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Erin Burnett Outfront
Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) is Interviewed About AG Barr Sparring with Dem Lawmakers in Contentious Hearing and Joe Biden Choosing Vice President Next Week; Study: People Getting $600 Check Are Going Back to Work. Aired on 7-8p ET
Aired July 28, 2020 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: May they rest in peace and may their memories be a blessing.
Erin Burnett OUTFRONT starts right now.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next breaking news, the U.S. on the verge of 150,000 deaths. The President back to misleading Americans about hydroxychloroquine and masks. What happened to the new tone about wearing a mask?
Plus, a world renowned doctor known for his groundbreaking work on HIV and AIDS says there's one thing the United States can do right now to get this fixed. What is it? That doctor is OUTFRONT.
And even Republicans don't want it, $1.75 billion new FBI building in the coronavirus bill. So why is the President insisting on it? Does the Trump Hotel stand to gain? Our report coming up. Let's go OUTFRONT.
And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.
OUTFRONT tonight, closing in on 150,000 dead Americans, 22 states seeing around in cases. Florida reporting a record number of deaths all tonight and President Trump touting a false cure, questioning why no one likes him and complaining that Dr. Fauci's approval ratings are high when his are not.
Just a short time ago, President Trump defending his tweet overnight which claims hydroxychloroquine the anti-malarial drug is a cure for coronavirus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I happen to think it works in the early stages. I think frontline medical people believe that too, some, many and so we'll take a look at it. But the one thing we know it's been out for a long time. It doesn't cause problems. I had no problem. I had absolutely no problem. It felt no different, it didn't feel good, bad or indifferent and I tested as you know it didn't get me and it's not going to hopefully hurt anybody.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BURNETT: Here are the facts. Multiple large scale studies have found
the drug did not help patients with mild symptoms of coronavirus in the early stages of the disease, the early stages. One study in The Journal of Infectious Disease finding the drug did not reduce the risk of hospitalization. Another by the University of Minnesota Medical School found the drug works no better than a placebo as an early treatment for mild coronavirus symptoms. The FDA has revoked its emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine, warning the drugs increased risk of side effects, including heart problems.
But the President just said, "It didn't get me and hopefully not anyone else." Hopefully? I mean, it can hurt patients with heart problems and underlying medical conditions could be at risk. And then, the President went on. He went on to defend the controversial doctor in the video he retweeted last night about hydroxychloroquine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think they're very respected doctors. There was a woman who was spectacular in her statements about it that she's had tremendous success with it and they took her voice off. I don't know why they took her off, but they took her off. Maybe they had a good reason. Maybe they didn't, I don't know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Her name is Stella Immanuel and they, as in Facebook and Twitter, took her comments off, removed them, well, because they were false. The President retweeted a person with a history of making ridiculous claims.
According to The Daily Beast claims like this that DNA from aliens is being used in medicine, that scientists are trying to create a vaccine to prevent people from being religious. Yes.
And when our Kaitlan Collins confronted the President with her past statements, the President abruptly turned around and left the briefing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I thought she was very impressive in the sense that from where she came, I don't know which country she comes from, but she said that she's had tremendous success with hundreds of different patients. And I thought her voice was an important voice, but I know nothing about her.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: But she said masks don't work. And last week, you said masks ...
TRUMP: Yes. Go ahead, Paula.
COLLINS: Last week you said masks ...
TRUMP: Go ahead.
COLLINS: Well, real quick. Last week, you said masks, Mr. President ...
TRUMP: OK. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: He doesn't know much about her. Well, the President of the United States should know who he is retweeting, period, full stop. Never mind if it's someone with a history of the things we just laid out there from that reporting about aliens and a vaccine for religiosity.
Look, lives are at stake here. People listen to the President and he apparently is listening to a person he says he knows nothing about instead of listening to the science and his own medical experts. By the way, I just went through all the studies, but that's just me listing the studies. How about the scientists who are on the frontlines who have seen all of this, who have read it, they say this about hydroxychloroquine?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OK. You heard it, right? So when it comes to cures, let's leave that to the legitimate doctors and the researchers who are studying hydroxychloroquine and many other drugs, that is their job. That is the job of studies.
