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Atlanta's Richest Neighborhood Wants To Secede Over Rising Crime; Ocasio-Cortex Back Maya Wiley For New York City Mayor; Conservatives Distort Pandemic History While Smearing Fauci. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired June 07, 2021 - 07:30   ET

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

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[07:30:57]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Atlanta's wealthiest suburb responding to a surge in violent crime by saying it wants out. The mostly white neighborhood of Buckhead is pushing to separate from the rest of the city.

CNN's Ryan Young has more from Atlanta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL WHITE, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, BUCKHEAD CITY COMMITTEE: Here in Buckhead, we're forming our own city, we're establishing our own police force, and we will eradicate crime.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Bill White wants to shake up the city of Atlanta. White is leading a movement to split Atlanta's wealthiest neighborhood, Buckhead, from the city.

WHITE: The city of Atlanta has exploited the great people of Buckhead for way too long -- for many, many years -- and the crime has gotten to a point where it is just unmanageable and it seems like there is no end in sight.

YOUNG (voice-over): The Buckhead exploratory committee reports they've raised over a half a million dollars and is now pushing state lawmakers to push through a bill that would allow their cityhood petition to be voted on in the next election. The predominantly white neighborhood's movement is gaining traction with Republican lawmakers.

Buckhead brings in nearly 40 percent of the assessed value of Atlanta's city revenue. Its malls, bars, and homes represent so much of Atlanta's financial power but recent shootings and other crimes in Buckhead have caused fear among some residents.

Volkan Topalli is a criminal justice professor for the last 20 years and was caught in the crossfire while shopping for potting soil.

VOLKAN TOPALLI, SHOOTING VICTIM: I was on the phone looking down at the time when it happened. I saw the bullet strike my arm and saw the blood sort of spray out. And then I dropped the phone, obviously. The shooting continued around me. I quickly bent down to pick up the phone and walked back into the store and hid.

YOUNG (voice-over): So far this year, Atlanta has had more than 55 homicides and more than 300 shootings, according to the police department. Twenty-twenty saw 157 homicides, a 20-year high which the police department attributes to a COVID crime spike.

And after a tough summer which saw violent protests, 212 officers quit or retired the force since June of 2020, according to the Atlanta Police Department.

MAYOR KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS (D), ATLANTA: We are facing a spike in crime that I will continue to do everything I can do alongside Chief Bryant and the other men and women of this city to make sure that this city is safe.

YOUNG (voice-over): City leaders acknowledge residents are on edge.

HOWARD SHOOK, MEMBER, ATLANTA CITY COUNCIL: Well, there's only one issue, crime -- but that's it. There are no other issues.

YOUNG (voice-over): After a tough 2020 election season, state Republicans are helping sponsor a cityhood bill to get on the ballot, causing some to say it's stoking racial tension.

MICHAEL J. BOND, MEMBER, ATLANTA CITY COUNCIL: Since the last election, there's been a rift in what has taken place in the city. The city was divided racially by that vote; it was divided geographically by that vote.

YOUNG (voice-over): Buckhead seceding from Atlanta could be an uphill battle.

BOND: You know, there are huge hurdles for their effort. I think it's better to go to -- go to that group -- go to these citizens now and say that your government's going to be responsive. We're going to listen and we're going to address these problems.

YOUNG (voice-over): Professor Topalli, who is now a gunshot victim, still does not think Buckhead should be a municipality. He believes Buckhead needs all of its resources, including Atlanta, to fight crime.

TOPALLI: Maybe there are things that we can do right now to sort of alleviate some of the violence. And the most important thing is that the police and the citizenry really have to regain trust in each other.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

YOUNG: Yes, Brianna, on this one street there's been a lot of crime that really made some people worry. Down the street there, there was a murder just at that intersection. And over here at this gas station, just Friday a woman was getting gas when someone slid in her passenger seat and stole all of her personal items. This issue is becoming so tough for city officials. They want to see

crime obviously drop. It's a conversation that's going on across the country.

