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Calls for Policing Reform Show Signs of Progress; U.S. Could See 100K More Deaths by September; Trump Won't Remove Confederate Names from Military Bases; Earlier Lockdown in U.K. Could Have Cut Deaths in Half; Mexico Reports Surge in COVID-19 Cases, Medical Workers Struggle to Get Protective Equipment; Popular Culture Begins Shifting Over Racism Concerns; British Rapper Speaks Out After Police Tase His Dad; Fed Predicts Sluggish Recovery From Pandemic's Impact. Aired 2-3a ET
Aired June 11, 2020 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause.
Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, with more than 2 million confirmed cases, Americans are warned the coronavirus death toll could double by September or worse. More than a dozen states see a surge in hospital admissions.
Also ahead:
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LARRY KUDLOW, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: I don't believe that systemic racism is in the U.S.
VAUSE (voice-over): Denial in the White House, refusing to even accept the existence of systemic racism and ignoring the growing demands from protests now in day 16, demanding racial justice.
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VAUSE (voice-over): And later --
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MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You do not need to be a medical expert to understand that this does not give him the kind of protection he needs.
VAUSE (voice-over): Completely unprepared: COVID-19 takes a toll on Mexico's paramedics and CNN investigates.
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VAUSE: We begin with a country with two pandemics, the coronavirus and racism. Of course, racial justice and police reform are growing louder in the wake of George Floyd's death.
And the coronavirus pandemic which has now infected more than 2 million Americans. On both fronts, the Trump administration is accused of woeful inaction.
From coast to coast, there have been protesting in every state during the past 3 weeks. A majority of Americans making it clear the time has come to confront systemic racism. But the Trump administration is denying the existence of systemic racism, that even exist in the United States.
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WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I think there's racism in the United States still but I don't think that the law enforcement system is systematically racist.
CHAD WOLF, ACTING U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: I do not think we have a system, a racism problem with law enforcement officers across this country.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Do you think systemic racism is a problem in law enforcement agencies in the United States?
BEN CARSON, U.S. HUD SECRETARY: Let's say this; I grew up in a time when there was real systemic racism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: All this is happening as the U.S. hits another staggering coronavirus milestone, now with more than 2 million infections, more than a quarter of all known cases worldwide, more than 110,000 dead.
The crisis is only getting worse and in the past week 19 states have reported an uptick in new infections. The head of Harvard's Global Health Institute predicts the country could see another 100,000 dead by September. Over the past 2 weeks, with so warned could happen has in many states which restarted economies early.
There's a significant increase in hospital admissions of COVID-19. Details on all this from CNN's Erica Hill.
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ERICA HILL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Sobering new data about coronavirus related hospitalizations, up in at least a dozen states since Memorial Day weekend.
DR. MANDY COHEN, SECRETARY, NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: It was our highest day yet of hospitalizations. I continue to be concerned. HILL: In Arizona, 79 percent of the state's ICU beds are currently in use. The director of health services is asking hospitals to activate their emergency plans and reduce or suspend elective surgeries. The overall trends alarming health officials.
RICHARD BESSER, PRESIDENT & CEO, ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION: What concerns me is do we have the systems in place to ensure that a case in a community doesn't lead to a cluster, doesn't lead to an outbreak, doesn't lead to a health care system once again getting overwhelmed?
HILL: Across the country 19 states reporting a rise in new cases over the past week, including Florida, Georgia and South Carolina among the first to reopen. Much of the northeast, seeing a decline.
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): It has to be done right and we have to stay disciplined and the evidence is all around us what happens if we're not.
HILL: New CNN polling shows Americans are split when it comes to returning to their regular routines and whether the worst is behind us. Women are more likely than men to exercise caution. Just 38 percent say they're ready to resume those routines and yet the country moves forward.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've missed it. I mean this is the reason I live here.
HILL: Miami's beaches reopened this morning. Students in Vermont and Rhode Island will be back in the classroom this fall. NASCAR fans can watch the action in person with masks and distance this weekend in Homestead, Florida.
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HILL: The U.S. government says it will fund and study three experimental vaccines this summer, including one from Johnson & Johnson set to begin human trials next month.
BESSER: Even with the vaccine, there may be other steps that we have to continue to take to control coronavirus.
HILL: Face coverings and social distancing here to stay as experts caution this virus is not going away.
DR. ASHISH JHA, DIRECTOR, HARVARD GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE: I understand people are willing to live alongside this virus. It means that between 800 and 1,000 Americans are going to die every single day. We're going to get another 100,000 deaths by September. So that's a catastrophic cost.
HILL: That sobering assessment getting a lot of attention on Wednesday. In the meantime, Mississippi's governor saying very simply, I want COVID-19 to be over too but the data suggests otherwise. His state is one of those seeing a rise in hospitalizations since Memorial Day. Even as we are seeing some of this uptick across the country, there
are more reopenings to tell you about. Los Angeles County, one of the latest, announcing as of Friday, a number of industries can resume operations, including music, film and television production. Back to you.
