

(voice-over): This is a hotel now run by an organization, circle the city. It's for homeless people with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 and nowhere else to go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Heart rate is 64 and your O2 is 98. Perfect.

FIELD: Ronald Wayne Patrick is here to isolate and recover.

RONALD WAYNE PATRICK, HOMELESS: I was totally devastated. Overwhelmed. I just -- I thought it was the end of my life.

FIELD: He's been homeless for 30 days. Nationwide, there are more than half a million homeless people in 2019. There are dire predictions that the economic crisis, job loss could make hundreds of thousands more people homeless in 2020.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've even been training in eviction blockades. People -- they're not going to come for any of our neighbors, I can tell you that right now.

FIELD: There's a rent strike at a building in Harlem where some tenants have banded together to learn their legal rights before moratoriums on evictions during COVID-19 expire, before more people are forced out of their homes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where are people supposed to go in the city? These are not even cheap apartments, these are very expensive apartments.

FIELD: Right --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But if you can't afford this where are you supposed to go?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The shelter system was at capacity basically, prior to COVID. Now we're going to have a new wave that's going to take crisis to a catastrophe.

FIELD: The organization Women in Need provides shelter for 4,700 people a night, 2,700 are children.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The biggest challenge has been so many of our moms losing their jobs.

FIELD: Around 30 million kids from low-income or homeless families depend on schools for free or lower-cost meals. Through COVID, some of the biggest cities kept providing free food after schools closed. Los Angeles, which will have virtual school this Fall spent $100 million on high-speed internet and computers for students in need. New York City sent an iPad with data to Zalida Cruz's daughter. But the shelter they've lived in for three years doesn't have Wi-Fi.

ZALIDA CRUZ, LIVES IN A SHELTER WITH DAUGHTER: It makes it kind of difficult for my daughter to do some of her assignments because a lot of them have to be on the internet and she won't have access to them.

FIELD: All across the country, the homeless are weathering hard times in the hardest of times.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FIELD: And the truth is this could all get worse and fast. You've got families across the country who are saying that they won't be able to make ends meet without the $600 unemployment benefit. On top of that, the largest federal moratorium on evictions was allowed to lapse at the end of July, and John, we'll start to see the effects of that at the end of August.

[07:45:00]

BERMAN: As we have seen, the impact is the worst on those who are most vulnerable. Alexandra Field, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate it. We want to remember some of the almost 157,000 Americans lost to coronavirus. Deputy Kyle Melancon served in the Ascension Parish Sheriff's Department in Louisiana for more than seven years in his correctional and transportation divisions. The department says he succumbed to the virus after several weeks, leaving behind a wife and children.

Former NFL and offensive tackle James Tootie Robbins died of coronavirus at the age of 62. His niece said he died Sunday in Arizona. Robbins played 12 seasons with the Green Bay Packers and the then St. Louis Cardinals starting in 1982. He started in 147 games. Fifty-year-old firefighter paramedic James Padico(ph) served the Houston Fire Department for more than 16 years. The department says he's the second Houston firefighter to die of coronavirus.

His son Justin is also a Houston firefighter. Our thoughts are with them this morning. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:50:00]

BERMAN: So there are reports this morning that Republican operatives in Wisconsin are working to get Kanye West on the ballot for president. Wisconsin is one of the key states in the presidential race, President Trump won there in 2016 by a razor-thin margin. A "New York Times" reports this morning that four-known Republican activists are working to get West on ballots around the country. Joining me now is Stuart Stevens; a Republican strategist for the Romney and Bush campaign as well as the author of the newly-released book "It Was All a Lie: How The Republican Party Became Donald Trump".

Stuart, it's great to have you with us this morning. And I want to talk extensively about the book, and what's interesting about the news we just reported is, is you really write about this type of situation in your book. What does this represent? What do people need to know about what's happening there if these Republican operatives who presumably support Trump are working to get West on the ballot in Wisconsin?

STUART STEVENS, AUTHOR: You know, this is all a function of what happened in 1964 when Republicans basically lost support of African- Americans. In 1956, Eisenhower got upwards of 40 percent of the African-American vote, and then it fell off a clip to 7 percent for Goldwater. It never came back. And a whole sort of series of events and developments have flowed from that reality. Republicans have been trying to get African-Americans without success for decades.

I mean, I was part of that effort and I would have to say I failed. We used to talk about how this was a failure. How we needed a big tent. Ken Mehlman went to the NAACP in 2005 as chairman of the GOP and apologized for the southern strategy of Nixon which tried to divert votes of the African-American communities away from the Democratic Party.

But now we seem to have just sort of fallen into this light grievance comfortableness. So the thinking of this is the most that a Republican is going to get like Donald Trump is going to get to say, 8, 9, 10 percent. So then every African-American vote that can be diverted away from Senator Biden is a vote basically that's been saved for Donald Trump. And when you look at Wisconsin, John, it's particularly interesting because in 2012, Romney lost Wisconsin by 7 points, Trump won in 2016 by just under 1 point as you said.

But the reality is Mitt Romney got more votes than Donald Trump. The difference was that 50,000 fewer voters showed up in the greater Milwaukee area, and most of those went on to the Democratic candidate.

