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Don Lemon Tonight

House GOP Likely To Vote Wednesday To Oust Liz Cheney From Her Leadership Post; President Biden: Americans Will Lose Unemployment Benefits If They Turn Down Job Offers; Internal GOP Polling Shows Trump's Unfavorable Rating Higher Than Favorable Rating In Core Districts; Cyberattack Paralyzes Major Gas Pipeline; GOP State Legislatures Attacking Voting Rights; Mass Shootings In The U.S.; New Georgia Law Overhauls Citizen's Arrest Statute. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired May 10, 2021 - 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 (on camera): Tonight, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy telling his GOP colleagues to anticipate a vote on Wednesday on the fate of Liz Cheney's leadership post. She's likely to be ousted. The Biden administration working to assess the extent of the damage of the colonial pipeline, target of a massive cyber attack. It supplies gasoline to much of the eastern U.S.

Also tonight, the FDA giving the go ahead for young Americans ages 12 to 15 to get the Pfizer COVID vaccine. And an epidemic of gun violence in the U.S. More than 400 people shot or killed in gun violence across the country over the last 72 hours.

Lots to discuss, CNN's White House correspondent John Harwood is here, CNN political analyst, Kirsten Powers is here as well. Good evening to both of you. John, I'm going to start with you. Kevin McCarthy sending a letter tonight saying the GOP is a big tent party that embraces free thought and debate.

Could anything be farther from the truth? I mean, he's holding a vote in a matter of days to throw Liz Cheney under the bus for refusing to promote Trump's lies, but he says that OK, they all voices are heard? What gives here?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (on camera): You're exactly right, Don, it's the opposite of what Kevin McCarthy said. Look, the modern Republican, it has been for years is governed by fear. Fear of the base of blue collar white voters that the country's changing in ways that leaves them behind.

Fear among elected officials who have been feeding the resentments of that base for years, that the base will turn on them if they step out of line and, in particular, fear that Donald Trump could set the base against them and knock out their careers, which is why if Donald Trump said go fetch my slippers in the corner, Kevin McCarthy would go sprint to the corner to go get the slippers, and if he said no, I want a cheeseburger, and turn into the other corner, he would sprint the other direction.

What Donald Trump is asking for is not slippers or a cheeseburger but for people to embrace this fantasy, at odds with reality, that he won the election. And Liz Cheney has the strength of character to stand up and say I'm not going to do that. That's not what being a Republican, being a political leader is to me. And for that, Kevin McCarthy's leading the effort, which will culminate this week to oust her from the leadership.

LEMON: Kirsten, I'm glad to have you here to discuss these issues. Because I know that you seemed have a very strong take on them. Let's talk about this Washington Post reporting, right. The national Republican Congressional committee at the retreat officials left out a key finding in polling, Trump's unfavorable ratings were 15 points higher than he's favorable ones in core districts. How does hiding facts about Trump's unpopularity actually help the GOP?

KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST (on camera): Well, I don't think it does help them, but it does speak to the fact that they are, you know, largely organized around wanting to support Trump, at least the leadership is and the people who are hiding this information, though it's publicly available so people could -- you know, could find it if they wanted to. But it's something that they want to down play because there, I think, is a real allegiance to Donald Trump.

There is fear, it's true, but there is also something that we have to acknowledge, which is that a lot of them legitimately like Donald Trump and actually do support what he's doing. I mean, he's not putting a gun to people's head and making them do every single thing that they do. They seem all too happy to jump on the bandwagon of whatever he starts, the way that they are now have made opposing critical race theory.

You know, one of their major initiatives, after Donald Trump had, you know, had attacked it and done an executive, you know, something from the White House from basically condemning it. So yes, so I think that -- I think it's a combination. I think it's a combination of some people fearing him, but a lot of them actually being on board with his agenda and his ideas.

[23:05:07]

LEMON (on camera): The president, John, is answering critics who say that expanded unemployment benefits in his COVID relief bill are keeping Americans from taking their jobs. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We're going to make it clear that anyone collecting unemployment who is offered a suitable job must take the job or lose their unemployment benefits.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON (on camera): I should say from taking new jobs. Is this response, a response to the Republican criticism? HARWOOD: I think it absolutely is, Don, and it was a surprisingly

aggressive response, I thought. It betrayed a defensiveness at the White House about that weak jobs report that occurred on Friday. Everyone's scratching their heads trying to figure out exactly why the number of jobs added fell so far short of the million that had been expected, but the Republicans are looking for traction to say Joe Biden's spending spree is not helping the economy, and this became a core talking point for them instantly with that jobs report.

