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Trump, Biden Square Off In First Debate Tuesday; Democrats Raising Concern About Trump's New Supreme Court Pick; New Rules For The First Presidential Debate; Napa County Brush Fire Burns More Than 1,000 Acres; Global Coronavirus Death Toll Nears One Million; Supreme Court To Hear Case To Overturn Obamacare After The Elections; John Lewis, Good Trouble. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired September 27, 2020 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:11]

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: Hello, again, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

All right, the battle lines are being drawn. One day after President Trump announced his new pick for the U.S. Supreme Court, his 2020 rival, Joe Biden and top Democratic lawmakers begin making their cases against the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. Earlier today in a speech from his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, Biden insisted that support for Barrett was equivalent to destroying the Affordable Care Act.

The nation's highest court is set to hear arguments in a case that could decide the fate of Obamacare just one week after the election. Today Biden appealing to the conscience of Republican senators to pump the breaks on a rapid confirmation, pleading with them to wait until the voters have picked a president in November and let the winning candidate choose a nominee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I urge every senator to take a step back from the brink, take off the blinders of politics for just one critical moment, and stand up for the Constitution you swore to uphold. This is a time to deescalate, to put an end to the shattering of precedence that has thrown our nation into chaos under this president. Just because you have the power to do something doesn't absolve you of your responsibility to do right by the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: At the top of the hour, the president will hold a previously unscheduled press conference up until just about an hour or two ago, and all of this coming now just two days before Trump and Joe Biden square off in the first presidential debate of 2020. And with just over a month to go before voters head to the polls, the high stakes battle for control of the White House, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court all intensifying.

We have a team of correspondents covering all of these developments. Let's begin with Biden's strong rebuke of President Trump's Supreme Court nomination. CNN's Arlette Saenz is in Cleveland where President Trump and Biden will square off Tuesday night.

So, Arlette, you know, Biden really honed in on the fate of America's health care act, riding on the Supreme Court nomination confirmation.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Fred. Joe Biden really trying to turn the Supreme Court vacancy into an issue over health care. This was the first time that he was commenting since President Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and what Biden has argued is that health care is at stake right now in this election.

He once again urged his former Senate Republican colleagues not to vote for justice nominee for the Supreme Court until after the next president is selected, and he warned that health care is under siege with President Trump. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Never before in our nation's history has the Supreme Court justice been nominated and installed while a presidential election is already under way. It defies every precedent, every expectation of a nation where the people, the people are sovereign, and the rule of law reigns. There's no mystery about what's happening here. President Trump is trying to throw out the Affordable Care Act and he's been trying to do it for the last four years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: Now this is something that you've heard over and over from Biden, trying to reinforce this message that health care is at stake. Just a week after the election, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case challenging Obamacare. President Trump earlier today tweeted that if the Supreme Court terminated Obamacare, that would be a win, and what Democrats and Biden are hoping for is that this issue of health care will help invigorate voters and have them head to the polls to vote for Biden and Democrats in order to keep Obamacare in place.

Now all of this comes as we are getting just another snapshot of where this race stands nationally right now. A new CNN poll of polls finds that Joe Biden is leading President Trump by nine points nationally. Now, in a lot of those battleground states where this election will be decided, it is a much narrower race but on the national level, Joe Biden right now is ahead especially as the Supreme Court fight is playing out.

WHITFIELD: Arlette Saenz, thanks so much, in Cleveland.

All right. And now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is saying the president is trying to hurry through Barrett's confirmation so that she can join the court in time for the hearing on the Affordable Care Act.

CNN justice correspondent Jessica Schneider joining me with more on this -- Jessica.

[16:05:05] JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, yes, Democrats really drilling into this idea that the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, in particular the speedy confirmation of Barrett, would be detrimental to health care in this country. That's because on November 10th, one week after the election, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the Affordable Care Act, in particular whether that individual mandate that has been struck down to zero dollars as the penalty for people who don't get insurance, whether that is constitutional or not, and if it is ruled unconstitutional, the entire Affordable Care Act should then fall.

Remember it was back in 2012 that the Chief Justice John Roberts, he sided with the liberals to save the Affordable Care Act by ruling that that individual mandate was in fact a tax and that it could stand. Well, five years after that, before she was on the Seventh Circuit, Amy Coney Barrett wrote in a "Law Review" article and she said this. She said, "Chief Justice Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute."

