Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
"Black Panther" Star Chadwick Boseman Dies at 43; Opposing Narratives after Kenosha Shooting; Daily Protests in Portland since George Floyd's Death; COVID-19 Cases Spike on U.S. College Campuses; Trump Dismisses Protesters as "Anarchists, Agitators," Stokes Fears of Crime and Violence under Biden; Navalny's Condition Serious but Stable; NBA to Resume Playoffs. Aired 4-5a ET
Aired August 29, 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]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JACOB BLAKE SR., JACOB BLAKE'S FATHER: No justice --
PROTESTERS: No peace.
BLAKE: No justice --
PROTESTERS: No peace.
BLAKE: Jacob Blake --
PROTESTERS: Jacob Blake --
BLAKE: Jacob Blake.
PROTESTERS: Jacob Blake.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Thousands taking part in a new March on Washington demanding racial justice, including the family there of Jacob Blake, who was shot by police in Wisconsin.
Fresh off the Republican National Convention, President Donald Trump back on the campaign trail. What he is now saying about the crises facing this country.
And the U.S. coronavirus death toll soars past 181,000 with a key model projecting that number could nearly double by the end of this year.
Coming to you live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta, welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Natalie Allen. This is CNN NEWSROOM.
(MUSIC PLAYING) ALLEN: Thank you for joining us.
On the very day that thousands in the U.S. descended on Washington to demand racial justice and proclaim Black Lives Matter, we're learning of the unexpected death of a young actor, who portrayed some of history's most notable African Americans and emerged as an influential member of the Black community.
Chadwick Boseman lost his four-year battle with colon cancer. The 43- year-old starred in the groundbreaking superhero film, "Black Panther." He also portrayed the legendary singer James Brown, the first Black Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall and baseball's Jackie Robinson.
Boseman's death fell on the same day Major League Baseball celebrated Jackie Robinson Day when the Brooklyn Dodgers' number 42, smashed the game's color barrier. Tributes are pouring in to the actor.
Oprah Winfrey tweeted this, "What a gentle, gifted soul showing us all that greatness in between surgeries and chemo. The courage, the strength, the power it takes to do that -- this is what dignity looks like."
Joining me to talk about the death of Chadwick Boseman, Segun Oduolowu. He's host of the syndicated news magazine television show "The List."
Hello to you. Thank you so much for coming on.
SEGUN ODUOLOWU, HOST, "THE LIST": Thank you so much for having me. I wish it was on better terms.
ALLEN: Absolutely. What an immense loss. So terribly sad that Chadwick Boseman has died so young. We learned that, while he was filming and working, he was also battling cancer, having surgeries, going through chemotherapy. He went through so much.
ODUOLOWU: There is a testament to the type of man that Chadwick was. You know, I have friends of mine that are intimately -- were involved with him. A friend of mine, Tate Taylor, who directed "The Help," directed him on "Get on Up" when he played James Brown.
Another good, good friend of mine, Travis Howard, a musician, met him on set during the filming and said Chad never broke character, that was Chad was always James Brown on set.
And it speaks to the kind of actor he was. It was always about the work. And he wouldn't let cancer slow him down. I mean, this diagnosis came four years ago. And in that span of time, there were so many movies, so many projects, so many appearances.
Speaks to his strength and it also just speaks to what you hope your celebrities and the people that you admire will be.
ALLEN: Absolutely. He found fame for his role in "Black Panther." Of course, he had other noted roles. We'll talk about that. But talk about his part in this groundbreaking film and what it meant.
ODUOLOWU: Well, as someone who is Nigerian American myself, I look at Chadwick and not only did he give the world a superhero, he gave them an African superhero.
I have nephews that are too young to remember Wesley Snipes playing Blade but they remember Chadwick Boseman. They know Black Panther. For people of color, for people not of color to see him up there on the big screen, the amount of money this movie grossed shows that these kinds of characters need to be seen.
And what Chad gave the world was just an immense character and just a look at.
[04:05:00]
ODUOLOWU: We can -- forget the Tarzan myth, scientifically advanced Wakanda, Wakanda forever, this guy gave the world a superhero that anybody could admire but especially a superhero of color.
