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Don Lemon Tonight
President Trump Retreats, Acknowledges Governors Will Have The Authority To Open Their States When Ready; Former President Barack Obama Takes A Swipe At Trump's Leadership; V.P. Mike Pence To Attend U.S. Air Force Commencement Exercises; Health Experts Don't Agree On Rushing Things Back; 608,000-Plus Of Coronavirus Cases In U.S., More Than 25,000 Deaths Nationwide; Former President Obama Endorses Joe Biden For President. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired April 14, 2020 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: But we don't have the time either. So that's why there's already an injury.
Now, Ameri-cans. NFL great Drew Brees and his wife Brittany, Drew and Brittany, they live in New Orleans, of course, and the iconic Saints quarterback recently announced that they're donating $5 million to the State of Louisiana.
Hey, look, I know the guy's made a fortune. A lot of people have made a fortune. I've told you about one who has given $5 million to others. They're teaming up with companies that will make sure that 10,000 meals a day are delivered to those in need. Now, listen, I know you think, this is America, people can't eat. Don't go so fast.
The supply chain disruptions are real and the need for food is growing all the time. So, thank you to the Ameri-cans. You better watch out, Ameri-can'ts, we're watching you, too.
Thank you for watching us. "CNN TONIGHT" with D. Lemon, the man, right now.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Can I put you on the Ameri-cans?
CUOMO: Me?
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: No.
LEMON: OK.
CUOMO: The Ameri-cans are people like you who are helping me. I'm just --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Well, I wanted to put this group on the Ameri-cans because they sent me this mask and I left their information in my office. This beautiful American flag mask. But I'm going to put you on because I sent you a note from my mom. Her friend -- did you see the note?
CUOMO: Yes. Beautiful. I needed it. Thank you.
LEMON: She and her husband got the coronavirus, and the funny information she tried to -- she made a joke but it was really serious. Her husband lost 40 pounds. She lost 15. She said she didn't realize it until the Uber eats guy showed up. She had some spilled bleach. She was trying to mop it up. And he was delivering her lunch through the window.
The guy said to her, he said, ma'am, you're not only going to kill the corona, you're going to kill yourself with that bleach. And she said, what bleach? She lost her sense of smell.
CUOMO: Sense of smell.
LEMON: She couldn't smell it. At that moment that's when she realized that she had to go to the doctor and get the test. And as it turns out she had it. Yes. And she said you helped her get through it by saying that you had to slay the virus or kill the beast or whatever it is. And they've looked at your videos and you helped then.
So, you're on the Ameri-cans list. But I got a lot to get to. So, you go get your rest, stop sweating, take care of yourself and I'll see you tomorrow.
CUOMO: All right, brother, be well.
LEMON: All right. Take it easy. You as well.
This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon.
Here's our breaking news. More than 600,000 cases of coronavirus across this country. At least 25,981 Americans have died, an increase of 200 -- excuse me, 2,353 deaths today, which is the highest number of deaths in a single day.
That's a mark that we haven't reached in several days. Those tragic numbers, well, they're people. That's a sign that we're still in a very tenuous and dangerous time, even as the president raises the idea tonight of possibly opening up the country even earlier than May 1st, a date his own medical expert Dr. Fauci calls overly optimistic.
That as there is a new warning that the virus may be with us for a lot longer than the president is suggesting. Researchers at Harvard say -- now are saying that we could be doing some form of social distancing until 2022. Unless a vaccine or a treatment becomes available sooner.
All of which makes it pretty clear that there will be nothing normal about our new normal. More evidence of that coming from California Governor Gavin Newsom, outlining a plan eventually to re-open his state. Saying there is no timeline yet, but telling Californians to get used to wearing masks, getting temperature checks in public places, and going to restaurants with half as many tables.
In the face of all this, the president retreating tonight from his outrageous and unconstitutional claims just last night that he has total authority over the states. Now he is acknowledging governors are actually the ones who have the authority to open their states when they are ready.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will be speaking to all 50 governors very shortly. And I will then be authorizing each individual governor of each individual state to implement a re-opening and a very powerful re-opening plan of their state at a time and in a manner as most appropriate.