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VAUSE: With us this hour, Dr. Celine Gounder, a CNN medical analyst and a specialist in infectious diseases.
Dr. Gounder, good to see you.
DR. CELINE GOUNDER, NYU SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: My pleasure.
VAUSE: This is the situation right now, in hospitals in Raleigh, North Carolina. Listen to this.
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DR. MANDY COHEN, N.C. HHS DEPARTMENT: Not only do I see our percent positive tests go up, the number of hospitalizations go up. That's telling me more people are becoming seriously ill in North Carolina.
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VAUSE: And in Arizona's Maricopa County, a similar problem, increasing number of patients. It seems not enough beds. Listen to this.
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DR. REBECCA SUNENSHINE, MARICOPA COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH MEDICAL DIRECTOR: We know that our hospitals are filling up and that the number of remaining ICU beds and hospital beds left for other purposes is declining.
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VAUSE: A dozen states reporting increase in hospital admissions for COVID-19, 19 states increasing the number of infections as well. It's been two weeks since Memorial Day weekend in the U.S., where all these other areas were crowded. The innovation period for the coronavirus average 10 days of 2 weeks.
And from other states seeing these rising numbers, they are the ones that have opened quickly.
Does the headline here say, told you so?
GOUNDER: As a physician and as a public health specialist, I don't like the language "I told you so" because I'm not a big fan of the shaming and blaming people for the decisions they make. I think we all make decisions based on the best information we have and what we are trying to do in the interest of our families and communities.
But that said, did I anticipate these numbers?
Yes. I think about after lifting of the restrictions, it was anticipated you'd see an increase and the real question was by how much. And when you saw the increase, how well prepared are we to cope with it.
I am concerned that some of the places, like in Arizona where I have family, like elderly family in nursing homes and living facilities, I profoundly concerned that they really are not prepared to deal with the many, especially elderly retired people in the state who may be getting sick with coronavirus in the coming weeks.
VAUSE: If you do the math here, the current mortality rate holds, the death toll in the U.S. is expected to rise right under 100,000 by September. A Harvard study looked at this and here's what they believe is driving up those numbers.
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JHA: We are the only major country in the world that opened back up without really getting our cases as down low as we needed to. We are also one of the few kind of advanced countries that doesn't really have a robust testing and tracing infrastructure.
Put all that together and we have made this whole situation far more risky and so, yes, we are certainly the negative effects of opening up. And I've argued we could open up safely and get our economy back but we have got to do it smartly emerges and we're not doing it the way we need to.
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VAUSE: Again, this comes down to what we are being told along, that if you open up the economy, you need to have testing and tracing and those things aren't in place.
GOUNDER: That's right, John. I think there are very few counties, states that have done the whole package of preparedness. And a big one that is still really lacking in almost every single county across the country is the contact tracing capacity.
Even as we test people and find out they're positive, are you able to then go back and figure out who they may have exposed and test them and make sure to isolate them so you can stop chains of transmission?
That is an area where we are woefully underprepared, everywhere, frankly.
VAUSE: In a way, if you're looking at the situation across the country right, now does it seem like sort of a lot of people are almost giving up the fight against the coronavirus?
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VAUSE: Almost acceptance that what will happen will happen?
GOUNDER: I think there's some of that and also some of is it still a problem and I think unfortunately the news headlines are being driven by what the president and others think is a priority and a problem. And it doesn't really matter how many cases we still have and how much transmission we have on the ground if it's not politically expedient to pay attention to that.
We don't pay attention to that. I think that is going to be really problematic in the coming weeks, where we are not doing what we need to be doing, to respond. And I think there is somewhat of a denial of sorts, you could say, John. We just don't want to face up to what it's really going to take to prevent the deaths.
VAUSE: It does seem to be a sort of reluctance to embrace reality and move forward. It's like a cling to the past at the moment. Dr. Celine Gounder, good to see you.
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VAUSE: The 16th day of protests across the U.S., bringing concrete demands and signs of progress. Protesters in Boston marched on city hall Wednesday, telling the city council to redirect police funding.
There was more spent on violence prevention, youth jobs programs and mental health counseling. New York governor Andrew Cuomo is expected to sign a package of police reform bills by end of this week including banning chokeholds and releasing officers' disciplinary records.
At least 12 cities and municipalities in the United States are banning or have banned chokeholds by police, including Phoenix, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, Miami, Chicago, Washington, Minneapolis, New York, Denver as well as Houston.
Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress are looking for common ground on police reform as well and they heard emotional testimony from an important witness on Wednesday. CNN's Jeremy Diamond reports now from the White House.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Tonight, an emotional plea on Capitol Hill.
