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NEW DAY SATURDAY

Trump To Deliver Commencement Address At West Point; Trump Reschedules Tulsa Rally 'Out Of Respect' for Juneteenth; Trump Rally Attendees Must Agree Not To Sue If They Get Virus; Eighteenth Night Of Pretests In U.S. Over George Floyd's Death; Minneapolis Police Rarely Disciplined After Complaints; Derek Chauvin Eligible For Police Pension Despite Murder Charge; Louisville Mayor Signs 'Breonna's Law' Banning No-Knock Warrants. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired June 13, 2020 - 08:00   ET

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


[08:00:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY WEEKEND with Victor Blackwell and Christi Paul.

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: There is some blue sky in there amongst the clouds. We hope you're seeing some sunshine as well. Welcome to Saturday. We always are so grateful for your company.

We want to tell you about the Coronavirus pandemic and that it is not over. We're saying that, because that is the message from health officials this morning. Amid all this concern about several states that are reporting a growing number of cases and the CDC reiterating their latest guidelines, stay apart from others, wear those face coverings and try not to share objects.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Also this morning a reversal from the President on when he will hold that rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, his first after several months. He now says he's going to push back that event by a day after criticism that it was scheduled for June 19th, also known as Juneteenth, the holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S. The President says that his African-American friends and supporters reached out to him to suggest making the change out of respect.

But we are going to start this morning in West Point, that's where this morning the President will deliver a commencement address actually later today. CNN's Jeremy Diamond is there. So Jeremy, good morning to you. This will look different, obviously, because of the pandemic, what are we told we should expect?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It certainly will look different, Victor, from previous years. We are told that the former cadets, now second lieutenants, will march out - all 1,100 of them wearing face masks. But once they get to their seats, they will be spaced about eight feet apart. They'll be allowed to remove their masks.

Another changes that instead of receiving their diplomas personally, in this case, it would be from the President, because he is speaking here. Instead, they will simply render a salute from a distance. So that is kind of how we are seeing things change here.

The question, though, Victor is what we will hear from the President himself. We know, of course, this is a moment of national reckoning on racism and the military really has been one of those institutions at the forefront of this conversation.

We have heard several of the senior military officers over the last couple of weeks' address either their experiences with racism or talk about the fact that this is an issue that needs to be addressed. And that diversity is also at the core of all of the discussions within the military.

Now, as you mentioned Victor, the President was also scheduled to have a controversial campaign rally next Friday on Juneteenth, the holiday that celebrates the emancipation of black slaves.

The President announcing late last night Victor that after Speaking with his many African-American friends and supporters, that he will be moving that rally to the following day to avoid having it on the same day.

We should note though, earlier in the day yesterday, Victor, the President was defending that decision. So interesting there a rare about face from a President who rarely backs down in the face of criticism. Victor?

BLACKWELL: Jeremy Diamond for us there at West Point. Thank you, Jeremy.

PAUL: Thank you, Jeremy. Want to talk with CNN Political Analyst Toluse Olorunnipa, White House reporter for The Washington Post, of course. Toluse, thank you so much for being with us. Always good to see you. What do you make of the President's shift on that date to talk to Tulsa?

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, this - as Jeremy said, this is a rare back down from the President in which the President essentially realized that he made a mistake. It was very much an oversight to - in the middle of all of these protests over racial inequality to schedule a rally for Juneteenth.

The President started to hear not only from his African-American supporters, but also from a lot of critics, people who say that if you are going to actually try to reach out to black voters and try to increase your margins in 2020, then you can't hold a rally on Juneteenth in Tulsa, a place that has a very fraught history when it comes to race relations.

So the President, I think, realized that this was causing more trouble than he wanted. And it was a rare instance of him actually backing down and deciding to make a change. He usually doubles down when he gets put under heavy criticism. But in this case, he decided he did not want this fight. I think looking at the poll numbers, looking at his reelection, he realizes that he's got to choose his battles, and this is not one that you wanted. PAUL: Speaking of choosing battles, the CDC is encouraging people who are going to these rallies to wear masks. The President, now his administration is asking people who go to the rallies to sign waivers - for the Tulsa rally specifically, that they won't be liable if somebody contracts COVID.

[08:05:00]

If COVID isn't a thing, as the President has said so many times - he said it COVID is in ashes at this point. If it's not a thing, why require waivers?