And Democrats are pointing at that one line as evidence that Amy Coney Barrett would vote to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi really pointed to the problems with that and the detrimental effects it would have throughout the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Doesn't matter what the process is here. What matters is what it means personally to the American people. If you have a preexisting medical condition, that benefit will be gone. If you were a woman, we'll be back to a time where being a woman is a preexisting medical condition. If your children are on your policy, your adult children on your policy, no longer will they be and that at a time of a pandemic.

And if you have seniors in your family who are having long-term care paid for by Medicaid, they're going to be pretty soon moving back home and living with you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER: Democrats are pushing this message. Meanwhile it's the Trump administration that's pushing for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, that's their argument in the Supreme Court, but Fred, it's important to note that the arguments are taking place November 10th. However, a decision would likely not come down until the spring or early summer of 2021 -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, Jessica Schneider, thank you so much.

All right. So we are just now 37 days away from election day, and in just over 48 hours, we'll see President Trump and Joe Biden square off, when the first presidential debate kicks off in Cleveland. Earlier today our Brian Stelter spoke with the co-chair of the Presidential Debates Commission to find out how viewers will be able to separate fact from fiction when the nominees take the podium.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRANK J. FAHRENKOPF JR., CO-CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES: When we choose moderators, we make very clear to them that there's a vast difference between being a moderator in a debate and being a reporter who is interviewing someone. When you're interviewing someone, if they say something that is in direct opposition to something they said a week ago, your duty is to follow up and say, wait a minute, you didn't say that a week ago.

But that's not the case in a debate. If one of these candidates says something on the stage, it's the role of the other person in a debate to be the one to raise that and say, wait a minute, you're changing the position and so forth rather than the moderator.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: OK, we're also learning new details about how the pandemic will make this year's debates look different, including no handshakes now between the candidates or the moderator. The three men on stage will be socially distanced, but will not wear masks.

Joining me right now is Todd Graham, debate director at Southern Illinois University.

Todd, good to see you.

TODD GRAHAM, DEBATE DIRECTOR, SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY CARBONDALE: Hey, how is it going?

WHITFIELD: Pretty good. All right, so no handshake, also no opening statements. How might that change kind of the tone, the tenor of this debate?

GRAHAM: Well, it doesn't change it right away. I think the area where it changes it is in that same article, when they were talking about how it's set up. It also means there's no spin room after the debates, and for me, that's the best thing that's happened. Because lately, in the last couple of presidential debating cycles, it wasn't really what they said in the debate that matters, but it was how they interpreted it when they walked off stage into the spin room, and they would say, well, you know, Mr. President or candidate X, you said this. What did you really mean? And then they would spin it.

And so I'm quite glad about the social distancing. It means two things. It means there's no spin room right after, so it will be harder for the candidates, for their surrogates to get online to get on your network, for example, and spin, and the second thing is, frankly, I kind of like the fact that there's more social distancing because in the past, we've seen candidates hover over one another like Trump did with Hillary Clinton four years ago, and even Al Gore tried to do it to George Bush. But now they can't do that so I think that's good.

WHITFIELD: Good, I could elaborate on that a little bit further. OK. Well, no spin room but there will be analysis on this network and many others, you know, post-debate. [16:10:05]

So let's talk about the whole issue of fact checking and those concerns. You know, what are the risks that you see, that it will be potentially only the two candidates on stage who will try to hold each other accountable? I mean, you just heard, you know, they're not going to -- the expectation is it's not up to the moderator, but on each other.

GRAHAM: Yes, with all due respect to the Commission on Presidential Debates, they've got this one a little bit wrong. So what we need to do is have fact checking before the question. That's totally legitimate and the way you do that is to put the facts in the question, so you front-load it and say two months ago you said this, yet your policy hasn't been the same. Why has that changed and what can you do about it?

And then you let them answer it. So basically you fact check before they give the answer. I think what the commission is trying to avoid is getting into an argument back and forth with the moderator. And that's understandable. But the moderator still isn't a doormat. You don't just let them go back and forth. So you --

WHITFIELD: Yes. And a big disappointment otherwise, too.

GRAHAM: Yes, Yes. What's the point, right?

WHITFIELD: Yes.

