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Don Lemon Tonight

President Trump Compares Police Shooting To Golfers Missing Putts; Joe Biden Condemns Violence As President Trump Foments It; Trump Trying To Scare America With Biden America; Trump Tells Ingraham Biden Wasn't Going To Come Out Of The Basement Until Election; AstraZeneca Enters Phase 3 COVID-19 Vaccine Trials; Doctors Say COVID- 19 Misinformation On Social Media Makes Their Jobs Harder; Trump Says He Won't Meet With Jacob Blake's Family. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired August 31, 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: The president, and this is incredible, comparing police shootings -- I can't believe I'm saying this -- to golfers missing putts. Laura Ingraham cuts him off before he can make it even worse.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They choke, just like in a golf tournament, they missed a 3 foot --

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: You're not comparing it to golf, of course that's what the media is saying.

TRUMP: No, I'm saying people choke. People choke.

INGRAHAM: People have --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: That is Biden's campaign is in high gear, pushing back after being repeatedly and falsely accused of not condemning violence. Former Vice President saying Donald Trump has failed to protect America, and now he is trying to scare us. The president resorting to lies about Biden and refusing to call for an end to violence in our streets.

And the coronavirus has killed more than 183,000 Americans on this president's watch. And the president pushes a blatantly false claim that only 6 percent of those people died of the virus. The president is heading to Kenosha, Wisconsin tomorrow. But saying that he won't meet with the family of Jacob Blake, claiming that's because the family wanted to involve lawyers.

Benjamin Crump, their lead attorney, is to go to for victims of police brutality and their families. Tonight, his long fight for racial justice. We put together a story on this. You want to see it.

OK. So, let's bring in CNN's White House Correspondent, John Harwood and CNN Political Commentator, Bakari Sellers. He's the author of My vanishing country. Good evening gentlemen. So, listen, you know, it's tough to do these stories, you know, there was an old guy, you're talking about 17 year old with guns and all that, I know my family is watching tonight, Caroline and Jane, and Tommy and those guys.

But President Trump is defending 18 supporter who was accused of killing two people in Wisconsin, John at the same time he is warning the country that they would see lawlessness under a Biden administration. Look, Biden is pushing back. Let's watch and then we'll talk about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: They have no agenda or vision for a second term. Trump and Pence are running now on this and I find it fascinating, quote, "you won't be safe in Joe Biden's America." And what's their proof? The violence that we are seeing in Donald Trump's America. These are not images of some imagined Joe Biden America in the future. These are images of Donald Trump's America today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: You just don't want these things to become normalized, right? That someone defends that and young people think that that is normal. This president wants voters to believe, John, that things will be worse under Biden. Biden is saying, not so fast. Take a look around. What did we hear today?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we heard today, Don, was two candidates laying out pretty clearly what the differences between them. Joe Biden went to Pittsburgh and said violence is wrong. He condemned it unequivocal. He said he wanted to bring the nation together. He wanted to turn the temperature down.

Donald Trump did just the opposite. He made it very clear that he favors more division. He defended Kyle Rittenhouse, the preposterous idea of a 17 year old walking into a situation in a town where he does not live, carrying a long gun and expecting something good to happen.

And the president said that, you know, he would have been killed. Now, obviously Kyle Rittenhouse is going to have a defense, but it was clearly an idiotic thing for that young man to go into that situation with a gun.

Similarly, in Portland, the president praised the impulse of those members of the caravan who drove in, in from out of town into Portland to provoke a conflict with protesters by shooting paint balls and pepper spray with them, and then said that they were acting in self- defense. That's obviously ridiculous statement.

They went in looking for trouble just like Karl Rittenhouse went in looking for trouble. This is affirming what Jim Mattis, the president's former defense secretary said, this president believes that division helps him.

And he made that plane today, and now it's going to be a question this fall for American voters to say, do they want the guy who is going to turn the temperature down, or do they want the guy who's going to turn the temperature up.

His calculation is, if he turns the heat up really high, he's going to spook enough people into being on his side. We're going to see whether if that's true, it hasn't been true so far. He's behind nationally in the battleground states.

