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"Black Panther" Star Chadwick Boseman Dies at 43; Thousands Gather on National Mall for "Commitment March"; Second Spike of COVID- 19 in Europe; India Struggles to Contain Growing Epidemic; Trump Returns to Campaign Trail, Attacks Biden and Harris; Navalny's Condition Serious but Stable. Aired 2-2:45a ET
Aired August 29, 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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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): This is CNN breaking news.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello, I'm Michael Holmes, this is CNN NEWSROOM.
In a time of great turbulence in America, as a nation struggles with civil rights issues, a Hollywood actor, known for his grace and for using his influence to empower members of the Black community, has passed away.
Chadwick Boseman, battling colon cancer for four years. He was just 43 years old. Among his several awards an NAACP Image award for his role as King T'Challa in the groundbreaking film, "Black Panther."
In 2018, the graduate of the historically Black Howard University delivered the commencement speech at his alma mater and spoke of some of the very issues of injustice that many Black Americans are speaking about today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHADWICK BOSEMAN, ACTOR: Some of you, here, struggled against the university itself. Many of you will leave Howard and enter systems and institutions that have a history of discrimination and marginalization.
The fact that you have struggled with this university that you love is a sign you can use your education to improve the world you are entering.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Boseman is celebrated for his portrayal of the legendary baseball player, Jackie Robinson, as well. His death, coming on the same day that Major League Baseball celebrated Jackie Robinson Day, when the Brooklyn Dodgers' number 42 broke the game's color barrier.
He also portrayed America's first African American Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall.
Condolences are pouring in, like this one, from the U.S. Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
She tweeted, "Heartbroken. My friend and fellow Bison," referring to the Howard University mascot, "Chadwick Boseman was brilliant, kind, learned and humble. He left too early but his life made a difference."
CNN contributor and "Entertainment Tonight" host, Nischelle Turner, joins us now from Los Angeles to talk more about Chadwick Boseman's career, his impact on the culture.
First of all, there was just such a shock, wasn't it?
NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I'm still having trouble wrapping my brain around it, Michael. It is -- 43 years old and so much life and work and greatness ahead of him and to be talking about Chadwick Boseman in the past tense is just dumbfounding. It really is.
HOLMES: He played so many roles. We talked about James Brown as well as Jackie Robinson but he actually had a relatively late start?
I think he led a studio film for the first time at 35. So there was a late start at that level but then he took off.
TURNER: He did. That is because he was masterful at the craft. But like so many actors of color, it's just tough to get in and get roles, especially leading roles for Black men in the industry. That's very tough. Once he did give Hollywood a taste of what he could do, they couldn't get enough of him.
It just lends more to his talent and his greatness and his work. Off screen, he was just a humble, kind, generous, caring man who cared about others, who cared about equality, who cared about social justice. And that is how he lived his life.
HOLMES: Also, he remained relatively free of the tabloid dramas that others get involved in. I was listening to some of his moments of being interviewed earlier and just such an eloquent and caring man, too. There were a few kids who are terminally ill during the filming of "Black Panther."
And him bursting into tears, just talking about how much faith they had in him, in the movie and so on. Just speak about the man.
TURNER: Yes, I watched that clip tonight. It was from a morning show on Sirius XM. He was talking about what the film, "Black Panther" and what his character meant to young kids who looked like him, Black and Brown kids.
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TURNER: He was talking about visiting sick children with cancer in the hospital and how their parents told him they were just trying to hang on so that they could keep the film, because it meant so much, the representation meant so much to him. That touched Chadwick so deeply, he broke down during the interview,
talking about these kids and just how strong he thought they were.
Well, he was in the middle of a battle himself at that time. He knew he would be --
(CROSSTALK)
TURNER: -- with cancer, it wasn't something he shared but it's something he internalized.
So think about how he was being so giving to these other children who were battling, having the same fight he was but he never said a word about his battle. He never said a word about his struggle. I think that is the measure of the man.
