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Don Lemon Tonight

Coronavirus Pandemic; U.S. Sees Highest Single Day On New COVID-19 Cases; Interview With Mayor Carlos Gimenez (R), Miami-Dade, FL; Court Clears The Way For Tell-All Book By Trump's Niece; President Trump Calls Black Lives Matter A "Symbol Of Hate"; California Governor Orders Nearly 75 Percent Of State Back To Near-Shutdown As Cases Surge. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired July 01, 2020 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Thank you for watching. "CNN TONIGHT" with the upgrade, Laura Coates, right now.

LAURA COATES, CNN HOST: Man, thank you. I'm so glad I'm here with you. And wow, I have to tell you, I'm still thinking about your interview with Angela Rye. So much of what we said. So much of a discussion. It's so on point, so poignant right now and I hope everyone had a chance to watch it. Except for the part about you blocking people's fathers. I don't know what that's about, Chris.

CUOMO: Rye, I don't know where she went with that. I don't know why she would kind of spread that slander, but I'll tell you what --

COATES: But she spoke truth everywhere else.

CUOMO: Everywhere else. I'll give her that. And I love the lesson she got from her father, don't say slave, say enslaved person. That's not some B.S. political correctness, its context. It's how we have to see each other as human beings. This is something that you grew up wanting for people to understand and teaching them to. I don't have the excuse of a lot of other white people.

Where I grew up in a diverse place, you know? I have flavor all over my life and it's the family I've chosen and I love it so deeply. I love these people and yet I'm looking at the Teddy Roosevelt statue differently now than I ever did before. We all have to wake up and understand things. We need the conversations and the president saying something like black lives matter is a symbol of hate.

COATES: You know, I don't understand that, Chris for so many -- I mean,

CUOMO: Yes, you do.

COATES: No, I understand why perhaps he's saying it, but in the grand scheme of things, just think about it, three words, black lives matter. How many other times, how many other instances have we had three words be used and valued and revered, we, the people, justice for all. I mean, these ideas that suddenly these three words, black lives matter, is so toxic that we can't say them and put them together in a sentence.

I mean, it's just so absurd to me. And you think about the power of language. You think about why these three words have become such a battle and it just goes along with what we're talking about here. The idea that you are talking about maybe the epiphanies you have had and you're somebody who has lived a long time. No -- not that long. I mean, you're still very young, Chris.

CUOMO: Yes, I got it.

COATES: A long enough time to have seen the world and to be exposed to it, and yet your epiphanies seem genuine, as opposed to the disingenuous epiphany we see often times from other people where you go, really, you had no idea that these three words should have meant something? This is no idea that certain things actually mattered?

And so, I'm always looking and judging how I look -- how I see people and what they are thinking and what their real, you know, role and motivation is. And I'm continuing to question the president when he talks about these three words. Unlike any other string of words. That this is the problem? I just -- I can't buy it.

CUOMO: Well, I buy it, and I'll tell you why. He's got tremendous power and he is a demagogue, and I know he hates that I say it, and I know he's trying to come after me. And you know what? He is effective. He changes my life and he changes it for my wife and my kids, and I know he knows that too, but the good fight must be fought and the truth must be told.

The man plays to division and we know why he says what he says about black lives matter. We know why he retweets the video with the guy saying white power and then he deletes it. We know what it's about. We know why he put the McCloskeys out there as the face of white resistance against black lives matter. We know what it's about. And the truth must be spoken.

COATES: Look, President Johnny Appleseed, you plant enough seeds, you let them grow three hours at a time. But we'll see. Look, thank you, Chris.

This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Laura Coates in for Don Lemon, and what we're learning tonight about the coronavirus in this country, frankly, is stunning.

Our breaking news, the United States seeing its highest single day of newly reported cases. Not even a week after the last high, 48,477 cases just today. A total of more than, what, 2.6 million. 2.6 million, since the crisis began. I mean, cases skyrocketing in Texas and Arizona, California and Georgia. All across the U.S. in at least 23 states, that's almost half, pausing or now rolling back their reopenings that they wanted.

Yet the California governor, who is now ordering nearly 75 percent of the state back to a near lockdown. And there is really no way to look at all of that and not see that things are getting much, much worse.

