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U.S. Unemployment Checks Delayed; New Developments in Breonna Taylor and Tamir Rice Shootings; Looking Back on 2020's Pandemic. Aired 10:30-11a ET
Aired December 30, 2020 - 10:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:30:00]
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: Vanessa, you've met families -- so many of them -- that just want to get food on the table for their children. It is so sad, talk about who you've met.
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And just that one day's difference from when the enhanced unemployment benefits for millions of Americans expired on the 26th to when that stimulus got passed on the 27th, that means that now that Americans could be waiting weeks for those checks to get reprocessed.
The Department of Labor says that they will be paid back retroactively, but for families even just missing one week of unemployment is devastating. We spoke to one family in Brooklyn who says that missing just that one week could mean the difference between putting food on the table and not.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
YURKEVICH (voice-over): Fareeha Haq and her husband Amir Bukhari are raising a family of six on less than $400 a week in unemployment. Next week, they could go without that money.
AMIR BUKHARI, UNEMPLOYED: It's going to hit rock bottom. Because right now, we were able to eat. You know, forget the rent.
YURKEVICH: That money that was supposed to arrive this week was just to feed your family this week?
BUKHARI: Just to feed the family.
YURKEVICH (voice-over): Pandemic unemployment programs for millions lapsed on December 26th, a day before a new federal aid package was signed. That delay means most Americans will have to wait until next year for states to issue their checks.
FAREEHA HAQ, UNEMPLOYED: Like, I'm very grateful that money will be coming in, but sometimes it takes so long for the money to actually kick in.
YURKEVICH (voice-over): Fareeha and Amir are both gig workers. She drove a school carpool, he an Uber. The loss of income in March put the family onto a growing pile of bills. BUKHARI: I mean, if I tell you all the bills is up to date? No, they
can't be, it's just impossible.
YURKEVICH (voice-over): Nearly 12 million renters will owe more than $5,800 in back rent by January. Fareeha and Amir owe nearly that much, and their $8,000 in credit card debt.
HAQ: You have to take the letters and you have to put it on the flowers.
YURKEVICH (voice-over): Their small apartment is a virtual classroom, and the four kids eat all meals at home. That's 16 a day.
HAQ: You can do it. Come on, mommy got to go make breakfast too.
It gets so emotional because I'm overwhelmed. And I'm like, I don't know how to live any more. Sometimes it's so hard.
YURKEVICH (voice-over): A recent survey shows 27 million Americans say they don't have enough to eat. This family relies on food stamps and the food pantry at the Brooklyn community service group COPO. It's familiar for Fareeha.
MOHAMMAD RAZVI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COUNCIL OF PEOPLES ORGANIZATION: You're going to get raspberries and squash, and I got these special cucumbers.
YURKEVICH (voice-over): She used to work here, handing out the food.
HAQ: I was there helping people receive benefits, and now I'm on the other end and I'm asking for benefits.
YURKEVICH (voice-over): And the need for many Americans is only getting greater.
RAZVI: They're running out of their checks. That's why they're coming even (ph), you know, more in hardship because they're not sure how they're going to make ends meet.
YURKEVICH (voice-over): The new stimulus bill adds an extra $300 a week in unemployment through mid-March, a much-needed boost to families like this one.
HAQ: Before you see the money, it's gone already. I already know where I'm going to spend all that money, and it's hard to get back to that place where everything will be OK.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
YURKEVICH: And one of the things that Fareeha said would make her family feel a little more OK is if Congress increased the stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000. We know that the House did pass a bill to do that, but the Senate is not going to take that up this year.
Fareeha said that that money, that $2,000 for herself and for her husband, and some money for her children would help pay all of her rent and help with her credit card debt, but unfortunately she's not hopeful that that money's going to be coming any time soon as she continues to watch the bills pile up -- Bianna.
GOLODRYGA: And it's such an important point in the story, that so many millions of Americans face as well, having their children at home because schools are closed? They've got 16 meals to provide for their families, now that their children aren't getting breakfast and lunch at school, which had been provided for public schools as well, just another devastating part of this pandemic for so many families. Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you so much for that incredible reporting.
YURKEVICH: Thank you.
[10:34:13]
GOLODRYGA: And still ahead, big developments in two cases of African- Americans killed by police. We're learning more about the futures of two detectives involved in the death of Breonna Taylor, just as the Justice Department delivers a setback to the family of Tamir Rice.
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[10:40:07]
GOLODRYGA: Major developments in a pair of high-profile deadly police shootings of black Americans. Police officials are looking to take action over the flawed forced-entry raid where Louisville police killed 26-year-old Breonna Taylor. This, as federal officials say they will not seek charges in the fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. He was shot and killed in 2014 while playing with a toy gun in Ohio.