The day will be very close because certain states, as you know, are in much different condition and in a much different place than other states. It's going to be very, very close. Maybe even before the date of May 1st. So that will be for some states.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:04:59]
LEMON: Authorizing the governors? As if he has the power to lift the stay-at-home orders. When it was the governors who put those orders in place and it's the governors who have the power to lift them.
He is caving. He's gaslighting. He wasted a whole day on the president's political performance art while more Americans died. But the president clearly still wants to have it both ways. He's claiming that he is authorizing the governors to do what they already have the power to do. But blaming them for the failure to have enough tests.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The governors, the governors are supposed to do testing. It's up to the governors. Go ahead. Please.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President --
TRUMP: Go ahead. Please. Quiet. Quiet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President --
TRUMP: Quiet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we can just get back to May 1. Mr. President --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The question is, they say that that they are not, they are following your lead that they are not social distancing --
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: The governors are doing the testing. It's now not up -- and it hasn't been up to the federal government. Go ahead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Governors are supposed to do the testing? Translation, it's not my fault. Not my fault that we still don't have the testing we need. The president is playing the blame game here, blaming governors and halting funding for the World Health Organization while a renew -- a review, excuse me, is conducted. In the middle of a pandemic that has more -- that has killed more than 25,000 Americans and over 100,000 more around the world.
This is all about finding someone to blame while dodging his own responsibility. The president bashing the WHO for praising China's transparency. When he did exactly the same thing himself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Had the WHO done its job to get medical experts into China to objectively assess the situation on the ground and to call out China's lack of transparency, the outbreak could have been contained at a source with very little death. Very little death and certainly very little death by comparison.
This would have saved thousands of lives and avoided worldwide economic damage. Instead, the WHO willingly took China's assurances to face value, and they took it just at face value and defended the actions of the Chinese government, even praising China for its so- called transparency. I don't think so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Like I said, the president is bashing the WHO for the same thing that he did, tweeting in January, quote, "China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well."
And going on to thank President Xi, and then there is this tweet from February. The president praising the World Health Organization for, his words, working hard and very smart and throwing in the claim that the stock market was looking very good.
Now, the fact is the World Health Organization is far from perfect. They were late to call the coronavirus a pandemic. CNN labelled the virus a pandemic before the WHO did. The WHO did defend China's actions. But what the president is doing is just trying to dodge his own responsibility. I want you to listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Our countries are now experiencing -- you look all over the world, tremendous death and economic devastation because those tasked with protecting us by being truthful and transparent failed to do so. It would have been so easy to be truthful.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: It would have been easy to be truthful. It would have been easy for this president to be truthful. Instead of claiming the virus would have miraculously -- would miraculously go away in warm weather, instead of claiming it was under control, that the number of cases were going to be close to zero, that anybody who needs a test gets a test.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: By April, you know, in theory when it gets a little warmer it miraculously goes away.
The coronavirus, which is, you know, very well under control in our country.
We're going down, not up. We're going very substantially down, not up. When you have 15 people and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done.
Anybody that needs a test gets a test. They're there. They have the tests, and the tests are beautiful.
We're doing a great job with it and it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.
Some of the doctors say it will wash through. It will flow through.
Very accurate. I think you're going to find in a number of weeks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: It would have been easy to be truthful instead of telling Americans what he wanted them to hear. Putting us all in danger by downplaying this deadly virus.
But we also heard today from another president, one we don't hear from that often. Not often enough. The former President Barack Obama.
[22:09:59]
Talking directly to Americans, speaking first not about his grievances or who to blame for things, but about the coronavirus crisis and how it's affecting millions of Americans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Hi, everybody. Let me start by saying the obvious. These aren't normal times. As we all manage our way through a pandemic unlike anything we've seen in a century, Michelle and I hope that you and your families are safe and well. If you've lost somebody to this virus or if someone in your life is sick or if you're one of the millions suffering economic hardship, please know that you're in our prayers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: The former president also talking about the kind of leadership we need to fight the virus. And inside his message to voters is what could easily be a message to President Trump. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: If there's one thing we've learned as a country from moments of great crisis, it's that the spirit of looking out for one another can't be restricted to our homes or our workplaces our or neighborhoods or our houses of worship, it also has to be reflected in our national government.