OLORUNNIPA: I think they realize that this is a thing. This is definitely something that people are worried about. That people are liable to contract if they're in these large gatherings. The CDC put out guidelines yesterday essentially telling people that large gatherings continue to be a major risk and that people should be trying to wear masks, trying to practice some form of social distancing.

And that when you have major political rallies and major political events, you risk infecting lots of people. And we see how contagious disease is and how many people can be infected just by one person in a large crowd.

So I think the President's supporters, his allies realize that - his campaign realizes that by putting these rallies on they are definitely putting people at risk and they are putting themselves at risk of being sued if a lot of people get infected, so they're trying to protect themselves from the risk of being liable.

So it's definitely a different message than the President saying that this is all behind us, that we're moving on. That we're on a transition to greatness. I think his campaign and his lawyers realize that they are very much in a situation where they could be found liable if many people are infected in some of these major rallies.

PAUL: Yesterday, the administration announced it's eliminating a section of President Obama's ACA, prohibiting the discrimination in health care against patients who are transgender. If - this, of course, is coming during June, during Pride Month right now. And it was actually announced on the four-year anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting, 49 people dive in that. Is this stance - is his stance on equality and race relations is it deliberately strategic or are we just seeing who he is?

OLORUNNIPA: Well, the President is definitely focused on his reelection. He's done a lot of things that are seen as catering to his base. And I think there are a lot of members of the President's base that want to see him overturning some of these social justice regulations that were put in place by the Obama administration. Things that were meant to for bring equality to groups that had been marginalized.

President Trump's base, in many ways, wants a lot of that to be returned. It's sort of the make America great again, part of the debate - again, part of that slogan where the President wants to revert back to previous regulations and things that were in place before there was more awareness. So it's definitely clear that, especially as the President does a lot of these things on Friday nights that if he's not embracing it, his administration is definitely doing so.

Toluse Olorunnipa, we appreciate you being here. As always, always good to have your voice in this. Thank you, sir.

OLORUNNIPA: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: 18 nights now we've watched the protests across this country demanding policing reforms and an end to systemic racial injustice.

PAUL: Yes, take it in Miami, Florida, a nonviolent protest to the courthouse downtown ended with some protesters on Interstate 95. Look at this. They were blocking a bridge. There was a brief standoff with law enforcement.

(VIDEO PLAYING)

PAUL: Looking at Chicago there, protesters sang hymns. They called for the creation of a civilian council to keep police accountable. And then in Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed when an officer kneeled on his neck for almost nine minutes, protesters are demanding the head of the police union resign. All three cities, by the way, and at least 17 others are banning chokeholds in policing after the Floyd incident.

BLACKWELL: This is the death of George Floyd. CNN has learned that a lot of officers there are rarely disciplined when complaints are filed against them.

PAUL: Derek Chauvin, the officer who pinned Floyd to the ground had 18 prior complaints filed against him. He was only reprimanded twice, though. CNN investigative reporter Drew Griffin has more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE FLOYD: I can't breathe.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the midst of this video that horrified a nation, a bystander called out a badge number.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 1087.

MICHELLE GROSS, COMMUNITIES UNITED AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY: I played it over and over and listened carefully and figured out for sure this was badge 1087. And at that point then I knew that it was Derek Chauvin.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): George Floyd had been dead less than 2 hours. Michelle Gross who heads a Minneapolis group called Communities United Against Police Brutality was about to tell the world who killed him. GROSS: And so when I saw the name I said, oh, him. I wasn't surprised because when you start to see those same officers over and over again with multiple complaints, their names lodge in your brain.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): For two decades her organization has been tracking complaints against Minneapolis police. The data is limited. The investigative details not public but the outcomes are clear.

Scroll down data from the city's own website and you'll see complaint after complaint closed with no discipline. Minneapolis police have racked up 2,013 complaints in 7 years, of those just 31 ended in serious discipline. Just 1.5 percent.

[08:10:00]

GROSS: We have so failed to address police conduct in this community. It made it literally inevitable that somebody was going to die this way.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Derek Chauvin whose knee was on George Floyd's neck had at least 18 complaints. Just 2 have ever led to discipline. His partner that night, Tou Thao has 6, one still pending, 5 dismissed with no discipline.

In 2017, Thao and his partner were sued for using unreasonable force by a man who was punched and kicked so hard his teeth broke, though he had not committed a crime. The city and officers denied any wrongdoing settled for $25,000, Thao remained a cop.