CNN's Jason Carroll joins me now. And, Jason, officials pushing for legal action in one case but not the other. What can you tell us?
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You're exactly right. I mean, you look at what's happening with the case involving Breonna Taylor. Late last night, attorneys for two Louisville Metro Police officers confirmed the department intends to fire them. That's according to their attorneys.
Detective Joshua Jaynes, who obtained that no-knock warrant; and Detective Myles Cosgrove, who fired the fatal shot that night, received pre-termination letters. That was yesterday.
The letter from the interim police chief, sent to Officer Jaynes, said in part, "Your actions have brought discredit upon yourself and the department... I cannot tolerate this type of conduct or untruthfulness by any member of the Louisville Metro Police Department."
Jaynes' attorney, telling CNN his client is being made a scapegoat and called the investigation of the officers a fiasco. I should tell you, though, a hearing on the matter is scheduled for tomorrow.
Now, in a separate case, late yesterday, the Department of Justice announced there is not enough evidence to support criminal charges against the two officers involved in the shooting of Tamir Rice. Rice was killed, as you know, by two Cleveland police officers back in 2014, who mistook a toy gun that the 12-year-old was playing with in a park for a real gun.
According to a statement from the DOJ, federal prosecutors could not prove that Rice's constitutional rights were violated or that the officers obstructed justice. That statement says in part, "... an officer is permitted to use deadly force where he reasonably believes that the suspect posed an imminent threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others."
Late last night, I did speak to an attorney for the Rice family who called the DOJ decision, quote, "an outrageous miscarriage of justice." He went on to say that it's a tremendous blow to the Rice family, especially Rice's mother, who he says is now beside herself with grief and also with disappointment -- Bianna.
GOLODRYGA: And I know you'll continue to follow both of these stories. Jason Carroll, thank you so much.
And still ahead, a year of heartbreak and hope: a look back at the worldwide impact of coronavirus in 2020.
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[10:47:09]
GOLODRYGA: Well without a doubt, the coronavirus pandemic has been the biggest story of 2020, so far taking the lives of more than 338,000 Americans and having a devastating impact on the economy. CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes a look back at a year like no other as the pandemic gripped the world.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I have never covered a story of such magnitude. This story has impacted everyone across the globe, and when I first began reporting on it a year ago, I didn't suspect that we would be where we are today.
I've reported on pandemics before, outbreaks before -- H1N1, Ebola -- but never has a virus taken hold of the planet in such a vicious and efficient way. At first, it was a story that just seemed so far away.
DAVID CULVER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Growing concerns across Asia as the new coronavirus --
GUPTA (voice-over): And within weeks of those initial reports from China, the first confirmed case in the United States.
GOV. JAY INSLEE (D-WA): On January 20th, samples were confirmed by the CDC --
GUPTA (voice-over): Scientists immediately got to work on a vaccine.
ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: I have cautious optimism that we would be able to develop a vaccine against this and other coronaviruses.
GUPTA (voice-over): But little did we know just how efficient this novel coronavirus really was. In China, to accommodate the crush of patients, hospitals with a thousand-plus beds were built in just days. And it was a warning for the rest of the world.
GUPTA: We saw what happened in China. We hear about hospitals being filled to the brink, do you anticipate that happening here?
THERESA MADALINE, EPIDEMIOLOGIST, MONTEFIORE MEDICAL CENTER: We certainly hope that we won't need to make tough decisions like that, but we have to be prepared to do so.
GUPTA (voice-over): It was heartbreaking, and we quickly learned how the virus would take advantage of our behavior, how we traveled, how we gathered. But we were stymied in tracking this virus from the get- go. The CDC's initial test to diagnose COVID-19? Faulty.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It seems that CNN's reporting is pointing to a larger problem. Whether all of this happened because of just a contamination problem or just a manufacturing problem or some combination.
GUPTA (voice-over): But we were our biggest obstacle. We thought we could outsmart it.
GUPTA: This is spreading, it's going to spread maybe within communities. That's expected (ph) --
(CROSSTALK)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It may, it may.
GUPTA: Does that worry you? Because that seems to be --
TRUMP: No.
GUPTA: -- what worries the American people.
TRUMP: No, because we're ready for it. It is what it is, we're ready for it. We're really prepared, we have -- as I said, we have the greatest people in the world, we're very ready for it. We hope it doesn't spread. There's a chance that it won't spread too, and there's a chance that it will.
GUPTA (voice-over): And it did. By March 1st, the CDC counted 32 confirmed cases in the United States. But according to some estimates, there were already 28,000 cases -- or more -- around the country, invisible to our eyes in part because our testing was behind, but also because 40 percent of all cases don't show any symptoms.
