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Don Lemon Tonight

U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll About To Reach 200,000; Fight Over Next SCOTUS As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Passed Away; President Trump Meets With Judge Barrett At The White House Today; Trump Supporters Booed Ohio Republican; NFL Fined Three Head Coaches Last Sunday; Trump Says He Will Nominate A Woman For SCOTUS On Friday Or Saturday; Twenty-Eight-Year-Old Doctor Dies From Coronavirus; New Kelly Loeffler Ad Boasts She Is More Conservative Than Attila The Hun. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired September 21, 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: And we are following multiple breaking new stories that could impact how Americans cast their votes in the 2020 election.

The United States of America about to hot a horrific milestone, nearly 200,000 American lives lost to the coronavirus. Mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, sons, daughters, neighbors. A death toll of 200,000 Americans was once unthinkable. Yet the president is praising his own handling of the pandemic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're rounding the corner. With or without a vaccine. They hate it when I say that but that's the way it is. We're rounding the corner on the pandemic. And we've done a phenomenal job. Not just a good job. A phenomenal job. On public relations I give myself a d. On the job itself, we take an A- plus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: That's actually not the way it is. People would love to be rounding the corner. Simply not the way it is. The president can say whatever he wants, but the U.S. death toll from the pandemic is the highest in the world. The U.S. accounts for 4 percent of the world's population but 21 percent of all coronavirus deaths.

That as President Trump meets with one of the jurists on his short list to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. Mitch McConnell moving closer to locking in enough support to confirm Trump's nominee before the election. Even though that's exactly what McConnell deprived President Barack Obama of back in 2016. Eight months before the election.

We'll break down these stories and more in the hour ahead. I want to bring in now CNN's senior political analyst Ron Brownstein and Dr. Jonathan Reiner, the Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Program at George Washington University Hospital.

Good evening, gentlemen. Thank you so much. Ron, I'm going to start with you. Nearly 200,000 Americans have died from this virus. 200,000. But you've just heard the president. You just heard him. He still says that you know, it was an A-plus, we're rounding the corner. He seems to not grasp the magnitude of how horrific this moment is for our country.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: His denial of the magnitude of this from the very beginning is one of the key reasons why we are in this unimaginable situation.

I think history will have no doubt. I think history will brand this as the single greatest failure of the federal government in its history. More than the intelligence failures before Pearl Harbor. More than the intelligence failures before 9/11.

On February 26th the president said we're down to 15 cases and in a few weeks it will be down to zero, that's a pretty good job we have done. His goal from the beginning has been to project normalcy at all costs. He's exerted enormous pressure on Republicans down the line, Governors and so forth, to project normalcy at all costs, and that has prevented the U.S. from taking very common sense steps that might have mitigated this substantially.

And now we are at a place that is unimaginable and there's no end in sight, Don. I mean, we're still talking about 800 to 1,000 people dying a day before we move into the fall and deeper into the flu season as the doctor I'm sure can explain.

LEMON: Doctor, let's talk about that. 200,000 American lives lost. President Trump says A-plus on his pandemic response. If he actually told the American people what he knew about this virus, how many of those deaths could have been prevented?

JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: If he simply told the American people to mask up, or if he had simply allowed HHS and the postal service to fulfill their plan of sending 650 million masks, 5 million masks to every household in the United States, in the beginning of April, which was their plan, we'd have maybe 40,000 deaths in this country. It would still be a really tough punch in the gut. But about 150,000, 160,000 more Americans would be alive right now. That's all we needed to do.

It's so frustrating, Don, because we've had the power to put this down from the very beginning. We still do. But for reasons that historians and psychiatrists will debate forever this man refused to embrace masks. Something as simple as masks. Forget about biologics and therapeutics and vaccines. It's this. This thing. A dollar.

LEMON: Wow. Listen, Ohio's Lieutenant Governor spoke to a crowd of Trump supporters about wearing a mask at the president's rally earlier today. Here's how they responded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But if you go into a grocery store where you've got to wear one. All right?