Minneapolis police have a long history of allegations of excessive force, lawsuits and even intervention from the federal Department of Justice. Police chiefs, city councils, mayors come and go without fixing the problems that have built for decades.

R.T. RYBAK, FORMER MINNEAPOLIS MAYOR: Well, if I had an answer about why we haven't gotten more done with police reform in Minneapolis, we wouldn't be in this mess today.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): R.T. Rybak was mayor of Minneapolis from 2002 to 2014. He changed the police chief 3 times. He says he fought for more transparency in complaints. Fought to bring in minority officers and better training to handle the mentally ill.

(on camera): But when we see over and over again, the data, the complaints filed that went nowhere and continue to go nowhere, I really have to question whether or not there was a sincere attempt to restructure the Minneapolis Police Department.

RYBAK: It's the right question. Someone like me should stand before you and have to answer that. I don't want to leave the impression that I didn't try but I did not get the job done. And now is the time to get the job done.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Phillip Atiba Goff is the cofounder of the Center for Policing Equity. PHILLIP ATIBA GOFF, COFOUNDER OF THE CENTER FOR POLICING EQUITY: If we think the problem here is, wow, policing is going to be bad in the United States, we missed the point.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): What is the point? Goff says its entire swaths of communities lacking grocery stores, lacking jobs, lacking good education and he says, let's begin using data for far more than law enforcement.

GOFF: Well, I'm talking about measuring everything we need to, to ensure that those communities can be healthy, safe and empowered to determine their own outcome. Police are the spark. But the historic disinvestment of black communities which is why they only have police to solve their problems, that's really the powder keg.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): The powder keg that erupted with the protests but had been building for decades.

(on camera): The city of Minneapolis tells us that most of the complaints against its officers are low level and in fact in 300 cases officers received coaching instead of actual discipline. But how coaching is applied is unclear and it's certainly not transparent. A former police chief of Minneapolis told us, if one of her officers was coached for bad behavior, even repeatedly, she wouldn't even know it.

Drew Griffin, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Let's bring in now Attorney Benjamin Crump. He represents the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many others. Attorney Crump, good morning to you.

BENJAMIN CRUMP, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Good morning, Victor. One.

BLACKWELL: Let's start here. Just your reaction to what we heard there from Drew and if you were preparing for the interview and didn't hear it, more than 2,000 complaints against the Minneapolis Police Department over the last seven years just 1.5 percent ending with serious discipline. 31 is the wrong number. 18 complaints against Derek Chauvin, specifically two he was disciplined for. Your reaction to those numbers.

CRUMP: Well, it affirms what I've said before, Victor. It wasn't just the knee of Derek Chauvin that killed George Floyd in Minneapolis. It was the knee of the entire police department. Because when you have that kind of culture and behavior of police department it is foreseeable that something like this is going to happen. And thank God that 17-year-old high school student had her video camera out so we could all see it for ourselves.

BLACKWELL: Former officer Chauvin is being held on charge of now second degree murder manslaughter as well. CNN reported this week that he could be eligible, even if convicted, for more than $1 million in pension benefits. Your reaction to that. And would you be seeking a civil lawsuit against Chauvin personally? CRUMP: Absolutely. The family intends on holding Derek Chauvin fully accountable in every aspect criminal and civil for the wrongful death of George Floyd. And we, myself and his brother testified before the United States Congress, when you consider that he still may be eligible for this pension. Well that suggests Victor that the system is all wrong.

[08:15:00]

We testified that if we're going to change this culture and behavior of polices in America, we have to start at the top with the federal government. And we have the look at these municipalities and cities and their contracts with the unions to continue to allow bad cops to either keep their job with that department after they brutalized or killed a black person or just moved to another Police Department like with Tamir Rice, you see that so often.

BLACKWELL: You know, you bring up a point that I was going to get to later, but it overlaps, so let me introduce it now. That at least 20 cities and municipalities have now or are in the process of banning chokehold, not teaching chokeholds in the academies, I think we have map or full screen, where can put up those. Here they are on the screen.

Former officer for the NYPD, Daniel Pantaleo, he was found to have used a banned chock holder on Eric Garner in 2014. Kept his job for, what, five years, never faced any charges. So what is the practical efficacy or strength of these bands? If they're being used anyway, they're not taught, and then we see this lack of or lag of consequence.

