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Economic Impact of Virus Takes Heavy Toll on Women; Russian Teacher' Union Expressing Concern Over Vaccine; Charlie Hebdo Republishes Cartoons as Trial Begins; New Question Surround Trump's Hospital Visit Last Year. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired September 02, 2020 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: More than 14 million Americans are out of work and that means millions are facing eviction because they can't pay their rent. That's while Congress and the White House remain dead locked over how to provide more financial relief. Vanessa Yurkevich looks at how the political standoff is impacting women.

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VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): On the streets of Harlem signs of business on life support.

TAMI TREADWELL, OWNER, HARLEM SEAFOOD SOUL: It's been like a ghost town out here.

YURKEVICH: Tami Treadwell is back with her food cart, Harlem Seafood Soul. After five months off the streets.

(on camera): What got you back out here on the street again?

TREADWELL: Needing to be able to feed my family.

YURKEVICH (voice-over): Months into the pandemic more than 100,000 small businesses have closed. She's applied for grants from the city and a PPP loan, but hasn't received either.

TREADWELL: Responses I've gotten is that there isn't enough money or try back again maybe some additional funding will become available or you just don't hear anything back at all.

YURKEVICH: But even with a PPP loan for some it didn't go far.

LUISA SANTOS, OWNER, LULU'S ICE CREAM: As it was designed, we ran out of that money a little bit longer than a week it lasted but still we are way past that eight week point.

YURKEVICH: Luisa Santos opens Lulu's Ice Cream six years ago in Miami. She immigrated to the U.S. from Colombia for the American dream. Now, she's cutting her salary to keep her employees on part time and she's hoping Congress will pass a third stimulus bill for her small business.

SANTOS: We are good place in our economy and what we need is support, to get through the rough patch.

[04:35:00]

YURKEVICH: But the U.S. jobs recovery is stalling. Less than 50 percent of the 22 million jobs lost in March and April are back online. More than a million people have filed for unemployment each week except one since mid-March and the extra $600 a week in unemployment benefits have expired.

TREADWELL: I'm behind in my rent like everybody else. We're food insecure like everybody else.

YURKEVICH: Still some parts of the U.S. economy are thriving. U.S. tech companies have recovered and then some. The top five in the U.S. are now worth a collective $7 trillion. But there's a disconnect between Wall Street and main street. While stocks are hitting records, up to 40 million Americans could face eviction by the end of the year without a new stimulus bill.

TREADWELL: If you leave us out, we're going to have barren streets. The economy's not going get up and running because we are the life blood of main street America.

YURKEVICH: The pandemic is also exposing a harsh reality for women of color. The highest rate of unemployment is among Latino workers ...

SANTOS: Thank you so much.

YURKEVICH: ... and black women in jobs deemed essential to COVID-19 recovery make up to 27 percent less than white men.

SANTOS: We are being affected more significantly than other business owners and we need that support.

TREADWELL: I know for a fact as a black woman that there has been a social and economic disadvantage for us for as long as I can remember. Please think about the street vendors who are out here, who are really just trying to make a good honest living.

YURKEVICH (on camera): This is why a stimulus bill is so critical. Because it can address various parts of the economy. It can help freeze evictions, help with student debt, unemployment and give money to small businesses. And when you put money into the hands of everyday Americans, they are more likely to spend and that helps stimulates the economy and provide more jobs.

Vanessa Yurkevich, CNN New York.

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CHURCH: In Russia, a teachers' union is urging its members to reject the country's coronavirus vaccine due to safety concerns. The union has even launched a petition to ensure teachers are not forced to take it until more testing is done. And this comes as schools reopen across Russia this week. CNN's Matthew Chance joins us now from Moscow. Good to see you, Matthew. So, how long might these teachers be able to hold out and resist taking this vaccine before they are perhaps forced to do so?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rosemary, their big concern is that the human trials of this Russian vaccine have been completed. They are concerned whether the vaccine is safe or effective. But of course, schools like in many other countries in the world have started back. Now in Russia in fact they've for the most part went back yesterday.

As the country reached a grim milestone, a million confirmed coronavirus infections across the country. Russia is also the only country in the world that has what it says is an approved COVID-19 vaccine. But as we found, there's still a great deal of mistrust about that vaccine for the reasons you just highlighted and hasn't been taken up by many of the teachers.

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CHANCE (voice-over): Starting school can be daunting, even without a pandemic. But Russia is putting on a brave show. It says it has a vaccine after all, approved for use on this COVID frontline.

