Return to Transcripts main page

NEW DAY SUNDAY

More Than 61,000 COVID-19 Cases Recorded In The U.S. On Saturday; U.S. Now Has More COVID-19 Cases Than The Population Of Chicago; Trump Wears A Mask During Visit To Wounded Service Members; Robert Mueller Breaks His Silence On Roger Stone; California Sets Records In COVID-19 Hospitalizations, ICU Rates; Terms Of Michael Cohen's Return To Prison Under Scrutiny; Black Lives Matter Takes Aim At L.A.'s First Black District Attorney. Aired 6-7a ET

Aired July 12, 2020 - 06:00   ET

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


[06:00:14]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A striking image of the president of the United States doing what many Americans have been doing now for months, simply wearing a mask.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A photo-op his advisers practically begged him to do.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: He made it clear that this might be the only time that we see him in a mask.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've never been against masks but I do believe they have a time and a place.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Better late than never. What he does ripples down.

TRUMP: Roger Stone was treated horribly.

WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: The Stone case was prosecuted while I was attorney general, and I supported it.

LAURA COATES, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: He's just a few days from serving the sentence next week. And so the idea is why now? Why after all of this? Why would the president right now be doing this?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Good Sunday morning to you. You are watching NEW DAY. It is July 12th. I'm Victor Blackwell.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Abby Phillip in for Christi Paul today. Thank you for joining us.

BLACKWELL: So this morning there's a top medical expert who is warning that the U.S. is approaching, if it stays on this current path in dealing with the COVID-19 epidemic, one of the most unstable times in the history of this country. Right now, coronavirus cases in America are surging, more than 61,000 cases were reported on Saturday and COVID-19 killed 685 Americans.

PHILLIP: And after months of refusing to wear a mask in public against the recommendations of his own administration's public health experts, President Trump finally wore one during a visit to Walter Reed Medical Center yesterday.

BLACKWELL: And the president is also defending his decision to intervene in the case of a former adviser. Robert Mueller then made a rare public statement declaring that Roger Stone is a convicted felon and rightly so. We're going to have much more on that a little later this morning.

PHILLIP: The U.S. saw a surge of coronavirus infections in the weeks after Memorial Day and now cellphone data suggests that even more people hit the road over the Fourth of July weekend.

BLACKWELL: And there were lots of visitors to 10 states that are now seeing some of the highest spikes. And of course, this questions now, how will these states handle the next wave of infections?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL (voice-over): At least 26 states are pausing or rolling back their reopening plans in an effort to get the virus spread under control. But Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Texas all recorded record or near record high numbers of confirmed COVID-19 infections in a single day on Saturday.

MAYOR STEVE ADLER (D), AUSTIN, TEXAS: Numbers are going up. And it is precarious and we're on the edge. Our ICUs are getting more stressed. We're looking at horizons that scare us. But we're also now beginning to get calls from other parts of state that are hit harder even than we are, asking if we can take folks. It's a scary time.

BLACKWELL: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says he's working to secure tests with faster results after a hospital system president stressed the need for more resources.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): Of course, our mission really focuses on protecting the vulnerable. From the beginning, we wanted to expand testing. We are definitely doing that.

BLACKWELL: Disney World in Florida reopened its gates on Saturday to the Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. EPCOT and Hollywood Studios are scheduled to reopen Wednesday.

REP. DONNA SHALALA (D-FL) (on the phone): I'm not as worried about people that are in the Disney enterprise. But what happens when they leave? And what happens when they travel to get there? That's the worry.

Disney has millions of dollars to spend. It tells you how difficult it's going to be to open schools if we don't have billions of dollars.

BLACKWELL: Educators across the country are trying to find a way to get students back in classrooms safely. Atlanta public schools will not bring students back into the classrooms when the new school year starts because in Georgia, one of the earliest states to reopen, there are now more than 114,000 confirmed cases and almost 3,000 deaths.

LISA HERRING, SUPERINTENDENT, ATLANTA PUBLIC SCHOOLS: We had to make a serious decision relative to the safety and the wellness of our staff and students for reopening. Initially, our first day of school would have been August 10th. The recommendation is for us to move that to August 24th. And then most importantly, to do that in a virtual capacity.

BLACKWELL: The U.S. has more than 3.2 million cumulative cases. That's more than the population of 21 states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. And the CDC now estimates 40 percent of people infected with COVID-19 have no symptoms.

