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Huge Explosion Rocks Beirut; Georgia School District Quarantines 260 Students and Eight Teachers after First Week of School; Stimulus Talks Break Down on Capitol Hill; Air India Plane Crashes in Kerala after Skidding Off Runway; Trump Issues Orders Banning TikTok and WeChat; Tyler Perry Builds Camp Quarantine for Production Reboot. Aired 4-5a ET
Aired August 08, 2020 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:00]
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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN HOST (voice-over): Desperate for a lifeline: Lebanon grapples with the enormity of a disastrous explosion and how to move forward.
Cleared to reopen schools in New York can hold in-person classes but the decision comes with big risk for other states.
And looking for answers in India: a plane skids off an airport runway, breaking into two.
Live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta, welcome to our viewers. I'm Kim Brunhuber.
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BRUNHUBER: Many countries are rushing humanitarian aid to Lebanon in response to Tuesday's massive explosion at Beirut's port. The United Nations says it will send $50 million worth of assistance. The U.S. says it will match that.
U.S. president Donald Trump says he spoke with Lebanon's president on Friday to let him know that three planes loaded with food, water and medical supplies are on the way.
The death toll from the massive blast has now risen to at least 154 people. You see there a team of Turkish rescuers is combing through the rubble, searching for possible survivors.
And we now have photographs of the ammonium nitrate suspected of causing the devastation. It had been in a warehouse for years, after being confiscated from a Russian cargo ship.
Several high-ranking customs and port officials have been detained as part of the official probe. But Lebanon has a history of investigating tragic events without results or accountability. The president has already rejected plans for an inquiry.
We go, now, to Beirut.
Sam, that scene behind you, devastating. You know, no international investigation, which is what many in and outside of Lebanon had called for. And the Lebanese president raised the thought of external interference.
Is the government trying to shift the blame here?
SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's all about, as far as the government is concerned, two things. The honest pursuit of what happened and the political imperative. And they may be fighting one another.
Clearly, from Michel Aoun's perspective it is obvious that one of the things investigators would look into, malice aforethought, whether there was some kind of attack. All of the experts we've spoken to are firmly of the belief that, whatever the ignition was, that set off the ammonium nitrate, may have been the explosion of the ammonium nitrate was an industrial accident.
There is a little bit of room for speculation as to who might have started the initial fire. But again, as far as the leader of Hezbollah is concerned, there's been hints from the political elements inside this country, that, perhaps, this was -- the port behind me was under the control of Hezbollah, it had a shipment point in that location.
Hassan Nasrallah has denied that. He would. He supports -- this is interesting. He supports any investigation conducted by the Lebanese army, saying, he will accept the investigation of the Lebanese state.
The Lebanese state has a poor record of investigations of this nature, political assassinations; the whodunit never gets solved in Lebanon.
And of course, the Lebanese population is already roiling underneath, particularly the young, right across the social spectrum, across the different sectarian groups here.
[04:05:00]
KILEY: Since October 17th, they've been having demonstrations. The economy has collapsed; 8 percent of the local currency has collapsed against the dollar. There's mass unemployment.
There's rubbish in the streets and then they get this explosion. The government is placing 16 people -- freezing assets. And they've detained groups of others. Among those detained, the former head of the customs service here and his predecessor, both of whom actually complained and sought judicial pressure to get that ammonium nitrate moved.
We don't know if they've been involved in any other way. But in terms of the documents that CNN has seen, these are individuals that raised the red flag about the dangers posed to that location now.
It's evaporated, the landscape in front of the yellow area there. This is a grain silo that would have helped to protect Beirut from the blast. And the landscape in front of it is where the warehouse was. There's a hole where Warehouse 12 once existed, Kim.
BRUNHUBER: Absolutely devastating. Thanks so much for your report, Sam Kiley in Beirut.
These are still critical hours for rescue teams, as they race to find anyone still trapped. Crews are working to clear away debris and secure dangerous areas so rescuers can offer aid safely. Arwa Damon was on the scene during search and rescue operations near the blast site.
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ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What they are doing right now is looking out for potential structural damage. So things that could fall down. Right, now eyeballing that balcony up there. The last thing anyone wants to see happen is even more people getting hurt.