CRUMP: Well, it's interesting, because when we were testifying at the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman on the other side of our aisle Jim Jordan from Ohio and Johnson from Arkansas, they agreed with me that it was about transparency, accountability. That's how we get to trust, because here's a great mistrust between law enforcement in communities of color.

And also, they said that you have transparency, training and terminations. We have to terminate people when they use these bad policies, despite what the police unions say, because if we don't terminate them, it is absolutely predictable that you will have somebody do a chokehold or net restraint for eight minutes and 46 seconds, because they know there's no accountability.

There's no discipline when they do this to black people in America because that precedent is there. And that's what we see happening over and over and over again, Victor. And if we don't do something about it, I predict that we're going to have another police killing another black man or woman in the next 30 days and there will be another hashtag.

BLACKWELL: I got the rap from my producer, but control room. I'm going to borrow a minute here because I want to get to the case of Breonna Taylor in Louisville. The passage of the "Breonna's Law" banning no- knock warrants. But you've said that you want to see more or potentially Louisville is going to see what Minneapolis saw two weeks ago and for the last 18 days, what is that more that you want to see from Louisville?

CRUMP: We want to see these police officers terminated and charged for executing Breonna Taylor in her own home. I mean, can you imagine laying in your bed asleep and then all of a sudden police bust open your door with a battering ram, Victor and there is no identification. They're in plain clothes.

They thought they were being burglarized. It was a home invasion. But, yes, they executed her. Violated all kind of policies. Gave false information to get the search warrant in the first place. And nothing has happened to these police officers. They're still being paid by taxpayers' money even though they killed the innocent black woman.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Breonna Taylor shot eight times and killed in her apartment. You should go online and look at the police report that was released. According to that it's got very few words on it. Of course the question of where's all the information about that. Benjamin Crump, always good to have a conversation, sir. Thank you so much.

CRUMP: Thank you so much, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Christi?

PAUL: Well, the CDC released new predictions regarding the number of U.S. Coronavirus deaths by the Fourth of July. We'll tell you what that number is and prompting the release of new guidelines as well. Stay close.

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[08:20:00]

PAUL: Right now coronavirus cases are spiking in several states and that has a lot of those states delaying their reopening plans now.

BLACKWELL: Now on Friday, the U.S. reported more than 25,000 new cases, 851 deaths. On Friday, the CDC released new guidelines for social distancing and travel this summer. CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield emphasized that this pandemic has not ended.

PAUL: There are growing concerns over a study out of Florida, for instance. Researchers there say they believe the virus has mutated, which means it could more easily infect people now.

BLACKWELL: CNN's Polo Sandoval is with us now from New York. Dr. Fauci - Dr. Anthony Fauci has a warning. Tell us about it.

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Victor, you're talking about one of the nation's top health experts here with a warning specifically for some of those states should they experience any increase in hospitalizations. If that happens, they should have rethink reopening he says

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SANDOVAL (voice-over): Dr. Anthony Fauci with the new warning for Americans as Coronavirus case counts are rising in 19 states.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: If you leapfrog over different phases, you increase the risk that you're going to have the kind of resurgences that we're seeing in certain of the states.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Has the United States stalled in the fight against Coronavirus?

[08:25:00]

FAUCI: I'm not so sure we can say it's stalled, but what we're seeing right now is something obviously that's disturbing.

SANDOVAL (voice-over): With more people congregating in public places, recent protests for racial justice in major cities and the lack of a vaccine, experts are concerned.

DR. RICHARD BESSER, FORMER ACTING DIRECTOR, CDC: We're in the early days of the pandemic. And if only five or 10 percent of the population has had this infection, we have a really long way to go.

SANDOVAL (voice-over): Since Memorial Day the number of Coronavirus hospitalizations has gone up in at least a dozen states according to data CNN collected from the COVID tracking project from May 25th to June 9th.

North Carolina has seen the most cases reported in one day since the pandemic began. Democratic Governor Roy Cooper said in the press conference Friday, South Carolina has seen a large increase in daily new cases. On Thursday, the state saw its single largest daily increase since the pandemic started. Florida's average new case count has about doubled since June 1st.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): As you're testing more, you're going to find more cases.

SANDOVAL (voice-over): And Governor Ron DeSantis says there are new outbreaks and farming communities in Houston, Texas, they're prepping a field hospital at the Texans NRG Stadium just in case COVID-19 hospitalization rates in Texas just hit an all-time high.

In Arkansas, a record number of COVID-19 cases reported in the last 24 hours.

