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Large Labor Day Events Cancelled in Atlanta, Georgia, Due to Coronavirus Spread; Indoor Dining and Movie Theaters Begin Opening in New Jersey; University of Georgia Holds Some In-Person Classes; President Trump Denies Reports He Disparaged U.S. Military Members; Photographer Documents Families Suffering from Hunger Before and During Coronavirus Pandemic; Report Indicates White House Directing Federal Agencies to Cancel Racially Sensitive Training Sessions; Security Guard Lifts Spirits of Health Care Workers Leaving Hospital Shifts. Aired 10-11a ET
Aired September 05, 2020 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:00:00]
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: No, that would be a big, big mistake, and I won't do it.
Enjoy the holiday weekend. That survey question will stay up at Smerconish.com. I'll see you next week.
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Super spreader fears, concern over gatherings making the pandemic even worse this weekend as the U.S. kicks off another holiday.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, playing defense. President Trump fiercely denying accusations he mocked fallen U.S. troops.
PAUL: And hunger in America. The photographer documenting some of the millions of people who are struggling to put food on the table right now.
Always grateful to have you with us. Good morning to you on this Saturday, September 5th. I'm Christi Paul.
SAVIDGE: And I'm Martin Savidge in for Victor Blackwell. This is a special Labor Day weekend edition of CNN Newsroom.
PAUL: Kicking off the holiday weekend, Martin. The nation's top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci is encouraging all of us to keep our gatherings small. He's suggesting making outdoor plans to try to help prevent the spread of the virus.
SAVIDGE: On Friday the U.S. recorded more than 50,000 new coronavirus cases, the same day a model often cited by top health officials predicted the virus could kill more than 410,000 Americans by the start of next year. With social distancing measures in place this holiday weekend, it's going to look very different, not only in Atlanta but in many other cities across the country.
Let's bring in now CNN's Natasha Chen. Natasha, Atlanta of course hosts several large events over the Labor Day weekend, or maybe I should say did.
NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Martin. In fact, it is so quiet on the street right now outside the Georgia World Congress Center. We are the only ones here pretty much. But typically there would be thousands of people in this building for Dragon Con, a major convention for fans of comics, sci-fi, gaming. And they would be gathering in the streets for a parade with costumes. That is not happening in person this year. And of course, that also means hotels, restaurants, businesses, bars are not seeing those dollars come in this time.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CARRIE BURNS, CO-FOUNDER, ATLANTA MOVIE TOURS: This entire Walton Street is just a hotbed of film.
CHEN: On Labor Day weekend Carrie Burns would usually be booked solid.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a lot of productions that are filmed in this area due to the different aesthetics.
CHEN: Giving tours of iconic spots in Atlanta where major blockbusters and TV shows were filmed.
BURNS: Right behind us is the tank scene from "Walking Dead."
CHEN: The post-apocalyptic Atlanta of "The Walking Dead" may be a thing of fiction, but the reality of 2020 can be bleak. Nearly 6,000 people in Georgia have died, about 280,000 people have tested positive for coronavirus, and businesses like Atlanta Movie Tours closed for good.
BURNS: It is emotional, but I think you come to a point where you know that you made the right decision.
CHEN: The Atlanta Convention and Visitor's Bureau says this Labor Day weekend would have seen nearly a quarter million visitors, and businesses would have made more $151 million just off of Dragon Con and two college football kickoff games at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Instead, Dragon Con is virtual. The Atlanta Black Pride Festival is still happening in person. But the annual PGA Tour Championship at East Lake golf club is being played to no fans. The two kickoff games plus a third one next weekend are canceled.
GARY STOKAN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, PEACH BOWL, INC.: You're talking $100 million over the three games, and $7.5 million of that would have translated back into tax revenue into the city of Atlanta. So certainly, the hotels, the restaurants, the bars, the city itself is losing a great economic impact.
GREG GANT, OWNER, THE RED PHONE BOOTH: As you see when you guys came, there's no one on the streets. There's no businessmen. There's no lawyers and offices and high rises.