(CROWD BOOING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hang on. Hang on. Just listen up. Just listen up. All right. I get it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Ron, does this reaction explain why are we -- why we are where we are right now with this virus?

BROWNSTEIN: A big part of it. As I said, another key part of it is that the pressure the president put on Republican Governors not to close down -- close down their economies as late as possible and to open them up before they were -- the virus was nearly enough under control to justify that.

[23:05:10]

The president has set a tone within his coalition of, you know, hostility to science and not only on this, by the way, on climate change as well. On the wildfires that we're living through. And that has in turn exerted pressure on Republican officials at every level up and down kind of the chain of command, not to take this seriously.

I mean, I think, you know, the psychological explanation of why he's doing this is he has believed from the beginning that he needs to project normalcy as quickly as possible in order to keep the economy humming, whatever the cost in public health.

And at the beginning at least, Don, you know, many Republicans thought this was something that was happening in blue places. And still the heaviest costs in terms of mortality has been in the denser areas, which are overwhelmingly Democratic at this point.

But it's now has reached the point where every part of the country is affected by this. And you know, the idea that this is some kind of blue state problem, as he said the other day, just is no longer supported by the actual experience. And there is I think a pretty broad verdict in the country at around 60 percent that he has mishandled this from the beginning.

LEMON: Dr. Reiner, the NFL we've learned fining three teams. The Denver Broncos, Seattle Seahawks, San Francisco 49ers. $250,000 each and their head coaches $100,000 each because those coaches did not wear face coverings on Sunday.

A league sources is telling CNN that they were warned about it a week ago. Is that what it's going to take to get this message across to coaches and fans and really to everyone else, start fining people and start really taking some action?

REINER: Well, finally some leadership. Finally an organization willing to show their fans, the people that you know, put the money in their pockets, what's important? Imagine if our national leadership did that. Imagine if everywhere the president went he gave out masks, he wore a mask proudly. I mean, he'd be so far ahead in the polls now. That's the really ironic thing.

He thought that you had to pretend that this wasn't happening in order to get re-elected. What he had to do was to pretend to be a leader. And to use the president's -- to use the president's parlance, when he was faced with maybe the greatest challenge that any American president has faced probably since the Second World War, to use his parlance, he choked. And because he performed so poorly, you know, by thanksgiving a quarter of a million Americans are going to be dead.

Now, I work in a hospital with the greatest people on this planet. And we all wear a mask here every day. Because we care about each other. And I want our leaders to project this notion to the country that we need to care about each other.

Yet he projected this selfish notion that he articulated very precisely, that this wasn't for him. He didn't see himself doing it. So why should his followers, you know, wear a mask? The president's not going to wear one. And that moronic stance will cost us a quarter of a million Americans by thanksgiving.

LEMON: Thank you --

BROWNSTEIN: Can I say --

LEMON: Yes, Ron, quickly, please. Go ahead.

BROWNSTEIN: Real quick. There's one other element. So much of the president's messaging is that elites are not really experts, they don't really know more than you do, they are just elitists who are trying to you know, control your lives and they look down on you. And he applied that even to public health professionals in the midst of the worst pandemic in 100 years.

Thousands of people have died as a result. And I think all Americans who believe in science have to ask themselves, do they belong in the same coalition as a president who takes that posture toward medical expertise at a moment of such national crisis?

LEMON: Thank you both. See you soon.

I want to get our fact check in now of the day. Daniel Dale is here. Daniel, good evening to you. You've been fact checking President Trump's two speeches in Ohio tonight. What stood out to you?

DANIEL DALE, CNN FACT CHECKER: Don, there was just so much again lying and deceiving. I'm going to give you a partial list. This is very incomplete. The president said of the coronavirus, he said we know it affects elderly people, elderly people with heart problems and other problems. And he said if they have other problems that's what it really affects, that's it.