LEMON: Yes. Bakari, I want to bring you in. And I want to play something for you. Because this is the president speaking to Laura Ingraham tonight, and she asked him about his deficit with women voters. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Let's say for the sake of argument you have a deficit among female voters who may in some cases you're too aggressive, your tone or your tweets. What do you say to them directly about what you will do in a second term?

[23:05:10]

TRUMP: OK. I have to be aggressive. Because I'm like standing here in a sea of incompetent people, stupid people and violent people. Very violent people.

INGRAHAM: That's the kind of language, stupid people. A lot of women don't like that.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: OK, well, where are we? Are we in the White House, I see. OK? So I'm standing here in a sea of people, and we need law and order in this country, and women see that with me. You are never going to have law and order with Biden. Look at Ferguson. Look what happened during that. You know, people forget, look at all of those horrible race riots you had during Obama.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Well, there's a lot to dissect there. President Trump says he needs to be aggressive, he points to unrest during the Obama administration, calling it race riots. Women say that women wants security. Give me your reaction?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think John actually pointed out something that is true about the president of the United States, and that is that he does not describe to the old political notions for a long period of time. We have all been taught that politics is about addition and multiplication. This president is about division and subtraction. He does not attempt to grow his base.

In fact, one of the things that we realize is that if we thought this president was going to do anything other than doubled down on his attempt to, you know, pit one race against another, pit one group against another, we had another thing coming for us. This is amazing to watch because Democrats always find themselves in a position where they must condemn or apologize, or ask for forgiveness for something that is not of our own doing. And they go out and do it.

You know, everyone was asking, one of black folk, when a Democrats -- when is Joe Biden going to condemn the riots? And everyone knows that something that we have been doing, but yet you ask Donald Trump to condemn Kyle Rittenhouse. You ask Donald Trump to condemn the shooting of unarmed black man, and you know, all of the sudden saying he gets as quiet as a church mosque being on cotton.

And so, you know, for most of us, and I think that, you know, Laura Ingraham's question right here about women and their vote, people see that this is not really an issue of urban versus suburban. This isn't really an issue of all these other things that the Trump campaign is trying to make it an issue of.

This is an issue of what type of America do we want to have, and do we want to have an America that's torn away and torn apart at the seams by someone who is incapable of leading. And that's really our choice.

If Donald Trump gets four more years it's clear that people don't value leadership. It's clear that they don't value the characteristics of quality leadership, and they want us to continue going at each other's throats.

LEMON: When was the last time you heard the phrase, the term for race riot? It's been a while.

And here we are. This is where we are, thank you gentlemen. That's only the time for you. I have to get to the fact check and I appreciate it. See you soon.

Let's bring in our fact-checker, our resident fact-checker, Mr. Daniel Dale. Hi, Daniel good to see you.

DANIEL DALE, CNN FACT CHECKER: Hi, Don.

LEMON: President Trump sat down with Laura Ingraham and he made this claim about press Vice President Biden. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Biden wasn't going to come out of his basement until the election. Now he had to because the polls are so good, for me. Now he had to because the polls are different. So, all of the sudden he's in Pittsburg. He was going to leave his basement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, he wasn't going to leave his basement?

DALE: That's not true, Don. And it's fitting the president said this on Fox, because this is a Fox kind of meme that Biden never leaves. There's no doubt that Biden has run a lower key, a less travel campaign than previous presidential candidates in part, because there's a pandemic, and in part because he'd been winnings so he had to.

But he has repeatedly left the basement. He travel repeatedly to Pennsylvania to give speeches to meet people. He met with the family of George Floyd in Houston. He's been around Delaware where he lives. So it has been lower key campaign, no doubt, but he hasn't going to literally stuck in his home like the president keep saying.

LEMON: You've also counted four lies on social media from the president and his allies over the last two days spreading disinformation on a number of levels. What did you find?

