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Don Lemon Tonight

United States Sees Highest Single-Day Of New COVID-19 Cases With 71,135 Cases Reported; Mary Trump, President Represents Failure Of Leadership; Coronavirus Pandemic; Doctors On The Frontlines Speak Out; Texas Sees Record High 129 New Coronavirus Deaths Today, 10,291 New Cases Reported; Texas Governor Abbott, Goal Is To Not Shut Down State Again; White House Pushes for Schools to Reopen as Coronavirus Cases Surge; Nick Cannon Apologizes for Anti-Semitic Remarks on Podcast After Being Fired by ViacomCBS; New Episode of Don Lemon's Podcast Silence is Not an Option. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired July 16, 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]

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: This is CNN Tonight, I'm Don Lemon. 11:00 p.m. here on the East Coast, and we have some breaking news for you. A new record for the number of coronavirus cases reported in a single day in this country. More than 71,000. The death toll passing 138,000. At least 39 states seeing a rise in a number of new cases. Florida, one of the hardest hit states reporting nearly 14,000 new cases today. And a record number of deaths from the virus.

Hospitals in Florida filling up with an onslaught of COVID-19 patients. In Texas, more than 10,000 new cases today. That state also recording its single highest day of COVID-19 related deaths. Some counties in Texas and Arizona bringing in refrigerated trucks as morgues fill up.

Joining me now is CNN's White House correspondent, John Harwood. John, this is -- this virus is spiraling out of control. As I said, 71,000 deaths -- 71,000 cases reported just today, and then at a new -- that's daily record. Hospitalizations are on the rise again. We talked about this -- remember when we talked about Florida opening up and Georgia opening up and all the other states that were opening up and maybe they were doing it too soon?

And now the prediction and the projections have met the reality here. What on earth is going on? When is the president going to listen instead of today talking about dishwashers and showerheads?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's really remarkable, Don. You know, we've gotten used to the last couple of weeks the president in effect deciding that the coronavirus problem is too hard, avoiding it, trying to talk around it. But it's also the things that he's talking about are remarkable that he was doing in the Rose Garden today.

He is harking back to the America of the 1960s, when he was coming of age when white Christians were still 80 percent or 85 percent of the population and appealing to an electorate from back then. So, he talked about rolling back environmental regulations today. You have expected him in all this talk about showerheads and dishwashers to say, well, we could save a few buck if we got rid of air bags and seat belts on automobiles. Be at the time he's talking about, business was very sharply opposed to those things.

He also was talking about rolling back racial justice fair housing legislation which he said would wreck the suburbs. He's talking about white suburbs. Well, first of all, suburbs are not all white anymore. They may have once then. And second of all, people don't want to roll back those protections.

It was the same way he talked the other day about why are black people getting killed by police? And he said, oh, more white people are. This is a throwback vision that he has stuck on and there is no evidence that it is working for him economically with public health or politically. And it's a mystery why he sticks with it.

LEMON: Well, we are going to find out soon if it's working. So, listen, Trump has no plans to handle this crisis. He's ignoring the medical experts, pretending everything is fine. Hundreds of Americans are dying every single day. Is it fair to call this a dereliction of duty, John?

HARWOOD: Certainly sounds reasonable to me that to the public health experts that you talk to as well. The president seems to have crossed his fingers and decided that his strategy, his plan at this point, is to hope for therapeutics and vaccine much sooner than people expect and meantime talk up the economy, and try to talk about ways to boost the economy, like deregulation.

[23:05:00]

But obviously the economy is being held back infinitely more right now by the coronavirus, by fear of the coronavirus among ordinary people, among business -- uncertainty among businesses, than it is among regulations. It's a counterproductive strategy, and you know, he's just not willing to pay the short-term costs of an aggressive, effective effort to deal with it.

