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Texas Governor Says Safest Place is at Home; Miami Newspaper Reports Younger People Getting Sick; 26 States Report Increases in Coronavirus Cases; Prosecutors Accuse Barr, DOJ of Politicizing Investigations; Senate Democrats to Block GOP Police Reform Bill; Jon Stewart: Building Black Equity is Our Generation's Challenge. Aired 9- 9:30a ET

Aired June 24, 2020 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:00:1000]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Very good Wednesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Poppy Harlow.

Twenty-six states now and rising. More than half of the states in this country now dealing with a spike in coronavirus cases.

Is the president paying attention? On the same day that he's holding an indoor event in a state with rising infections without a mask on, that was yesterday in Arizona. Top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies to the House about a rise of infections and calls it disturbing. He warns the next two weeks are critical in stopping it.

SCIUTTO: Listen to that. An inflection point. And the trend lines here so concerning in Texas that the governor there, and I'll remind you a key ally of President Trump, says the safest place to be right now is at home. That's the governor of Texas.

And as hospitals in south Florida continue to deal with the surge in patients the "Miami Herald" is reporting that many of those beds are being taken up by younger people who seem less sick. Again, watch the numbers.

Watching closely as all of this unfolds is the European Union. They are now considering their own travel ban. Who's the target? The U.S. could be on a list of countries barred from entering Europe.

HARLOW: We're covering all the angles this morning. Let's begin with our correspondent Lucy Kafanov. She joins us live in Dallas.

And Lucy, I mean, to Jim's point, it's a big deal that Governor Abbott is saying this.

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is a big deal. I mean, these coronavirus cases are surging across 26 states as you point out including right here in Texas. President Donald Trump's top health advisers describing this as something that's bringing America to its knees. Dr. Anthony Fauci describing this as a disturbing surge in cases. He is expressing concern at the aggressive economic openings championed by the president.

He is also warning, as you point out, that the next few weeks are going to be critical. This as he and other top officials say they haven't spoken to the president about the epidemic in more than 2 1/2 weeks.

Now California and Texas, let's remind our viewers, these are the two most populist states in America inundated by the number of cases. Here in Texas we've seen a spike of more than 5,000 new cases. This is a very large number. Hospitalizations as well are surging by more than 10 percent. There is increased concern about hospital bed capacity. Now this does vary region to region, but in places like Houston, for example, the concern is so strong that the Texas Children's Hospital is now making room for adult patients. Patients suffering from COVID, the most critical cases here.

Now, despite all of this, the governor here in Texas says that the -- that we're not going to see another economic lockdown. Schools for example are still going to be reopening during the summer as planned. He is urging folks to stay home. There's growing concern about public gatherings, mass gatherings especially in light of the upcoming 4th of July holiday. Some new small restrictions that he's putting into place, for example, is empowering local authorities to be able to restrict the number of public gatherings of over 100 people or more. The previous threshold he said set was 500 people or more -- guys.

HARLOW: OK. Lucy, thanks very much for that reporting live from Dallas.

Let's go to Miami now. Our colleague Rosa Flores is there where the governor is still resisting any sort of back tracking on closures but also resisting a statewide order to mandate masks despite, you know, a record daily number of cases there.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're absolutely right, Poppy. And as Jim just mentioned moments ago, if you read the newspaper here in Miami this morning you'll read that area hospitals are seeing a rise in younger patients as well.

Look, we've talked about this for a while now. Governor Ron DeSantis has said he is not shutting down the economy, he is not going to require masks statewide despite the fact that the number of cases, the number of hospitalizations keep rising.

Let's just look at Miami-Dade alone. This is the epicenter of this crisis here in the state of Florida. And we looked at the numbers that were released by the mayor's office just yesterday was a bit of a record. 25 percent of the tests that were posted tested positive for COVID-19. That's a quarter of the tests. Two weeks ago, that number was 9 percent. The number of hospitalizations are also up by 42 percent. If we look at the numbers released by Jackson Health, which is one of

the largest health systems in the state of Florida, in the past 15 days they have seen a 101 percent increase in the number of COVID-19 patients. That's why multiple mayors here in Miami-Dade where I am and our neighboring county of Palm Beach, they are requiring masks to be worn all the time, to be worn in public, because of this increase.

Now, Governor Ron DeSantis like we mentioned is not requiring masks statewide, but he is sending inspectors out to businesses to ensure that they're following the rules.

[09:05:06]

And Jim and Poppy, we learned that one business in Orlando was shut down because 13 employees and 28 customers tested positive there for COVID-19.

SCIUTTO: Listen, more people are getting sick and that just fights this notion that it's just about increased testing. Watch the numbers of hospital admissions.

Rosa Flores, thanks very much.

HARLOW: Although health experts agree that face coverings help prevent by a lot the spread of COVID, many states are not on the same page when it comes to mandatory masks as you just heard from Rosa.