The kind of leadership that's guided by knowledge and experience. Honesty and humility. Empathy and grace. That kind of leadership doesn't just belong in our state capitals and mayors' offices, it belongs in the White House.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Former President Obama going on to endorse his Vice President Joe Biden, and reminding us that elections really do have consequences, especially now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: So, our country's future hangs on this election. And it won't be easy. The other side has a massive war chest. The other side has a propaganda network with little regard for the truth.
On the other hand, pandemics have a way of cutting through a lot of noise and spin. To remind us of what is real and what is important. This crisis has reminded us that government matters. It's reminded us that good government matters. That facts and science matter. That the rule of law matters.
That having leaders who are informed and honest and seek to bring people together rather than drive them apart, those kind of leaders matter. In other words, elections matter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So, compare that to what we heard from President Trump tonight. Doing what he always seems to do. Blaming the previous administration or administrations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The cupboard was bare when I got here. Nobody ever thought a thing, in all fairness to previous administrations, nobody ever thought anything like this was going to happen, but it did happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Well, let's hear what a previous president said about exactly the kind of crisis we are facing right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: There may and likely will come a time in which we have both an airborne disease that is deadly. And in order for us to deal with that effectively, we have to put in place an infrastructure, not just here at home but globally, that allows to us see it quickly, isolate it quickly, respond to it quickly.
So that if and when a new strain of flu like the Spanish flu crops up, five years from now or a decade from now, we've made the investment. And we're further along to be able to catch it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Right on the mark. That was December of 2014. This all started December of 2019, that's why it's called COVID-19. One hundred percent correct in his warning. We need an infrastructure to see a pandemic quickly and catch it in time to save lives. But this White House didn't heed that warning. And now more than 25,000 Americans have died.
Let's bring in CNN's White House Correspondent, Kaitlan Collins.
Kaitlan, good evening to you. The president is now saying that he'll authorize governors to make their own decision on when to re-open their states. What does that even mean?
Governors are already authorized to decide that on their own and he is criticizing the WHO, praising China's transparency, but, you know, you pressed him on his praise of China. Let's watch and then we'll talk about it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You were criticizing the WHO for praising China for being transparent, but you also praised China for being transparent.
TRUMP: I don't talk about China's transparency.
COLLINS: January --
(CROSSTALK)
[22:14:59]
TRUMP: Well, you know, if I'm so good to China, how come I was the only person, the only leader of a country that closed our borders tightly against China?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: So that was a dodge. He tried to sidestep your question, but there is a tweet.
COLLINS: There's always a tweet, Don, and this is a pattern of what the president has said about China ever since this outbreak has happened, and that's what's been so notable because the president was there talking about his, you know, relationship with China that it's been a retread or it's been very troubled at times. But the fact of the matter is, when it comes to coronavirus, he has
praised the Chinese president several times. He specifically praised their transparency, which was just so notable as he was using that as a reason for why he is withholding this funding from the WHO.
Their praise of China, he himself has done it. He did not walk that back. Initially he tried to answer another question, Don. He was not answering that one either. Did not add any clarification.
When I was the second reporter to ask about this. Someone before me had already asked. The president still did not offer any inside on that or walk back his praise of China.
But, of course, that also came as you noted the president changing his attitude and his tone on these governors opening their own states, where he's now saying they're going to work together.
It's going to be more cooperation than what he had not only said yesterday, but each this morning when he was talking about there being a mutiny by these Democratic governors who were talking about re- opening their states when really they were just saying they wanted to coordinate with other states that were nearby because they thought that made the most sense.
LEMON: Kaitlan, let's switch gears now because we're learning that Vice President Pence is going to attend the Air Force Academy graduation this weekend. How's that going to order?
