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Video of George Floyd's Death Shown in Trial of Derek Chauvin Brings Witness to Tears; George Floyd Family Attorney Justin Miller Interviewed on New Video Shows in Trial of Derek Chauvin; President Biden Announces First Part of Infrastructure Plan; Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is Interviewed About Biden's $2 Trillion Infrastructure Plan. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 01, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Shootings in Atlanta.

JOHN AVLON, CNN ANCHOR: And the Derek Chauvin murder trial resumes this morning after a day of heart wrenching testimony. New police body cameras capture George Floyd's struggle with police trying to arrest him, and Chauvin's real time reaction after Floyd was taken away in an ambulance. Floyd's dying moments brought one witness to tears.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop moving.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama.

CHARLES MCMILLIAN, WITNESS: Oh, my God. Helpless. I don't have a mama either. I understand him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Joining us now is Justin Miller. He's an attorney for George Floyd's family. Mr. Miller, thanks so much for being here. It's been a very, very emotional week already in this trial. And I know that every day has been emotional, of course, for the Floyd family. Can you tell us what has struck them most, what has stuck with them through all this testimony?

JUSTIN MILLER, GEORGE FLOYD FAMILY ATTORNEY: Yes, well, I think that, like anyone else, it's just jarring to see all of that footage and to see how it affected the people who were actually there on the scene. If you're not affected by that, you're not human. You have no empathy and it's just really sad to see.

CAMEROTA: As an attorney, what jumps out at you? What do you see the defense or the prosecution doing? MILLER: Well, I don't see a lot of struggle from Mr. Floyd. There was

a lot of talk early about how big he was or how menacing or aggressive he was, and I didn't see any of that. Big people can be soft, too. Big people can be scared, and big people can be fragile. I'm a big person myself, so I understand that sometimes people do not see us as people who can be fragile, but we definitely can. And you saw that with Mr. Floyd that day.

CAMEROTA: That brings me to hearing the sound from then Officer Derek Chauvin talk about how George Floyd was a sizable guy, and that's the first time that we hear his justification for, I guess, why he felt he had to put his knee on his neck. Here's that moment that I want to play for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEREK CHAUVIN: That's one person's opinion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I --

CHAUVIN: We've got to control this guy because he's a sizable guy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, and I thought --

CHAUVIN: It looks like he's probably on something.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: "We've got to control this guy because he's a sizable guy. It looks like he's probably on something." What does that exchange tell you?

MILLER: It tells me that he was trying to explain and trying to set up his lie for later. Of course, we all can see Mr. Floyd was a bigger guy. There were four other guys who were not small guys on top of him, and then Mr. Chauvin himself who put his entire body weight on Mr. Floyd's neck while Mr. Floyd was restrained. So yes, he was a sizable guy and you had him restrained for nine minutes, and we saw what the result was.

CAMEROTA: In contrast to that, to that kind of dispassionate depiction by Derek Chauvin, we heard just how upset and emotional George Floyd was when the police approached him. Now, they approached with guns. He's sitting in the driver's seat, and they have a gun through the window. This is their approach to him. And he is immediately -- and I think we all can understand this -- panicking. He is panicking. He is telling them, please don't shoot me. Please don't shoot me. They're saying put your hands up. He is already, it seems, in some kind of distress.

It is at times on this video hard for him to cooperate. I'm not saying he's resisting, but it's hard for him to follow their instructions because he's basically telling them he's terrified. He's telling them that he's claustrophobic. He's also saying don't shoot me again. He had been shot. So can you just tell us what the family says about his state of mind and why he was having a hard time doing what you heard that witness Charles McMillian, say which was just go along with them.

MILLER: Well, for a lot of us, and many black Americans, the trauma in dealing with the police is real. You deal with people who are trained, and you are policed like you live in a third world country or militaristic state. So when the police approach Mr. Floyd, he was understandably nervous.

[08:05:00]

He didn't know what was going to happen. They kept trying to force him into small spaces. They admittedly said how big he was, but they wanted to force him into a small box that was not made for a person his size. He told them he was claustrophobic. They didn't do anything to look out for that. They didn't call a bigger car. They didn't do something to help him medically. They just pushed and forced and caused him to have more and more and more anxiety to the point where they felt like they needed to put him on the ground and then put their entire bodies on him until he died.

So, the trauma in dealing with the police is real, and I think that training, that police training is something that we need to look at going forward.