CHEN: The Red Phone Booth, a speakeasy in downtown Atlanta, opened exactly five years ago with the Dragon Con Cigar Club as their first guests.
And so this would be packed during Labor Day weekend?
GANT: Absolutely. Absolutely. They're all dressed up, some in steampunk, some in 1920s with your Charlie Chaplin stuff.
CHEN: Instead they'll still have local supporters coming by this weekend at a reduced capacity per state rules. More than half of the company's furloughed staff are back, but business has not recovered enough to bring back all of them.
GANT: There have been many sleepless nights.
CHEN: And he knows some businesses, like his friend Carrie Burns Atlanta Movie Tours won't make it on the other side of this pandemic.
BURNS: I think that we could have done better to stop this or slow this early on with some -- between mask wearing and physical distancing early, early stages. We got to the point where we were just a little too late.
[10:05:02]
CHEN: While the owners of businesses that are emptier this weekend know that the sooner the virus is stopped, the sooner they can see friendly faces again, that requires people not to gather en masse this holiday weekend.
GOV. BRIAN KEMP, (R-GA): I understand that many, many of us are tired and ready to move on. But we have to hunker down and keep chopping against COVID-19.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHEN: Mercedes-Benz Stadium is silent when there should have been two kickoff games this weekend. Right now the SEC Championship and the Peach Bowl are still on the calendar to be played later this year, but we will see how this pandemic plays out in the coming months. Martin and Christi, back to you.
PAUL: Natasha Chen, we appreciate it so much. Thank you.
For the first time since the start of the pandemic, indoor dining and movie theaters are open in New Jersey.
SAVIDGE: And that is where CNN's Evan McMorris-Santoro joins us now live. Going to the movies, Evan, is something we've all done. We've grown up doing it. But I imagine it's not the same old experience anymore.
EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, it's very, very different. In fact, here in New Jersey the governor only said just a few days ago that movie theaters could open. I'm here at a cinema in Hoboken, New Jersey, and you can see how quickly they had to change to opening up. This is one of the coming soon posters outside this theater. It's for a movie that opened in March. It's called "A Quiet Place" which is what this theater has been for the past couple of months.
Let me show you what is different now about going to the movies in New Jersey. Over the past couple of weeks they've been looking trying to open up new places. And as you see, when you come to a theater now, you walk in. There's this sign that says, look, if you have had any symptoms, let us know. We'll give you a refund on your ticket. If you come, it's a 25 percent capacity cap on how many people can go into the theaters. They can sit together if they're with their family. They're supposed to wear masks unless they're eating popcorn. All of these limits will be strictly enforced, the governor says, to try to keep the virus load down in this state while also allowing things like movie theaters to reopen, guys.
SAVIDGE: Wow. Evan McMorris-Santoro, thank you very much for a look at what it's going to be like next time at the movie theater. Appreciate it.
Meanwhile, President Trump insists the U.S. is doing better than the rest of the world on coronavirus, saying yesterday that if you take out New York, quote, you can multiply our tremendous success by a lot. First of all, New York is part of the U.S., and even if you take out New York's numbers, that's not enough to undo this country's lead in both COVID-19 cases and deaths around the world.
PAUL: The number of new cases and deaths has come down from peaks that we saw during the summer surge. We're still averaging 1,000 people dying every day here in the U.S. though. And there's also a plateau in the number of new cases, with the U.S. averaging around 40,000 cases every day. And the Midwest is the region that health experts say they're really watching closely now because of the uptick in cases and the percentage of COVID-19 tests coming back positive.
SAVIDGE: More than 33,000 COVID-19 cases are from colleges and universities in all 50 states.
PAUL: CNN's Dianne Gallagher got a firsthand look at what's happening at the University of Georgia, for example, which recently started in- person classes, and they've seen a significant jump in COVID-19 cases as well.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JONATHAN WEBB, UGA STUDENT: Feels like I'm in a dream, not in a good way.
DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As students across the country return to college campuses --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This readjusting, trying to feel normal.
GALLAGHER: -- there is more on their mind than declaring a major.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It doesn't feel like school. It doesn't feel real.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is definitely not how I imagined me coming back on campus was going to be.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You've been diagnosed with COVID in the last 90 days.
GALLAGHER: Like just about everything else in 2020, a day in the life of a college student looks and feels a whole lot different during a global pandemic.
DR. MICHELLE NUSS, MEDICAL CAMPUS DEAN, UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA: They're putting a lot of trust in us, right? We have put our best program in place, vetting it for four months to make this campus a safe place.
GALLAGHER: At the university of Georgia, dorm life is unconventional as social distancing is in force.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We all have assigned showers, toilets. If you didn't know anyone coming in, it's probably pretty rough.
GALLAGHER: Social opportunities on campus are limited, especially with virtual learning. But UGA, is holding some in-person classes with professors teaching behind plexiglass and in spaced seating auditoriums.
DR. JOE WATSON JR., PROFESSOR, UGA: I am absolutely teaching in person this semester.
GALLAGHER: What's it like?
WATSON: For me it's great to be in the classroom.
GALLAGHER: Professor Joe Watson Jr., who teaches public affairs communications, was elated to get back to what he called a sense of normalcy.
WATSON: I was comfortable when I saw the level of precautions that the university was taking.
GALLAGHER: But that's not the case for everyone. In a scathing opinion column published in "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution," four of the university's health policy and public health faculty called UGA's plan inadequate and said the testing strategy puts the campus in, quote, grave danger.
[10:10:05]
NUSS: We feel very good about having our students back on campus as well as our faculty and staff.
GALLAGHER: Dr. Michelle Nuss, Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry and UGA Medical Campus Dean, is helping to lead the school's COVID response.
NUSS: We wanted to put in place something that was effective, using the highest level of testing. Most importantly, we wanted fast turnaround.
GALLAGHER: To make this happen UGA set up their own coronavirus testing lab on campus at their renowned vet school.
NUSS: I think we struck a nice balance.
GALLAGHER: UGA operates a voluntary testing program. But right now it only has the ability to do about 500 free tests each day for asymptomatic students, staff, and faculty.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had to go online, seek it out, and sign up.
GALLAGHER: Colleges across the country have been getting a crash course in COVID management, and many aren't making the grade. University of Alabama students had to have a negative test before coming back to campus. But more than 1,200 students have tested positive since classes began. After brief in-person classes, the University of North Carolina and Temple University switched back to online courses following outbreaks.
NUSS: We have about 8,400 in dorms here, 32,000 are here in Athens off campus. And so that is a challenge of every university.
GALLAGHER: Dianne Gallagher, CNN, Athens, Georgia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL: This morning President Trump is lashing out over allegations that he called U.S. service members suckers and losers.
SAVIDGE: Those allegations first reported in "The Atlantic" have been corroborated by several news outlets, though CNN has not confirmed all aspects of the reporting.
PAUL: CNN's Kevin Liptak is at the White House right now. So the president, we know that he is boasted about how much he says he's done for the military, also taking a swipe at the late Senator John McCain, which those two arguments don't really go hand in hand obviously. But Kevin, what are you hearing from the White House?
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: This is really becoming something of a political crisis for the president, that he continues to deny even though a lot of what's contained in that article is borne out by reporting and by the president's own comments. This morning he tried to reset the image of himself as strong on the military. He wrote on Twitter, "You work so hard for the military, from completely rebuilding a depleted mess that was left by OBiden to fixing a broken V.A. and fighting for large-scale military pay raises. Then a slimeball reporter maybe working with disgruntled people makes up such a horrible charge."
In that tweet he goes on to take a swipe at Senator John McCain who Trump is accused in that very article of disrespecting, then of course sort of lays out the problem in this avalanche of denials about that "Atlantic" article is that much of what is contained in there the president has said publicly, including the charge that the president didn't want to offer an official funeral for John McCain. Former administration officials say that that is accurate, and that his resistance to lowering the flag after McCain's death was well- documented at the time.