LEMON: Yes. And finally just the other day, yesterday or the day before, he wore a mask. He was talking about how big Joe Biden's mask is. His mask was huge. But anyway I digress. I don't know if you saw the president's niece, Mary Trump on Rachel Maddow tonight. About -- she talk about why she brought up coronavirus in those scathing new book about her uncle. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARY TRUMP, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S NIECE: I want people to understand what a failure of leadership this is, and the reason he's failing at it is because he's incapable of succeeding at it. It would have required taking responsibility, which would in his mind, have meant admitting a mistake, which in his mind would be admitting weakness, which in my family was essentially punished with the death penalty, symbolically or otherwise. What I think we need to grapple with now is why so many people are

continuing to allow this. The fact that he is dividing us at the expense of people's lives -- I mean, what, 140,000 Americans and counting are dead, and the vast majority of those people did not need to lose their lives if only Donald had said, listen to the scientists, wear a mask, stay home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: She did not mince words there, essentially saying that his arrogance cost lives.

HARWOOD: Well, right, and the scientists he's not listening to are saying things that are inconvenient to him right now. He's not absorbing the information. He's not reacting to changes in the situation. He was very slow, as we know in the beginning, downplayed the coronavirus, because he thought it would disturb the economy, and that was his greatest asset.

Then he did -- was forced to deal with it, and we did go into a significant element of shutdown nationally, but as soon as he got some positive news there he raced to re-open the economy again, and he's simply not veering from that. And that's the inability to adjust, which is crippling him.

Nancy Pelosi said today that Donald Trump is someone -- is like the man who won't stop and ask for directions. He's not asking for directions from Anthony Fauci and other public health experts and as a consequence, we're seeing this incredible brush fire across the country.

LEMON: Well, when you don't ask for directions what happens? You usually get lost, you run out of gas.

HARWOOD: You get lost.

LEMON: You run out of gas and there you are stranded just you and yourself. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

HARWOOD: You bet.

LEMON: I want to go now to Andy Slavitt, he is the former acting administrator at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid services. Andy, good to see you. Wish it was under better circumstances, of course. Tonight only two states, Delaware and Maine are seeing a decrease in cases. We've known about this virus for months. What's happening?

ANDY SLAVITT, FORMER ACTING HEAD OF THE HEALTH CARE FOR THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, HOST, IN THE BUBBLE: Well, sadly, I think the foot that came off the gas in the beginning of May in the White House, within the country, sent a signal to folks that this was over and people were all too eager to get back to their lives. And unlike the rest of their world, we forgot the fact that the virus was still out there and that the virus is still deadly and this is what viruses do. And we were too many people who were all too happy to go along with it. So, I think right now my sense is that it's impossible to ignore

what's going on any longer, even for the White House. I think that's why you're seeing a lot of finger pointing, a lot of blame game. I think we'll see more of it. That's not constructive. They're doing everything but rolling up their sleeves.

LEMON: Andy, several countries had reported zero coronavirus deaths in the last seven days. What are they doing that we aren't? Listen, I'm sure they're socially distancing, they're wearing masks, they're taking it seriously at the very least.

SLAVITT: Well, you know, it's a great question, and it's the right question. Because I think it sends a signal to all Americans, it's not that this is impossible. We are acting like this is impossible. But you can go anywhere from Greece to the Czech Republic to Germany over to Vietnam. We're not talking about the most resources countries in the world, we are talking about countries that had simply had a strategy and stuck to it.

[23:10:03]

At one point, Deborah Birx introduce a strategy. It was the day before I believe Trump tweeted liberate Minnesota, liberate Michigan. This was a (INAUDIBLE) states that had rapidly increase in cases. So, you know, we are all flare, we had no ability to stick to a plan and if we had done some simple things that you talked about plenty of times on this show, which is get enough testing for people so we don't have wild spread, do contact tracing, wear masks, all of those things work.

None of those things are complicated. We should be at this point in time in July, we should be enjoying essentially -- not a normal summer, but a much more normal existence than we are now, and I think that's sadly due to the White House.