Don, that's not it. Elderly people and those with pre-existing conditions are those most likely to be severely affected by the virus but we know that other people, younger people, people without conditions do get very sick and they do indeed die. Trump repeated his lie that Biden would destroy protections for people with pre-existing conditions while he, Trump, would preserve those protections. That is an up and down reversal of reality. Biden helped create those protections in Obamacare which he's trying to protect. Trump is trying to get the entirety of Obamacare overturned, eradicated in the courts.

[23:10:02]

Trump claimed again that Senator Kamala Harris during the primary called Biden a racist. Now, she did go after him on race-related issues from his past but she began that part of the debate by saying I do not believe you are a racist.

Trump suggested that Biden wants prisoners, even the Boston marathon bomber, to be able to vote from prison. That is not Biden's position. That was a Bernie Sanders proposal Biden rejected. He wants people to have their voting rights restored after they complete their felony sentences.

Trump has said Biden has vowed to ban charter schools. He has not. Trump said again that China is paying Trump's tariffs on China. No, it's Americans who are making those payments. Trump urged his Ohio supporters to look out for what he said was guaranteed Democratic cheating using unsolicited mail ballots.

Now, aside from this baseless suggestion that Democrats are going to engage in widespread cheating, Ohio doesn't even have unsolicited mail ballots. You have to request a mail ballot in that state.

Trump told a completely imaginary story which he's told before about pressuring the Japanese Prime Minister to get Japanese car companies to announce -- he said five car companies to announce the next day U.S. Plants. That just didn't happen. Trump claimed again that before the Iraq war he advised, he said don't go into the Middle East. He did not say don't go into the Middle East or Iraq.

In fact, he did not express any public opposition to the war before the invasion started. He expressed tentative support for the war in a September 2002 interview with radio host Howard Stern. Trump also repeated his usual fiction about Obama and Biden personally spying on his campaign. That's nonsense. His usual nonsense about people involved in the Russia investigation committing treason. Again, complete nonsense.

He said he brought back 700,000 manufacturing jobs. Even before the pandemic it was 483,000, not 700. And now after the pandemic -- well, during the pandemic it's a net loss of 237,000 jobs. He said he put coal miners back to work, revived the coal industry. The industry is still not doing well. It's been net loss of more than 5,000 coal jobs under Trump before the pandemic it was a net gain of just 100.

And Don, he boasted again -- this one gets to me. He said they set a record, they set a record by creating more than 10 million jobs in four months. He doesn't mention that that 10 million gain immediately followed a loss of more than 22 million. So yes, a record if you just look at those four months, but if you look at those six months we're still doing really badly.

LEMON: And you said that was a partial list?

DALE: Seriously, I could add like six to 10 more. Seriously.

LEMON: Oh, boy. Well, I think that's enough for now. Thank you. Daniel, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. The U.S. nearing 200,000 coronavirus deaths. More than two dozen states are now showing an increase in cases. Here's Athena Jones.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We may be in for a very apocalyptic fall.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As the U.S. approaches another grim milestone, 200,000 lives lost to coronavirus, signs of a much feared fall surge in cases is already here.

DR. PETER HOTEZ, VACCINE RESEARCHER, DEAN OF THE NATIONAL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AT BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: If you look what's happening around the country right now, there's an unmistakable spike in new infections.

JONES: New COVID-19 cases topping 40,000 a day on average with new daily infections now rising in 28 states, up more than 50 percent in eight states. Wisconsin, Idaho and South Dakota all reporting COVID test positive rates above 16 percent.

HOTEZ: This happening because we're forcing schools to reopen in areas of high transmission, forcing colleges to reopen, and we don't have the leadership nationally telling people to wear masks and to social distance and do all the things we need to do.

JONES: The startling trend coming as the CDC issues and then removed from its website new guidance showing just how contagious coronavirus is. The agency noting it can spread through the air in tiny droplets or aerosols. Not just when someone coughs, sneezes or talks but even when they simply breathe. Highlighting restaurants, fitness classes, and choir practice as risks. The agency later saying the new guidance was a draft posted in error.

