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Don Lemon Tonight
U.S. Coronavirus Cases Top Five Million, Deaths At 163,400- Plus; White House Security Scare As Trump Was Escorted From Briefing Room; Interview With Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) About Investigation Into U.S. Postal Service; Positive Test Rates Rise In Dozens Of States Amid Concerns On Opening Schools; New Study Shows Which Masks Work Best, Which Don't Work At All; Group Of College Football Stars Pushing To Save Their Football Season. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired August 10, 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)
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: This is CNN Tonight. I'm Don Lemon. It's 11:00 p.m. here on the East Coast and we are following multiple breaking stories for you.
First off, the global coronavirus cases now surpassing 20 million tonight, more than 5 million of those cases are right here in the United States. So, why is this president trying or saying -- why is this president saying that about to be in very good shape? Excuse me. All over the country.
And just minutes after beginning his coronavirus briefing, President Trump was abruptly escorted out of the room. The Secret Service was involved in a shooting right outside of the White House.
Plus, new concerns at changes in the postal service could impact mail in ballots and the 2020 election. Why the slowdown and is this intentional? We are going to talk to a Senator, the Senator who is leading the investigation in just a moment here on this broadcast.
And there are new reports tonight that the top college sports conferences may postpone Football season because of the coronavirus. College athletes want to play but is there a way to make it safe? We are going to break down all these stories and more in the hour ahead for you.
But joining me first, CNN's Daniel Dale, our resident fact checker, and Dr. Jonathan Reiner, he is the Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Program at George Washington University Hospital.
Gentlemen, good evening. Good to be back. Good to see both of you. Thanks for joining.
Dr. Reiner, you first. More than 163,000 Americans had died from coronavirus and cases are now topping 5 million but the president says that we're about to be in very good shape all over the country. Please, doctor, tell me, what is he talking about? JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I don't know what he's talking
about. Almost everything the president says unfortunately is wrong. It's either wrong, a stretch or out and out lie.
You know, the truth is that, you know, every day anywhere between 40 and 60,000 more Americans acquire this virus. Every day somewhere between 500 and 1,000 Americans die from this virus and every day we still don't have a national testing policy. Every day we still don't have a mandate to wear masks. We don't have a clear policy for when a state needs to shut down and its Groundhog Day every single day.
LEMON: Yes. Can't disagree with that. So, Daniel, we know this president always lies, right? But you say that this is one of the worst press conferences from a truth standpoint. What were his lies about this pandemic?
DANIEL DALE, CNN FACT CHECKER: It's hard to know where to start, Don. He blamed the increase in cases over the last couple of months on the amount of testing the U.S. is doing as I've said before. Cases rose because the virus is truly spreading in the United States.
He conspiratorially blamed China for supposedly quote releasing the virus to the U.S. and Europe, but supposedly stopping it from spreading beyond Wuhan within China. That's not true. Every province in China had cases by late January. And it had flared up since.
He claimed he banned travel from China and from Europe as we've talked about before. He's travel restriction contained numerous exceptions, allowed tens of thousands of people to keep traveling. He claimed that he didn't start with a stockpile of ventilators. His own administration has confirmed to me that it was left with a stockpile of about 19,000 ventilators from Obama.
He said the U.S. has conducted more than 60,000 tests but India, the second place country only 11 million. So he said 60 million for the U.S., about 11 million for India. India has conducted about 25 million.
And Don, he also made two more claims that I can't render a firm conclusion on that I think many people would say are dubious at best. He claimed he is pursuing a science-based approach to this pandemic. Many scientists of course, say no and he said that he's done quote, he and other haves done quote, an extraordinary job as you said more than 163,000 Americans have died. So, I don't know.
LEMON: Yes. He also mentioned the wall saying that they are building large sections of the wall, we know that is not true. And that it would stop the cases, the number of coronavirus cases when most of them, the cases are probably coming over on airplanes.
It just -- I don't know. I can't -- I don't know. I really don't know what to say, every time I listen to him he lies with a straight face and there are people who just gobble it up like, you know, as candy. It's unbelievable.
[23:05:11] DALE: Five years now.