LEMON: Yes. This is very troubling, because the Trump administration now is rerouting coronavirus hospital data to Health and Human Services instead of sending it to the CDC. You used to work at HHS. Does that make any sense?

SLAVITT: It doesn't make any sense. There's no explanation that we're going to get that's going to make sense. I read through all the explanation that they're giving today. And you know, the CDC is, you know, charged with essentially monitoring public health and public health information and sharing it with the public.

You know, they weren't going a fabulous job before this, but this going on essentially is people acquiescing to politics. Because what this means now is that political leaders, not scientists, are going to be the ones getting the data. I'm quite sure they're going to be forced to share it with us, because this isn't quite the USSR and Chernobyl. They will be force to share it with us.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: You're that optimistic about that? Because what other reason would they have to reroute it than they don't want the numbers getting out? The correct information getting out.

SLAVITT: Well, John Hopkins has all this data. So, John Hopkins has this data, right. This isn't a place where -- you can't hold this information. We have fabulous reporters at CNN and other outlets. They're going to get this data, so I think they're going to be forced to release it. They're going to spin it. they are going to spin it through their political lens. Because remember, they're not doing enough testing, so we have no idea what's going on in terms of case count. We have way more cases than are actually out there.

So then the only solid data is hospitalizations, because testing data no longer means anything, because hospital -- because there's just too much spread. So, then they take hospitalization data and say, wait a minute, now that's going to be important. Let us politicians get this information out as opposed to let the scientists get that information out. So, I would bet you that there will be something that comes out, but I bet you it is painted in a way that eases the burden on his political story.

LEMON: Andy, thank you. I appreciate it. Have a good evening. Be safe.

SLAVITT: Thank you, Don.

LEMON: I want to get to CNN's Nick Watt now with the very latest on the surge of cases across the country.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is Texas, now, six months into this pandemic. Refrigerated trailers deployed to store the dead. In Dallas, San Antonio, and down near the border, morgues are filling up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm pleading with everybody. Here in our neighborhood, in our community, I need everybody to help us and do their part.

WATT: And in Corpus Christi?

JUDGE BARBARA CANALES, NUENCES COUNTY, TEXAS: We were doing fantastic at the end of May, we have just absolutely skyrocketed after Memorial Day.

WATT: Mid-May, the county was logging maybe a handful of new cases every day. Yesterday, more than 1,000. Similar situation over in Miami, where hospitals are now at 95 percent capacity.

MAYOR FRANCIS SUAREZ (R-FL), MIAMI: We're at the highest level of ventilators that we have seen through this pandemic.

WATT: 39 states are now heading in the wrong direction, with average case counts rising. Today, Target, CVS and Publix joined the growing list of retailers that will require masks in stores nationwide. Arkansas Governor just reverse course now, requiring mask in public. Mask mandates now in at least 39 states but not Georgia, where the Governor just banned local municipalities from making them mandatory. He's now suing Atlanta's mayor whose order is still in place.

MAYOR VAN JOHNSON (D-GA), SAVANNAH: I was furious. I was absolutely lost for words. It made actually no sense to me that at that time when our corporate giants are mandating masks where the state of Alabama is mandating masks, where the state of Florida, about 120 miles south of us is the hot spot of the nation --

LT. GOV. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): The fact that we're arguing about masking I don't understand that in the middle of a pandemic.

WATT: Example, this Utah County commission meeting got into masks in schools and abruptly ended.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are supposed to be physically distancing, wearing masks, and so --

WATT: The president kind of agrees with those boos.

[23:15:02]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to be putting a lot of pressure on open your schools in the fall.

WATT: Not one of the 20 largest districts in the country has committed to in person teaching, but the state of Florida says it's ready, even as Miami's mayor pleads for federal guidance.

