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New Day

Floyd Family Speak Out; Businesses Scramble in Texas after the Mandate is Lifted; February Jobs Numbers; Asian-American Hate Crime Surges During Pandemic. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired March 05, 2021 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And we were able to speak with Benjamin Crump, the attorney for the Floyd family, and Philonise Floyd, who talked about what he thought the jury should pay the most attention to.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHILONISE FLOYD, GEORGE FLOYD'S BROTHER: The video is enough. There's nothing else to talk about. You can make a judgment off of that because Chauvin showed you he was the judge, the jury and the executioner all at once, right then and there, when he took my brother's soul from his body.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: So he is talking very much about the video that the world has seen, that also caused the largest civil rights protest across the entire world.

We should also mention that the Floyd family and Benjamin Crump were supposed to be here in Washington as a bill in George Floyd's name, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, went through the House and went up for a vote. The House did actually pass that bill, which does several things, including banning, for example, no-knock warrants. But they were not able to be here, partly because Congress closed down on Thursday -- that was supposed to happen Thursday.-- because of threats and the potentiality of a mass rally by QAnon believers. But they were very happy to hear that that bill did pass through the House. They know that there may be an uphill battle in the Senate. But Philonise Floyd said he has a message about the bill that is named after his brother.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FLOYD: You need police, you know, but we also, we need an understanding that we shouldn't have to engage with you, we shouldn't have to do certain things like fear for our lives. We shouldn't have to do that. And just like they made federal law to protect a bird which is the bald eagle, you can make federal laws to protect people of color. America needs to be healed right now. Our nation needs healing. So

I've come to anybody who want to make social change and want to stop systemic racism, we need to get together because we're stronger in numbers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: And he has put together a charity to do just that. He's been doing a lot of work just after his brother's funeral. He was here in Congress asking them to pass a bill to do something to try and heal the divide between the black community and police.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Sara Sidner, obviously the next few weeks will be so interesting. We're going to lean on you a lot for your reporting during this time.

Thank you for being with us.

Small business owners across Texas expressing anger and uncertainty after the governor announced that he's ending the state's mask mandate and capacity limits. They're now scrambling to protect their workers on the front lines.

CNN's Ed Lavandera live in San Antonio.

This puts pressure on people right now, Ed, who just don't need it.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we've spoken with many business owners who feel exactly that way, that essentially what the governor has done is shifted enforcement from government entities to small business owners. But the governor here in Texas continues to defend his actions.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA (voice over): Several days a week, you'll find Humbelina and Florencio Gonzales working inside this thrift store in the south Texas town of Alice. The shop's profits fund a food pantry that feeds hundreds of people. The couple is bracing for next week's end of the state-sanctioned mask-wearing mandate. They're volunteers, not mask wearing police, but they know exactly how they're going to handle their customers.

HUMBELINA GONZALES, VOLUNTEER, TRASH & TREASURE: If they don't want to wear a mask, they aren't allowed to come in. That's the way I see it. And that's how I am going to pursue it that way.

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): This must end.

LAVANDERA: Without consulting most of his medical advisers, Republican Governor Greg Abbott says because of lower positivity rates and the vaccine rollout, it's time to fully reopen the Texas economy and lift the mask mandate. While the number of people hospitalized with COVID- 19 is dropping, the state still has one of the highest hospitalization rates in the country.

ABBOTT: Texans have mastered the daily habits to avoid getting COVID.

LAVANDERA: Missy Herring says in her south Texas embroidery and print shop, the mask mandate was always ignored. She's celebrating the governor's announcement.

MISSY HERRING, SMALL BUSINESS OWNER, CREATING PRINTING AND MORE: I was tickled to death.

LAVANDERA (on camera): If you go into a grocery store and the grocery store requires a mask, will you be wearing it?

HERRING: No, no, because it's against my rights.

LAVANDERA: Do you think mask wearing has kept the pandemic from getting worse?

HERRING: No. Everybody that I know who's been sick, they wore their mask faithfully. Faithfully. I've never worn the mask. I don't have people come in my store wearing the mask.

[08:35:01]

I'm not sick.

LAVANDERA (voice over): But the governor's controversial decision has sparked a tidal wave of local leaders sending out pleas for Texans to keep wearing their masks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a false plague (ph), a fake pandemic.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Excuse me, sir.

LAVANDERA: Scenes like this is what many officials and business owners fear.

JUDGE NELSON W. WOLFF, BEXAR COUNTY JUDGE: It's a real burden on the business owner.

LAVANDERA: Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff says sheriff's deputies will be called on to help San Antonio business owners enforce their mask mandates.

WOLFF: If they require it and a person will not put it on, if they call us, we'll send the sheriff out there and we'll remove that person, if they want us to.

LAVANDERA: Back at the thrift shop, Florencio Gonzales lets us know everyone in this small town knows him as smiley. He's hoping that charm behind the mask will disarm defiant customers who refuse to wear a mask.