There is some good news. The state of Vermont has a seven-day positivity average of 0.5 percent. That's the lowest in the country, Governor Phil Scott said in a tweet Saturday.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: And we're going to continue to talk about, Abby, how school districts are going to bring the students back, the teachers, the staff and make sure that everyone is safe.

[06:05:08]

We have got Dr. Jennifer Caudle coming up in just a few minutes. But after months of refusing to wear this mask in public, we now know that President Trump he wore one to visit wounded service members at Walter Reed Medical Center on Saturday.

PHILLIP: CNN's Sarah Westwood is joining us now from the White House. Sarah, it is hard to not notice that the president's advisers and supporters online are taking a victory lap over this. But public health experts have been warning for months that the president should wear a mask.

Why is this happening now? And do you think it could last?

SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, Abby. This was the result of this notable shift, this notable evolution that the president has had on masks that has taken weeks for him to get to the point where he allowed himself to be photographed wearing one. And also, notably, the people around him were wearing masks as well.

We know that when he appears in public, for example, his senior aides have frequently not been wearing masks. The secret service members protecting him also are often seen not wearing face coverings as well. Even though we have seen a number of positive cases among secret service agents who have been on the road with the president.

So, this was a really big moment for the president. Putting on that mask and leading by example as he had been pushed to do. But he did suggest earlier in the day as he was leaving for Walter Reed Medical Center that this mask wearing was specific to the hospital setting that he was going to and that might not be a thing that we see him do every day. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Well, I'll probably have a mask if you must know. I mean, I'll probably have a mask. I think when you're in a hospital, especially in that particular setting where you're talking to a lot of soldiers, people that in some cases just got off the operating tables, I think it's a great thing to wear a mask.

I've never been against masks, but I do believe they have a time and a place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WESTWOOD: And now this came after aides and advisers were essentially pleading with the president to wear a face covering to make that symbolic gesture. There's a recognition among aides and advisers that if people were not encouraged to wear masks, if his supporters continue to resist those kinds of ordinances, then the reopenings, the economic recovery that the president has been so fond of touting just could not continue.

And Vice President Mike Pence had already made that evolution just a few weeks ago, now frequently appears with his mask. So, the president was essentially the last holdout on that front.

Now, former Vice President Joe Biden, the president's election rival, basically characterized it as too little too late from the president. I want to read you Biden's response. He said, "Rather than taking responsibility and leading, he wasted four months that Americans have been making sacrifices by stoking divisions and actively discouraging people from taking a very basic step to protect each other."

And Biden had, of course, weeks ago, actually several months ago appeared in public with a mask, has done so several times and at the time the president mocked Biden for wearing a face covering. So, just another reason why this is such a notable shift from the president, Abby and Victor.

PHILLIP: That's right, Sarah. And it's a question, a major question whether or not it is too little, too late.

BLACKWELL: Yes. The president says there's a time and a place. The time is when you're breathing. And the place is when you're out in public. Sarah Westwood for us there at the White House. Thanks so much.

Let's bring in family medicine physician and associate professor for family medicine at Rowan University, Dr. Jennifer Caudle. Dr. Caudle, welcome back.

I'm going to move on beyond the president. He should have done this months ago. So, he gets no pat on the back. This is the bare minimum. But we know in Louisiana that the governor there, John Bel Edwards, has now ordered the wearing of masks in public. Are we seeing a similar pattern to what happened with the stay-at-home orders? That it's reactive. After there's a spike, then these things go into effect and what would be the impact if we start on the front end by requiring people to wear masks and now asking people to stay at home?

DR. JENNIFER CAUDLE, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, FAMILY MEDICINE AT ROWAN UNIVERSITY: Absolutely. This does seem to be reactive, right? We're seeing spikes in Texas, Arizona, Florida and so many other states. States that didn't necessarily have these mandates before, didn't have stay-at-home orders or and were not necessarily rolling back their sort of activities. Now we are seeing this.

By the way, this is a good thing. This is exactly what we should be seeing. But this should have been done before. As far as I'm concerned we should have a national mask mandate. Everyone in this country should be wearing masks when you're out and about.

We've been trying to flatten this curve. Flattening the curve is really about keeping cases low so that hospitals don't be overrun. That we have enough PPE, that we're able to take care of hospitals. They're not in diversion as we are seeing in many of these states. That we don't see an increase in deaths or that our positions become exhausted which is exactly what's happening right now.

The idea is that I worry that at the end of this, whenever that might be in the future, when we look back in time, we look back to February, March, April, even now that we say, goodness, if only we all had just all been wearing masks, if only we all just been hunkering down for a little bit more, look how many more lives could have been saved.