SUAREZ: There was guidance in terms of re-opening, in terms of the gating criteria, but there wasn't any guidance in terms of what happens if there's a second spike like we're seeing right now. How do you go backwards? What are the metrics? And so we're struggling.

WATT: Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Thank you very much, Nic. Coronavirus cases are surging all across the country. We'll continue our update right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Texas seeing a single day record of coronavirus deaths, reporting 129 deaths today. Two counties in the states starting to run out of room in morgues and bringing in refrigerated trailers to help with capacity. Joining me now is Dr. David Persse of the Houston Public Health Authority. Thank you so much for joining us, doctor.

[23:20:08]

Cases in Texas are still surging. Houston is among the worst hit places. ICU beds hovering at surge capacity. Talk to us about how serious the situation is there right now, please.

DR. DAVID PERSSE, PUBLIC HEALTH AUTHORITY, HOUSTON: Well, the situation is serious. We judge it by, you know, our hospital situation. And our hospital partners are doing a really great job of coming up with extra space for patients but quite honestly, what is forgotten in all of this is that the other illnesses like heart attacks and strokes and you know, tumor receptions and so on and so forth, those things are continuing in at the same time, so it's not just all about COVID disease.

LEMON: Yes. So Dr. Persse, Texas Governor Abbott saying that he won't shut down Texas. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): People are panicking thinking I'm about to shut down Texas again. The answer is, no, that is not the goal. What I want to do is to make sure that everyone begins to wear a mask so that we will be able to get COVID-19 under control so that we won't not have to shut Texas back down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: OK, so, listen. Now, quite honestly, we have been covering this, obviously the Governor since this all began, he was not on the mask band wagon. He resisted calls for a mask mandate for weeks before finally giving in. Now he's saying everyone wearing a mask is the only way to get this under control. I mean, this shows the peril of not listening to the experts, no?

PERSSE: I agree. I agree, we should have been following this from the science standpoint all along. Instead as a nation we let this become a political issue.

LEMON: Yes. The army is now in Houston to help with hospital capacity. Harris County officials have said that NRG stadium could be used as a last resort medical shelter for coronavirus patients. Do you need that help right now?

PERSSE: Not right now. But as you know, we do have a small medical unit in town already that set up a 30-bed hospital, but let's face it in a city this size that's a tiny drop in the bucket. The goal should be for us to get things under control so that we don't have to use those assets. And even if the county's field hospital were to be set up, at maximum it's only another 150 beds which compared to city the size of the number of hospital beds we have. That's still a tiny number. So, that is not the answer. The answer is for us to somehow slow down the spread of this virus and get control of the situation.

LEMON: I want to put up for our viewers these refrigerated trailers that are now helping out with morgue capacity in parts of Texas. This is what it was like at the peak of the virus in New York. Could this have been avoided if Texas re-opened more carefully? I'm not saying slower, but just more carefully.

PERSSE: Well, I think so. I think two things happened here in Texas. When the Governor opened things up he said that he was going wait two weeks and then a few more days to see what happened. So, in public health there's a rule, Don, that whenever you make an intervention in the community, you need to wait about two weeks to see what happens. The mistake in retrospect was that people didn't go from 0 to 65 miles

an hour on day one. So, while the Governor gave actually 18 days before moving to phase two, the flawed thinking was that we would know at 18 days the impact of phase one. And what we now know is that we didn't even begin to start seeing that is until about the 23rd, 25th of May.

Now, by that point we're in phase two and then the populous had this false sense of security that, well, the weather is much warmer. That must be why things are still good. And we went from 0 to 65 not during phase one, but during phase two and that's what we are in a situation right now.

LEMON: Dr. Persse, thank you so much. Be safe, please. And next time I talked to you, hopefully there's better news. I appreciate it.

PERSSE: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

LEMON: Arizona also facing a dire situation. Health officials announcing they're bringing in hundreds of nurses from out of state to help fill the gaps. I want to bring in now Dr. Murtaza Akhter, an emergency physician at Valley Wise Health Medical Center in Phoenix. Doctor, thank you for appearing again, it's good to see you.