HOLMES: That is what made it so poignant. He knew at the time. In recent times, people had thought maybe he was losing weight for a movie but he was ill. He just, I guess, didn't tell people.
TURNER: Yes, I thought so as well. He had done a couple of videos, social media videos, earlier this summer, a couple of months ago. People were commenting on the fact that he looked very thin and we're wondering, what was going on.
I, like many others, thought maybe he was preparing for a role. I will honestly tell you, my mind never went to he's ill. It just didn't. Maybe that is because he was a superhero to so many of, us in our minds, that we couldn't even imagine or fathom that he would be ill and battling colon cancer.
So, yes, I think it made sense to people's minds that, oh,, he is a method actor. He was probably doing this for a role. But apparently, he was not. And it is just so very sad, Michael.
If you think about all of the icons and the legends that he played on screen, Thurgood Marshall, Jackie Robinson, James Brown or, even though King T'Challa was fictional to so many, so many in the Black community tonight saying that he was our king, because it was the first time that all Black cast helmed a superhero film.
And they did it in such regal and beautiful fashion, like we, the Black community, embraced that entire cast but especially Chadwick because he was King T'Challa.
That sat with him as well. He was bound and determined to master that role and pay homage and really do the community proud when they brought "Black Panther" to the screen.
HOLMES: It represented a lot more than just a role in a movie, a remarkable talent, a class act and what a shock. Nischelle Turner in Los Angeles, appreciate it. Thank you so much.
TURNER: Absolutely, Michael, anytime.
HOLMES: Actor Chadwick Boseman, dead at the young, young age of 43. Two very different narratives are emerging in the aftermath of the
police shooting of a Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The Kenosha police association has released its own version of what it says happened when Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back at close range.
Most people have seen the video by now; it is, very graphic. The police are following Blake around the car, the officer opens fire at point blank range. But the police association says there is more to the story. They say Blake fought with the officers first, putting one in a headlock and they say he had a knife, which he refused to drop.
But Blake's lawyers say the police association is just trying to justify murder for misdemeanors. His uncle called the police version, quote, "garbage and insulting." Here is what he said to CNN.
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JUSTIN BLAKE, JACOB BLAKE'S UNCLE: Little Jake had no weapon and didn't deserve to be shot seven times in his back. Why they are trying to come with these farfetched stories to sort of -- it was this is why we were able to shoot a Black young man in the back seven times.
Our families, it's improper for them to say what they said?
It would be improper for us to respond.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: That powerful frustration, echoing Friday on the national stage. Thousands of people, including family members of Black men and women recently killed or injured by police, gathered for the Commitment March.
The event, exactly 57 years after the 1963 civil rights March on Washington. Speakers calling for social and political change, on the very same spot Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.
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BRIDGETT FLOYD, GEORGE FLOYD'S SISTER: My brother cannot be a voice today. We have to be that voice. We have to be the change. And we have to be his legacy.
PHILONISE FLOYD, GEORGE FLOYD'S BROTHER: Our leaders, they need to follow us, while we're marching, to enact laws to protect us.
JACOB BLAKE SENIOR, JACOB BLAKE'S FATHER: We are not taking it anymore. I ask everyone, to stand up.
No justice...
PROTESTERS: No peace. BLAKE SR.: No justice...
PROTESTERS: No peace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Journalist Jawn Murray joining me now from Washington.
It's great to see you, Jawn, it's been a minute. I just want to see what you made of the turnout, the messaging, that we saw today on this anniversary.
JAWN MURRAY, JOURNALIST: Michael, I think it is an amazing thing that people were willing to risk their lives, to come together and peacefully protest and chant "Black Lives Matter."
They are sick and tired of being sick and tired, of all of the racial injustice across our country. People chant for Black lives and Black Lives Matter, because they are tired of every other week seeing an unarmed Black man or woman be shot and some killed, by the police. When we know, liberty and justice should apply to all.
