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Don Lemon Tonight

U.S. Death Toll From Coronavirus Approaches 90,000; New Developments In Shooting Death Of Ahmaud Arbery; Trump Expected To Travel To Michigan This Week; At Least 48 States In Process Of Partially Reopening; Officials: 180 People Exposed To Coronavirus At Church Service On Mother's Day; Texas Reports Its Highest One-Day Spike In Coronavirus Cases This Weekend; Health Officials Double Down On Dangers Of Mass Gatherings As States Reopen More Venues. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired May 17, 2020 - 20:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:00:20]

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon. Here's our breaking news.

The coronavirus death toll in this country getting closer and closer to 90,000, but the fact is, by midnight tonight, at least 48 states will have started reopening to some degree.

Pretty much everywhere you look this country is opening up, beginning to lift stay-at-home orders and sending businesses back to work: the president telling NBC Sports tonight he really wants to see tens of thousands of fans crowded together not wearing masks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We really want to see it get back to normal, so when you have all of those thousands, tens of thousands of people, going to your majors, and going to golf tournaments, we want them to have that same experience. So we don't want them to be -- having to wear masks and, you know, be doing what we have been doing for the last number of months, because that's not -- that's not getting back to normal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: We all want to get back to normal, no doubt about that, or some version of normal. But is now really the time to be talking about tens of thousands of people, tens of thousands of fans crowded together, not wearing masks?

And then there's the Health and Human Services secretary, Alex Azar, putting part of the blame for coronavirus deaths on the state of Americans' health.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ALEX AZAR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: Unfortunately, the American population is a very diverse, and it is a population with significant unhealthy comorbidities that do make many individuals in our communities, in particular African-American, minority communities, particularly at risk here because of significant underlying disease, health disparities, and disease comorbidities, and that is an unfortunate legacy in our health care system that we certainly do need to address.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: There's no question that communities of color have been hard hit by coronavirus. We pointed out that disparity over and over. Remember, a recent study found African-Americans make up 27 percent of fatalities in communities where we are only 13 percent of the population.

But it is pretty rich for Azar to point to underlying health conditions in minority communities while ignoring the fact that the president downplayed the virus for weeks: weeks when we could have been taking steps to protect all Americans, including in communities of color.

We are also learning tonight that social distancing may have prevented tens of millions of infections that, as far as more people are looking for any excuse to abandon social distancing and masks. A recent study finds without any social distancing at all the number of coronavirus cases in this country could have been 35 times higher.

But with the weather getting warmer in a lot of -- in a big part of this country, the country quarantine fatigue is really setting in. I'm sure you've seen it where you live.

I want you to take a look at these crowds. This is in New York City, this is on Friday night, okay? Which is why talk like this from the president's son, Eric Trump, is not just idiotic: it's dangerous.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC TRUMP, SON OF PRESIDENT TRUMP: They think they're taking away Donald Trump's greatest tool, which is being able to go into an arena and fill it with 50,000 people every single time, right? So they -- they will, and you watch. They'll milk it every single day between now and November 3rd, and guess what, after November 3rd, coronavirus will magically all of a sudden go away and disappear, and everybody will be able to reopen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: How low can you go? Seriously. That is stunningly callous, accusing Democrats of using social distancing to keep the president from holding campaign rallies, when nearly 90,000 Americans have died; and then echoing his father's absurd claim that the coronavirus will magically go away.

But that's the story that this president needs to sell. He needs you to believe that we're on the other side of this thing, meaning the country -- the world, really. Even though we are not. He needs you to believe that the economy is going to come back roaring, come roaring back, just in time for election day.

That's why he's saying things like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I just want to make something clear. It's very important. Vaccine or no vaccine, we're back, and we are starting the process. And in many cases, they don't have vaccines, and a virus, or a flu comes, and you fight through it. We haven't seen anything like this in a hundred and some-odd years. 1917.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[20:05:00]

LEMON: Well, the president flat out saying that we are opening the economy, even though we don't have a vaccine. His advice for Americans who get sick, just fight through it. Just fight through the virus that your own CDC director says could kill 100,000 Americans by June 1st, only two weeks away.

