Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
"Black Panther" Star Chadwick Boseman Dies at 43; Opposing Narratives after Kenosha Shooting; Thousands Gather on National Mall for "Commitment March"; Second Spike of COVID-19 in Europe; Africa Declared Polio Free by WHO. Aired 3-3:30a ET
Aired August 29, 2020 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[03:00:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Wakanda forever: Hollywood saying goodbye to the actor who starred in the blockbuster superhero film, "Black Panther."
Also, nearly one week after being shot by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, President Trump finally addressing the shooting of Jacob Blake.
And Africa is officially declared wild polio free. We'll look at this milestone, how it was achieved and the challenges that remain.
And welcome everyone to CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Michael Holmes.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
HOLMES: Welcome, everyone.
As demands for racial justice in the United States grow ever louder and thousand descended on the nation's capital to make their voices heard, the day ended in mourning after the unexpected passing of a young American actor, who has portrayed some of the most notable African American icons and used his influence to empower members of the Black community.
Chadwick Boseman lost his life after a 4-year battle with colon cancer. The 43-year old is known for starring in groundbreaking roles like the "Black Panther." He also portrayed the legendary singer James Brown, the nation's first African American Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall and baseball legend Jackie Robinson. Boseman's death on the same day that Major League Baseball celebrated Jackie Robinson Day, when the Brooklyn Dodgers number 42 broke the game's color barrier.
Reaction has been pouring in over the last few hours, Marvel series costar Mark Ruffalo tweeting, "The tragedies amassing this year have only been made more profound by the loss of Chadwick Boseman. What a man and what an immense talent. Lord love you. Rest in peace (sic), King."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: 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.
He was talking about visiting sick children with cancer in the hospital.
[03:05:00]
TURNER: 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.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Now Chadwick Boseman was a strong advocate for civil and voting rights, as we were discussing there with Nischelle Turner. Now reports of his death emerged only hours after the Commitment March.
On Friday, thousands of people converging on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to rally for social and political justice. This after a very tumultuous year, which has seen a string of Black men and women killed or injured by police.
Friday's rally was exactly 57 years after the 1963 civil rights March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. Still, speakers at the rally say much more change is needed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARTIN LUTHER KING III, SON OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: And so today I can call on everyone with the means to drive people to the polls, to make a plan for yourself, for your family and your neighbor, for those organizations and companies that care about democracy.
I call on you today to offer your resources and your capacity to make sure every ballot is counted. If our forefathers were willing to die for the right to vote, we can work for the right to vote.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Speakers included the family members of George Floyd and others who have lost their lives at the hands of police.
Well, two very different narratives are emerging in the aftermath of the police shooting of a Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The Kenosha Police Association releasing its own version of what happened when Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back at close range.
But Blake's lawyers and relatives are pushing back, with his uncle calling the police portrayal of events, "garbage" and "insulting."
[03:10:00]
HOLMES: CNN's Omar Jimenez has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As an investigation continues to play out over the shooting of Jacob Blake, the Kenosha Professional Police Association is releasing their own account of the shooting, saying officers knew about Jacob Blake's open warrant for sexual assault prior to arriving at the scene, that Blake fought with officers, including putting one of them in a headlock, that he was not unarmed, that he had a knife, which they say responding officers first saw when they were on the passenger side of the vehicle.
They are among claims Jacob Blake's attorneys have disputed.
PATRICK SALVI JR., BLAKE FAMILY ATTORNEY: UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was posing absolutely no imminent threat to these officers. Apparently what their position is, is that if there is a knife in the vicinity, they are free to essentially use deadly force. JIMENEZ (voice-over): Much of what happened played out on video the
country has now seen. But in a shocking admission, five days later, the Kenosha County sheriff has --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did not see the video.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): -- and the police chief now saying officers might have known about an outstanding sexual assault warrant for Blake.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe that's why they were there but I don't know specifically.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): It's why the sheriff's office said Jacob Blake would have woken up shackled to his hospital bed, a move the family called cruel and the sheriff called protocol.
JACOB BLAKE SR., JACOB BLAKE'S FATHER: He's paralyzed from the waist down.
Why do they have that cold steel on my son's ankle?
He can't get up. He couldn't get up if he wanted to.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): The warrant has now been vacated and shackles removed, a Blake family attorney said Thursday. Blake's shooting led to days of protests in Kenosha. Tuesday night, two were killed and one wounded on the back end of demonstrations.