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PHILONISE FLOYD, GEORGE'S BROTHER: George wasn't hurting anyone that day. He didn't deserve to die over $20.
I am asking you, is that what a black man is worth?
Twenty dollars?
This is 2020. Enough is enough. The people marching in the streets are telling you, enough is enough.
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DIAMOND: George Floyd's brother intensifying the pressure on President Trump and Congress to reform policing in America.
FLOYD: I'm here to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain. Stop us from being tired.
DIAMOND: House Democrats unveiled an ambitious reform package this week and Senate Republicans are drafting legislation. But two weeks after George Floyd was killed, President Trump is still silent about what kinds of reforms he will support.
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We do believe that we will have proactive policy prescriptions, whether that means legislation or an executive order.
DIAMOND: White House officials have sought proposals from criminal justice reform advocates and are now drafting an executive order, the White House also keeping tabs on legislation being drafted by Republican Senator Tim Scott.
But the draft GOP legislation doesn't include a provision to ban police choke holds or change the qualified immunity legal doctrine to make it easier to sue cops.
It also requires states maintain a database of uses of police force that result in death, or lose federal funds. Democrats want to mandate a federal database.
And on body cameras, the Republican proposal is to mandate police wear them when arresting and detaining people. Democrats would require federal uniformed officers to wear them at all times. Scott said he expects to release his legislation on Friday, but will
Trump support it?
SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): If history is a teacher, the president has been receptive for the last three years on the priorities that I have brought to him. I try to make sure that they're sensible and directed toward the American people and not towards partisan and/or politics at all. Hopefully, he will have the same approach.
DIAMOND: Tonight, the president's top economic adviser became the latest Trump official to deny the existence of systemic racism in the U.S.
LARRY KUDLOW, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: I don't believe there is systemic racism in the U.S.
DIAMOND: Meanwhile, Trump's aides are still answering for the controversies that are leaving Senate Republicans squirming, like Trump's baseless claim that a 75-year-old man who was severely injured after police pushed him was an Antifa provocateur.
MCENANY: The president was asking questions about an interaction in a video clip he saw. And the president has the right to ask those questions.
The president does not regret standing up for law enforcement men and women across this country.
QUESTION: Isn't it incumbent on the president to have facts?
MCENANY: The president did have facts before he tweeted it out that undergirded his question.
QUESTION: A baseless conspiracy theory.
MCENANY: It is not a baseless conspiracy, no, not at all. I won't not acknowledge.
DIAMOND: The president also rejecting a proposal by his defense secretary to have a, quote, "bipartisan conversation" about renaming military bases named after Confederate commanders.
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DIAMOND (voice-over): Tweeting, "My Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations."
DIAMOND: President Trump on Wednesday did have a roundtable with some conservative black reporters but we did not hear more from the president about what types of policing reforms he actually would support.
The president did certainly weigh in on his plans to boost his reelection campaign. We know the president has been extremely concerned about his sagging poll numbers. He is down about 10 points against the former vice president, Joe Biden, according to an average of several polls.
The president, eager to restart his rallies, announcing that he will be having his first one in Tulsa, Oklahoma, next week -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, the White House.
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VAUSE: And the president's poll numbers, Jeremy Diamond referenced, brought an unprecedented response from the Trump reelection campaign.
CNN received a letter demanding the poll be retracted an issue an apology. CNN has rejected that demand and stands by the poll, which shows Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden leading Donald Trump by double digits. If you'd like to read the entire poll, which outraged the president, head over to cnn.com.
To Minneapolis now, new developments in the case against the officers charged in George Floyd's death. Fired officer Thomas Lane is now free on $750,000 conditional bail. He's one of 2 rookies involved in Floyd's arrest. The city's police chief is pulling out of contract talks with the police union, while he implements a number of changes within the department. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHIEF MEDARIA ARRADONDO, MINNEAPOLIS POLICE DEPARTMENT: This department in its 152 years has certainly had its issues and has been broken and I brought attention to that a decade ago.
But I didn't abandon it and the reason why I didn't abandon it is because I believe in it and I have the ability and the obligation, I see the men and women every day who are coming here, who want to make this department that is truly one that our committees will trust and embrace.
So, I believe in that, to my core. What occurred to Mr. Floyd absolutely should have never happened. It has set this department back. I make no allowance for that. It certainly has. I believe that there is hope and I believe that there is space for us to get better here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Coming, up a British scientist says if the government had acted sooner, the coronavirus death toll would've been significantly lower. When we come back, we will have the response to that claim from prime minister Boris Johnson.
Also, as paramedics put their lives on the line to deal with COVID-19, some in Mexico say they are still not getting the proper protective equipment. We will have that in a moment.