Now, this all comes at a moment sort of tension between the president and military leadership. They have been at odds over things like renaming bases that are named for Confederate generals and using federal troops in American cities to quell protests. The president, we're told, has been furious about this article. He's mobilized former and current officials to all deny it. Now there's one voice that has been missing in that wave of denials, and that's the president's former chief of staff John Kelly. The president was asked about Kelly's silence yesterday, and he went off. Listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He didn't do a good job, had no temperament, and ultimately, he was petered out. He was exhausted. This man was totally exhausted. He wasn't even able to function in the last number of months. He was not able to function. He was sort of a tough guy. By the time he got eaten up in this world, it's a different world than he was used to, he was unable to function. And I told him, John, you're going to have to go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIPTAK: So clearly no love lost there between the president and his former chief of staff. And people familiar with the matter have told us that the two men were barely speaking by the time Kelly left the White House. Now if the president's goal in all of this is to try and rebut the notion that he doesn't respect the military, it's not clear that that line of attack is going to work for him. John Kelly is a decorated, retired Marine Corps general, and Kelly's own son died while serving the country overseas in uniform. Guys?
SAVIDGE: Picking a fight like that is not one the president is likely to win. Kevin Liptak, thanks very much at the White House.
One of President Trump's newest coronavirus advisers, Dr. Scott Atlas, is downplaying the model projecting more than 410,000 Americans dead from COVID-19 by the start of next year. Here he is with Michael Smerconish last hour.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[10:15:00]
DR. SCOTT ATLAS, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE ADVISER: I think the model is ridiculous in many ways. When you look at what they're doing, they're claiming they can predict if you wear masks and if you don't how many deaths will occur. That is absurd. Some of these people -- we are in a country that is off the rails. Somehow, we're focusing on hypothetical models. We have massive evidence here. Let's look at what we know instead of what we project in this theoretical model. I think it's really off the rails when the taxicab driver starts knowing what a projection model is or starts telling me about hydroxychloroquine. This is sort of like the tulip bulb mania. This is really off the rails.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAVIDGE: Actually, what we know is the IHME projections have been, if anything, a bit conservative. For example, in June the IHME projected 180,000 deaths by October 1st. The U.S. has already reported more than 187,000 deaths, and we're only in the first week of September.
PAUL: Still ahead, putting faces and names to the crisis of hunger that millions of people are facing in this country right now. Photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally, she's traveled the country. She's met with countless numbers of people struggling to feet their family during this pandemic. You are not going to want to miss the pictures she took and the stories she heard. She's with us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:20:25]
PAUL: The economic fallout from the pandemic has plunged millions of people into, obviously, uncertainty about their futures, but it's also highlighted problems that already existed in society, because there are millions of families who are already struggling to put food on the table. And we're joined by millions more now, who have this new worry about where they're going to get their next meal.
SAVIDGE: A feature in "The New York Times" magazine called "America at Hunger's Edge" documents what families across the country have been going through. And our next guest is Brenda Ann Kenneally, the photographer who traveled the country meeting with these families. And thank you so much for the work you've done and thank you for being with us this morning.
BRENDA ANN KENNEALLY, "NEW YORK TIMES" MAGAZINE PHOTOGRAPHER: Thank you for having me.
SAVIDGE: I know that some of these families have been struggling for years, and you photographed the Stocklas family, I think I'm saying it right, over a period of time. So what did they say about how things have changed since this pandemic for them?
KENNEALLY: Well, yes. And thank you for starting with that image. So when my editors at "The New York Times" magazine and I were discussing the best way to really get to the heart of what was going on, because that's what these photos are, they're -- documentary photography traditionally is to educate the emotions. And I think that that's one thing, whether it be digital or in print, that what we do is -- that's our purpose.