LEMON: Yes. Dr. Reiner, take a listen. This is Dr. Fauci on what he said on ABC News, this was earlier tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you hear this local guidance coming from some schools that mask wearing will be voluntary for students in those schools, you disagree with that? You say universal mask wearing?
ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE: You see -- the issue is that, you know, it is going to be decided at the local level. I can give you my opinion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. You said universal wearing of masks?
FAUCI: Right. I would -- I feel that universal wearing of masks is one of five or six things that are very important in preventing the upsurge of infection and in turning around the infections that we are seeing surging.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: But yet, there is still no federal mandate. Are the case numbers and deaths going to continue to surge in this country unless everyone starts wearing a mask, doctor?
REINER: Yes. And look, if you want schools open in the fall and if you want college football in the fall, we know that the vice president desperately wants college football in the fall, and mandate masks. Tell everyone they have to wear a mask, ramp up the testing. Let's double the testing over the next two weeks.
Yes, and then you have a chance to have schools open in October. We have football season starting in October. We can start to get back to closer to normal. It's -- if you ask a parent to choose between having your kid wear a mask at school or keeping them home for the next year, what do you think they are going to choose? It's mind boggling. I just don't understand it.
LEMON: What is the logic -- what is he waiting on? Like, how many people, doctor, honestly, have to die? How much more evidence does he need about masks and other things that he's doing wrong that he's getting wrong? I don't understand what he's waiting on. He's just incapable, maybe, not maybe, he is.
REINER: There was a story in The New York Times last week, they took CDC death data. All the deaths are reported to the CDC and they looked at deaths in United States between March 15th and July 25th of this year and compared it to the comparable periods from the last three years and there have been about 205,000 excess deaths in the United States.
So you can account for about 160 plus thousand confirmed COVID positive cases but that means there are at least another 45,000 people who have died either from COVID or from collateral damage, people having heart attacks, not going to the hospital, strokes. So the real mortality has been about -- the real death rate has been about 205,000 people. Not 165, 205,000. And it's going to go up.
LEMON: Wow. Wow. Wow. Daniel, the president was asked about how he's considering an executive order requiring health insurers to cover preexisting conditions, something that Obamacare already does. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We want to be able to assure people that preexisting condition is always taken care of. As you know, we've done tremendous things having to do with the individual mandate.
We got rid of the individual mandate from Obamacare, which really ended Obamacare as it would be officially known because the individual mandate was the biggest part. It was also the most unpopular part where you pay for a terrible privilege of over paying for insurance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Does he know anything he's talking about? Give me the fact check, Daniel.
DALE: So a couple of things here, Don. First of all, ending the individual mandate did not effectively essentially end Obamacare. The protections for people with preexisting conditions remain in existence in that law so does the Medicaid expansion, so do the exchanges where people can buy health insurance. So do the subsidies that are provided through the Affordable Care Act to help some people buy health insurance.
Second of all, Trump says that his executive order will provide a sense of security for people with preexisting conditions. Well, again, that's much less security than the ACA a law provides and Trump administration -- he's doesn't like talk about it that much, but his administration is in court supporting Republican lawsuit to get the entirety of Obamacare declared unconstitutional, Don.
LEMON: And yet people will vote against their own interest because they don't really know what is going on. They're listening to him, flat out lies, right to your face. Thank you, gentlemen, I appreciate it.
I want to get now to Democratic Senator, Gary Peters of Michigan. He's leading the investigation into the U.S. Postal Service, something everyone should be paying attention to. So if you're watching, listen right now. Senator Peters, thank you so much. I appreciate you joining.
[23:10:00]
SEN. GARY PETERS (D-MI): Great to be with you. Thank you for having me on. LEMON: OK. You say the new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is behind
this massive, these massive delays in our mail system. What are you learning from your investigation?
PETERS: Well, that's what we're trying to determine through this investigation is exactly what is happening at the postal service right now. All I know right now very clearly is that constituents all across the state of Michigan have been contacting my office complaining about what is happening at the postal service that delivery times continue to get longer and longer.
Today I talked to Michelle Brown who talked about her husband who needs medicines from the V.A. Normally when that is shipped from V.A., she gets them or he gets them within three days. The last order took 12 days. And then he meant -- he missed the medicines that he absolutely needed.