LEANA WEN, FORMER HEALTH COMMISSIONER, BALTIMORE: It's extremely confusing. And that type of whiplash, especially without an explanation directly from the CDC, creates confusion and unfortunately leads to lack of trust in the CDC overall.

JONES: Meanwhile, on the vaccine front the White House's testing czar Brett Giroir arguing --

ADM. BRETT GIROIR, HHS ASSISTANT SECRETARY: Vaccine as early as possible even in a few million doses will be a godsend in terms of outcomes, hospitalizations, morbidity and deaths.

JONES: Still, Bill Gates warning of a long road ahead even after a vaccine is approved. BILL GATES, PHILANTHROPIST AND MICROSOFT FOUNDER: If the vaccine

approvals come by early next year as I expect then by next summer U.S. will be starting to go back to normal and by the end of the year our activities can be fairly normal. If we're also helping these other countries. The end of the epidemic, best case, is probably 2022.

[23:15:00]

JONES: All this as the influential model from the University of Washington now lowering its forecast for total U.S. COVID deaths by January 1st to just under 380,000. Down from more than 415,000 last week. Citing steeper than expected declines in deaths in several states. But the model still predicts more than 3,000 deaths a day by the end of December and says a universal mask mandate could keep total deaths to around 263,000 by New Year's Day. Athena Jones, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Athena, thank you so much. With the coronavirus raging, the battle over filling the seat of the late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is also heating up. We're going to have the latest next.

Plus Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler wants you to know how conservative she is. But is she going too far with this ad?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you know Kelly Loeffler was ranked the most conservative Senator in America?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yep. She's more conservative than Attila the Hun.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like China. Got it. Big government. Yeah.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:20:00]

LEMON: The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg setting off a heated battle over filling her seat. And now the president is promising he'll nominate a woman to be the next justice by the end of the week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It will be a brilliant person. It will be a -- I have five that we're vetting right now. It will be a brilliant person. It will be a woman. It will be a woman. We're looking forward to it. And we'll probably announce it on Saturday, maybe Friday, but Saturday.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, with the latest now CNN Congressional correspondent Phil Mattingly, he's here to help us with this. Phil, good evening to you. Democratic hopefuls or hopes to find four -- Democrats I should, excuse me, say hope to find four Republicans to block consideration of a new justice they were dealt significant blows today. What is the latest on that?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Don, there's no question about it. Look, for Democrats the reality is they can't block this nomination, this looming nomination, this confirmation process on their own. They simply don't have the numbers. They need at least four Republicans to join them in deciding that this nomination shouldn't move forward, this process shouldn't move forward or whoever the nominee is doesn't get the requisite number of votes.

They have been looking for a group of Republicans, well, perhaps two, three, four, five who would be willing to join them. As of now they have two. They have Senator Lisa Murkowski and Senator Susan Collins, both who said they don't believe a vote on a nomination should happen before the election.

The next two, right now the hopes for those two seem to be disintegrating by the day. We had earlier today Cory Gardner, one of the most endangered Republicans in the United States Senate. Because of those politics some hoped from Democratic side that he would join them in their cause on this. He came out saying he was going to support President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on moving forward.

Also Chuck Grassley, who in 2016 was the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman who was one of the leaders in blocking President Obama's Supreme Court nominee at the time, he came out today and made clear he was going to support the president, support the current judiciary committee chair and the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The reality is right now other than Mitt Romney who remains undecided, Don, there are not a lot of other options for Democrats. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the president have quickly, quickly coalesced Republicans around this effort right now, at least early in the process they're on track for confirmation.

LEMON: Do the Republicans fear a backlash to this? Are they nervous watching the money absolutely pour in for Democratic opponents?

MATTINGLY: Yes, it's interesting. I was talking to a Republican Senator today. He said look, we see the money, we see the numbers, we see act blue, the Democratic fund-raising platform that had over $100 million in a 48-hour period over the weekend. They see all of that.