FLORENCIO "SMILEY" GONZALES, VOLUNTEER, TRASH & TREASURE: We are not going to get anybody upset and hopefully everybody will understand our point of view is to -- that it's going to be required in this building.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: And, John, it's important to point out that the governor does have a great deal of support for these moves. But you are seeing a number of like the big chains, like CVS, Walgreens, Target announcing that they will continue with the mask mandate inside their stores. Some other chains have announced that they will leave it up to the customers. But it's that inconsistency that so many, especially small business owners, are very concerned about starting next Wednesday.

John.

BERMAN: Now the pressure is on them.

Ed Lavandera, thanks so much for that reporting.

So we have breaking jobs news. An eye-popping unemployment number, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:40:36]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BERMAN: The Labor Department just released the latest jobs report.

Chief business correspondent Christine Romans joins us now.

This is a little bit of a wow, Romans.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It is. Restaurant reopenings, that's what this report is all about. You have 379,000 jobs added back into the economy in February. I want you to look at that chart there. It shows you the deep hole we're in and how we're trying to climb out. You add 379,000. It's in that chart right there. So we still have a long way to go. Still down 9.5 million jobs, the government says, since the crisis began.

The unemployment rate fell to a pandemic-era low of 6.2 percent. But you've got to remember that the Fed chief, the Treasury secretary, many top economists have said so many people have dropped out of the labor market. That number is closer to 10 percent. The underemployment rate in this report is 11.1 percent. So take that 6.2 percent number with a grain of salt.

Let's look at sectors. I know I'm giving you kind of a number salad here, John. This four-fifths of this job gain is all bars and restaurants. Some hotels as well, but all bars and restaurants here. Some retail jobs, manufacturing added some. I think the weather was a problem here. You remember some of those storms we saw across the south and very, very cold weather in the Midwest. That held back some construction projects. You know, we still have a lot of permanent layoffs. People who tell

the government when they're polled. They think they have been permanently laid off. More than 3.5 million of those.

And, John, in these numbers they ask, how come you can't go to work? And 13.3 million people say they simply can't go to work because their employer is closed or there aren't enough hours there.

But when I look at this, it really is the story of these restaurant reopenings. And, John, a reminder that this American economy is run on millions of people who work very low-wage jobs, part-time, and they have been decimated in this crisis here. Main street still in a very deep jobs hole. The government pointing out that when you look at those restaurant jobs, you're still down 3.5 million jobs in leisure and hospitality. That's 20 percent of that labor force still sidelined.

BERMAN: Look, first of all, thank you for the number salad. I like a salad as long as there's protein.

Secondly, this comes at a really interesting time. You see a big beat in terms of jobs and the unemployment rate going down.

ROMANS: Yes.

BERMAN: Just at the moment where the White House is asking for and very will likely get a huge economic relief bill.

How will this play into it?

ROMANS: And -- here, you have got Wall Street with the luxury of looking way forward and saying, we're going to have a strong economy later this year when vaccine acceptance and vaccine delivery are widespread and you've got all this aid to the economy that will start to really seep in there, it's going to be a good economy. Wall Street's worried about that. That's what you've been seeing in the stock market.

I'm telling you, John, main street does not have the luxury of worrying about an economy that's too strong later next year. You've got a crisis for working people. Million -- 18 million people getting some sort of jobless benefit that will expire in nine days. We still have a big problem, a big jobs hole we're in here. So I will -- I really encourage people to look at the right now, which is critical for families, and the down the road, which is what Wall Street and investors are worried about.

BERMAN: Christine Romans, thank you very much for that.

All right, the violence, the hate that we've seen in the last year against the Asian-American community in the United States, a real spike in hate crime. CNN's own Lisa Ling joins us with her personal story, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:48:17]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Violent hate crimes against Asian- Americans are on the rise. The examples are shocking. This man's face slashed on a New York City subway. An 84-year-old man died after his attacker violently shoved him outside of his California home.

These are just some of the thousands of attacks against the Asian- American community since the pandemic began.

Joining us now is Lisa Ling, host of CNN's "This is Life with Lisa Ling," and she has her own story of anti-Asian harassment.

Lisa, great to see you, as always.

I know that you have said that hateful acts -- attacks against Asian- Americans are nothing new, but have you noticed a marked change since the pandemic began?

LISA LING, CNN HOST, "THIS IS LIFE WITH LISA LING": Well, absolutely, Alisyn. By now we've all seen the horrific surveillance videos of Asian people, in particular Asian seniors, getting viciously attacked, even murdered for no reason other than the fact that they are Asian.

But since the pandemic took root here in America, there have been in excess of 3,000 reports of hate-related crimes and incidents, an astronomical increase since last year. And while most of these incidents are not being reported, and they're not criminally prosecutable, it's assumed that the number of attacks and assaults is even greater. But the Asian community, as a whole, has had a history of not reporting crimes and hate-related incidents.