And when you think of what the postal service does every day at making sure that paychecks come to folks and social security checks, you get bills and so you can pay on time so you don't have the fees associated with it, you have to have on time delivery and yet, over the last few weeks, delivery times have gotten longer and longer and coincides with a new postmaster general that was put in place by Donald Trump.
His qualifications for the job was the fact that he's a very big contributor to Donald Trump and he's now put in procedures that I'm hearing from our postal service workers, the letter carriers, the postal workers who do the hard work every day.
They're saying they have to do things that they have never done before and they're seeing mail pile up. They say there isn't over time that is available, so as mail piles up, you don't have the people to actually get it out.
The transportation system isn't working the way it used to. Processing is down and now in the past, if mail started to pile up, they did everything they could to get it out the door and to get it into customer's hands immediately. And now the management basically says well, just leave it.
Go home for the day. And then it piles up and each day it piles up more and more and as a result of that, we have delivery that takes a whole lot longer than it should and it's quite frankly a serious problem for Americans all across the country.
LEMON: All right. Let me in here. Because you said a lot. You said there's a new postmaster general, right? There were major changes in top jobs at the postal service on Friday. What do you know about what happened?
Is this incompetence that starts at the top with obviously the president and then appointing this person to be postmaster general who you say his experience is what being a donor that would, you know, no experience in being a postmaster of the postal service probably incompetent. What are you saying here? What is going on? PETERS: Well, the fact that these policies went into place raises lots
of questions as to whether or not they are effective, were they tested? We ask questions, I've asked questions.
The postmaster general has not been very forthcoming, not just for my inquiries and I'm the ranking member on the committee that oversees the postal service, but other committee or other Senators also cannot get a hold of him to get answers to questions when we initially asked him about the policies and procedures put in place, we got a response that these aren't national local post offices are doing it.
Finally they respond and said, well, no, they are national policies and we are putting this out forward and yet, they refuse to answer questions like what are you going to do if this is not working, what sort of plan b do you have and can we go back to the standards that we had before so that people can get their medicines and their paychecks.
And certainly with an election coming up with vote by mail, by slowing that down, that's going to cause a whole host of problems and a fundamental aspect of our democracy, the right for people to vote and make sure that their vote is counted. So, this is truly a serious issue.
LEMON: I'm glad you brought that up. Because that is going to be one of my questions but let me ask you this as you're talking about the people at the top and the post office.
DeJoy and his wife, Aldona Wos, the nominee for ambassador to Canada, by the way, have been 30 million, 30.1 million and 7.5 -- 75.3 million in assets in U.S. Postal Service competitors or contractors. That's according to financial disclosure documents. Isn't that a huge conflict of interest? I mean, what are you learning about that?
PETERS: Well, we've actually -- I've joined with some of my colleagues. We've asked the inspector general to investigate that because clearly, it is a flashing red light. There's no question about that. We need to have an I.G. investigation into that certainly.
But in the meantime, we have to fix this critical situation for Americans across this country who are not getting the mail delivered on time, something that the postal service has been able to do for over 240 years and to see it slow down the way it being slowed down right now is really unacceptable.
LEMON: Senator, what you're doing is very important. Keep it up and please come back and report to us what is going on. Thank you so much for your time.
[23:15:07]
PETERS: Thank you.
LEMON: Thank you.
There has been a 90 percent -- 90 percent increase in coronavirus cases among children in just the past month, 90 percent. That news as more schools are getting ready to reopen.
Plus, will there be college football this year? We'll take a look coming up.
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LEMON: Even more evidence debunking President Trump's claim that kids are virtually immune to the coronavirus. A new report saying children accounted for nearly 180,000 cases during the last four weeks, a 90 percent increase over that time.
Now, schools that have already opened are dealing with cases among students and staff. Here is CNN's Athena Jones.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just act like the virus isn't there and we kind of go for it and try to tough it out. It won't work.
[23:20:00]
ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Public health experts warned this would happen and now it has, schools in states with high rates of COVID-19 infections opening up too quickly without the proper precautions and suffering the consequences as new cases pile up.
The Georgia High School made famous in this viral photo now temporarily closed after nine students and employees tested positive. The school where masks are not required holding classes remotely while it undergoes a deep cleaning.