COLLINS: Yes, he's going. They moved up their graduation about a month for their cadets. We knew that from Barbara Starr's reporting. And now the vice president is going to go and speak at that commencement.
They say social distancing guidelines are going to be observed at that. I think this is going to be the first time that we've seen the president or the vice president travel out of Washington in quite some time. So, he's going to be flying there to Colorado on Saturday, speaking at this commencement which we should note the Air Force has already said that no families are going to be attending this.
Instead they have offered a live stream. It's just going to be the cadets. But it will be interesting to see the vice president making this first public appearance at an event in the age of coronavirus, of course, and now given the social distancing guidelines that we have and how that's going to be observed in this graduation ceremony at the Air Force Academy.
LEMON: All right. Kaitlan Collins. Kaitlan, thank you very much.
There will be nothing normal about our new normal. Masks, getting your temperature checked in public, desks moved farther apart in work places, and Harvard researchers say we may have to keep up the social distancing until 2022. I'm going to ask one of them what we should expect.
[22:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Tonight, the number of coronavirus cases in the United States surpassing 608,000. More than 25,000 deaths in this country. And yet President Trump says tonight that he thinks some states without major outbreaks of coronavirus could potentially re-open by May 1st.
I want to bring in Dr. Stephen Kissler, a researcher at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Thank you, doctor, for joining us. I really appreciate it.
Listen, I want to get your reaction to this from the Washington Post on the government's plan to re-open the country. Here's what it says. The plan lays out three phases, OK? Preparing the nation to re-open with a national communication campaign and community readiness assessment until May 1.
Then the effort through May 15 would involve ramping up manufacturing of testing kits and personal protective equipment and increasing emergency funding. And then stage re-openings would begin depending on local conditions.
The plan does not give dates for re-openings, but specified not before May 1. It should -- I hoped it would be up on screen, but it's not. What do you think? We'll try to get it up if we have -- if we can do it.
STEPHEN KISSLER, RESEARCHER, HARVARD T.H. CHAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: So, yes, thanks so much for having me. I think that the, you know, the spirit of that plan is in the right direction, but I think that as with so many things with this outbreak, the timeline will need to be assessed again and again.
I think that really in order to assess whether we're ready to start re-opening businesses, and to start sort of entering back into a more normal phase of life, really, as you say, the testing is going to be incredibly important.
So, I think personally I would like to see that sort of prioritized a little bit more highly because I think that that's really the precursor. It's what we're going to need first to really know whether we're going to start being able to lift some of these measures in time.
LEMON: Yes, so my question is -- would be what Dr. Fauci said. The president suggesting opening some states might open before May 1st. Dr. Fauci is saying even May 1st would be overly optimistic. Your new research points to a very different scenario for the country. So please explain what you found.
KISSLER: Yes, that's correct. So, the best evidence that we have right now suggests that there are still a large number of people susceptible to COVID infection in the United States. And so that suggests that as we start lifting social distancing measures infections will begin to spread more and more to those people.
So, we've seen this in past outbreaks before too, most clearly in the 1918 flu pandemic for which this current outbreak is probably the closest analog that we've seen. And as social distancing measures were lifted from city to city, we saw a resurgence in infections. So, I think we can certainly expect that to reoccur. So, I think we need to be ready for that possibility.
LEMON: I ask you -- it seems -- both these plans seem a bit overly optimistic to me, but considering what you said. And I was speaking to someone today who lives in Los Angeles and they said, well, you know, May 1st or even before sounds good to me. It's not so bad. Here you guys are really getting the brunt of it here. And it seems like we should be able to open up.
And I said I don't really know about that because, you know, the moment we start doing that, I think the infection rate will go back up. And he said, well, as soon as we get a plane out, we're going to go to Cabo and we're going to do all these things. What do you think of that? I don't think that that is a good idea.
KISSLER: No, you're absolutely right. So, the end game for this epidemic really is going to be developing enough immunity in the population to prevent outbreaks from happening.