BERMAN: So the book "It Was All A Lie: How The Republican Party Became Donald Trump" which is a really interesting read, Stuart, the premise is people say oh, Donald Trump hijacked the Republican Party. You say no. You say Donald Trump revealed what the Republican Party had already become. How so? STEVENS: Well, there's really been this tension in the Republican

Party and I trace that in the post-World War II era that existed today. Eisenhower, McCarthy. There were those we first met John in the Bush campaign in 1999. We were convinced as we tried to formulate a new compassionate conservatism that the party could be led to as his father said a kinder, gentler place. That's proven to be wrong.

I went through a stage of first not thinking that Donald Trump was going to win because I didn't want to believe this about the party, and then when he did win, telling myself, oh, this isn't really the Republican Party. But I don't really think that's sustainable in any sort of rationale way. I mean, Donald Trump says he has 95 percent favorability in the Republican Party, that's an exaggeration, but say it's 88 percent, 89 percent. Republican Party is the party that endorsed Joy Moore(ph).

I think we have to come to that reality. And there seems to be absolutely no attempt to change the party. To reach out, to admit mistakes. You know, the same weekend that my home state of Mississippi, it's very moving to many of us took down the Mississippi flag which is basically the Confederate battle flag. The most southern state, the most southern capital, Donald Trump basically was trying to raise it over the White House, defending the Confederate flag.

[07:55:00]

I mean, the Republican Party now has managed to get itself on the wrong side of a cultural war with NASCAR and Wal-Mart. That's a bleak picture of where the party is and the future of the party.

BERMAN: So, it's interesting because on the very first page of the book, you say, Stuart, blame me. Blame me --

STEVENS: Yes --

BERMAN: You know, you take personal responsibility. And as you said, I first met you I think in 1999 when I was covering the Bush campaign, I've covered you running or working on I think four different presidential candidates and some Senate campaigns as well. I never had the sense you were doing it under duress.

STEVENS: No, listen, it's part of the process of writing this book. I wanted to -- I thought it was important that I not blame -- like this was something that happened that I wasn't involved in. I mean, I was right there. You saw me, I was part of this. And I think that if one of the principles that we thought was a bedrock principle to the Republican Party was personal responsibility, and that's been completely thrown out the window now with Donald Trump.

I don't know where else to begin to restore that except with personal responsibility. And I look back on this and I worked for people that I liked, that I was proud that they won. I think they were good people, but there was sort of a collective failure to acknowledge what was happening with the party and what they mean. And the sort of inevitability of a candidate like Donald Trump who could harvest this white grievance and ride it to the White House. BERMAN: You're in --

STEVENS: I think you're indeed, sure.

BERMAN: You're advising now Project Lincoln. You admit you're not a central key player in it, but you're an adviser, and it's a group of Republicans who are producing ads around the country to try to help defeat Donald Trump. We can play a little bit of one now if people haven't seen them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These are the memories COVID took from us. A child's birthday. Time spent with friends. A first kiss.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So Stuart, what's interesting to me about Project Lincoln is it gets a lot of coverage and I hear a lot about it. But the people I'm hearing about it from are all liberals. They're all people who are going to vote against Donald Trump anyway. So Project Lincoln in this effort you're involved with albeit tangentially, why do you think it will impact Republican voters?

STEVENS: Well, it's already impacted the race. You know, during this period of greatest vulnerability for the Biden campaign was the last couple of months. This is a period in which President Obama really hammered Mitt Romney. Bill Clinton as incumbent president hammered Bob Dole. You have president of the United States out there attacking the Lincoln Project. It's I think successfully destabilized that campaign. It's -- they're obsessed with this.

They talk about it. And they haven't been able to articulate a coherent argument against Vice President Biden. And I think we've played a small role in that. Look, you know, we don't confuse what we're doing with any personal nobility. We're political consultants. You know, when they attack us, we wouldn't vote for ourselves either. But we have some skills.

We know how to do some stuff. And we have sort of three choices here, right? Neither support Trump, well, that's not going to happen. We neither do nothing which seems like the wrong thing to do. But we try to use these skills that we have to defeat Donald Trump. And that's what we're doing and we wake up every day doing it. And I think we're having an impact. I think we're going to continue to have an impact, and all we can do is try to make a difference.

BERMAN: A question for you here. And you note in the book that even when you were advising Republican presidential candidates, they didn't listen to you for advice on vice presidential picks. So there's some irony in what I'm about to ask you here. But I'm curious as a lapsed Republican or maybe, you know, one of these voters that Biden might be able to get from the middle, in this case, he has got your vote. Which possible vice presidential selection do you think would be the best for him? STEVENS: Look, you know, I believe that you should pick a vice

president if possible who has run for president before. There's something unique about that process that is testing, the vetting process is unique when you run. I would pick Senator Harris. To me, this entire race is going o revolve around the percentage of the vote that will be non-white vote.

And I think the Trump campaign understands that. That's why they're trying to do everything they can, legal, extra legal, quasi-legal, to suppress and reduce the non-white vote. So I think you have a historic opportunity to pick an African-American woman of great achievement. And I think not picking her would have a negative impact.

That to me, you know, I think by now -- I think it's such a personal choice.

BERMAN: Right --

STEVENS: That I think Vice President Biden will assume he's going to win and pick a governing choice. But that would be my advice.

BERMAN: Stuart Stevens, as you said, I've known you since 1999 when I was 6 and you were 12. I appreciate you being with us this morning. The book is "It Was All a Lie: How The Republican Party Became Donald Trump", appreciate it, Stuart.