What they are trying to do is, safely, get rid of any sort of potentially hazardous situation. They do have other teams throughout the entire destroyed areas and down at the port, who are conducting similar operations. They are also conducting search and rescue operations.
The colonel was telling the media that, based on their experience in Haiti and other experiences, you can still, depending on the circumstance, potentially find survivors up to 72 hours later. If not, in some cases, even longer.
So, they still have hope that they will be able to find some people. They started working at 8:00 am on Thursday. That is when the teams first arrived in the country. On Thursday, they were able to find the corpses of four. Obviously, those who still have missing loved ones are hoping that loved one is still alive.
They are taking the coordinates of this location so that other teams can then come through once again. As these French crews have been going through, a lot of people are coming up and thanking them.
The Lebanese population has really felt, especially after this explosion, that they have been completely and utterly abandoned and betrayed by their own government. But now people will tell you, at the very least, they don't feel entirely alone. -- Arwa Damon, CNN, Beirut.
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BRUNHUBER: Many in Lebanon have been fed up with their government for a long time over corruption and economics. But Tuesday's tragedy could be a tipping point. There's mounting evidence that many officials had been warned for years of the dangerous stockpile of the ammonium nitrate at the port. Yet they did nothing. Listen to this frustrated resident.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): -- is responsible. Everyone has a responsibility. All the governments, not just this current one, the previous ones as well. But they are all responsible.
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BRUNHUBER: Paula Yacoubian is a member of the Lebanese parliament. She joins us from Beirut.
Thank you during this incredible time to join us here. We heard the anger from the person there we were listening to. Tell me what you've been seeing and hearing from your constituents out there on the streets, as people are trying to piece their lives back together.
PAULA YACOUBIAN, FORMER LEBANESE MP: Beirut is devastated. My constituency and all those in Lebanon are full of anger. Today, there's big demonstrations. Everyone should be in Beirut, just to tell this political caste, enough. We cannot continue with you. You have to go away. They knew there was a nuclear bomb in our city.
[04:10:00]
YACOUBIAN: And they just did nothing. This is a political caste that is very sectarian, and they do nothing for the people. They stay on their chairs, doing deals, doing business. All of them became billionaires. And we spent around $300 billion on our tiny country.
And nothing is working, nothing at all. Now we have this huge catastrophe that I think we need years and years to rebuild our city.
(INAUDIBLE) Beirut, I took a position of resigning because I feel I'm a false witness in this parliament. There's nothing we can do. The decision making is outside of the parliament.
You have five or six leaders that decide everything. It's like going to a circus. I decided to resign after the explosion. I started talking to some MPs. They told me, let's wait and do it together. I'm still trying to talk to as many MPs as possible and urge them to resign.
And I urge the Lebanese people to call their representative and ask them to resign. Everyone should resign from this system, from this -- I don't know what to call it. It's a mafia system.
Unfortunately, the Lebanese people do elect them because the country is highly sectarian. And they make sure to secure their bases all the time. They don't talk to the Lebanese people as one people, one nation.
Despite that we have the same crisis and the same problems. Someone should ring a bell, tell them we cannot continue like this. Someone should tell them how easy it is to be held accountable or to resign, at least to have the decency of resigning.
Even if we belonged to the opposition and our voters are the Lebanese people, without anyone else, no parties, no institution, nothing. I was the only one that made it in the election. I went there alone.
Now I will resign because things are not getting anywhere. We cannot force them to do reforms. Without reforms, this country is doomed.
BRUNHUBER: You were a very popular journalist and you decided to run because you wanted to make change during this time when change is most needed.
You feel you really can't do anything within the government?
You have to leave?
YACOUBIAN: I'm not in the government. I'm in the parliament. However, yes. I was trying to do something. I'm not resigning from political life. We need to gather the opposition in this country, not the parties that pretend to be opposition and they just wait for their share of the deal to be back in a unity government.
The unity governments were much worse than this puppet government that we have right now.
The president should also tell the people, I feel your pain, I will step down. After four years, I wasn't able to do anything.