ALLEN: He also played James Brown, Jackie Robinson and Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall, a plethora of remarkable people. It shows his versatility.
ODUOLOWU: Yes, that's the trifecta. You're playing Jackie Robinson, the man that, you know, desegregated baseball. You're playing Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court justice. And you're playing the Godfather of Soul in James Brown. It shows there was nothing Chadwick could not do.
It showed that as an audience we were hungry to see what role he was going to inhabit next. I mean, forget for a moment, if you could, "Black Panther" as a superhero; he played real life superheroes -- Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall and James Brown, real-life superheroes.
ALLEN: Yes. And Chadwick did all of this in 43 years. He came a long way from his hometown of Anderson, South Carolina. Just remarkable what he'd done in such a short time.
What influence, what legacy does he leave behind?
ODUOLOWU: He is the epitome to me of Black excellence. I don't say that lightly. This is a man that came from South Carolina, went to an HBCU, went to Howard University, and represented that and took that with him everywhere he went.
Here was a person that played historical and strong Black figures. Here's a person that played a Black superhero. As I said before, in real life or in make believe, he was a superhero and he played giants.
So the legacy that these leave for any actor, whether you saw him in Spike Lee's "The Five Bloods" or in "Marshall," "Get on Up," a plethora of movies, it's just excellence. It's something to strive for, something to ask yourself, can I do better, can I be better, because Chad was always doing better. And it's an inspiration to me. It's an inspiration to the people I know that have met him. And it's a sad, sad loss.
ALLEN: Absolutely. You get a sense that many people will be watching all of his films, hearing that we lost him, just 43 years old. Thank you so much for your insight, Segun Oduolowu. We really appreciate you. Thank you.
ODUOLOWU: Thank you so much for having me. As always, stay safe.
ALLEN: Thank you. You, too.
Again, actor Chadwick Boseman dies at age 43.
He was a strong advocate for civil and voting rights and his death coincided with a massive peaceful demonstration that packed Washington, D.C., Friday, days after an African American man was left paralyzed by a police shooting in Wisconsin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALLEN (voice-over): Marchers demanded justice for Jacob Blake but they also honored the anniversary of reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington in 1963.
Like participants in that historic event, Friday's demonstrators called for equality, better voter protection and police reform. Crowds gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, where King gave his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech 57 years ago.
Among the speakers, relatives of Black people killed during encounters with police like George Floyd's sister and Breonna Taylor's mother.
Jacob Blake's relatives also spoke at the march, even as opposing narratives emerged from Blake's case. There are new details about the suspect in the deadly Kenosha protest shooting. For more about it, here's CNN's Sara Sidner.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BLAKE: Jacob Blake.
SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The family of Jacob Blake joining thousands in Washington rallying to give a voice to those taken away at the hands of police.
LETETRA WIDEMAN, JACOB BLAKE'S SISTER: You must stand, you must fight but not with violence and chaos.
SIDNER (voice-over): Authorities revealing new details now about Jacob Blake's past and the circumstances surrounding the shooting that left Blake paralyzed.
The sheriff saying he's cuffed to his hospital bed because Blake has felony warrants for his arrest, including one from July for third degree sexual assault. The restraint highly criticized by Blake's family.
BLAKE: When I walked into that room, you know, 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. So what was -- that's a little overkill, to have him shackled to the bed.
[04:10:00]
BLAKE: That just makes no sense to me.
SIDNER (voice-over): Friday afternoon, Blake's local attorney says the cuffs were finally removed and Blake's warrants vacated. And dispatch audio from the moments before Blake's shooting is shedding a little more light on why police approached him.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Complainant says Jacob Blake isn't supposed to be there and took the complainant's keys and refused -- is refusing to give them back.
It looks like he's trying to leave. We're trying to get a vehicle description.
SIDNER (voice-over): And new information about the 17-year old who's accused of shooting and killing two people and wounding another during protests over Blake's shooting.
