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Don Lemon Tonight
Wearing of Masks Became Too Political in the Midst of a Pandemic; U.S. Reached Another Record-High Cases of Coronavirus; Augusta Mayor Hardie Davis Was Interviewed About Gov. Brian Kemp's Executive Order; Game Show Host's Son Tested Positive for Coronavirus. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired July 16, 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]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: CNN Tonight with D. Lemon starts right now. I was apologizing to Don in the break. I'll do it again now.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: My gosh.
CUOMO: I'm sorry.
LEMON: I didn't even realize the time.
CUOMO: But I couldn't stop Dr. Melendez talking about how he lost his neighbor --
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: -- and not getting to her in time to play her son's video. I apologize. Your -- my time is not more valuable than yours. This is the best part of the day, so I'm sorry.
LEMON: Yes. Can we talk about -- can we talk about masks?
CUOMO: Please.
LEMON: How did masks become political? How did it happen?
CUOMO: One word. Trump.
LEMON: Yes. I'll say a family member goes to the doctor in a red state. The doctor says he's not wearing a mask. The family member walks out and says, I'm not -- then you're not going to treat me today. Nurse runs behind her and says, OK, he's going to wear a mask. When she gets into the room, the doctor says, I can't do it because I'll lose half my patients.
CUOMO: I believe it.
LEMON: I mean, come on.
CUOMO: I believe it. Look at what's happening in Georgia. LEMON: A doctor.
CUOMO: It is the -- may be one of the first times in American history --
LEMON: Suing --
CUOMO: -- where something that is a known prophylactic, something that is protective, that a governor is suing to be able to not keep people safe. It reminds me a little bit of the seat belt litigation.
LEMON: I was just thinking about that. I have that. Don't steal it. It's in my open.
CUOMO: All right. I'm not going to talk about it.
LEMON: Let's talk about it. let's talk about it.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Well, the only difference is --
LEMON: But you try -- you try not wearing a seat belt in some states or you're getting pulled over and see how much personal freedom you have.
CUOMO: Right.
LEMON: Or you trying lighting up a cigarette in a federal building or any building and see how much personal freedom you have.
CUOMO: Right. Now the big distinction was and why people were pissed off about seat belts, kind of akin to helmets was, don't tell me how to protect myself.
LEMON: Come on.
CUOMO: But smoking and masks and of course, masks, it's not about you. Your personal line of liberty ends at my line of liberty to be safe.
LEMON: Right.
CUOMO: And, but I've never seen anything like this before where the mask, Kemp has no good reason.
LEMON: Right.
CUOMO: He has lots of bad reasons. And that's where we are. That's why I'm calling for outrage. It will be the only thing that will make these men and women respond, is fear of consequence for what they're doing.
LEMON: I think you're right on. A little bit of a different -- I did that back in April, but I said Americans are mad as hell. How much more are they going to take was my spin on it.
CUOMO: A lot.
LEMON: But listen, do I have to tell you, I think people are mad right now. I think you saw people out in the streets. It wasn't -- the bulk of it was because of police brutality and injustice for people of color, but a lot of those people are mad at the way things are. That's part of the way things are right now.
And one reason the way things are the way they are is because of this president and this administration. How he treats African-Americans. How he doesn't understand the plight of people of color. How he treats immigrants. And that's why people are upset.
So, I do think people are mad as hell and they've been out there protesting on the streets. I also believe, as this administration believes, in the silent majority, but I believe it's on the other side this time. I think there are people who are just fed up with this president and they can't wait for November. They're tired -- they're sick of -- they're sick and tired of being sick and tired.
[22:05:00]
And I think they said, look, they dialed out. I'm done. I can't deal with it. I don't care if it is a tree in November, I'm going to vote for that tree. I really do -- I sense the frustration of people. And I know people are going to say, yes, but you got to look at all the people at the Trump rallies. Look at -- he's not expanding his base. I don't think there's more of them this time than there were last time. I think his base is shrinking.