And so what you had is a full blast response from Biden today speaking about the economy from the White House, making this point about how you have to take a job or lose your unemployment benefits trying to push away the idea that he is holding people back with these unemployment benefits, also announcing steps to encourage states to push people back into the work force.

So, Joe Biden's had a lot of things go his way and he has made things go his way early in his administration, success against the vaccine and economic momentum, and this first instance of big uncertainty about the continuation of that momentum caused that very aggressive response from the White House today.

LEMON: Kirsten, there's a new poll from Gallup showing just 26 percent of Americans identify themselves as Republicans, 31 percent as Democrats and 40 as independent. I mean, Dems and independents making up 71 percent of the country, only a quarter of the country wants to claim being a part of the GOP. And listen, unless you think that independents are secret Republicans, but what does that tell you?

POWERS: Well, most independents lean one way or the other, so there's only about 10 percent of them who won't pretty consistently lean towards one of the parties. But what it does tell you is they have taken the time to identify as an independent, and then a lot of cases taken the time to now register as an independent, so they're sending a message that they don't want to be identified with the Republican Party.

They may identify with certain policy ideas, which as you often point out really have nothing to do with anything anymore because the party is no longer about policies. So they're not about low taxes or a strong defense or whatever it is that is -- people traditionally associate them with. And so, yes, I think its saying -- it's saying that I don't want to associate with this.

The problem is that when this happens is that it then makes the party more extreme, right? You know, if you're only -- if you feel like your people are only this small group of people, it becomes so homogeneous.

And this has been a long running trend. It's not like this just happened yesterday. It's been going on for quite some time over the last couple of decades actually, as we've watched also the party sort of purify (ph), so -- but for Republicans in particular, it should be a real cause for concern.

LEMON: John, Kirsten, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Now I want to turn to the massive cyber attack on the critical U.S.

pipeline. The FBI confirming today that a cyber criminal group with ties to Russia called DarkSide is responsible for hacking the largest U.S. fuel pipeline and demanding ransom. Colonial pipeline says that it hopes to restore the lines that run from New Jersey to Texas. They're hoping to do that by the end of the week, but the question is did they pay up? Did they pay up?

Let's talk about that. Our national security analyst Juliette Kayyem is here. Juliette, good evening to you. So, we're talking about this massive attack on critical infrastructure in this country. The White House says that it is a private sector decision, whether or not to pay the ransom. What is the right thing to do in this situation?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST (on camera): In this instance it clearly was not to pay for a variety of reasons. One is this was not -- it was a comprehensive hack, it was not a sophisticated hack. So if the company, which it seems to have done sort of knows anything about cyber security, they had a lot of good people helping them in that realm. They were able to stop, I think, any massive infiltration into the physical infrastructure.

So you basically don't want to play games with these guys because they're untrustworthy. I think the second thing is that, once they discovered that they had been hacked, going offline was the appropriate, though it may seem disproportionate response.

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One is it attributes the hackers or who they are, Russian or eastern European organization, but two, it's the only way really they can purge the sort of cyber attack from the system to protect the physical infrastructure. So people just have to know the physical infrastructure is still intact. It will be fine.

And I think if they can get it on line, just looking at the numbers, we are going to avert any sort of crisis. There's certainly enough capacity for now. I think if it goes past Friday, then you start to worry about American sort of resiliency.

LEMON (on camera): The Homeland Security Department estimates that there's been a 300 percent rise in attacks like this one over the year. This is what we heard from one of the administration's top cyber security officials. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNE NEUBERGER, DEPARTMENT NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR FOR CYBER AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGY: The FBI has provided advice in the past that paying a ransom would encourage further ransomware activity and is so troubling. We recognize, though, that companies are often in a difficult position if their data is encrypted and they do not have backups and cannot recover the data.

(END VIDEO CLIP) LEMON (on camera): So I asked the question when I was introducing you,

the question is should they pay the ransom or did they, so if colonial pipeline did pay the ransom, what's stopping another hacker from doing it again?