In the charges laid out against him, authorities say Kyle Rittenhouse was running away from the scene. He can be heard saying on the phone, "I just killed somebody." His attorney telling NBC News, though, his client was acting in self defense. Hannah Gittings' boyfriend, showed here, died trying to stop the gunman using his skateboard.
HANNAH GITTINGS, SHOOTING VICTIM'S GIRLFRIEND: He loved the city because it was his city and he wanted to make it better. Like he wanted to stay in this house with me and my daughter and raise her here and, like, make it a better place.
SIDNER (voice-over): Blake's father says these two shootings are an example of two different justice systems in America.
BLAKE: That 17-year-old Caucasian shot and killed two people and blew another man's arm off on his way back to Antioch, Illinois. 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 us. You can compare them yourself.
SIDNER: To that end, we are getting more details on what led up to the shooting of Jacob Blake. According to the Kenosha Police Association, they are saying that Blake indeed had a knife on him, that officers asked him to drop it, that he did not comply.
They also say they tried to use a Taser, that they were -- he was in a tussle with an officer and that when he was going to his car, they were actually called out there because he had stolen keys, according to them, and was maybe attempting to take the vehicle as well. Obviously had three kids inside the vehicle. And he turned his back
and you can see the video from there. He turns his back, the officer grabs his shirt, ends up firing at him seven times, hitting him in the back and paralyzing him.
So those are the details that are coming out now from the police association. To be clear, they are not the investigating agency. That is the State Department of Justice, who is looking into this case and they are, of course, not the official police spokesman or the police chief in this case.
An odd way to get some of this information out. It is not coming from an official source but it is coming from the agency, the group that supports police officers.
We have also heard from Jacob Blake's family about these allegations. And they are adamant. They say Jacob Blake did not have a weapon on him -- Sara Sidner, CNN, Kenosha.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ALLEN: For the first time since it happened, nearly a week ago, President Trump has publicly addressed the Blake shooting in Kenosha. When asked about it by a reporter, he said, it was, quote, "not a good sight," and that he's looking into it, in his words, "very strongly."
As for the protests that erupted after the shooting, it was the state's governor who called in the National Guard at the request of local officials. But President Trump claimed credit for calming the situation.
(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)
ALLEN: President Trump is threatening, quote, to "go in and take care of matters," end quote, in Portland, Oregon, if the mayor can't. There have been protests there nearly every night since George Floyd's death.
The president tweeting, "If the incompetent Mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler, doesn't get control of his city and stop the Anarchists, Agitators, Rioters and Looters, causing great danger to innocent people, we will go in and take care of matters the way they should have been taken care of 100 days ago!"
Let's talk about the president's words there. Joining me now from Portland, Oregon, sociologist Dr. Randy Blazak, chairman of the Oregon Coalition against Hate Crimes.
Thank you so much for coming on. DR. RANDY BLAZAK, OREGON COALITION AGAINST HATE CRIME: My pleasure.
ALLEN: I'd like to begin there with your reaction to President Trump's warning to come to Portland and, as he said, take care of matters.
BLAZAK: Yes. You know, Portland has had a long history of protests. I mean, it's a city sort of founded on dichotomies. So the protests are happening in small sections of the city. I think there's a perception that Portland is being burnt to the ground by protesters.
But it's a small phenomenon of what's happening but it's a reflection of what's happening in the country as a whole as we're facing a decision about how we're going to talk about race.
[04:15:00]
BLAZAK: Are we going to look at our institutions or are we going to go do the old Nixon law and order bit and clamp down and do more of the same?
So I think Portland is sort of a reflection of this crossroads we're in as a country.
ALLEN: Absolutely. And we see video there of police at a Portland riot.
Are you concerned that the president's words might bring out extremist groups to these protests?
BLAZAK: Yes, these complexes -- these protests have been a very complex phenomenon. We've seen a lot of different players, different agitators from both the right and the left. We've seen tons of peaceful protests, moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas.
We've seen sort of every stripe that you can imagine. But we've also seen right-wing extremists, who have shown up, members of hate groups and militia groups who tried to agitate. Some want to take a potshot at the Black Lives Matter protesters like in Kenosha.