GRAHAM: We can do that with the computer. So what I think we need to do is have the moderator ask basic follow-up questions. Like that was a good point. Can you prove that, sir? Or do you have examples behind that? Or where is your support for that? Basic stuff, not really complicated, right? And the other thing is please don't make the candidates fact check each other. Everybody has been e-mailing me, calling me, Todd, I think there should be fact checking, you know. And my answer is this, oh, god, no.

If Joe Biden thinks that he should fact check Donald Trump in every answer, then he'll never get to his own offense. Debate just like any other activity is a game of defense and offense. And if Joe Biden is playing defense by fact checking Donald Trump, then it only advantages the candidate who lies the most because they're always on the offense and the other person doesn't get a chance to answer and make their own offensive reasons why they should be president. So one basic answer which is that was a lie, let me give you what I think is true, and then move on.

WHITFIELD: Yes. And we heard leading up to this, you know, Joe Biden himself who said yes, there's going to be some preparation. He didn't necessarily say there was going to be like mock but we don't know about President Trump, what kind of preparation, you know, he -- are there any kind of mock debates that he's going through.

So the moderator, FOX News' Chris Wallace. He sent out a framework of some of the things that are going to -- you know, he'll tackle. The candidates' records, Supreme Court battle, coronavirus pandemic, the economy, race and violence in American cities, the integrity of the election. Where do you think Biden will be most strong and perhaps weakest?

GRAHAM: We have a pandemic going on. That's where Biden is the most strong. All you have to do is compare our solutions, what we've done in this country with virtually every other Western country in the world. We're way, way behind. Our solutions have been the worst, we've had more deaths and we've had more economic impact, which is why Joe Biden needs to tie Donald Trump back to the economy.

There'll be two debates. Two ships passing in the night. Donald Trump will be talking about the economy before the pandemic. Joe Biden will be talking about the economy after the pandemic. Whoever debates best will be the one who ties the two together.

WHITFIELD: And quickly, do you see where Trump might be strongest?

GRAHAM: Yes, Trump is always strongest on humor, so he's got -- and believe me when I say this, because I've also studied humor, humor is important for an audience, important to get them bonding, to get them liking, to get them to like you.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

GRAHAM: And Trump's always had that going for him. So that I think he'll talk about the -- I think he'll talk about the economy a great deal because before the pandemic, that was his strength.

WHITFIELD: All right. And now to my favorite part. I wanted to look back at some of the highlights of presidential debates past.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONALD REAGAN, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have a question right here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. How has the national debt personally affected each of your lives?

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: The man's practicing fuzzy math again. There's differences. It's not only what your philosophy and what's your position on issues but can you get things done? And I believe I can.

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: In the 1980s, are now calling to ask for their foreign policy bank because the Cold War's been over for 20 years.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I think Donald was about to say he's going to solve it by repealing it and getting rid of the Affordable Care Act, and I'm going to fix it, because I agree with you, premiums have gotten too high, co-pays, deductibles, prescription drug costs, and I've laid out a series of actions that we can take to try to get those costs down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Some of them makes you laugh. You know, Reagan, the humor you were talking about and of course there's the hovering.

[16:15:03]

I mean, people have learned lessons from what doesn't work. You know, checking the watch, eye rolling, all that. What do you expect in the body language, how much it will matter and be read Tuesday?

GRAHAM: I don't think the body language is going to be as big a deal, again, because of social distancing. What we have to worry about more is their verbal communication. So, you know, the two of them like to interrupt quite a bit, each of them, in debates. The two of them probably will do a little bit, they'll have some anger displayed, Joe Biden is bad with that, Donald Trump is bad with that.

So if you're looking for something in the cultural memory, right, something that we'll know 20, 30 years from now it might be the whole chaos that these debates could, again, because the moderators other than Chris Wallace are new. So there's likelihood we could see like cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria.

WHITFIELD: Oh, boy.

GRAHAM: So, you know, I mean, we just don't know what's going to happen in these debates.

WHITFIELD: Oh, boy, more -- all right, chaos just what everybody needs, right? People are hoping for some clarity.

GRAHAM: Yes. Hopefully.

WHITFIELD: All right, Todd -- yes, Todd Graham, that was fun. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

GRAHAM: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right, you can watch the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden right here on CNN, special live coverage begins Tuesday night 7:00 Eastern.