We are a country, after 30 years, of the end of the civil war, we have no electricity. And the Lebanese people are smart entrepreneurs. They are successful everywhere in the world.
But this mafia is the worst political caste ever I think in history. No political caste or political parties did that much damage to a country and to a people. Now you have the people in the opposition. Most Lebanese, I would say 90 percent are against their political party, despite the fact threat of force ideology, despite the fact that they use God day and night.
God works for some political parties in Lebanon. They just use it right and left and this country is hell. They are liars. Obviously, they are liars. They cannot continue and they have to face the Lebanese people who will ask them to leave.
Today, there is a huge demonstration in Beirut. I hope that CNN will be there. And you keep a camera there with the Lebanese media. It's not easy to be in the opposition in Lebanon. You get killed, you get bullied, you get smear campaigns, all the time.
I'm a woman in politics. I can see what happens in the congress. And everywhere in the world, you have to see Lebanon.
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YACOUBIAN: You have to see how we're attacked. So, my resignation today is not a resignation from politics. It's, on the contrary, we are going in fierce opposition just to tell them go away, all of you.
BRUNHUBER: Listen, the country obviously has a long journey ahead of it. And we wish you the best on this new path you're taking here. Thank you so much for talking to us. We really appreciate it. Paula Yacoubian, a former member of the Lebanese Parliament. Appreciate it.
YACOUBIAN: (INAUDIBLE).
BRUNHUBER: Coming up, some schools in the U.S. have already reopened. But others are trying to figure out how to do it safely. So, we'll look at the struggles they're facing.
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BRUNHUBER: America's top infectious disease doctor is repeating the advice he gives over and over, as the country appears near another milestone. Johns Hopkins reports that the cases in the U.S. exceeds 4.9 million. That's more than one-quarter of all of the confirmed cases worldwide. The U.S. is also facing more than 161,000 deaths.
[04:20:00]
BRUNHUBER: Dr. Anthony Fauci says the country can't be safe without people wearing masks and it can't wait for a future vaccine to help flatten the curve.
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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: I believe we will get an effective vaccine but we don't know if it will be 50 percent or 60 percent.
Hopefully I'd like it to be 75 percent or more. But the chances of it being 98 percent effective is not great, which means you must never abandon the public health approach.
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BRUNHUBER: All this comes as schools across the U.S. are deciding whether or not to reopen. Sara Sidner shows us how that may happen.
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SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): New Yorkers just learning all public schools may begin in-person classes. The Department of Education chancellor making this promise:
RICHARD CARRANZA, CHANCELLOR, NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS: We will be able to maintain the social distancing and all of the medically advised requirements.
SIDNER: In Georgia's largest school system, in-person learning has already started and already dozens of students have had to be quarantined due to positive tests, sparking protests from some teachers.
AIREANE MONTGOMERY, TEACHER: They are worried about their selves. They're worried about the students. And it has been a catastrophe.
SIDNER: In another Georgia district, a student was initially suspended after sharing this photo to illustrate her concerns with in-person learning.
HANNAH WATTERS, STUDENT: I took it out of mostly concern and nervousness after seeing the first (INAUDIBLE) of school.
SIDNER: The school today reversed her suspension.
Across the country, the number of coronavirus cases are trending down, that ray of hope darkened because the number of deaths are rising, the death toll topping 160,000, now projected to nearly double by the end of the year.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Attention on the beach. Attention on the beach.
SIDNER: Hawaii is now the hottest of hot spots, beaches in popular Oahu closing once again, as cases jump 85 percent from the past week.
In Maryland, a different story, Baltimore restarting indoor dining, but the city's health director says:
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I wouldn't advise it.
SIDNER: The World Health Organization revealing a new trend. People fueling the spread are skewing younger, more than 60 percent of the newly infected between the ages of 25 and 64. The share of cases among teens and young adults has gone up six-fold.
The Food and Drug Administration also highlighting the shortage of surgical masks, saying it's taking emergency measures to help shore up the supply.
Five former leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention blasting the individualistic approach taken by the Trump administration and others.
DR. RICHARD BESSER, FORMER ACTING DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: The idea that my wearing a mask or not wearing a mask is my individual choice, when wearing that mask can help protect your health, that's not steeped in American tradition.