But it does not seem to apply to us. People are speaking out. This doesn't seem like a moment.
When this first started happening earlier this year, people said is it a moment or a movement?
This is a movement. These voices are loud and they want change.
HOLMES: That was my next question, 57 years after the MLK Jr. speech, is there a sense that any real ground is being made?
You have police shootings continuing, other incidents continuing as well, all of that despite the protesters, despite the broad-based outrage.
Are you optimistic of any actual real change happening and do you see it happening?
MURRAY: Michael, I am of the age that I the first time I voted was one of the Clinton elections. That was when I got connected to the process. I am supposed to be someone who has on rose colored lenses. I'm supposed to be someone that bought into the idea that a Barack Obama presidency eradicated racism and things were supposed to be changed.
I used to give my mom and my friends and my aunts that were older than me a hard time when they would talk about civil rights and they would speak about racism. And I would say, that's what your generation went through.
I never thought I would see a lot of this in my generation. With Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King and the great John Lewis fought for, it definitely created a foundation of change. But what we've seen in this country, particularly the past few years,
I genuinely believe, it is a whitelashing or a Blacklash to Barack Obama being President of the United States. We are reverting back.
The difference between this generation and our ancestors is we will be more vocal. We will be louder. We have technology on our side. We are determined to make sure this change moves forward and doesn't go back again.
HOLMES: Listening to a lot of what was said on Friday in Washington and speakers were talking of two justice systems that are still in play. It's what the world saw happen with Jacob Blake versus the police ignoring the armed man who just shot three people at the protest that followed. He went home. How Dylann Roof was treated after the Charleston church shootings when police took him for a hamburger.
How frustrating is that for people of color?
MURRAY: It's really frustrating. What we see is you see someone like Tucker Carlson, who we know in on a network that allowed him to hire a white supremacist to be his head writer on his show, saying that 17- year-old murderer, Kyle Rittenhouse, did something the local authorities couldn't do.
You see someone like Megan Kelly, a disgraced journalist, who had her own racial insensitivities say something like, Jacob Blake, they say he had a knife on him. They always move the goalposts when it comes to Black people in situations like this.
But then you have Dylann Roof, who showed up, massacred 9 people at a church and was taken in without incident and taken by Burger King to get a sandwich on his way to jail.
That is the challenges we have, not just of that. When you see people, Black people fundamentally connected to the Christian faith and so when we see evangelicals like Paula White and Rob Parsley (ph), who have built their ministries and their wealth on the backs of Black people, aligning themselves with these racists and this hatred, because they are not concerned with Black humanity or Black Americans.
They're only concerned with Bank of America. So it's all the infrastructure, the systematic inequities, the inabilities to get equal opportunities and work and things that everyone is tired.
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MURRAY: Watching the NBA take such a profound stance and say, we are not going to entertain you, we're not going to be your sports escapism while we're being killed and a bold stand that shook the core of America. We need more movements like that. People need to know, this cannot continue on.
HOLMES: Hopefully the momentum leads to substantive change. Jawn Murray, great to see you thank you so much.
MURRAY: Anytime you need me, I'm here for you. HOLMES: For the first time since it happened nearly a week ago now,
President Trump publicly addressing the Blake shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin. When asked about it by a reporter he said, quote, "It was not a good sight," and he is looking into it.
In his words, "very strongly." Before that comment about the man who was shot 7 times in the back, Trump took credit for calming protests that erupted after the shooting, part of his law and order message.
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TRUMP: Look at what is going on in the great state of Wisconsin. I will tell you, two days ago, we sent on the National Guard and that was the end of that problem because they are called in for unrelated name.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: The governor called in the National Guard, by the way.
That came at a Trump rally on Friday in New Hampshire. His first campaign rally, since he formally accepted the Republican nomination for president and, like his convention speech, Thursday at the White House, the rally on Friday, saw hundreds of people not social distancing and not wearing masks.