Some really want to create something that looks like chaos or anarchy so they can push forward their call for a second American revolution. It's a hodgepodge and it is always sort of teetering on the edge of completely collapsing into something pretty desperate.
The good news is the protesters have largely had to police themselves. They've had to police who's showing up at the protests and in some of these cases, the police have not done that. The protesters have been kind of making sure that the violence doesn't get out of scale, that the right wingers are identified, who are there to agitate.
And so it's a strange organic phenomenon that's emerged in the streets of Portland.
ALLEN: Right. And you call it a hodgepodge of protesters. And one can understand because there is much to protest in our country right now.
The marches in Portland are now also in honor of Jacob Blake, who was shot and paralyzed by police in Kenosha.
What does his story mean to the protests there when it comes to police violence?
BLAZAK: Yes. I think it's really important. What we've seen in the past is a call for reform. We're going to change one little policy here; we're going to ban chokeholds or have police officers wear body cameras.
What the most recent case has shown is it's deeply woven into the system. The problem of racialized policing is part and parcel of the system. One of the chants that's popped up in the streets of Portland is, "No good cops in a racist system."
There might be well-meaning police officers who share values with some of the protesters. But the system itself is rooted in notions of racial control. And so this really helps push forward the narrative that defunding the police means reallocating resources or reconceptualizing the way that we police ourselves.
Let's broaden this out away from a notion that reform and policy adaptations are the way out. So something that looks much different than the way we do policing now.
ALLEN: And do you think that the fact that the Portland protests are this hodgepodge, there's so much that's on the minds of different people, does that in some way dilute what they want to see happen?
BLAZAK: It's interesting because there is a lot of spectrum. There is a lot of folks who have different ideas about what the end game is, including what the concept to defund the police means.
Some people think it means the complete abolition of police. More people think it means about reallocating funds to make police officers' jobs easier.
One of the things that we've seen, if we compare this to protests in the past, the more radical element, the element that sort of gets the media's attention, draws actually sort of mainstream to take a second look at the more moderate voices.
So the people that are kind of setting trash cans on fire may help to actually elevate the moderate position that says, let's talk about reallocating resources as opposed to completely abolishing police departments.
ALLEN: We really appreciate your insights as a sociologist on all of this. Professor Randy Blazak, thank you so much for your team. We appreciate it.
BLAZAK: Glad to join you.
ALLEN: Next here, a large crowd gathered on the White House lawn. As you can see or not see, there were not many masks. We'll update you on the fight against the coronavirus in the U.S. coming up.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:20:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, New Hampshire executive order 63, please wear masks.
ALLEN (voice-over): You can hear the boos there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ALLEN: Jeers at a Trump rally in New Hampshire. Supporters of the U.S. president booing as they were reminded to mask up. They are not the only reluctant ones.
On Thursday, more than 1,500 people gathered on the White House lawn in what's been called a potential super-spreader event to hear President Trump's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. Nick Watt tells us how America these days is coping with coronavirus.
(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. [04:25:00]
WATT: 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)
ALLEN: The coronavirus is running rampant through Latin America. The number of cases in the region has now surpassed 7 million. As you can see, Brazil is leading the way with nearly 4 million cases as they added more than 43,000 in just 24 hours. These countries now make up half of the top 10 in the entire world.
Search and rescue operations now underway in Louisiana after Hurricane Laura made its way through and left quite a calling card. We'll have the latest.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:30:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
ALLEN: Welcome back to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. I'm Natalie Allen. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM and we appreciate it.
While thousands of marchers gathered in Washington blocks from the White House, President Trump's attention was on re-election. One day after using the White House to wrap up the Republican National Convention, an unprecedented move in modern U.S. politics, he is resuming large political rallies. We get more from CNN's Jim Acosta.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Commutation.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In a bit of counterprogramming from the White House to the March on Washington down on the National Mall, President Trump held a surprise photo-op in the Oval Office, where he issued a full pardon to Alice Johnson, the same criminal justice reform advocate whose prison sentence he commuted two years ago.
TRUMP: We're giving Alice a full pardon. I just told her. We didn't even discuss it. We just -- you were out there. I saw you in the audience last night.
