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Democratic National Convention Kicks Off Soon; How Obama May Persuade Some Voters to Pick Biden; Tens of Thousands of Demonstrator in Belarus Demand New Election; Japan's Economy Posts Biggest Contraction on Record in Q2; South Korea Warns of Possible Massive Recurrence; Tijuana's Red-Light District Bustling with U.S. Tourists; School Nurses Prepare for Fight Against COVID-19. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired August 17, 2020 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the 2020 Democratic National Convention kicks off just hours from now. It will be a scaled down version from what we're used to seeing due to the pandemic. Almost all of the convention speeches and events will be done virtually from across the country. Michelle Obama and Bernie Sanders headline Monday's lineup. Former

President Bill Clinton speaks on Tuesday. Presumptive Democratic vice- presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, will be among the top speakers on Wednesday and Joe Biden's acceptance speech as his party's presidential nominee is expected on Thursday.

Another high-profile speaker at the convention will be Joe Biden's former boss, Barack Obama. The former President will look to likely energize voters who may see Bidens ticket as a return to the type of Obama era politics they once knew and appreciated. CNN's M.J. Lee has our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This also gives the internet one last chance to talk about our bromance.

M.J. LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They call each other brothers, family. Former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden have long publicly flaunted their friendship.

OBAMA: Same time next week?

JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT AND PRESUMPTIVE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Same time next week.

OBAMA: All right.

LEE: Now Biden's former boss could play an outsized role in helping him take on President Trump in the fall.

One of the most famous and popular Democrats in the country --

OBAMA: You're all feeling a sense of urgency.

LEE: Obama already making several high-profile campaign appearances on Biden's behalf. A virtual fundraiser in June --

OBAMA: There's nobody that I trust more to be able to heal this country and get it back on track than my dear friend, Joe Biden.

LEE: Raising a whopping $11 million in one night. And there was this lengthy video recorded by the Biden Campaign.

OBAMA: It all starts with being able to relate.

LEE: Featuring the two men discussing everything from COVID-19 to President Trump.

BIDEN: He ran by deliberately dividing people from the moment he came down that escalator. And I think people are now going, I don't want my kid growing up that way.

LEE: Obama not often going after Trump by name but making clear that his successor is very much on his mind.

OBAMA: But even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darndest to discourage people from voting.

LEE: The Obama-Trump feud dating back years. Trump infamously embracing birtherism, relentlessly casting doubt on Obama's eligibility to be president.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Why doesn't he show his birth certificate? If he wasn't born in this country, which is a real possibility, then he has pulled one of the great cons in the history of politics.

LEE: Trump, yet again, flaming conspiracy theories this week.

BIDEN: Kamala Harris.

LEE: This time, about Senator Kamala Harris. Biden's newly named running mate who was born in Oakland, California.

TRUMP: So I just heard that. I heard it today, that she doesn't meet the requirements.

LEE: Obama's advice on handling Trump?

OBAMA: You are not going to out-controversy this president. You are not going to get more attention. The circus that he runs is not something that Joe should try to compete with.

LEE (on camera): Now former President Barack Obama will be speaking on Wednesday night. This is the third night of the Democratic National Convention. And we are told that the theme of that evening will be a more perfect union where the Democratic Party tries to speak about the importance of moving the country past the Donald Trump era. Now that evening is, of course, also when we will hear from Senator Kamala Harris, as she officially accepts her nomination from the party for the vice presidency.

M.J. Lee. CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And CNN will be bringing you live coverage of this year's all digital Democratic National Convention. That starts Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern time. Then on Monday, August 24th we will be covering the Republican National Convention.

Well, a lack of consumer spending during the pandemic has dealt the Japanese economy a painful blow in the second quarter. We're live in Tokyo. That's next.

[04:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone. Well, tensions are rising further in Belarus. More than a week after contentious election results, tens of thousands of people protested on the streets Sunday demanding a redo of the election. Embattled President Alexander Lukashenko rejected that call organizing his own rally.

Fred Pleitgen joins us live from Minsk. Good to see you, Fred. So what's the latest and where's this all going?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Rosemary. Well, it certainly seems as though the opposition still has, as I mentioned, at that gigantic rally that they put on here in the capital of Minsk just yesterday. Some estimates say that around 100,000 people showed up to the rally, very, very peaceful.