I will tell you there's an emergency City Council meeting to talk about crime today here. Most people say enough is enough.

KEILAR: Yes, many cities grappling with this.

[07:35:00]

Ryan Young, thank you.

YOUNG: Absolutely.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So non-connected from this, a big endorsement of the race for New York City mayor with just days to go until early voting begins. New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez threw her support behind progressive candidate Maya Wiley.

The announcement did trigger a sharp reaction from rival candidate, Brooklyn borough president Eric Adams, who is leading in some new polling.

And joining us now is the Democratic mayoral candidate and Brooklyn borough president, Eric Adams. Mr. President, thanks so much for being here.

ERIC ADAMS (D), NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE, BROOKLYN BOROUGH PRESIDENT: Thank you. Good to see you.

BERMAN: So, from a national perspective, people know Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. What do you make of her endorsement of one of your opponents?

ADAMS: Well, politics is local and I think we all want to end inequalities in our cities across America, but this public safety part is where we differ. Just the thought at a time when we're seeing 8- year-old children and 10-year-old babies being murdered in our city, I just don't support taking away our law enforcement apparatus, as a former police officer and as a person that had -- that has fought for social justice in this city.

BERMAN: If people are trying to understand what Eric Adams as mayor would look like, would it look more like former mayor Rudy Giuliani in terms of crime or current mayor, Bill de Blasio?

ADAMS: No, it would look like what David Dinkins looked like. He was the one that started the Safe Streets initiative by bringing more law enforcement and by doing community policing. And then we went to evolve to another level.

We have to redefine the equal system of public safety. Police -- they will have a role, but you have so many other components like mental health professionals, crisis management teams. We have to rethink policing in America so we can get to the source of the crisis. BERMAN: You know, what have you thought over the last year as you've watched this discussion on policing evolve? What have been your feelings?

ADAMS: What I've basically stated is we're finally getting the message out.

As a young man, 15 years old, I was arrested and I was beat badly by police officers. And I didn't say woe is me. I went into the police department because, at that same time, I lost a good friend that died during the crack wars. I knew we had to have justice and safety. And now, people are picking up that conversation.

I spent 22 years fighting for safety and justice and now we're going to continue that as -- under the mayorship of Eric Adams.

BERMAN: You know, I asked you about Giuliani because there are people who lived or worked or, you know, came through New York City who have been saying well, that's when crime was down. Those were the days we should go back to.

How do you assess how he dealt with crime?

ADAMS: He used a method of heavy-handed policing. They used stop, question, and frisk to stop every young person based on where they lived and their ethnicity. That's unacceptable and I testified in federal court to push back on that.

What we must do -- we must use our tools the correct way to keep the city safe but not to take away the justice of the citizens.

BERMAN: So, people have been watching this race and it's a fascinating thing right now.

ADAMS: Yes, it is.

BERMAN: They saw on the debate stage last week that things got a little bit testy. Here is just a taste of what we all saw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADAMS: You did not vote in municipal elections at all. I just don't know -- how the hell do we have you become our mayor with this record like this?

ANDREW YANG (R), NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE: We need to turn the page on the people who have been running our city into the ground for the last number of years. And you talk about public safety and security and these shootings. Again, three out of four shootings in Brooklyn are going unsolved right now. You're the Brooklyn borough president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, what's going on here between you and Andrew Yang, former presidential candidate? ADAMS: Well, we're -- this is -- it should be testy. It should be -- we're moving to become the mayor of the city of New York and being on stage like that doesn't bother me.

Listen, I've wrestled with people who had knives on the subway systems during the nineties. I know what it is to go after dangerous people. But I also know that in between all of that crime you have everyday New Yorkers. They want safe, affordable, clean cities and that's fair and that's what I'm going to push for.

BERMAN: Last question here. Ranked-choice voting, which means that people don't just vote for their first choice but they also rank others, too.

What's your message to your supporters -- to Eric Adams' people out there -- people who want to vote for you? What are you telling them they should do with their second, third, fourth choice?