KAYYEM: That's exactly right. And if you hear, Anne, the cyber security, WBD national security adviser, I thought she used that press conference as a way as sort of a teachable moment. She was clearly telling other companies don't go down this path. We can't stop you. It's not illegal to do so, but don't go down this path because you'll get -- you could potentially get hacked again.

And two, you don't protect others. In other words, the more success that these ransomware attacks have, the more success that they will continue to have as they go for bigger targets. Look, we have 60 to 70 percent of our critical infrastructure owned by the private sector. They are -- you know, there are vulnerabilities because -- because you have cyber networks controlling physical space, whether it's bridges, dams, or in this case an energy grid.

So, it's incumbent on them to protect themselves. And in this case, I will say one thing. This was a known threat. This is an organization that the FBI had warned the private sector about, so you did hear a little bit from the White House, annoyance may be a little bit strong, but a little bit like private sector including colonial get your act together. We know what these threats are.

So this is the -- I don't want to say its cat and mouse. It's more serious than that, but this is definitely a new form of warfare. We shouldn't view it as different, than a physical attack. These are attacks. The problem is, what's our response? That's the challenge. You can stop money, you can do sanctions, you can attribute. You can try to arrest people, but unless you do an offensive cyber attack, your options are pretty limited, and that's what we're finding ourselves in.

LEMON: President Biden is stopping short of blaming the Kremlin, but I mean, this group is based in Russia. Do you think they could be operating in the country without Putin's knowledge?

KAYYEM: Right. No. I mean, no one does. I understand why the president is saying that. He has a -- you know, he has to chew gum and rub his belly at the same time. There's no proof of attribution that the company is tied to Putin. But no one who knows anything about Russian disinformation and Russian attacks in the last four or five years believes any of this criminal activity occurs without his direct or tacit approval.

So, the president is right because there's no proof, but if you just look at, you know, the methods of the past, it is impossible to believe that this organization, as sophisticated as it is, as sort of, you know, bold as it is to go after colonial, wouldn't know that they would be protected, right, if we found out who they were. They certainly probably feel that way right now. They don't feel like Putin's going to turn on him.

LEMON: Yes. That's certainly a new one for me, chew gum and rub his belly at the same time. Thank you for that.

KAYYEM: Presidents have hard jobs.

LEMON: I will be using that going forward. Juliette Kayyem, thank you very much.

KAYYEM: It's better than the previous president who only kissed the ring. So, I liked this one better.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Thank you, I appreciate it.

KAYYEM: You got it.

LEMON: I want to bring in now Washington Post columnist, Max Boot for his take on the GOP. Max, good evening to you. Good to see you. It's been a minute. I've seen you just a little bit, but not as often as we had before the pandemic.

So Max, we have been talking a lot about the chaos and the dysfunction with Republicans in Washington, but you say it's even worse on the state level. I know this to be true, but I want you to tell our viewers why.

MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST, WASHINGTON POST COLUMNIST (ON CAMERA): Well, there's no real salvation coming for the Republican Party from the state level. I mean, there's this kind of myth that Jeb Bush and others have indulged in that, you know, they're kind of crazy in Washington but they're much saner at the state level.

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In fact, it's actually the reverse. They're actually probably, if anything, a little bit saner in Washington than they are at the state level because the level of pro-Trump fervor at the state level is truly frightening to see. I mean, certainly in Washington you have Liz Cheney being purged as one of the leaders of the House Republicans, but you know, back in her district in Wyoming, she could very easily lose her re-election.

All of these Republicans who dared to vote to impeach Donald Trump for inciting insurrection, they're all being censured by their state parties. You just had the former state treasurer in Ohio, Josh Mandel, saying that Representative Anthony Gonzalez who is one of those Republicans who voted to impeach was quote a traitor and should be eradicated from the Republican Party, which is, you know, the kind of language you expect to see in North Korea, not in the United States.

And then, you know, the most absurd development of all. In Arizona, you have the Arizona Republican Party, which is doing another recount of the ballots in Maricopa County, and they're looking for bamboo fibers because they're chasing some kind of insane conspiracy theory that these ballots were, you know, airlifted from Southeast Asia and dropped into the ballot boxes in Maricopa County. I mean, this is looney tunes but this is actually what Republicans around the country, this is what they really believe, Don.