But that doesn't mean he's not going to win, but I do think that the silent majority of people in this country -- because you don't need the -- you got to win by the Electoral College, not necessarily by the majority.
LEMON: Right.
CUOMO: They're upset and they are -- they've just dialed out. And I think I said this to you or someone the other day. The president was on T.V. last week or the week before giving some really important briefing or something in the Rose Garden. He was making some important announcement. And I just got the sense that nobody was listening. Like, nobody -- because people have just dialed out. They are done with the chaos and the division.
CUOMO: We will see. I mean, I don't know how you can't be just completely heartbroken.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: I mean, everything that's happening around us, so much of it is so sad. And, look, there's some rays of light in it. How people like the doctor we just spoke to and the people you feature on your show every night who are going above and beyond.
LEMON: Yes. CUOMO: We're not just our worst. We're not just our worst instincts and our worst moments and our worst people. We are our best as well. But this is so sad. The president exposes so much of what is wrong with leadership.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: And how we do things. That if he's rewarded for it, and he may well be, because between now and November --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: It's a long time.
CUOMO: -- is a lifetime.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: And there's very good reason to believe that we will get a better handle on this.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: And if we do --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Well, I got to run, you know, because you ate up half of my first segment.
CUOMO: I know. Look, I'm sorry.
LEMON: I'm just kidding.
CUOMO: I'll make it up to you and I apologize to your audience. It's the best part of the night is what I took time from and I'm sorry.
LEMON: Yes. Yes. But you know what? People, that's -- the reason we have doctors and experts, people, is because they tell you what you need to do to protect yourself even when you think it is your personal freedom. Ridiculous. That is such a ridiculous argument. I'll see you later.
CUOMO: You know who's great with masks?
LEMON: Me.
CUOMO: You.
LEMON: Because I look better with masks.
CUOMO: No. No, you've been really good about it. I've even seen you jog with a mask on.
LEMON: Yes, I know. I got it. There it is.
CUOMO: With the lemons.
LEMON: I gave you one. Thank you, sir. Your wife -- look on your wife's Instagram. She has it on today. Thank you very much. I shall see you later.
CUOMO: I love you, Don Lemon.
LEMON: I love you too.
CUOMO: I'm sorry.
LEMON: This is CNN Tonight. I am Don Lemon. And here is our breaking news.
More than 71,000 new coronavirus cases reported tonight. The virus is raging through the south and through the west. Cases on the rise. Thirty-nine states. And incredibly, there are people in this country who are still refusing to wear masks. It is such a simple, simple thing to do. It is a little piece of cloth over your mouth and your nose. It is not handcuffs. It is not restricting your freedom.
Yet, take a look at these folks who are in Utah. They're protesting masks for their kids and refusing to wear them themselves. Not only that, but the Salt Lake Tribune is reporting people in the crowd pulled safe off the seats meant to maintain social distancing.
That there were Trump supporters and people waving flags and cheering for freedom and constitutional rights. And it makes you realize the power that this president has. And why we can't get control of any of this until and unless he decides to use it. An awful lot of people in this country love the president.
If he told people to wear masks, guess what? They'd do it. If he said to his supporters, we need to wear masks to get our freedom back. We have the right to life, to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and to do that, we need to be free from the virus.
If you wear a mask, we can get there. And then wearing masks would be a political -- wouldn't be a political wedge issue if he would just do that. He loves to talk about the power he has, but in this case, he won't use it. He could use that power to save their lives, save your lives, but he won't do it. It makes absolutely no sense at all. It is asinine. Unless he wants -- he wants it to be a wedge issue.
New York seat belt law was passed in 1984. You heard Chris say that. If they tried to pass it today, guess what? Think about this. No doubt some people would call it a radical leftist restriction of movement conspiracy. That's just how dumb much of America has become. That's just how polarized we are.