DALE: It's been a wild barrage of disinformation. So, today we had the Trump campaign so called war room account, which is reliably dishonest. Tweeting loudly out of context a clip of Biden having him say you won't be safe in Joe Biden's America as if he was confused about whether he was himself or Trump. In fact, Biden was saying that Trump argues you won't be safe in Joe Biden's America, but that this is ridiculous because the images of violence were seeing are from Trump's America.

We also had White House aide Dan Scavino tweet a clip that appear to show Biden snoring in an interview as an anchor tried to wake him. In fact that anchor clip was from 2011 interview with the legendary entertainer Harry Belafonte who couldn't here, he said meditating, wasn't Biden at all.

[23:10:09]

We had a senior Republican Congressman Steve Scalise tweet a (inaudible) tweet clip of -- sorry, tweet a clip on an interview Biden conversation Biden did with a progressive activist utter. Even though this progressive activist, Ady Barkan uses a computerized artificial voice because he suffers from a disease ALS.

And in addition to that, we also had the president again tweet a video of a black man assaulting a white woman on a New York subway, and this video was captioned with the words black lives matter Antifa as if they were responsible.

In fact this was just a random crime, just a random street crime by a man who had repeatedly been arrested in New York for committing crimes on a transit system. So, this was yet another attempt by President Trump to smear the black lives matter movement.

LEMON: Daniel Dale you have your work cut out for you in the next 63 days. See you soon, I appreciate all your work.

DALE: Thank you.

LEMON: Yes. The president pushing a blatantly false coronavirus claim tonight. A top medical expert explains what's behind some of the people who believe this misinformation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:15:00] LEMON: So, Twitter has stepped in to remove a false claim about

coronavirus death statistics that the president himself had re- tweeted. That as British drug maker AstraZeneca begins phase three trials in the United States and questions swirl about the politicization of potential 19 vaccines, 19.

So, joining me now, William Haseltine, he is a former professor at Harvard Medical School and the chair and president of Access Health International. I appreciate you joining us, Doctor, thank you so much.

WILLIAM HASELTINE, CHAIR AND PRESIDENT ACCESS HEALTH INTERNATIONAL: Pleasure to be here.

LEMON: So, before we talk about this vaccine's news. I really want to ask you about -- there's a popular claim on the right that even the president is retweeting in a tweet that has since been deleted.

It's a QAnon supporter that made a false claim about the CDC supposedly saying that only 6 percent of people listed as coronavirus deaths actually died from COVID? Explain where this is coming from. Because, you know, you can really see this information taking off here.

HASELTINE: Yes. It's a completely false claim. What they actually said was that many of the people who had died of COVID had an underlying condition. It's like saying a fat person died in a car crash because he was fat. That's not exactly what happened. So, it's really a completely bogus claim. We know there's over 185,000 Americans who have now died of this disease and about 850,000 people worldwide.

It's no secret that there's underlying conditions that exacerbate this. The biggest underlying condition happens to be anybody over 75, but there are others, and they would not have died if they did not have COVID.

LEMON: Yes. I mean, it makes absolutely no sense. It's not logical, so I won't even go there. So, professor, what is your reaction to this AstraZeneca story entering phase three trials? Tell the audience at home waiting for a vaccine to end all of this, what this mean?

HASELTINE: Well, all of us who look at vaccine and who develop vaccines know that it's a tricky business. And the question is isn't when, but if we are going to have a safe and effective vaccine.

First question, safe. It takes a lot of experiments to know and, vaccines are not safe. We've seen unsafe vaccines. Most of the ones that are approved, in fact the ones that are approved are safe, but it's taken years to show that.

The second is, we don't know if it's going to be effective, how long it will protect you. So this is good news because a vaccine is entering phase three trials. They are big trials, more than 30,000 people will be involved. That's not quite big enough, I prefer to see a 100,000 people because of the safety profile, but it's not bad news, it's good news that there is yet another company moving forward into phase three trials with a vaccine candidate which maybe most safe and effective, but we don't know yet.

LEMON: So, I want to ask you about this, because the Washington Post is reporting that one of the president's top advisers has been pushing him towards a herd immunity policy. What do you think? Because the guy is pushing back now on that reporting, because -- how dangerous is this? How dangerous would this be?