In fact, when Trump's New Hampshire supporters were reminded to put mass on because it was the law, they got irate.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, in accordance with New Hampshire executive order 63, please wear your masks.
HOLMES (voice-over): They're booing there.
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HOLMES: Meanwhile, a leading U.S. coronavirus model has a new and dire prediction. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projects more than 317,000 people in the country could die from the coronavirus by the end of the year. That is around 8,000 more than they projected a week ago.
Already, more than 181,000 people have died in the U.S.
Much of Europe, meanwhile, is seeing another surge of COVID-19 cases. Even though it has European leaders on edge, there is some good news. We will have that, when we come back.
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(MUSIC PLAYING) HOLMES: Several countries in Europe are on high alert, now that they're reporting some pretty big jumps in COVID-19 cases.
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HOLMES: One of those, Spain. It is reporting many more cases in the last few weeks. Italy, seeing a similar trend. The French president Emmanuel Macron says his country is doing everything possible to avoid another nationwide lockdown.
But they're also struggling to keep case numbers down, as CNN's Scott McLean reports.
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SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The data seems clear. Europe looks to be heading for a second spike in coronavirus infections. Look at this graphic of COVID-19 across Europe. They peaked in, April reached a low point in July and started trending upward ever since.
In Spain, where the spike is most acute, they see almost 10,000 cases per day over the last two days. They haven't seen those kinds of numbers since the first spike in infections.
It's a similar pattern elsewhere. In France, cases are the highest they have been since March in Italy; in Germany, the highest they've been since May and here in the U.K. since June.
Here's the good news, it's been 7 weeks since cases in Europe reached that low point and started trending upwards again. But we have not seen deaths follow. One possible explanation is, well, what French officials are saying, that is, the virus, this time around, is circulating more in the younger part of the population, 20-30 year olds, not reaching older, more vulnerable people, in the same way it did the first time.
In Spain, the difference between the first peak and this one is pretty stark. The first time around, more than half of coronavirus infections, confirmed cases, ended in hospitalizations. This time around, it's only about 5 percent. Authorities there say they are not seeing any major strains on health care system.
No one in Europe is suggesting that countries will go back to the kind of strict lockdowns we saw before but they are putting in place more stringent restrictions.
In Paris, masks are now mandatory, anywhere, in public. Whether you stand on the sidewalk, even if you are riding a bicycle down the street.
Germany tried to ban a planned protest for this weekend, protesting coronavirus restrictions in the country, until a judge ruled that protest could go ahead as long as those people attending adhered to the restrictions they're protesting against.
So governments in Europe are trying to use every tool at their disposal to get the virus under control, without resorting to the nuclear option, which, of course, is another lockdown -- Scott McLean, CNN, London.
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HOLMES: Going to take a quick break here on the program. When we come back, on CNN NEWSROOM, inside India's battle with the pandemic. Why is it hard to contain a virus, especially in a country with more than 1.3 billion people? We will have all that and more, when we come back.
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HOLMES: A member of India's parliament died on Friday, after testing positive for COVID-19. That, as the number of new coronavirus cases in the country continues to skyrocket. Even as states are ramping up testing, getting the epidemic under control is easier said than done.
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HOLMES (voice-over): Shoppers, pack into this market in India, buying vegetables, clothing and other goods. Others, eat in a cramped restaurant, no social distancing here.
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HOLMES (voice-over): From the scene, you would never know there was a global pandemic, aside from the masks hanging below their chins.
Here, security officials issue tickets to a few men on motorbikes for not wearing masks. Getting everyone to take this deadly virus seriously seems to be a big challenge.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Wherever you go, you will find half of the people without masks.
What can you do until the people don't realize by themselves that they should wear masks?
HOLMES (voice-over): India topped the U.S. this week, reporting the highest number of new coronavirus cases in a 24-hour period, two days in a row, reaching nearly 86,000 cases on Wednesday alone.
