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Biden's Doctor: COVID Symptoms Almost Completely Resolved; Miami-Dade School Board Reverses Decision Amid Uproar Over Sex Ed Textbooks; NYC Pastor, Wife Robbed Of $1 Million Of Jewelry At Gunpoint During Sermon. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired July 25, 2022 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: President Biden shared a new photo of himself working remotely while he recovers from COVID. This morning Mr. Biden's doctor said the president's symptoms have almost completely resolved.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: CNN's M.J. Lee joins us now. M.J., the president is staying busy. He's participating in several virtual efferent today.

M.J. LEE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. You know, today marks day four of isolation for President Biden, and earlier today we did get another update from the president's doctor who, as you said, said his symptoms have almost completely resolved at this point. He has a little bit of congestion, some hoarseness in his voice still, but his vitals remain totally normal, and he is going to finish his course of the antiviral medication Paxlovid, according to his doctor.

The letter also did note that the president is taking precautions and trying to be careful so as not to infect anybody at the White House that is working around the president including, of course, Secret Service agents that might have to be in close contact with the president, though they are socially distancing.

[15:35:00]

Now we do know as for the coming days, the White House has said that they want the president to isolate, of course, at least for five full days. That's according to the CDC recommendations, and that they would essentially like him to test out. So, they want to see a negative test before he resumes any normal activities.

Now that photo that you're showing right now of the president earlier today making phone calls. He's outside, he is with his dog, obviously. He is wearing a full suit. That's just kind of notable given how extremely hot it is today in Washington, D.C., and not really the work-from-home isolation COVID attire for a lot of people. And he has been pretty busy.

He has been having meetings. He has been giving remarks and, you know, participating in sort of the day-to-day White House work that he would be doing but just virtually. And this meeting that just happened with his economic add advisors to discuss the chips act, he did sound a lot better actually than Friday, which is when we saw him participate in another meeting, less coughing. In fact, I don't think I heard him coughing once during the course of this meeting.

So clearly this is a president who is getting better and we should know in the next several days when he will start participating in normal activities and come out of isolation if he tests negative.

BLACKWELL: All right. Thanks for watching it, M.J. Lee for us there at the White House.

Florida's largest school district could be without a sex ed curriculum this school year. The Miami-Dade school board voted to reject the textbook that it had approved just three months ago.

CAMEROTA: So, we're going to speak to one of the school board members about this sex ed decision, next.

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CAMEROTA: Florida's largest school district is reversing a decision on how to teach sex ed to middle schoolers and high schoolers. The school board had approved this textbook you see on the screen in April but reversed the decision last week after some parents complained. The parents' cited Florida's state law that allow parents much more say in the curriculum.

Luisa Santos is a school board member with Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Luisa thanks so much for being here. So, as I understand it, at this school board meeting last week, there were 38 parents and students and community members who came out in support of this curriculum, the sex ed and this textbook but there were four people who spoke against it. So why did the school board side with the very small minority?

LUISA SANTOS, SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER, MIAMI-DADE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Alisyn, that's a great question. I did not side with that small minority because I know the importance of this education and I represent parents. And parents came to tell us that. Students came to tell us that they needed this. But we also had a process that thanks to this new law that is in place, parents objected to the curriculum.

And I am all for parent choice, parent transparency, parents should be our partners in education, and parents of the 278 petitions that were filed against this textbook, only 44 were from parents of students in our schools. And at the hearing, where they could come and voice their concerns, only four came, and only three spoke.

So unfortunately, with, you know, a school district of 340,000 students and less than 1 percent of people coming to say anything against this textbook, we find ourselves with no health education for any student.

CAMEROTA: So, let's look at some of the, you know, objectionable content to this minority of people or parents. Basically, here's the textbook for middle schoolers, OK, so 6th through 8th graders, and one of the passages is about birth control. And it says even when partners agree to use birth control and try to use it correctly, mistakes can happen. In these cases, a person might use emergency contraception to help prevent pregnancy. Several types of emergency contraception pills are available over the counter and do not require prescriptions, including ella and Plan B One-Step.

By the way, the source of this is the conservative group that objects to the textbook. So, we're taking them at their word that this is what's in the textbook and what they object to. So, let's take their side for minute. Do you need to tell 6th through 8th graders what the emergency contraception is called and how to get it.

SANTOS: Well, that is correct, and that is what is in the textbook. And for the first thing to note is that if a parent does not want their child to know that they had and will continue to have the option to opt out of this portion of study. So, if you don't want your children to touch that, that is totally fine. You always have the right to opt out. But if you do want to learn about this, then your child should have the right to do that, not because some minority said they shouldn't, and this information is crucial.

I mean, you know, we know, we know from all the research and all the studies that about 40 percent of students will have sexual intercourse of some sort before they graduate, and it is our job to give them the information to protect themselves and to make responsible and healthy decisions.

CAMEROTA: But, I mean, you're saying before they graduate high school, not before they graduate grammar school. This one was for middle school. But either way, let me tell you what one of the parents who spoke against the curriculum said about that opt out option. Here she is.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The opt out forms are not clear to us parents. They do not specify the sensitive topics at hand that you intend on teaching our children, such as abortion, contraception methods, gender ideology. And therefore, you should not be assuming that parents are providing informed consent by not submitting an opt out form.

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You are lying by omissions to parents by not providing accurate information that is detailed to them so they know what is in the text books.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK, so basically, she's saying she couldn't get the information that she wanted. Is that fair?