None of this is about restricting your personal freedom. It's about courtesy. It's about looking out for your fellow man. The virus doesn't care who you vote for.
[22:10:03] Yet people, some of our leaders are actually trying to stop us from wearing masks. The governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, suing Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms over her city's mask mandate, claiming that it violates his emergency orders. Putting the people of his state at risk, knowingly doing it.
In the face of all of that, what does this do-nothing president do today? He throws himself a great big campaign-style event right on the South Lawn of the White House because nothing says wartime president fighting for your life like a couple of pickup trucks and a crane with a big Trump administration banner on it.
Look at -- look how ridiculous that picture is. I used to build tonka and -- toy cities when I was a kid that wasn't that ridiculous and childish. He can't go to rallies. Not with that pesky virus killing people across the country. So, he's bringing the rallies to him.
The president making no attempt to hide the fact that his South Lawn event today was blatantly political. He seems to want to talk about just about anything other than the pandemic that is killing more and more Americans every single day.
Yes, the death rates are going up and the hospitalization rates are going up and people who are contracting the virus. That's all going up. Don't pretend otherwise. Don't say you got to look at the hospitalization rates. You got to look at the death rates. It's all going up.
He is sinking in the polls so he doubles down on dividing us with a dog whistle to white suburban voters falsely claiming that desegregation will destroy American suburbs.
Is this 1950? Par for the course for the man whose company was sued by the Justice Department for discriminating against black tenants in 1973.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Democrats in D.C. have been and want to at a much higher level abolish our beautiful and successful suburbs by placing far-left Washington bureaucrats in charge of local zoning decisions.
They're absolutely determined to eliminate single-family zoning, destroy the value of houses and communities already built. Just as they have in Minneapolis and other locations that you read about today. Your home will go down in value and crime rates will rapidly rise.
Joe Biden and his bosses from the radical left want to significantly multiply what they're doing now. And what will be the end result is you will totally destroy the beautiful suburbs. Suburbia will be no more.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Yes, he said it. He could barely read it off the teleprompter, though. Did you catch that?
But that's not all. The president also blowing the law and order dog whistle and defending the St. Louis couple who pulled guns on protesters in their gated community.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: What happened was terrible with, as you know, George Floyd. What happened there was terrible. It was -- and we -- everybody acknowledges that. But what this has done to the world, what this has done to law and order, and when you look at St. Louis with two people, they came out. They were going to be beat up badly. If they were lucky, OK? If they were lucky.
They were going to be beat up badly and the house was going to be totally ransacked and probably burned down like they tried to burn down churches.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: He doesn't know that. That is completely not true. Trying to divide Americans while the pandemic is raging. That is outrageous what he just said. Trying to cover up his own failures and neglect by bragging about his so-called, so-called, so-called travel bans.
Let's remember that Americans were exempt from that China ban -- we should call it travel restrictions because it wasn't a ban. A ban. And returning U.S. citizens were exempt from the Europe ban.
Now a new study from the CDC finds that bans came too late to stop the virus from spreading in New York City. That didn't stop the president from bragging about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They stopped China from coming to the United States. I stopped Europe from coming into the United States. Long before the March date that you're talking about. So, people should say I acted very early.
In January, we put the ban on in China, and that was a very early day. That wasn't a late day, that was an early day. Then we later put the ban on in Europe. This country is very lucky and I'm very lucky that I put the ban on China.
It's lucky I did the ban. That's all I can tell you. It's lucky I did the ban.
I put a ban on China. Heavily infected. I put a ban on Europe, very early, both of them very early. We saved millions of lives. Now it's time to get back to work.
[22:15:01]
A lot of people were against those bans and now they admit, most of those same people admit that ban was the greatest thing. It saved so many lives. We closed our borders to China. Very heavily infected. And we did the
ban. And if we didn't do that, we would have had hundreds of thousands of more people dead. And then we did the ban to Europe because we saw what was happening with Italy and Spain and some others, many others. And we were ahead, but we're still fighting it and we're going to do very well.