DR. MURTAZA AKHTER, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN, VALLEY WISE MEDICAL CENTER, PHOENIX: Good to be back.

LEMON: Yes, but listen. Last week you were telling me how ICU capacity in Arizona was surging so badly that you had to send people away to make room for coronavirus patients. What is it like right now?

AKHTER: Listen. If somebody is extremely sick of course we're going to keep them in the emergency department. The issue is that the ICUs in the floor are so backed up while the patients are still coming in. That they're staying in the emergency department for an extended periods of time.

We do the best that we can to treat them, but there are certain things that really require inpatient medicine. There's a reason we all have separate residency trainings. It has gotten extremely hot in Arizona. That people coming in with heat strokes, there are people who are coming in with infections like they did always, even before the pandemic and on top of that you have got the COVID patients.

There are people who are waiting in line to get tested and are fainting literally while waiting to get a test and they come to the E.R. because ironically they're waiting for a test and fainted. So, you're getting these patients still coming to the E.R. We're backing them up in the emergency department.

[23:25:11]

We are doing our best that we can to take care of them, but despite all of that, you know, we still have the highest positive rate in the country. The percent of test that come back positive are the highest in the countries still. Which means it's very widespread in the community, and I don't know when this is going to level off.

LEMON: Goodness. Are there treatments that you're using that are helping? And if so, what are they?

AKHTER: So there are some treatments that we have. We know that dexamethasone for the extremely sick. That one who needs respiratory support can help. We know that Remdesivir even can help a little bit, but there aren't very clear cut mortality benefits. But k what, Don, I've got a really great drug. It's a blockbuster drug. It's called masks.

Masks work. They decrease disease transmission more than any other drug that we have out there. And if people just wore that, it would be amazing. We would not need to focus on so much on Remdesivir and dexamethasone, because the transmission rate would be so low. I know companies can make a billion dollars off of it, but masks work. Everybody's been saying it and it's the best drug that we have.

LEMON: I hope people are listening to you and heed your advice. You know, deaths in Arizona, doctor, now quickly, trending upward. If Arizona hospitals run out of ICU space, what is going to happen to that curve?

AKHTER: Well, you have been watching the curves. You know, a lot of people are talking about, is there a plateau, is there not? Listen, that's like talking about a clogged sink with the faucet that's still running. If you make the faucet plateau and not let it drain quiet as much, the sink is still clog, as long as the water is running you are still at risk of flooding.

And that's the situation we're at right now in the hospital settings. Where the sink is backing up with water and we're hoping, well, maybe if we turn the faucet down a little bit that would be OK, but really what we need is to unclog it, for people to get healthier, to be less sick and to be able to come out of the ICU safely. You know what else is concerning, Don, is there are multiple residents in our hospital who are sick. Which is really upsetting to me.

One of my resident just emailed me yesterday to say, listen, I don't know how long it takes to make an n-95 or a ventilator, but I know how long it takes to make a doctor. Which is almost heartbreaking, right. Health-care professionals who have full PPE in our hospital, because our hospital are on a decent job are still getting sick, so I'm not sure why other people think we're doing OK. Even if we were plateauing, which we're not, as you mentioned, our deaths are going up.

Even if we are plateauing, to plateau at a bad place is not good enough. We need to go down. Especially when you are considering schools are opening and yet people are still walking around like things are OK. They're not OK. Doctors are getting sick. It is a concerning situation. We don't want that sink to flood. It's concerning in the hospital situation.

LEMON: Arizona also bringing in refrigerated trucks that act as morgue, just like Texas. Doctor, thank you very much. Please be safe. Best of luck to you.

AKHTER: Thanks, Don. You too.

LEMON: More breaking news. We already reported the U.S. recording the highest number of new coronavirus cases in a single day yet, but we are getting even more cases reporting in right now. That number is now 75,469. This and the argument over schools re-opening, next.