[23:05:03]

Yet, the president of the United States, well, he says that the virus that has killed more than 128,000 Americans is just going to poof, disappear.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think we're going to be very good with the coronavirus. I think that at some point that's going to sort of just disappear. I hope.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Disappear? It's called the coronavirus not the Houdini virus. The president hopes the virus that's killing more and more of us every single day is just -- just going to disappear? Well, look, it's not his job to just hope. It's his job to do everything he possibly can to work tirelessly to save American lives. And you know what? You don't do that by just hoping this virus will disappear. But it seems like the president, he's learned close to nothing since he said this in the very early weeks of the crisis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It's going to disappear. One day, it's like a miracle, it will disappear.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Look, when he said that at the end of February, there were 15, 1-5, 15 reported cases of the coronavirus just in this country. Tonight he's still using the same language and there are more than 2.6 million cases. So much for this virus just disappearing. Yet the press secretary, Kayleigh Mcenany, says the president is confident.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president's confident that it will disappear. He's confident that he's put together a revolutionary first-class team that is going to break through bureaucracy and get us a vaccine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Confidence. Well, look, more than 128,000 Americans have died. That's a fact. And all the president's confidence, did she say, in his revolutionary first-class team. Well, you know what that means? Well, it means nothing, frankly, in comparison to the numbers and the facts you know of. But the president wants you to believe that in spite of all that, he's doing a great job.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We put bans on China. We did a lot of things right. We did -- I think we did it all right. We did a great job. We're credited with doing a great job.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COATES: You did it all right? I just told you the numbers in this country, right? Of deaths, let alone cases. That -- this is -- this is gaslighting. It's pure and simple.

Instead of leading Americans through this crisis that is killing, I'll repeat, more of us every single day, he's trying to convince you that he did everything right. That they're being credited with doing everything right and trying to convince you that he wears a mask like his own task force recommends. You just haven't seen him do it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm all for masks. I think masks are good. I would wear -- if I were in a group of people and I was close --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You would wear one?

TRUMP: Oh, I would -- I would -- I have. I mean, people have seen me wearing one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: All for masks? The president who has never stopped ridiculing anybody who wears a mask, who on the very day he announced his own government recommendation to wear masks said he wouldn't wear one. Who said he didn't want to give reporters the pleasure of seeing him wear a mask. Now he expects you to believe he's all for masks. And he expects you to believe that he's worn one himself, even though -- have you seen it? None of us have seen him do it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Actually, I had a mask on. I sort of liked the way I looked, OK? I thought it was OK. It was a dark black mask and I thought it looked OK. Looked like the lone ranger.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: The lone ranger. Now, I -- I admit I was born a little bit after the lone ranger. However, a quick google search or your own recollection can tell you that the lone ranger's mask, it only covered the eyes. Like, of my generation, princess bride, Wesley, Carry El's character, covered the eyes only. And now the president is trying to pull the wool over our eyes as if somehow that mask is about conjunctivitis as opposed to COVID-19.

And let's just put aside the question of whether he has been wearing a mask in private. OK, fine. The point is for him to be seen wearing one. Why? So he can set an example for the entire country. An example that could actually save lives.

[23:10:06] But don't expect him to do it at that massive fireworks show at Mount

Rushmore this coming Friday. South Dakota's governor has said that masks and, frankly, social distancing, not required. And that's another example of how this president is trying to pull the wool over your lone ranger mask-covered eyes. Acting like everything's fine. All the while, more than 128,000 Americans have died. Acting like he's done with the virus while the virus, it isn't done with us.

I want to bring in CNN White House Correspondent John Harwood and Dr. Jonathan Reiner, Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Program at George Washington University Hospital. Gentlemen, I'm glad that you're both here. If I can, John, I want to begin with you.

Because the president continues to say, John, that the coronavirus is going to pull a Houdini, a disappearing act, and early on he thought that the warm weather might help us out. It's now July and it's sweltering in Washington, D.C. and cases are skyrocketing across this country. So how does he think it's going to disappear?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Laura, I don't think a whole lot of thinking goes into what he is saying. This is an old guy with a set of fixed ideas who has trouble to -- adapting to changes in the world around him. The reality is he screwed this up from the beginning. He downplayed the virus that it was going to go away, because he was interested in sustaining the idea that the economy was strong and not rocking that particular boat.

