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CNN NEWSROOM

"Contagion" Writer & Consulting Doctor Speak on Coronavirus; A Look at the Many Impacts of the Coronavirus Across the U.S.; Trump Attacks 3M after Using Defense Production Act; Glenn Tolbert, Detroit Bus Drivers Union Director, Discusses a Bus Driver Complaining About a Person Coughing Without Covering Her Mouth on Bus and Dies Days Later. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired April 3, 2020 - 13:30   ET

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


[13:30:00]

SCOTT Z. BURNS, "CONTAGION" SCREEN PLAY WRITER: In absence of a cure, we can be that for each other and it depends on whether we can overcome our divisiveness and respect one another and take care of one another. That's what public health is about. And that has a lot to do with how we make a move.

One of the things Larry told me throughout the process was how much we love each other and how much we care about each other is really going to depend on how the third act of movie we are all now living in turns out. As he said earlier, we are barely in the first act.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Dr. Brilliant, can you speak to that?

DR. LARRY BRILLIANT, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Yes, I mean, when you stay- at-home, you are not doing it for you as much as you are for your grandfather or neighbor. You have to show love and compassion. This is an act you can do to stop them from getting sick and perhaps from dying.

It is really important that we understand that we have to lean in and we have to practice the best possible social isolation we can so we can stop this thing

COOPER: Dr. Larry Brilliant, I appreciate it.

Scott Burns, thank you very much.

Stay safe both of you.

BURNS: Thank you.

COOPER: The CEO of 3M is calling the president's accusations that the company isn't doing enough to help Americans with masks absurd. I'll have more on that.

Plus, a Detroit bus driver, who complains about a passenger coughing without covering her mouth, dies days layer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JASON HARGROVE, DETROIT BUS DRIVER WHO DIED FROM CORONAVIRUS: For us to get through this and get over this, man, you all need to take this serious. It's folks dying from this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:36:15]

COOPER: For the first time in decades, the American economy lost more jobs than it gained. The Bureau of Labor statistics reporting 701,000 jobs were lost in March, making it the worst month for American jobs since 2009.

Our CNN correspondents are following many impacts of the virus. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I am Phil Mattingly, in Washington where all eyes, not only in Washington, but across the country are on the Small Business Administration and the Treasury Department.

Today is the day they're rolling out a massive loan program to try to help small businesses keep their employees employed and keep paying payroll and keep paying their mortgages and debts.

There are a lot of questions going into this day, whether or not the program is ready, whether or not lenders are able to deploy the money, whether the guidelines are extensive enough to roll this program out.

It's a significant program. One of the most important parts of the $2 trillion stimulus package, how this goes determines how well the economy moves over the course of the next couple of weeks.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I am Brian Todd, outside the nursing home out in Maryland where, just over a week ago, they learned of a positive test here for coronavirus. Since that time, five residents here have died from the virus. More than 70 residents tested positives and 18 staffers tested positive.

It is believed to be the largest outbreak in any nursing home in the United States since the one at the Life Care Center in Seattle several weeks ago which killed several people.

A lot of questions are being asked about whether testing here was done early enough. But what officials here are telling me is that, right now, they are trying to keep the outbreak contained in this facility.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I am Ryan Young, in Detroit, where the coronavirus is having wide-ranging effects in this community. Not only are ICU beds on a shortage here but people and families are starting to feel real pain. Because when they lose someone, the way they mourn is changing. You

can't have large funerals anymore. And pastors are having to tell loved ones they have to limit their list of people who they can bring to funerals. There's even talk of having to do streaming funerals.

It's a big difference for families who are struggling already with the loss of someone to this deadly virus.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I am Ed Lavandera, in New Orleans. One of the issues that health experts are looking at closely here in Louisiana is the higher death rate in the New Orleans area in particular. One emergency official here in the city says the mortality rate has been around 5 percent, which really stands out.

One of the root causes underneath all of that is the poor health of this region. According to the United Health Foundation, the state of Louisiana ranks 49th in overall health, with large number of cases of obesity and kidney problems and diabetes and those sorts of things, those sorts of underlying factors, which really complicate treatment if you are really infected with the coronavirus.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: We'll check in with all of our correspondents throughout the day.