All right, coming up in the NEWSROOM, a new brush fire breaks out in California overnight, burning more than 1,000 acres in the last 24 hours and evacuations are already being ordered in Napa County.

Plus, the fight against coronavirus is far from over. Health experts raising red flags about an increase in cases in some states.

And then later, remembering John Lewis, two of his siblings join me live to reflect on his lasting legacy as racial reckoning sweeps the United States.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:20:49]

WHITFIELD: Triple-digit temperatures along with high winds are now hitting much of the West this weekend, prompting even more warnings of extreme fire danger. Northeast of Phoenix, Arizona, the Sears Fire, which began burning only two days ago, has already grown to nearly 9,000 acres. In California's Napa Valley a swift-moving brush fire has now grown to more than 1,000 acres, prompting hundreds of evacuations.

CNN's Paul Vercammen joining us now. Paul, what's the latest?

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fred, the latest is they're trying to knock this fire down before a predicted high wind event this evening. As you pointed out, more than 1,000 acres burned. They just haven't calculated the numbers in the last few minutes. That's sure could go up. 660 homes evacuated in this fire, that means 2,000 people, also St. Helena Hospital evacuated again. It's in the foothills. This was out of an abundance of caution.

The sheriff reporting to me that people up there are being very cooperative in getting out and one of the reasons they're hearing that high-low siren.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Warning, fire evacuation in progress. Warning, fire evacuation in progress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VERCAMMEN: And here in Southern California, we understand another firefighter is missing since Thursday. Carlos alexander Balthazar, he's a member of the Big Bear Hotshots, the same group that lost its supervisor just a short time ago. They don't know if he was in some sort of accident before or after his shift but they did find his backpack as well as his vehicle had somehow collided with a guardrail. Very heavy news.

So in all of this, how about one moment of light. We know a lot of animals are impacted by fire. Well, here is Baby Yoda, the cat. Firefighters rescued it in northern California in the middle of the road. It smelled of smoke. It was covered in ash. They gave Baby Yoda the cat a bath and it is now recovering under medical supervision. Again so many animals flushed out by wildfire this summer and then into this fall -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right. Paul, it is nice to have a little something there to smile about. That's a lot of very heavy news. All right, Paul Vercammen, thank you so much.

All right, still ahead, football great Joe Montana saves his grandchild from a kidnaper? And it all happened, guess where? In his home. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:27:48]

WHITFIELD: All right, this just in to CNN. It appears Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana can now add crime fighter to his list of accomplishments. Police say Montana confronted a woman who simply walked into his house, tried to kidnap his grandchild allegedly, and police say the woman entered his Malibu home and then simply went up to the second floor, grabbed the 9-month-old baby from a playpen and then held the baby in her arms.

Montana attempted to deescalate the situation while his wife pried the child away from the woman's arms. The woman was arrested after fleeing to a nearby house in Malibu.

All right, the world is now closing in on one million coronavirus deaths according to the latest tally from Johns Hopkins University. The United States accounts for about one-fifth of those fatalities and is currently reporting more than 204,000 deaths. This as White House chief of staff Mark Meadows says President Trump is set to make an announcement on testing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK MEADOWS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: There will be an announcement on Monday, as it looks at additional testing that the federal government will be providing to all the governors and so as the president makes that announcement, I think that will be an encouragement so that everybody can go back to school or back to work and feel like they can do that in a safe manner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: CNN's Polo Sandoval has more on why health experts remain concern as we move into the winter months.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dr. Anthony Fauci says we are still in the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic and points to concern about rising rates throughout the fall and winter. Yet Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is moving full steam ahead into phase three of reopening.

MAYOR DAN GELBER (D), MIAMI BEACH: We've been reopening to 50 percent capacity. We're going to try to stay there notwithstanding the governor's order. The problem with the governor's order, he didn't just accelerated and opened up bars as well but he also stopped our ability to create a mask mandate and fine people for not wearing masks so he essentially took away the one thing we were doing which was actually allowing us to open up the economy and then accelerating the opening up of the economy without telling anybody literally yesterday late in the afternoon.

[16:30:05] And everybody in the county was surprised and frankly shocked as we are rushing around today to try to figure out how to interpret the order and still not create a huge amount of virus spread because we weren't prepared.