For weeks now, India has been outpacing other countries in new cases per day. India did impose one of the strictest and largest lockdowns at the start of the outbreak, which kept case numbers low. That came with devastating consequences.
Shutting down the country affected people's livelihoods, especially among the poorest. Thousands of migrant workers were left stranded in cities with no employment, only to return to their villages on foot, potentially carrying the virus with them. The disease has now spread to those small towns, straining an already
fragile health system; as the government felt the pressure, the national lockdown was eased and cases jumped.
Now many residents go about their daily lives as they did before. There's one glimmer of hope. According to the country's health ministry, testing capacity has increased to 1 million tests per day.
According to India's health minister, if everything goes as planned, India could have a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the year. He says one of the vaccine candidates is in the third phase of a clinical trial.
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HOLMES: Few masks, hardly any social distancing but a whole lot of insults. President Trump fresh off his convention speech and back on the campaign trail.
Also, when we come back, we will update you on how the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is doing under the care of German doctors, who say he was poisoned in Russia. That is when we come back.
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HOLMES: Welcome back.
The U.S. president Donald Trump, wasting no time to get back on the campaign trail after his convention speech on Friday, holding a rally in New Hampshire. Little if any social distancing to see and supporters booing loudly when reminded of the state's mask requirement.
Trump said he could win it with Friday's speech, unlike Thursday's speech, which was scripted. By wing it, apparently meant calling Kamala Harris "incompetent" and going after Joe Biden's decision to resume in-person campaigning soon.
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TRUMP: Today, it was announced that Joe Biden is coming out of the basement because, the poll numbers have totally swung. They've totally swung, and they've swung like nobody's ever seen them swing before and it was rapid. It was a rapid swing.
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HOLMES: Van Jones is a CNN political commentator and former Obama administration official, as well as Mark McKinnon, former media adviser for George W. Bush and for John McCain's presidential campaign, also an executive producer and cohost of "The Circus" on Showtime. [02:30:00]
HOLMES: Let's begin with you Mark. I suppose it is game on when you hear the things that Trump has been saying, about law and order, polls have swung like nobody's ever seen before.
What did you make of his RNC speech and messaging, content aside?
A lot of people said low energy to monotone.
MARK MCKINNON, FORMER BUSH CAMPAIGN MEDIA ADVISER: Let me net it all out. I thought that Democrats had a very good week. I thought they raised the bar. It's going to be tough for the Republicans to match it but I think they did. I thought it was technically a very good show, well produced television.
I thought as a general proposition, both conventions were very successful. I thought the speech, the venue was spectacular. Of course, it broke the Hatch Act. I think trump just made the gamble that it'll end up in the courts years from now, when no one cares about and most don't care about it right now because they don't understand it.
In terms of what it looks like, it delivered. It was spectacular and the fireworks were. What didn't match was the speech. It was a surprising letdown, both in energy, in rhetoric. It was not a great speech. I don't think -- I think that is a pretty subjective -- or objective review, reflective of most of the takes from Democrats and Republicans.
I think Trump supporters didn't think it was Donald Trump at his best.
HOLMES: Van, it was far from uniting. What struck me, the March on Washington and the strict COVID-19 rules, the temperature, checks, the masks, attempts at social distancing. Friday, Trump was in New Hampshire, they had an announcement asking people to wear masks because it was the law and there was booing. I don't want you to go into the health aspects but it really does speak to the Left-Right divide, that is almost encouraged by Trump.
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, he's trying to make a point about his own strength. His basic argument is I'm strong, Biden is weak. So if you look at it from that lens, everything he does make sense.
Look at me. Biden is hiding in the basement, wearing a mask and I'm out here braving the pandemic and my followers are so passionate, they will follow me out here.
It's that kind of a gesture that stacks up with this whole argument. He gave a god-awful speech. It was so long, longer than a movie, it was terrible. It was like he dumped out the sock drawer of rhetoric.