I guess it should be no surprise that this president, and this is according to sources, has privately questioned whether the death toll is inflated. But here's the fact -- the fact is, people are dying, nearly 90,000 of them, yet the president wants you to think that this is all about politics.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: People want to come back. You see what's going on at state houses all over the country. They want to come back. I think some people don't want it really to come back, for political reasons, which is sick. But the people, the real people, the people that want this country to be great and great again, we can say they want to get back.

You look at some cases, some people think they're doing it for politics. Here we go again. But they think they're doing it because it will hurt me. The longer it takes to hurt me in the election, the longer it takes to open up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Me, me, me, me, me. It will hurt me in the election. Listen, I've said this before. Everyone wants to reopen the economy. That is a fight that he needs you to believe in order to win the election.

There is not one person out there who doesn't want the economy to reopen. People need to feed their families. They need to pay their bills. We need the economy to open up yesterday, weeks ago. Everyone needs and wants that, but we have to be smart about it.

That is a trick. Don't fall into it. It's not, we have to open the economy, and some people don't want the economy. Don't fall into that. What we have to do is be smart about it. We need the tools -- the right tools in order to do it, testing kits, contact tracing, all of that.

He wants to get your mind off of that, but we have to be safe about it. Millions of Americans are hurting, so don't fall into the trick, everyone. This is not a political thing. This is about your health, your life, your safety, and also about your livelihood and taking care of your family. It's not about politics, OK?

But millions of Americans have made a lot of sacrifices, staying at home, staying away from their jobs, their families, their schools. And in the face of all of that, I want you to listen to -- this is the former president, Barack Obama, who, in a virtual commencement address to high school seniors also seemed to have a poignant message for President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Doing what feels good, what's convenient, what's easy, that's how little kids think. Unfortunately, a lot of so-called grownups, including some with fancy titles and important jobs, still think that way, which is why things are so screwed up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And if you thought President Trump would take the high road in response, well, you didn't think that, did you?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: He was an incompetent president. That's all I can say. Grossly incompetent. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Incompetent? Remember, that was the president that saved you and this country's economy, your country from the brink. The one who really grew the economy and just handed it to this president.

So let's not forget that former president Barack Obama warned of a pandemic like this. It was way back in 2014, and he was right.

(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 us to 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 have made the investment. and we're further along to be able to catch it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So incompetent that he was able to see into the future.

[20:10:00]

Wasn't heeded. That warning was not heeded by this President and this administration. And here we are tonight - more than 1.4 million cases of coronavirus, as the death toll gets closer and closer to 90,000.

We've also got new developments on the case that we have been following - we have been covering for you for more than two weeks. The shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery. Ahmaud Arbery was chased. He was gunned down and killed when he was jogging in a Georgia neighborhood - this was back in February.

Former President Barack Obama talking about the case in a - in that virtual commencement address - in another virtual commencement address, this one to graduating seniors at historically black colleges and universities. Pointing out the inequities and extra burden dealt with by communities of color.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Just as we see it, when a black man goes for a jog, and some folks feel like they can stop and question and shoot him if he doesn't submit to their questioning. Injustice like this isn't new. What is new is that so much of your generation has woken up to the fact that the status quo needs fixing. That the old ways of doing things don't work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: We've got the very latest on Ahmaud Arbery's case for you tonight, including surveillance video showing that he wasn't the only person to enter that under construction house in Georgia in that neighborhood. But he's the only one we know of that was chased down. Definitely the only one we know of who was killed.

But right now, I want to turn now to the coronavirus debacle in this country. CNN's White House Correspondent, Jeremy Diamond is here with more. Jeremy, good evening to you on this Sunday. You have new reporting tonight on the President, him traveling to the battle ground state of Michigan later this week. What are you learning?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Don. A little moment ago, we reported that President Trump is expected to travel to Michigan on Thursday to visit a Ford manufacturing facility. This will be the President's third visit in three weeks. Not only going outside of Washington, but specifically going to battleground states.

These are official White House visits that the President is making. This time it will be to a plant that has been producing ventilators. But, of course, the political ramifications cannot be understated.

Michigan is one of those states where the President is currently trailing the presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, and a state that was crucial to President trump's election in 2016. He won it by less than 11,000 votes.

And now, Don, I do have a White House official officially confirming this visit. And it will be to Ford Motor Company's Rawsonville manufacturing plants in Ypsilanti, Michigan on Thursday. So that is the visit that we're expecting to see from the President.