Kyle Rittenhouse, 17 years old, is in custody for the shootings. After allegedly shooting and killing the first person, 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum, another male approaches and the defendant turns and begins to run away from the scene.
As the defendant is running away, he can be heard saying on the phone, "I just killed somebody," according to the criminal complaint.
Rittenhouse now faces six charges, including first degree intentional homicide, first degree reckless homicide and possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18. His attorneys say he was acting in self- defense.
But he was not arrested at the scene, even as he walked away with an assault rifle around his neck.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It might have been abnormal two weeks ago. It's no longer abnormal.
BLAKE: He got to go home. My son got ICU and paralyzed from the waist down. Those are the two justice systems right in front of you.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): Rittenhouse remains in custody. As for the officer who shot Jacob Blake, officer Rusten Sheskey, that investigation continues.
JIMENEZ: Now despite what we're hearing from the Kenosha Professional Police Association and from Jacob Blake's attorneys, it's important to remember that the main investigative body in this is the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
And the only thing we've heard from them in this is that they say Jacob Blake admitted to having a knife at some point though we don't know exactly when right now. And then a knife was recovered from the floorboard of the driver's side of the vehicle -- I'm Omar Jimenez, CNN, Kenosha, Wisconsin.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: And for the first time since it happened nearly a week ago, President Trump publicly addressing the Blake shooting in Kenosha but not naming him. When asked about the incident by a reporter, he said it was, quote, "not a good sight," and that he is looking into it, in his words, "very strongly."
But before he mentioned the incident about the man who was shot seven times in the back but not naming him, Trump took credit for calming the protests that erupted after the shooting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
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: Well, it wasn't President Trump who called in the National Guard. It was, in fact, the state's governor who did.
All right, we are going to take a quick break here on the program. A lot of people crowded onto the White House lawn and you can see a few of them not wearing masks. The latest on the fight against coronavirus in the U.S. -- next.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[03:15:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, in accordance with New Hampshire executive order 63, please wear your masks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: That booing coming from a Trump rally in New Hampshire. The U.S. president's supporters booing as they were reminded to mask up as the law requires. They aren't the only ones reluctant to wear masks. On Thursday night, a crowd of more than 1,500 people gathering on the
White House lawn to hear President Trump's speech during the Republican National Convention. Nick Watt tells us how America is coping with the virus lately.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TRUMP: Like those brave Americans before us, we are meeting this challenge.
NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: But now, our president is leading by bad example, no distance, few masks and many places prohibit gatherings like these, all brushed off by a senior White House official with this. Everybody is going to catch this thing eventually.
One prominent model now projects 135,000 more Americans could be killed by COVID-19 by December 1st.
Remember, last week we were told --
DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, CDC DIRECTOR: You are going to see the death rate really starting to drop.
WATT: But if that is true, our average daily death toll still hovering around 1,000 will actually rise.
Right now, we are also seeing record rates of infection in Dakotas, Minnesota and Iowa where the governor closed all bars in the hardest hit counties, including some college towns, because --
GOV. KIM REYNOLDS (R-IA): It is increasing the virus activity in the community and it's spilling over to other segments of the population.
WATT: 8,000 cases and counting on colleges campuses across the country as students return.
But here is the good news. Nationally, new case counts are falling, New York's infection rate the lowest since all this began and the White House has announced the purchase and the production of 150 million new 15 minute tests.
DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It really could be game-changing.
Before you go to school, before you go to work, it could catch a lot more of the asymptomatic cases that we are currently not catching at all.
WATT: Plus, there is vaccine optimism but some concern over complex logistics.
PAUL MANGO, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR POLICY, HHS: We don't know exactly how many doses we're going to have. We don't know at what time we're going to have those doses as we approach the end of the year.
WATT: The CDC telling governors it is rapidly making preparations to implement large-scale distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in the fall of 2020, asking states to be quick with their permitting process.
But --
DR. ALI KHAN, DEAN, UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: We can't afford 1,000 deaths a day until the vaccine. We need to adopt the control and containment strategy in the United States.
WATT: Instead, the president's tacit message up close, unmasked, totally cool.
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, misdemeanor charges against two TikTok stars who allegedly held house parties with hundreds of people. Now the city attorney said that, because they have 90 million followers, between them they should be setting a better example.
Meanwhile, the president, who has more than 85 million followers on Twitter, just hosted more than 1,000 people on the nation's front lawn -- Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[03:20:00]
HOLMES: Several countries in Europe are now on high alert. They are now reporting some pretty big jumps in COVID-19 cases. One of those is Spain. It has been reporting many more cases in the last few weeks.