[19:05:00]
Not of the President of the United States to retweet some person and come out talking about a cure that is counterfactual to the current science. He also then went on to say hydroxychloroquine, because it's a cure, the President says that you don't need to wear a mask. He said this.
Even though masks are the best defense we have, even though the President's own CDC Director said that masks could bring the virus under control. Here are the facts. Researchers from the University of Washington found that if 95 percent of Americans wore face masks in public, it could prevent more than 45,000 deaths by November.
And here's just a new video that we have from a group of researchers in Australia. Special lighting, OK, look at this. This is how far spit droplets travel in the air from someone talking sneezing and coughing. Top left corner, how far it travel when you're not wearing a mask. As you add layers to that mask more and more effective, you can barely see anything.
But to say that that top left is, hey, who cares, don't worry about it, take a pill of hydroxychloroquine, that's insane. The fact is the President is putting 10s of thousands of people's lives at risk by saying this sort of thing, by retweeting this. It is wrong and it's irresponsible.
And it could be why the public is increasingly placing more trust in Dr. Fauci than President Trump. The most recent poll shows 65 percent of Americans trust Fauci, 30 percent trust Trump on coronavirus, something that is now clearly taking headspace for the President.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: For the most part, we've done pretty much what he and others, Dr. Birx and others, who are terrific, recommended and he's got this high approval rating. So why don't I have a high approval rating?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: That speaks volumes, right? He cares about his approval rating compared to his top epidemiologists. This has now gone beyond the pandemic. I mean, remember this, Dr. Fauci throwing out the first pitch to kick off this unprecedented Major League Baseball season. OK, well, Trump is the only sitting president to not have thrown out a pitch since William Taft, something that really who cares, but he apparently does.
Suddenly, when this Fauci thing happens, Trump announces himself that he's throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium on August 15th.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I've agreed, Randy Levine is a great friend of mine from the Yankees, he asked me to throw out the first pitch and I think I'm doing that on August 15th at Yankee Stadium.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Well, that announcement caught his own staff by complete surprise. They knew nothing about an invite from the team and it turns out Trump had not been invited by the Yankees to appear on that day according to The New York Times. The Times also reporting the President misleading the American public on this issue because he was frustrated about Fauci getting that first pitch to kick off this live sports season.
This should be deeply disturbing to anybody, whatever you think about President Trump, his policies, he's facing a deadly contagious virus. He's worried about being upstaged by an epidemiologist throwing out a baseball pitch. By the way, he's worried about it being upstaged about a guy who's complaining about the approval ratings of the guy that he's put in charge of leading a response to a pandemic that's killed 150,000 Americans, that's crazy too. Whatever you think of Trump, this is unsettling at the least.
I want to go to Kaitlan OUTFRONT at the White House. And Kaitlan, we just saw your exchange there with the President, when you talked about the credibility of that video laying out this person and other things that they have claimed, he abruptly ended the news conference turned around and walked out.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, he did. He didn't seem to want to answer more questions after he was confronted with the past statements that this woman has made, which we should note he elevated this to his 84 million followers. And Twitter, and Facebook and YouTube found the information that she was trying to share the misinformation, so concerning that they removed it as they've been trying to navigate how to police content during the age of a pandemic.
And so, the President went from defending her, saying he believed that she was a well-respected doctor to then when he was asked about her claims saying he doesn't know anything about her. And I think that's the question that even some of his own aides have is why promote the post of someone that's contradicting what your own officials are saying if you don't know who they are and you don't know what their background is, which he clearly did it.
And so what she was saying in this video even contradicts something that the President said last week to which he had vigorously endorsed wearing a mask. He actually wore a mask in public for the first time recently. And so the question is she saying mask don't work. The President said last week that mask do work.
So he's even contradicting not just his own health officials, but what he's also telling people and then it's putting confusing information out there. But the President defended sharing that post initially and then he also defended those two retweets that came last night, the one that said that Dr. Fauci was a fraud. The other that said he was misleading the public.
The President seemed to say he had been reading those, But then, of course, he was asking why is Dr. Anthony Fauci more popular than me, given that we are both in the same administration. And I think, of course, that speaks for itself when you see the poll among voters about who they trust more to give them information about the pandemic.