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VAUSE: U.K. death toll from the coronavirus stands at more than 50,000 according to the Office for National Statistics and the difference between life and death for 25,000 people was just a week. At least that's the claim from one expert, if only the government, he said, had acted one week earlier.
The nation went into lockdown on March 23rd, weeks after other countries in Europe. However, prime minister Boris Johnson says that decision was based purely on scientific advice.
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BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: We made the decisions at the time on the guidance of sage (ph), including Professor Ferguson who we thought were right for this country. I think that the questions that are posed are still unanswered and there's a lot of data that we still, frankly, do not have.
(END VIDEO CLIP) VAUSE: England continues to put its plans for reopening. CNN's Scott McLean joins us live from London.
Scott, we had the prime minister insisting he was following the advice from the scientists. There have been demands for that advice to be released to the public.
Will that happen?
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's a great question, John. The reality is that this government has taken a lot of incoming fire over its handling of the coronavirus crisis, from its preparedness level, to its testing capacity, to the strictness of the lockdown itself. It's easy to understand why.
The U.K. has one of the highest death rates per million in the entire world, higher than the United States. As you mention, this leading British epidemiologist told the parliamentary committee yesterday at the death toll could have been halved that 57,000 number could have been halved if the country had acted a week sooner.
As you said, it acted on March 23rd, well after countries like Spain and Italy, the prime minister said he acted based on scientific advice, including from that epidemiologist, Neil Ferguson, who was on the committee who was giving the government advice on that topic but was forced to resign after a newspaper revealed that he himself had broken the lockdown rules.
The chief medical officer for the United Kingdom, Chris Whitty, was also asked about this and he said at the time the decision was, made he said that they didn't know a whole lot about the virus. A lot less than they know now, for sure. He also said this --
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DR. CHRISTOPHER WHITTY, BRITISH CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER: Be very clear, we are not at the end of this epidemic, not by a long shot. We are in the middle of it and what do we actually wait until all the data comes in and we look back and say these are the right things to do.
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MCLEAN: So John, in the last 24 hours, almost 250 new COVID-19 deaths were recorded in the U.K. But despite that, the government says there are enough promising signs about the numbers to move forward with even further relaxations of restrictions that have been put in place.
We already know that shops and stores are going to be opening on Monday, the prime minister also announced that churches, mosques, synagogues, places of worship will be allowed to reopen this weekend for individual prayer, rather than mass services.
And here's one other interesting thing that the government is doing, they are allowing something called a support bubble. This applies only to single adults or single parent families, where they can sort of combine and act as if they're one household to ward off loneliness. The catch here is that you can't change households. If you pick one,
you have to stick with it and if one person from either household ends up coming down with coronavirus symptoms, well, everybody then has to isolate.
VAUSE: You have to like them a lot, I guess. Appreciate it, Scott McLean.
Some areas in Latin America are also starting to reopen, even though the region is the world's coronavirus hot spot. Johns Hopkins University is reporting that more than 70,000 people have now died and Brazil is accounting for more than half.
It's confirming the third highest death toll in the world, just after the United States and U.K. Coronavirus cases surging Mexico as, well the country reported nearly 5,000 new infections on Wednesday. Paramedics are responding to a mounting numbers of calls but as CNN's Matt Rivers shows us, many are struggling to simply protect themselves.
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RIVERS (voice-over): They chant his name and the sirens wail.
This is a tribute to Dr. Miguel Angel Perez Alvarado, a doctor who worked in Mexico City. He died last month of COVID-19. For weeks the father of three girls treated patients with the virus.
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RIVERS (voice-over): "He was worried, his wife, Nancy, tells us, "because he knew his working conditions weren't safe."
Dr. Perez told her he wasn't given the right protective equipment on the, job and he's not. Alone 7 paramedics and a doctor that work in public ambulances told us the same. Thing here one demonstrates how water can be sprayed through the coveralls they've been given. Duct tape is now important, they use it to patch holes in their suits and to tape garbage bags to isolate COVID cases inside their ambulances.
Speaking anonymously for fear of losing his job, this paramedic says he and his colleagues had to buy their own equipment.
He says, "They are sending us into a war with nothing. You don't send a firefighter to a fire without protection."
RIVERS: This is the mask that the paramedic said the government issued him and you don't need to be a medical expert to know that this doesn't give him the protection he needs.
RIVERS (voice-over): The paramedics we spoke to work for two sections of Mexico's health ministry. They said that all their paramedics have the required supplies, statements that seem demonstrably untrue, especially when you see how it is supposed to be done.
We spent time with a Red Cross crew, private volunteers who have all the right equipment and even designated COVID-19 units. That's a necessity because the worst of Mexico's epidemic is happening. Now on a 12 hour shift there were 12 COVID calls. Sometimes we were too late.