SANDOVAL: This as Florida surpasses 14,000 COVID-19 and nears 700,000 cases.

DR. SEEMA YASMIN, FORMER CDC DISEASE DETECTIVE: The governor's actions are premature and misguided. This time and in previous times, too, it's under his leadership that Florida became a national hotspot. In fact Florida held the country's record for the single-day highest number of new coronavirus cases back in July, when more than 15,000 Floridians were infected in a single day.

SANDOVAL: On Saturday, we learned a 12-year-old girl from Deval County was among the 107 COVID-19 deaths reported in Florida, according to the Florida Department of Health. California announced Saturday that the 14-day positivity rate had dropped just below 3 percent. At California State University Long Beach all on on-campus residents were quarantined and in-person classes are being paused for two weeks after a number of students tested positive for the virus.

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: We're heading into the winter season where we could be seeing the confluence of COVID-19 and influenza, and this is the time for us to be reducing these high-risk situations as much as possible.

SANDOVAL: On Saturday, New Jersey saw its highest daily case count since early June. The state reported 760 new COVID-19 cases, marking the highest daily case count for the state since June 4th, when 864 cases were reported, according to the state's COVID-19 data dashboard. And the state of New York announced just over 1,000 additional cases, a slight uptick from the 908 cases reported Friday. The CDC predicting at least another 20,000 COVID-19 deaths by October 17th.

Polo Sandoval, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Coming up, opponents of President Trump's Supreme Court nominee say the future of the Affordable Care Act is at risk.

And a former health insurance executive is sounding off on Twitter, writing without Obamacare, quoting now, "insures can do some evil things to deny you care," end quote. He joins me live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:36:27]

WHITFIELD: Welcome back. Since President Trump announced Amy Coney Barrett as his choice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court, Democrats have launched their case against her confirmation saying support for her is a vote to end the Affordable Care Act. I want to continue my conversation today about landmark Supreme Court

rulings and how the vote of just one justice can impact millions for generations.

Wendell Potter is a former health insurance executive turned whistleblower who now is the president of the Center for Health and Democracy.

Mr. Potter, great to see you.

WENDELL POTTER, FORMER HEALTH INSURANCE EXECUTIVE TURNED WHISTLEBLOWER: Thank you, Fred.

WHITFIELD: So Amy Coney Barrett has written she is an opponent of the Affordable Care Act. If she is confirmed before November 10th, that's when the Supreme Court hears a Trump administration-backed lawsuit against Obamacare, how do you see this potentially playing out?

POTTER: I think that we all should be very, very concerned that we can lose a lot of the protections in the Affordable Care Act very, very quickly. I think people have forgotten what life was like for so many Americans before the Affordable Care Act was passed and all the protections that had been made available to Americans could go away, and it affects every single one of us.

We tend to think that maybe this affects those who weren't able to get coverage in the past and that's true. Before the Affordable Care Act was passed the insurance industry, the companies that I worked for routinely would declare people uninsurable because of a preexisting condition. Young people were kicked off their family's policies at age 18. Seniors couldn't get -- couldn't pick up drugs, prescription drugs at a price they could afford.

All of that has changed because of the Affordable Care Act. The insurance industry, one thing they know how to do is to make money. They were making a lot of money by doing things that made it more and more difficult for people to be able give coverage and care that they needed and those protections could go away in a minute.

WHITFIELD: You tweeted about the evil things that, you know, the insurance companies have the potential of doing to deny you care. Well, the president, you know, says now in his, you know, final year before election day that he's got a better plan, that, you know, getting rid of the Affordable Care Act simply makes room for his better plan.

POTTER: I just don't buy that. He's talked about and is issuing some executive orders and the insurance industry I can assure you will just laugh at that. There is absolutely no way that the executive order would be able to get insurance companies to do the right thing. They -- in fact, one of the things that he hasn't mentioned and I think maybe people have forgotten in that Twitter thread that you mentioned, people were -- employees of insurance companies were given bonuses for finding insured people to dump.

And these included women with breast cancer who had been diagnosed, were scheduled for a mastectomy or chemotherapy, and insurance company employees were paid bonuses to find people like that to rescind their policies so the insurance companies wouldn't have to pay for their coverage or for their care.