[23:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The Trump administration is pushing to try to reopen schools in the fall despite massive surges of coronavirus cases all across the country. The White House Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, putting her own spin on the issue, claiming the science is clear and on their side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: When he says open, he means open in full, kids being able to attend each and every day at their school. The science should not stand in the way of this. And as Dr. Scott Atlas said -- I thought this was a good quote -- of course, we can do it. Everyone else in the western world, our peer nations are doing it. We are the outlier here.

The science is very clear on this that, you know, for instance, you look at the JAMA Pediatric study of 46 pediatric hospitals in North America that said the risk of critical illness from COVID is far less for children than that of seasonal flu. The science is on our side here. We encourage for localities and states to just simply follow the science, open our schools.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Well, let's discuss now because Dr. William Schaffner is here. He is a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University. Doctor, it is good to see you. Thank you so much for joining. So we looked at that study that she referenced and while kids are less likely to get sick from the coronavirus, health officials say transmission in children is still very unclear. So, tell us what we know.

WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, PROFESSOR OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: Well, what we know, Don, is that those countries that have reduced transmission -- we haven't -- but those countries that have reduced transmission have been able to either keep their schools open or open them up, but that's in an environment where community transmission is very low.

Now, we're going to take the science and apply it and help the schools try to open up because that will happen across the country. And the general principles of wearing masks, disinfection, six foot distancing, and avoiding groups are going to be applied to the schools. And the schools are doing a whole lot of different things. They are taking the temperatures of children. There will be a symptom screen. If your child has sniffles, don't send them to school. There may be staggered hours of operation so there's no crowding coming in and leaving. In class, they'll be divided up.

[23:34:58]

SCHAFFNER: Everybody who can wear a mask, I don't know about the real tiny ones, but certainly older children and all the faculties and the staff will be masked. Some of the children will eat in their own rooms rather than going to the cafeteria, lots of disinfection going on. So the science can be applied to try to help school systems open up as safely as possible. We are all going to be doing a very large experiment across this country.

LEMON: Yes.

SCHAFFNER: But the most important thing we could do is reduce transmission as your colleagues have -- my colleagues have told you just before, reduce transmission in the community.

LEMON: Dr. Schaffner, data from Florida' health department says that kids under 18 have a positivity rate of nearly a third. That's huge. I mean, what can happen if schools reopen before we get this under control?

SCHAFFNER: Well, those are the tested children. And obviously, they were tested for some reason. Either they were ill or they were contacts of people who were ill. But that's still a very high percentage. There isn't any doubt. Now, can children transmit this virus? Just as you said, that's still a large question mark. And studies are under way to try to determine that, but we don't know how well children can transmit this virus.

LEMON: All right. Dr. Schaffner, thank you for your expertise and your time. I appreciate it. We'll see you soon.

SCHAFFNER: My pleasure.

LEMON: Next, some prominent black celebrities making questionable comments lately, spreading anti-Semitic conspiracies are backing up others who have done so. Why is this happening now?

[23:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Nick Cannon has announced that he is stepping away from his nationally syndicated radio show. In a post on Twitter, Cannon said that he intends to commit himself to deeper, more thorough reflection and education. The move comes after Cannon and a controversial hip-hop figure pushed anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on a recent episode of Cannon's podcast.

Let's discuss now. Jemele Hill is here. He is a staff writer for The Atlantaic and the host of the "Jemele Hill is Unbothered" podcast, which I was a guest on, so thank you for that.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Hi, Jemele. Thanks for joining us.

JEMELE HILL, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: What's going on, Don? Thanks for having me.

LEMON: So I'm so glad that you're here to discuss this with me. You know, we have seen DeSean Jackson, we have seen Stephen Jackson, we have seen Nick Cannon, all expressing anti-Semitic viewpoints, and then they're struggling to explain and then to apologize and then where do we go from here? What is a root of this, you think?