Then when it finally got rocked and he had no choice but to respond, he ran a haphazard response for a while, and then decided to pull the plug on the response, in effect, or his role in the response, in order to try to accelerate the economic reopening. For the same reason that he downplayed it for the first time.

Now we're in a situation where the pandemic is coming back. The recovery is threatened and endangered and he doesn't really know what to do. And so the president's left with the hope, as he has articulated in that interview and others, that science is going to save him with therapeutics or a vaccine that's going to come, but other than that, he doesn't really have an answer at this point.

COATES: But, you know, John, it's pretty unbelievable that there's even a divide, right, inside the White House as to whether President Trump should turn his attention back to this pandemic. I mean, do you have any idea how there could even be or why there is even a debate as to whether to talk about this and acknowledge what's happening?

HARWOOD: I do, Laura. It's because it is not a competent White House filled with serious people skilled at solving public policy problems. And that's because it's a collection of people who are there to cater to the whims of a president who does not know what he's doing. And not only does he not know what he's doing, he doesn't care that he doesn't know what he's doing.

What President Trump is focused on is himself. You saw that in his remarks about mask-wearing, saying, oh, I thought I looked pretty good in the mask. Everything with Donald Trump revolves around its effect on him and his own interests, and that is not a recipe for good outcomes in a national crisis.

COATES: Well, look, Dr. Reiner, I hope you -- you're somebody -- and you know what you're doing, of course. And you do have the recipes for some good outcomes and you saw that the U.S. saw its highest single day of new cases today.

I mean, Arizona is now asking for additional medical personnel. So, if the president is watching, could you try to explain to him why the virus won't go away by itself, and really, frankly, tell us all what is really needed to try to mitigate all of this?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, DIRECTOR OF CARDIAC CATHETERIZATION LABORATORY, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: Yes, hi, Laura. Right. The virus is resurgent because multiple states opened way too soon. Without adequate testing and in an environment where a large proportion doubts the necessity or efficacy of wearing masks. If you look at Arizona, for instance, they are 40th in the country in testing. And only 40 percent of their population say they wear a mask all the time when they go out.

Now, where did they get that message from? So this is what we do. We can fix this. We need to fix this and we can fix this. If I were the president, I would issue an executive order tomorrow mandating that all Americans wear masks in public. He's already issued an executive order protecting the statues of long dead confederate traitors. So how about issuing an executive order protecting Americans. Right? Every American wears a mask when you go out.

[23:15:00]

COATES: Dr. Reiner, you know, we are just getting -- if I can interrupt you for a second. And just how poignant your discussion is right now. We just have breaking news that we have now passed the 50,000 threshold today. Just while we've been talking.

REINER: Right.

COATES: That's how serious, how real this really is. We have now in a single day seen the highest number of cases, more than 50,000 today while we've been talking.

REINER: Right.

COATES: What is your reaction to that?

REINER: We need -- we need forward-thinking leadership. We need leadership, period. The supine presidency that we've had here trying to handle this crisis. We need to shut down the states or the communities where the virus is raging.

We need to shut that down. That's how you put the virus down. We need to expand testing and we need to get everyone to wear a mask. We can do this. It's not complicated. This -- this is how the European Union put down the virus.

And if three months ago this president and this vice had come before the country and said exactly what I just said, we would be where Spain and Italy are now. As opposed to being the epicenter of the virus on the planet.

COATES: John Harwood, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, thank you.

Now, I want to bring in the mayor of Miami-Dade County, Carlos Gimenez, who is expanding now his mandatory mask order. Welcome to the show, Mayor Jimenez. I'm glad you're here.

MAYOR CARLOS GIMENEZ (R), MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FL: Hi, how are you doing?

COATES: I'm, you know, I'm considering that we just have passed the 50,000 threshold of single-day cases, I think we're all scratching our heads trying to figure out how we're doing, but you're now requiring face masks countywide in all public spaces inside and also outdoors. And yet the governor, the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, is refusing to do a mandate of this just over the entire state. And you Florida mayors are now really out there on your own, aren't you?