(on camera): Well it's the first day of school here, the first time since March that Russian classrooms have reopened amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It's very exciting for the kids. Their teachers, who are meant to be among the first to benefit from Russia's new coronavirus vaccine, but what we're learning is that few, if any, have taken up the offer to be vaccinated.

(voice-over): We were given access to one of Moscow's top schools where some measures like testing and teachers and face masks have been implemented.

(on camera): And I have seen that they are not using face masks. They're not --

(voice-over): But no one we spoke to here had taken the Russian vaccine, even though teachers, along with doctors, are meant to have been given first access after the vaccine was fast-tracked to approval before completing phase three human trials.

(on camera): There is some concern that it might not be safe, it might not be effective. Have you heard that concern amongst your colleagues? Amongst teachers that they are worried about the vaccine?

MARIA ZATOLOKINA, DEPUTY HEAD, SCHOOL 1363: Actually, we haven't discussed it yet. But I think that every teacher understands how important to be safe and to create a safe environment for our students to be healthy.

[04:40:00]

That's why I hope that we are responsible people and we should -- we should be vaccinated.

CHANCE: Are you going to have the vaccine?

ZATOLOKINA: Yes, of course.

CHANCE: Definitely?

ZATOLOKINA: Definitely.

CHANCE (voice-over): But there are others who say they're definitely want. One Russian teachers' union has started an online petition, calling on members to reject the vaccine outright on safety grounds, and expressing concern that vaccination, currently voluntary, should not be made mandatory unless clinical trials are complete.

YURI VARLAMOV, TEACHER, UCHITEL UNION MEMBER: Before the end of all testing, they cannot make it mandatory. But I know that in some schools, in some state bodies, people are talking about mandatory status of this vaccine in the end of this year.

CHANCE (on camera): Do you think that's a sort of political decision? Do you think it's important for the Russian authorities to make sure everybody has this vaccine, whether or not it works? Whether or not it's safe?

VARLAMOV: Yes, sure. That's a very political decision, because skills of government to make the life of people safe is a very important point in Russia.

CHANCE (voice-over): And so is showing Russia's widely criticized vaccine to be a success. Teachers can refuse it now, but not perhaps for much longer.

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CHANCE: Well, Rosemary, many of the teachers we spoke to say that they intend to take the vaccine perhaps next month, perhaps a little later. But it was all left a little vague. The problem is fast tracking a vaccine like this. Should cutting the normal human trials, not allowing clinical data to be peer-reviewed, creates an atmosphere of mistrust about the vaccine, about whether it's safe or whether it's effective, back to you.

CHURCH: Yes, absolutely. Everyone wants to be sure. They're putting it in their body. They wanted to be safe. Matthew Chance, many thanks for that report.

It was a terror attack that shocked France and the world five years ago. Now as the trial gets under way the "Charlie Hebdo" magazine is republishing the controversy of cartoons that made it a target. We are live in Paris, that's next.

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CHURCH: At this hour in Paris a trial is under way for fourteen suspected accomplices in the terror attacks on the "Charlie Hebdo" magazine and a kosher grocery in the store 2015. The French satirical magazine is republishing the controversial cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Mohammed that the heart of the massacre five years ago.

And CNN's Melissa Bell joins us now live from Paris. So, Melissa, what is expected to come out of this trial and what will this mean in terms of increased security across the city?

MELISSA BELL, CNN PARIS CORRESPONDENT: Well, formidable security all around this Paris courthouse this morning, even before that decision by "Charlie Hebdo" that you just mentioned to republish those controversial cartoons that had been published, remember, back in 2016 that had ultimately made the satirical publication the target of that attack back in 2015.

Even before that decision was announced yesterday the trial behind me was expected really to attract a great deal of attention. Now you're not going see any images of what's going on inside, but the scenes are really quite extraordinary. Of those 14 suspects that you mentioned that are essentially suspected and accused by the prosecution of having helped in the logistical preparation of these attacks. Because bear in mind, that the three actual perpetrators, the Kouachi brothers and Amedy Coulibaly were killed over the course of those three days of attacks.

Those 14 suspects only 11 of them are actually present here. Three are of them are still on the run including the wife of Amedy Coulibaly who fled to Syria in the days just before the attack.

So much attention, in fact, given to this trial that special rooms have been created so that the public can come and witness what's going on inside. What you see -- and you won't be able to see it sadly because we can't show to it you -- what the public can see from these special gallery, the giant screens showing what's going on inside. Are that 10 of the suspects behind special bullet proof glassing. So far, they've confirmed their name and their date of birth. In the 11th suspect is on the other side of the casing because he's here of his own free will. He's not actually incarcerated for the time being.