BURNETT: All right. Kaitlan, thank you very much.
I want to go now to Dr. Jonathan Reiner, Director of Cardiac Cath Lab at GW who advised the White House under President George W. Bush, the medical team, and Dr. Ashish Jha, Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute and our national testing expert at this point.
[19:10:04]
Dr. Reiner, the President couldn't defend the person identified as a doctor who was in that video he retweeted, right? She claimed people shouldn't wear masks because hydroxychloroquine is a cure and then he went on to talk about all of these reasons why he thinks it's fine and didn't get him, hopefully it won't get anybody else.
And then Kaitlan, when she pressed him about it, he walked out. He said, I happen to think it works in the early stages. Well, many doctors think it's good. You're a doctor. You talk to doctors every day, what do you say? JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, let's start with the
science first. We know, I think, unequivocally that in patients with COVID-19, sadly, hydroxychloroquine doesn't work. I would love it to work. Everyone would love something like that to work. It doesn't work. There have been three large scale randomized trials, the recovery trial, the solidarity trial and the ORCHID trial.
World Health Organization, United Kingdom and NIH, all three trials stopped, the drug doesn't work. The fact that the President continues to parrot this nonsense is really destructive because patients will start asking for this.
But I'm starting to worry about the President's mental status. His behavior at these pressers is becoming increasingly erratic. I'm really worried about this. We're in a crisis now.
And last week this President spent quite a bit of time talking about his performance on cognitive tests. Today, he's parroting this really debunk science and then he's complaining about whether one of his science advisors has a higher public approval rating. This is really strange behavior and we're in a crisis now.
If we had a pilot on your airplane who started to lose it during a storm, you would hope that the flight crew would take over. We're approaching that level of concern here.
BURNETT: Dr. Jha, do you share that concern? When you have the President saying I don't care what basically what studies you put out there and what facts you put out there and what Dr. Fauci said, because they're all consistent on hydroxychloroquine in early stages. He's saying anybody who's not listening to me, they're just doing it because they don't like me.
DR. ASHISH JHA, DIRECTOR, HARVARD GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE: So Dr. Reiner is completely right about this. Look, we are in the middle of the worst pandemic in a century. Like this is really hard under good circumstances with clear leadership. If there's any way we are going to get through this without hundreds of thousands of Americans dying and I guess additional hundreds of thousands beyond the hundred 50 already we've lost, it is going to be driven by science and the scientific method and scientific approach.
And things about who's got a higher approval rating, which doctor you like or don't like, is irrelevant. What's relevant is what is the science telling us, what's the data telling us. If we use that, we have a shot of getting through this and I can't believe we spend this much time because we get distracted by retweets of the President. Focus on these things. We've got to get back to the science and I don't think the President has been helpful here.
BURNETT: So Dr. Reiner, the President today retweeted someone questioning Fauci's credibility. And I want to play some of what Fauci said when he was asked to respond to that, when the President retweeted someone saying Fauci was a fraud. Here's Fauci's response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) FAUCI: I just will continue to do my job no matter what comes out,
because I think it's very important. We're in the middle of a crisis with regard to an epidemic, a pandemic. This is what I do. This is what I've been trained for my entire professional life and I'll continue to do it.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS CHIEF ANCHOR: To the charge you've been misleading the American public?
FAUCI: I have not been misleading the American public under any circumstances.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: I mean, it's a kind of just a horrible moment. You have the guy that President puts in charge of it having to respond to the President saying that he's misleading the American public. That's what the President retweeted. He just respond to that, to George Stephanopoulos on national on television.
REINER: Yes. God bless Tony Fauci. If you watch the presser today, it's really easy to understand why the President can't have Tony Fauci or Dr. Deborah Birx at that session, because he says things that are outlandish and crazy. And should the physicians and scientists be made available, they would immediately fact check that and refute the President.
So what does that mean? That means the President can't have truth tellers at his press briefings. What more needs to be said about the status of this administration right now? Tony Fauci is a patriot. He has spent his entire life trying to cure the most dreaded diseases that afflict humankind. He needs our support.