At least 16 schools in Cherokee County, Georgia have reported COVID cases among students or staff underlining the challenge of holding in- person classes in a state with the highest number of COVID cases per capita in the country.
DR. WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: The reason all this is happening is because we haven't controlled the virus spread in the community.
JONES: The lack of a mask mandate in most Georgia schools and concerns about crowding prompting fear among teachers and families.
REP. BETH MOORE (D) GEORGIA STATE HOUSE: I have over 200 emails over the course of less than 48 hours from teachers, students, parents, staff members at school, all with really the same message that schools in Georgia are not prepared to go back to face-to-face instruction right now.
JONES: The trouble with schools coming as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children Hospital Association, say nearly 100,000 children in the U.S. tested positive for COVID in just the last two weeks of July. With COVID positivity rates rising in 35 states compared to last week, there are new concerns in places like Idaho, Indiana and Illinois where Chicago's mayor tweeted this image of a crowded beach. In California, CNN affiliate KABC captured tense moments outside a
church holding an indoor service Sunday in defiance of a judge's order. Average daily deaths nationwide have topped 1,000 for the past two weeks and several states are seeing record hospitalizations.
Meanwhile, college football is hanging in the balance. Multiple sports outlets reporting leaders of the Power Five Sports Conferences are in discussions about postponing the season due to COVID concerns, a move the mid-American conference announced over the weekend.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is crushing decision to be made by our membership. It was a decision that was made based on advice of our medical experts.
JONES: Athena Jones, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: Athena, thank you very much. I appreciate that. I want to bring in now John B. King Jr., John B. King Jr. the former education secretary in the Obama administration. He is also president and CEO of the Education Trust. John, good to see you. Thank you so much. Good evening to you.
JOHN B. KING JR. FORMER EDUCATION SECRETARY, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: Good evening, thanks for having me on.
LEMON: More than 800 students in Georgia Cherokee County School District have quarantined just in the last week. Here's just some of -- more than a dozen letters sent to parents after 38 students tested positive. Are the worst fears of many parents and health experts coming true right now?
KING JR.: Sadly, yes. And this was all avoidable. And this is a product of mismanagement of this pandemic from the beginning by the current administration. Our international peers have been able to open schools safely but that's because they have the pandemic under control.
We still don't have rapid response testing. We still don't have contact tracing. We still don't have good systems of compliance with public health guidance around masks and in many places around the country and the result is all of this burden is now falling on schools.
And sadly, to the extent schools open against public health guidance, we're going to see more cases. Not just among kids but families, teachers, staff and it all could have been avoided if the administration handled this pandemic correctly from the beginning.
LEMON: John, let's talk about the role of leadership here. I want you to listen to what Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): There is definitely going to be issues when you open anything. We saw that when we opened businesses. We are seeing that when we opened schools. We have given them guidance.
We've worked with them to really give them the tools that they need to open the classroom and I think quite honestly this week went really well other than a couple virtual photos. But the attitude from what they're telling me was good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: OK. So he says everything has gone well except for some -- I think he said, virtual photos, but I'm sure he meant viral photos. Is he turning a blind eye to what is happening?
KING JR.: It appears some. And this is a real failure of leadership on the part of governors who are allowing schools to open when it is unsafe. It is also a failure of leadership in Congress so far.
We haven't seen Congress step up with the resources that schools need even to begin to think about opening safely, the personal protective equipment, the improvements to ventilation systems, the changes to transportation and lunch procedures to make schools safer in this COVID context.
[23:25:07]
So, it's incredible to me that we have Governors who are so short sided, so focused on politics that they're willing to let kids and families and teachers and staff be harmed in this way.
LEMON: So do you think now -- do you think now these schools are given the tools that they needed, the ones that are reopening?
KING JR.: No, they don't have the tools that they need. We need Congress to step up and we need the country to approach this pandemic differently. Unless we get community spread under control, it won't be safe to open schools.
Now, there are some places around the country where the spread is very limited and they may be able to open safely with the right precautions like masks and so forth, but sadly in many states, the spread is out of control at this point.