We would have had thousands of people additionally die if we let people come in from heavily infected China. But we stopped it. We did a travel ban in January.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: How can you believe anything that comes out of his mouth? I tell you what, that idea about a fact checker at the debates is not a bad one. Because hardly anything he says is true. Check the fact checks.
Nothing but failures and neglect from the I alone can fix it president. He is not going to fix it. The fact is that we will have to fix it. We will have to fix it because we can't stake our lives on a president who says this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China. And we have it under control.
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.
We had a lot of people who were saying maybe we shouldn't do anything, just ride it. They say ride it like a cowboy. Just ride it. Ride that sucker right through.
You know it is going away and it will go away and we're going to have a great victory.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: It's going away. It's got zero people. It's got, what did he say? Thirteen or whatever. One hundred thirty-eight thousand people. We will have to fix it because we can't trust a president who says this about testing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Anybody who wants a test can get a test.
Now we have tested almost 40 million people. By so doing, we showcases 99 percent of which are totally harmless.
If we didn't do testing, instead of testing over 40 million people, if we did half the testing, we'd have half the cases. If we did another -- you cut that in half, we'd have, yet again, half of that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: We will have to fix it because we can't rely on a president who says this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do, either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you're going to test that, too. Sounds interesting.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll get the right folks who could.
TRUMP: Right. And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: I'm sorry. I still cannot believe that the President of the United States actually -- like, that actually came out of his mouth and he was serious. An injection inside the body. You're going to look at that? I understand. Sounds good to me. My gosh.
The president's own words tell us everything we need to know. His words downplaying the virus and his words about race and just -- it's how much he doesn't know about anything. An injection inside the body. Disinfectant with light.
OK. So, his -- what he says about this pandemic, what he says about race -- and I just hope that you will join me where we discuss all of this. We have tough conversations about the words that we use when we talk about race, and that is on my podcast, it's called Silence is Not an Option, and I'm taking on the tough conversations about what we're going through right now about race in America. Find it on Apple podcasts or your favorite podcast app.
So, let's get to it now. CNN's White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins is here. Kaitlan, thank you so much for joining us. How much time did the president spend today focused on the pandemic?
[22:19:57]
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Don, the White House today insisted that the president is focused on it, but you can really often see his priorities in what he's talking about and what he's tweeting about, and today in the one event that we saw him at, he barely referenced coronavirus.
It was just in passing, and then instead the vice president was the one who actually really tried to give somewhat of an update on it. And the president is not tweeting about it.
If you look through his Twitter feed and see what he's actually talking about on there, you know, he's not really talking about it at all and he hasn't had any events dedicated publicly to coronavirus this week, which is just striking as you've seen what happening across the country.
But when the White House is asked why not today, they just said that he is focusing on it and other things, and that he's expected to do more on it next week, though, of course, that's always really a TBD with this White House.
LEMON: Kaitlan Collins, thank you very much. Appreciate your time and your reporting.
Our breaking news tonight. This is the highest single day of new coronavirus cases, 71,135 cases reported just today. How can the president pretend things are getting better?
[22:25:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: We have some breaking news. A new record for the number of corona -- coronavirus cases reported in a single day in this country. More than 71,000. Hospitals are filling up in hard-hit states. The death toll passing 138,000. And President Trump turns his attention elsewhere.
Let's bring in now William Haseltine, the former professor at Harvard Medical School, and Ron Klain who coordinate the Ebola response in the Obama White House. It's so good to have both of you on. Thank you so much.
Professor Haseltine, let me start with you. Highest single day yet again today. Cases rising in 39 states. You say the United States could end up going beyond Dr. Fauci's warning of 100,000 cases in a day. Tell us why you say that. Why do you believe that?