But there's a couple things at play here. One, they believe that their base will turn out, get excited much like they did in 2016 when there was an open seat, and politically that may help them.

But I think you also have to look at it from the long game perspective which is kind of Mitch McConnell's specialty and the idea of moving this court to a 6-3 conservative court, moving it to a place that a decade or two decades ago most Republicans never even thought it was in the realm of possibility, if that results in maybe losing a few seats.

A lot of Republicans we talk to on Capitol Hill say, look, it's worth it, the backlash is worth it if we can kind of bring the change to the court in that regard. But there's no question about if, Don, they see the money pouring in, they see the enthusiasm on the other side and they can just hope that their side can try to match that.

LEMON: Mr. Mattingly, thank you very much. Good to see you. I haven't seen you in a while. Be safe. Thank you.

Obamacare, abortion rights, environmental regulation, so many big issues now at stake. How the battle over the vacancy could reshape the Supreme Court for decades to come.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:25:00]

LEMON: The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg setting up what could be a seismic shift in the Supreme Court that might last for a generation. Let's discuss now with the former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman and CNN's senior political analyst Mr. John Avlon.

Gentlemen, good to see both of you. John, you cannot overstate how much is at stake here. A potential fight over the election outcome. A woman's right to choose. The Affordable Care Act. Talk about the impact of another conservative justice.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, it's almost incalculable. For conservatives this is the number one issue always. It's been the way they've been able to excuse so much of what Donald Trump does that privately sickens their stomachs, because they're getting judges. And for conservatives judges are a bulwark against demographic change that they don't agree with.

And so that's why there's this enormous focus. The 6-3 majority is enormous. It means Donald Trump would have three Supreme Court nominees in one term. As opposed to two during the eight years of Obama, for example. It's seismic. It cannot be overstated. That's why they're willing to ignore all ethics or questions of honor. The lying has been normalized. Situational ethics have been weaponized. This is about the Supreme Court. And they're basically saying nothing matters but the power.

LEMON: Harry, CNN confirmed that judge Amy Coney Barrett visited the White House today. She's a dream nominee for religious conservatives. Is that what President Trump is looking for?

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: I think so. She does check all the boxes. She is the one of the three in play that is the most within the profile of what he's tried to do. The most federalist society pick. She's just the right age. She writes very well. She's sophisticated.

She's assured, and she definitely reassures them on all the important issues, including in her couple years on the bench. Not just abortion, where she is likely to be the fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, but guns, religion, and a number of others.

[23:30:00]

LITMAN: She has to be considered in the pole position at this point.

LEMON: So, John, here is what you wrote over the weekend. You said -- and I quote here -- "Republicans have lost the popular vote in all but of the last seven presidential elections. But they have appointed four of the last six picks to the Supreme Court based on the support of GOP senators who represent less than half the American people."

So, you say the legitimacy of our institutions at stake now. Talk about that.

AVLON: That's, I think, the larger concern. It's not just that Republicans like Chuck Grassley, who was one of the folks Democrats thought might stick to his guns, who said, we can't have one rule for Republican presidents and another for Democrats. Well, apparently you can. And the danger that we're seeing is this delegitimization of the majority of the American people.

Now, conservatives will say, look, we're a republic, not a democracy, we do Electoral College, not popular vote. But if Republicans -- if the shoe was on the other foot and Democrats had only won the popular vote once out of the last seven times but had appointed twice as many judges, Republicans would be the first ones screaming for change.

My concern is that this accelerates the delegitimization of distrust in our institutions. It's going to take our bitter political divides and make them more personal. And I'm very concerned this is going to lead to a kind of escalation of bitterness and resentment and power plays that really could degrade our democracy in the long run.

But Republicans are basically saying, power over principle? We'll deal with all the rest of that later and demonize the (INAUDIBLE).