And when you look at the polls, most of the public really feel that way about him. We need to get behind him. We need to get behind people who tell the truth. There is a path forward.
[19:15:01]
People like Dr. Jha point the way forward every single day. This is all nonsense.
BURNETT: So Dr. Jha, what does Dr. Fauci do at this point? I mean, he's now having to spend time defending his credibility against accusations by his boss.
JHA: Yes. So, I think, first of all it's very painful to hear Dr. Fauci have even addressed this. I think he keeps doing what he does and what he's done his entire career, speak truth, talk about science and keep looking out for the well being of the American people. And I agree, God bless Dr. Fauci for his work.
BURNETT: All right. Well, I appreciate both of you. Thank you, as always. I appreciate seeing you.
JHA: Thank you. BURNETT: And next, Major League Baseball on hold as even more Miami
Marlins team members test positive for coronavirus. Is the season over?
Plus, a pioneer in HIV research is going to tell me the one thing that he thinks the United States could do right now that would have a major impact in the fight against coronavirus.
And Attorney General Bill Barr challenged on whether racism is a problem in policing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE (D-TX): So you agree that there may be systemic racism?
BILL BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't agree that there's systemic racism in police department.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:19:55]
BURNETT: Tonight, Major League Baseball suspending all Miami Marlins games this week after multiple players and personnel, at least 17, according to ESPN test positive for coronavirus. This news comes as Florida hits a grim record of deaths today. Nick Watt is OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT(voice over): Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, is a glass half full kind of guy, today touting ...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R) FLORIDA: A positive development over the last few months which is generating improved outcomes and patient recoveries.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATT(voice over): OK. But today there were 9,210 new coronavirus cases reported in the state, 11 times the number reported the day Florida began to reopen. Today also the State's highest daily death toll to date.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DESANTIS: When you see those reports, those are probably reflective of infections and hospitalizations that have happened in the past and that's just so. So it's more of a lagging indicator.
(END VIDEO CLIP) WATT(voice over): Meanwhile, the City of Miami now offering free
tests for kids. Across the state, cases in children and teens have claimed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR DAN GELBER (D) MIAMI BEACH: We've got to get the virus down. We've got to get our contact tracing in place. We've learned that we didn't have enough people at all to sort of even call people up and say you need to quarantine who else were you with.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATT(voice over): Along with that Sun Belt surge concern now moving a little north, average daily case counts now higher along with that Sun Belt surge concern they're moving a little north average daily case counts now higher than ever in Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee where despite this plea from Dr. Deborah Birx.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. DEBORAH BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: Stop going to bars and indeed close the bars.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATT(voice over): The Governor just won't.
Many places this now also a major concern, crowds of unmask concert goers in Colorado, a drive in Chainsmokers gig in swanky Southhampton, New York. But people got out of their cars and mingle, unmasked. Videos like this have sparked an investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D) NEW YORK: It was a gross violation of common sense.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATT(voice over): New Jersey cops say they spent hours breaking up a 700 strong mansion party at an Airbnb rental.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're looking for trouble. You're absolutely looking for trouble.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATT(voice over): Meanwhile, former Miami Marlins have tested positive according to ESPN. All of their games this week now postponed. The Yankee's Philly series also postponed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) A team losing a number of players that rendered a completely non-
competitive would be an issue that we would have to address, whether that was shutting down a part of the season, the whole season.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: Nick, at a call, the nation's governors, Vice President Pence talking about going back to school and we saw Vermont say it's going to be all in-person, Philly just say it's going to be online. The Vice President wants it all in-person. He's citing quote encouraging trends in the Sun Belt states, despite what you were just reporting on.
WATT: You know, Erin, we're all looking for encouraging trends and, yes, in Florida, the past few days maybe the new case count has flattened slightly. Flat but it's still very high, still averaging over 10,000 new cases a day. If you want encouraging trends, look to Vermont. Today that state reported three new cases. Nobody has died of COVID-19 in Vermont for nearly six weeks and yet today, the Governor pushed back the opening of schools by two weeks. They're going to open now September 8th, Erin.
BURNETT: Well, I guess, they're going to open which is more than you can say for districts now around this country.
WATT: Yes.