Of course, Don, this comes - as we know, as you were just talking about - as President Trump is talking about a return to normal. And he is talking about it not just in terms of him going out in the country traveling off and visiting these places without wearing a mask but, but also as he's talking about a return back to how things used to be.

We heard the President on NBC Sports earlier today, during this golf tournament, talking about wanting to see stadiums filled to the brim once again. People not wearing masks. What the President, of course, isn't talking about there is what the time line is for that to happen, and specifically how that can happen.

The President, it is said, recently has been focusing more on this - on painting a picture of what a return to normal looks like, but not how exactly we're going to get there, and what kind of testing capabilities - vaccines, all of these things - are needed to actually get to that place.

LEMON: Yes. Listen, I would like to be in a stadium filled with people. I think a lot of people are ready to get out of their homes. You know, a lot of us are going to home and going to work. But I think we need to do it very smartly.

You know, it's time to - for many people, it's time to open up. They've got to - they've got to pay their bills. They've got to earn a living. But, I mean, I think getting in the stadiums, crowding people in, especially without social distancing, and masks - I don't know if we're ready for that part right now.

Jeremy Diamond at the White House for us. Jeremy, thank you very much. Are we ready for this new normal in America's restaurants, in our churches, in our salons and our beaches? And as Jeremy was just saying, in our sports arenas - sporting arenas as well? Well, time is closing in. And are we closing our eyes to the dangers? I'm going to ask a global health expert next.

[20:14:40]

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LEMON: Ready or not, at least 48 states will begin reopening by midnight tonight, just hours away. That, as the coronavirus death toll gets closer and closer to 90,000 with more than 1.4 million cases from coast to coast. Are we on the verge of a new normal?

I want to bring in now global health expert Tom Bollyky from the Council on Foreign Relations. He's the author of "Plagues and the Paradox of Progress". Man, that is the perfect title for the age that we are in right now, Tom. I'm so glad that you could join us. So President Trump spoke to "NBC", "NBC Sports". "Sports" doing a golf event today, and he reiterated that he wants fans at sporting events to get back to normal. He says that he wants to see big crowds, "practically standing on top of each other". He doesn't want to see people wearing masks.

Everyone wants to return to normal. You know that. I'm sure you do. Is that the right message to send?

TOM BOLLYKY, DIRECTOR, GLOBAL HEALTH PROGRAM, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: At this moment, that is the message that no public health expert would endorse. Certainly, not in the near term -- timeframe. Mass gatherings are probably the last thing we'll see be reopen. And I'm starting to say that.

I'm a baseball fan, I'd love to get back in the stadium to watch a game, too. But, you know, if the president thinks that, he's, unfortunately, not taking the pandemic seriously, and there are at least -- close to 90,000 reasons why he should be taking it seriously, at this point.

[20:20:10]

Of course, I'm referring to the U.S. death rate.

The U.S. CDC itself has recommended, back in March, which is still valid, that there should be no mass gatherings above 250 people if you have minimal community transmission of COVID-19. So that seems to be a very different scenario than what the president is describing.

LEMON: OK, let's talk about some of these, because beaches, indoor church services, restaurants, salons, states, you know, all opening up. We have seen more traffic now.

What is the impact of more people moving around and interacting with each other, Tom?

BOLLYKY: So, it's a little hard to know, because, as you mentioned at the outset, and I have been mentioning all along, testing rate are still really low. A lot of the states that have reopened earliest, so Texas, Florida, Georgia, Colorado: Texas and Florida have still one of the lowest rates of -- Texas and Colorado, rather, have one of the lowest rates of testing in the country. Florida is -- and Georgia are in the bottom half, so it's really low. We have to look at other indicators.

So we look at things like hospitalization, which about 60 percent of states track. And there, the signs are worrisome. So, Georgia and Florida have seen an uptick in the last couple of days, and that makes sense. On average, it's about eight days from infection to hospitalization, if you're going to be hospitalized.

So we're starting to see the impact. Hopefully that doesn't increase, but, you know, even if you look at states that don't collect data on hospitalizations, like Texas: Texas had the biggest increase its ever had in cases yesterday. So, the signs are really worrisome about what this kind of reopening might mean.

LEMON: I thought Georgia, though, was pretty much holding steady, in at least a number of cases, and Florida hasn't seen a spike number -- down, in a number of cases. But are you talking specifically about hospitalization rates?