LEMON: And Harry, some Democrats are raising the possibility of packing the court with additional justices in retaliation if they win back the White House and the Senate. What could this fight do to the court as an institution?

LITMAN: Well, first, we are, as John says, it is law of the jungle. That is a really extreme nuclear option. It failed miserably in FDR's years. But you hear a lot of Democrats saying, given everything that's happened, that's where we have to go.

What could it do? I think, as John says, it could delegitimize it and it could also, of course, invite retaliation when the shoe is on the other foot.

But Democrats now, after the complete hypocrisy from 2016, really feel that they would be justified in some kind of extreme reprisal of that nature.

LEMON: Gentlemen, thank you. I appreciate your time. Make sure you join CNN tomorrow for "Citizen by CNN." It is a virtual conference featuring interviews with guests like Dr. Anthony Fauci, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Loretta Lynch, NBA all-star Chris Paul, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver discussing an array of issues that matter to voters six weeks before the Election Day. You can stream it starting at 9:00 a.m. Eastern on cnn.com.

And coming up is the tragic story of a 28-year-old doctor who lost her fight against COVID-19 after treating coronavirus patients in the E.R. Her name is Adeline Fagan. Her sisters joined me to talk about her life. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The president tonight at his campaign rally saying coronavirus affects virtually nobody. Incredible thing to say considering this country is nearing the grim milestone of nearly 200,000 coronavirus deaths.

That terrible toll includes Adeline Fagan, a 28-year-old OB-GYN resident living in Houston. Her father, Brant Fagan, wrote an online journal to keep family and friends updated on her battle with coronavirus.

Here's what he wrote on Saturday, the day his daughter died. He said, "If you can do one thing, be an 'Adeline' in the world. Be passionate about helping others less fortunate. Have a smile on your face, a laugh in your heart and a Disney tune on your lips."

Joining me now is Dr. Adeline Fagan's sisters, Maureen and Natalie Fagan. Thank you so much. I appreciate both of you joining us. How are you doing?

MAUREEN FAGAN, LOST SISTER, DR. ADELINE FAGAN TO COVID-19: We're hanging in there.

LEMON: Yeah.

FAGAN: It's tough but we have a good support system here. And we're hanging in there.

LEMON: Good. I'm really sorry about the loss, your loss, incredibly sorry. You shared an apartment with your sister. She contracted COVID in early July, spent the past few weekends in an ICU. So, Maureen, walk us through what happened.

FAGAN: I mean, Adeline went to work early in July like a normal day with a happy smile. She was doing a shift in the E.R., but usually she's on the OB-GYN floors delivering babies. She went in happy, feeling well. And by the end of the evening, it was like light -- a flip switched. And she just -- it was like severe flu symptoms. And that evening, we went home and I thought she should be tested. She tested positive. And that in itself was a shock just because you kind of don't think it's going to happen to you. And after a week of quarantining at home, she really wasn't doing well.

I knew we needed more care and that's when our stay in the hospital started and everything just went from there. And she was eventually put on the ventilator, the ECMO machines. And we really thought this past week that she was turning a corner.

[23:40:00]

FAGAN: Our daily updates from the staff at her hospital, they were all -- they were all great. The day before she actually passed away, she ended up coming off of all the machines, the ventilator and the ECMO. We really thought that she was going to be starting rehab.

But that evening, she became unresponsive and emergency CT showed that she had a massive brain bleed which, like the passage my dad wrote, the doctors said it was a one in a million shot that she would come out from that in any sort of state that we knew our Adeline to be in.

LEMON: Oh, my gosh. I can't -- I can't even imagine the strength that it's taking you guys to be here and talk about this. And Natalie, one of the pictures I saw up there, Natalie, was Adeline with a birthday cake. And I would assume it's your parents surrounding. She's sitting in the middle.

FAGAN: Yes.

LEMON: And Natalie, today is your birthday. And I'm sorry this happened to you, you know, and you're talking to us right now. You have to miss her. What would you like to say about your sister? What do you want people to know about her?