SIDNER: Case in point, a new scientific model shows 70,000 American lives could be saved from COVID by December if masks are worn but some following the president's lead.
Virtually no masks in sight as 250,000 people are expected to descend this weekend on Sturgis, South Dakota for the 80th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.
One business owner saying masks impede his freedom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't mean to make light of it but I mean to be dang serious about the freedom aspect of that. And these are freedom- loving people. They're not going to give it up. SIDNER: Because of that massive rally there in Sturgis, South Dakota, the hospital system has said it is dedicating now 170-plus beds for COVID-19 patients if they need them and increasing the ability to get testing.
We should also mention, when it comes to universities, two more major universities in the United States, Howard, which is a historically Black university, and Princeton, both announcing that, during the fall, there will be online classes only -- Sara Sidner, CNN, Los Angeles.
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BRUNHUBER: U.S. politicians are heading into another weekend without a deal on the next stimulus package. Talks between Democrats and the White House stalled Friday, with President Trump laying out potential executive actions if there's no agreement. He said his executive orders would include a payroll tax deferment and extended unemployment benefits.
But since Congress controls spending, can he legally do that?
He thinks so.
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QUESTION: Are you concerned about the legality of these executive orders?
TRUMP: Not at all. No. Somebody -- well, you always get sued. I mean, everything you do, you get sued. I was sued on the travel ban and we won. I was sued on a lot of things and we won. So we'll see. Yes, probably, we get sued. But people feel that we can do it.
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BRUNHUBER: The U.S. is far from the only country still grappling with the impacts of the pandemic. In Hong Kong, the city's chief executive says they will introduce a universal voluntary testing program for all its citizens.
In Europe, cases are flaring up again, as well. France reports more than 2,200 new cases in the past 24 hours.
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BRUNHUBER: Germany reports more than 1,000 cases for the third straight day. Italy is also extending some of its social distancing restrictions in areas with rising cases. And Ireland is introducing new regional lockdown measures in several countries (sic).
There's much more ahead, including a look at Beirut's beleaguered hospitals. How doctors and nurses struggle to help so many victims in the desperate hours after the explosion.
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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
Back to our top story, Donald Trump says three planeloads of humanitarian aid is on its way to the capital of Lebanon. The U.N. has also promised $50 million in emergency aid. At least 154 were killed and thousands injured. The suspected source of the blast was 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate in a port warehouse.
Beirut's hospitals were overwhelmed in the hours after the explosion. Medical facilities already were struggling with coronavirus when the blast rocked the city and waves of wounded people began pouring in. Our Ben Wedeman takes us inside.
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BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Like any anxious father about to be, Ed Morhanesa (ph) wanted to capture every moment.
[04:30:00]
WEDEMAN (voice-over): But not this. All the horror of Tuesday's explosion converged on Beirut's hospitals. Overwhelmed by thousands of wounded, many of the injured had to be treated outside.
Rula Altani was the supervising nurse that night at the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, who received about 200 wounded.
RULA ALTANI, SUPERVISING NURSE, RAFIK HARRIRI UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: Usually in the disaster, it was the longer, you know, it's two hours, maybe. Rush hours, you work hardly. It never ends. This night was about 7:30 and it's 2:53 in the morning and I'm always working.
WEDEMAN: As he scrambled from one patient to another, Dr. Jihads Bulqaie (ph) was torn between duty and family.
"They were waiting to hear from me and me from them," he recalls.
"Here I was busy treating the wounded. It was painful."
The memories of that night remain vivid.
MUSTAFA KHALIFA, NURSE, ICRS: Usually a disaster you could manage, because your adrenaline level is so high, you will not sit. But whenever you stop, you will fall apart.
WEDEMAN: This is the main hospital treating COVID-19 patients in Beirut. With Lebanon in economic freefall and new coronavirus cases hitting record highs, Tuesday's blast brought home just how dire are Lebanon's prospects. Yet the hospital's director general insists his staff must remain focused in their calling. DR. FIRASS ABIADD, GENERAL MANAGER, RAFIK HARIRI UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: It's clear that we are, if not at the breaking point, very much near it. But somehow when you are staring into the abyss, you don't think about that. All of your concentration is, I need to do more and more and more.