HASELTINE: Extremely dangerous, herd immunity, we've seen two countries, one that really embraced herd immunity, which was Sweden which has 10 times higher death rate than any other Scandinavian country and Great Britain, which embrace it and then gave it up and had the highest death rate other than Sweden per capita.

What it would mean in America, just off the bat, is about 1.5 to 2.5 million people dead. That's what it would mean because you take 50 to 70 percent of the population and allow them to get infected.

And we know that would result, given even our conditions now of patients, a very large number of dead people. But even worse than that, we have every reason to suspect there is no such thing as herd immunity for COVID. The virus can re-infect people who already had been infected. So there isn't herd immunity, just like there's not a herd immunity for the colds.

LEMON: Doctor, let me ask you something. You brought up Sweden and I have heard others, why does everyone keep bringing up Sweden when it comes to herd immunity?

HASELTINE: Because they adopted herd immunity as a strategy. A mistaken strategy that they now regret because it has killed so many people. And it did not save their economy. Their economy suffered just like all the other Scandinavian economies. They've gone through the same dip but they paid a much higher price in human life, they are now backing off from herd immunity.

[23:20:10]

But the thing I want people to remember about this disease is there is no such thing as herd immunity for COVID. These viruses come back and re-infect people after they have already been infected. It happens every year with the coronavirus that cause colds, and we now have very good evidence that happens in human beings to.

LEMON: Thank you so much for saying that, because you would not believe how many people talk to me and believe the nonsense about herd immunity. I'm so glad you say this. Doctor, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

HASELTINE: You're welcome. Thank you.

LEMON: But I saw it on Facebook, the coronavirus misinformation floating around online that could put your life at risk. Doctors on the front lines tell us what they are hearing and what is so dangerous about it, that's next.

[23:25:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Doctors, sounding the alarm about COVID misinformation running rampant on social media. The two doctors you're about to hear from write in The New York Times op-ed, that misinformation on Facebook makes their jobs more difficult. So, let's talk to them.

Dr. Craig Spencer, the Director of Global Health in the E.R. medicine at New York Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center, Dr. Seema Yasmin, CNN medical analyst. Thank you both. Important conversation, I'm so glad you are both here.

Dr. Yasmin, let's start with you. In your piece, you talked about a colleague, not a doctor, but someone who works in the E.R. who said that there is a cure for COVID-19. There is not. And even though he was shown evidence proving there was no cure, he said but I saw it on Facebook.

I mean, -- come on, how deep is this information go? That's like my every conversation I have with someone I know who is a Trump supporter, I'm like oh, my gosh, but go on.

SEEMA YASMIN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST, FORMER CDC DISEASE DETECTIVE: You feel the pain, Don. It's so frustrating. And it's just another level of scariness to it when it's a healthcare professional.

And you think, come on, you should know better but it really hits home this point, Don. That everyone at some level is susceptible to this health misinformation and disinformation because there's so much nonsense that is circling out there.

The people who are pushing it are really praying on the fact that we are already vulnerable right now, we're scared, we're anxious, we're overwhelmed with information. We don't know what to believe. The president saying one thing, the scientists are saying another.

So, then you have platforms like Facebook and other social media platforms really spreading the stop and using algorithms that reward engagement with the bad information.

Because the stuff that is crappy, the nonsense is usually a lot more fantastical, a lot more memorable. You want to share it, compared to the kind of boring, dry facts that the medical institutions are putting out there. So, this report that came out last week from the organization Avaaz looks at how much misinformation and disinformation is spreading on Facebook.

They found in the last year, their stuff got 3.8 billion views. It's not just being crank that cannot keep up, CDC and WHO can't either, they are putting stuff out there on Facebook too. The good information, it's getting nowhere near as many hits and as many views, so it's a really tough situation.

LEMON: And people are really susceptible to it. Especially young people, like college aged kids who are on social media a lot, also, you know, they may listen to their parents and they may believe all of this stuff that is absolutely not true, Dr. Spencer. How often do you hear these false claims from your patience?