ADAMS: Well, first, I'm telling them to rank me one -- that's so important -- and then look at all the other candidates and make a determination on who they believe should be their second choice. But if they don't believe anyone fits the same belief as I do of having an affordable, safe city and ending inequalities, then they could just rank Eric and they don't have to rank others.

BERMAN: So you're saying leave it blank?

ADAMS: Yes, leave it blank.

BERMAN: All right, it's interesting to see.

Mr. President -- Brooklyn borough president Eric Adams, thanks so much for joining us.

ADAMS: Thank you.

BERMAN: Appreciate it.

ADAMS: Great to see you.

BERMAN: So, an alarming new look at just how far the Trump administration went to push the Big Lie, including just an outlandish conspiracy theory -- one more. This one involves alleged hacked votes from Italian satellites.

[07:40:00]

KEILAR: And, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle celebrating the birth of their second child and perhaps trying to calm the royal family rift in the process.

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BERMAN: So this morning, CNN has obtained documents that show the former president's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, was peddling the Big Lie and personally trying to push the Justice Department to foment the conspiracy.

Joining us now is Brian Stelter, CNN anchor and chief media correspondent, and author of "Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth," which is coming out in paperback tomorrow and contains a ton of new stuff.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT, AUTHOR, "HOAX: DONALD TRUMP, FOX NEWS, AND THE DANGEROUS DISTORTION OF THE TRUTH": I went a little overboard, John.

BERMAN: We're going to get to that in just a moment. But first, I want to talk about what Mark Meadows -- this is the chief of staff -- the White House chief of staff --

STELTER: Right.

BERMAN: -- who was pushing the Justice Department to investigate the Big Lie. But not just any big lie -- he wanted them to look into this bizarre, like, Italygate conspiracy, which suggests that Italian satellites were somehow changing votes.

[07:45:06]

STELTER: This is tinfoil hat stuff. And I think this reporting over the weekend was more important than anything Trump actually said on stage over the weekend because it shows we are looking at an iceberg. We're only seeing what's above the water. There's still so much submerged beneath the depth. So much about the Big Lie -- the run-up to the insurrection -- that we don't know.

If the White House chief of staff is, in these e-mails, begging the Justice Department to investigate crazy conspiracy theories about made-up votes, it just shows how ugly this period in American history was and all of these crazy ideas that were surrounding the president in the days leading up to the insurrection.

KEILAR: You, in your book, talk about the genesis of the Big Lie. Tell us about this. Tell us about what you found here.

STELTER: Well, I felt like I was trying to write this for history because now it is starting to become history at this point.

So, we go back to October and November. If you re-watch Trump's rallies from October, every single day he's saying the word hoax. Every single day he's laying the seeds about the election possibly being stolen. And I know it happened on live T.V. in front of all of us but I don't think we recognized in the moment what this was all going to lead to, of course. None of us saw -- could have seen a riot coming.

So when you go back in time and look at October, it was all there. It was all laid out. And I think that's all the more reason why there has to be a thorough review of this. Whether it's a commission set up by Congress or not, we need to have a record for history of what went wrong here.

BERMAN: And there is a history --

STELTER: Well, thank you, John.

BERMAN: -- right, in this book, "Hoax." And this delves into the role that Fox played from Election Day through --

STELTER: Onward.

BERMAN: -- January sixth and beyond.

STELTER: Yes, it was this devolution starting on Election -- well, it was Election Day -- it was election week -- on election night when Arizona was called by Fox for Biden. That's the beginning of the devolution.

Trump was in denial, his fans were in denial. They had to come up with an alternative reality.

And what was so striking talking with sources at Fox is that many of them also wanted to believe the Big Lie. Many of them were in denial about what their own newsroom was saying.

It's hard to imagine here, John. It would be as if, you know, CNN D.C. -- the decision desk -- tells you the truth and then everybody at CNN wants to believe the lie.

It's impossible to imagine that at a normal news operation but obviously, Fox is not normal. It's become increasingly radicalized. The opinion stars are winning, the journalists are losing, and that's been the dynamic I've been learning about in my reporting.

