Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Trump Campaign Bets on Defending Monuments; Children Killed in Weekend Violence; Large Crowds after Lockdown Lifted; Delirium and Paranoid Thoughts from Coronavirus. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired July 06, 2020 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I heard it, I recognized it from all of the other, you know, talking points that -- that Fox relies on and that we've heard from the president in the past. And that was "indoctrinate."

DAVID FRUM, STAFF WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": Yes.

CAMEROTA: And so it's beyond statues. It's, we're not going to let the left indoctrinate our children about political correctness and erasing our history.

Do you think that that resonates at all right now?

FRUM: I invite you to consider this election, not from the point of view of someone who watches a lot of cable TV, Fox or any other network, or from the point of view of the person who's going to decide this election. A 50-something woman without a college degree living in one of half a dozen swing states, and probably someone in her family has lost a job, maybe she's lost her job, the budget is very, very tight, and, of course, they're terrified of getting sick. Now, how does that woman respond when she hears the president talk about leftist indoctrination? She thinks, what's he talking about? The one thing she knows is, he's not talking about or to me.

With Donald Trump, people often think, because he got so lucky in 2016 that's got some master plan. But, in fact, he's just got his own instincts for aggression. And by a lucky fluke, they paid off for him in 2016. They didn't pay off in 2018. And he can't figure out in 2020 how to talk to a country that is terrified of disease and is hard- pressed economically.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: You use a great Haley Barbour quote, which, of course, is, to keep the main -- the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

FRUM: Right.

BERMAN: What's the main thing here, David?

FRUM: Haley -- the -- Haley Barbour was chairman of the RNC in the 1980s, Republican National Committee, and maybe the most successful holder of that job ever. And he always was cautioning conservative candidates in those days, you have lots of issues you care about and that our base cares about. Remember who's deciding this election. And for that person, typically a woman, the main thing is what she cares about most, keep that main thing the main thing, and your main thing is never to forget it.

CAMEROTA: The other thing about President Trump's speech this weekend was that the words were so obviously not his. I mean he uses words during these grand speeches that are so in Congress from what he normally hear him say. He was saying things like, the untamed spirit of America, the unrelenting optimism. This isn't how he talks at his rallies. I mean, David, I don't know if you're a body language expert, but I am. And he -- even his body language at these -- at the Fourth of July rally, he was leaning on the podium, he was sort of uncomfortable. He was clearly working the teleprompter pretty hard. And so it's just hard to know if those speeches resonate in the way that his rallies do.

FRUM: "The Washington Post" over the weekend had a story about how many of the people in the Trump communication shop get there because they're related to somebody else. It's a very nepotistic organization. And the problem with nepotism is, it's not a good way to find talent. These are not talented people. And they're not -- they're -- people are very -- come from a very narrow political world. And so they don't ask an obvious question like, OK, suppose disorder in the streets and the tearing down of statues, or the legal -- the lawful removal of statues, and that's not the same thing as vandalism, suppose that is the most important issue in America. Suppose you believe that. Who's president right now while all of that is happening? Who's the president who's failing to act? Why, it's our guy. You can't run against the status quo when you are the president of the status quo.

BERMAN: Yes, historians will note that he may be trying to run the 1968 Richard Nixon campaign. The problem is, he's running as Richard Nixon but he is LBJ. I mean there's a little bit of a problem there.

FRUM: He's LB -- he is -- he's the -- it's all off -- this is all happening on his watch. He has no one else to blame. Or he can try, but it won't be very convincing outside the very narrow anti-reality community in which he spends his days absorbing TV junk.

CAMEROTA: David Frum, always great to talk to you. Thank you very much.

FRUM: Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

CAMEROTA: The U.K. tries to answer the question, do alcohol and social distancing mix? We're live with the pictures, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:38:09]

CAMEROTA: Gun violence spiked in many cities across the U.S. over the holiday weekend. At least five children were killed in the crossfire. CNN's Omar Jimenez is live in Chicago with more.