ACOSTA: But the president refused to comment on the march and the protesters' hopes to end police brutality in the U.S. His aides shouted over our questions.
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: What is your message to the thousands of people on the Mall?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jim, let's go.
ACOSTA: A subject Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris addressed in a virtual message to the demonstrators.
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: As we continue to see Black men and women slain in our streets and left behind by an economy and justice system that have too often denied Black folks our dignity and rights, they would share our anger and pain but no doubt they would turn it into fuel.
ACOSTA: The president and his team are trying to have it both ways, with Mr. Trump hammering away at his law and order a message.
TRUMP: We can never allow mob rule. In the strongest possible terms, the Republican Party condemns the rioting, looting, arson and violence we have seen in Democrat-run cities. ACOSTA: While his staffers insist Mr. Trump is actually a compassionate leader, ignoring his record of race-baiting stretching back decades.
JA'RON SMITH, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF AMERICAN INNOVATION: I just wish everyone could see the deep empathy he shows the families whose loved ones were killed in senseless violence.
ACOSTA: The president also tried to pull a fast one on the coronavirus, insisting he's just following the science in the battle against COVID-19.
TRUMP: My administration has a very different approach. To save as many lives as possible, we're focusing on the science, the facts and the data.
ACOSTA: But that's not true. Just look at the audience for his speech, hundreds of supporters sitting side by side with few masks in sight.
As one senior White House official told CNN: "Everybody is going to catch this thing eventually."
Chief of staff Mark Meadows all that said attendees were there at their own risk.
MARK MEADOWS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Obviously, any time that you have people together, there's the willingness that you make choices individually.
ACOSTA: The RNC revealed four people have already tested positive for the virus after attending convention events down in Charlotte, another example of GOP officials ignoring the administration's own health experts.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Any crowd, whether it's a protest but any crowd in which you have people close together without masks is a risk.
ACOSTA: Despite the real danger, campaign officials say the president will be holding more big events in the coming days with large crowds like the one we saw on the south lawn of the White House.
And just as we saw at a rally in Tulsa over the summer, campaign officials will be learning in the coming days whether staffers or other attendees were infected with the virus. Not everybody was tested before the event -- Jim Acosta, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ALLEN: President Trump on Friday finally acknowledged last Sunday's shooting of Jacob Blake. He said video of the event was, in his words, "not a good sight." But he dismissed the protests that followed as the work of rabble rousers. Here's what he told supporters Friday in New Hampshire.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Protesters -- your -- I don't talk about my -- they're not protesters. Those aren't protesters.
[04:35:00]
TRUMP: Those are anarchists, agitators.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ALLEN: Let's talk about President Trump and his campaign. Right now joining me from Colchester, England, Natasha Lindstaedt, professor of government at the University of Essex.
Good morning, Natasha. Thanks for coming on.
NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: Good morning. Thanks for having me.
ALLEN: Sure thing. Well, President Trump is campaigning as the law- and-order candidate and his remarks there mirroring that in part but the electorate is made up of hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens of all walks of life, who have participated in rallies since George Floyd's death.
They are out there supporting change, as they were in Washington on Friday.
Will his words hurt him or help him?
LINDSTAEDT: I think Trump's strategy is just to appeal to his base, which he thinks is about 40 percent of the electorate, and to ensure that people that don't support him just don't turn out to vote.
He's also just trying to play on people's fears and that's what the big theme was of the Republican convention and just the theme of the campaign in general that he's the law-and-order president, that Joe Biden is a pawn of the Left. And that there's going to be complete chaos and mayhem if Joe Biden gets elected.
One congressman at the Republican convention said that MS-13 is going to come to our streets. That's a pretty hard sell to say that Joe Biden is -- if he's elected, this is going to be complete chaos.
But he's trying to use some of the violence and looting that has taken place at these protests to really instill deep fear among American voters that, if he's not elected, that it's just going to be completely out of control.
Now what's unusual from the convention and the campaign, instead of really touting the great things he's done and his accomplishments, he's basically saying that, under his watch, there has been just total disarray. And so this is basically a fire that he has created. But he alone is the only one that can resolve it.