RIVERS: We got this call a little over 20 minutes now and we just arrived on scene and in that time the 43-year-old female victim had already died of symptoms consistent of COVID-19.
RIVERS (voice-over): And arriving with patients still alive didn't always matter; 72 year-old Maria Isobel Cruz Hernandez (ph) was taken from her apartment and brought to the hospital and her son tells us she has since passed.
After each exhausting call, trucks and paramedics are sprayed from head to toe with a special disinfectant. Paramedics in government run units say they try to disinfect, once again with supplies they bought themselves.
(Speaking Spanish).
"Are you scared?" we ask.
"Always," he said. "You don't, sleep scared for myself, scared of infecting my family and scared of ending up like Dr. Perez."
Two days after he went to the hospital, he texted a final message to his wife.
"He said, 'Be careful, I love you. All" That was the last time we spoke.
Eight days later Dr. Perez passed Away -- Matt Rivers CNN, Mexico city.
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VAUSE: Still to come, are they a part of history or a modern-day reminder of slavery and oppression?
The long and bitter debate over Confederate statues and monuments once again heating up.
Also, why police in the U.K. are saying their tactics are nothing like the ones in the U.S. although a British rapper whose dad was Tasered by the British cops might just disagree.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, protests which began over the death of George Floyd are now focusing on official reminders of a racist past, often symbols of the Confederacy, the southern slaveholding states that seceded from the U.S. in the 1860s.
The statues you see coming down here are in Alabama, Kentucky, and Virginia, but there are also 11 Confederate statues in the U.S. Capitol. And the most powerful Democrat in Washington wants them gone. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says there is no room for celebrating the violent bigotry of these Confederate leaders in places of honor.
There's also a push to rename U.S. military bases bearing the names of Confederate commanders. But the U.S. president calls them part of a great American heritage, tweeting, "My administration may not even consider the renaming of these magnificent and fabled military installations."
Well, despite Donald Trump's staunch stands, a cultural shift does appear to be starting, not just in politics and policing, but also in entertainment as well. Brian Todd shows us how it's all happening.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Keep your hand where I could see it.
BRIAN TODD, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: For more than three decades, the show Cops was lauded as a real-life, unfiltered, intimate look at the daily lives of law enforcement officers. But now Cops has been unceremoniously dumped from the cable T.V. universe canceled by the Paramount network which says it has no plans for the show to return.
Worldwide protests after the police killing of George Floyd have drawn new scrutiny on shows like Cops and the similar popular A&E show Live PD. A Live PD crew was filming when Javier Ambler, an African American man died in police custody last year in Austin, Texas.
In newly released police bodycam video, he can be seen yelling I can't breathe, a plea also made by George Floyd. A critic who's investigated the show cops says the program often lead off with crimes committed by African Americans at a disproportionate rate. And that these shows generally offered a distorted picture of police as the good guys.
DAN TABERSKI, HOST AND PRODUCER, RUNNING FROM COPS PODCAST: Those shows are built to scare people and to make people believe that the only thing between them and the violence they're seeing on that show is the thin blue line.
TODD: Police reality shows are not the only showbiz icons under the microscope after George Floyd's killing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You've briefed so long Ms. Scarlett. You just got go on being brave.
TODD: HBO Max owned by the same company as CNN has removed the classic film Gone with the Wind from its catalog. The 1939 movie which romanticizes the South during the Civil War will be brought back HBO says but we'll include a discussion of its historical context and the denunciation of racism.
NISCHELLE TURNER, HOST, ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT: Yes, indeed it does glorify the antebellum south and yes, that it does whitewash slavery. So I think the movie does have its place in history, but it definitely is a problematic movie in a lot of ways. And I think having a conversation about that is appropriate.
TODD: Audiences are also seeking out films and shows about the black experience and racial justice, movies like Just Mercy and The Hate You Give, documentaries like 13th, T.V. shows like Blackish. And of the top five best-selling books on Amazon, four of them are about race, including titles like White Fragility, and How to be an Antiracist.
STEVEN THRASHER, PROFESSOR, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY: This is a real big cultural shift. All of these very powerful players throughout the society from Hollywood to City Hall are now responding to the protesters after just a couple of weeks of action, and they're able to do what electoral politics is largely failed to do.
TODD: The cultural shift has also made its way to the racetrack following pleas by African American NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace. NASCAR has just announced its banning fans from bringing Confederate flags to races.
As for those cop reality shows, some critics have called for them to be completely purged from T.V. but analysts say that's unlikely. They say several cable networks have committed their lineups to true crime shows and reruns of the show Cops can still be seen on some cable stations. Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
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VAUSE: Joining us now from Washington is Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, a sociology professor at Georgetown University and author of Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America. Professor, good to see you again.
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, PROFESSOR, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: Thanks. Great to see you as well.