[22:25:00]
And so, you know, the -- ideally that will happen with a vaccine, but that's a long way down the road. And so, in the meantime, as infections start to rise again, as you say, they certainly will --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: But I just want to get the point across that just because it's not as bad in some places, does that mean that they don't have to worry about it or as much to worry about or shouldn't worry about it?
KISSLER: Absolutely not. And we saw this early in the epidemic, too, that, you know, that we saw a few infections in the United States early on, but now here we are with many more. So, I think that, you know, we -- what's happening right now is really not a good indicator of what's going to happen, even in the very immediate future.
LEMON: OK. So, let's get -- since I brought up California, let's get -- let's talk about Governor Gavin Newsom's plan. He's outlining a plan to re-open. He gave some specific examples about what they may look like. Here it is and then we'll talk.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): You may be having dinner with a waiter wearing gloves, maybe a face mask, dinner where the menu is disposable, where the tables -- half of the tables in that restaurant no longer appear. Where your temperature is checked before you walk in to the establishment. These are likely scenarios.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So, he also talked about still no large gathering of people, essentially there's going to be, you know, nothing normal about the return to whatever is normal.
KISSLER: That's right. I mean, I think that we're in for a long period of time before, you know, normal life that we saw before this epidemic really is able to happen again.
I think the solutions like the governor was mentioning are going to be important and we're really going to need to understand how each of those different measures from as small as wearing masks or disposable menus to limiting the size of gatherings really has an effect on the amount of transmission that this virus is capable of having. We'll learn that better and better over time.
And I think that we're on the verge of having more information on that since so many different states are implementing different measures like this, but we don't really have that information yet. And so right now we really need to be doing the social distancing maneuvers as much as we're able to turn around the epidemic as we can.
LEMON: Dr. Kissler, great information. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.
KISSLER: Thank you.
LEMON: President Trump is trying to deflect responsibility tonight by blaming the World Health Organization, but what did his administration do? We've got an in-depth look into what the White House knew and when, next.
[22:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: The Trump administration's handling of the coronavirus pandemic coming under increased scrutiny. The question is, what did the White House know and when? CNN's Sara Murray has more. Sara?
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Don, it seems like tonight President Trump is trying to deflect blame once again, taking aim at the World Health Organization. But our investigation found there are plenty of questions about what the Trump administration did and failed to do in the coronavirus response.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We think we have it very well under control.
MURRAY: In the months since President Trump assured workers at a Detroit-area factory that his administration had a handle on the coronavirus.
TRUMP: We think it's going to have a very good ending for us.
MURRAY: A handful of the factory workers have fallen ill with covid- 19. The plant ceased production, laying off workers like Don McMurry. DON MCMURRY, EMPLOYEE LAID OFF FROM DANA INC.: I don't think our
country or this world prepared us for what we're going through now, so I think on all fronts leadership has failed.
MURRAY: The company's stock price has plunged by nearly half, and southeast Michigan became a coronavirus hot spot. The devastation caused by the coronavirus pandemic is the kind of thing experts have spent years worrying about and planning for, but no simulation, no tabletop exercise accounted for a crisis like this with a president like Trump.
TRUMP: Everything we did was right.
MURRAY: A president who would use false statements, self- aggrandizement and bullying to understate the threat posed by the coronavirus.
DR. LAURA KHAN, RESEARCH HEALTH POLICY SCHOLAR, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: He downplayed the severity of the crisis. He minimized it. He ignored his experts.
MURRAY: As the death toll climbs pass 25,000, Laura Khan, an expert in leadership during epidemics says Trump made pretty much every mistake a president can in this situation.
KHAN: This response would have been different if we had a president who listened to scientific advisers. It would have been a very different outcome.
MURRAY: From the beginning aides struggled to get Trump to pay attention to the emerging pandemic. Though the administration's top health care experts began meeting daily back in January. Sources say Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar tried to bring the coronavirus up with Trump on a call in January, but the president wanted to talk about vaping instead. At the National Security Council, officials primarily saw the virus as a problem to wall off from the U.S.
TRUMP: I did a ban on China. You think that was easy?