LEMON: Yes, unfortunately, you're right. In your new piece, you write this, and I quote, you said Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis referred to the states as laboratories of democracy. Republicans are turning them into a Frankenstein lab where they are concocting monstrous lies and nightmares legislation to tear down our democracy. I mean, some key ethical local Republican officials stopped the attempt to overturn the 2020 election. I'm not --

BOOT: But they're all getting punished for doing that now. They're facing a massive backlash from Republicans who hate the fact that you had officials like the Secretary of State in Georgia standing up for the free elections. Now all these local Republicans are trying to manufacture evidence that doesn't exist that somehow Trump was robbed of his rightful victory.

LEMON: So -- but what happens when they're not there? What happens next time if they're not there?

BOOT: No, exactly. The conscientious officials are being replaced pretty rapidly. The whole Republican Party, including at the local level is falling in behind Trump, and so you really have to ask the question in a future election, if it's a close election, is the Republican Party ever going to recognize that it lost, or is it going to cling once again to these fictions about fraud and stolen elections? That's a huge danger to our democracy. It didn't end on January 6th. I think the danger is only growing now.

LEMON: The GOP controlled state legislatures are continuing to pass these laws restricting the right to vote at this point. Is there anything that could be done to stop it?

BOOT: Well, the Senate has to pass hr-1, which is the pro-democracy, pro-voting rights bill that was passed by the House with almost no Republican support, and it's really up to Joe Manchin and a handful of others in the Senate whether they will pass it or not, but it is essential they have to pass it.

LEMON: Before you go, let me ask you this. Do you think this push to suppress the vote could backfire on Republicans?

BOOT: You know, that remains to be seen. I mean, the problem is, yes, there can be outrage against Republicans, but if the voters who might vote for the Democrats can't actually vote, then the Republicans will win. I mean, this is -- unless there's rollback, either from the courts or from Congress, these measures will make it much harder for Democrats to win swing states like Arizona and Georgia, which is exactly the point of this legislation.

LEMON: Max Boot, always a pleasure. Be well.

BOOT: Thanks, Don.

LEMON (on camera): Thank you.

Former Republican -- former president I should say, former president Barack Obama and the former first lady speaking out in the national conversation about race. Next, how Michelle Obama is getting personal about what she fears as a black parent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE U.S.: I want to be as excited as every parent. I don't want to have to worry about her entering a world where she has to worry about how people will treat her because of the color of her skin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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LEMON (on camera): As the first black president and first lady, the Obamas had to walk a fine line in conversations to do with race, but more than four years out of the White House, are things different now? In a new interview with CBS News, the former first lady saying this about the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: While we're all breathing a sigh of relief over the verdict, there's still work to be done, and so we can't sort of say, great, that happened, let's move on. I know that people in the black community don't feel that way because they -- many of us still live in fear as we go to the grocery store or worry about our --

UNKNOWN: Walking our dogs.

OBAMA: Walking our dogs or allowing our children to get a license.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON (on camera): Let's discuss now with CNN political analyst April Ryan and Ashley Allison, she's a CNN political commentator and a former Obama White House staffer. Good evening to both of you. Thanks for joining. Hi, April, you're up first. So, does it seem like the Obamas feel freer now, more free to talk about race on their own terms?

APRIL RYAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALIST (on camera): I don't know if it's about being freer. President Obama back in 2012 talked about race with Trayvon Martin, and you know, Don, I think about going way back to the very beginning to that very first press conference where the issue of police profiling with Skip Gates came up. He made a knee jerk reaction (inaudible) summit, but first term Obama and second term Obama were different.

Second term Obama really dug in a little bit more on race. But I think the first lady has been very consistent in her conversations about race, her frankness about the moments and particularly this moment as black people are hurting, looking for freedom, freedom that they have not had since the inception of being here in this nation for 402 years. And let's define freedom. First class citizenship, not being profiled by police. Being able to be free like our counterparts in white America.

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LEMON (on camera): Yes, April, I just want -- or Ashley, I just want to play this for you, more of what the first lady, former first lady told Gayle King. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GAYLE KING, CBS NEWS ANCHOR: (Inaudible) they're driving?