BURNETT: Including where you are and then probably where I am. Thank you very much, Nick.
And next, a CNN exclusive. Russia claims it's a Sputnik moment. They say they are about to approve a coronavirus vaccine in two weeks. In two weeks. Is it safe?
Plus, Joe Biden says he'll choose his VP pick next week. One person in the running, Congresswoman Val Demings is OUTFRONT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:27:51]
BURNETT: New tonight, a CNN exclusive report. Russia claiming a 'Sputnik moment'. Officials there say they intend to approve a coronavirus vaccine in less than two weeks and that means not just in trials, right? This means approved people getting the shot. They say they're going to inject frontline healthcare workers first and then potentially millions of citizens.
This is just two weeks away, so this is either a complete and utter game changer or, well, something quite scary. OUTFRONT now, William Haseltine, he has studied vaccines throughout his career, also a preeminent researcher who's done groundbreaking work on HIV/AIDS, former Professor at Harvard Medical School and the School of Public Health. And Doctor, I appreciate your time as always. So, the story from
Russia that they're going to be approving this in the next couple of weeks giving it as an injection into frontline health care workers. They have not put out any scientific data to back up why they're doing this, what's your reaction to this?
WILLIAM HASELTINE, GROUNDBREAKING HIV/AIDS RESEARCHER: It's unwise. It's actually the second vaccine in the world that has been approved for wide scale use. The first was by the Chinese a couple of weeks ago for their military and their civil servants who requested it.
They cannot know that it's effective and they cannot know how safe it is. So they're taking a risk with their people. They had said a couple of weeks ago that they were taking a risk with some of their high officials and top businessmen, but those people were taking it their own risk as are the people now in China, I mean, and in Russia.
BURNETT: Right. And right now they're saying they're going to be giving it to doctors on the frontlines. I think it's safe to say that it'd be much worse to have a vaccine that isn't safe than to wait a little longer for one that is in terms of the impact on public health and people's willingness to take an eventual vaccine that works.
I got to ask you, as this happens, though, Doctor, we hear countries all of the time that broke the curve and we show the U.S. curve going up and all these curves going down. We are now seeing some major outbreaks, though, in countries that really had this under control; Australia, Hong Kong, Japan. You see those curves go down and then surge in the summer. So it's the spring where you see it come down and then the summer surge.
[19:30:01]
Hong Kong, over 100 cases for six days running. They were basically free of the virus it appeared. And now even Germany seeing what they call a very disturbing rise in cases. 60 percent increase last week, albeit from low levels.
Is this a warning of what may lie ahead, that this is just going to be a curve that goes up and down?
WILLIAM HASELTINE, CHAIR AND PRESIDENT, ACCESS HEALTH INTERNATIONAL: I think it's worrying for those countries, and you should add Israel to that list because it exceeds all of them in, I would say, its bounce back. What it tells us is something we knew. We were at a high plateau, about 20,000 cases. We opened up, now it's 60,000 cases a day more or less.
If we continue this way, it may go up to 120,000 cases a day. So, if you are not careful and you do not observe the recommended rules which is wearing face masks, avoiding crowds, not going to bars, don't do intense socializing, this virus will continue. You have to remember, Erin, that it started with one person and all of these infections started in our cities and our countries, very small numbers of people. And then it spread. And this virus will do that if we're not constantly vigilant until we
have some other ways to control it -- hopefully, a vaccine or hopefully prophylactic drugs.
BURNETT: It's interesting. It's a very simple thing you just said, but a very powerful one if people realize. It did start with one person, right, and here we are. So, when you start to think, oh, it can't spread more. Of course, it can, right? It was a simple thing you said but a very powerful one.
You have an op-ed in "Forbes" arguing that a game changer, your word, for getting a handle on the coronavirus quickly in the United States and around the world is through rapid antigen testing. I know Dr. Birx has brought this up. Explain it and why you think it could be such a game changer.
HASELTIME: There are two ways to tell whether a person is infected. The most sensitive way is through PCR. But we approved another way which is to measure the viral protein, not the, RNA, not the protein.
Now, it's not as sensitive and the tests that were recently approved in India and approved here don't catch all the people. But the Indians have come up with a clever solution to that. They're used to dealing with not all the best technologies in solving complex problems.