WILLIAM HASELTINE, FORMER PROFESSOR, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL: Well, if you look out, you see an epidemic out of control. We thought we might have reached a plateau and now wire climb a very steep mountain at a rate which is frightening to all of us.
We don't know where that will end. We know these viruses have the capability to infect most of the population. Even under the worst -- the scenario that you can imagine, you could have 200,000 a day. You could have 500,000 a day. There is no real limit until you hit about half of our population or more.
What that means, if we really let it go, if we do what they say, just ride that sucker through, we're talking about five million dead Americans and 10 to 20 permanently injured Americans. That's what we're talking about.
We need to stop it now. We know how to stop it. We know what we should do. And we need the leadership at the federal level and the state level. It is shocking to me that those states that thought that they were most protected because of their philosophy seemed to be the most affected today.
LEMON: Yes. HASELTINE: Florida, Georgia, Texas, and others. It is a -- anybody in
epidemiology, anybody who understands these viruses, this is an uncontrolled and very upsetting situation.
LEMON: And they were --
HASELTINE: We find ourselves in.
LEMON: And they were bragging about it. We've got -- we figured out how to do it. Florida -- and then look at Florida now, Ron. I mean, what can be done when the president's focus is elsewhere? He was talking about home appliances and showerheads today.
RON KLAIN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE EBOLA RESPONSE COORDINATOR: No.
LEMON: Yes. And he's promoting Goya beans. What does the country do when the president pretends that there no crisis or that the crisis is over? What are we to do?
KLAIN: Sadly, what we are to do, Don, is to get sick in record numbers and go to the hospitals and die in increasingly high numbers. I mean, that's the situation we're in in the country. And whether or not it ultimately gets the kind of numbers Dr. Haseltine is talking about, even frankly, even if it stays at 70,000 a day, one of the worst epidemics in the world right now. You know, it's -- wherever it winds up it's because of a lack of leadership from the president.
We still don't have testing, widespread, available, accessible. We don't have contact tracing so we can run down chains of transmission and isolate potential chains of transmission. We don't have adequate protective gear.
I mean, how can we be in a position as a country that the president won't use his power to order the manufacture of masks, gloves, face shields, gowns for our doctors and nurses, for our front line workers and we're seeing shortages of these again at the crest of the disease.
How can we be in a place where the president is saying anything other than every American should wear a mask when they're around other people? It is, of all the things we could do, it is the simplest to reduce the transmission of the disease. We need to do everything I said, but masking is very inexpensive, very easy to implement, and inexcusable that the president isn't going all-out for it.
LEMON: Yes. Don't get me started on the whole mask situation because it's -- listen, this is -- we have -- we have had times in this country where we have had to make incredible sacrifices. We made a sacrifice. We sat on our couches or whatever.
But this isn't as if someone is drafting you into a war. Like they did with our relatives in years past, in decades past. This isn't Vietnam or World War II where people are going off to war. They're asking you to wear a mask. That's what I don't understand, Ron.
I just got -- before we go to the break, this -- this -- this has been weighing on me here because I want to talk about this. Ron, there's another study about hydroxychloroquine that said it does not work. This time for patients who aren't hospitalized. Another piece of evidence from something the president touted as a quick fix. Ron?
HASELTINE: Yes, that's right, it's not.
(CROSSTALK)
[22:29:58]
KLAIN: I think what we know is that the president has been selling these false solutions throughout. He's been promise people silver bullets and magic cures. And the only way we're going to fight this thing right now -- I mean, hopefully we will have a vaccine sooner rather than later, but for the time being, we have to use the basic tools of public health.
Testing, tracing, isolation, gear, protective gear, masking, all these things that are in our reach that exist. Those are the things that are going to bend the curve and help reduce the number of cases we're seeing.
LEMON: Yes, our time is short. Thank you. I apologize for the shortness of time. You can blame Chris Cuomo for that. Thank you both.