CAMEROTA: And can you just talk about the larger issue that you just touched on. To many of us watching that video is traumatic and horrifying, but to you, and to many black men, we hear, it's familiar. And so can you just tell us about that experience that's now on display for the country.

MILLER: Yes, sure. I have been in school, and I've graduated from college, and I'm a lawyer, and all of that good stuff. And I still experience the exact same thing that Mr. Floyd went through. I still experience the exact same anxiety when police pull me over. I still get treated the exact same way.

And I'm not saying that I should feel special or people should feel bad for me because of that, but people should understand that is the feeling that we feel, so that anxiety is real. And so Mr. Floyd feeling that I understood and I felt for him and felt like that could have been me or my brother or my father at that particular time in that particular situation. So it's really sad because that is the feeling that I think a lot of black Americans are feeling when they watch this.

CAMEROTA: Having listened to all of this very emotional testimony from all of the witnesses, do you see -- I know that you, attorneys, never count your chickens before they're hatched, but do you see how the defense comes back from this, what they can do to turn this around?

MILLER: I know what they're going to do. They're going to try to assassinate George Floyd's character and talk about him and talk about all the bad things that he did in his life as if they've never done any bad things in their life, and then say that's justification for this man killing him. So I know what they're going to do, and I don't think that they can really do anything else because it's there in black and white for the world to see.

CAMEROTA: Justin Miller, thank you. We appreciate your time.

MILLER: No problem. Thank you for having me.

CAMEROTA: John?

AVLON: President Joe Biden will hold his first in-person cabinet meeting today, socially distanced, in the East Room. It comes after the president unveiled part of his ambitious $2 trillion infrastructure plan.

CNN's John Harwood live at the White House with all the details. John, this is big by any measure, not just in the dollar amount, but in the ambition of the proposal. President Biden comparing it to the moon shot, to the interstate highway system. Break it down for us and put it in perspective.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, those are the right points of comparison. What we've seen in this country, John, as you know, is that there were points in the post-World War II era where the United States was investing very heavily in future economic growth. Dwight Eisenhower's interstate highway system was part of it. John Kennedy's space program was part of it. Lyndon Johnson's Great Society program was part of it.

During the 1960s, the federal government's investment was about six percent of GDP. That has since been squeezed, both by the growing share of the federal budget that's gone to entitlement programs, retirement programs, and by the conservative movement that emphasized shrinking government.

So now Joe Biden has reached a moment where Democrats have control of the entire apparatus of the government, where they've got a shot, they hope, when the American public can see government potentially helping them. They just saw it in the pandemic, $1,400 checks in millions of bank accounts. But this is a lot harder to do because you are pushing against that engrained distrust of American government. Can the government get it right? Can the investments in roads and bridges and research and human development be effective enough to really produce economic growth? And can they persuade the American people and the Congress to pay for it by raising taxes? Incredibly difficult thing to do. The Democrats think that they can do it, but, boy, this is going to take a heck of a lot of effort over an extended period of time.

AVLON: And already the plan is coming under fire, not surprisingly, from the right, Senator Mitch McConnell saying it raises taxes too much. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying it's not big enough. But what really interested me about President Biden's speech yesterday is the framing of this as a test of democracy. And implicitly I think reaching out to those Republicans who often focus on the rise of China and the rise of authoritarian states. And President Biden really making the case that this is a test of whether democracy can still do big things. Let's take a listen and get your reaction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) [08:10:07]

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're in a moment where history is going to look back on this time as a fundamental choice having been made between democracies and autocracies. There's a lot of autocrats in the world who think the reason they're going to win is democracies can't reach consensus any longer. That's what the competition between America and China and the rest of the world is all about. It's a basic question, can democracy still deliver for their people?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Do you think that frame by President Biden might appeal to some Republicans who normally would resist big-ticket items, at least if they're put forward by a Democratic president?

HARWOOD: Not enough. Look, that is smart framing. It's accurate framing. It is a test of democracy. But the appeal of that frame, I think, John, is going to be -- have a very hard time overcoming the nature of the modern Republican Party. And not just the Republican Party. We've seen it from outside business groups which have praised the concept of infrastructure, but we saw business groups yesterday coming out hard against the corporate tax increases that pay for this.