VAUSE: OK, well, since we last spoke, it seems there's been this sort of real shift in society which has picked up some momentum, the removing Confederate monumental statues, banning the Confederate flag from NASCAR, you know, surging sales of books of racism. It seems white people are looking at T.V. shows and films in ways they never did before. How do you see what's happening right now?
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DYSON: Well, I think it's a salutary development. It's tragic that it took this kind of horror and terror that Black America has experienced over the last 400 years for it to finally be brought home to the nation that we are suffering, that we are enduring enormous travesties and tragedies.
And yet at the same time, we appreciate the fact that there has seems to be a significant and substantial shift in understanding about race and an eagerness and the curiosity that is genuine in trying to figure out what's going on. So those developments are good.
VAUSE: Last week, former Major League Baseball outfielder Torii Hunter, he told ESPN, "I've been called the N-word in Boston 100 times from little kids, and grownups right next to them didn't say anything." Few hours ago, the Boston Red Sox released a statement supporting Hunter. "Torii Hunter's experience is real. If you doubt him Because you've never heard it yourself, take it from us. It happens. Last year, there were seven reported incidents at Fenway Park where fans use racial slurs. Those are just the ones we know about."
It seems to take one or two attitudes towards this. The first is, well, why was it something done long before now? Or you can look at this as being the start of what is the sort of a very difficult reckoning and acknowledgement period of past wrongs for this country.
DYSON: Yes, we got it. We got to move on. Not that we have to deny that. We've spent so much time as black people saying this is the real deal. Now, that people are coming to it, they have to acknowledge it. That's extremely important, because acknowledgment is only part of the process the beginning.
After you acknowledge it, and the way you do so, determines what you will do subsequently. And in terms of doing it subsequently, what we have to say is that -- excuse me for that -- what we have to say is that America is ready to engage in serious and sustained dialogue about what is going on in the country. And as a result of it, we've got to figure out a way together to forge connections, build bridges, and have a determination in every arena of life, that it is time for us to move forward.
So in that case, I think America is doing a good thing. We can't live as Gore Vidal said, in the United States of amnesia. We have to claim our membership in the kingdom of memory. But having done that, if we can determine to move forward with substantial action, that will be a great thing.
VAUSE: Whatever is happening in the United States right now, it is not being led by the President. For example, when it comes to the 10 army bases name for Confederate Army officers, he tweeted this. "These monumental and very powerful bases have become part of a great American heritage and a history of winning, victory, and freedom. The United States of America trained and deployed our heroes on these hallowed grounds, won two world wars. Therefore, my administration would not even consider the renaming of these magnificent and fabled military installations."
In a way, the president stands as a kind of almost adding to the enthusiasm and the momentum for those who really want change.
DYSON: Well, absolutely, because here's a man who has been stubborn and arthritic in his refusal to let go of old premises that no longer suddenly work. I mean, here was a man who was used to ginning up racial consternation as the premise of his presidency. He is going on June 10th, the day when black people finally found out that they were freed, indeed, as the word got around and didn't have an internet back then. He's going to Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is the site of one of the worst racial massacres, racist massacres in America.
So here's a man on a day celebrating the liberty of black people the emancipation word finally getting the black people at a site of enormous slaughter to have a rally. This is a kicking dust in the face of black people. This is a refusal to acknowledge the change that must happen. And hopefully, what people will see those who are enraged and those who are engaged will find out finally, that Donald Trump means no good for America in must be removed, like the monuments he refuses to let go of.
VAUSE: This is not to say, though, that the President is not listening to members of the African American community. On Wednesday, he invited conservative black radio hosts to the White House. This is what they said to him. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BEN CARSON, SECRETARY OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, UNITED STATES: I am delighted, Mr. President, that you have made it a priority to solve this problem.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. President, for allowing us to come.
WAYNE DUPREE, HOST, THE WAYNE DUPREE SHOW: I met President Trump when he was a businessman. I think he's a natural leader.
JARON SMITH, DEPUTY ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT, DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF AMERICAN INNOVATION: What we've done through your leadership is start to break down that system and fight back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've been nothing short of this horrible.
[02:40:01]
RAYNARD JACKSON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, RAYNARD JACKSON AND ASSOCIATES: If you want to the truth, if you want us to dissect the Obama economy, let's do it. I think, Mr. President, your record will win the debate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Ben Carson, the housing secretary was also there. But there's nothing wrong with meeting and talking to people with diverse points of view. There is a problem, though, when all they're telling you how amazing you are.
DYSON: Yes. And I don't see much of diversity going on there. And when does he meet with those who are diverse, whose opinions different from those? When is he meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus to hear their truth? When is he -- when is he generating meetings with the NAACP, the National Urban League, the National Action Network with the Reverend Al Sharpton.