This is exactly where we would go back to, and it would be just a tragedy if we see that happening, and we've had several near-death experiences for the Affordable Care Act already. And we would certainly could come back again.

WHITFIELD: And if the Supreme Court, you know, were to overturn the Affordable Care Act, also known as, you know, Obamacare, in the midst of a pandemic, you know, what happens to Americans who have recently lost their jobs and with that the health insurance that came from some of those companies that they were working for?

[16:40:13]

POTTER: Well, many of those people would just be completely out of luck of being able to find coverage that they could afford. The law created the so-called Obamacare exchanges which is kind of a safety valve, if you will, for people who've lost their jobs at least it's available for people to get subsidies for coverage if they lose their employer-sponsored insurance.

We see here in this pandemic that more than 45 million people lost their jobs at least temporarily and at least 12 million have lost their health insurance, and haven't been able to find it elsewhere already. We would be in a situation which far more people would be uninsured, and underinsured as well, too.

Before the Affordable Care Act we were getting close to 50 million people who didn't have insurance. We would rapidly be right back there if not worse because the population has increased. It would be a huge tragedy. One thing, too, for people in their 50s and 60s, they need to understand that they are particularly vulnerable because insurance companies would jack up the rates of people as they got older, particularly people in their 50s and 60s, to a point that simply could not afford insurance.

And that's why a large percentage of those 50 million people back then were people who were not quite eligible for Medicare, but they were just not able to afford getting insurance on their own.

WHITFIELD: Wow, not afford the insurance and certainly not be able to afford getting the care they need out-of-pocket. Wow. That's sobering.

Wendell Potter, thank you so much.

POTTER: Thank you, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, still ahead, protests and growing frustration over racial injustice spreading across the country. Two of John Lewis' siblings weigh in on that and his lasting legacy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:46:26]

WHITFIELD: He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., spoke in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington and bore the brunt of dozens of arrests and beatings for his civil rights activism. In Congress, the late John Lewis fought to pass legislation on everything from racial equality to gun rights, health care reform, to LGBTQ issues, and now the CNN Film "JOHN LEWIS: GOOD TROUBLE" chronicles the late John Lewis' lifetime of causing good trouble to bring great change to America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN LEWIS (D-GA): You know, I got arrested a few times during the '60s.

(LAUGHTER)

J. LEWIS: Forty times. And since I've been in Congress, another five times.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

J. LEWIS: And I'm probably going to get arrested again for something but my philosophy is very simple. If you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, say something. Do something. Get in trouble. Good trouble, necessary trouble.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

J. LEWIS: We have to save our country, save our democracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Joining me right now to discuss are the brother and sister of the late Congressman John Lewis, Rosa Tyner and Henry Lewis.

Good to see both of you.

ROSA TYNER, SISTER OF THE LATE REP. JOHN LEWIS: Thank you.

HENRY LEWIS, BROTHER OF THE LATE REP. JOHN LEWIS: Thank you. Thank you for having us.

WHITFIELD: It's also really special watching you in the preset, others can't see it but while we're running that clip I'm watching you all and your reaction, you're smiling, you're nodding your head, you know, as if you are seeing and hearing your brother for the first time. And I mean, clearly, even, you know, in his passing, just hearing him, seeing him in action, it continues to touch us all.

Rosa, what is this moment like for you, you know, after the passing of your brother and just seeing how people are getting to know him all over again and see his life in this documentary?

TYNER: I think it's great. It's even helped me because of his passing, you know. At one point I missed him so, I hear his voice on TV and hear people talking about him and it helps every time I hear him.

WHITFIELD: And Henry, you know, America knew your brother as a fighter. You know, we know he fought to the very end of his life. You all revealed so much as brother and sister, among all of your siblings during the variation of memorial service that, you know, A, you didn't call him John.

(LAUGHTER)

WHITFIELD: You know? And B, you know, he was tenacious always. He exhibited being a fighter at such an early age. What else do you feel like you want America to know about your brother?

H. LEWIS: I would love for America to know that he spent his entire life fighting for equality, fighting for justice, fighting for equal opportunity, equal pay, women's rights, gay rights, civil rights, and his biggest I guess thing was voting rights. I mean, he's spent a lifetime encouraging people to vote and as we know today, this year is going to be one of the biggest voting years that we've had in a long, long time.