Dr. Ashish Jha, Director, Harvard Global Health Institute: If things continue on the current trend, we're going to lose 20,000 to 30,000 Americans a month. And nothing in the foreseeable future stops that unless we really do things differently.

SANDOVAL (voice-over): Dr. Fauci, cautioning states on Friday to rethink their reopening strategies if they see increases in the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19. FAUCI: Wait a minute, let's rethink this and see where we're going. Maybe we need to slow down a little. Maybe we need to intensify our capabilities to identify, isolate and contact trace. We don't want it to get out of hands again.

SANDOVAL (voice-over): Oregon and Utah have paused the reopening, and California's Orange County relaxing its strict mandate for face coverings. Neighboring LA County, which recorded its highest single day increase this week moved into phase three. Gyms, day camps and TV film production are among the businesses reopening.

All of Missouri will be open next week and concerts and conventions can resume in Georgia July 1st. As the Coronavirus pandemic continues, officials at the CDC are reiterating the importance of social distancing, wearing face coverings in public and washing hands frequently.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: Let's bring you back here in New York City where we still face a big test later this month. Mayor Bill de Blasio saying yesterday in about a week, we should know whether or not there was actually any impact as a result of these protests, and potentially that led to any increase in these cases.

But in the meantime, Victor and Christi, the main advice remains the same. If you did participate in these protests, simply get tested.

BLACKWELL: Polo Sandoval. Thank you.

PAUL: Thanks Polo.

BLACKWELL: So election officials across Georgia they're blaming each other for just the mess that was across this state on Tuesday on primary election day.

PAUL: How our next guest says the country can avoid an election disaster in November.

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[08:30:00]

PAUL: Thirty-two minutes pass the hour right now. In Georgia Secretary of State is launching an investigation into the problems that plagued this Tuesday's primary elections. I know that you saw the footage there. Voters face long lines, up to three or four hours in some precincts. And defective voting machines meant a lot of people had to cast provisional ballots. Now some left the polling place without even being able to cast a ballot.

Our next guest wrote this quote, "We are in deep, deep trouble and seemingly completely unprepared for this November's elections. The alarm bells keep ringing first in Ohio and Wisconsin than in Pennsylvania and now Georgia. Yet we hurtle heedlessly toward chaos." David Daley is his name. He is the author of "Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy." David, it's so good to have you with us. Thank you for being here.

DAVID DALEY, AUTHOR, UNRIGGED: HOW AMERICANS ARE BATTLING BACK TO SAVE DEMOCRACY: Thank you for having me.

PAUL: Absolutely. So we know that these polling places, they were open late. They had the equipment failures, they didn't have enough training, they said. What do - what we - what did what we saw on Tuesday tell us about what's coming in November?

DALEY: Boy, it's a great question, and I think it's a really dangerous question. The alarm bells really have been ringing for months now. Georgia is the absolute loudest yet. We have to stop and learn these lessons. I fear that we are dangerously unprepared for November.

And that if the kinds of chaos that continued to plague elections in Georgia, after we already saw it in Wisconsin, after we saw it in Pennsylvania, after we saw the lines in Washington, DC. If this is the same situation on Election Day, except in 12 or 15 states around the country in the fall, that the pandemic has returned, we are in for a really dangerous crisis of democracy.

Everything that could go wrong in Georgia did go wrong. The lines were too long. There were not enough voting machines. There were two things polling places there weren't enough workers. Official showed too little concern for protecting the right of citizens to vote.

And then there's a system failure on the mail-in voting side as well, because tens of thousands of people who requested absentee ballots simply didn't get them. And then they had to make the same decision, whether or not to join those long lines, with the faulty machines in the fewer number of precincts, all of it in the middle of a pandemic. We have never faced an election like this before, and we are not facing it properly.

[08:35:00]

PAUL: And that's what people are going to argue back. Is that we're in the middle of COVID. This is an unprecedented time. There's not enough poll workers. So what is the solution?

DALEY: You know, we are not funding this properly. We have to treat this like it's a real national emergency. Like there's a hurricane or a tornado coming at us, because that's exactly what this is. We would prepare for that. A lot of us have been talking about this since March and three months have gone by already.

What we continue to see are the same problems that instead of states, having 5, 10 12 percent of their balance being absentee, you're seeing in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Georgia, as much as 70 percent of voters looking to vote absentee, and that absolutely overwhelmed these underfunded poll workers and election workers who simply are not ready to move from a 10 percent vote by mail system into one in which they're receiving millions of pieces of mail-in requests. We have got to fully fund all of these folks.