MURRAY: The president's January 31st move to block foreigners who visited China from the U.S. bought the administration time, but it was the only significant step Trump would take for at least a month.
TRUMP: Looks like by April, you know, in theory when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.
MURRAY: Days after Trump's travel ban, Americans evacuated from China and potentially exposed to the virus were greeted in the U.S. by emergency response teams with insufficient protective gear like baby wipes and construction-style dust masks, according to sources.
And while other countries like South Korea had success suppressing the virus with widespread testing, some of the CDC's tests were flawed leaving the U.S. with limited testing in February as the coronavirus spread. TRUMP: They have the tests.
MURRAY: While Trump promised testing for all --
TRUMP: Anybody that needs a test gets a test.
MURRAY: -- it came as news to those directly involved in the process at the CDC. Even now everyone who wants a test cannot get one. A looming shortage was also coming in hospital masks, gowns and other supplies called PPE to protect doctors and nurses from coronavirus.
[22:35:05]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's like we're going into a war with no protection.
MURRAY: In early February, the State Department sent almost 18 tons of personal protective equipment from private donors to China.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In America we provide aid because we're generous and noble people.
MURRAY: These emails obtained by CNN show the same months supplies were shipped to China the CDC was warning health departments across the country about supply chain concerns. Urging them to maintain any stockpiles of expired PPE until further guidance.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am down to my last N95 mask and I'm reusing it.
MURRAY: Early on there were officials trying to warn the public about the seriousness of the virus. They were quickly sidelined.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Disruption to everyday life may be severe.
MURRAY: For weeks the CDC's top respiratory disease Dr. Nancy Messonnier said the coronavirus could become a pandemic. On February 25th she caught Trump's attention.
DR. NANCY MESSONNIER, CDC'S TOP RESPIRATORY DISEASE: We are asking the American public to work with us to prepare in the expectation that this could be bad.
MURRAY: Trump and some of his aides were furious, believing she overstated the threat, sources said. A day later Trump appeared, offering reassurances rather than warnings.
TRUMP: And we'll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner. We're ready for it. We're really prepared.
MURRAY: Americans didn't buy it. Trump was pummeled in the press. Schools were closing down. Americans started working from home. Investors were panicking. An Oval Office address --
TRUMP: My fellow Americans --
MURRAY: -- failed to fix any of it. There was a turning point when advisers privately pressed Trump to view himself as a wartime president. This is a war, they hold him, and experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx are your generals.
The economy, they assured him, would bounce back once the virus was vanquished. The president began doing regular televised briefings after noticing the New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was getting good press for his daily appearances.
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): Prepare for the worst and hope for the best. That's what we're doing here.
MURRAY: When Trump appeared at the podium March 16th, he outlined more stringent social distancing guidelines for the nation and appeared to finally be taking the deadly virus seriously.
TRUMP: To each and every one of us has a critical role to play in stopping the spread and transmission of the virus.
MURRAY: And then on Monday, Trump defended his response to the crisis using a propaganda-style video of people complimenting him.
TRUMP: We did the right thing and our timing was very good.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MURRAY: Now, Don, there are still a lot of questions about how we are going to come out of this, whether the U.S. has hit its peak and how we are going to open the economy safely. And so, this isn't just an after-action report on what President Trump did. We are still very much in the thick of it and in the thick of this administration's response. Back to you.
LEMON: All right. Thank you, Sara Murray. I appreciate it.
And like he said, you know, this is an ongoing crisis. Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, she's going to join me next to talk about President Trump's leadership in this crisis and what the former president Barack Obama had to say about that today.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:40:00]
LEMON: President Trump trying to rewrite history around his coronavirus response, painting himself as a bold leader who took action early even as he continues to dodge responsibility. Let's discuss now presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin is here. She's the author of Leadership in turbulent times, and it's always a pleasure to have her on. Thank you so much for joining us, Doris. You doing OK?
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Thank you for having me.
LEMON: Absolutely.
GOODWIN: Yes, I'm doing all right. Thank you, Don. LEMON: That is good news. So we just saw, you know, how President
Trump has gone from minimizing and delaying to now angrily defending his response and blaming others. As a presidential historian, how do you see this?