BOLLYKY: I'm talking about hospitalization rates. And, again, you have to keep in mind those states' testing numbers are on the low side, from a nationwide perspective. So hospitalization gives you some of an indication, perhaps a more reliable indication, of what's actually hitting the health care system.

LEMON: Okay.

BOLLYKY: And, again, you start to see that about eight days after infection, and hospitalization rates the last couple days have gone up in both states.

LEMON: I have to tell you, about the one thing that I do, you know, except for an occasional walk, is go to the beach and check out the sunset, and I -- you know, since they said the beaches are going to open back up, you can still go to the beaches in New York. Some of them are open, and you can see -- go socially distanced.

So, I saw one person besides myself and the person I was with, my partner, wearing a mask yesterday at the beach, and it was filled with people.

Tom, listen, more than 180 people in California may have been exposed during a religious service on Mother's Day. You know, there are real consequences here.

BOLLYKY: There are deadly consequences here. And, honestly, at this point in the pandemic, and our experience with this country, you know, viewers know that at this point the president should know that, the government should know that we really need to take this more seriously, particularly as we're opening up.

So it's important that people wear masks, particularly in any indoor setting. But any setting where you're likely to come into contact with people, so crowded outdoor settings, like you and your partner very appropriately wearing a mask at a beach, where there's going to be people that you're going to be in closer contact with. It's going to be really important that we stick with CDC guidelines.

LEMON: Listen, how much of reopening really safely depends on being able to test and contact trace? Because -- so we don't see, you know, where we end up going back into a crisis, or the beginning of a second wave?

BOLLYKY: It's critical. It's critical. Unless we can have a better sense of what the risks are, the numbers of cases that are rising, being able to identify other people that have been exposed, and to try to slow down that transmission, this is not feasible.

Testing is critical. It is ramping up in this country, but it is ramping up quite slowly, and much more slowly than we are reopening. So, when you look at the different indicators out there, you see a slow increase in testing relative to the size of population, and you see some worrisome signs, again, in states that are reopening, and that's a dangerous combination.

LEMON: Yes. That really is the key. Again, if everyone wants to get back, and if the -- this administration wants it to be as normal as it can be, you know, as of three or four months ago, it's going to be having those tools in place so that people can feel more comfortable, and that our health won't be in any further danger than it can be -- than it would be with this virus out there.

[20:25:10]

Thank you, Tom Bollyky. I appreciate it.

BOLLYKY: My great pleasure.

LEMON: Texas coronavirus cases are going up, spiking. The state is reporting that their biggest single day increase in cases this weekend -- it happened this weekend. We're going to take you there live to find out what is going on. That is next.

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[20:30:00]

LEMON: Texas reporting nearly 800 new coronavirus cases, only a day after seeing its highest single day increase since the pandemic began. The state confirming 1800 new cases on Saturday. Let's discuss.

Vaccine scientist Dr. Peter Hotez. He's Dean of Topical - Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Doctor, I really appreciate you joining us. Let's talk about these numbers. They're alarming.

And I want to get to the bottom of what's accurate and what's not with these numbers. If it has anything to do with increased testing and so on and so forth. Texas health officials say more than 700 of the new cases on Saturday came from employees of meat plants in the Texas panhandle. That was around Amarillo. How critical is it to get this outbreak under control right now?

DR. PETER HOTEZ, DEAN OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Yes. No, it's a pretty serious outbreak, Don. You know, we've - we've heard about this in other parts of the mid west, in Nebraska and elsewhere. And I think we still don't entirely understand about meat - these meat packing plants. But boy, they - when - when COVID-19 hits, it just races through them. And it's devastating.

And you worry about this now causing epidemics in Amarillo and elsewhere in - in the panhandle. You know, we've been holding steady around 1,200 cases a day - been going up a little bit - and then we have this big - big burst. And I think the last three days have been the worst in terms of deaths.

Here's the situation. You know, we've been doing pretty well for - compared to other parts of the country for a long time. We saw what was happening up in New York and Boston. We implemented aggressive social distancing in Texas. That bought us a couple of weeks and - before the virus really had gotten here. And that really helped prevent a big surge. So our Texas Medical Center in Houston did not see nearly as big a surge as we were worried about.