The Brennan Center has estimated that this is going to cost $4 billion. We've only allocated $400 million, which - even for $4 billion is a rounding error for democracy when you consider the kind of stimulus that the Fed and the Congress have pumped into the system. We have to do the same thing for our elections.

PAUL: David Daley, I'm sure we'll be talking to you again as we inch closer to that November date. Good to have you here. Thank you so much.

DALEY: Thanks for having me.

BLACKWELL: All right. Still to come, we're going to talk more about the Breonna Taylor case. She was shocked to death by police after they executed a no-knock warrant at her apartment at night. Some of the - the people who are protesting want to know why there had been no charges against the officers involved, while they still have their jobs. We'll talk about that.

Also, the tensions between protesters and police in London. This is not the Black Lives Matter protests. These are right wing protesters who were there to defend the statues that we've seen some scuffles with police. Live pictures here. We've got our Nic Robertson there. We'll get you the latest from London.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:40:00]

BLACKWELL: All right, 19 minutes at the top of the hour now. There's some right-wing protesters that are getting into some scuffles with police in London. These are counter protesters who say they want to protect some monuments that have been or in maybe jeopardy being taken down during this Black Lives Matter movement

PAUL: Yes. The U.K.'s official Black Lives Matter group told its followers stay home this weekend and to quote "Take care of yourselves and each other." But this is what's going on in London right now.

London's Mayor pleading with all protesters to just do the same and stay home. He says, while he supports Black Lives Matter. He'd rather people stay safe, particularly due to the risk of spreading COVID-19 as well. You hear a lot of stuff that's going on there right now.

Our international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson is live in London as well. And I know there's some tension we understand that's already building. Nic, tell us what's going on. What have you seen?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, the tension here sort of ebbs and flows. You can just sort of hear maybe in the background, you've got a helicopter above and you can hear the chanting, rising up.

What is happening here? This is obviously a completely different crowd and gathering to the one here last Saturday. We were talking about Black Lives Matter last weekend. This weekend it's different.

Last weekend, the statue behind me, you might be able to see it in that gray box over there, of Winston Churchill. It had graffiti on it. Accusing Winston Churchill of being a racist. And the very next day, another Black Lives Matter protest, a statue of a slave trader was taken down.

So groups of people here in the U.K., football supporters, others have said, we're going to come out and protect the statues. The statue of Winston Churchill, or the statues here as well that they say are important to them.

What we've heard from the police commissioner here is, that she's worried that there are some elements in this group here that want nothing else than a confrontation with a Black Lives Matter group. She's urged the Black Lives Matter protesters to stay away.

We've also heard from the Mayor Sadiq Khan. He describes those elements that want a confrontation where Black Lives Matter - he has described them as right-wing elements. So what the police have set up here, and you can see it beyond the crowds here, the street down the road is the main government administrator street in the central London.

You have Downing Street coming off of there. And at the other end is Trafalgar Square, which is where the Black Lives Matter March may arrive later today and the police have set up a no go zone in the middle. But where we've seen the scuffles here?

I will point to this gray box in the corner of Parliament Square. Inside that box is a statue of Nelson Mandela. There were threats that some of the people here would take down Nelson Mandela statue, that's why the mayor has had it put in a box.

And when we're seeing the crowds moving on number two Nelson Mandela statue, we've seen the police come in in quite strong numbers. No hard confrontation, but it's very clear that police are under instructions to protect any and all statues today.

[08:45:00]

PAUL: Nic Robertson, you and the crew take good care there. Thank you.

BLACKWELL: So protests across the U.S. helped turn up the pressure to charge the officers involved in George Floyd case. But for the family of Breonna Taylor, a black woman who was also killed by police, there have been no arrests, no firings.

My next guest asks why hasn't heard death demanded the same impact. Dr. Kimberle Crenshaw is with us now. She's a professor of law at UCLA and Columbia School of Law. Dr. Crenshaw, thanks so much for being with us. You say that the national attention focused on police brutality of and police killings of black men is not extended to black women. I wonder if you believe that it is conscious exclusion, or it is mindless lack of inclusion. Essentially, is it malice or is it negligence?

KIMBERLE CRENSHAW, PROFESSOR OF LAW, UCLA: Well, I think it's that we don't have frames to hold how black women lose their lives to police violence. For the last several years I would do an exercise when we were trying to raise this question.