So there are many diverse viewpoints within African American culture that could be expressed. What he is doing is exclusively focusing on an echo chamber of black conservatives, who you must know are a small percentage of African American people, and extremely low percentage of people subscribe to their beliefs.
So as a result that, what you're doing is predetermining and self -- you know, selecting people who will not only echo you, but you're predetermining that the outcome will be black support because it's such a small sliver of black people who are represented there.
So that doesn't do anything for Mr. Trump. It doesn't add up his value in the polls. It doesn't give him a stronghold within black communities. And given the racial animus that is flowing now, and the determination to oppose it, his siding with the monuments proves that he is not only out of step but like those monuments, he's frozen in time and in need of removal.
VAUSE: Professor, we're out of time ourselves, so thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it.
DYSON: Thank you so much for having me.
VAUSE: A British rapper and his father have accused London police brutality during a confrontation last month. Wretch also known as Jermaine Scott Sinclair post a video in social media of police tasering his father. Law enforcement officials though in the U.K. have defended their tactics saying they're very different when compared to police in the United States. CNN's Nic Robertson explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: As police rush into a house looking for a suspect, they taser a 62-year-old father on the stairs. All this during lockdown. The police body cam video emerging as global anger over policing and racism rises in the wake of George Floyd's killing.
MILLARD SCOTT, TASERED BY BRITISH POLICE: At this moment in time, we are being singled out and targeted.
ROBERTSON: The son of the victim, not involved in the police incident is rapper Wretch 32.
WRETCH 32, RAPPER: I've grown up in a household with my dad and my uncle, and I've watched him fight against police brutality my whole life. And I now have to have the same conversations that my dad and my uncle and my grandparents and my parents had with me when I was a child. That means there's no progression.
ROBERTSON: Police dispute Scott's version of events and say an internal review has revealed no misconduct. A statement released by London's most senior minority officer says that progress in dealing with racism in the police has been made over recent decades.
And in what appears to be an effort to delink anger at George Floyd's death from anger at British police says no comparison can be made between British and U.S. police forces. Because here he says, they police by consensus mostly not force.
His point, the heavily armed tear gas wielding cops who bought down on peaceful protesters near the White House last week so President Trump could pose Bible in hand for a photo-op outside a looted church wouldn't be the tactic of choice in the U.K. The subtext for protesters here, don't react to British cops as if they would.
By contrast with many of their us counterparts, British police mingle with peaceful protesters. Officers armed with little more than handcuffs, gauging the crowd's mood. Out of sight down side streets, a heftier force is on standby.
COLIN ROGERS, POLICE SCIENCES PROFESSOR: The result has been completely different. There's more consensus, there's more peaceful demonstration. So I think -- I think that you know that there's too quick perhaps a reaction to go to war paramilitary methods of dealing with people in demonstration situation.
ROBERTSON: But getting to this point hasn't been easy. Just a decade ago, a police killing spot riots heard around the world where the toughest policing lessons were learned was Northern Ireland. Confrontation and perceptions of police bias exacerbated and prolong the three-decade conflict there.
Today Police are still firebombed and shot at, but are more likely to draw a line, sit in their armored wagons than respond in kind. Even so, today's protests in London still offer a very real glimpse of how quickly tensions can escalate.
At the heart of it, still anger protesters are being ignored. A police problem, yes, but at its root, a political one too. Nic Robertson, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[02:45:38]
VAUSE: Well, we all know the economy is bad and grim but finances (INAUDIBLE). Coming up, projections on GDP and unemployment to the U.S. in the months ahead.
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VAUSE: The Federal Reserve is warning the U.S. economy could need years of extraordinary support to recover from the pandemic. Unemployment is expected to stay above nine percent by year's end. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell says women, black, and Hispanic workers all bearing the brunt of this crisis. The Fed also projects a 6.5 percent decline, a recession in gross domestic product this year.
CNN's John Defterios live for us in Abu Dhabi. So did the Fed Chairman just take the punchbowl away and killed off any hope of a V-shaped recovery?
JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN BUSINESS EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: Well, he's very direct in his words, John. And he did not talk about a V-shaped recovery, something that the White House has been trying to promise here in the second half of 2020. So I would say yes, he did pull the punchbowl.
And he said that the government has to be involved at least through 2022. You know, we have $3 trillion of $8 trillion worldwide being spent. The three is coming from the United States alone. And he made it extremely clear that interest rates aren't going anywhere, not in 2021 or 2022. Let's take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEROME POWELL, CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL RESERVE: We're not thinking about raising rates. We're not even thinking about thinking about raising rates. So what we're thinking about is providing support for this. And we do think this is going to take some time. I think most forecasters believe that. It would be great if we got a whole bunch more months of job creation like that, notwithstanding that, as I mentioned, there are just a lot of people that are unemployed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEFTERIOS: So let's look at the numbers here. We got down to 13.3 percent which is historically high. In your lead in, John, you talked about nine percent. We have a graphic here showing what it's going to look like in 2021 and the year after. 6.5 and 5.5 percent is still high in the labor market that's very flexible and can fire people very quickly.