LEMON: A new report is out tonight. It says that there has been a 90 percent increase in the number of cases in kids over the last four weeks, 22 schools in Mississippi are now reporting cases. Do you expect outbreaks all across the country as schools struggle to keep this contained?
KING JR.: Unfortunately, yes. And that's you know, what we've seen in some other countries that moved too quickly. So, it's real where they move too quickly. They saw a second wave of infections traced to schools. So there is a real fear that this is going to super charge the spread of COVID.
And sadly, we also know that there is going to be a desperate impact on communities of color and low income communities. Their schools are likely to have less resources for things like ventilation and personal protection equipment.
Their communities are more likely to have folks who are working in jobs where they are essential workers and so they are already are challenges of more frequent COVID cases.
We know black and Latino folks are three times as likely to get COVID twice as likely to die from COVID and this reckless push to open schools regardless of public health guidance is going to fall especially heavily on communities of color and low income communities.
LEMON: Sadly, right? John, thank you. I appreciate it.
KING JR.: Thanks so much.
LEMON: College football might be cancelled this year, that's right, cancelled but players want to play and they want to have a voice in how they play. I'm going to speak with one of these athletes and leaders next.
And ahead, a deadly weekend across this country, violence raging in multiple cities. We'll tell you what is going on.
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[23:30:00]
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LEMON: Health experts agree wearing masks is a key to getting the coronavirus pandemic under control. And now we are learning more about which masks work best and some that don't work at all when it comes to preventing the spread of the coronavirus.
Here is CNN's Brian Todd.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They come in so many different styles, materials, and designs, from N95 surgical masks to bandannas, knitted masks, even so-called gators, those stretchy bands of fabric that cover the neck.
Now, a new study from researchers at Duke University has advice on which masks work and which don't. Gators or fleece masks, they say, you should stay away from.
MARTIN FISCHER, PROFESSOR, DUKE UNIVERSITY: It's a combination certainly of stretchiness of the material and the material potentially being very thin.
TODD (voice-over): The bandanna, according to the researchers, may look cool but doesn't work well.
FISCHER: The material itself -- that is just made a little more transparent, a little bit more transmissive to these droplets. In addition, there are, of course, lots of gaps. TODD (voice-over): The Duke researches tested 14 different kinds of masks. They shined iridescent light from a laser through slits in a dark box. A person spoke one phrase repeatedly into the box to create droplets.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay healthy, people. Stay healthy, people.
TODD (voice-over): They used a cell phone camera to record the droplets then counted the droplets that were let through by the different masks.
The ones that work well, they say, N95 surgical masks are the best, letting out very few, if any droplets. But those should be reserved for front line health care workers.
Those standard surgical masks, the light blue ones that many of us can buy at stores also work well, they say. And --
FISCHER: All the cotton masks we've tested, they work great.
TODD (voice-over): The Duke researchers say there is one kind of mask that they believe does more harm than good. The fleece mask, because of the size of droplets it lets through.
FISCHER: What's noticeable here is that you see lots of particles and lots of little particles. So this is actually counterproductive because the little particles that get generated from big particles, they tend to hang around longer in the air, they get carried away easier in the air.
TODD (voice-over): The Duke researchers told CNN their studies are not meant as an endorsement of certain masks. Other experts are hopeful that this kind of advice can be communicated more clearly to the public, acknowledging there has been way too much confusion.
GAVIN MACGREGOR-SKINNER, DIRECTOR OF TRAINING, GLOBAL BIORISK ADVISORY COUNCIL: We should not have any confusion on the mask wearing. This is confusion that we ourselves, the front line workers, the government, public health experts, doctors, nurses, and other influential people when it comes to infection prevention control have actually created, because we haven't got on the same page on what works and what doesn't work and what works based on evidence.
TODD (on camera): Experts say after the health professionals all get on the same page over which kind of masks work best, the next thing they have to do is find a way to distribute the masks that work to a wide range of people and train people how to put on and take off masks, how to clean and store them, because there are specific techniques involved in that, too.
Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: Brian Todd, thank you so much.
[23:34:58]
LEMON: Riots, looting, clashes with police, and shootings, a weekend of violence in cities all across this country. We've got the latest. Plus, the full body cam video of George Floyd's deadly arrest released, and CNN is combing through it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: (INAUDIBLE) reports today over when and if the top five college sports conferences known as the 'Power Five' will cancel or postpone their football seasons.