So everybody was feeling pretty good. The question now is that we're relaxing social distancing as of May 1st in step wise fashion. Now that cases are going up, the - my big worry is - aside from the meat packing plants and the nursing homes - is the way these things tend to work, that we have seen the rest of the country, it's not like you see a linear increase, with a small increase every day.

What happens is it looks good, it looks good, it looks good, until it's not. And then it goes up exponentially. So my big fear is that we'll be okay for a few weeks. Everyone will be feeling good about things, opening up the economy. And then we'll get hit hard around July and August. And that's what I want to prevent.

LEMON: Is that - is - is that because there's a - there's a lag time in testing? I just want to - and in the way the disease shows up. And I just want to get - because there has been some criticism that, well, maybe Texas is seeing this increase because there's more testing going on.

So you're seeing an increase in numbers. And it's actually - you know, there aren't more people out there. They're just testing more people. Is that indeed true? What do you say to that?

HOTEZ: Well, you know, aside from the - what's happening in the nursing homes and the meat packing plants, there may be some truth to that. And that may account for some of the linear increase. But the thing that I'm really most worried about is that big surge that we might see in the summer.

The situation is as follows. You know, I understand, as everybody does, the urgency to open up the economy and get people back to work. Especially people who physically have to be in the workplace in order to support their families. And the - the problem has been where we haven't put in place a health system infrastructure adequately to sustain that economic development.

And what do I mean by that? So in - especially in our big cities, for most of the cities, we don't have epidemiologic models, a road map. We don't have testing in the workplace. So if you know, whether your colleagues in the workplace are having asymptomatic COVID. Our level of contact tracing is a small fraction of what it should be, as far as our - the state of Texas.

We don't have syndromic surveillance in place at a sophisticated level, even though we've got the best engineers in the country. You know, we could design the world's best syndromic surveillance apps and - and that system, and we don't have the communication.

So without putting those things in place, the - the - my big worry is we'll be - look fine for a while. And then as we move into the summer months, bad things could start to happen.

LEMON: Yes. And then the disease is just out there, lurking in the work place, and where people are gathering, and silently. And then, all of a sudden, you have a big surge in cases. That's the worry. Thank you very much, Dr. Hotez. We appreciate you joining us. Stay safe.

People across the country are headed outside. You can see that in - this weekend in New York City's sidewalks. On the sidewalks. Look at that. My goodness. In the states where restrictions have been eased, you can see it inside the bars, and on and on and on.

[20:35:00]

What is the impact of more people headed out? I'm going to ask a doctor, next.

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LEMON: The President meeting tomorrow with top executives and chefs in the restaurant industry to discuss the impact of the coronavirus. That coming as more states ease restrictions, adding to concerns over how to protect patrons and employees.

I want to discuss this now with CNN medical analyst, Dr. Celine Gounder, and we surely do appreciate her expertise every single time. Hello to you. I don't know, have you been out? You've seen this. You've been out in this beautiful warm weather here in New York City.

More and more people are out, they want to be out and about, and these images from Manhattan this weekend show the reality of what it looks like in the real world right now. Are you concerned, doctor?

[20:40:00]

DR. CELINE GOUNDER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, Don, I have been out. I have been out to walk to and from Bellevue Hospital, to work, and I can tell you, on the way back, trudging home through Madison Square Park across the city, I am seeing lots of people sitting around on blankets and beach towels. They are not wearing masks. They are not social distancing, and that has me very concerned.

You'd almost think we had an epidemic of neck waddle or turkey neck or something, with people wearing bras on their chins. That's not how you're supposed to wear a mask. Your mask is supposed to go over your nose and mouth. Coronavirus is a respiratory virus.

But unfortunately, this is what we're seeing even here in New York City right now, which has been the center of this pandemic worldwide.

LEMON: Yes, and listen -- Columbus, Ohio, let's put the pictures up. On Friday, the first day that outdoor dining businesses were allow to reopen, Governor Mike DeWine -- he spoke about it. Let's listen and then we'll discuss.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R), OHIO: The good news is that the ownership of people running the bar seemed to get control of it last night. We didn't have to issue any citations. We did issue a citation for another bar in Columbus.

Ultimately, it's going to come to Ohioans doing what Ohioans have done for the last two months, and that is, by and large, done exactly what they should do, try to keep the distance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: There's a lot of talk about quarantine. How important is it to keep the vigilance that Governor DeWine is talking about as the country reopens?