What a horrible weekend there, Omar.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A terrible weekend, Alisyn.

This is now the third week in a row that we've seen literal children shot and killed here. Specifically, you will get ages of 10-year-old we've seen killed, we've seen a three-year-old, a one-year-old in recent weeks and now this past weekend a seven-year-old. Natalia Wallace was shot and killed as part of a weekend where we saw more than 60 people shot and over a dozen killed.

Now, among those, again, children killed in recent weeks, three-year- old Mekhi James, who was riding in the car with his dad when someone opened fire. And I spoke to his family and they told me about a grim dynamic that they are now having to live, funerals where children are carrying the caskets of children.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTAL ALLEN, AUNT OF MEKHI JAMES: We had to say to the kids, OK, walk you through the steps. Be strong. Hold your head up. And don't drop the casket.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: And all of this happening within a year where homicides in the city of Chicago are up more than 30 percent compared to last year. Shootings up to -- up by close to 50 percent compared to last year. And Mayor Lori Lightfoot says the pandemic has complicated the public safety response and the ecosystem they say has now been frayed.

But it's not just Chicago that's seeing a spike in the homicide rate. It's places like Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York City. New York, for example, over the weekend saw more than 40 shootings, affecting more than 60 people, including an incident where a bullet hit the windshield of a marked police squad car injuring two officers.

[08:40:05]

Now, when you look countryside, Americans, of course, were celebrating the Fourth of July this weekend, but Americans, too, were mourning the losses of children in places across the country. In San Francisco, a six-year-old was shot and killed. In Washington, D.C., an 11-year-old. In Hoover, Alabama, an eight-year-old. And in Atlanta, a little girl was shot and killed while she was riding in the car with her mom and another person. She was just eight years old.

John.

BERMAN: It's awful. It's just awful. It's heartbreaking and it's tragic. That's all I can say.

Omar, thanks very much for being with us. So people in London celebrated England lifting its lockdown restrictions this weekend. Some pubs were packed with many people ignoring social distancing guidelines.

CNN's Anna Stewart live in London with the latest.

We see how that played out in the United States, Anna. It could be a real problem.

ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER: Yes, certainly. I think the majority of people in England celebrated the end of lockdown on Saturday fairly responsibly, but there were some worrying scenes, particularly here in Soho. And you can see some of the footage from Saturday night, huge crowds here.

Speaking to some of the bars and restaurants, funny enough, those were actually quite empty. Lots of new measures have been put in place to enable them to reopen. Covid-19 safety measures. So lots of social distancing, limited seating.

But on the streets, it was absolutely rammed. And the atmosphere was more like a festival or a street party. There was lots of live music, queues outside the Off License (ph), which was asked to close down early by police.

It is very concerning, particularly as here in London the transmission rate for the virus does appear to be on the increase, according to the latest figures. And I think the issue here speaks to a problem, not just for the U.K., but for governments really across the world, how to kick-start economies, how to ease lockdown, how to make people feel safe to get out there and get spending, but without lifting the lid on the virus. So, some really concerning pictures.

As I said, the majority of England did see a successful easing of lockdown, helped by some pretty miserable weather, I have to say. So not many people wanted to sit outside the pubs during the daytime. Hopefully the scenes we saw here in Soho of crowds without facial coverings was a one-off. Perhaps it was just people celebrating day one of the easings of lockdown.

John.

BERMAN: Maybe one of the few times that the weather actually saves London.

Anna Stewart, thanks so much for being with us this morning. Appreciate it.

So you've heard about the breathing problems, the fevers, the aches and pains that come with coronavirus, but some patients are actually developing this terrifying delirium and paranoid hallucinations. A doctor and a patient describe what it's like, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:46:46]

BERMAN: This morning, delirium is emerging as an alarming side-effect of coronavirus. Aside from being a terrifying experience, it also may hurt the patient's chance for survival.