WEDEMAN: The explosion severely damaged many of the city's hospitals, forcing them to send patients to other facilities in Beirut and outside the capital.
One postscript: Ed (ph) and his wife, Emmanuelle (ph), now have a baby, George (ph). He is well -- Ben Wedeman, CNN, Beirut.
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BRUNHUBER: Brazil has made a dramatic display of solidarity with the people of Beirut. The design of Lebanon's flag was projected onto the massive Christ the Redeemer statue above Rio de Janeiro. Members of the city's Lebanese community attended the ceremony Thursday night.
The statue is 98 feet or 30 meters tall. It's come to symbolize Rio and Brazil.
Still to come, the light of day is revealing the horrifying result of the Air India crash. We'll have the details ahead.
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BRUNHUBER: We just received these pictures of the Air India plane crash. Authorities say they've recovered the flight data recorder. At least 18 people were killed, including four children, and dozens more were injured in Friday's accident.
It happened as the plane was landing in a rainstorm in southern India. It was carrying almost 200 Indian citizens from Dubai who had been stranded because of the coronavirus.
We go live to Vedika Sud in New Delhi.
These pictures shows how devastating this was. But the airport's notoriously difficult to land there.
What are we learning?
VEDIKA SUD, CNN PRODUCER: It's not a tabletop runway. It's more like a plateau where you have a valley on both sides of that surface. So when there's rainfall and heavy rainfall in this case, visibility being low, it would have been a challenge for the pilot.
We do know, according to the civil aviation minister who spoke with CNN last night and reiterated this morning that it tried to land, turned back and tried to land again. And that's when it skidded off the runway and went into the gorge that's about 35 feet deep.
Like you mentioned, unfortunately four children are dead in this tragedy. Most of the people we are talking about, except for the two pilots, who are dead, 16 of them belonged to the state of Kerala in south India.
Always the civil aviation minister has been to the spot himself. He flew from Delhi to check on things himself, the junior foreign minister has been there since early morning. Investigation teams are at the spot, especially the national watchdog for civil aviation.
So the investigations have begun. The black box, like you mentioned, is crucial to piece together what really happened at 7:40 pm on Friday evening local time. That black box will be crucial to understand what the conversations were between the pilot and the co-pilot, deceased in this case.
We have to wait to get information on that in the coming days. About 44 people are in different hospitals, 20 remain critical. That's the update right now.
BRUNHUBER: We will stay on the story. Thank you so much, Vedika Sud. Appreciate it.
Coming up, after the break --
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DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Welcome to Camp Quarantine. You're getting a behind-the-scenes look at Perry's audacious effort to bring more than 300 cast and crew as safely as possible back to work.
BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Producing TV shows in the age of coronavirus. How one U.S. media mogul has spent millions to keep his cast and crew safe. So far, it's working.
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BRUNHUBER: Returning to our top story, the blast that has leveled the capital of Lebanon, Beirut. The death toll has risen to at least 154 people with thousands injured, many of them children. And INARA, the International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance, specifically provides medical care to children in conflict areas.
Our senior international correspondent, Arwa Damon, is the group's president and co-founder. They have been working on the ground in Beirut since the blast. We want to bring in Imad Bazzi. He's the communications manager and joins us via Skype from the Lebanese capital.
We've seen these horrific pictures, heard so many tragic stories. Give me a sense of how things look right now, where you are.
IMAD BAZZI, IMARA: Well, we have teams on the ground, coming from all over to help revive the capital city, because the destruction is massive. We have houses collapsing. We have schools out of order, hospitals over capacity due to coronavirus and other hospitals that were damaged with the blasts.
So we have volunteers coming from all over Lebanon and from different charities. They are holding off all regular medical operations and shift to emergency response as part of the state declared emergency in Lebanon.
So we have managed to set a station meters away from ground zero of the blast. We are treating injured volunteers and local community members who got injured on the first day. We're cleaning their wounds and helping them restore their daily activities.
We are helping volunteers who sustain injuries while trying to clear up the space for medics who go in and defense forces to remove the rubble and things like that.