[23:40:03]
LEMON: But this weekend, a group of star college football players are coming together and saying that they want to play with hashtag 'we want to play' quickly spreading on social media.
We're about to talk to one of those players, but we had some technical difficulties. We apologize for that.
So, leaders from college sports conferences have discussed calling off the football season and other fall sports, but no decision has been reached yet. Again, we apologize. We want to do a deep dive into that. Perhaps we can bring that to you a little bit later on in the week.
In the meantime, violence is breaking out in major cities across the country this weekend. In Chicago, check this out. More than 100 people were arrested after violence and looting broke out downtown, seemingly after police exchanged fire with a 20-year-old man.
In D.C., 21 people were shot and one killed early yesterday at a large gathering, even though gatherings of over 50 people are still prohibited there.
Let's discuss now. Cedric Alexander is here. He is the former president of the National Organization of Black Law Executives.
Cedric, thank you. What the hell is going on?
CEDRIC ALEXANDER, FORMER PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF BLACK LAW EXECUTIVES: What do I think is going on?
LEMON: I said what the hell is going on?
ALEXANDER: Yeah, I know. I mean, it seems absolutely crazy, doesn't it? But, you know -- you know, for me, someone who has served this chief in two cities in this country -- and I think we would all agree certainly we all are in a very unprecedented time in this country at this very moment.
But when people have been isolated for a long period of time and even though we weren't as, in my opinion, as disciplined as we should have been, when we look at the fact that yes, people are out losing jobs --
But I think one thing that we have not talked about here, Don, is people who are out there taking advantage of this situation that we're in as a nation.
Because if we look at what occurred in Chicago over the weekend, for an example, and we even heard Mayor Lightfoot said earlier, that what took place is criminal, it is just flat out criminal behavior that has to be addressed by local police across this country.
And they are going to have to find ways in which they can get ahead of some of this criminality, particularly when they may have the technology or the resources or the information or the intelligence information that they can gather in terms of getting in front of this. Because what happened in downtown Chicago and many other cities across this country just cannot be tolerated any longer.
And I think there is going to come to a point where many cities, certainly those who are experiencing this type of violence, are going to have to take much more of a proactive stance, going to have to prepare themselves as diligently as they can. But we cannot continue to have American cities act like this.
LEMON: Look, this is not a very popular thing to say, but seeing all this happening, it is completely counterproductive for the Black Lives Matter movement and for, quite frankly, for the Democratic nominee for president, when people are saying defund the police, we need less policing, fewer police officers, if there is a, you know, a domestic dispute or someone has a mental issue and then you're going to have a social worker show up at the house.
People look at what is happening now and they laugh and say, really? Are you this -- is that really what you want when you have dozens of people who are being shot?
I understand in some situations there may be police officers who are standing down because they don't like some of the new changes that are happening. All right, we can all take that into the calculations.
But someone has to say, knock it off. Someone has to get out there and actually stop it. And the people who are out there doing it have to understand that they should not be doing it.
So, I don't know if it's just incumbent upon the police to figure this out. It's also incumbent upon the community to figure it out. It is also incumbent upon the people who have a voice in all of this, who maybe standing by silently right now, who don't want to say anything because they're saying, oh, this may hurt the Democrats, this may hurt Black Lives Matter.
Somebody has got to do something. Somebody has got to say something. Somebody has to take some action. People have got to just stop sitting there and pretending it is not happening, Cedric.
ALEXANDER: It is --
LEMON: I mean, don't you agree with that?
ALEXANDER: No, I agree with you 100 percent. A lot of what we're experiencing in these cities is being highly politicized. And it has to stop. The leadership in those particular cities in this country are going to have to get to a point -- I mean community leaders are going to have to start having a much broader and louder voice. And the business --
LEMON: But you know what, Cedric -- listen, I know people are going to get mad, but they're going to say, all right, how much talking can you do? And I don't mean this literally. This is a figure of speech.
Someone has to get out there and start cracking some heads, saying, OK, look, you have to get serious about this and actually do something. Again, that is a figure of speech. But you got to get out there. People have to -- police have to get out there in the community and do it.