HILL: I think a big part of it is that they don't necessarily consider what they're saying to be anti-Semitic. And the one thread that you see in all of the clips that you watch, not just with Nick Cannon but even what Stephen Jackson said, and if you saw the quotes, the fake Hitler quote that DeSean Jackson posted, is that in their minds, they think that they're saying something that's educational, that's historically accurate, and something that is not anti-Semitic.

And I think part of the reason that they think that way is because they don't understand some of the same stereotypes and tropes that they're pushing about Jews owning everything, about feeding into these conspiracy theories that they, you know, have master control over a lot of different industries.

That they're also at the same time putting on full display the very reasons why they were persecuted by Hitler to begin with is because of the threat of them conspiring and all these other beliefs, and so they're not unable to unwrap all that or to understand it.

They don't also understand how hurtful that is to people in the Jewish community because I don't think that they've ever really had the type of conversation that would allow them to have that level of empathy or sympathy. And they must understand that anti-Semitism is a huge component of white supremacy, which we're all trying to fight.

LEMON: Yes. Well, and then I'm sure you know as we're doing this, there will be people who will go on social media whenever and say, you guys need to educate yourself, you know. You're pawns for the white man or for the Jewish people or whatever. And what they don't realize is that what they think is true about history is not true. And as you said, it is ahistorical. It is not true. You're trafficking in conspiracy theories.

I know, Jemele, that you wrote about an anti-Semitic incident of your own in a piece with The Atlantic. It was called "The Anti-Semitism We Didn't See." Tell us what you did, what the fallout was, and what you learned, what you did after that.

HILL: So in 2008, I was covering the Lakers/Celtics NBA finals series. I was writing a column for espn.com because I was then general sports columnist for them. I made a really callous insensitive and frankly not funny joke comparing Hitler fans to -- I think the line that I used in the column was that if you, you know, root for the Celtics, that's like saying Hitler was a victim. And while I know on the face of it, there are many people who said, oh, that doesn't seem that bad. Well, that wasn't really the point.

[23:44:58]

HILL: The point is that had somebody made a similar joke, let's say it involved slavery or let's say it involved a notorious figure who had been known for persecuting black people, I would have been pissed, frankly. And so that just allowed me -- gave me an entry point to really reflect on why I did that so callously, and a lot of it is because, you know, we tend to get into what I call the "oppression Olympics" --

(LAUGHTER)

HILL: -- where obviously, as black people, we understand what our struggle is, what our fight is, what we've been through, you know, how we have been the victims in front of institutionalized racism, systemic oppression, we can go on and on.

And sometimes, we get so wrapped up in that fight that we tend to denigrate other marginalized groups and say, no, we were persecuted the most, we've been through the most, and we disrespect what other marginalized people have been through. We may not do it on purpose, we may not do it with malice, but it is what we do nonetheless.

It's kind of what I did. I am centering myself and my own struggle and my own fight and my own race and what we go through to the point where I don't even see or understand what I said in the moment when I wrote it, how insensitive that that had come off. And so that is why I was able to use that incident and really try to tap into the mindset of what might have caused DeSean Jackson to post something like he did.

It didn't matter if it was a fake. The fact is, even if it was real, why would you think posting a quote about --

LEMON: Right.

HILL: -- posting a quote from Hitler was a starting point --

LEMON: Yes.

HILL: -- for any kind of conversation?

LEMON: Well, I want to move and talk about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but you are suspended from ESPN, and you think you deserve it, right?

HILL: Yes, I totally deserve it.

LEMON: Yes.

HILL: I was -- you know, when you are a writer, you have to take responsibility for what you say and what you write. And yes, there were editors and yes, other people -- the story didn't post itself, but to me, that doesn't really matter. I was the one who is responsible.