The pattern matches what the country saw during the peak of the pandemic. Italy also seeing a similar trend. The good news is so far deaths have not follow the spike in new cases.
The coronavirus is running rampant through Latin America, of course; as you can see Brazil, by, far leading the way. Nearly 4 million cases as they added more than 43,000 in just 24 hours.
These countries, on your screen, there now make up half of the top 10 countries in the entire world with COVID-19. Patrick Oppmann with more from Havana.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There are now in Latin America, more than 7 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Coronavirus Resource Center and CNN calculations, the region remains one of the hardest hit in the world. A lot of that has to do with the wide degree of social disparity in Latin America and, many people say they are unable to comply with their government's lockdown restrictions. They need to go out and work every day, look for food and they are not able to stay at home, not able to work remotely, necessarily.
That is why many feel that Latin America is not likely to get the outbreak under control anytime soon. Even in countries like Cuba, which, just weeks ago, had said that they had the outbreak controlled, has seen a second outbreak here in the capital city of Havana.
Even though Cuba has around 4,000 total cases of coronavirus and has less than 100 deaths, officials are now putting into place very strict measures. They declared a nighttime curfew for Havana and prohibit people from leaving Havana to visit any other province on the island for the next 15 days.
Even though Cuba has done better than much of the rest of the region, they are now putting in place some of the toughest controls that they have had since the pandemic began --- Patrick Oppmann, CNN, Havana.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: As the world struggles to contain the virus, Africa has won its war on polio. We will have the announcement from the World Health Organization when we come back.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
HOLMES: The World Health Organization calls it a historic public health success as it declared polio officially eradicated in Africa. The announcement follows four years without any cases reported on the continent. The WHO director general saying, since 1996, almost 9 billion polio vaccines have been delivered in Africa, averting millions of cases and saving tens of thousands of lives.
And this one means one of Nelson Mandela's biggest dreams has come true. Eleni Giokos tells us how it was done.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELENI GIOKOS, CNNMONEY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A disease that crippled and paralyzed for life. Now this could just be the last generation of wild polio victims in Africa.
[03:25:00]
DR. MATSHIDISO MOETI, WHO: After four years without a case of wild polio, the WHO African region has finally been declared free of wild polio virus.
GIOKOS (voice-over): The World Health Organization, Rotary (ph) International, African leaders and millions of volunteers mobilized to meet the goal set by Nelson Mandela in 1996 to kick polio out of Africa.
Administering vaccines in conflict ridden, remote areas, came at a high cost for a greater good.
PROFESSOR OYEWALE TOMORI, VIROLOGIST: We lost a lot of workers (INAUDIBLE). People were putting their life in danger. GIOKOS (voice-over): Virologist Oyewale Tomori set up Africa's first
regional polio lab network in the '90s. He went on to help spearhead Nigeria's national strategy. It is the last African country to eradicate wild polio, having it counted for half of global cases less than a decade ago.
GIOKOS: You think a lot more lives could have been saved if politicians took wild polio more seriously?
TOMORI: Absolutely. The problem was the local politicians. Each time I went outside, as a Nigerian, now (INAUDIBLE) country?
GIOKOS (voice-over): Now tears of joy after a painful journey.
TOMORI: The (INAUDIBLE) made me what I am, should not be the country that will destroy me again. I said, if you want to -- you want to see people suffer, (INAUDIBLE). You know, (INAUDIBLE).
GIOKOS (voice-over): In Africa, over 9 billion doses of the oral polio vaccine have been administered with 220 million children vaccinated multiple times a year, keeping momentum going is vital even when getting the vaccine to children in remote areas is riddled with roadblocks.
TOMORI: (INAUDIBLE) stories (INAUDIBLE) in an environment where the vaccine (ph) supply is not constant. We really have to think of all of these things.
GIOKOS (voice-over): But the fight cannot end here. The threat of wild polio exists with cases still popping up in Afghanistan and Pakistan. What's more, 16 African countries are facing outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived polio virus.
DR. TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: A future without polio may have once seemed impossible. But, in the words of Nelson Mandela, when people are determined, they can overcome anything.
GIOKOS (voice-over): But if there's one thing worth celebrating in this milestone, it is the possibility of a, one day, polio free world -- Eleni Giokos, CNN, Johannesburg.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Some good news there to end the program on. Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM, spending part of your day with me, I am Michael Holmes. Don't go anywhere, "AFRICAN VOICES CHANGEMAKERS" comes up next.