The average run rate is four percent. Even the OECD, the Paris-based group of industrialized nations was suggesting that we saw unemployment rise 2.5 percent worldwide, which is astronomical. And they said it's the worst peacetime crisis in a century. That is the context. So nobody should really believe that we kind of go off to the races and recover in the second half.
[02:50:37]
VAUSE: We're still looking at the job numbers again coming out later on today in the U.S. Expect to show some improvement which again is a relative term. But they can actually be bad news for people who are on benefits right now because the Republicans are looking at ending what's been an extra $600 a month being paid out to the unemployed, because these numbers are improving at least on paper.
DEFTERIOS: Well, it's a terrific flag in your part editorially because Jerome Powell was suggesting there is a role for leadership and Congress here to keep the money funneling in because consumers feel that tough times are ahead after those payments stop. The slope is down, John, on this weekly number. And we like it because indeed the trend line is lower, but it's very current this number.
So we went below two million on the jobless claims last weekend. And then we're going to probably get to 1.5 million this week. But don't tell those that are unemployed because we could have a whole generation of those graduating right now that are suffering. If you want to keep a tally. It's nearly 43 million now. It's going to go above that number later today. And we could get to 50 million by July. This is something that the Federal Reserve actually flagged at the beginning of the crisis nearly three months ago.
VAUSE: John, thank you. John Defterios live for us as always in Abu Dhabi. I appreciate it. Well, creating a business is never easy, even more so, it's harder if you're a black entrepreneur. We'll look at the obstacles they face in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: Black entrepreneurs in the U.S. say they're being held back by a combination of systemic discrimination, racial bias, and a lack of access to funding. CNN's Clare Sebastian spoke with several black business owners about the challenges they faced.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In 2016, an e- commerce startup set out to fill a gap in the market delivering hard to find African and Caribbean groceries to immigrant communities. A need close to the hearts of the two Nigerian American founders.
BOYEDE SOBITAN, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, OJAEXPRESS: I think most piercing food feedback we got was an investor we spoke with that took a meeting with us, asked us if immigrants even have money. And that was like when that -- when that happened, my purpose of the meeting was over. They didn't believe in the market.
SEBASTIAN: It would be another four years and around $200,000 of their own money before Boyede Sobitan and Fola Dada were accepted into several accelerated programs and gained some seed funding. They're now planning to expand beyond their hometown of Chicago.
Between 2013 and 2017, only one percent of venture backed founders in the U.S. were black according to a study by RateMyInvestor.com. It's a struggle Diana Vertus knows all too well. She started her boutique events business in 2010 with just $2,500.
[02:55:01]
DIANA VERTUS, FOUNDER, CURATION AGENCY: I was extremely discouraged by one investor. I wish too that I should have a Caucasian person, be the face of the company, and I should be the background. And that was like a way for me to get more funding. From that point on, I did not move forward with asking for funding.
SEBASTIAN: Before COVID-19 hits, she had hired a small team and was making six figures in annual revenue. In the wake of the nationwide protests that followed the killing of George Floyd, there has been a wave of support for black entrepreneurs. SoftBank has launched a new $100 million opportunity fund intended only for people of color. Andreessen Horowitz announcing a $2.2 million fund for underserved founders.
MELISSA BRADLEY, MANAGING PARTNER, 1863 VENTURES: I am deeply concerned about the amount of money that is pouring into our community that is probably going to be controlled by the people who write the check who don't understand our reality, who don't experience the racism and challenges we have, and the desired outcomes will be unrealistic.
SEBASTIAN: Melissa Bradley, who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations has spent several decades funding and mentoring black and minority businesses. She says this is about much more than just invested prejudice. According to 2014 data from the Federal Reserve, 47 percent of black-owned businesses who applied for credit were fully funded, compared to 75 percent of white-owned.
BRADLEY: The inputs for those credit scores require a set of assets that oftentimes are declined to black Americans. And so, you obviously get different ratings if you rent versus you own. You obviously get different ratings if you have student loan debt versus no student loan debt. And those are inputs that are to no fault of our own, but literally because of lack of access, lack of scholarship, bias in applications, but yet we are penalized for the rest of our lives.
SEBASTIAN: Do you think this might be a moment where things change?
VERTUS: I'm optimistic that things will change, but I don't want it to be a one-time marketing campaign with these companies.
SOBITAN: We're not looking for a handout. We're not looking for charity. We're looking for the same type of access they'll give a white founder.
SEBASTIAN: Clare Sebastian, CNN, New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. It's time for a cup of tea if you want because I'll be back at the top of the hour with a lot more news. Stay with us.
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