CRAIG SPENCER, DR. GLOBAL HEALTH IN E.R. MEDICINE, NEW YORK PRESBYTERIAN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: I hear them all the time, unfortunately. It's not just the patients and it's not just people on the left or people on the right, it's all people. Think about the fact that, Don, your show is great, I love coming on here, and there's a lot of people that watch your show, but there are more people that watch the viral conspiracy video plandemic in a span of a few days than we watch your show in a week.

LEMON: Right.

SPENCER: And more people watch the video by Americas frontline doctors, you know, a bunch of the (inaudible) docs talking about debunked hydroxychloroquine, more watch that the span of 24 hours and who watch your show in a span of two weeks.

LEMON: But that's what people politicizes this. That's what makes people think like, well, if you believe the coronavirus is real, then you are against the president, if you believe that it is fake, then you are for the president. And it shouldn't be the case because it is absolutely real. It doesn't mean that you are against the president, it means that you are for facts and people actually living. Go on.

SPENCER: Right. No, absolutely, this has been part of the problem that this undermining of public health and science since the beginning of this outbreak and this pandemic in the U.S. has resulted. And people just don't know where to go.

The fact that we don't have the CDC out in front of the public every single day telling us the updates, giving us some type of information that is credible, people have to find it on Facebook or have to find it in the president's Twitter feed.

They don't know where to go for credible information, they are not getting it from the CDC task force, for example. They are not getting it from the coronavirus task force. They're looking for it, and they're unfortunately finding it on places like Facebook, where viral misinformation spreads faster than the virus itself.

LEMON: hey, I just a have a short time left, like only 30 seconds for an answer if you can get this and Dr. Yasmin. Because according to a new report from the American academy of pediatrics in Children's hospitalization, cases of COVID-19 among children have increased 21 percent since early August as kids head back to school. Can we tell anything from that about the impact of opening schools?

YASMIN: That 21 percent increase, Don, happened in the space of two weeks. So we know that we think the children are more protected than adults, but a lot of that data came from earlier in the pandemic when kids were sheltering in place.

[23:29:58]

Now, they're going back to school And imagine, on top of that, we are heading into flu season, as well. We are going to have to be really careful. We still need to ramp up testing. We still need to be doing those really basic things of the pandemic response that are still not being done.

LEMON: All right. Thank you both. I appreciate your time.

The president says he won't meet with Jacob Blake's family because they wanted to involve lawyers. One of those lawyers stood beside the families of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, George Floyd, and more. Laura Coates takes a look at civil rights attorney Ben Crump. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: President Trump is saying he won't meet with Jacob Blake's mother because the family wanted to involve lawyers. Blake family's legal team, which is headed by civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, saying in a statement, "If the call has occurred, Ms. Jackson was prepared to ask President Trump to watch the video of Mr. Blake's shooting and to do what she has asked all of America to do -- examine your heart."

Benjamin Crump has become known for representing the victims of police brutality and their families which life has been intertwined with racial justice for decades.

Laura Coates has more now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST (voice-over): Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and now Jacob Blake, household names with a common denominator, their attorney, Benjamin Crump. How did he become the go-to attorney in these high profile civil rights cases? He told me, it started at home, growing up in poverty in rural North Carolina.

BENJAMIN CRUMP, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: My mother was like most Black women in America. She was a miracle worker. I watched her sacrifice everything for us. And everything I am today, it is because of her. She would tell me all the time, baby, life ain't fair. Life is hard. You make it fair by what you bring to the table. And if you don't bring anything to the table, don't expect anybody to let you sit down at the table.

COATES (voice-over): He also credits Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall as his inspiration.

CRUMP: I became a civil rights lawyer, when I was in the fourth grade, we integrated the schools, and I kept thinking, why do they have it so good and we have it so challenging? And my mother told me it was because of Brown versus the Board of Education and Thurgood Marshall. COATES (voice-over): Since then, he has represented Trayvon Martin's parents, the families of victims of police brutality, including high profile cases that have reignited our national conversations on race and criminal justice reform.