And the way they've decided to do it is screen everybody with the antigen test. That catches about half of the people. The other half they then say they may be infected. They give them the PCR test, but the first half they get is within 30 minutes and they have them in their hands and they can begin to control half of the infection immediately.
We can do the same thing here. That test is approved. We should have a tier, two-tiered testing system, one to catch half the people or more because some of the people say it's 80 percent effective, catch them right away, put them in control.
We know and we can stop those infections right away. And we can reduce what's happening very quickly. So, I would recommend a very quick rethink in how we do our testing.
BURNETT: It would be -- it would be incredible if we could. To your point, it's not 100 percent but even getting half right now when you're getting zero, and you got these 7 or 8-wait day period is obviously toxic.
All right. I thank you very much as always, Dr. Haseltine. Thanks.
HASELTINE: You're welcome. Thank you.
BURNETT: And next, Attorney General Bill Barr pressed on why he didn't use federal officers to stop protesters threatening Michigan's Democratic governor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): Are you aware that these protesters called for the governor to be lynched, shot and beheaded?
WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: And Republicans claim unemployment benefits are standing in the way of people getting back to work because they're paid more to stay at home. It makes a lot of sense, but there are some eye-opening new numbers on this front tonight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:37:52]
BURNETT: Tonight, Attorney General Bill Barr in a contentious, nearly five-hour long hearing on Capitol Hill denying systemic racism exists in American police departments today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE (D-TX): Does the Trump administration seek to extend racism in law enforcement? I just need a yes or no answer?
BARR: To the extent there is racism in any of our institutions in this country and the police, then, obviously, this administration will fully enforce --
LEE: So, you agree that there is systemic racism.
BARR: Where?
LEE: Let me continue my line of questioning.
BARR: I don't agree that there's systemic racism in the police department.
LEE: Specifically --
BARR: Generally in this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: All right.
OUTFRONT now, Democratic Congresswoman Val Demings of Florida, member of the House Judiciary Committee.
And you were, of course, in that -- in that hearing for its entirety today, Congresswoman.
As a former police chief yourself, you -- you have been on the frontlines of this. So, when you hear Attorney General Bill Barr say he doesn't think racism exists in American police departments, what do you say? REP. VAL DEMINGS (D-FL): Well, Erin, it's great to be back with you.
And, look, today was absolutely exhausting. It should not have been so exhausting, considering we have the nation's top cop in front of us and as you well know, we're facing some critical issues in this country. Systemic racism is one of them.
You're right. I spent 27 years at the Orlando Police Department, served as the chief of police. And, quite frankly, yes, systemic racism does exist within police departments but it exists in all of our systems. And I really wish the attorney general would have reassured America that as the attorney general of the United States that he is going to put the full weight of the Department of Justice behind fighting and combating and getting rid of racism. We did not hear that -- that today.
BURNETT: Certainly not in that exchange or any of the others.
You know, another exchange was with your colleague Congresswoman Jayapal, and I played a couple of it in a tease earlier in the program, but she was asking why the same federal response that we're seeing with Black Lives Matter protest, right, where, you know, the president has these federal agents ready to go outside Seattle and Portland, why that was not used in Michigan where right wing protesters were threatening Governor Gretchen Whitmer with lynching and other things.
[19:40:08]
Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAYAPAL: Are you aware that these protesters called for the governor to be lynched, shot and beheaded?
BARR: No.
JAYAPAL: When white men with swastikas storm a government building with guns, there is no need for the president to, quote, activate you because they're getting the president's personal agenda done. But when black people and people of color protest police brutality, systemic racism and the president's very own lack of response to those critical issues, then you forcibly remove them with armed federal officers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEMINGS: What was your response when you heard that exchange, that he wasn't -- that he wasn't aware of -- wasn't aware of that?
DEMINGS: Well, I thought it was sad, and I don't believe him. I think my colleague asked, Ms. Jayapal, asked him the right question. But, clearly, this president has demonstrated, even as a candidate, that he clearly sees white Americans and black and brown Americans in a different way. He's demonstrated that. And so quite frankly, his attorney general who has really acted more
like his personal attorney or his enabler, his fixer, certainly has no interest, unfortunately, of white guys with guns in Michigan visibly threatening the governor, but is clearly interested in, I guess, motivating his base by using violence against peaceful protesters.