SANTOS: That's completely unfair. Because of the law which we followed to the T, we post every single chapter of this on our home page. When you go to the 4th largest school district in the nation, dadeschool.net, throughout the whole review process, the first thing you saw was instructional materials and you could go there and see it.

We also advertised $12,000 in ad buys in local newspapers, TV stations, to ensure that every single person who wants to could come and speak to us, and they did. And we did hear from many people. And they have an option to opt out. Every parent gets a letter when this unit of study is going to start to be taught. And they have to sign to say, yes, I want this, and now they can see exactly line by line, what the chapter may include, what the teacher may talk about. And so, I don't feel like that's a fair statement at all.

CAMEROTA: Of all of this, that there will be no sex ed in the largest school district in Florida this coming year?

SANTOS: Alisyn, say the first part again.

CAMEROTA: Will there not be sex ed this year for Miami-Dade students?

SANTOS: Unfortunately, this does mean that starting next school year, until we go through this whole adoption process again, there will be -- this class cannot be taught because we don't have approved materials to do that. So, because of a small group that had the option to opt out and the votes the way they landed, nobody will have access to this until we go through this whole process, which could be six months easily.

CAMEROTA: Luisa Santos, thank you very much.

SANTOS: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: A New York City pastor was robbed of more than $1 million in jewelry, while delivering a sermon.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yo, all right, all right, all right.

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CAMEROTA: Wait, this is incredible. You can see some of the incident was caught on camera. We have all of the details next.

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CAMEROTA: A brazen act of violence unfolded Sunday inside a Brooklyn, New York, church full of parishioners.

BLACKWELL: A gunmen entered the sanctuary and then robbed the pastor and his wife of their jewelry worth more than a million dollars. The pastor was in the middle of a sermon when it happened. And the congregation watched part of the robbery on the church's live stream of the service.

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Yo, yo. All right, all right, all right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: What?

CAMEROTA: CNN's Brynn Gingras is here with more on this incident. What happened and why did he have a million dollar of jewelry anyway?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean, that's a big question. Is that he was wearing a lot of jewelry. He is known in New York City as being someone who is very flashy is the word that everyone sort of describes this pastor, but he does help out people in his community. Why he had that much jewelry on, I don't know. But that's pretty alarming video and it was live streamed during this sermon he was giving in church in his congregation on Sunday morning.

You can see that he sort of says he saw the three gunmen -- police say there were three -- who came into the congregation, and he sort of immediately goes down. He says the entire congregation which at that time in person was about 20 to 25 people, they all were terrorized. And allegedly these gunmen went to his wife first, took the jewelry that she was wearing and then went to him. Take a listen to more of how he described what happened on his personal Instagram page.

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BISHOP LAMOR WHITEHEAD, NEW YORK PASTOR ROBBED AT GUNPOINT DURING SERMON: The young men came and put the gun into my back, as you all see on the video. They took my watch, took my jewelry, took my bishop's ring. Took my wedding band. They took and then they took my bishop's cross, and then I had my other chains underneath my shirt, and he tapped my back to see because he knew, because I know they were sent. And he ripped my collar off just to get to my jewelry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GINGRAS: And right there, you can see. He says he believes he was targeted, right. Like I said, he's known in New York City, most recently, for helping he says facilitate the surrender of that man who was accused of shooting a Goldman Sachs employee on one of the trains. When he showed up to that perp walk, as we call it in New York, he was in a Rolls Royce, he was wearing head to toe designer clothing. So, he thinks that that kind of gave him all this publicity and that's why this happened.

Listen, police are investigating this. This is a terrifying incident caught on camera. They're certainly looking into it. I know for fact that they are looking at surveillance camera in the area. They think they know the car that they escaped in. But yes, certainly something that raises some eyebrows here.

BLACKWELL: Was anybody hurt?

GINGRAS: No. BLACKWELL: Good.

GINGRAS: Good point. No one was hurt, not his wife, not the kids, no one else in the congregation.

CAMEROTA: What a story.

GINGRAS: Yes.

BLACKWELL: A million dollars. Brynn Gingras, thank you.

The January 6th committee is bracing for a busy August. In just released new video shows that Donald Trump crossed out key parts of the speech that he delivered the day after the riot. We have got details ahead.

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BLACKWELL: A robotic chess player competing against a young Russian boy broke that child's finger.

CAMEROTA: It's more complicated than it sounds. This was at the Moscow Chess Open. Tournament officials say the boy made a chess move but then did not give the robot enough time to make its move so the robot grabbed the boy. Several bystanders raced in to help try to free his finger. The boy's finger was ultimately put in a cast and he did continue on with the competition eventually. Tournament officials say the robot's operators need to address any design flaws.

BLACKWELL: What they're trying to say it was the boy's fault that he made a move and then he didn't give the machine enough time?

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CAMEROTA: Yes, but it is this a design flaw or was the robot angry?

BLACKWELL: First of all, what a boss move to put the finger in a cast can keep playing.

CAMEROTA: That's right.

BLACKWELL: If that robot had broken my fingernail, I'm going back to the hotel. Can't trust it.

CAMEROTA: Right, but I also don't like the idea of angry robots just, you know, sort of walking the earth and breaking limbs.

BLACKWELL: It ain't safe out there.

CAMEROTA: It's true. And "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.