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BRUNHUBER: It's still so dangerous there, as we've seen in some of our reports. Your organization is used to going into war zones.
Is what you're seeing reminiscent of what you might see in a conflict zone?
BAZZI: What INARA does is we help all the children who have no access to medical treatment because of the war. So we deal with refugees of children that wouldn't have proper medical treatment where they are. So when they come to us, there's not really a conflict zone. We are more or less a little bit of a safer place, where we can offer medical treatment to them.
This being said, the team, our members of the community, it's part of the city. It's a beloved city. So more or less, it's really hard for the team to be on the ground, dealing with all these emotions and dealing with people who are injured. We're right at the center of the blast, where all of the buildings have collapsed and the roads are closed.
Paramedics are running all over the place. We have trucks removing the rubble. It's really hard to put your emotions aside and just focus on getting treatment for the people.
We can't forget that we are in the middle of a wave of coronavirus that is making things harder for everyone to work. We have to make sure our volunteers and paramedics are wearing protective masks. We have people on the streets, distributing masks and giving them water and passing on sanitizers. The situation with this blast and coronavirus is really, really tough.
BRUNHUBER: You're dealing with so many challenges there and such difficult conditions. So many harrowing scenes we're seeing there.
What has touched you the most?
What stories have you heard from your workers that just really touched you?
BAZZI: When you are on the streets hearing people complaining, worrying about their houses. Yesterday, I saw a man in a wheelchair. He can't move. But he insisted on doing something because Beirut is his city. It's the place he calls home.
So he had all this equipment in his hands, trying to clean the streets and remove as much rubble as he can. So even this person, who is not actually fit to do this hard labor, that everybody is doing, he is trying his best.
On the streets, you see moms who have lost loved ones but still they are trying to give a helping hand for the volunteers. You see the local residents of the area, that was once a very vibrant street, in the middle and the heart of Beirut. You see them trying to rebuild their houses and clean the shops and trying to clean the streets.
The amount of solidarity, the way people are coming in together, they're trying to heal each other's wounds. So this is one of the scenes that we didn't see much in Lebanon before. It's national solidarity and international solidarity. You can see groups from Korea, from the United States.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. Speaking of international solidarity, yes, aid is pouring in from around the world. Reuters say that the French president Emmanuel Macron will hold a donor conference for Lebanon on Sunday. President Trump is expected to participate.
Do you have faith that this aid will get to where it needs to go?
BAZZI: All I can say as INARA, I can say that we hope that the aid gets to the people. The people need -- are in need of so many things. We have need for food, for fresh water and protective gear like coronavirus equipment. Hospitals are out of order.
We hope that such international conventions and international meetings can and will deliver the needs of the Lebanese people.
BRUNHUBER: Listen, we wish you all of the best of luck with all of the challenges you're facing there. Thank you for speaking to us, Imad Bazzi from International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance. We appreciate it.
Well, as if tensions between Beijing and Washington weren't high enough, the U.S. is sanctioning Hong Kong's chief executive, Carrie Lam, and 10 others. [04:50:00]
BRUNHUBER: This comes weeks after China imposed a controversial national security law on Hong Kong. The U.S. Treasury Department says the people sanctioned have implemented policies aimed at curbing the freedom of expression and democratic processes.
In turn, Hong Kong's government calls the, quote, "so-called sanctions shameless and despicable."
Meanwhile, TikTok is threatening legal action over President Trump's action to ban it. He signed an executive order that would block the app from operating in the U.S. in 45 days unless its Chinese owner sells it. The order targets WeChat as well. Beijing says the U.S. is using state power to oppress non-American businesses.
Quite a mouthful there. So let's break it down. Let's bring in CNN's Selena Wang, live from Hong Kong.
So much to discuss there. Explain the latest for us.
SELENA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kim, we just heard the strongest response yet from TikTok in terms of this executive order, saying that they were shocked by it. They are even threatening to sue the Trump administration.
On a statement on their website, they said they tried to engage with the U.S. in good faith but they found that the administration was, quote, "paying no attention to facts, dictated terms of an agreement without going through the standard legal process and tried to insert itself in negotiations between private businesses."