Anyway, we started with this family that I could have photographed for this issue at any point during the past 15 years because I've known them. And so they have struggled with scarcity. They have struggled with all kinds of marginalization. At this point, though, because there seems to be a moratorium on the shame that's associated with feeding yourself, because of the benefits that were brought to people in an emergency situation, they were actually being cared for better than they had been over the past 10 years. So I think that we're seeing an opportunity for a level of care that we need to rise up to and sustain and organize.
PAUL: You know what I thought was striking, Brenda, was the number of people in one household in some of your pictures, particularly with Doris Hall who was 63 years old. She's helping take care of her great grandchildren, I remember that. And she said at any point there could be between nine to 14 children on the weekends with her so their parents can work. How prevalent was that scenario of seeing that many -- we're looking at a picture on the screen now of her and the children that are in her household at any given time. How prevalent was that scenario, to see a household have that many people who know that scarcity?
KENNEALLY: That for me is like coming home. I walk into that house and that's like houses that I've been in over the past 20 years. I don't -- I can almost tell you what's going to happen, except for there's always kids that will surprise you, and as technology or things change, music, that will be different.
But this is -- this is the landscape of scarcity. This is how people ingeniously pull together their resources and all they have is each other. And they make it work. There is a grit and a fortitude among folks, and there are now third and fourth generations of them, particularly children, that we as a humanity together, and I say we because there is absolutely no difference between Doris Hall and me, it's just that I have fewer grandkids by birth. I have many that I have -- that I claim.
And that is because family, day care is expensive, you don't know who to trust with your children. Children are a blessing. They are something that you can have and a life that you can create. It's within the scope of your possibility for women, and it is a tradition. It's also, I don't think so in Doris's case, but it's tied to religion. Religion tells us that we are to be fruitful and go forth and multiply, especially women. And now we have the election, birth control and talking about women's reproduction may be one of the issues that skews it. So you have food insecurity, but you have food basically as a symbol of the inequity in this country and the generational disadvantage that is layered.
[10:25:05]
And so women having children and raising a family is a profession, a profession like other folks might send their daughter to graduate school. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's what I know to be true.
SAVIDGE: One of the things as I looked at the photograph there, and I knew school lunches were important because we had reported on them at the beginning of the pandemic about how they continue to provide them even though people weren't in the schools. But the images you capture of the single serving milk cartons that are stored in people's homes and how one meal -- how a school lunch is now being consumed by an entire family. It was just really striking to see these individual servings now piled to feed a whole group of people.
KENNEALLY: And people were incredibly ingenious with them. Tifa (ph) and her daughter and the rest -- I can't remember every family member, but I remember their faces and their hearts.
SAVIDGE: Sure.
KENNEALLY: In Gary, Indiana, they were making entire meals. She had an iPhone going through them because she had been a cook in a casino. And obviously she was on furlough in that profession. And she had entire -- like a cookbook of everything that she could do from these school lunches. Tacos were a big thing. All of the apples, a saw apple cakes being baked.
And it's not just the lunches. School for all of us, my son is now 26, is a central part of our lives. And so it's the meeting place. It's the teachers knowing your family, and knowing your situation. And I saw in Troy before any of those lunch programs were put in place, teachers carrying a brown bag to each door with some granola bars and a sleeve of Ritz Cracker and maybe a jar of peanut butter that I know they purchased themselves.
So that system -- and then after the food banks would use the schools as their distribution points because we're trying to limit the number of places that people go. Anyway, the schools have shown themselves to be a really multi-resource center. And of course they, again, know the families.
PAUL: Brenda Ann Kenneally, your pictures are, they're humbling and they're striking, and they're so -- they're painful and they're sad, and yet you see this hope in them with all of these children. It's definitely worth looking at. Brenda Ann Kenneally, we appreciate your work. Thank you.
SAVIDGE: Yes, thank you. Thank you for doing it.
KENNEALLY: Thank you for having us. Thank you so much.