Let's go to our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen who joins us with more.

What more can you tell us?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, we just heard from Rosa and from Lucy about what's happening in these hot spots, these terrible surges in Texas and Florida. One way to help mitigate that would be to require that people use masks. But unfortunately there is no -- we're not on the same page. Our policies in this country are all over the map about what to do for masks and let's actually take a look at that map and you will see exactly what I mean.

The states in yellow do have statewide requirements for masks but that's far less than half the states. The states that are in orange sometimes have policies, sometimes don't. It depends on the county, it depends on the group of people. The ones in red, they have no statewide policies on masks. That is 19 states that have no statewide policies on masks. And there's no reason for that.

Why would you not want to do that? Masks can help protect you, even more they can help protect the other person. When you don't wear a mask, what you're saying to the people around you is I don't care if I get you sick. Any of us could have COVID. 40 percent of transmission is by people who are asymptomatic, so it could be you. If you don't wear a mask you're basically saying you don't care about other people -- Poppy. HARLOW: What did Dr. Fauci in his testimony yesterday before the House

for people who didn't see it, what did he have to say about wearing masks and also how critical the next few weeks are going to be?

COHEN: So he laid it out very plainly. He said plan A, don't go out into the crowd. Plan B, if you go do go out into a crowd, wear a mask. He said that when he goes out in public, he always wears a mask. What he means by the next few weeks being critical is that the -- we're seeing a really steep growth in some areas. This growth is exponential. It is not linear. And so every day you're getting more and more and more.

At a certain point, it gets very -- it's already hard to stop, at a certain point it gets even harder to stop. Our hope now is for a vaccine. Dr. Fauci told Congress yesterday that he says there is a reasonable chance we could have a vaccine by the beginning of next year. Some people think he's being too optimistic -- Poppy.

HARLOW: OK. Elizabeth, thank you very much for that. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Joining us now Dr. Carlos del Rio, he's infectious diseases specialist and executive associate dean at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.

Dr. Del Rio, always good to have you on. There's something going on now when you listen to the comments of the experts. Dr. Fauci talking about a critical next couple of weeks as he looks at the numbers. Sanjay Gupta, very concerned about where these numbers are pointing. Do you share that sense of urgency?

DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST: I absolutely share that sense of urgency and I'm also I would tell you somewhat disappointed because a lot of the things that we had gained, we were really slowing down transmission in the country, it's all going back up and that to me is incredibly disappointing.

I see some states like New York that are still coming down in the number of cases, that are still doing the right thing, but I see other states like Florida, like, you know, Texas, California, you name it, Arizona, even here in Georgia where I see cases going up, and I think it's because people -- the population has basically started to ignore that there's still a virus out there. And I think we need to remind people that the pandemic is not over.

SCIUTTO: The president continues to claim the numbers are only going up because we're testing more. Now, you and I and every expert knows that's false because what's also happening is that the positivity rate -- and I think we have some graphics to show this, that is, the percentage of people who test positive as you test more is rising. You could see it rising there at the bottom.

Explain to people why just in the layman's terms why this is not just about increased testing. So they understand why the claim that the president is making doesn't match with the facts.

DEL RIO: Well, you know, testing doesn't cause disease. There's disease out there, what testing does is diagnoses diseases and the more diseases out there in the population, your zero positivity rate is going up. I was speaking about New York before, there's no state testing, more people in New York is testing about 60,000 people per day. They have a really low zero positivity rate right now, about 3 percent.

[09:10:09]

Compare that to, for example, you know, let's say Texas which is now testing maybe 20,000 people a day but their zero positivity rate is now about 15 percent to 17 percent. So very clearly as you test and there's disease, you're going to find more positive individuals. What you want is to test a lot of people and really not find infection. And that means, you know, you are -- because there's a lot of asymptomatic transmission, because there's a lot of people who are asymptomatic.

If you're just testing those that are asymptomatic you're going to have a very high zero positivity rate. If you start testing a lot of people and you find a low zero positivity rate, that means there's no transmission. So the percent positive correlates with transmissions. Yes, as you do more tests, you will diagnose more cases. But that's what testing is supposed to do.

SCIUTTO: Let's talk about another shift we're discovering here. And this is something you've focused on. A shift to the demographics of this. Including more young people, not just testing positive but also getting sick and going to the hospital. Tell us what you're seeing and why that's concerning.

DEL RIO: I think we're seeing two things. I think, as you say, we're seeing a shifting demographics. In other words, the people that we saw in the first wave, if we're going to call it that, in the hospitals were primarily older individuals, were primarily nursing home residents. Close to 60 percent of deaths in this country were in people over the age of 65. So again, we were seeing, you know, disease in people who were nursing home residents, who were older.