And what's going on today, what's going on right now is that they've called for a general strike in the entire country. And actually one of the places that's in that strike, is right here behind me. This is government TV. State TV here in Belarus. It's known to many Belarusians as one of the biggest propaganda instruments of the government. But the people are saying they don't want that anymore. The folks who work here.

By the way, this is like originally called for by the camera operators and photojournalists of state TV. They were the first ones to have the courage to call for the strike. It certainly the ones who gave this a lot of momentum. But this morning the anchors of state TV did not show up for work. The state TV has been showing an empty picture.

But we're seeing around here, by the way, Rosemary, this is part of working here, is that it appears as though the government has jammed the internet signal around here. Trying to prevent people from sending up signals. Obviously, that's not going to stop us from reporting here. But similar scenes are going on from what we're hearing at places around the country. There's a lot of factories -- this is a country with a lot of heavy industry that have also walked out.

In fact, President Lukashenko, the embattled president, has tried to go to one of these factories. He went there, apparently spoke to a couple of people but the folks protesting against the election that took place here a Sunday ago were simply more at that place as well. The protests continue. And it seems to us as though Lukashenko's position is getting weaker by the minute here in this country. Still however, unclear where all of this will go at this point time. From what we're seeing Alexander Lukashenko shows no sign of wanted to back down. He still contests that he won the election.

However today, the opposition leader Sviatlana Tikhanovskaya, who was forced to flee the country, she came out with another statement of her own saying that she was ready to become a political leader here in this country. The big wild card, by the way, Rosemary, is going to be what Russia is going to do. There were two phone calls over the weekend between Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko. But still not clear what exactly Russia's position is going to be in all of this -- Rosemary.

[04:40:00]

CHURCH: And we will continue to watch this very closely. Very pleased we got your report to air. Fred Pleitgen joining us live from Minsk. Many thanks.

Well dismal economic news coming out of Japan. The country's economy suffered its biggest contraction on record in the second quarter. GDP shrank by nearly 28 percent when annualized. Slightly higher than what was expected. And this is Japan's third straight quarter of contractions. So for more on this we turn to Kaori Enjoji, joining us live from Tokyo. Good to see you, Kaori. So of course like other countries, Japan is suffering in the midst of this pandemic. And now these GDP numbers put it deeper into recession. How is the government responding?

KAORI ENJOJI, JOURNALIST: Well, for now the government is saying that it wants to try to resume this economy, but the number of virus cases has been surging since mid-July and this complicates the recovery prospects. And I think that's what people are worried about. You know, the figures that you mentioned for April to June, I mean, 7.8 percent decline quarter on quarter has never happened before in Japan. And I think we all knew that it was going to be bad, especially given the numbers that we've seen in other parts of the world. But it doesn't really strike home until you see it in black and white, I think.

And this is really a catastrophic figure and puts the size of the Japanese economy back where it was in 2011 after the earthquake and nuclear disaster. So it pretty much wipes out any of the gains that the Abe administration whose has tried to put forth in that.

One of the biggest problems is consumption. Because the Japanese economy depends more than 50 percent on consumption. And that has been extremely hard hit and even though there is no state of emergency here in Japan right now, people are reluctant to go out. Because they're afraid of the virus and because of the lack of testing. They don't know really whether it's safe to go out or not. I think that's one problem. The other of course is the export engine. We've seen countries like

China, you know, rebound, first in, first out possibly is the theory there. But I think there are systemic problems in the Japanese economy -- at least that's what the economists are telling me -- that might make the rebound very precarious at best. So I think that is the problem. And that is one that the Abe administration has to address.

I mean, he went to hospital today for a regular checkup but it already started the rumor mill flying. And I think that shows how precarious some people think his situation is going forward. And there has been already talk about a possible reshuffle at the top of Japanese government at a time when you really need policy that's going to try to revive the economy.

When you see smaller businesses suffering as they have in this GDP report card. I mean, small and medium businesses are the bulk of the Japanese economies, not the Toyotas, not the Hondas. And these measures that were put forth over the last couple of months to address them will be expiring in September. And I think unless those are expended or some kind of new measures are put forth, it makes any kind of recovery prospect at best very mediocre.