GOODWIN: Well, you know, what interested me so much today about the endorsement that President Obama gave to Joe Biden was the outlined the leadership traits that we should be using to judge every candidate who would run for the presidency on the Democratic side and President Trump. I mean, the first characteristic is taking responsibility for what you've done, acknowledging errors and learning from your mistakes. It's the only way that one can grow.
I think we're also hoping to see resilience in our leaders. You know, it's interesting to think about the fact that he talked about the losses that Joe Biden had experienced. Teddy Roosevelt lost his wife and his mother on the same day in the same house and then went into a serious depression, went to the badlands and somehow recovered by loving nature, which becomes his conservation legacy.
And then you've got empathy. You've got the ability to create a team. You've got the ability for experience. All of those things are what we need to be talking about. And all of our leaders -- all my guys that I studied really had that family resemblance of leadership traits.
LEMON: Yes. Listen. I want to talk to you about that, I just have one more question before I get there.
GOODWIN: Sure.
LEMON: And I want to play some of the former president. You know, because this president has been going back and forth with the governors over who has the authority to close or open the states during this crisis and I just wonder, you know, because he claims he has absolutely authority. But he did -- did he get an overnight civics lesson or something? Because he seems to have changed his tune. I've been wanting to ask you that.
GOODWIN: Well, it did seem that he listened to the scholars who said that if you look at the constitution and the powers reserved to the states, that the authority to have the police power to determine when to open or when to shut down businesses and schools rests clearly in the governor's hands. So, tonight he simply talked about authorizing or working with the governors. And it's a good thing that people finally got to him on this issue.
LEMON: Yes, I'm glad you answered that. And you would think after three years as president that he would know that, right?
GOODWIN: You would think.
LEMON: So, let's get to what you were talking about earlier. In a lengthy video today, the former President Barack Obama officially endorsed Joe Biden, touting his old V.P.'s leadership and taking one of his most direct swipes, not mentioning his name, but at his successor. Watch this. [22:45:13]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The kind of leadership that's guided by knowledge and experience, honesty and humility, empathy and grace. That kind of leadership doesn't just belong in our state capitals and mayors' offices, it belongs in the White House. And that's why I'm so proud to endorse Joe Biden for president of the United States. One thing everybody has learned by now is that the Republicans occupying the White House and running the U.S. Senate are not interested in progress. They're interested in power.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: It is the direct opposite, really, of what we hear from the current occupant of the White House, but he is talking there about the qualities that make a good leader that you talked about, and you talked about empathy and one of the most important.
GOODWIN: Without question. I think empathy is maybe the most important quality that you need in a leader. The most important quality we need as humans. You know, the ability to see things from other people's point of view. Teddy Roosevelt warned that the rock of democracy would falter if people began seeing each other as the other rather than common American citizens.
And when I think of Franklin Roosevelt, for example, coming from a privileged background, once he got that polio, it really changed him because he began to see the world in terms of what other people from whom fate had also dealt an unkind hand were experiencing and allowed him to connect to people in a deeper way, despite the paralysis that hurt his body, it expanded his mind and sensibilities and we look for that understanding of other people. We need it in this divided world more than ever before. It's a human quality that we all need in our everyday lives.
LEMON: Hey, just real quickly before I let you go. I thought about something as I've been watching these press conferences over the past couple of weeks, and a quote from the former first lady who said the -- the presidency doesn't change you, and I'm paraphrasing here, it reveals who you are as a person.
GOODWIN: And I think that's true of crises, too. A crisis brings out and magnifies a leader's potential strengths or their weaknesses. Because what it is, is just creating a larger stage on which we need leaders. In ordinary times, we may not think about the leader of the country every day, every moment, but in times of crisis we need to be dependent on one another and we need the example that a leader sets in order to help us feel together.