But, Alisyn, if you look at the history of Asians in America, which, by the way, it not taught in schools, we've been marginalized and scapegoated since the 1800s, since the Chinese first came to this country. In the 1980s, during the economic downturn of the automobile industry, a young Chinese man, Chinese-American man named Vincent Chen (ph) was savagely beat to death.

[08:50:05]

His attackers called him Japanese. He was Chinese. But even in the 1800s, the Chinese were the only demographic, the only ethnic group that was excluded from becoming U.S. citizens by executive order, which wasn't even repealed until the 1940s.

And during that time, during World War II, over 120,000 people of Japanese descent were forced to live in internment camps, even those who were born in the United States. So, again, Asian people have been scapegoated throughout this country's history. And so many Asians that I know now, they're more afraid of getting attacked than they even are of contracting COVID.

BERMAN: The history really is so awful, as you said, to be specifically singled out for, you know, more than a century.

And, Lisa, you know because you see it every day in your own social media that no one's immune. I mean the things that have been sent to you are just vile. And I'm going to read some of them, and I apologize for having to read these to people. This is the things that you've had to read. Shut up you blank. Every Asian should stay far away. You got us all sick. Hope you all die. Hope your kids suffocated to death from the Wuhan virus.

I mean that's just repugnant stuff, Lisa. What's it like to read that?

LING: Yes, John, I wish I could say that was the only message that I received. I've received numerous messages, similar messages throughout the pandemic. And, look, they are hard to read. They are hurtful to read. But racial epithets have been swung in my direction throughout my life. I can take it. It's the people who have been spat on, and brutally attacked, even killed just because of the color of their skin that just incenses me.

CAMEROTA: So now what, Lisa? I mean what is changing within the Asian community about how to combat this?

LING: Well, we have to just keep talking about this. And I hope that people outside of the Asian community will stand with us and condemn these racist attacks.

I've been heartened that brand-new organizations have sprung up to walk our seniors throughout their neighborhood safely. These are organizations I want to give them a shout-out. There's one in Oakland called Compassion in Oakland and Safe Walks in New York. And these are organizations that are comprised of people of all different ethnic backgrounds are those are organizations that are incredibly inspiring to me.

But we need better education in schools. Kids -- this is when they learn empathy and our kids need to know about the history of Asians in America, about our struggles and the discrimination and scapegoating that we've faced but also of our triumphs. And one day I hope that American history books will write about this time when Asian-Americans really found our voices and demanded to be heard because the Asian community is more galvanized now than they ever have been.

BERMAN: One of the things that made me really sad when I read it was a "Washington Post" story that says, as more schools are reopening that Asian-American parents are reluctant in some cases to send their kids back because they're afraid of what their kids will go through.

LING: And I've heard this from -- I've heard this from so many parents whose kids are being bullied in school, they're being teased, they're being called coronavirus or COVID. I have a seven-year-old and a four- year-old and I -- honestly, I don't even know how to tell them that there are so many people who are being attacked because they look like us. I mean these are such hard conversations that we shouldn't be having to have with our children right now.

CAMEROTA: Lisa, tell us about the GoFundMe page that is designed to help support this.

LING: Yes, there have been so many people who have been asking how they can help the victims of these attacks and how to support organizations that are on the ground working to combat hate and strengthen communities. If you go to gofundme.com/aapi, it is like sort of the definitive source for people who are wanting to make donations to various causes and fundraisers.

CAMEROTA: Lisa, we're sorry that you're on the receiving end of any hideousness. We love seeing you. Thank you very much for being on.

LING: Thank you for covering this story.

CAMEROTA: OK, now to this.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the CNN Heroes campaign. And this week we are introducing you to the very first CNN Hero of 2021.

So growing up in Maine, Lynda Doughty developed a passion for the marine mammals living along its beautiful coast. So when state and government funding dried up and local organizations had to close their doors, she dove in to fill the gap.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LYNDA DOUGHTY, CNN HERO: Releasing a seal is really bittersweet. And as much as I'm excited to see that animal be released, it's also hard in the sense of seeing the animal now gone.

[08:55:00]

You guys know that you're going back to the ocean?

So any seal that we rescue, the ultimate goal is for that animal to be released back into the ocean.

Awe.

I feel this intense responsibility to help these animals and really this is what I was put on this earth to do.

Yea!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: To learn more about the threats to these seals and how Lynda helps them and to nominate someone you think should be a CNN Hero, go to cnnheroes.com.

Yes, I'll be nominating you. I know what you're thinking. I know what you're thinking. I'll be nominating you. I'm not sure exactly what your call is or action is, but, yes, I'll be nominating you.

BERMAN: All right. Thanks for that.

Have a great weekend.

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

BERMAN: I really want you to have a great weekend.

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

BERMAN: Have fun.

CAMEROTA: And all of you as well.

CNN's coverage continues, next.

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