[10:50:18]
The first images we really saw of the disease? An outbreak at the Life Care Center of Kirkland, an elderly care facility in Washington State. It made sense. Earlier studies had shown the disease was more severe and more deadly among people who were older and had underlying conditions.
Soon, hospitals in New York were overrun.
BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The line's snaking through, getting longer as the day goes on, of people who are just trying to get tested, just trying to get care.
GUPTA (voice-over): And it wasn't just older patients needing beds.
NICOLE BUCHANAN, HUSBAND DIED OF COVID-19: The hospital's on lockdown.
GUPTA (voice-over): We began hearing more and more stories like this.
BUCHANAN: No, that was it, I never got to say I love you, nothing.
GUPTA (voice-over): Nicole Buchanan's husband Conrad was just 39 years old, healthy, in the prime of his life.
And just as puzzling? The long haulers, those experiencing symptoms for months with no end in sight.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Blood clots, seizures, tremors.
GUPTA (voice-over): But why do these symptoms linger in some people? Why are seemingly healthy young people dying? We still don't really know. For some, it could be their immune systems react to violently, resulting in a storm of inflammation, a cytokine storm. Other experts say the answers may be in our genes. But on top of that, this disease exacerbated and unmasked existing inequities.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): African-Americans are dying at a rate nearly two and a half times higher than whites. Latinos and Native Americans are dying at a rate more than one and a half times higher.
GUPTA (voice-over): What we do know is that the virus has remained fairly constant. But how we have reacted to it has made us our own worst enemies. By March 16th, the number of confirmed cases exploded to nearly 5,000 and we were worried.
TRUMP: We've made the decision to further toughen the guidelines and blunt the infection now.
GUPTA (voice-over): But we didn't stay shut down for long.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: USA! USA!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: USA! USA!
GUPTA (voice-over): We made masks political.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're not anti-mask, we're not for masks. We're for choice.
GUPTA (voice-over): And young people became significant drivers of spread.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Those are my friends over there. Obviously, they're definitely not social distancing.
GUPTA (voice-over): Now, half of all confirmed cases are under the age of 40. By June, our numbers had spiked.
FAUCI: We are now having 40-plus-thousand new cases a day. I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around.
GUPTA (voice-over): We hit more than 100,000 cases in a single day on November 1st, and have continued to climb from there. As the weather has turned cold, we've come back indoors. Fatigue has really set in, and after months of not seeing loved ones, many people are traveling and visiting with their families again. And that's a cause for alarm.
ROBERT REDFIELD, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: It's small family gatherings. Family gatherings, where people become more comfortable, they remove their face mask when they get together. And it's a silent epidemic that begins to transmit.
GUPTA (voice-over): As we hit the third -- and what is now the highest -- peak of this pandemic, the outlook is sadly grim. The number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have been on a meteoric rise. Hospitals are buckling, and we are seeing scenes similar to what we saw in the spring in the Northeast, except now they're all over the country.
GUPTA: I sometimes have a hard time, Ambassador, figuring out how to represent how we've done in this country, 250,000 people have died. Was this a failure in this country? I mean, did you expect it to go this way?
DEBORAH BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE COORDINATOR: I always worry when we have an outcome that none of us want.
GUPTA (voice-over): The good news is that there are now treatments, drugs like remdesivir and monoclonal antibodies, the steroid dexamethasone, and blood thinners to reduce clotting. And in part, helping to lower mortality rates.
But most significantly, 11 months after the first case in the United States was confirmed, we've begun administering the first vaccines, a triumph for science and a triumph for humanity.
GUPTA: It's done!
GUPTA (voice-over): A message I want to make sure everyone hears. Which is why, when it was my turn, I shared the moment and got vaccinated on-camera.
GUPTA: We are so close now to seeing the end of this pandemic, seeing the vaccines roll out is a true light at the end of the tunnel. But we can't forget that we do have some of our darkest days ahead still -- I hate to say it, but it's true -- to know that on average, more than two people will die every minute here in the United States from COVID, it's just jarring.
[10:55:10]
We can bring an end to this pandemic, but the vaccines won't necessarily be a silver bullet. They may not rescue us from ourselves, we need to act (ph) ourselves. And we're only going to end this if we remember to wear a mask, be kind, and get vaccinated.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: Watching that is just a reminder of what a national treasure Sanjay Gupta is for us here at CNN, I don't know what we would have done this year without him.
And coming up, President-elect Joe Biden slams the Trump administration over the vaccine rollout: what the incoming administration plans to do differently.
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[11:00:00]