CHURCH: Absolutely, Kaori Enjoji, many thanks for that live report. Appreciate it.

Well, in South Korea, the U.S. military is raising its health protection level as the country warns of a possible massive reoccurrence of coronavirus. Let's go to CNN's Paula Hancocks. She joins us live from Seoul. So Paula, what's behind this new spike in cases there?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rosemary, there are a number of different outbreaks that officials are looking at, at this point. But one of the most noteworthy and significant is from a church in South Korea, in Seoul. Now we really feel like we've gone back many months. Remember, it was a religious gathering that started the initial outbreak down in the city of Daegu back in February and March. And once again, we have this church, a religious group, that has more than 300 of its congregation having tested positive so far.

Now we know that according to health officials, they've given details that more than 4,000 have visited the church. That they're asking all of them to quarantine, to get tested. But they say they're still about a 1,000 of them they haven't managed to tracked down. Some simply aren't answering their phones at this point. But they say that more than 500 of them, they don't have details for. And they are enlisting the police, once again, to try and help track them down, help have them tested and help the contact tracing system.

Now the church itself has criticized the government. It is a very anti-President Moon Jae-in church as a whole. But they have criticized the health minister as well for defaming the church. Saying that they are doing everything they can to try and contain this outbreak as well.

But back on Saturday there was a big protest in downtown Seoul. Maybe 10,000 people were there, according to some estimates. And this was an anti-President Moon Jae-in protest. And the Reverend from this one particular church was in attendance at that rally. He spoke at the protest as well taking off his mask while he was speaking.

[04:45:00]

So certainly this church is coming under some criticism as to whether or not they acted quickly enough and why that they were part of this protest.

The protest itself had been banned by police. Officials had requested the protests not to go ahead. Because quite simply having 10,000 people on the streets of Seoul during the pandemic is clearly less than ideal. But the Reverend himself did go ahead.

So it really is a sense of deja vu that once again there is this uptick in cases because of religious gathering. And already the knock- on effect has been felt. The social distancing rules have been reintroduced in Seoul and they say they might get more stringent if the numbers start to spike -- Rosemary.

CHURCH: Many thanks. Paula Hancocks joining us live from Seoul. Appreciate it.

Well, Mexico has so far confirmed more than half a million cases of COVID-19. And in the border town of Tijuana, Americans could be making the problem even worse. As Matt Rivers reports, the city's red-light district is still bustling with U.S. tourists who may be spreading the disease.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Go out and work, risk your life. Stay at home and go hungry. It's the pandemic's impossible choice for many in Mexico, and it's tough enough if you're a cabdriver or a store clerk. And it's another if you're a sex worker.

Here in Tijuana, Mexico's famed red-light district, prostitution is legal. Just south of California, Mexicans and Americans both fuel a thriving industry, normally. But officially, the government forced all sex-related businesses to close back in March.

ROBERTO TORRES, STRIP CLUB OWNER: I don't think we're safe to open yet, so I'm not going to put myself at risk or my employees at risk either, so --

RIVERS: Roberto Torres had to close his strip club, and his female workers left. Where they all went, he's not sure, but he knows some businesses nearby aren't following the rules.

TORRES: People are opening. Certain places are open. Certain hotels are open.

RIVERS: So in the middle of a pandemic, Americans and Mexicans are still paying to have sex here, with people like Alejandra. She is a sex worker and told us that fearing for her life is her new way of life.

I don't know if the person I'm with that day has the disease or not, she says. I'm so scared for my health and for my daughter's.

But she says her daughter is the reason she still goes out. Six years old with her mom's income her only way to get a meal.

What will I do tomorrow if I end up getting sick, but I still have to go out, even though I don't want to?

So after she speaks to us, she walks back out into that world, and we followed.

That night we arrange a ride-along with state police through the red- light district. This is not an area where cameras are very welcome, so the cops required us to wear body armor. Driving around, it's obvious there were a lot of working women out and about, but where they're working isn't immediately clear.

(on camera): So the streets here are a lot quieter than they normally are, and that's because the government has forced a lot of these businesses to shut down. But what the police that we're with are telling us is that the business is still going on. It's just happening behind closed doors.