Now what we're seeing is a lot more disease in younger people. Now what we're seeing as a result of that is hospitalizations going up, but ICU utilization not going up as much because as people get sick, get infected, who come to the hospital, but not as many end up in the ICU. Even though some do. And I tell you, you know, if you're obese, if you're hypertensive and you have diabetes, I don't care how young you are, you can really still have a very tough time, including dying from this virus. So my major advice to people --

SCIUTTO: OK.

DEL RIO: Don't get infected.

SCIUTTO: Final question. Should states such as New York that you mentioned that have through rigorous testing but also rigorous stay- at-home orders for a period of time, should they consider now putting restrictions on travel to those states from states with spiking infection rates like a Florida, like a Texas? DEL RIO: You know, you can certainly do that, but at the end of the

day that's going to be very hard to implement and very hard to work out. I think if you say everybody has to wear a mask, and again, I go back to what Elizabeth showed. I want to see more states that have really mandated mask utilization.

This is a simple strategy that if you implement, I don't care where you're coming from, if you have a mask when you get off the plane and you wear it all the time you're in public, you're not going to transmit to others. So rather than trying to restrict it by not having people come, which is going to be very hard to implement.

These respiratory viruses are very hard to control by blocking people from coming in, we saw that over and over. Implement masks. Make masks mandatory. We really have to.

SCIUTTO: All right. It's simple advice. Doesn't take a lot, folks. Listen to the doctors on this, wear those masks.

Dr. Carlos del Rio, thanks very much.

DEL RIO: Thank you, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, Bill Gates, he warned of a pandemic just like coronavirus. Now he weighs in on the rising number of cases and what needs to be done to stop them. Join Anderson Cooper, Dr. Sanjay Gupta for a new CNN Global Town Hall, "CORONAVIRUS, FACTS AND FEARS" live, that's tomorrow night 8:00 Eastern Time right here on CNN.

HARLOW: Well, still to come, battle on Capitol Hill. Senate Democrats say they'll block even debate over the Republican police reform bill. Why?

Plus, as European Union nations move to reopen their borders after coronavirus shutdowns, are they going to block travelers from the United States due to our own failures in getting a handle on this virus? They might.

SCIUTTO: Pretty remarkable. And NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace, he's speaking out this morning, this after the FBI says that a noose found in his garage was simply a misunderstanding.

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SCIUTTO: Welcome back. In just hours, there will be a stunning rebuke of the Attorney General William Barr under oath and on Capitol Hill. Two federal prosecutors are set to testify that Barr and the Justice Department have politicized -- explicitly politicized recent investigations. CNN's Manu Raju is standing by. Manu, these are remarkable accusations, saying there is direct political interference regarding the case of Roger Stone.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and this comes as Democrats are investigating what they see as a pattern of this happening at the Justice Department, interference to try to help the president. Now, this coming from Aaron Zelinsky who served on the Mueller team and also prosecuted the case against president's -- President Trump's close associate and friend to Roger Stone.

You'll recall that the Justice Department came in and asked for a lighter sentence for Roger Stone, lighter than what the prosecutors had wanted. And what this prosecutor will allege, Aaron Zelinsky is essentially that the president -- that this was done as a favor from the president. To try to give -- try to give Roger Stone a lighter sentence simply because of his close ties to the president.

He is going to say according to his written testimony with the communique he released yesterday. I was told that the U.S. attorney was giving Stone such unprecedented favorable treatment because he was quote, "afraid of the president". Now, that's one aspect of it. Another witness, John Elias works in the anti-trust division at the Justice Department. He's going to allege or say that he witnessed the attorney general going after cannabis suppliers because of the attorney general's own personal concerns and distaste for marijuana industry.

[09:20:00]

He's going to say essentially that the Justice Department opened up an investigation into those matters because Barr did not like the way that industry was proceeding. Also he's going to allege that the -- that California emissions standards, a deal that was cut between automakers and California Emissions Standards and an investigation was opened into that simply because the president tweeted his opposition to that deal.

So this is all part of that overarching concern that the Democrats have been raising about what Bill Barr is doing, and of course, Jim, this comes in the aftermath of the weekend's events of the attorney general firing that Southern District of New York Attorney Geoffrey Berman, whose office of course was investigating the president's associates. Expect that topic to come up as the Democrats continue to push forward on this probe. Jim?

SCIUTTO: It's going to be a remarkable testimony. Manu Raju, thanks very much.

RAJU: Thank you.

HARLOW: All right, also happening on Capitol Hill right now, an apparent stalemate on police reform in hour. Senate Democrats are expected to block debate on the Republican Police Reform Bill. Democrats are pushing forward with their own plan in the house. The biggest difference is here, mandates versus incentives. A Republican plan does not outright banned choke-holds, it instead blocks federal money from going to departments that don't ban them themselves.