Joining me now is Dr. Pravin George, neurological ICU attending physician at Cleveland Clinic, and Marilyn Schneider, she works for the Cleveland Clinic. She survived a bout with coronavirus and suffered some of these symptoms.

Marilyn, great to see you this morning. I'm glad you're well enough to be here with us.

MARILYN SCHNEIDER, SURVIVED CORONAVIRUS: Thank you. Thank you very much.

BERMAN: Why don't you tell us what you went through.

SCHNEIDER: With the hallucinations, it's actually what saved my life. I had very -- no symptoms truly until about 7:00 when it felt like someone poured ice on me and I held a 104.5 temp for, well, until the ICU was able to break it, almost six days later. But what got me to the hospital was on April 1st I started hearing voices, found myself writing notes all over the house, things like "feed the dog," "put the dog out," "get my son ready for school." My son in graduate school, was in Michigan, wasn't even with me and the dog had passed -- we had put the dog down seven years prior.

Didn't really affect me until April 2nd, in the morning, I was laying in bed and could hear somebody asking for my help. I turned on my queen sized bed and saw an exact duplicate of myself reaching in the air saying, Marilyn, reach for it, why aren't you helping me, Marilyn? Marilyn, you have to help me. And it was at that point that I reached through the hallucination, grabbed for my phone, called 911 and the next thing I know I was standing in the middle of my street, waving on the ambulance drivers.

BERMAN: Oh, wow. Wow! I mean that sounds just terrifying. Now, that was at the beginning. That was at the onset for you of symptoms.

SCHNEIDER: The onset.

BERMAN: But it didn't stop there, did it?

SCHNEIDER: No. In fact, I don't remember calling my sister and telling her that I wasn't going to make it. I don't remember texting my son, which he said he got a bizarre message from me. It was -- April 2nd was my mother's birthday, and I called her from the E.D. (ph) and I said, I'm not thinking really good, and we tried to wish everybody a happy birthday very early on, and she said, it's a little early to wish me happy birthday. I said, mom, it's not a happy birthday. I think I'm going to die today.

BERMAN: Oh.

SCHNEIDER: And then, once they broke the fever, and I was put on the vent, I -- some would say it was medical induced, some would say it was hallucinations, some would say it was divine, but my pressure had dropped, and my breathing had stopped for a moment, and I had a conversation with my sister, who passed away 50 years ago, my father, my husband, who widowed me at 37, and my grandmother and godmother, who happened to be nurses all telling me to go back.

BERMAN: This sounds just like it's been an incredible ordeal, Marilyn, and I'm sorry you had to go through this. Although, like I said, I'm glad that you're here and able to tell us about it now.

[08:50:02]

SCHNEIDER: Thank you.

BERMAN: So, Dr. George, why? Why is this happening to people?

DR. PRAVIN GEORGE, NEUROLOGICAL ICU ATTENDING PHYSICIAN, CLEVELAND CLINIC : I mean this is a very interesting -- interesting thing that we're seeing in a very big trend of patients, especially with the younger patients that we're seeing come in. It looks like anywhere between 65 percent and 75 percent of patients are actually suffering from some type of delirium. And in the beginning we thought that this was mainly related to some of the sedative medications that we were giving the patients while they were on breathing tubes and stuff like that, but it looks like patients are actually starting to have seizures, patients are actually starting to get more neurologically involved with -- with the -- with the actual virus attacking the neurons itself. The neurons have a receptor very similar to the ones that are in the lung, that ace receptor that you may have heard of. And they actually have that in some of their brain tissue.

BERMAN: So this gets to one of the issues that we're been talking about with Dr. Sanjay Gupta over time, which is that coronavirus is a respiratory illness, at least initially, or mainly, but it's much more than that, too, isn't it, Dr. George?