(voice-over): In sex hotels that are still operating near normal with patrons like this American. CNN agreed not to use his name, because he fears losing his job.

(on camera): And you still see a lot of Americans here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lots of Americans here.

RIVERS (voice-over): He says he's being safe, except for the part where he has sex with a stranger.

(on camera): I think a lot of experts would say it's not safe. I mean, but you think it's safe enough.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe I'm pretty well-educated about all of this, and I feel completely safe.

RIVERS (voice-over): As the sex trade continues, the lives of everyone involved are at risk, but for the workers, the money earned puts food on the table. It's two sides of a very dangerous coin.

Matt Rivers, CNN, Tijuana, Mexico.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And with many schools starting back up around the U.S., school nurses are about to become front line workers against the virus. But some states have a shocking nurse shortage. We'll take a look.

[04:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: Well, states across the U.S. are struggling with how to get more than 50 million kids back to school. Some have opted for virtual learning to start the year. Others have sent students back into the classroom at full force. Thousands of school nurses are on the front line in the battle to keep those kids safe. In New York City, Mayor de Blasio is promising to have a nurse at every city school when they open in a few weeks. CNN's Bianna Golodryga reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good morning.

CHILDREN: Good morning.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good morning.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How are you feeling.

CHILDREN: Good.

DENEEN DRY, SCHOOL NURSE: This will be and is uncharted waters, something that we have never had to face. And the uncertainty is actually -- is frightening.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST (voice-over): Deneen Dry has been a nurse for nine years in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and splits her time between two middle schools. But she says it has taken a pandemic to finally give those in her profession the recognition they deserve.

DRY: The nurses was that forgotten entity in the school. And now we are the ones that when there's a sniffle and there's a cough, we're going to be the ones that are going to asked the questions and asked to step up and make everyone feel safe.

GOLODRYGA: Dry and thousands of school nurses like her across the country are the front lines of defense against COVID-19.

DRY: It's a daunting task and the weight on the shoulders is it's extreme sometimes.

GOLODRYGA: Preparation and training involves following state and local guidelines which for many districts, includes temperature checks and quarantine rooms for students suspected to have contracted the coronavirus. But Dry acknowledges that will only get her so far.

DRY: I don't think I'm going to be prepared until it happens.

GOLODRYGA: The National Association of School Nurses warns that U.S. campuses are unprepared for COVID outbreaks due to a lack of funding and nurses.

EMILY OSTER, ECONOMIST AT BROWN UNIVERSITY: So it isn't the case that every school has full-time nurse, you know, down the hallway who can deal with this. GOLODRYGA: Nearly a quarter of U.S. K through 12 schools lack a licensed nurse while 35 percent employ part-time nurses. Even more jarring, according to the most recent figures, there is just one nurse for every 500 students.

[04:55:00]

(on camera): Are nurses equipped overall for such an endeavor and are we relying too much on them to be?

OSTER: I haven't -- in the plans that I've seen this aspect, the sort of school nurse aspect has not gotten this huge amount of attention beyond sort of some language around providing PPE to people.

GOLODRYGA (voice-over): And at least one school nurse, Amy Westmoreland of Georgia quit her job in a district that has declined to mandate masks.

AMY WESTMORELAND, SCHOOL NURSE: The board's decision to make masks a, you know, quote, personal choice and that social distancing wouldn't be practical was not only concerned for myself and my family, but I could not imagine giving care, especially to my special needs' community of students.

GOLODRYGA: The NASN has asked Congress for a minimum of $208 billion for school districts in order to prioritize the health and safety of students and staff which would include hiring thousands of additional nurses.

The average age of a school nurse in America was between 47 and 55 in 2015 which puts many at a higher health risk in regard to COVID-19, and Dry falls into this category.

DRY: I fight every day with whether or not I should come back to school or want to come back to school. The nurse part of me wants to be there, wants to be able to help. The mom and grandmother part of me wants to keep my family safe and not expose myself to a possibility of bringing it home.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Heroes on the front line there. CNN's Bianna Golodryga with that report.

And thanks so much for your company. I'm Rosemary Church. "EARLY START" with Laura Jarrett and Christine Romans is up next. You're watching CNN. Have a great day.

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