SAVIDGE: Right now, millions of families are facing hunger, many for the first time due to the coronavirus pandemic. If you're in need of food assistance, here are a few resources that can help. Feeding America can help you find local food banks, food giveaways, and mobile trucks in your area. Next there's No Kid Hungry. They work with communities across the country to feed kids school breakfast, dinner, and snacks to ensure that all kids have access to three healthy meals a day. And finally, if you're a veteran, Feed Our Vets helps distribute food to former military service members, their spouses, and their children.
PAUL: Stay with us. We're asking the question, why is President Trump banning federal agencies from conducting workplace training sessions on race? Alice Stewart and Maria Cardona are here to discuss. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:32:58]
PAUL: Final two-month sprint, we're in here together of the 2020 campaign. New national polls this week show a largely steady race following the conventions. Vice President Biden holding a seven to 10 point lead over President Trump. Polls from battleground states, though, much closer. In the key swing state of Florida, for example, the president and Joe Biden now polling within the margin of error.
CNN political commentators Alice Stewart and Maria Cardona with us now. Alice, by the way, is a former Republican strategist. Maria is a former Democratic strategist. And together they host a podcast called "Hot Mics from Left to Right." It's informative, passionate, political conversation with civility and respect, they want to point out. It is now on my favorites in my phone, just so you women know.
(LAUGHTER)
ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you, Christi.
PAUL: I'm very excited about it. You know I will.
Listen, before we get into the polling that I just mentioned, there is this memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget where the director says -- the White House says they're directing federal agencies to cancel racially sensitive training sessions. This is what it said in the "Washington Post." In the two-page memo OMB Director Russell Vought says Trump has asked him to prevent federal agencies from spending millions in taxpayer dollars on these training sessions. Vought says OMB will instruct federal agencies to come up with a list of all contracts related to training sessions involving white privilege or critical race theory and do everything possible within law to cancel these contracts. That's according to the memo.
So Alice, we know the president called for unity back in February of 2019 during the State of the Union. We heard first lady Melania Trump at the RNC call for unity. Does this scream unity to you?
STEWART: Look, what screams unity is having civilized conversations and discussions on race. What this training program did was far from that. What this training program did, if you actually look at the language that was used in this, it was prompting divisiveness. It was prompting comments that I don't support at all.
[10:35:04]
One of the specific comments in the training was that, quote, virtually all white people contribute to racism. I don't agree with that, and I don't think this should be part of federal training. Another is that training government workers to believe divisive anti- American propaganda. There is no place for that, especially when it comes to using federal dollars for it. There is a place for us to have conversations about how we can ease and calm racial tensions in this country, but this program is not the way to go about doing it. And I think taking these federal dollars away from this is exactly the right thing to do.
PAUL: Maria, taking out what the president himself has said, which many would call divisive, what do you make about Alice's argument about the program? Should it be as broad as it is? Should some of the language change? MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That is not what these
programs are, Christi. I have been in the federal government. I was in the Clinton administration. I took these trainings. That kind of language is just not in there. They are promoting that language, I think, to give an excuse to be able to get rid of these kinds of trainings.
Look, it is a fact that unbiased tendencies actually exist within people, every person, no matter the color of your skin, not just white people. What these trainings are designed to do is for each person themselves to be able to recognize that unconscious bias and to be able to pinpoint it before it becomes a problem.
Christi, I myself have been the butt of jokes from people thinking they're funny, but because I'm a Latina, because I'm a Colombian, they think they can make that joke in front of me. These people are not evil. I understand that. But it does contribute to a workplace of discomfort, to a workplace where you think, wow, I'm so different, people don't understand me. I'm not welcome here. I was able to work through that.
But these trainings are designed so those people who have that unconscious bias understand to be able to recognize it and then to be able to stop themselves before they say those kinds of insensitive comments. And for this president to say that those trainings have no place in federal agencies to me just indicates he doesn't understand and doesn't care about the issue of race in this country.