GIMENEZ: No, not really. The governor of the state of Florida has allowed us to have local rules here. In Miami-Dade County along with southeast Florida, he knows it's a little bit different down here so he's allowed us to do things a little differently, and we have had a mask order here for over two months. Unfortunately, what happens is that a lot of our citizens are not taking that seriously.

So, today I had to issue a -- not only the wearing a mask indoors, which we've always had, and not only wearing a mask outdoors when you can't social distance, but now we got to say, OK, any time you go outside your house, you have to wear a mask. Now, the problem with that is also the enforcement of it. And we're going to be passing ordnances hopefully soon that will make it a civil citation, basically like a -- almost like a -- if you don't wear your seat belt, we'll give you a ticket, when you're not wearing your mask.

We need to -- we need to be responsible for our actions. And it's our -- our lack of following the rules that have caused us to have an increase in COVID here in South Dade -- I'm sorry, in Dade County in South Florida. And so we need to press that home, and that's the message that we're going to be giving.

COATES: So, mayor, what make you say that things are a little different in Florida? What makes Florida so different from the rest of the nation who is seeing these surges and needing to have these mandates in order to encourage, shall we say, compliance? What makes Floridians so different?

GIMENEZ: Well, look, the state of Florida is not uniform, and so the vast majority, a lot -- a big majority of the cases are down here in southeast Florida. There were some counties in the state of Florida that had no cases. Now they're seeing -- they're starting to see a bump up, and I think you're going to see the governor also start taking more action in other parts of the state.

But, again, he's allowed us to be much more aggressive down here in south Florida. In southeast Florida. And so the four counties, Miami- Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe have been kind of uniform in the message and also the measures that we've taken. Unfortunately, we saw that once we started to open up, even though we had these mask orders in place, a lot of people weren't following those rules.

There were some businesses also that weren't following the rules, and so a couple of weeks ago we started much deeper into enforcement. And it was no longer education. It was enforcement. We have seen this rise. We want to make sure we tamp this down. And so now that's why I had to issue this mask order at all times so that there is absolutely no --

COATES: Yes.

GIMENEZ: -- no confusion at all of when you have to wear a mask.

COATES: Well, there shouldn't be confusion. But speaking of enforcement and consequences, you just tweeted, Mayor Gimenez, about a police incident at the airport that you said was an excessive use of force. We don't yet have the video, but the Miami-Dade Police Director Freddie Ramirez tweeted that he ordered the officers involved to be relieved of duty. What can you tell us what has happened here? A woman was punched in the face?

[23:20:08]

GIMENEZ: Yes, there was an incident at the airport and it entailed a lady that lives -- that missed her flight and she started to -- to really be upset at -- I guess the ticket agents and they called the police, and then she got really close into his face and he punched her. And that's way too excessive use of force.

Our Director's already released -- relieved the officer of duty and I believe there's more action to come in the morning. Our Director, I think, will do the right thing and that officer definitely used excessive force.

COATES: Well, the theme of consequences rings true. Mayor Gimenez, thank you.

GIMENEZ: Thank you. Thank you, ma'am.

COATES: Breaking news tonight. A judge just clearing the way for the publication of a tell-all book by the president's own niece. What we know. That's coming up next.

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[23:25:00]

COATES: We have breaking news tonight. A New York appellate court says that a tell-all book by the president's niece can be published. The decision allows Simon and Schuster to continue printing copies of the book called Too much and never enough, how my family created the most -- world's most dangerous man by Mary Trump. CNN's chief media correspondent Brian Stelter is here with more. Brian, this is big news. What do you know?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Robert Trump, who is the president's younger brother, had been suing Mary Trump in court trying to block this book. He won a very early ruling last week. Tonight an appellate judge overturned that ruling and said that this does not seem like a situation where there should be prior restraint.

Prior restraint is an un-American concept where you stop something from being published before it's even released. So now Simon and Schuster, the book's publisher, is free to publish this book on July 28th as it plans. That's about four weeks from today. This book is already the number one best-seller in the country.

COATES: Wow.