GEORGE: Well, that's what we started to realize. Initially when we were told about this -- this virus, it was attacking the respiratory system. And that's basically how it enters the body. A lot of the times it's going through the respiratory system. But what's starting to happen is, after it affects the respiratory system, starts to go into the brain, it starts to go into the kidneys, it starts to go all throughout the body. It affects the blood in very certain ways and makes it very thick. It's starting to cause strokes in some patients. So we're seeing that as also a potential cause for delirium and other issues.

BERMAN: With this delirium, how does that affect your ability to recover, Doctor?

GEORGE: Right. So it definitely increases your length of stay in the hospital. A lot of patients are requiring longer ventilator days because they are so delirious.

There are two different types of delirium that we're seeing in the hospital. We're seeing this hyperactive delirium, where patients are starting to get a lot of delusions, they start to have hallucinations, like in Marilyn's case. The other type is this hypoactive delirium, where they become very withdrawn and they don't communicate at all with us. So it's a -- it's a little bit of two. And sometimes some of these patients are having both of them, actually. So it's really worrisome sometimes.

BERMAN: So, Marilyn, how long did it last for you, and any lingering effects from this?

SCHNEIDER: Well, for me, I was very lucky. Once I got off the ventilator, I felt so much better because I didn't even realize that I was having trouble breathing. And, in my case, it was the blood pressure and the symptoms that occurred during my blood -- my bloodwork was all over the place, and my pressure went extremely high.

I did have to speak to someone after I got out of the hospital. We had a Covid caregiver team that would check in on you every day. And I had asked someone, I said, I think I need to speak to someone because it had seemed to attack me physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. And I couldn't sort all of it out. Though they were constantly asking me, what day is it? Where are you? Do you -- you know, who's -- what year you are -- are you? What's your son's name? So there was questions coming at me all the time. And I felt pretty secure about them.

But it was a bit of a fog until I'd say probably around the 20th or 21st that I felt like I had some realization back to myself.

BERMAN: Marilyn, I don't mean to be glib, but this doesn't sound harmless at all. This sounds horrible.

SCHNEIDER: No. No, I once described it to someone as being -- walking along pleasantly and all of a sudden falling into a well, and my nails weren't catching on to anything, and all I had was hope that someone would be at the top of the well that could save me, and that was Cleveland Clinic, the hospital that I work at is Cleveland Clinic Fairview, and they were there for me.

BERMAN: I'm glad they were there for you Marilyn.

And, Marilyn Schneider, thank you for telling this story.

SCHNEIDER: Thank you.

BERMAN: I hope it helps. I hope it helps people know the importance of wearing masks and taking care of each other because this sounds like something that is just hell to go through.

SCHNEIDER: Absolutely.

BERMAN: We appreciate you being with us. We're glad you're well.

SCHNEIDER: Thank you.

BERMAN: Dr. George, thank you for explaining it all to us as well. GEORGE: Thank you for having us.

BERMAN: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh, John, what a remarkable story and so deeply upsetting what Marilyn has to tell.

We also have sad news on another life lost to Covid-19. Broadway star Nick Cordero has died after fighting the virus for 90 days. Cordero's public battle had admirers from around the world rallying for his recovery. Cordero's wife, Amanda, regularly updated her social media accounts with her husband's progress.

[08:55:01]

She posted on Instagram on Sunday, God has another angel now.

As an actor, Cordeiro was nominated for a Tony in his performance in "Bullets Over Broadway" in 2014 and he made appearances on several TV shows, including "Blue Bloods" and "Law & Order SVU." Nick Cordero was just 41 years old.

BERMAN: He fought so hard and so long. I mean there were moments over the last few months where there was hope. But after all that time, I know on Broadway, there are a lot of broken hearts this morning. He was beloved and I know there's a lot of people just very, very sad this morning about this.

CAMEROTA: I mean so many people around the world were watching, hoping, praying for him and watching the ups and downs of his struggle with it. And to see those pictures of how happy he was just a short time ago with his newborn and wife.

BERMAN: A young, healthy man.

All right, CNN's coverage continues, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:00]