Georgia's governor banning cities and counties in the state from requiring people to wear masks in public. My next guest is a mayor of Augusta and he mandated masks there just last week. He's going to do it -- well, what's he's going to do? I'm going to ask him. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Georgia's Republican Governor Brian Kemp signing an executive order on Wednesday prohibiting local governments from mandating masks.
[22:35:02]
That as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations continue to rise in the state. Georgia reporting more than 3,400 new cases and 13 deaths today. But some Georgia mayors are standing or standing their ground on local mask requirements. I almost can't read that. It's just -- it's just none of this makes sense to me.
Augusta Mayor Hardie Davis is here, who joins me now. Mayor, thank you so much. It just -- it makes no sense. Does this make sense to you what the governor is doing?
MAYOR HARDIE DAVIS, JR., AUGUSTA, Georgia: Don, it absolutely doesn't make sense. I think we've all been shocked about what the governor has done, and particularly today, to issue the executive order last night that purportedly preempts local governments from being able to enact requirements for face coverings or masks, while at the same time in this order, allowing schools that are not even in at this point to require masks of employees and students.
I think it's completely out of line and certainly out of character for us to have a governor who says that he's looked at the data on a daily basis and we've just got to learn to live with it. I do not believe that we need to be living with the fact that good Georgians are dying every single day. The numbers continually rise --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Let's put up -- as you say that, almost 2,000 of those -- Georgia's reporting more than 3,000 new COVID cases, almost 2,000 of those are in Augusta. Hospitalizations -- hospitalizations and deaths are soaring.
And as you said, good Georgians are dying. The highest of the high medical experts and epidemiologists are saying masks would save lives and make a difference, yet the governor is saying don't do it.
I hate to cut you off, but, again, it doesn't make sense to me. I'm just wondering if a lot of people have the sense enough in your community to wear masks voluntarily.
DAVIS: Don, we've heard from people all across the community, the phones have been ringing off the hook here in Augusta. People are calling saying they support the efforts that we've implemented here in the city of Augusta. Social media, that's the same way.
Without question, we know there are some who are detractors to having face coverings, but as I've consistently said, you've got to have the three w's. You've got to wear a mask. You have to wash your hands and you have to watch your distance.
If we're going to keep people from dying in the state of Georgia, these are things we have to do. We can't operate from the place of a bridge too far in terms of having a requirement for masks. When you look at the fact that executive orders have been implemented to help slow the spread of the virus, what we can't do is use executive orders to divide the state of Georgia and take an apolitical public health crisis and turn it into a political football. That's just not what we need in Georgia at this point in time.
LEMON: I know that you're supporting the mayor of Atlanta, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, because the governor is suing her. That goes without saying that you're supporting her. I know that.
Let's talk about the governor, though. He was slow to issue stay-at- home orders. Quick to open back up. Is he responsible for the conditions that your state's in right now?
DAVIS: Well, I think without question, when you look at what's happened, the science consistently tells us that we opened back up too soon. We've seen the data. We consistently see an increase, not just in the state of Georgia as a whole, but more importantly, in my immediate community.
We are a border city. I've got South Carolina that's numbers are surging right now. You've had more deaths and more confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 than in the last several weeks here in the state of South Carolina as well. One of the good things that the governor in South Carolina did is
allow local governments to implement requirements for face coverings or masks. We need at a minimum the analyst to ability to do the same in Georgia, and, unfortunately, we didn't get that.
LEMON: Mayor Hardie, thank you so much. Be safe down there. Come back and update us. I hope it's better news next time I speak with you.
DAVIS: Absolutely, Don.
LEMON: Thank you.
DAVIS: Thank you.
LEMON: And next, take this -- it's a former -- it's a former game show host. He's claiming the coronavirus is a lie. The president retweets it. Then the host's son tests positive.