The point he is trying to make is that Biden is an empty suit, maybe a puppet or a pawn, as a radical socialist and writers and cancel culture people and maybe China. And he's his own man. He's a tough guy.
So he is not trying out as a politician; he's trying out as a political strongman. On that basis, it works for him.
HOLMES: It was interesting. Not long after the acceptance speech -- and I'm not sure if you were watching -- CNN fact checker Daniel Dale ran through it, 3.5 minutes of falsehoods in that speech. It was 20- 25, quite a segment to watch.
But as Daniel said later on, it's an important point, one thing about Trump's dishonesty, almost all of was in his prepared text rather than the usual ad lib riffing. That's notable, the thing with this president is the lies and the chutzpah, haven't seemed to impact that base.
Mark, what do you think of that?
MCKINNON: I made a lot of Daniel Dale. What an impressive guy he is. We ought to have him interpreting every speech that he or anybody gives, what a mind.
But it just made you realize it wasn't just like a lie here damning (ph), the whole thing was just a string of falsehoods and I guess you just get to the point where your reality is so distorted that you just feel like you can get away with saying just the opposite of what reality is no matter was the circumstance or the subject is.
HOLMES: And it still doesn't see to move that 40-45 percent.
Van, there were a number of African American speakers at the convention. The president saying I have done more for the black community than any president except Lincoln, which is nonsense.
Is part of the strategy to divide and conquer the African American vote or get African Americans to not vote at all?
JONES: I think it is good for both parties to actively compete for the Black vote, for a very long time the Black vote was taken for granted by Democrats and written off by Republicans. So we didn't get very much attention. I think the fact that he wants to compete for the vote is a good thing.
[02:35:00]
JONES: But I think probably, realistically, what he's doing is giving some comfort to white voters who, may feel uncomfortable with his white nationalist associations and some of his racially very hot rhetoric.
I think he was as much as anything handing a teddy bear and a blanket to the people who may have felt with other aspects of the Trump phenomenon and say, no, listen, listen; I like Black folks and they like me, too. You can stay in this coalition, even though I will continue to do and say things that are outrageous.
HOLMES: That's a good way of putting it. Mark, fear is a powerful motivator, sometimes more than the truth.
Do you think the Trump strategy going forward is likely to be more about the fear he seems to keep raising?
Again, on Thursday, saying things like the Democrats would, in his words, demolish the suburbs and confiscate your guns, which again are false.
But do those sorts of lies resonate at all?
Is it an effective tactic?
MCKINNON: They have in the past, they certainly have historically, as the shades of 1968. That is that Donald Trump's reflux, they are going to say that Democrats want to make Americans South American, specifically Venezuela.
He can't win, I think he knows, on simply trying to create a vision that he doesn't have for a second term and he's not able to articulate. Only 6 percent of that speech was dedicated to a second term agenda.
So he is out of gas in terms of what he wants to do. They didn't even have a platform, they just said, whatever Trump wants, we're for it. So he has to turn to the dystopic view, which is ironic, of course, because a lot of the things he is talking about that are so bad are happening while he is president.
HOLMES: That is the irony of all of that.
Van, with all of his talk, I want to get your opinion on this, on the mail-in voting. And the other thing that struck me, literally, he said the only thing they would win is via a rigged election. That sounds like setting the scene for a loss.
But aren't those comments so dangerous for the public's faith in democracy?
He's saying, if I lose, don't believe it.
What are your fears?
JONES: Well, we are in real danger. Democracies are very delicate. Democracies can fail. A democratic republic is the most rare form of government in human history. We take it for granted because, it just so happens, our democratic republic here in the United States has been supported by one of the strongest economies in the history of the world.
But these things can fail. You never know who is listening, you never know, when you say things that are running down our key institutions, who believes you. You saw that with that 17-year-old white nationalist terrorist who shot people down in the streets of Wisconsin.