STELTER: Because there is so much interest in what Mary Trump might say about her uncle, the president. This book -- this lawsuit, though, Laura, might go forward. In other ways. There is still some question about Mary Trump and whether she signed a confidentiality agreement. Whether she's breaking that confidentiality agreement. But the news tonight is that the publisher can move forward with this book.

COATES: This feel like Deja vu all over again. You know, confidentiality clauses. The idea of a censorship act. You know, prepublication review. Could we learn anything from Mary Trump's book? What do we think we might learn from it?

STELTER: Right. I know we left Normal Ville a long time ago, we've been in crazy town for a while now, but it is crazy that the niece of the president is writing that tell-all book calling him the world's most dangerous man. And she is a licensed psychologist, so she is someone who has studied individuals up close her entire career, and she has some blunt warnings about the president.

Look, we will not know for sure what's in this book for a few more weeks, but it's notable that Robert Trump went to court, seemingly on the president's behalf, trying to stop it. And it's notable that so far they are not winning in court. So far the publisher is winning in court and I would be surprised if this book is actually blocked at some point along the way.

There will probably be more legal drama along the way, but just as John Bolton's book was challenged a few weeks ago and then it came out and it was a nationwide best-seller, it appears this book by Mary Trump is also going to be a big bombshell book for the month of July.

COATES: Look what happens when you say nothing to see here, folks, right? Brian Stelter, thank you.

STELTER: That's right. You got it.

COATES: With the virus raging tonight, the president is still trying to divide and distract us on race. Now calling black lives matter a symbol of hate.

[23:30:00]

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COATES: President Trump digging in on his effort to distract and divide this country. He's now calling Black Lives Matter -- that phrase -- a symbol of hate. But he's claiming, of course, that confederate symbols are our history.

And he also came out against a federal housing law that was aimed at combatting segregation. He hurled the racist slur Pocahontas at Senator Elizabeth Warren and now threatened to veto a bipartisan, a bipartisan defense spending bill because it removes the names of confederate generals from 10 military bases. That's just in the past day.

Joining me now is White House reporter for The Washington Post Toluse Olorunnipa and CNN presidential historian Timothy Naftali. I'm so glad that both of you are here.

Tolose, let me begin with you. I mean, more than 128,000 Americans, just think about that number, more than 128,000 Americans have now died from coronavirus. And our president is focussing on confederate monuments and now calling Black Lives Matter a symbol of hate. Is -- there's no question what he's doing here, is there?

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER FOR THE WASHINGTON POST: This comes off of the heels of the president retweeting that video with one of his supporters shouting out "white power" and not condemning that phrase, not condemning that supporter, but condemning the phrase "Black Lives Matter."

It's pretty clear what the president is doing. He is giving a very evident wink and nod to the racists in his base, people who are proud of what he's done in terms of stoking racial divisions within the country, and he is doing nothing to sort of heal the divide in the wake of George Floyd's death.

The fact that, as you mentioned, 128,000 people have died from the coronavirus and that this pandemic has disproportionately affected African Americans and other people of color, the fact that the president is focussing on defending confederate generals, on trying to discredit the Black Lives Matter movement, it's very clear that he is isolated on this issue.

That even as the country is moving forward and trying to move to a place of some kind of racial healing, the president is looking backwards and looking towards the past and really trying to relive the glory days and appealing to a small and shrinking part of his base, including the man in the video who shouted "white power" --

COATES: I mean, he's --

OLORUNNIPA: -- down in the villages over the weekend.

COATES: He's about as subtle to an anvil to the head here. I mean, Tim, today, the mayor of Richmond, Virginia used his emergency powers to remove confederate monuments in the city of Richmond, and Richmond was once the capital of the confederacy.

[23:35:02]

COATES: This country is in the middle of a national reckoning on race. And is Trump, as Toluse is talking about, is he just being left behind?

TIMOTHY NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Yes, I think, as Toluse mentioned, I agree with Toluse, and the most striking evidence is what happened in Mississippi. In 2001, there was a referendum on what to do with the flag, and nearly 2/3 of those who voted in the referendum voted to keep the flag. The flag is gone. And I haven't noticed any great upheaval in Mississippi over that.