[22:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: So, I'm sure you remember, in case you didn't, I'll remind you. Earlier this week President Trump retweeted Chuck Woolery, the former game show host. Woolery writing this. The most outrageous lies are the ones about COVID-19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, media, Democrats, doctors, not all, but most, that we are told to trust. I think it's all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I'm sick of it.
So, after a lot of blowback, Woolery saying on right-wing political podcasts he co-hosts that the media misrepresented his comments. Also saying Trump retweet -- Trump's retweet is an honor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHUCK WOOLERY, GAME SHOW HOST: I am very proud that my president would retweet something that I thought and would agree with me. And whether you like it or not, I don't care.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: But here's why it is dangerous and counterproductive to make something as serious as the coronavirus pandemic all about politics. People are becoming infected in greater numbers with each passing day. People are dying.
And now there's this. COVID-19 has hit Chuck Woolery's own family. Posting this tweet before deactivating his Twitter account. To further clarify and add perspective, COVID-19 is real and it is here. My son tested positive for the virus and I feel for those suffering, and especially for those who have lost loved ones.
I'd like to say that I wish the Woolery family well and I hope his son recovers. A spokesman says that he is asymptomatic and that he is doing well. [22:45:02]
But Chuck Woolery with amplification by the President of the United States helped to push the idea that coronavirus is all about partisan politics. Doctors fighting coronavirus trying to desperately stop it. They are not lying.
That kind of rhetoric doesn't help anyone. The virus doesn't care about our politics. And, again, I hope your son gets well.
Another disease infecting this country, and that's hatred. White supremacy, racism, anti-Semitism. Guess who I'm going to talk to about it? There he is. W. Kamau Bell is here to talk, next.
[22:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: So, we talk a lot on this show about how or country is suffering from two diseases, coronavirus and racism. And we're not getting leadership, the leadership that we need from this president on either of those issues. Just listen to what he said tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The Democrats in D.C. have been and want to at a much higher level abolish our beautiful and successful suburbs by facing far left Washington bureaucrats in charge of local zoning decisions.
Your home will go down in value and crime rates will rapidly rise. What will be the end result is you will totally destroy the beautiful suburbs. Suburbia will be no longer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: W. Kamau Bell, the host of United Shades of America joins us right now. That wasn't even a dog whistle, was it?
W. KAMAU BELL, CNN HOST: I know. My ears were ringing because it was such a large dog whistle. I can hear. I don't think that's how --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: What did you think of that?
BELL: I mean, he invents new slights very day that nobody thought to have. So, I know -- I know a lot of activists militant hard core radical activists, some of whom only half talk to me because I'm married to a white woman. And none of them talk about abolishing the suburbs.
He is inventing. He is making stuff as he goes along.
LEMON: Yes.
BELL: You can tell that Stephen Miller's writing is not getting -- is getting worse, not better that he's, you know, he's making stuff up. As a way to distract that he is going to forever being known as the guy who fanned the flames of the coronavirus in this country.
LEMON: yes. He was talking about affordable housing that's going to get rid of your beautiful suburbia. Suburbia will be no more.
BELL: Yes.
LEMON: I want to talk about these anti-Semitic comments that are surfacing now from black celebrities like, we have Nick Cannon, we've got athletes like DeSean Jackson. When you think about the racism and bigotry that people are so aware of in the African-American community, why is there not the same awareness or much awareness when it comes to anti-Semitism? What's going on here?
BELL: I mean, you know, we talk about this in the episode this weekend in United Shades. One of the functions of white supremacy is to divide us into teams and to make it feel that we should be jealous of the other team or be mad at the other team.
And on top of that, when you put like, we don't do a good job in this country generally, overall of educating school kids about all this different about -- about anti-Semitism, about slavery, about the civil rights movement, about the Chinese Exclusion Act, about breaking Native-American treaties.
We don't do a good job of educating our kids about history and those kids and grow up into adults. And on top of that, the Nation of Islam, as complicated as it is, has been a place that black people could turn to for help when they couldn't turn to their elected officials and their leaders. And some of that information that comes from the Nation of Islam is not good information.