PAUL: I want to real quickly get to the polls because I don't want to miss what we led in with. These battleground states, there's also a new Monmouth University poll of Pennsylvania that is the same, very similar to what Florida is. It is kind of a dead heat between both of these men when you factor in the sampling error.
And the thing is, and Maria, I'm going to you with this. There are a lot of moderates that right now, whether they lean left or whether they lean right, they don't know where to go. How does a modern day Biden balance that with the progressive movement that's coming into the Democratic Party?
CARDONA: I think he speaks to them about his values. He speaks to them about what has driven him to public service for more than four decades of his life. He speaks to them about what he wants to bring to this country, an agenda of economic growth for everyone, an agenda of unity, an agenda that brings back the American values of inclusion, of compassion, and of humanity, and to understand that we are all in this together.
And first and foremost, he should talk to them about what he will do to crush this virus using all of the resources of the federal government to come to bear to this pandemic where we have lost now almost 190,000 Americans, and where it's projected that by January we're going to lose to almost half a million. And this president, the current president, has done absolutely nothing, doesn't believe in it, and, in fact, has made fun of it, and believes that we've already turned the corner when so many people are dying. PAUL: Alice, I want to take some of that and move it forward real
quick, because I just want to get to this issue about what was written in "The Atlantic" and their reporting that Americans who died in the war, that President Trump called them losers and suckers. Let's listen to what Mayor Pete Buttigieg said yesterday in response to this. He said this to Pam Brown last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE BUTTIGIEG, (D) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: "This president seems incapable of grasping what it means to sacrifice." Matter of fact, he actually uncharacteristically said something that's true when he said I don't get it. He clearly doesn't. This is a pattern of behavior that goes all the way back to when it was his turn to serve, and he got out of it. And so I think a lot of us who served are processing the emotions of being on one hand shocked, and on the other hand not surprised.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: I think the thing that's tough to reconcile with this for a lot of people, Alice, is whether this is true or not, even Vice President Biden said if this report is true, President Trump has said many things publicly on camera, calling John McCain a loser.
[10:40:08]
He said that John Kelly was totally exhausted and not able to function. He said, you know, John Mattis was incapable, or overrated. How do you reconcile that? How does President Trump get over this when what comes out of his mouth does not match these reports?
STEWART: Again, to your point, Christi, we don't know if these comments in "The Atlantic" article are accurate, so I'm not going to address that. But as you say, there has been a pattern and consistent comments that come from this president that I find extremely offensive, especially from someone who sought deferment multiple times from the military. To have the gall and the audacity to question the heroism of the military service of John McCain is just inexcusable.
My nephew being in the ROTC, he is a hero. Anyone who puts on this uniform to fight for our country is a hero. And while certain comments have come from this administration and this president I find offensive, I look at what he's doing. He is providing necessary resources to the military. He is providing them the backup and support that they need, and I think that is critical.
I do want to touch one thing on what Maria said about the president not doing anything on coronavirus. That's absurd. He certainly is. He's working to find a virus. He's working to really address this issue. And with regard to those polls, the independent voters are going to decide this race, and if we have economic numbers like we had Friday with unemployment at 8.4 and 1.4 million jobs added in the month, that right there, those kinds of numbers will sway the important independent voters in these elections. PAUL: All right, ladies, I'm so sad to have to drop it off there. I
will be listening to the podcast. Alice Stewart, Maria Cardona, "Hot Mics from the Left and Right." We'll be right back.
CARDONA: Thank you, Christi.
STEWART: Thank you.
PAUL: You too.
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[10:46:01]
PAUL: It's 45 minutes past the hour. At least 11 people were arrested overnight after a third night of protests in Rochester, New York.
SAVIDGE: Demonstrators have taken to the street every night since the release of the body cam video showing the arrest of Daniel Prude, a black man who was pinned to the ground by police and then later died. Mass protesters shouted Black Lives Matter as they peacefully marched through downtown streets last night.
Demonstrations turned violent as the night wore on with protesters confronting customers at a restaurant.