[23:45:02]
LEMON: The community also has to be involved in policing their own communities. And also politically, the folks who are part of that community, who are politicians in those communities --
ALEXANDER: Right.
LEMON: -- they need to take some leadership and take some ownership of what is happening there.
ALEXANDER: Right, Don. So let me say this in terms of what you're saying. At this very moment, you're going to have a lot of police departments, a lot of police officers right now at this very moment because of what is happening.
Many of them are somewhat pensive about doing what needs to be done because of things that they have all been -- one single stroke have been accused of.
What happened with George Floyd, we cannot afford for any of this to get lost as it relates to reform. You have departments out there that are in the process of doing reform. But what does not go over very well is responsibility that has to be taken in these communities.
LEMON: I agree.
ALEXANDER: And community leaders and elected officials in some cities, not all, in some, have to have a much louder voice, particularly people who live in those communities. So communities can't do it all by themselves. They need help from their local police.
LEMON: Yeah.
ALEXANDER: And police can't do it by themselves without support from people who live in those communities.
LEMON: Cedric, I've got to -- I've got to run.
ALEXANDER: So, very --
LEMON: Yeah. ALEXANDER: It's doable. It can happen.
LEMON: Yeah. Listen, I got to run. But I got to say, you can't just say police are pensive. That's their job to stop crime.
ALEXANDER: That is their job.
LEMON: They can't just stand down and say, OK, I'm not going to do it, because they don't like how people want to --
ALEXANDER: That's right.
LEMON: -- move on and change policing. You cannot just do that. Every single profession has oversight, and police cannot be the only profession that doesn't have oversight.
Again, I know they face challenges that you and I -- that you understand that I don't. But still, we got to do something about this. This is absolutely ridiculous.
I got to run, Cedric. I'll have you back. We'll be right back.
ALEXANDER: All right.
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[23:50:00]
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LEMON: Nearly an hour of police body cam footage of George Floyd's fatal arrest in Minneapolis released today. CNN obtained and reviewed it. I have to warn you that what you are about to see may be too graphic for some of you to watch. Here is CNN's national correspondent Sara Sidner.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The encounter between George Floyd and police begins with a tap on Floyd's window. It appears to startle him.
THOMAS LANE, POLICE OFFICER (voice-over): Let me see your hands.
GEORGE FLOYD, DIED AFTER BEING ARRESTED BY POLICE: Dang man.
LANE (voice-over): Stay in the car. Let me see your other hand.
FLOYD: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
LANE (voice-over): Let me see your other hand.
SIDNER (voice-over): Fourteen seconds after approaching Floyd's car, Officer Thomas Lane pulls his gun on Floyd, when he doesn't fully comply.
LANE (voice-over): Both hands.
FLOYD: Please. Please. I didn't do nothing.
LANE (voice-over): Put your (bleep) hands up right now. Let me see your other hand.
FLOYD: All right. What did I do though? What would we do?
LANE (voice-over): Put your hand up there.
FLOYD: God man.
LANE (voice-over): Put your (bleep) hand up there.
SIDNER (voice-over): Floyd tells the officer multiple times, he has been shot before, and begins to cry.
FLOYD: Last time I got shot, Mr. Officer, the same thing.
LANE (voice-over): Hands on top of your head.
SIDNER (voice-over): Floyd is soon pulled from the car. He struggles with Officer Lane and Officer J. Alexander Kueng tries to handcuff him.
J. ALEXANDER KUENG, POLICE OFFICER (voice-over): Stop resisting, man.
FLOYD: I'm not.
SIDNER (voice-over): The officers have not yet told Floyd why he is being detained. The public has seen the surveillance video at this point. But now, they can hear the officers' frustration and Floyd's desperation.
FLOYD: Ouch. Ouch, man.
LANE (voice-over): Are you on something right now?
FLOYD: No, nothing.
KUENG: Because you are acting a littler erratic.
FLOYD: I'm scared, man.
LANE (voice-over): Let's go. Let's go.
SIDNER (voice-over): Floyd is taken across the street, crying the whole time. At the squad car, a second bigger struggle ensues as officers try to put Floyd inside.