After they'd spoken to confirm who they were and where they lived or where they have lived before, they were taken into custody. We then heard from the lawyers representing the victims who are here to try in the hope that justice will finally begin.

A great deal of attention because of that great wound that still exists still in France. These were attacks that went on over several days. Their violence had stunned France. Much of it was captured on camera. That had increased attention. It ended, of course, in a manhunt that was very dramatic. And of course, 17 people were killed. That already attracting a great deal of attention once again in France. And of course, as you mentioned, the decision to publish once again those cartoons really adding to the tension around this trial -- Rosemary.

CHURCH: Yes, absolutely. I know you'll continue to follow this. Melissa Bell joining us live from Paris. Many thanks. And just ahead, President Trump's response to a new book raising

questions about his health. We will have the details on the other side of the break. Stay with us.

[04:50:00]

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CHURCH: Just a few days before Thanksgiving last year the U.S. President was suddenly rushed to Walter Reed hospital. A new book claims to have new details of that day. Here's CNN Brian Todd reporting from Washington.

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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Trump's unannounced visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center last November, raising new and troubling questions about transparency from the White House.

In a forthcoming book obtained by CNN, "New York Times" reporter Michael Schmidt, not revealing his sources, says Vice President Pence was put on standby to temporarily assume the powers of the presidency if Trump had to undergo a procedure that would have required anesthesia.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It makes you wonder, what was that, and is it going to lead to anything more down the road? He was only in the hospital for just over an hour, so you know, we know that it's unlikely he was anaesthetized. It's unlikely he had a procedure done, but something that day got people really worried.

TODD: Pence did not end up assuming the powers of the presidency that day. At the time of Trump's Walter Reed visit, the White House called it routine. A former White House physician who served under Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton says there could be a straightforward explanation.

DR. WILLIAM LANG, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PHYSICIAN: The president travels. The job of the military -- military unit and the medical unit is to make sure that all contingencies are covered, so we don't know what the details of this reported, have the vice president on standby, this may have just been the routine, OK, the president is going to the hospital. Let's make sure we've got all of our standard -- standard operating procedures in place.

TODD: Responding to questions about his health, Trump tweeted, it never ends. And denied a suggestion from a fringe author that he'd suffered a series of mini strokes.

Trump's White House physician, Dr. Sean Conley, also denied that, and in a statement today, said, the president remains healthy and I have no concerns about his ability to maintain the rigorous schedule ahead of him. But CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta says there remain too many unanswered questions over unusual occurrences surrounding that Walter Reed visit.

GUPTA: They say this was a routine visit, but nothing about this visit was routine. On a Saturday, unannounced, doctors in the car with him. They say it had nothing to do with the brain or the heart, but frankly, most routine things can otherwise be taken care of at the White House. So, this doesn't make sense.

[04:55:00]

TODD: There have been other attention-grabbing moments. On two separate occasions, President Trump had to steady one hand with the other while drinking water during speeches.

He seemingly walked hesitantly down a ramp at West Point this summer, steadying his feet at every step. He made an unfounded claim at the time that the ramp was slippery, and he didn't want to fall in front of the, quote, fake news.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This was a steel ramp. It had no handrail. It was like an ice skating rink.

TODD: Through all of it, the president and his doctors have repeatedly contended he's healthy, but one medical ethicist is concerned about the secrecy.

ARTHUR CAPLAN, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF MEDICAL ETHICS, NYU LANGONE MEDICAL CENTER: Our biggest worry is we have an election between Trump and Biden, and Trump somehow, in the middle of this, becomes somewhat incapacitated, but covers it up. Doesn't let us know that the person we're going to vote for may become increasingly disabled during a second term.

TODD (on camera): Vice President Pence now says he doesn't recall being put on standby the day that President Trump went to Walter Reed.

In an interview with FOX News, the vice president said he's always kept informed of the president's movements, and he's always ready. But he doesn't remember anything out of the ordinary about that day.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And President Trump is still vehemently denying all aspects of the story. Just hours ago, he tweeted this, Mike Pence was never put on standby

and there were no mini strokes. This is just more fake news.

And thanks so much for you company. I'm Rosemary Church. Be sure to connect with me on twitter, @RosemaryCNN. "EARLY START" is up next. You're watching CNN. Have yourselves a great day.

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