He also represented the Flint, Michigan families harmed by lead in the water, securing a $600-million settlement.

CRUMP: (INAUDIBLE).

COATES (voice-over): There was no time to celebrate.

CRUMP: I'm running out of time because they are creating hashtags faster than we can keep up. We can't keep up America. Enough is enough.

COATES (voice-over): Crump is not a criminal prosecutor. He represents the families in their civil lawsuits, which means he can only sue for a monetary judgment. If he loses like most contingency fee cases, he doesn't charge his client a fee for his services. But if he wins, he takes a third of that settlement before taxes, even when the criminal prosecutions fail.

CRUMP: We have to fight two battles, Laura. One in the court of public opinion, and two, we have the fight in the court of law.

COATES (voice-over): With publicity comes protest, both peaceful and violent.

CRUMP: I think it's inappropriate for anybody to loot, destroy property, and commit violence against others in the name of trying to say it was wrong for police officers to be violent against us.

COATES (voice-over): But Crump laments that there are two justice systems in America where even violence is condemned along racial lines.

CRUMP: We can't have two justice systems in America, one for black America and one for white America. We have to have equal justice.

Never was that more defined by the tale of two videotapes in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where you have Jacob Blake shot seven times in the back, then you have a young white man shoot three people, killing two of them, and then walked with an assault weapon around his neck past several police officers and several National Guards.

Nobody shot him in the back. Nobody killed him. He made it to his home uninjured. Just imagine if Kyle Rittenhouse was an African American.

COATES (voice-over): But for prosecutors, the publicity can be a gift and a curse, especially to prosecutors who must operate in the court of law exclusively.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our job is to seek justice and to obtain a conviction, not to make statements in the press but to put -- do our talking in court.

COATES (voice-over): Without the pressure of publicity and the threat of a civil case, some wonder if justice could ever be achieved.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Fascinating.

[23:40:00]

LEMON: There she is. Laura Coates joins me now. Laura, good evening to you. What do you make of the back and forth over President Trump not meeting with Jacob Blake's family?

COATES: You know, I think it's actually ridiculous, the idea that they could not have their family representative actually on the line, they were not going to say anything, it wasn't an opportunity for Benjamin Crump or any member of council's team to actually have a contentious interaction with the president of the United States.

It was merely an opportunity to have this family have a spokesperson advocate, which is the role he has played so often, as you know, Don. Of course, he is somebody who knows full well about the power of publicity to elevate these cases, not only in the national consciousness but also have people aware that there's a lot of pressure that needs to be held, even prioritize it in the criminal courts.

President not meeting with family in state of unrest at this moment in time almost seems like he's blaming the family, when Crump was very clear, he does not want to lose the moral high ground that they have by having the conflation between those who hijack the protests and those who actually had a righteous and peaceful cause like this family.

LEMON: Good reporting and good analysis. Thank you very much. I appreciate it, Laura.

COATES: Thank you.

LEMON: Absolutely. He says he was out cold on life support for three days after being arrested. That is because Elijah McKnight was injected with ketamine by first responders during that arrest. CNN Investigates why and how this drug is allowed to be used. Our Sara Sidner is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:45:00]

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LEMON: The Journal of Emergency Medical Services says it's an effective drug that could save lives in the field. But the use by first responders at the urging of police during arrest is setting off alarm bells among some doctors, lawyers, and civil rights activists.

CNN's Sara Sidner investigates the use of ketamine.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): How much have you had to drink?

ELIJAH MCKNIGHT, GIVEN KETAMINE AFTER ALTERCATION WITH POLICE: I'm good.

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Elijah McKnight says what happened to him during this 2019 arrest outside Aurora, Colorado should never happen to anyone again.

MCKNIGHT: I was out cold for three days, on life support pretty much.

SIDNER (voice-over): McKnight admits he was drunk on the sidewalk when police arrived to check on him. He tells police there are warrants out for his arrest. All is calm until an officer attempts to cuff him. He resists, and is cuffed and tased.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know!