KUENG (voice-over): Stand up, stop falling down.
FLOYD: I'm claustrophobic, man.
KUENG (voice-over): Stand up.
FLOYD: I'm claustrophobic.
KUENG (voice-over): Stay on your feet and face the car door.
FLOYD: Please.
SIDNER (voice-over): This is what the public couldn't see well from surveillance or bystander videos. Floyd, initially, resisting getting into the police vehicle, and then being pushed from one side by Kueng.
KUENG (voice-over): Listen.
FLOYD: I'm not that kind of guy.
KUENG (voice-over): I'll roll the windows down if you pull your legs in, all right?
FLOYD: Please, man.
SIDNER (voice-over): Then, pulled in on the other side by Officer Lane. This is the first time you hear Mr. Floyd utter the words, I can't breathe.
FLOYD: I can't breathe.
KUENG (voice-over): Take a seat.
FLOYD: Please, man. Please. No.
KUENG (voice-over): Take a seat.
FLOYD: I can't. I can't choke. I can't breathe. Mr. Officer, please. Please.
SIDNER (voice-over): Soon, you can see officers (INAUDIBLE) and Derek Chauvin on camera. About nine minutes into the encounter, Floyd finally hears what he is being arrested for.
DEREK CHAUVIN, POLICE OFFICER: You're under arrest right now for forgery.
SIDNER (voice-over): Chauvin and Kueng then pulled Floyd to the ground. You can see Chauvin's knee go down on Floyd's neck. Floyd calls out for his deceased mother.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop moving.
FLOYD: Mama. Mama. Mama.
SIDNER (voice-over): The cell phone video that the world saw picks up from here. But in the body cam video, the sound is crystal clear, revealing more details.
FLOYD: I can't breathe. I can't breathe, man. Mama I love you. Reece I love you.
LANE (voice-over): You got hobble. Grabbing it. FLOYD: Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead.
SIDNER (voice-over): Floyd keeps crying and Officer Chauvin responds to his cries.
FLOYD: I can't breathe for nothing man. This is cold blooded man.
CHAUVIN (voice-over): You're doing a lot of talking, man.
FLOYD: Mama, I love you.
[23:55:00]
FLOYD: I can't do nothing.
KUENG (voice-over): EMS is on their way.
FLOYD: My face is gone.
SIDNER (voice-over): Kueng says an ambulance has been called. Floyd asks to stand up. Chauvin's knee has been on Floyd's neck for a little over a minute when Officer Lane asks a question about moving Floyd.
FLOYD: Please, please let me stand.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
FLOYD: Please, man, I can't breathe. My face is getting bad.
LANE (voice-over): Should we get his legs up, or is this good?
CHAUVIN (voice-over): Leave him.
KUENG (voice-over): Just leave him, yep.
SIDNER (voice-over): Officer Lane complies and Floyd continues to beg for his breath. He is told to stop talking.
FLOYD: I can't breathe, officer.
CHAUVIN (voice-over): You're doing a lot of talking, a lot of yelling.
FLOYD: They're going to kill me man.
CHAUVIN (voice-over): It takes a heck of oxygen to say that.
SIDNER (voice-over): After Officer Chauvin's knee has been on Floyd's neck for nearly five minutes, Officer Lane asks whether to move Floyd a second time. Floyd's voice begins to weaken.
The world has seen how this ends because of a bystander's cell phone video. But they couldn't hear what the body camera reveals. It is something lawyers for former Officer Lane are seizing on, trying to exonerate him.
LANE (voice-over): Roll him on his side. CHAUVIN (voice-over): No, he's staying where we got him.
LANE (voice-over): I just worry about excited delirium or whatever.
CHAUVIN (voice-over): Well that's why we got the ambulance coming.
LANE (voice-over): OK.
SIDNER (voice-over): But the ambulance was of no use. Floyd lost consciousness and was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Sara Sidner, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: Sara, thank you so much.
Chauvin's attorney declined to comment Friday when the judge ruled to release the video. None of the officers entered a plea. But Thao and Lane's attorneys have requested their clients' cases be dismissed. Kueng's intends to plead not guilty, his attorney said.
We will continue to follow that story. Thanks for watching, everyone. Our coverage continues.
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