I mean, that's the magic of leadership. When Franklin Roosevelt took over during the depression, there had been almost three years where the federal government had not responded significantly enough and people -- the governors were left on their own. And once he was there suddenly people said -- a guy wrote in, I'm OK because you're there. It's what human need at a time when we need one another, we need somebody to help us direct our responsibilities and we need us to come forward.
The people are coming forward now. I still think it's amazing, not only what the medical people have done and the first responders, but regular people staying home and listening to these orders. They are the ones that are going to make this possible, and I think that's what we've seen throughout history. It's always from the ground up that changes take place, and hopefully history will record this as a time when we had our own rendezvous with destiny and we came through, as we did during the depression and World War II. Let us hope that.
LEMON: And we needed to hear from you. Doris Kearns Goodwin, thank you so much for joining us. 1 appreciate it.
GOODWIN: I'm so glad to be with you. Thank you.
LEMON: We'll be right back.
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[22:50:00]
LEMON: More than 608,000 cases of coronavirus across this country with hot spots in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit. But small towns in rural areas aren't immune. And joining me now, Mayor Mary Jane Scott of Mangum, Oklahoma, which has a population of about 2,700. Magnum has 49 cases of coronavirus. Four people have died. Also joining us is Brandie Combs, a regional director with the Oklahoma State Department of Health.
I'm so glad that you both are joining us. I really appreciate your time. Mayor, you first, you have taken a very personal approach to keep your citizens informed about the threat of this virus. Actually going to their doorsteps to get the message out. Tell us what has it been like since coronavirus hit your town?
MAYOR MARY JANE SCOTT, MANGUM, OKLAHOMA: It's been unreal. I mean, we certainly never experienced anything like this before. And the lack of communication that we had in small towns in rural Oklahoma, sometimes just to get the message out is just to -- you have to use your Facebook page, you have to go ahead and use the local newspaper. But it only comes out once a week.
And you rely on friends. And you're churches, your organizations and things like that to get the message out. I actually went and put up fliers on the doors on some policies that the city has done for the community, just to let people know what we need to do, to do our part to make sure that everybody is safe.
LEMON: Well, Mayor, the governor -- Oklahoma's governor has not issued a statewide stay at home order. So, you have had to issue your own. And you made masks mandatory. Are people complying?
SCOTT: Most everybody is complying there. Of course at any place that you go to, there's a few that are not. But in general, our community is very respective to what we need to do. Our biggest deal is getting the message out.
[03:55:00]
And that's what I'm really working on trying to do. Even using Facebook and things like that to make sure that people know what it is the city has done and how we're protecting our schools, our police department and fire department, ambulances that all get the messages.
LEMON: Good. So, Brandy, you know, this virus really doesn't care if someone is in rural area or major metropolis, from a public health perspective has been a challenge to convince people that this threat is real and it's in the community.
BRANDIE COMBS, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, OKLAHOMA STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH: It's been a challenge in some aspect. I think in rural Oklahoma specifically we like to think that we're protected. There's not a lot of us out here. And we realize very quickly that we're really not any different than New York or Washington State or the other communities who have felt the impact of this particular virus. The virus does not see any difference as far as political affiliation or anything like that. It certainly has impacted at every community across our state.
LEMON: And what about PPE and things like that for hospital workers and people on the front line?
COMBS: So, we're fortunate in some aspects in that we have not seen a huge concern around PPE. We have a lot of organizations working to make sure that we have PPE available.
LEMON: Good.
COMBS: In (Inaudible) County specifically we have used the (inaudible) who has provided us with PPE from the Strategic National Stockpile. Things that we don't have or things like, hand sanitizer, shoe coverings, things like that. The health care system has really step up eliminated elective surgery and procedures and things like that.
LEMON: Well, Brandie, thank you so much. Mayor, thank you and we'd love for you to come back to update as this continue, because this is a very serious and again, we appreciate both of you coming on this evening. Thanks so much. Good luck to you and be safe.
COMBS: Thank you.
LEMON: Thank you. The number of deaths in the U.S. from coronavirus still rising with an increase of over 2,300 deaths in the last 24 hours. That's the highest number of deaths in a single day so far. Stay with us for the very latest.
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