And it's a shame, but I really was not surprised at this attorney general's response today, particularly under this president of the United States. We know clearly who Donald Trump is.
BURNETT: So, Congresswoman, today, Joe Biden says he's going to choose his vice president the first week of August. Just for anyone who's lost track of time, which is a heck of a lot of people in this country right now, that is next week.
We've been told by several people close to Biden's team, you have been a leading candidate through.
So, in this environment we're in now, right, police clashing with protesters, debates overwith federal troops, do you think your background, 27 years in law enforcement, as a police chief helps or hurts you?
DEMINGS: Well, Erin, let me say this, I spent 27 years at the police department. The daughter of a maid and a janitor who grew up in the South and the honor of serving as Orlando's chief of police. Chiefs of police are problem solvers. We're crisis managers.
And, my goodness, that's exactly what we have in the United States of America right now is a crisis. I am proud of my former career, and I do believe it serves me well whether I'm chosen to run alongside Joe Biden or I remain in Congress, I am going to continue to bring my experience, knowledge and skills as a crisis manager and a problem solver to the table to help solve some of America's toughest issues.
BURNETT: Congresswoman, we actually had your husband on not long ago, and he was talking about policing in America. He was obviously also a former police chief in Orlando.
I asked him whether he thinks you would be the right pick for V.P., and he said what he really thought.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR JERRY DEMINGS, HUSBAND OF REP. VAL DEMINGS: No question, I think she would be the right pick. As the mother with three sons, I believe she gets it. She's a daughter of the South. She grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, to parents who were just average blue collar workers.
But she's had this opportunity now to experience the American dream. So, I believe that she's perfectly prepared to be a good running mate with Joe Biden if he selects her.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BURNETT: And, obviously, I know it's nice to hear that, and perhaps not unexpected, but it was -- it was just in his heart, what he thinks.
Have you had any indication, Congresswoman, at this point, that you could be announced or where this process is right now for -- for Joe Biden?
DEMINGS: Well, Erin, I really can't comment on the process, but what I do know is this, that we have some serious challenges in this country and I believe every woman who has been rumored to be on that list would serve our country well, public servants who love America.
And I look forward to the announcement. I look forward to getting back to work. And I look forward to helping to elect Joe Biden, the next president of the United States. We desperately need him.
BURNETT: Congresswoman Demings, I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much.
DEMINGS: Thank you so much. Take care.
BURNETT: All right. You, too.
And next, Republicans say people are getting paid more from unemployment to stay home and so, they're not going back to work. And our next guest has looked at the numbers. He has come to a very different conclusion, so he's going to lay out his case.
[19:45:01]
Plus, Trump wants $1.75 billion for a new FBI building, a state of the art center complete with a running track on the roof. Well, so, why? Even Republicans are saying, come on, this isn't the time or place. Could his business stand to gain?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Tonight Republicans doubling down on cutting the extra $600 unemployment benefit. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying flat out they don't want people making more on unemployment than at work.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: The goal is to eliminate the prospect that one could make more not working than working. We think it is not appropriate to reward someone, in effect, for staying at home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OUTFRONT now, Ernie Tedeschi, a former Treasury Department economist during the Obama administration, now managing director at Evercore ISI, which is an investment banking advisory firm.
So, Ernie, you know, you went through the numbers.
[19:50:00]
And, look, what they're saying on the face of it, it would make sense if someone pays you more to do something that you would take the more rather than the less. So, you studied it and found that extra $600 has not discouraged unemployed workers from going back to work.
So, lay out what you found.
ERNIE TEDESCHI, FORMER TREASURY DEPARTMENT ECONOMIST DURING OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: Thanks, Erin.
So, I looked at the likelihood that workers in April and May either found a job or left the job and I associated that with the generosity of their unemployment insurance before hand, and what I found was that the generosity of unemployment insurance had no relationship in April or May with the likelihood that workers either found a job the next month or left a job the next month.