BERMAN: And not normal for a news organization.

STELTER: Yes. Most of the time, it's opinion -- yes.

BERMAN: Right.

Brian Stelter -- the book, "Hoax" -- the paperback version with tons of new stuff out tomorrow.

STELTER: Thanks.

BERMAN: So, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the target of an escalating right-wing smear campaign. How conservatives are trying to rewrite history.

KEILAR: And Republican Congressman Mo Brooks finally got served with that Capitol riot lawsuit and he's hurling his own accusations at Democrat Eric Swalwell. Swalwell's attorney will join us live, ahead.

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[07:51:55]

BERMAN: Here are five things to know for your new day.

President Biden embarks on this first foreign trip this week, heading first to the U.K. on Wednesday to attend the G7 summit. He travels to Brussels for the NATO summit next week, and then on to Geneva to meet with Vladimir Putin.

KEILAR: And at least 45 people were killed after a train collision this morning in southern Pakistan. About 80 others were injured and it's unclear how many are still trapped. This crash happened before dawn when one express train derailed and was struck by another about a minute later.

BERMAN: Two arrests were made in a suspected road rage case that left a 6-year-old boy dead in the backseat of his mother's car. The California Highway Patrol says they arrested two people at their home in Costa Mesa, California. They're expected to be charged with murder.

KEILAR: The year 2020 projected to have the highest car crash fatality rate since 2007 despite record numbers of Americans working from home last year. The government says the average number of miles driven fell 13 percent while fatalities rose, especially among drivers ages 25 to 34.

BERMAN: That's really interesting and confounding in many ways.

KEILAR: It is.

BERMAN: U.S. oil prices hitting $70.00 a barrel for the first time in nearly three years. The increase is driven by the demand for gas and jet fuel. As the economy reopens, Americans paying more at the pump.

KEILAR: And, Apple's employees are firing back after CEO Tim Cook announced the company's new work-from-home policy mandating that employees work in the office three days a week beginning in September.

In an open letter, they say, quote, "Without the inclusivity that flexibility brings, many of us feel we have to choose between either a combination of our families, our well-being, and being empowered to do our best work, or being a part of Apple. This is a decision none of us take lightly, and a decision many would prefer not to have to make."

With us now is Zoe Schiffer. She's a senior reporter at "The Verge," which published the letter in full. Zoe, thank you so much for coming on talk about this really interesting thing that I think actually speaks to a lot of people who work across the U.S.

Tell us about this letter -- what employees are asking for.

ZOE SCHIFFER, SENIOR REPORTER, THE VERGE (via Skype): Yes, absolutely -- and thank you so much for having me.

So, we have to understand that this is a big shift for Apple, which famously discouraged employees from working from home prior to the pandemic. The company is extremely secretive and it's working on hardware products and design, which are harder to do remotely, although not impossible, as we've seen over the past year.

So employees really feel like the policy, while a big step for Apple, really has not gone far enough. They want the company to implement a new flexible work-from-home policy where everyone that wants to work from home can all the time.

KEILAR: When they say it's not inclusive to talk about going back to work three days a week, what do they mean?

SCHIFFER: They mean that people have really different needs. They feel like if Apple really wants to increase its diversity and inclusion efforts it needs to hire people all across the country and not just people who can afford to live in the Bay Area.

KEILAR: OK, so you -- as you mentioned, Apple isn't really -- you know, it's not known for I don't want to say being friendly to workers but it's certainly not known for workers' rights activism on the part of its employees. It seems like it's actively discouraged. This, obviously, is different.

[07:55:08]

How do you think Apple is going to respond to this?

SCHIFFER: Yes, absolutely. No, the company is very top-down, very hierarchical. You know, I don't see a world in which Apple says OK, fine, everyone can work from home all the time. But I do think they're going to have to listen to employees.