Mississippi was in many ways the last holdout, the place where they were most committed to confederate symbols as a way of pretending that the war was actually about something other than slavery. So, what we're seeing today is a shift, a dramatic transformational shift in American public opinion.

And this president, who doesn't read his intelligence reports on what goes on in the world, isn't reading his own country very well.

COATES: You know, the president keeps calling, as you know, the confederate symbols our history. But we're talking about four years of American history here. Isn't he celebrating, really, the racism that that moment represented, not just heritage?

NAFTALI: It's about time we called this out for what it is. My colleagues -- I'm not a specialist in -- in reconstruction history. I know more about the second reconstruction that happened in the 1960s. But it's about time we called this out for what it is.

Many of those statues and the Mississippi flag are products of an effort to prevent freed men, as they were called at the time, freed slaves from having the rights that all Americans enjoyed. It was a way of trying to bottle up the outcome of the Civil War.

In many ways, southern historians talked about the fact that the south won the second Civil War, which was the struggle that led to the creation of Jim Crow laws and the outcome was an apartheid state in the section of the south.

So it's about time we talk about what those statues really meant. They were a symbol of oppression. They were a symbol of a denial of what the Civil War was about. And they were a -- they were a denial of a major of the country in 1865.

It was a dreadful thing. I know -- we all no way why that happened. But this is a time for us to be honest. Just as in 1989, the people of Eastern Europe were honest about their history. It's time for us to be honest about our period of oppression.

COATES: Toluse, Tim, thank you for your honesty and expertise in this area. I appreciate both of you. I want to make sure you know about Don's new podcast. It's called "Silence is Not an Option." He's taking on the hard conversations about being black in America.

And the latest episode is getting ready to drop in just a few hours where Don is talking about his early education in Baton Rouge and how integration is, frankly, still a problem in schools all across this country. And you can find that podcast, "Silence is Not an Option," on Apple podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Next, at least 23 states are pausing or rolling back their re- openings, including, by the way, California, where almost 75 percent of the entire state is going back to a near shutdown. Stay with us.

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[23:40:00]

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COATES: Nearly 75 percent of California residents are being ordered back, back into a near shutdown. Governor Gavin Newsom halting all indoor activities in 19 different counties, affecting businesses like bars and restaurants and museums. And that as the state reports nearly 10,000 new cases, around 6,000 of those just in the past 24 hours.

Joining me now is Johnese Spisso, president of UCLA Health and CEO of UCLA Hospital System. I'm glad that you're here. This is an important time to hear from somebody like you. In particular, you know, L.A. County is reporting more than 100,000 total cases. That's more than 43 other states. Hospitalization rates are spiking.

So, tell me, how are L.A. hospitals right now and what, my god, what can be done to prepare for the likelihood that there is going to be a surge in patients?

JOHNESE SPISSO, PRESIDENT OF UCLA HEALTH, CEO OF UCLA HOSPITAL SYSTEM: Well, Laura, thank you for having me tonight. What we are doing in Los Angeles with the hospitals is really every day, 24 hours a day, we are really monitoring the situation and assessing what's happening in our county, what's happening with our hospitalization rates, what's happening with testing.

COATES: Mm-hmm.

SPISSO: You know, in the early parts of the pandemic, the state of California and Los Angeles County, thanks to the measures by Governor Newsom and Mayor Garcetti, we actually fared really well for a city with 10 million people in L.A.

What we've seen, though, is really in the past two weeks after plateauing, we hit our peak at the end of April, and then we were really seeing some nice plateauing of the numbers. Unfortunately, in the past two weeks, those numbers now are shooting up again, which is making us all concerned.

[23:45:03]

SPISSO: We have started to gradually open things back up. It is summer, the beaches were open, and we began to see a lot more people congregating in groups, people not wearing masks. So it definitely is a time for concern and something that we need to get in front of.

COATES: And, of course, it feels like we are talking about people -- maybe let their guard down. Did they -- is that what happened here? I mean, you had California being very successful in fighting the virus early on. Now, you've got cases surging. Roughly 75 percent of the state is going back into shutdown. I mean, how worried are you about the fourth of July coming up? We are talking about people who congregate.