LEMON: You took responsibility for it. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has a great piece out. It is called "Where is the Outrage Over Anti-Semitism in Sports and Hollywood?" He writes, "The lesson never changes, so why is it so hard for some people to learn: No one is free until everyone is free. So, let's act like it."

So, if we are going to be outraged -- he says if we are going to be outraged by injustice, let's be outraged by injustice against anyone. I was saying injustice against everyone, is what I would say, I would add to that. That's the heart of the decision right now, isn't it, Jemele?

HILL: It is at the heart of it. But it's also kind of a nuanced conversation, Don, because as I'm sure you've seen on social media and just in the way people are having this discussion, there are people who give no care about the Jewish culture, who are using DeSean Jackson, Stephen Jackson, and even some of the entertainers that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar mentioned, as a way to undermine and try to eat at the credibility of the people who are out there fighting for justice.

They are using them as a launching pad. And that is not to say that what Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said was wrong. He wasn't wrong at all. But I think that is why there has been this reluctance to be more outraged because people are a little scared. I mean, we are in this moment, this very thoughtful and critical moment where we are having these conversations about race.

And because you have black people who are at the center of these controversies, people are worried that, OK, if I come out and I criticize Nick Cannon, it will be perceived as if I am being against black people who in this moment are fighting for something really very important.

So I think that is why you have seen a little less outrage than maybe you would have seen if it were say it does involve somebody white saying something about somebody black. Nobody wants to be accused of undermining and undercutting the struggle.

LEMON: Yes. Welcome to where I've been for the last seven years or so, however long I've been on prime time. There is no nuance.

HILL: I know, pressure.

LEMON: I know, right? If you say something, even if you just discuss an issue that involves black people, you know, as a white journalist would do it, you get criticism that you are, you know, what are you doing, why are you talking about black people in that way or, you know, you're going to be disinvited from the cookout. But that's my job. That's my job. That's your job.

HILL: My cookout invitation right now, let's just say it might be being reviewed. (LAUGHTER)

LEMON: It's under review!

(LAUGHTER)

HILL: It's under review right now.

LEMON: You're on probation!

(LAUGHTER)

HILL: You're right. I guess I got to promise to make a lot of potato salad.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Jemele, you are a mess. Thank you. I'll see you soon. Take care. We'll be right back.

HILL: Thank you, Don.

(LAUGHTER)

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[23:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The latest episode of my new podcast is called "Silence is Not an Option." It is out today and we have a sneak peak for you. I talked with some folks about where we are now in our history and what role younger people are playing in demanding change. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON (voice-over): But at what point do you say, OK, I've waited long enough. You folks who are older, the establishment, like me, and you. You didn't move quite -- you didn't move the ball enough. You didn't push the rock far enough. You weren't strong enough. You were -- nonviolent and peaceful protests didn't get you that far. And so now we're sick of it.

JOHN MCWHORTER, PROFESSOR, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY (voice-over): Yes. And that all sounds good.

[23:54:58]

MCWHORTER (voice-over): But to be honest, if the new idea is nonviolence didn't work. And so we're going to, one, start pulling statues down. And two, start making white people feel really, really bad about anything they ever say. If that's the idea, well, then we're still going to sit still. I just -- I don't think that that's a meaningful strategy. And I'm not saying it's making white people too angry. At this point, what I'm saying is that if the idea is that anything a white person thinks does or says threatens the status of them being ally, then what's going to happen is that white people are just going to be paralyzed.

I mean, if I were white at this point, I would be afraid to get out of bed or I would be afraid to say -- I would have withdrawn. I would have thought I am never again going to say or do anything about black people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: You should hear what I said after that, and then what he said after that. You have to check it out, the full interview with Columbia University Professor John McWhorter. Plus, the conversation that we have with Kennedy Mitchum. She is a 22-year-old woman who got Merriam- Webster to change their definition of racism. Find it on Apple podcast or your favorite podcast app.

Thanks for watching, everyone. I'm Don Lemon. Our coverage continues.

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