Ahead, I will speak with one intensive care nurse about what she's experiencing with coronavirus patients.

[13:39:12]

Plus, a pandemic expert says she feels guilty and got it wrong when she predicted back in February that the U.S. would be able to handle this. We'll talk to her ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: After resisting calls to use the Defense Production Act, President Trump has ordered companies to begin manufacturing much- needed medical equipment, including N-95 masks and ventilators.

One of the companies included in this order is 3M, which has been shipping N-95 masks to locations here in the U.S. as well as overseas. And President Trump has taken to attacking 3M specifically.

He twitted, in part, "We hit 3M hard today after seeing what they were doing with their masks.

I want to bring in CNN White House correspondent, Jeremy Diamond, and CNN business anchor, Julia Chatterley, who have been in contact with 3M.

Jeremy, I understand you've reported on what finally motivated the president to use the DPA as well as why there's so much animosity towards 3M? JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Anderson.

According to administration officials I have been speaking with, for days, the Trump administration had been pushing 3M executives to provide more of supplies of N-95 masks that they produce abroad and ship those to the United States.

[13:45:04]

They face shifting explanations, I'm told, from 3M executives, everything from arguing they had export restrictions that White House's lawyers found in valid and ultimately saying they had foreign business relationships they did not want to jeopardize.

It all came to a head yesterday, Anderson, when Jared Kushner and Peter Navarro, two of the top officials handling the supply chain issues, specifically handling this case involving 3M, they went to the president in the Oval Office and said, look, it is time to pull the trigger and use the Defense Production Act to compel 3M to ship tens of millions of more of N-95 masks from abroad to the United States.

Now some of the details of how many masks are still being ironed out. But what this does highlight, Anderson, is the extent to which this administration is increasingly acting with a sense of urgency as you are seeing of the shortages of crucial protective materials for medical workers on the front line of this coronavirus pandemic.

An extent to which they're willing to use the more heavy handed took, like the Defense Production Act authorities that allow them to do this in this case -- Anderson?

COOPER: It has been a lot of people expecting this for a long time.

Julia, what is 3M saying all about this?

JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS ANCHOR: A blunt response from 3M. They say their company is going above and beyond and their employees to do everything they can to produce as many masks they can.

All the ramp up that we've seen in domestic production since January has gone to the U.S. domestic market. Globally, they've also ramped up production.

They've also negotiated with China to allow masks they produce China to come to the United States. They say they're negotiating and prioritizing FEMA and will continue to do that.

Where they differ with the demands of President Trump and the White House on the humanitarian issues is they say they can't restrict or end supplies of these masks to Canada and Latin America. They say that will cost lives.

The risk as well is, if they do that, there's retaliations from these countries, too, that say, fine, if you are going to hurt our people who need the critical supplies, we'll do the same.

The Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking in a presser today, hinted that, and was pretty blunt with President Trump, too. I pulled out one of the lines he mentioned. "I think of the thousands of nurses who crossed the bridge in Windsor to work in the Detroit medical system each and every day."

Anderson, what we are risking here is the "Hunger Games" of the supplies we are seeing at the state level turning into the "Hunger Games" at the nation-state level. This is not how this act was meant to be used.

COOPER: Julia Chatterley, appreciate it.

Jeremy Diamond as well.

A Detroit bus driver dies just days after complaining about a passenger who was openly coughing on his bus. I will talk to the head of the Bus Drivers Union there. Someone that has also tested positive. Up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:50:57]

COOPER: Bus drivers on the front lines of this pandemic every day doing their jobs courageously and unfailingly in the face of what's going on. One driver, a man named Jason Hargrove, 50 years old, a bus driver in Detroit. On March 21st, he was driving a city bus when a woman got on and coughed multiple times, not even trying to cover her mouth, according to him.

In a Facebook Live post that went viral, Hargrove laid out his frustration that people are not being more cautious in the midst of this pandemic. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARGROVE: Hey, look, listen, man. Let me say something. This coronavirus (EXPLETIVE DELETED) is for real. And we are out here as public workers doing our job trying to make an honest living to take care of our families.