There were workers who had very generous benefits who left unemployment insurance and took a job. There were workers who had generous unemployment insurance and stayed on unemployment insurance. There was just no pattern in the data.
What we do know is that of the workers who left unemployment insurance in April and May for a job the next month, 70 percent of them were making more on unemployment insurance than they were in their prior jobs, and yet, they still transitioned out of unemployment insurance and took a job. So, that suggests to me that right now in the American economy, this emergency unemployment insurance is just not a drag on the labor market.
BURNETT: OK. So it's pretty interesting because when you say look, it's not what a lot of people expect to hear, again, because I wouldn't call anybody free loading doing this, it's just very simple if somebody pays you more to do something, you would pick the more.
And so, you're showing me the data. You know, some of the people we've talked to, Kyung Lah has done a lot of reporting on this, and there is some of this other part of the story. This is some of what she found.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They don't want to come out because the price isn't right.
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: How does unemployment fit into that piece?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People would rather get unemployment money.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The money people are making on unemployment right now quite honestly is more than we were paying them before.
LAH: Do you feel like you're competing with unemployment? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No question. I don't blame them but we do need
workers to come back eventually.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: So what do you say to that? You're saying the data doesn't back that on a large scale?
TEDESCHI: Right, so the data doesn't say that there are no instances of workers forgoing a job because of generous unemployment insurance. What it does say, though, is that there is no consistent relationship that for every worker that you have that's passing over a job because of again lose unemployment insurance, there are workers who are taking jobs despite generous unemployment insurance, and there is just no way to parse out in the data what the effective generous U.I. is right now.
BURNETT: All right. Well, I really appreciate your time, Ernie, and thank you very much for sharing those numbers. It's important. Thanks.
TEDESCHI: Terrific. Thanks, Erin.
BURNETT: And next, why is the president fixated on getting a new FBI building? Does it have anything to do with the hotel that it's next to?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:57:20]
BURNETT: Tonight, President Trump demanding $1.75 billion for the coronavirus relief package. Why? Could it be because of it being near the Trump hotel?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): $1.75 billion, that is how much the White House wants to replace the FBI building with a shiny new state of the art center complete with topnotch security, a running track on the roof and all good for 100 years. That according to the president who has spoken of his pet project many times.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This one is very old, and it's really never built to a very high standard, as you probably have heard.
FOREMAN: But hold on, Team Trump wants that money as part of the new coronavirus stimulus package being considered by Congress, where such a sum could instead go for testing, to hospitals, schools, struggling businesses and their employees.
Even some of the president's staunchest allies are resisting the request.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: When we get to the end of the process, I would hope the non-COVID related measures are out.
FOREMAN: Senator Lindsey Graham said, I don't know why it in there, either.
But Trump's foes have an idea.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: They have no money for food stamps but have money for an FBI building just so that they can diminish competition for the president's hotel.
FOREMAN: That last part is a corner stone of Democratic concern. The FBI building is just a block away from the Trump hotel, a 263-room luxury facility that the family had been trying to sell. If the FBI headquarters moved to the suburbs as planned for Trump took office, the Democratic theory holds that prime real estate could open up for a competitor.
JONATHAN O'CONNELL, REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Members of the president's staff before he was no politics, staffing his business were concerned about a hotel replacing the current Hoover building on that site because you don't want a competing luxury hotel from the street from you if you don't have to have one.
FOREMAN: Whatever the reason, including a construction money in a virus response bill, is clearly politically problematic, spurring pushback despite what the president has said.
TRUMP: The FBI needs a new building. We'll get it done.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOREMAN: Most people in power here would agree with the White House's assessment that the FBI headquarters is old and crumbling and out of date and desperately in need of replacement, but they have known that for years, which makes this sudden push to write a check in the middle of a national health crisis all the more puzzling -- Erin.
BURNETT: All right. Tom, thank you very much.
And thanks very much as always to all of you for joining us.
Don't forget, you can watch OUTFRONT anytime, anywhere, you just go to CNN Go.
And "ANDERSON COOPER 360" starts right now.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "AC360": I'm just going to say this up front. The president of the United States is promoting disproven and potentially harmful medical treatments for COVID-19.