And I would ask everybody to stand up. And I would say when you hear a name of someone you don't recognize I'd like you to sit down. And so I would give the names of Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile. And most people, in most audiences would still be standing.

And then I would say the names of Michelle Cusseaux, Tanisha Anderson, India Kager, India Beatty, Mya Hall, Kayla Moore. And by the time I got to the second name, pretty much everybody had already taken their seats. You could actually hear the sound of people sitting down, I call that the sound of the silence, the sound of marginality.

So it's that we haven't heard these names, because we really don't have stories. We don't have merit of frames. We don't have, the ability to say, "Oh, I recognize that story." So you start a story about what police violence against black men looks like. You're walking down the street and the police roll up on you and then it goes bad. People get that.

But start a story with your sleeping in your own bed at 1:00 o'clock in the morning, and no one knows how to really complete that story. So that's part of the problem, because we don't tell the stories, people are not familiar with them. And when they're not familiar with them, they can't hold the names of the black women who have been killed by the police. So there's a loss and then there's a loss of the loss.

BLACKWELL: Yes, I neglected to say at the top that you're with the African American Policy Forum, which has launched the hashtag, #SayHerName Campaign. I want to make sure I got that in as well.

And in the suggestion of - or I mean, we got the full screens to prove it, where you've got on your Web site. You've got the name that most people remember Eric Garner, or as you mentioned, Tamir Rice, and then under them in the same calendar year, the women who were killed by police or the result of police violence that year, who most people have not heard.

Is this also something that you're seeing from allies from Black Lives Matter movements, from people who are out there on the streets trying to get the attention also ignoring black women. And I should say it's not just black women, cisgendered women, it's transwomen and those non-gender conforming as well.

CRENSHAW: Yes. Well, you know, there's always a difference between movement leaders and rank and file. So many of the movement leaders themselves, lift the names of black women, and we use black women expansively in our campaign. But the reality is that many of the protesters really do believe that the issue is almost exclusively an issue around black men.

When we started SayHerName it was literally a demand as we were in the Eric Garner protests. The person that got us started with this, frankly, was Fran Garrett who's the mother of Michelle Cusseaux. Her daughter was killed within two weeks of Mike Brown, and no one knew her name. So she took her coffin to City Hall, and that's how we became aware of the fact that she lost her life. So when we went to the Eric Garner protests, we had a whole banner of black women who'd lost their lives to police violence. We would call the name of Eric Garner and then we'd also say, Michelle Cusseaux, and many people just didn't know. And some people were somewhat taken aback by because they it's just a black men's issue. So that's why we started to say, SayHerName, literally. And that's why we turned it into a hashtag, basically to hold the demand that we have to say their names to be able to tell their stories.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Dr. Kimberle Crenshaw, with the African American Policy Forum and the #SayHerName campaign. There were more things I wanted to get to, but we have run out of time. I will tweet out a link to the campaign to make sure that people get to learn more about it. Thank you so much for your time this morning.

[08:50:00]

CRENSHAW: Thanks for having me.

BLACKWELL: We'll be right back.

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PAUL: I know you've probably noticed over the last couple of weeks, how many celebrities are using their platforms right now to talk about fighting police brutality and racial inequality? Well, it seems the entertainment industry is listening.

BLACKWELL: So after a petition urging ABC to address the lack of diversity on its reality dating shows, let me just pause here. I think that the first half of this conversation doesn't have anything to do with the second, because I don't know that this does anything about racial inequality and policing.

PAUL: I understand.

BLACKWELL: They've now chosen a black bachelor. The second black lead in 40 seasons of "The Bachelor" and "Bachelorette" franchises.

[08:55:00]

PAUL: And there he is. 40 seasons, and this is the first one. That is what's striking about that statement.

BLACKWELL: Yes, that should do it.

PAUL: Yes. All right.

BLACKWELL: We've now chosen one. All right.

PAUL: Yes. So before we go, today on CNN, I want to let you know, the Sesame Street crew is back for a family friendly conversation - yes, kids, this is all about you - about COVID-19. How you can stay safe this summer. The ABCs of COVID-19, it is this morning at 10:00 Eastern, right here on CNN. We hope that. Always, always learning, still learning today, Victor from Big Bird and Ernie. BLACKWELL: And they are excellent questions and some good answers. Now, will see you again tomorrow at 6:00 am. Eastern. "SMERCONISH" is up next.

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