NATALIE FAGAN, LOST SISTER, DR. ADELINE FAGAN TO COVID-19: There are no words that can encompass who Adeline was and the spirit that she had. I mean, she just had a way of making anyone feel special and heard and loved. And you know, today is my birthday and I couldn't help but -- when I was blowing out my candles on my cake, thank god.

I hope that I have the capability to make someone feel the way Adeline made me feel for the last 20 years of my life. I'm so lucky to have had her for the short amount of time that I did. All the other people that, you know, Adeline cared for, her patients, her friends, her colleagues, just the luckiest people to have gotten to know her.

LEMON: Again, I'm so sorry. I'm looking at the pictures of Adeline and your mom and your dad and you two, such a beautiful, beautiful good- looking family. And it looks like you guys are just so happy. You were raised right and on and on and on. I don't have enough good things to say about it.

But she was so young, Maureen. Twenty-eight years old. I mean, this should not have happened. What would you say to folks who aren't taking this seriously? Some people are even calling it a hoax. And when people are asking them to wear masks, they're booing. What do you think?

M. FAGAN: I mean, you don't -- most people don't know Adeline but I would bet that they know an Adeline. There is someone in your life that makes you feel like Adeline makes us feel. And if you could do anything, which we see as a simple thing of wearing a mask and social distancing, if you think it's a hoax, there is -- Adeline passed away because of COVID.

This isn't a hoax. And if you can do something as simple as wearing a mask and social distancing so that -- maybe it's not your Adeline but your friend's Adeline, a family member, someone that you love is in her or going through what we are going through, which is devastating and heartbreaking.

I just wish people would realize that it may not be you directly affected but it could be someone you know, pass on the street, just see, you know, quickly, it's someone and everyone is being affected by this.

LEMON: Did she have any underlying health issues?

M. FAGAN: Adeline did have asthma. But I have asthma and I went to work, too. And I even lived with her. And I didn't come down with it. So, this is just a lesson that COVID does not discriminate.

LEMON: Natalie, over 900 health care workers in the U.S. have died from coronavirus. What would you like to say on behalf of all the health care workers who put their lives on the line for others every day as your sister did?

N. FAGAN: I would just like to say from the bottom of my heart, and I know my family can second this, is thank you. You know, as someone who lost someone who worked on the front lines, I understand that sacrifice.

And also as someone whose family member received care from those frontline workers -- I mean, Adeline, in her journey with COVID, she was so close, she was so close, and it is the intense, intense care that the physicians, the nurses, all types of staff, respiratory therapists coming together to help these people, all while knowing that they're putting their lives on the line, you can't even come up with a thank you big enough for that.

LEMON: Well, I thank you. And i thank Adeline for what she did.

[23:44:58]

LEMON: And again, I am so sorry. But I'm so glad that you guys are here to honor her and the whole world can get to learn about your sister. Thank you. Please be well, OK?

M. FAGAN: Thank you, too.

LEMON: And give our regards to your family, your parents. Thanks. Thank you. CNN is remembering Dr. Adeline Fagan and all the lives lost in this terrible pandemic. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:49:58]

LEMON: Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia trying to highlight her conservative record by comparing herself in a new ad to Attila the Hun. Really? All right. Look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you know Kelly Loeffler was ranked the most conservative senator in America?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yep. She's more conservative than Attila the Hun.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like China. Got it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Attack big government. Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, sure.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eliminate the liberal scribes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): More conservative than Attila the Hun.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh-oh.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Kelly Loeffler, 100 percent Trump voting record.

SEN. KELLY LOEFFLER (R-GA) (voice-over): I'm Kelly Loeffler. I approve this message.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Joining us, CNN's Brian Stelter, our chief media correspondent and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES," and Amanda Carpenter, the former communications director for Senator Ted Cruz. We are through the looking glass right now.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Hello, both of you. So eliminate the liberal scribes, Amanda. Someone seems to be taking a cue from President Trump.

AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER SENIOR COMMUNICATIONS ADVISOR AND SPEECHWRITER FOR SENATOR TED CRUZ: Yeah. I -- I wish I could laugh at this. It's being widely mocked on the internet. Some people are saying it is genius because it's getting so much attention. But I got to say, I just see something a lot darker, given how she is running her campaign. Over the weekend, she was campaigning with probably the most famous QAnon candidate in America, which is Marjorie Taylor Greene, another candidate in her state of Georgia. And at that event, there were members of the militia that showed up and acted sort of as private security for the senator and that candidate, forming a ring around them.

And I watched Kelly's campaign -- and listen, she was recruited because people thought, you know, she's an extremely wealthy woman, probably the richest member on Capitol Hill right now, who would reach out to suburban women.

But she is taking every cue possible from President Trump and running this just completely unhinged conspiracy-minded campaign that seeks to project the same kind of ruthlessness in a funny way that Donald Trump does.

And this is such a dangerous combination. The projection of ruthlessness always cloaked in a joke with this conspiracy-minded thinking that brings out members of the militia. OK? We see this in Michigan. We see it in Wisconsin. We see it in Georgia.

And so, I want to laugh at that like everybody else. But I -- I just see something much darker going down that is part of the trickle-down Trump effect that we're witnessing.

LEMON: Trickle-down Trump effect. That's a good way of putting it. I want to play something, Brian, that Trump said on Friday night about MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi, who was shot with a rubber bullet during a protest after George Floyd's death.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I remember this guy, Velshi. He got hit on the knee with a canister of teargas. And he went down. He didn't -- he was down. My knee, my knee.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: Nobody cared. These guys didn't care. They moved him aside.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: And they just walked right through. It was like -- it was the most beautiful thing. No, because after we take all that crap, for weeks and weeks that we take this crap, and then you finally see men get up there and go right through. Wasn't it really a beautiful sight?

(CHEERING)

TRUMP: For law and order. Law and order.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: A beautiful sight. This is not the first time Trump has cheered Velshi getting injured. I should say Ali because we know him. He worked here. What's he doing here?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: He's even mispronouncing Ali's name. He is getting the facts wrong. So it's disturbing because he has the facts wrong. But it's a lot more disturbing because he is encouraging violence. He's celebrating violence against a member of the media.

This is not democratic behavior. This is autocratic behavior. We know the president has authoritarian tendencies. And I think what's most disturbing is when his crowd cheers and they show they have authoritarian tendencies, as well.

But these are not the values that Americans cherish. These are not the values Americans grow up with, at least most Americans. And it is so shocking, even three and a half years in, to see the president gloating about a reporter's injury.

Don, the problem here, is that it puts other reporters in harm's way in the future because the president is basically giving permission for this kind of violence.

LEMON: Well, you heard them cheering, Amanda. And he said it was a beautiful sight. What -- what -- what is going on here? Why would people be cheering? First of all, why would he say it? But why would people be cheering that?

CARPENTER: Because they are into this brand of ruthlessness. I mean, this is -- gets in the whole idea of the enemy of the people. He's been at this for a long time. And it's so dangerous that one of the whistleblowers that had been recently speaking out that worked for him at DHS has been saying, we tried to get him to pay attention to the rise in right-wing extremism, we tried to explain how his words and his rhetoric incites violence.

[23:55:04]

CARPENTER: I mean you can tie his rhetoric to the pipe bomber. You can tie it to the El Paso shooter. I mean, we kind of forget the devastating things that have happened. And then you look at the free pass that he gave to Charlottesville. And so this is a trend that has been growing.

LEMON: Yeah.

CARPENTER: I just feel like the water is boiling and we don't even notice it anymore because we get lost in this fog.

LEMON: Yeah. That's all we have time for. I'm out of time. Thank you both very much. I'll see you soon. Thanks for watching, everyone. Our coverage continues.

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