LEMON: It's a very complicated relationship and you articulated that well. Let's talk about because you just mentioned that that's what your -- is that the first episode that (AUDIO GAP) you're talking (Inaudible)?
BELL: The first episode is, where do even start with white supremacy.
LEMON: It's on United Shades of America you travel to Pittsburgh, and you spoke with Rabbi Myers from the Tree of Life synagogue which was attacked, that was back in 2018 by a white supremacist, the worst mass murder of American Jews and you talk to him about trying to work together. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFFREY MYERS, RABBI, TREE OF LIFE SYNAGOGUE: It's not upon you to finish the task, but you're not absolved from trying. So, you may not get to that pot of the rainbow --
BELL: Yes.
MYERS: -- but that doesn't mean we're letting you off the track from trying. BELL: Yes.
MYERS: At least making a few steps of more progress.
BELL: To get a little MLK on it, no matter what race, creed, or religion, if we all do that every day to work to make the world a little bit better, it gets better.
MYERS: Absolutely.
BELL: Yes. I can't help but think of my mom when we're talking about this is like, hearing her talk to her friends about racism and activism. She was playing Martin Luther King, Jr. records in the house. And at the time I was like, why do I have to? Can't we put incantations on? And so, you know --
MYERS: Yes.
BELL: And to stand here to ask that, she was building the bridge for me to be here right now talking to you.
MYERS: She honor your mother by doing the same thing to your kids.
BELL: Yes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: That was a really great moment. Rabbi -- we forget that is what great leadership looks like. Right? And you said that how -- that Pittsburgh can be a microcosm for America where the racist history is there because it's just well hidden.
BELL: Yes. Yes, I mean, Pittsburgh is like -- like we could have shot an episode about white supremacy in basically any city in this country, but Pittsburgh is a city that we think of as being a working class city, it's also a gentle -- it's a city that is on the come-up because of the tech bubble and all these things.
But statistically it is one of the worst places for the black people to live in. But because we think of like good things as being things that help white people, we don't think of the fact that what is it like for everybody in Pittsburgh. And so, Pittsburgh is a microcosm for America as far as this goes.
[22:55:00]
LEMON: We talk a lot about gentrification that I live in New York City. That's a huge thing, especially where living in Harlem, Brooklyn, right? How the people who have been there, how it affects them, and many of them can no longer afford to live there.
Listen, I want to you check out -- this is my podcast this week. I'm talking to a 22-year-old Kennedy Mitchum who e-mailed Meriam Webster to tell them their definition of racism wasn't adequate. And guess what, they listened. She did it because this is how people would act when she would talk about her experiences with racism. Listen to this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They would be like, that's not racism. They would completely act like, you know, it's just, just somebody being ignorant or just somebody not paying attention, like kind of acting like words don't matter. If somebody is calling me the n-word they're like, you're not experiencing racism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So, they used the definition to prove their point, and she got them to change it. I mean, good for her. Right? Every little -- every step counts.
BELL: Yes. She summed up our whole hour long show in about 13 seconds. So, you skip my show and just listen to her, everybody. Because that whole thing is like we think of racism as being the neo-Nazis and the Klan, but there are multiple levels of racism like we talk in that show that extend from microaggressions all the way through to hate crimes.
So, I think that like, and the fact that she took it upon herself to go out reach out to the dictionary is an amazing thing. And it shows us that we do have more power than we realize sometimes, and we just have to -- and we just have to use that power.
LEMON: Yes.
BELL: So, shout out to her.
LEMON: Well, thank you. We take on words like master and colored and black and African-American, all those words that people are like, what do we do? We take them on in the podcast this week.
Thank you, W. Kamau Bell. And we'll see you soon. And make sure you tune in to an all new season of United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell. Sunday at 10 o'clock only here on CNN. We'll be back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