SPISSO: Yes, we were very concerned. We saw it around the Memorial Day weekend holiday. That's when we really begin to see a lot more people congregating. The beaches were all open. So, fortunately, for the July 4th holiday, the beaches are closed. That's very hard. The weather is beautiful. We know people want to get out and about. But we really need to be able to do that safely.

We know that when you shelter in place, when you use social distancing, when you wear a mask when you're outdoors, and wash your hands, we know that works. That worked really well for us in L.A., and we were even able to open up gradually. We want to continue to open back up, but we have to get the virus under control. The rates of transmission that we're seeing right now are cause for concern.

COATES: Johnese Spisso, thank you so much.

SPISSO: Thank you.

COATES: The president says he wasn't briefed on potential Russian bounties to kill U.S. troops. Well, guess what? Tonight, CNN is learning just how little he does listen to these briefings, especially if they're about Russian Intel.

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[23:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COATES: Our breaking news tonight. Multiple sources telling CNN that President Trump has been so resistant to warnings about Russia, that his national security team would verbally brief him less often on Russia, including those that are related threats to the United States of America.

And one former senior intelligence official telling our Jim Sciutto, the president's briefers had one simple rule, never lead with Russia. That, as President Trump continues to claim that he wasn't briefed on intelligence that Russia had allegedly placed bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We never heard about it because intelligence never found it to be of the -- of that level, where it would rise to that. This didn't rise to the occasion. And from what I hear, and I hear it pretty good, the intelligence people didn't even -- many of them didn't believe it happened at all. I think it's a hoax. I think it's a hoax by the newspapers and the Democrats.

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COATES: Well, joining me now to discuss is CNN National Security Analyst Steve Hall, retired chief of CIA Russian operations. Steve, you're the man to talk about this issue, that's for sure.

There is breaking news right now from The New York Times. There are details now out on how these bounties allegedly worked. You had American and Afghan officials saying that an Afghan businessman was a key middleman in the scheme and also offered up to $100,000 for every American and every coalition member killed. This is shocking, right, Steve?

STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yeah, it's absolutely shocking. I suppose, not entirely unsurprising from the Russians. You know, I just got to say, Jim Sciutto's reporting earlier was excellent. And idea, as Trump likes to say that, somehow, this information, this intelligence, didn't get up to him is ludicrous.

Every junior, you know, American intelligence officer trainee learns from the very beginning that when you get threat information and that's what this is, threat information, it doesn't have to be pure and it doesn't have to be absolutely verified.

It goes to the top immediately because the results of missing something like that are so horrific. So there's no good story here. There's no good version of how this could have happened. Donald Trump didn't want to be briefed on it. That's horrific in and of itself.

If the national security team didn't want to brief him or somehow didn't get the information to him, that's bad. If Donald Trump is lying about that, that's bad. There's really no good here. It is just a horrible situation.

COATES: Least of all, for those troops who were targeted. I mean, the president has been dismissing, Steve, evidence of a Russian bounty plot. And today, national security advisor O'Brien says it was the president's career CIA briefer who decided not to brief him because it was unverified. And you're talking about how that just can't make sense on any level.

HALL: No, and Laura, you know, you mentioned the troops in the field. That's the really bad part of this. I mean, imagine that you're an American soldier serving in Afghanistan. I mean, they get the news. Or imagine that you're a family member of that soldier. They get the news.

What they want to hear is not this is a hoax. This is some sort of political thing. What you want to hear from your commander in chief is we got your back. Whether or not we can absolutely verify this or not is absolutely irrelevant. You make -- as a president and as a soldier, you hope your commander in chief makes a public statement, says something easy like, you know, this is horrific if true and we will support our troops and I'll have a very strong conversation with Putin or send somebody.

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HALL: Look, I've been in the room when senior officials have been sent to Moscow to send the Russians a very strong message. And I got to be frank it was a lot less -- something a lot less serious than the deaths of American soldiers.

That's what's got to be done here. The Russians listen to that and until they get that message from Donald Trump, they're just going to keep going until somebody stops them and says, well, this is a problem. They have not gotten that yet from the Trump administration.

COATES: Steve Hall, thank you. And thank you for watching. Our coverage continues.

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