We've seen, recently, employees wrote a letter very upset about a hire that Apple had made. This man, Antonio Garcia Martinez -- he'd written a book that people found offensive. Employees wrote a letter asking for an investigation. Hours after we broke that story at The Verge, he was fired. So we've seen it work before in this instance.

Do I think people will work from home forever? No. But it could be that more flexibility is rolled out.

KEILAR: Yes. Well, we know that all eyes will be on this case. It's going to affect others as well.

Zoe Schiffer, thank you for your reporting.

SCHIFFER: Thank you so much for having me.

BERMAN: So, the coronavirus pandemic still far from over. And yet, the narrative -- there are attempts to rewrite the narrative -- the story coming from the former president and his allies -- some of them calling on Dr. Anthony Fauci to be fired.

Joining us now, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and staff writer at "The New Yorker," Lawrence Wright. His new book, "The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid" goes on sale tomorrow.

Lawrence, it's a pleasure to have you on. I'm just such a big fan of your work. The books you've written have, in some ways, shaped history itself.

And I'm just wondering -- and you touch on this in the new book -- where you see people like the former president and some Republicans targeting Dr. Anthony Fauci now, saying he should be fired -- painting him as the big villain in this entire pandemic -- I wonder what you make of that?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER, PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR, AUTHOR, "THE PLAGUE YEAR: AMERICA IN THE TIME OF COVID": I think it's totally ridiculous. I mean, Fauci has served under seven presidents. He's been a stalwart in public health and obviously, more people trust him than trust the former president.

So I think a lot of the reaction that you find from the Trump administration and the people that work for it is a kind of resentment of the fact that Fauci is still in public life and the former president is on the margins.

BERMAN: So I'm going to ask you the big question, which your book actually focuses on, and it sounds like a basic question but what went wrong, right? What went wrong in this pandemic?

WRIGHT: Yes, it's a big question, John.

BERMAN: It is, but you really do a nice job of laying out sort of --

WRIGHT: Yes.

BERMAN: -- a few basic things that were turning points.

WRIGHT: I would say that there were three points we could have made a difference.

The first was in January of 2020 when the former director of the CDC, Robert Redfield, had a conversation with his counterpart in China, George Gao. And Gao assured Redfield that this was not a human disease -- it didn't pass between people -- even though Chinese authorities knew differently at that time.

And, Redfield offered to send a team to China and the Chinese authorities wouldn't let us in. Had Americans gone in -- you know, a team of CDC specialists -- they would have found out that not only was it transmissible between people, that it was transmissible through asymptomatic infection. Now, that was something that we weren't prepared for at all, so we didn't know that.

The other thing that was a fiasco was the CDC testing. It took five weeks and then when they finally released the test, they knew even when it went out the door that 30 percent of the time it would fail. And so, it had to be recalled and reconfigured and that set us back and we never caught up to the tests.

And finally, we had one last swing at the bat, you know. That was the masks and that came in April.

And when the president rolled out the mask idea, at the counsel of his public health people, he said I've been told that masks work. They prevent the spread of the disease and you can wear it. I'm not going to wear it but you can wear it. And so instead of being a promoter, he became a saboteur of the very plan he was announcing.

BERMAN: Do you ever let yourself think of how many lives might have been saved?

WRIGHT: I think about it a lot and it's very disturbing to consider that hundreds of thousands of lives might have been spared if there -- if there had been a higher standard of leadership in charge of this effort.

But, you know, we were bound to suffer. Every nation has suffered but some have suffered far more than others. And America was supposed to be the best-prepared nation in the world and yet they -- you know, in balance, it looks like we have done the worst job of all.

BERMAN: Yes. The book is "The Plague Year." It really explains how we went from a pandemic that could have killed tens of thousands of people to hundreds of thousands of people.

Lawrence, thanks so much for being with us. I appreciate it.

WRIGHT: Thank you, John.

BERMAN: NEW DAY continues right now.

I'm John Berman alongside Brianna Keilar.

On this new day, Mr. No or Sen. No. Joe Manchin no on ditching the filibuster and now, no on a voting rights bill.