[16:50:03]

It's going to be very important to get out and vote regardless of how you can get to the polls. You got to get there. You've got to be able to vote.

WHITFIELD: And we heard that from him in his last visit to Selma. You know, here he was in the throes, you know, of his fight of pancreatic cancer and he made it, you know, to Selma as he has done every year for more than 50 years and he reminded people the importance of the vote, and then here he was, you know, during the anniversary of Selma, there marching with Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi. Let's look at one more clip from this documentary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J. LEWIS: I hated the system telling people that you cannot be seated at a lunch counter. You cannot go into a restaurant simply because of the color of your skin. And I wanted to be part of an effort to help change it and I was prepared to put my body on the line. Something deep down within me, moving me, that I could no longer be satisfied or go along with an evil system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Wow. I mean, Rosa, he explains it well there, you know, justifying what motivated him. I mean, it's just remarkable, as a teenager, he would have the gall really, you know, to write Dr. Martin Luther King and then to actually be invited to join, and that he did. I mean, you know, as we all try to figure out what is it about him that made him so much of a lion at such an early age?

Have you ever tried to kind of explain or get to the bottom of why was it him that became so special?

TYNER: Since his death, I've thought about it a lot, but the only thing, if you really look at it, he had to be called --

WHITFIELD: Yes.

TYNER: For that purpose, from birth -- from 15 years old and on in his entire life, he has been on the same journey, and to be so young and dedicated, that don't happen, but he was called. I believe he was called and he never left the path. He kept a straight path and stayed on it, and to me, that is great. I admire him for that. I miss him deeply, but he was called. He had a purpose. He knew his purpose in life.

WHITFIELD: Yes, and sometimes it takes people a lifetime to figure out their purpose, and, you know, that he had it figured out at a very early age.

Henry, you know, Congressman Lewis, you know, making his last -- one of his last appearances in public at that Black Lives Matter Plaza there with the D.C. mayor.

H. LEWIS: Right.

WHITFIELD: And at a time of this nation facing this reckoning, you know, looking at this, these photographs, what do you think? What do you think was in his mind? Why do you feel like he knew this was what he needed to do at that moment?

H. LEWIS: Well, I really feel like when he went to the Black Lives Matter square, if you want to call it that, he was kind of passing the torch. There was a young generation that was coming on and he saw something in them that was instilled in the group he come along with back in the '60s. So I think he felt he had to pass the torch while he had the chance.

And also, Fredricka, I'd love to add to what my sister was saying. The congressman saw these injustices, and when he was attacked years ago, he had every reason -- got to remember, he got his head busted on the Edmund Pettus Bridge as a (INAUDIBLE). For most people, you know, that would have been the end. No, I can't do this. I need to get out of this, but things like that gave him more drive to keep going.

And even all the way through Congress, he was still fighting that fight, because he knows, he knew if he didn't fight that fight, or if we don't fight that fight, there are forces out there to try to set us back. So he knew that fight has to continue, and even after he's passed on, that fight still must continue. If it don't, we'll be slowly taken back where we were. None of us want that. That would be a bad thing.

WHITFIELD: For all those reasons and more, why so many of us really loved your brother and can't thank him enough.

[16:55:03]

Rosa Tyner, Henry Lewis, thank you so much.

H. LEWIS: Thank you very much. TYNER: Thank you so much.

WHITFIELD: And you can watch "JOHN LEWIS: GOOD TROUBLE" tonight 9:00 right here on CNN.

All right, this week, CNN Heroes salutes New Jersey native Greg Dailey. When he realized many senior citizens on his route were afraid to leave their homes due to COVID-19, he began delivering much more than the daily paper.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREG DAILEY, CNN HERO: I deliver to three adult communities. A lot of people in there that are compromised so I put out a note to all 800 of my customers. If there's anything you need, you name it, I'm happy to go shop for it and deliver it to your home for free.

Is it soap almond milk?

I've met just an unbelievable amount of beautiful, wonderful people. It's amazing how grateful they are.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Thank you so much.

DAILEY: My pleasure. If you need anything else moving forward, please give me a call, OK?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I will.

DAILEY: All right. Take care of yourself. Good night.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: So great. Go to be CNNheroes.com for the full story.

And thank you so much for joining me today. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. The CNN NEWSROOM continues with Ana Cabrera in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello, on this Sunday.