Mitch McConnell, who President Biden talked to on the telephone, is attacking him from both ends, saying there's borrowed money and there's tax increases. Well, the only alternative to that is big cuts in government programs, and that's simply not on the table. So, yes, it is a test of democracy, but in this instant, that test is one that's going to have to be borne almost certainly by the Democratic Party and by the Democratic Party having a test whether it can hold together.

Yes, AOC was saying it's big enough. That's not the operational constraint. This is a plenty big program. The question is, can you get both something of this size and the financing of both this and the follow-on family plan that he's going to offer in a couple of weeks, can you get that through? And that's going to be subject to a separate kind of attack from Republicans, John, as you know, which is that this is going to be attacked as welfare, and Democrats are going to have to be prepared to push back against that.

AVLON: John Harwood, thank you very much for your insights, as always.

And up next, we're going to be talking to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg about President Biden's big infrastructure plan, so stick with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:16:10]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: President Biden announcing a sweeping proposal aimed at rebuilding the nation's crumbling infrastructure and creating jobs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Not a plan that tinkers around the edges. It's a once in a generation investment in America. It's the largest American jobs investment since World War II. It's big, yes. It's bold, yes. And we can get it done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: The $2.3 trillion in spending would take place over the next eight years. President Biden says it would be paid for with corporate tax hikes, but those would be over the course of 15 years.

Joining us to explain the math and everything else is Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Secretary Buttigieg, great to see you.

PETE BUTTIGIEG, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: Great to be with you.

CAMEROTA: Let me start by saying you are no Johnny come lately to infrastructure. You have been talking about it, even in your own presidential campaign, for a long time.

I remember in January 2020, you called for, back then, when you were running, a $1 trillion plan to modernize, basically, the infrastructure. And it was going to involve transportation. It was going to involve broadband. It was also going to involve water supply, some of the same things that we're talking about now.

And so how did, in the space of 14 months, it go from a $1 trillion price tag to a $2.3 trillion price tag?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, I guess I would say the need is even clearer now than it was a year ago. Look, we see a trillion-dollar backlog just in things like maintaining our roads and bridges. We know that we've got to get broadband out to every American. We know the consequences if we allow lead to continue to go into drinking water for children.

This is a moment for the United States to decide, are we, in fact, going to continue to lead the world? Or are we going to be just another country?

If we want to lead the world, we have to have world class infrastructure for the American people and I'm just thrilled by the president's announcement yesterday by the boldness of the vision and by the fact that so many Americans already know we need to do this.

CAMEROTA: I've also heard you refer to this as a jobs bill. A jobs plan. So how many jobs would this create?

BUTTIGIEG: So we're looking forward to third parties, economists who have just gotten the details of the bill to provide their estimates. We know it's going to be in the millions. Look, infrastructure has always been a job creator for the American

people. You can go all the way back to the days of Jefferson and creating the Erie Canal which helped stitch the United States together. You can look at the effect of the Transcontinental Railroad which Lincoln had the vision to support, the interstate system under Eisenhower.

Every time we took a step like that, it opened America, it created jobs, it strengthened America. This is a moment like that, too. I think a moment like this only comes along once in a lifetime, less than once in a lifetime, maybe once in a century.

We've got to make the most of this moment. Go big while we can and strengthen America for the future.

CAMEROTA: Let's dive into the features for it so everybody can get their arms around what it would really mean for them.

So, here's how we know -- at least thus far -- it would be broken up, $650 billion physical infrastructure, $300 billion housing infrastructure, $300 billion manufacturing, $300 billion electrical grid, $400 billion home caretakers, care for the elderly, disabled.

Can we just dive into the electrical grid for a second --

BUTTIGIEG: Yeah.

CAMEROTA: -- just since we all lived through what happened in Texas a few months? With that number, that price tag of $300 billion, what would that give us? That would modernize the entire country's electrical grid? We wouldn't have blackouts and brownouts anymore?

BUTTIGIEG: That's right. It positions us to take a major step forward in improving generation, transmission, distribution and we see the need because of what happened in Texas.

This is part of what I mean when I say that America has a choice about what kind of country we're going to be. We heard stories of American citizens, Texans, melting snowballs in their bathtubs to be able to get the water to flush their toilets.

[08:20:06]

That is no way to live and certainly shouldn't be happening in the United States of America.