OBAMA: They're driving, but every time they get in a car by themselves, I worry about what assumption is being made by somebody who doesn't know everything about them. The fact that they are good students and polite girls, but maybe they're playing their music a little loud. Maybe somebody sees the back of their head and makes an assumption. I like so many parents of black kids have -- that the innocent act of getting a license puts fear in our hearts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON (on camera): So Ashley, this is -- is this something that almost every black parent has to go through? I remember when I lived in Atlanta, and I've told this story before, and I would work the late shift and I'd go home. My mom would talk to me all the way home until I was in the house and the alarm was set, and people didn't -- you know, oh, come on, you're making that up. You're making that up, but the first lady is talking about driving while black.

I mean, and she's doing it pretty candidly. We're seeing so much violence against people, black people that start with just routine traffic stops. She's worried that this could even happen to her own daughters. She's speaking to all black parents here.

ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR (on camera): Absolutely. It's not just black parents. It's black people. You know, we live in a world where police violence is real. It can be whether you are driving down the street, whether you're standing on a corner selling Lucy's, whether you're, you know, walking on a street to go to a grocery store. The reality is police violence is real, and when we were in the White House, President Obama felt this exact same way.

He talked about it, even though Trayvon Martin wasn't a police violence killing, he talked about how that could be his son. He talked about how he had been profiled as a young person. I mean, I think if you ever have a conversation with a black person or a person in color, but particularly a black person, you know that's our lived reality.

And if you haven't had that conversation and you think that the election of Obama created this post-racial America, I think the election of Donald Trump woke a lot of people up, but we've been saying this for a very long time, that it is not safe to live as a black person, and we need people to be held accountable when they don't feel like our lives matter. LEMON: And April, in a new op-ed in The New York Times, Charles Blow

talks about the enormous pressures the Obamas faced. And I quote here, there is something more important and natural happening in the lives of the Obamas out of office beyond Donald Trump and in an era in which racial justice is oppressing part of the national conversation.

They have been liberated in their blackness. They're now able to discuss racism with a candor and frankness that their time in the White House in many ways prohibited.

I mean, listen, this is similar to the first question that I asked you, but I tend to agree with Charles Blow in this respect. I do think that they are more uninhibited and actually freer to discuss. Finally, they have space from their time in office that they can be themselves. They can be themselves, and they're not a symbol for, you know -- and everyone is counting on them to, oh, they represent all Americans. The Obamas, yes, they were the first family, but they are black.

RYAN: Yeah, most definitely. You know, they are not running for office again. It's over. It's done. Let's go to first term Barack Obama compared to second term Barack Obama. Barack Obama as president of the United States first term keenly understood the historic nature of his presidency.

He understood that race and politics will always follow him, but you also have people like Mitch McConnell wanting him out. You had the late Rush Limbaugh who was alive at the time saying he wanted him to fail.

He clearly understood that if he brought up matters of race how the Republican Party would pounce on him. Look at the pendulum from the Obama administration to the administration following that.

The pendulum was swinging and there was a hypersensitivity on matters of race, that administration understood, that first Obama administration understood keenly that anytime they would say anything about race you had the Tea Party that came to being because of Barack Obama. They would jump on him. So at the end of the day second term Barack Obama didn't have as much to lose. He was freer.

[23:30:00]

He was able to talk. And now he is citizen Barack Obama, but he still, at the same time, was who he was intrinsically, the president who just happened to be Black, who had black experiences, and he spoke of them often.

LEMON (on camera): Ashley, there are plenty of people who, you know, wanted to act as though the Obama's rising to the presidency was proof that we are, you know, living in this post-racial America, something Obama himself says he never believed. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (voice-over): Here's one thing I never believed -- right -- was the fever of racism being broken by my election. I -- that I was pretty clear about. I never subscribed to the, we live in a post-racial era.

But I think that what did happen during my presidency was, yes, a backlash among some people who felt that somehow, I symbolized the possibility that they or their group were losing status not because of anything I did but just by virtue of the fact that I didn't look like all the other presidents previously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON (on camera): Just by his mere presence in the office and then them seeing him every day in that office. So how much of that hate, Ashley, have we seen in the past years and that blew up on January 6 as a response to what the Obama -- what President Obama's presidency represented?

ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Definitely. I mean, I think to April's point, President Obama's election, the start of the Tea Party, President Obama's presidency not just one term but two terms, you get make America great again.

You know, fast forward four years, Democrats get back in control. And not just Democrats get back in control, but a stronghold in the south, Georgia. Don't forget the day before Black voters delivered Georgia, senators, one a Jewish man and one a Black man, the very next day, you get an insurrection.

So, President Obama's presidency did really unearth the racism that so many people know that has been present in our country and really since then (ph).

But the other thing to keep in mind is when President Obama was elected, we didn't even have the movement for black lives or Black Lives Matter. Our country and the way we talk about race now is very different from 2008, 2012. And in fact, in 2016, there was still some uncertainty in the Democratic Party about Black Lives Matter.

So, I think the arc of our conversation on race is headed in the right direction, but we really have to expose what truly lies underneath and now is in the front page of the Republican Party and race in our country to really deal with the issues.

LEMON: Ashley, April, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Hundreds of people shot or killed in gun violence during a new deadly -- excuse me, during a deadly few days in America, and the number of mass shootings this weekend is absolutely shocking.

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[23:35:00]

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LEMON (on camera): An epidemic of deadly mass shootings over the weekend all across the United States. A group that tracks gun violence reports that at least 420 people were shot or killed in gun violence over the last three days.

More tonight from CNN's Miguel Marquez.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

UNKNOWN: There's a baby down that way.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Panic and chaos in Times Square, the heart of New York City.

UNKNOWN: Shots rang out, three of them, and I think everybody just kind of stopped and was in a shock.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): On Saturday, a gun was pulled as several men fought. Bystanders, two women and a four-year-old girl were hit by gunfire. An NYPD officer seen running with the child calmed her mother in the ambulance.

ALYSSA VOGEL, NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT: She obviously was in a panic that she just saw her little baby get shot, so I was just trying to calm her down and trying to get her to breathe with me.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): All are expected to survive. The New York City shooting happening on a weekend that saw at least nine, nine mass shootings, meaning four or more victims dead or injured nationwide. In all, at least 15 people died, another 30 injured since Friday as a result of mass shootings.

In just one weekend, three mass shootings in California, one each in Arizona, New Jersey, Maryland, Wisconsin, and Missouri. And in Colorado, six shot and killed at a birthday party.

JIM SOKOLIK, SPOKESPERSON, COLORADO SPRINGS POLICE DEPARTMENT: At this point in time, we believe that the individual, the suspect responsible for the shooting is also on scene and also deceased.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Investigators say the shooter, who took his own life, was the boyfriend of one of the women at the party.

Just under two months ago, 10 people were killed at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado by a gunman wielding a military-style semiautomatic rifle and handgun.

On Friday evening, it was a St. Louis County, Missouri park, a neighborhood celebration. Then a truck pulled up and someone in it started firing. Two dead, three injured.

WILLOID WILLIAM, SHOOTING WITNESS: It was all peaceful and beautiful and next thing you know, fire just -- gunfire just erupted.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): In Maryland, it was the suburbs of Baltimore. Three dead, one injured after a gun and knife wielding man set his own home on fire, then shot and stabbed his neighbors.

In Phoenix, Arizona, one man is dead, at least seven more injured after a fight at a hotel. [23:39:58]

MARQUEZ (voice-over): In Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Newark, New Jersey, four people were injured in each city after a shooting broke out in public on the street.

And in California, three shootings in Los Angeles. One was killed, five more injured. Four were injured outside a nightclub near Sacramento. On the same night, two young men were killed, two others injured in Compton.

Miguel Marquez, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

LEMON (on camera): If not now, when? So, we may be turning a major corner in the fight against COVID, but some on the right, whether in Congress or on television, are still insistent on spreading major vaccine misinformation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Good news, everyone. Good news on the coronavirus pandemic to report to you. Sunday saw the lowest number of daily deaths recorded in the U.S. since March 2020. With daily cases the lowest they have been since June.

Joining me now to discuss is CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner. He is the director of the Cardiac Catheterization Program at George Washington University Hospital. I'm rushing because I want to have as much time to talk to you as possible, not that I'm diminishing your resume. So, doctor, good evening. It is so good to have you.