Maybe when you are celebrating, the day, before white suburban homeowners who are pointing guns at innocent unarmed Black protesters, maybe someone is listening. They say, well, the way I get attention is by pointing guns at people. You just don't know who is listening. I think it is reckless and irresponsible for the president or anyone else to suggest the Postal Service, which is in our Constitution, is incapable of delivering a ballot to an American government (INAUDIBLE).
HOLMES: The United States Postal Service is not a business; it doesn't have to make money. Van Jones, Mark McKinnon, out of time, thank you so, much appreciate it.
MCKINNON: Thanks, Michael.
JONES: Thank you.
HOLMES: The Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, right now in serious but stable condition. That is according to the hospital in Berlin where he is being treated, after suddenly becoming ill in his own country. German doctors say their tests showed he was poisoned. The hospital also says he is on a ventilator and still in a medically induced coma. CNN's Phil Black with more.
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PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Russia's denials about harming Alexei Navalny mean nothing to his closest friends and family.
LEONID VOLKOV, NAVALNY CHIEF OF STAFF: Their refusal, to even open up a criminal investigation, proves that Mr. Putin is responsible.
BLACK (voice-over): Leonid Volkov and Navalny have worked together challenging Russia's president and political system for the last 10 years.
BLACK: Just to be clear, you believe this was the state?
VOLKOV: Based on the information I have at this point of time, I strongly believe that it is (INAUDIBLE) state or some -- well, or is a part of the state.
[02:40:00]
VOLKOV: So as of now, we don't have the proof that Putin ordered it. So it might be some of the government agents. But the level of organization, the poisons that they used, it's not something you can buy in a pharmacy.
BLACK (voice-over): Volkov says Navalny always knew the risks. But together, they desperately hoped his popularity would protect him, making it too risky for anyone to seriously think about trying to kill him. They were wrong.
Last week, Navalny began screaming in pain aboard a Russian domestic flight. Soon after, he was in a coma. Russian doctors said there was no evidence of poison but that was quickly contradicted when he arrived here at Berlin's Charite Hospital. Tests here determined poison from a group of chemicals but not the specific substance. The Kremlin says that's why there is still no reason to open a criminal investigation.
VOLKOV: It only could have an intention to kill. If the emergency landing (ph) would take 20 more minutes, he would not be with us now.
BLACK (voice-over): Navalny is Russia's most prominent Putin critic through a mix of determination, charisma and clever use of social media, he's shown repeatedly he can call huge angry crowds to the streets. He has exposed state corruption and the ruling elites' vast wealth.
But if this was an attempted assassination, why now?
Volkov says the timing suggests it may have been Navalny's call for Russians to follow their neighbors in Belarus and hold mass protests against their own government. And Navalny's political machine has been working to influence coming local elections with a tactical voting campaign to stop pro Putin candidates.
Whatever the reason, Alexei Navalny's supporters believe some of his enemies made a cold calculation. The benefits of his murder would outweigh the risks of creating a political martyr.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLACK: Michael, Leonid Volkov, the close Navalny friend and aide who you saw there told me, for years, he has experienced a recurring nightmare, waking terrified, that he dreamt he received a phone call to tell him something happened to Navalny, something bad.
And that's the nightmare he lived through just over a week ago. It is not a surprise that this has happened, as much as Navalny supporters hoped it never would. They believe this is the last desperate act by the Russian state, having failed to shut down Navalny through legal means, through trumped-up charges, raids on his offices across the country.
But now this has happened, they believe it must to start in a new era in Russia's political history, one where there is even less tolerance for dissent and where the use of repression is more obvious and brutal -- Michael.
The question, whether there will be consequences. Phil Black, Berlin, covering this, thanks.
And thank you for watching. I am Michael Holmes. Do stay with us. "MARKETPLACE AFRICA" is up next. I will see you in 20 minutes or so with more news.