We've got to make sure that we're preparing, not just repairing the grid but preparing the grid. A lot of other things are going to change in terms of our country's relationship with electricity, especially, to bring it back to the transportation side, as we electrify our vehicles. Look, car companies are moving this way already. Not just the newer companies and the start-ups, but Detroit making big announcements.

If we really want America to lead the way with electric vehicles, if we really want American union workers to be having a shot at those jobs making electric vehicles, we've got to have the best electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

Part of that is the charging stations, half a million of them, that this plan calls for installing. Part of them is making sure we have the grid to support that, which means a lot of real investments.

CAMEROTA: I've heard both you and Jen Psaki, the press secretary, this week express, as well as President Biden, express optimism that Republicans will get on board.

I know you don't want to name names in terms of who you've been speaking to behind the scenes, but can you just give us a clue as to why you feel optimistic? I mean, we see so much partisanship. Can you just tell us what has given you a feeling that you will be able to cross the aisle?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, I really do feel in my conversations with Republicans a shared appetite to do things to serve the American people. The thing is, every Republican member of Congress or the Senate, just like every Democratic member, is from somewhere.

And where they are from, their constituents are telling them, there's holes in the road. This bridge needs work. I'm worried about even things we didn't use to worry about like electricity. We've got to do something.

Whether it's ports or airports where you live, whether you are concerned about trains and transit or just being able to drive. Everybody sees the need.

So you add that together with the fact that so many Republicans are on the record calling us -- calling for us to do big things. I felt it in my confirmation hearing. A lot of members, we didn't agree on everything. Sometimes we didn't agree on much, but we agreed this is important and I think that's a foundation to build on.

CAMEROTA: But they don't like the price tag. What about the fact of that discrepancy that it's -- that it's spent over eight years but not paid for it for 15 years?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, you know, any business will make decisions to invest. And then make a plan to finance that investment. Many families make a decision to do home improvement and maybe that's part of a 15- year or 30-year mortgage.

But the point is we need to make the investments now. And I think it's remarkable that this plan allows those investments -- I mean, major generational investments to be fully paid for within 15 years. So by the time you go to year 16, it's actually reducing the deficit. It's a responsible way to do this.

We're certainly open to hearing ideas. But the president put forward a clear vision yesterday that is paid for and that is major in its ambition and its potential.

CAMEROTA: I want to ask you about what's happening today. President Biden is holding his first full cabinet meeting. That's 25 of you. And I'm just wondering what that's going to look like and how it's

going to go and have you met your fellow cabinet members yet, or will this be the first time?

BUTTIGIEG: So, this will be the first time we've all been in a room together. And I can't wait. I'll tell you, we're interacting all the time because we're on lots of interagency video conferences, as you might imagine, whether it's about COVID or whether it's about the infrastructure plan.

And whenever I'm looking at that screen, I'm just awed and humbled to be in the company of such amazing people, historic cabinet in its diversity and in the talent that the president has assembled. And it's one thing to see it on a Zoom screen. But I can't wait to be looking around the room and seeing this cabinet in real life.

CAMEROTA: Secretary Pete Buttigieg, thank you very much for your time. We'll obviously be watching.

BUTTIGIEG: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: So his impassioned stand against racism went viral. The message that he hopes everyone hears as attacks against Asians are on the rise.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:28:10]

JOHN AVLON, CNN ANCHOR: Anti-Asian-American attacks are on the rise across our country. It led an elected Asian-American leader in Ohio to make a powerful speech at a town meeting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEE WONG, ASIAN-AMERICAN ARMY VETERAN: People question my patriotism, that I don't look American enough. They cannot get over this face.

I'm 69 years old. And I'm going to show you what patriotism, the questions about patriotism looks like. Here is my proof. This is sustained from my service in the U.S. military. Now is this patriot enough?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: It is.

Joining us now is Lee Wong. He's a U.S. Army veteran and chair of the West Chester Township Board of Trustees in Ohio.

Mr. Wong, it's an honor to have you join us.

Just before that clip, which went viral across the country, you had spoken about, as a young man, being attacked in Chicago and how that led you to the U.S. Army, in some ways led you to give that powerful speech. Tell us the story. WONG: Well, I really wasn't prepared to make a speech, and it was --

I just need to say something with all the threats and verbal threats and all the jabs here and there. It was just too much to bear that people came to me and told me that I don't look American enough or patriotic. And that I'm just as American as an apple pie.

And I served this country honorably. And to say that to me, to my face, it hurts.