I want you to listen to what Dr. Fauci said when I asked whether it was time to start loosening mask restrictions indoors. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: As more people get vaccinated, the CDC will be almost in real time, George, updating their recommendations and their guidelines. But yes, we do need to start being more liberal as we get more people vaccinated. As you get more people vaccinated, the number of cases per day will absolutely go down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON (on camera): That's hard for a lot of people who have been wearing masks for a long time to hear. Should we be seeing looser guidelines now, doctor?

JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST, DIRECTOR OF CARDIAC CATHETERIZATION PROGRAM AT GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: Yeah, and I'll say it very simply. We wore masks to protect us until we had vaccines. And now we have the vaccines and they work really, really well. So, if you've been vaccinated, you're protected. And what we'll see over the next probably several days is we'll see the CDC basically tell vaccinated Americans that you can basically stop wearing masks in almost every sitting.

Now, I will say -- every setting. Now, I will say that if you are unvaccinated, you are still very vulnerable to get this virus. The virus is still around and you do need to wear a mask. But for vaccinated Americans, the vaccines work spectacularly well and you should be able to stop wearing masks.

LEMON: Yeah. Thank you. Doctor, Senator Rand Paul has been picking fights with Dr. Fauci at Senate hearings. And today, he is tweeting -- and I quote -- "looking forward to tomorrow's hearing, Dr. Fauci," exclamation point, linking to an article about Fauci's unhappiness to -- at being politicized by politicians like Senator Paul.

What are attacks like Rand Paul is doing to public confidence and Dr. Fauci and other scientists who are just trying to save lives?

REINER: Yeah, you know, attacking Tony Fauci is sort of like firing your oncologist when they tell you, you have cancer. Tony Fauci has been, you know, working to put this fire out for the last, you know, 15 months. And the folks on the far-right have basically taken his actions as an affront against their freedoms, you know.

Rand Paul has felt that the coronavirus somehow has impeded his libertarian principles. He's just a buffoon and a side show, and Tony Fauci should just flick him off his shoulder like a dead cicada.

LEMON: Speaking of which, similar, politicizing. Fox and particularly Tucker Carlson have been spreading misinformation and conspiracies about the vaccine. The head of Fox, Rupert Murdoch, has been vaccinated. "Fox and Friends" anchors say that they have been vaccinated. The company had work from home and mask rules in place. So, what's with the lies and the conspiracies on the air?

REINER: Now, that's much more dangerous. There are a lot -- Tucker Carlson has a huge audience every night, and he's been -- quote -- "asking questions," just asking questions. He never has experts that can answer his questions. So he asks questions about vaccine safety. What do we know about -- how safe are these vaccines? We know these vaccines are super safe. Somehow, he never gets to those answers.

And I do want to know Tucker, have you been vaccinated? And there are only two answers to that, either he's been vaccinated and basically has been lying to his audience, you know, creating great doubt about whether these vaccines are needed or safe or efficacious, or he's not been vaccinated in which case he's so dumb that he should not be the anchor of a prime time show. So, which is it, Tucker? Are you dumb or are you lying?

LEMON: Wow! OK, doctor.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Thank you very much.

REINER: Have a good night, Don.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: And on that note, it's good seeing you. Thank you, doctor.

[23:49:56]

LEMON: Georgia's governor signing a bill that repeals a citizen's arrest law dating back -- citizen's arrest law dating back to the Civil War in response to the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, and it's not the only law from that era that belongs in a dust bin of history.

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LEMON: Georgia's governor signing a new law that overhauls the state's citizen's arrest statute. Governor Brian Kemp calling the old law outdated and it was dating back to the Civil War.

The new law is a direct response to the shooting death last year of Ahmaud Arbery while he was out jogging near Brunswick, Georgia in February of 2020.

[23:55:06]

LEMON: He was chased down by three men and shot to death. Two of those men claimed that they were making a citizen's arrest and acting in self-defense. All three now charged with murder.

Governor Kemp saying Arbery was a victim of vigilante-style violence. Arbery's mother and sister present for the bill signing.

My CNN colleague Laura Coates, our senior legal analyst, point out there are still plenty of outdated laws on the books in lots of states all across the country. Laura says those laws are written after the Civil War and were really designed to penalize newly-freed Blacks.

Thanks for watching, everyone. Our coverage continues.

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