ALLEN: Well, he also disparaged the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, Friday, saying she was incompetent. This after the Republican convention this week focused a large portion of its program on convincing voters he is kind to women and has worked on behalf of Black Americans.
Do you think that message helped work in his favor or fell on deaf ears?
LINDSTAEDT: Well, 42 percent of women voted for Trump in 2016. In general, the Republican Party hasn't done that well with women and they're increasingly doing worse with women. Trump hasn't been doing well with women at all.
In fact, he has about 36 percent, 37 percent approval rating among women. Where things are going really badly for Trump is that, in 2016, he won over Clinton by 27 points among non-college educated women. Today's approval rating with this group is about 50 percent.
They don't like a lot of the rhetoric. They don't like the way he's handling the protests. And they don't like all of these fiery divisiveness. So some of his approaches may be working very well with non-college educated white males, where he has 70 percent support. That has not wavered at all, it hasn't changed. Just his base in general seems to think his tactics are working.
But he's losing a key, huge voting bloc and that is the female vote.
ALLEN: Viewership overall for his speech was lower than that for Democrat Joe Biden. He probably doesn't like that very much because he likes those ratings.
But did you find the president's speech, as he wrapped the convention, enlightening, invigorating in a way, that will give him a post- convention momentum?
LINDSTAEDT: Again, I think that everything that Trump did with the Republican convention is going to work really well with the base. They liked all the pomp and circumstance. They probably even liked the fact that he defied convention norms by holding it at the White House, which, of course, is him using the state assets to make the electoral playing field unlevel.
So we don't have time to talk about that. But to talk about what he actually did, his speech, he spoke with a teleprompter for over 70 minutes. It wasn't the most exciting speech. It would have been maybe more exciting had he done the sort of impromptu speeches that he likes to do.
And he mentioned Joe Biden 41 times. So he really was focused on Biden entirely throughout his speech. And that's something that he thinks works well with his supporters because he likes to create a very Us v. Them.
Instead of focusing on unity and trying to bring the country together, he wants to create a very scary environment where there are enemies of the state and there are people who support Trump. And if you don't support him, then you're on the wrong side of things and that there's going to be complete chaos. So I think everything worked well with his base. Whether or not he's
going to be able to attract more people in the middle and undecided, I don't see how it could.
[04:40:00]
ALLEN: Well, he's about to hold more rallies around the country, mask or no masks. We'll see how that scary scenario that he does like to talk about will go over with more audiences. Thank you so much, Natasha, we always appreciate your insights. We'll see you again.
LINDSTAEDT: Thanks for having me.
ALLEN: A severe water shortage has forced a hospital in Lake Charles, Louisiana, to move dozens of patients to safety after Hurricane Laura tore through this area. At the storm's peak, some hospital staff stayed inside to care for 19 babies.
Laura is now a tropical depression over the Midwest, leaving hundreds of thousands without power and at least 10 people dead in Louisiana alone. CNN's Gary Tuchman has more on rescue operations.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Calls keep coming in to the sheriff's office from people in the Lake Charles area who can't get in touch with their family members or friends. So Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, deputies, Ryan Tarver and Cameron Hicks, are responding to as many calls as they can.
We go to this house, heavily damaged from the hurricane.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How y'all doing?
(INAUDIBLE).
TUCHMAN (voice-over): They are looking for a 72-year-old man who did not evacuate. There was great concern the man could be found dead or seriously hurt. Paramedics and a worried neighbor were there when the sheriff's deputies arrived. They found the man, Gerald Frush, a Vietnam veteran, who had indeed been hurt.
GERALD FRUSH, CALCASIEU PARISH RESIDENT: I slipped and fell in the hallway.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you feeling OK now?
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were worried about you.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The sheriff's deputies are worried about you and the emergency workers are worried about you.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Frush says he believes he hurt his ribs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Walking into this way. (INAUDIBLE).
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Everyone here relieved that Gerald Frush is not seriously hurt. Sadly, different deputies earlier found a man who had died from what is believed to be carbon monoxide poisoning. And that is always a major concern.