GOUNDER: I think we need to think about what is the new normal going to be, and our culture needs to adjust to that. We need to be thinking about ways, we need to be creative about how do we reopen the country while still protecting ourselves from transmission of the virus.

And so, for example, bars and restaurants, how can we think about opening them differently? In New York, we still have a lot of streets that are closed. Could we be setting up spaced out tables in those kinds of settings? How can we readdress or reinvent takeout and delivery?

Some of what's being done here in the city is reducing the fees that companies like Grubhub and so on charge restaurants. It could be up to 30 percent, which makes it really hard for those small businesses to survive. So I think this is about being creative, to figure out how we can be safe while still enjoying our lives.

LEMON: Yes, and isn't the idea of a bar the exact opposite of social distancing? You, sort of, go there to be socially -- I don't really -- I don't get it. But people have to make money. Bar owners need to make money. I don't get it.

I want to put up this viral video before we run out of time. This is out of Japan, revealing how a virus can spread. Just one person put a substance on his hand just to mimic the virus, at a restaurant buffet, and you can just see under the black light that after only half an hour, everyone at the table was contaminated.

So my point again about is it possible to even socially distance at a restaurant or a bar? How do you keep safe? How do you do it?

GOUNDER: It's funny. I saw that video earlier this weekend, as well. And back in 2014, when the CDC had -- along with FEMA, had special training for those of us heading over to West Africa, Ebola training. We actually did some of those same exercises to see how much we might spread the virus, depending on if we were wearing our personal protective equipment, or not.

And the fact is, you have to be very, very vigilant not to spread virus to other people or to yourself in these situations. So I think it's a really great educational demonstration there. LEMON: Yes, that bartender is touching the money and the credit card

and the glasses and the cups, and handing them to them, and someone else is touching them, and you grab it and then you're touching somebody. I mean, I'm just saying. Thank you, doctor. Appreciate it.

GOUNDER: Of course.

LEMON: We've got new developments tonight on the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery. One construction site seems to be right at the center of what happened. We're going to speak to the attorney of the man who owns that property, and that's next.

[20:44:30]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: All right, we're back.

Now, new developments in the investigation into the death of Ahmaud Arbery.

A text message obtained by CNN shows a Glenn County police officer told the owner of a home under construction in Georgia, in a Georgia neighborhood, that he could contact Gregory McMichael for help with potential trespassers seen in surveillance video from his property. The officer told English to reach out to McMichael day or night for help, and potential trespassers. Months later, Gregory McMichael and his son Travis would be arrested for the February 23rd fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery.

Now, video from English's surveillance system indicating that multiple -- look at this, multiple individuals visited the home under construction. That footage was provided to CNN by Elizabeth Graddy, she is the attorney for Larry English, and she joins me now.

Elizabeth, it's so good to talk to you. Thank you so much, I appreciate you joining us.

We have so much to talk about. So let's talk about this text message, and then move on to talk about other things.

[20:50:00]

This exchange with your client, Larry English, and a Glenn County police officer, who told your client to contact Gregory McMichael day or night if he saw something on surveillance cameras. What did Mr English think that meant?

ELIZABETH GRADDY, ATTORNEY FOR LARRY ENGLISH: Well, he did not even see the texts until Friday. I found it on Thursday when I was going through all the various texts and videos that he had in his phone.

He's a person who doesn't really pay close attention to texts. He has a phone to make calls on, so he's not good about opening them. But I found it and got on the phone with him about it on Friday, and he was surprised. He had never noticed it. But when I saw it, I knew it meant something disturbing. My first

thing was making sure we had the right date from when the text was sent. You know, there's a February 11 date blow it, there's a December 20 date above it. But we used android metadata to determine it was sent on December 20, which means -- when I saw it, I knew it meant that the events that transpired on February 23 had been set in motion at least as early as December 20th, which was far in advance of the actual shooting.

LEMON: So you're saying Larry English didn't think McMichael would be handling anything, the law enforcement involved in his property or anything? He didn't -- he didn't sanction any act for McMichael or anything like that?

GRADDY: No, no. He never even had a conversation with Gregory McMichael until about three weeks ago when Gregory McMichael approached him on two separate occasions when my client was back down there for the first time in months.