SIDNER (voice-over): But he says what happened when paramedics showed up nearly killed him.

MCKNIGHT: They were acting like I was incredible hulk that I was tossing them around.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): You're a little too hyped up right now, you got to relax.

MCKNIGHT: I am being cooperative.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): You are and I appreciate it, man.

SIDNER (voice-over): Paramedics initially determined he doesn't need to be hospitalized.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): He doesn't need to go to the hospital. He's alert. It's up to you, guys.

SIDNER (voice-over): But then a police officer asked this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): You guys can't give him anything, can you? Unless he goes to the hospital, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): We can give him ketamine. He will be sleeping like a baby but he will have to go to the hospital.

MCKNIGHT: Don't give me. Don't inject anything into my vein.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Still will be a fight the whole way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Is he going to the hospital?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): We are going to the hospital?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): I mean he is bucking the three of us. Just give it to him.

SIDNER (voice-over): And they do. One shot of 500 milligrams of ketamine. The paramedics report says he's being wildly combative.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Has he calmed down at all?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is still lifting us.

SIDNER (voice-over): But at this point, video shows him cuffed and lying still but yelling. They call a physician and get permission to inject him with 250 more milligrams.

MARY DALE PETERSON, PRESIDENT, ASA: So we can actually do surgery on patients with ketamine.

SIDNER (voice-over): Dr. Mary Dale Peterson says ketamine is an extremely useful drug to treat pain or for general anaesthesia. It is so powerful that in Colorado, first responders need a health department waiver to use it. It works fast. It can leave a patient conscious but unable to move, unable to speak, and sometimes unable to breathe.

PETERSON: Depending on what study you look at, 30 percent to 57 percent of patients will require intubation where you have to put a breathing tube in.

SIDNER (voice-over): The controversy is over why and how it's being used by first responders.

MCKNIGHT: They definitely weren't going to give me ketamine until the police asked for it.

PETERSON: Ketamine or any other drug, you know, should not be given for purely law enforcement purposes. We give drugs to treat medical problems.

SIDNER (voice-over): In McKnight's case, though, the Colorado State Health Department recently determined the medics' actions were independent of police requests and warranted. McKnight disagrees but says he is thankful he didn't die unlike another Colorado man named Elijah that same month.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Stop.

SIDNER (voice-over): Elijah McClain committed no crime but he stopped on his way home after Aurora police are called about a man walking with a ski mask on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Stop tensing up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Please respect the boundaries that I am speaking.

SIDNER (voice-over): Officers confront him. They say he fought them. They put him in a chokehold, causing him to vomit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Whatever he's on, he has incredible strength.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Yeah, crazy strength.

SIDNER (voice-over): McClain is already cuffed, face down, saying he can't breathe. An autopsy shows he has no illegal drugs in his system. But when paramedics arrived --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): You got 500 milligrams of ketamine in him?

SIDNER (voice-over): They inject him with nearly double the recommended dose for someone of his weight.

PETERSON: I've been in practice 30 years. I have never given a dose that high.

SIDNER (voice-over): McClain died in the hospital three days later.

[23:49:56]

SIDNER (voice-over): The coroner reports said McClain died of undetermined causes, but said intense physical exertion, a narrow coronary artery, and a negative drug reaction to ketamine could have contributed to his death. His family has filed a civil lawsuit against Aurora police and the city.

MARI NEWMAN, MCCLAIN FAMILY ATTORNEY: This is an incredible tragedy. This is an example of an innocent, young man who is tortured and who is murdered by a combination of both law enforcement and so-called first responders.

SIDNER (voice-over): But the district attorney determined no charges were warranted in the case. Now, a year after his death, the city, state and health department have all opened new investigations.

But Aurora Fire Rescue determined last November that their paramedics' actions were consistent and aligned with our established protocol and that McClain was showing signs of excited delirium, a dangerous and often inexplicable condition.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Just relax.

SIDNER (voice-over): McKnight was also diagnosed with excited delirium, which can cause a person to become so agitated, they exercise themselves to death. The condition is not recognized by any major medical association, but is recognized by the American College of Emergency Physicians.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even clinicians would have a difficult time diagnosing an excited delirium. When you employed ketamine, you better be darn sure that this is an excited delirium and not something else.