But for you to get on the bus and stand on the bus, and cough several times without covering up your mouth and you know that we're in the middle of a pandemic, that lets me know that some folks don't care, utterly don't give a (EXPLETIVE DELETED). Excuse my language. But that's how I feel right about now.

For a grown (EXPLETIVE DELETED) person, in her late 50s, early 60s, to stand on the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) bus and cough four or five times without covering up your mouth and you know we're in the midst of a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) crisis with this coronavirus, I am pissed the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) off.

I ain't blaming nobody. I ain't blaming nobody but the woman that did this (EXPLETIVE DELETED). I ain't putting the fault on nobody else.

For us to get through this and get over this, man, you all need to take this (EXPLETIVE DELETED) serious. There's folks dying from this. Listen, there's folks dying out here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Just four days later, after he made that video, Hargrove began to feel sick himself. He died Wednesday night.

Detroit's mayor says his death did not have to happen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR MIKE DUGGAN (D-MI): But if you haven't seen Jason Hargrove's post on social media, on Facebook, everybody in Detroit and everybody in America should watch it. Because he was infected before we closed the front doors. And he tells the story of a passenger getting on the bus and coughing on him.

And some of his language is graphic, but I don't know how you can watch it and not tear up.

He knew his life was being put in jeopardy, even though he was going to work for the citizens of Detroit every day, by somebody who just didn't care, somebody who didn't take this seriously. And now he's gone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Glenn Tolbert, the head of the Detroit Bus Drivers Union, joins me now.

Glenn, my condolences to you and to Mr. Hargrove's family.

Do you know how exactly Jason contracted the virus? Is it known if it was before that person or before, another passenger?

GLENN TOLBERT, DIRECTOR, DETROIT BUS DRIVERS UNION: At this time, I don't know that. I had a chance to speak with his wife, but it was out of concern for her and trying to not get a lot of details. Letting them know, the family with her, that we'll be supporting her through the next coming days, months, years for her and her family.

[13:55:55]

COOPER: You know, we talk a lot about medical workers as being on the front lines. But, you know, bus drivers, delivery people, people who are working jobs still that they interact with people every day, custodial folks who are helping keep things clean. These are the people who are also on the front lines just as much as the medical personal in a pandemic like this.

What do you want people to know about what the bus drivers are facing?

TOLBERT: What I would say, and thank you, Mr. Anderson, for this opportunity.

That brother, Jason, transit workers all over the United States and Canada, my ITU brothers all over, we're hearing this all over. I will submit to you we see more sick people than any doctor, that we are the first responders before the first responders, because we pick up the sick, take them to the hospitals, we pick the grocery workers.

But we're never in that conversation. And it's a shame that it comes to this. It's beyond shameful that it comes to this before we can get some real help and some attention to this problem because transit lives matter also.

COOPER: Are bus drivers given masks or gloves or anything?

TOLBERT: Well, on the 17th of March, my membership had enough. They were putting their lives in jeopardy enough and they staged a mass walkout, if you will, to get the sanitation of the bus. And we were able to shut it down for a whole day to have the fleet thoroughly sanitized and cleaned.

In retrospect and looking at it, that's not enough. We're getting masks but they're running out. We can't get them sometimes, which is a shame. And my members are not going out there without masks. I mean, we need masks. We need gloves. They're giving us gloves. It did take the shutdown to get that.

But we are doing some things now, which is shameful that the people that are entrusted to protect our lives when we go to work every day, it has to come to something for brother Hargrove to pass and my other seven ATU union members around the country and Canada to pass before we do something about it.

COOPER: Glenn Tolbert, I appreciate what you're doing. And we'll keep in touch. And I'm not going to make the same mistake of not recognizing all those folks who are really on the front lines of this. The front lines are now everywhere in a lot of places.

And I appreciate all you're doing. Thank you very much.

New York now warning --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: New York now warning the state is days away from running out of ventilators and supplies. What's being done right now to prepare?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)