Also qualified immunity. The Democratic proposal would do away with it, making it easier for people to sue police in civil court. The Republican bill does not address it at all. Kalfani Ture is with me, assistant professor of Criminal Justice at Quinnipiac University; also formerly an Atlanta police officer. It's very good to have you here. I mean, I'm stunned --

KALFANI TURE, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE, QUINNIPIAC UNIVERSITY: It's good to be here.

HARLOW: That we're at a moment where, you know, it looked like this was -- not only getting accelerated, but something might happen on a bipartisan level, and now you have Democrats saying this isn't going anywhere, it's woefully inadequate. You have on the Republican side John Cornyn saying it's completely insane not to debate this, and he's saying that, you know, this is like dealing with hostage takers. Is this thing dead in the water?

TURE: No, this is the typical process of our United States Congress where we try to hash out sides. And I'm still hopeful. The fact that the Republican Party established their Justice Act and the Democrat Party sort of established their justice in Policing Act, and as well as the president sort of executive order says that we all recognize -- at least sort of executive and congressional level, legislative level that there's a problem. So I am still hopeful that we're going to come to some amenable solution.

HARLOW: I was intrigued by Michael Harriot's piece in "The Root" where he wrote this, quote, "as someone who is not a huge fan of the Republican Party or its tactics, it might pain some to hear this as much as it pains me to say. But the truth is the GOP bill is more likely to stop cops from killing black people."

And he talks about how essentially, you know, by Republicans withholding federal funding for police departments that don't ban choke-holds, that's going to do the same thing. Which is the point that Tim Scott made. Every -- the police department wants and needs that funding. And when you actually dig into it a little bit more, yes, the Democratic bill bans choke-holds on a federal level, but on a state and local level, it essentially does the same thing by withholding funding as the Republican bill, does it not?

TURE: Well, I tend to disagree. If you take a look at Minneapolis for an example, this is one of the -- you know, after Philando Castile's murder, this was one of the more pro-reformed police departments ever. And they banned warrior training, they mandated that warrior training could not be part of the regimen for police officers. But through Lieutenant Cole who was the president of the union there, they circumvented that process and encouraged police officers to continue to take their training.

So you can de-incentivize something, but it doesn't mean that will cause desisting, if you will, of bad practices. In New York just recently, we had another officer engaged in a choke-hold. So you have to literally sort of mandate and establish it as law that this is, you know, outside of the bounds of policing.

HARLOW: How significant is it that the Minneapolis police chief, not the union chief, but the police chief of the Minneapolis police force just said and let me quote this, "George Floyd's tragic death was not due to a lack of training. The training was there, Chauvin knew what he was doing, the officers knew what was happening. One intentionally caused it, the others failed to prevent it. This was murder."

TURE: This was the troubling part of what happened to George Floyd, and all of those involved, which is the American people. And that is, you can't train bad officers. Officers who come into the profession with different intents, right? Intents that maybe more in line with the sort of maintenance of sort of structural inequality or racial inequality of the larger society.

You can't train that away. You know, so, right -- first thing I thought was, what was his training record? Was that sort of a position or asphyxiation consistent with their training. But I doubt it.

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And so again, this was a right pro reform progressive police department who re-banned their training and still you had --

HARLOW: Yes --

TURE: This unfortunate death.

HARLOW: I want your reaction to this. You talk about structural inequity and the inequality that exists in Minneapolis and exists across this country. Listen to this from Jon Stewart on the "Breakfast Club" talking about red-lining all of the injustices that we've seen for so long and a potential solution to help. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JON STEWART, FORMER HOST, THE DAILY SHOW: I think black people have had to fight so hard for equality while white people were building equity. And maybe this plays into what reparations could be, which is call it project equity. A Marshall Plan to build black ownership because you can't negotiate equality from a subservient position. So our generational challenge is to help build black equity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: What do you think, Kalfani?

TURE: Absolutely. I -- I mean, those are really eloquent way of stating it. I would push a little further and say it is not just advantage versus disadvantage, but it is the accumulation of wealth, while the dispossession of wealth. And so this sort of gets that a little bit more of the intentionality. You know, a Marshall Plan which was established in 1948 by the 80th Congress and under President Truman was this sort of loan and aid after World War II to help Europe.

And it was a U.S. program, by the way to help Europe sort of recover from, you know, a war that lasted what, you know, five or more years. Here we're talking about -- and what Jon Stewart is getting to is a history of structural violence. Beginning with the enslavement, through black coals and comic liaison -- Jim Crow, the -- sort of reverse of reconstruction, you know, crack, cocaine, et cetera, and mass incarceration. So, we're talking about you know, a continuity disadvantage that sort

of benefits structural inequality and benefits white society.

HARLOW: Absolutely. Kalfani Ture, so good to have you, thanks a lot.

TURE: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Well, could the European Union block Americans from visiting EU countries as a result of this country's handling of the coronavirus? They are thinking about it. We'll have more.

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