SIDNER (voice-over): The Colorado Department of Health's ketamine waiver guideline says excited delirium is a rare syndrome. But data shows, from 2018 to 2019, there was a 72 percent increase in ketamine waivers issued to treat it.

NEWMAN: The term "excited delirium" is being used by law enforcement to justify what is unjustifiable, excessive force against civilians.

SIDNER: Why do you think police asked paramedics to give you something?

MCKNIGHT: They're being lazy and didn't want to do their job. I guess they didn't want to deal with a drunk (bleep). It wasn't an excited delirium, I can tell you that.

SIDNER (voice-over): Authorities won't comment as there is an active case still pending against McKnight. An article in the Journal of Emergency Medical Services says ketamine is an effective drug in the field that can save lives. But there is no national database that tracks ketamine use by EMS workers. Across the United States, we found several ongoing investigations into the use of ketamine by first responders.

JOSEPH BAKER, PARAMEDIC: In my experience, I have been pressured by police to administer ketamine.

SIDNER (voice-over): This paramedic in Minnesota says he is speaking out for the very first time about his concern over using ketamine as a policing tool.

He is suing the city of Woodbury, saying he had to quit his paramedic job there because he was retaliated against for exposing falsified EMS training records in his department and for refusing to bow to pressure by police to use ketamine on a mental health call when he says it was not medically necessary.

BAKER: Before we even arrived, we were receiving notes from dispatch, asking us to get our ketamine ready. I was met by multiple officers who asked, do you have your ketamine ready? Do you have it drawn up? And I said, no, I have it available, but I'd like to evaluate this patient first.

SIDNER: What was the reaction?

BAKER: They were angry. I don't think that they were expecting me to give the response that I did.

SIDNER: What happened, ultimately?

BAKER: There wasn't any reason to give him any medications.

SIDNER (voice-over): Baker says talking was the best tool in the field that day, in 2019, but he paid a price for it.

BAKER: I was placed on a performance-improvement plan for being angry and insubordinate towards a police officer because I was advocating for a patient when --

SIDNER: Because you refused ketamine?

BAKER: Because I refused to administer ketamine.

SIDNER (voice-over): The city categorically denies all of Baker's allegations and says no records were falsified.

KENNETH UDOIBOK, JOSEPH BAKER'S ATTORNEY: It is a perfect crime.

SIDNER (voice-over): Baker's attorney, Kenneth Udoibok, says all Baker is doing is trying to protect citizens and the city, knowing what happened in neighboring Minneapolis.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ketamine should never be a law enforcement tool. It is a medical tool.

SIDNER (voice-over): In 2018, the Minneapolis Office of Police Conduct Review found the appearance of ketamine in reports increased from two in 2010 to 62 in 2017, a 3,000 percent increase. Analysts observed eight cases where MPD officers participated in the decision to administer ketamine.

NEWMAN: We can't simply substitute injecting people involuntarily with a dangerous psychotropic drug instead of talking. It's not constitutional.

SIDNER (voice-over): The McClain family and McKnight believe that is exactly what happened in their cases.

MCKNIGHT: Yeah, it definitely wasn't to keep me or them safe because it almost killed me.

SIDNER: And there are some new developments after the reinvestigation of the McClain case. The Colorado State Department of Health is now reviewing its ketamine waiver program that allows first responders to use ketamine for excited delirium in the field.

We're also hearing from a city council member in Aurora, who says that the use of ketamine should be stopped altogether until the investigation is complete in the McClain case.

[23:55:07]

SIDNER: We've heard, too, from the National Fraternal Order of Police spokesperson, who told us, though she's not involved in any of these cases, that she has a hard time believing that police would try and use excited delirium as an excuse just to have ketamine used on a person, unless it was for their safety and the safety of first responders. Don?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Sara Sidner, thank you very much. And thank you, everyone, for watching. I'm Don Lemon. Our coverage continues.

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