As the deputies go to this door --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sheriff's office.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): -- there is no answer. That happens quite a bit.
There's also no answer here. But then they go around to the side of this damaged house.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dottie Richard?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got (INAUDIBLE) do a welfare check on you. I guess the family was trying to contact you and they hadn't been able to --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know, my son just called me.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Dottie Richard said she and her family did evacuate just before the storm hit. But like many here, she has no cell service, no power, no water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have everything that you need here?
DOTTIE RICHARD, LAKE CHARLES RESIDENT: (INAUDIBLE). My house is a total (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I tracked you down here --
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is a camper. I didn't even recognize it.
RICHARD: Thirty-five foot and we have busted that -- getting that thing from top to bottom to sell it (ph).
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Fifteen years ago, Dottie Richard says she lost her house when Hurricane Rita hit. Now they're grateful the deputies came to make sure they're OK.
RICHARD: I appreciate it. I really do. We're still here kind of basically by ourselves. So most of our neighbors haven't come back.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): There are still many searches for these sheriff's deputies to do and relief that, on this particular shift, nobody was found seriously hurt or dead -- Gary Tuchman, CNN, Lake Charles, Louisiana. (END VIDEOTAPE)
ALLEN: Lake Charles was hit so severely. We'll be thinking about all of the people there.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is doing better. He's still in the hospital under the care of German doctors who say he was poisoned in Russia. We'll have a live report about his condition next.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:45:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
ALLEN: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny right now is in serious but stable condition. That's according to the hospital in Berlin where he's been treated after becoming suddenly ill in his home country.
German doctors say their tests show Navalny was, indeed, poisoned. The hospital also says he's on a ventilator and is still in a medically induced coma. CNN's Phil Black joins me live from Berlin. He is covering the story.
Do we know anything more about his prognosis?
PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So the good news is that the immediate threat to his life has passed, say the doctors here at the Charite Hospital. They say the symptoms caused by the poisoning are diminishing. But he is still seriously unwell, as you say, in a medically induced coma, on a ventilator, in the intensive care unit.
Doctors say it is too early what the long-term consequences of what they describe as such a severe poisoning will be.
Now Russia continues to insist that it was not involved in harming Alexei Navalny. But it is also still pushing back on the need to open an investigation to find out who did it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
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.
[04:50:00]
BLACK (voice-over): 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: Navalny's friends and family have long feared for his safety. Now that someone it appears has tried to kill him, they fear it marks the start of a new era for Russia, one where dissent is even less tolerated and one where there is even greater willingness to use brutal repression against those who challenge the system -- Natalie. ALLEN: Only hope that will embolden all of his millions of followers
that support him. Phil Black for us there in Berlin, Phil, thank you so much.
Pro basketball is coming back after the protests, boycotts and postponements. The National Basketball Association's playoffs are set to resume and we'll tell you what broke the impasse just ahead.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:55:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
ALLEN: Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka has returned to the courts after she chose not to play following the Jacob Blake shooting. She wore a Black Lives Matter shirt before her rescheduled semifinal at the Western and Southern Open on Friday.
The former world number one said she withdrew initially, after, quote, "watching the continued genocide of Black people at the hand of the police."
The tournament postponed matches on Thursday but, as play resumed, Osaka won in straight sets to reach the final. She said she wants to continue the fight for racial justice.
And after three idle days, U.S. pro basketball is set to resume Saturday. Nine playoff games were postponed after players refused to take the court in response to the Jacob Blake shooting.
Now the NBA and the players union say they'll form a coalition to promote social justice, police reform and voting initiatives. Superstar Chris Paul called it real change.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS PAUL, OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER: What we're doing right now in our league is huge. I think for the young guys in our league to get a chance to see how guys are really coming together and speak and see real change, real action.
We all hurt -- we are all tired of saying the same thing over and over again. And everybody just expects us to be OK just because we get paid great money. You know, we're human. We have real feelings.
It's a new day for the NBA.
I'm Natalie Allen. Thanks for being with me this hour. I invite you to follow me on Twitter or Instagram. We'll see you tomorrow. Kim Brunhuber is up next with more news for you.