He had not been down there from late December till late April. And in late April, he had returned and Gregory McMichael approached him then and he did ask him about videos at that point.

But prior to that, they'd never even had a conversation. My client never called him, never contacted him. Wasn't really very aware of who he was.

LEMON: So he -- Gregory McMichael approached him about videotape to show that someone was on his property after the shooting had happened. Correct?

GRADDY: Well, correct. So, in other words, after the shooting video went viral, then my client released the video from the day of and he went to him and I think he wasn't too happy, and my client wasn't too happy, to be having a conversation with him and pretty much, you know, shut him down. But he was asking about the videos at that --

LEMON: OK.

GRADDY: What videos did my client have, and what --

LEMON: And I have to tell you -- and I spoke to you this weekend. I spoke to your client. And listen, he's a very sick man.

GRADDY: Yes, he is.

LEMON: And I have to tell you it's -- a very candid man and, honestly, doesn't seem to understand, you know, why he's at the center of this. And he's also been very honest about what has happened on his property and doesn't think that Ahmaud Arbery did anything wrong, and has said he doesn't think that he stole anything, and has said that there were many people who were -- who had, you know, come and gone on his property and calls him, "looky-loos", and told me that that's -- you know, as a contractor they have insurance for it.

And he didn't think that -- you know, that there was anything out of the ordinary from anyone who had been on his property, especially Ahmaud Arbery.

GRADDY: Right.

LEMON: And had never even crossed his mind that there was something out of the ordinary.

GRADDY: Right. And, in fact, he confirmed for me on Friday -- all along I had thought that -- well, there isn't even that much to take on the property, you know, because he's said repeatedly nothing was stolen, nothing was damaged.

But, in fact, there were quite a few very valuable things unlocked -- I cautioned him about that -- on the dock, just yes, all manner of expensive tools and equipment and they were not secure. And he said not so much as a screwdriver or a hammer had ever been taken.

And as you can see, there were quite a few people who had come on and off the property. We think that there was a white couple who went onto the property, and we believe they may have been using the portable toilet. That's, well, the conclusion we came to.

And so, he just wanted to be careful about anybody getting hurt. He was not out to have this happen for sure. There is --

LEMON: I want to play one of the 911 calls from an incident on February 11. This is from Travis McMichael.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRAVIS MCMICHAEL: I guess he didn't realize we're here. He's got the damn lights on right now. He's got a flashlight looking through the house.

OPERATOR: Does he? OK.

MCMICHAEL: There's the neighbors, like he's - one of the other neighbors saw it. There's about four of us over here around it just now.

OPERATOR: OK.

MCMICHAEL: But we've been having a lot of burglaries and break-ins around here lately, and --

OPERATOR: Mm-hmm.

MCMICHAEL: And I had a pistol stolen January 1 actually and, you know, he -- he's -- I've never seen this guy before in the neighborhood.

[20:55:00]

I've always been kind of keeping an eye, and, you know, sure enough, there is more here.

(END VIDEO CLIP) LEMON: So, Ms Graddy, I just have a couple seconds here, but the only people who seems to have had a problem with things being taken, or at least claiming that there was an issue in the neighborhood, is -- appears to be the McMichaels, because your client doesn't -- is not claiming any of that, and doesn't know the identity of the person in this 911 call, or the video -- in the video, during this 911 call.

GRADDY: That is absolutely correct, that my client never had anything stolen. Now, one other neighbor had told my client -- this is the neighbor who contacted him after he heard about, and I don't know how, after he heard about the first couple of injuries.

He said he had some tools stolen, and so he offered -- he's the one who offered to keep an eye out if anything ever else happened. And that's the person other than the police who Mr. English shared some of the videos with. But I don't know if he ever reported that, that any tools were taken.

LEMON: Yes. Listen, well, Elizabeth Graddy, I appreciate you coming on. I thank you for your candor, and also for Mr. English, as well.

GRADDY: Larry would love to come on your show, he said.

LEMON: Yes, and I'd love to speak to him when he's feeling better, have him come on the show and discuss all of this. And I appreciate the way he's handled himself during this, as well.

Thank you so much, okay? And best of luck to him.

GRADDY: Thank you. Goodnight.

LEMON: We'll be right back.

[20:56:40]

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