This executive order certainly adds to the urgency for Microsoft to step in and acquire TikTok. But this deadline doesn't give the two companies a lot of time to figure out a very technically complex deal.
These latest moves from the Trump administration are also clearly part of this broader push to economically decouple the United States and China.
And, Kim, we're talking about this leading to a splinternet. It's already been here for many years in China. U.S. social media apps are banned. And you have to use a virtual private network to access the non-Chinese internet in China.
Ironically we may be moving into a future where, if you want to use Chinese apps in the U.S., you'll need a VPN, too.
BRUNHUBER: So many twists and turns to the story. Thank you, Selena Wang in Hong Kong. We appreciate it.
Just like most industries, TV and film have been hard hit by the pandemic. But renowned U.S. producer and director Tyler Perry has figured out a way to get his cast and crew back to work safely. CNN's Sanjay Gupta takes us behind the scenes.
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TYLER PERRY, FILM ACTOR AND DIRECTOR: I was all ready to go, it was March 16th. I'm watching, I'm reading, I'm paying attention to all that's happening with the numbers and I go, OK, we have to shut down.
GUPTA (voice-over): Prolific media mogul Tyler Perry was getting ready to go into production for his new Fall TV season when coronavirus changed the world.
PERRY: When you're shooting television shows, you work very closely with people. You're -- I mean, you're pretty much one-on-one with them.
GUPTA: Located in Atlanta, Georgia, a state that's been a hot spot during the pandemic, Tyler Perry's studios is facing the same challenges as any other business. How to most safely reopen.
PERRY: But a few weeks in, I realized, you've got to figure this out if you're going to do it.
GUPTA: And here is how he did it. Welcome to Camp Quarantine. You're getting a behind-the-scenes look at Perry's audacious effort to bring more than 300 cast and crew as safely as possible back to work.
It might not be a camp where everyone wants to attend, but Perry did do his best to make it feel like home. Here at what used to be former army barracks, people eat, sleep and live together during the two- week filming period.
K.J. Smith is one of the stars of "Sistas," Perry's first show to return to production.
KHANESHIA SMITH, ACTOR: And I tell people all the time, I 100 percent trust Tyler Perry. He treats us like we're his relatives, so I knew that we would be fully protected.
GUPTA: And that's thanks to Perry's 30-page plan, which essentially is designed to keep everyone in a bubble every step of the way. Cast are first tested and then asked to quarantine for 16 days in their hometown.
Then they travel to Atlanta via private plane. Once they arrive, it's more testing for cast and crew and that continues every four days. Masks are mandatory, except during scenes.
SMITH: I felt like the process was -- it was very -- there were no loopholes. There was no way around it. Everyone was holding each other accountable.
GUPTA (on camera): I think this is a microcosm of how society might be able to return to normalcy overall. And again, just your thinking on that. Did you -- when you started thinking about that, did you -- were you confident it could be done?
PERRY: So once I started to get the information and understand this virus a lot more, I thought maybe this is possible. [04:55:00]
PERRY: We all moved in and we just finished our first television show successfully with no positives throughout the quarantine bubble.
GUPTA (voice-over): But of course, this is no ordinary operation. It's one that came with what Perry says was a hefty price tag of approximately $18 million. And of course, access to thousands of tests.
(on camera): You were able to get enough testing, ultimately, for the bubble, but what will you do if there's not enough testing?
PERRY: So let's be clear about what we're doing here. I'm trying to have people -- protect them, keep their lives healthy and safe, but also to protect their livelihood. And that is not as important as people out in nursing homes and other places trying to get COVID tests. If that happens, we would -- we would step back and shut down because the important thing is that people are able to get the testing that they need.
GUPTA: Eleven days in the bubble and no positive cases. What happened at Camp Quarantine is an example of how it can be done. There was no magical vaccine. There was no groundbreaking therapeutic. It was just the basics that we have seen work around the world.
PERRY: So masks work. They absolutely -- masks work and testing works. Contact tracing works. We were able to manage it just doing that. Testing, isolation and contact tracing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: That wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'll be back in a moment with more news. Stay with us.