PAUL: As protesters tried to cross a bridge, that's when police fired pepper balls and pepper spray into those crowds after they refused to leave the area. An autopsy ruled Prude's death a homicide, citing complications of asphyxia. And the drug PCP being found in his system they say was also contributing to the cause.
Still ahead --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY WILSON, NICU NURSE, KAISER PERMANENTE DOWNEY: Maybe some people feel defeated leaving work, and he just gives them extra energy to be positive.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: We all need some of this, positivity in a pandemic. The hospital security guard giving a little light to those who are saving lives.
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[10:51:52]
PAUL: Boy, this has been the year, hasn't it, that we have really seen the challenges our health care heroes face, from these long, grueling hours they're dealing with to those frantic moments where they're just trying to save somebody's life.
SAVIDGE: On some days it can be difficult to find moments of joy, but not when you're greeted by a hospital security guard like Robert Johnson, as Stephanie Elam explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: After a 12-hour shift in the midst of a pandemic, these nurses are walking out of the hospital cheering.
KELLY WILSON, NICU NURSE, KAISER PERMANENTE DOWNEY: We just kind of wait for each other. And it's like a cheer squad.
ELAM: A cheer squad inspired by the man who is waiting for them outside of Kaiser Permanente Downey Medical Center, Security Officer Robert Johnson.
ROBERT JOHNSON, SECURITY OFFICER: When they come out, you think we're throwing a party. It's a celebration.
ELAM: As the coronavirus began to grip the nation, the hospital adjusted its protocols, and Johnson was hired to work overnight. The 58-year-old who served in the Marines, feels it's his duty to lift people's spirits.
WILSON: We work on high stress level all the time. This time it's just us getting sick or taking it home. That's probably the only fear.
JOHNSON: These are individuals who are taking time away from their life coming here, putting the majority of their time to work here. That's why I try to bring out a smile. Look what you have done.
WILSON: There is another security guard. He says booyah, she says God bless, and then I just feel booyah-ed and blessed when I walk out of work.
ELAM: When did you start to realize that Officer Johnson was out there changing your energy?
WILSON: I think a month into it, it was being consistent, and we were having conversations about it in our unit.
ELAM: It all started after Johnson added a twist when asking a nurse standard screening questions about any COVID-19 symptoms.
JOHNSON: I said, are you feeling great today? She realized what I said, because she was expecting something else. She said yes, and you see that smile on your face? That's the smile she had. From then on, everybody got the same question.
ELAM: And on the way out, a new celebration ritual.
JOHNSON: Another nurse, give me a bump this way and I'll bump that way. And so various ways. One doctor did a little dance, and then did the bump.
WILSON: Maybe some people felt defeated leaving work, and he just gives that extra energy to like be positive. Otherwise, nurses are strong.
JOHNSON: Booyah! Thank you very much.
ELAM: But even the strong need support.
JOHNSON: The Marine Corps taught me that there are no problems in life. You only have challenges that you will overcome.
ELAM: When Johnson finishes his shift at the hospital, he heads to another job working with disabled adults.
JOHNSON: When I love what I do, I'm not working. I'm just living life.
ELAM: Living life and lifting spirits one booyah at a time.
Stephanie Elam, CNN, Downey, California.
JOHNSON: Booyah! Thank you very much.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL: And just to give you a little more to smile about, we want to take you to this story out of Alaska where a small town of people came together to save the life of a child.
[10:55:01]
A medical evacuation team was trying to land its plane in this remote town Igiugig. Things got dicey when they realized there were no runway lights to guide them. And that's when the town sprung into action there. Dozens of people rushed to that area. They brought cars, four wheelers, anything they could use to light that runway. They were able to land a plane, saved everyone on board, including that child who was being air lifted to the nearest hospital. We can now report that child made it to the hospital safely and is in stable condition. Thank you for the goodness of people.
And thank you for spending time with us. Go make good memories today.
SAVIDGE: There is much more ahead in the next hour of CNN's Newsroom with Bianna Golodyrga is up next.
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