[06:10:10]

That is my big concern.

PHILLIP: Yes. And, Doctor, one of the trends that we've been seeing over the last couple of weeks is that these cases are trending younger. Younger people are getting sick in Louisiana, for example. They're seeing a spike in cases among under 30-year-olds.

But what's interesting is that they're saying that about 95 percent of their new cases are community spread. What does that tell you about what is and is not working, about how we are reopening this country?

CAUDLE: Sure. So community spread simply means that it's people out in the community that are giving it to one another. We have been seeing community spread. This has been going on for months.

But the fact that we're seeing younger people with higher rates of coronavirus, the number of theories behind that include perhaps younger people are the ones that are not adhering so much to social distancing. Maybe being the ones who are going to parties, going to bars, et cetera. Things like that.

Some of the good news with younger people getting COVID, if there is any good news to this at all, which there really isn't, but it is good that young people don't tend to become as sick. But we do know that they can get sick.

I have had young people with coronavirus that had gotten it that had shortness of breath and other symptoms that had lasted for weeks. So, young people are not exempt from severe consequences.

We also know that young people can give it to older people. And this is one of the reasons why we all have to be doing our part in this. We all have to be wearing masks, social distancing, et cetera. But, yes, it does seem that a number of young people are increasingly becoming affected with COVID-19.

BLACKWELL: Let's talk even younger now. We're talking about children returning to school potentially in the fall. "New York Times" obtained this internal, 69-page CDC document on reopening schools. A lot of it we've seen before but this is a portion for the talking points section that said, "While many jurisdictions and districts mention symptom screening, very few include information as to the response or course of action they would take if students/faculty/staff are found to have symptoms, nor have they clearly identified which symptoms they will include in their screening. In addition, few plans include information regarding school closure in the event of positive tests in the school community. "

For children, what symptoms do you think that they should be looking for and do we know enough about how this manifests in children to create that list?

CAUDLE: That's an excellent question. You know, with regards to returning to school, there are so many questions here. And I do stand with the American Academy of Pediatrics in saying that it is important for kids to be in school if possible for their psychological, psychosocial, physical and academic well-being. However, that has to be done safely and only in the right circumstances in places where cases are low, et cetera.

With regards to symptom screenings, you bring this point up. And I think it's an indicator of a larger issue here. The American Academy of Pediatrics as well as the CDC has put together excellent guidelines about things schools can do to reduce transmission and keep schools safe. However, there are many questions that still exist. And quite honestly, schools need funding.

This idea of symptom screening, which is a great idea, but the question is who would do it? What symptoms will we screen for? And, Victor, to you point you asked about symptoms. Many children are asymptomatic.

We do know and research has told us that many kids don't necessarily get severe symptoms if they get coronavirus. They may be less likely to get it, perhaps less likely to transmit based on some evidence.

But your question points to the larger questions we all have. How are schools going to do this? They need funding. They need leadership. They need support. They need a lot of help to be able to pull this off, if at all. So in some ways, I think there -- in many cases, more questions than answers that we have right now.

PHILLIP: That's exactly right. More questions than answers on this very, very tough issue. Dr. Jennifer Caudle, thank you for joining us this morning.

BLACKWELL: Thanks so much.

CAUDLE: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Up next, after President Trump commuted the sentence of Roger Stone who, reminder here, he was found guilty of lying to protect him. Former special counsel Robert Mueller, he makes this rare public statement. We will share what he said.

PHILLIP: Plus, we will take you inside a hospital on the California/Mexico border that is overwhelmed to the point it's setting up tents to handle an explosion of new cases.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:18:24]

BLACKWELL: Former special counsel Robert Mueller is defending his office's prosecution of Roger Stone after President Trump commuted his sentence.

PHILLIP: In a "Washington Post" op-ed, Mueller says, Stone is still a convicted criminal -- convicted felon, and rightly so.

BLACKWELL: Joining us now is CNN's crime and justice reporter Katelyn Polantz. How important is it that not so much what he said but that he decided to say something?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, it's incredibly unusual to have Mueller come out and say something after a year of effectively complete silence. So, the last time that he spoke publicly about his work it was before Congress, he was under subpoena. Even then he was reluctant, he was circumspect. He really didn't elaborate. But today he's adding a little bit more to defend his work and also to defend the work of his team.

This is what he said. He wrote, I feel compelled to respond both to broad claims that our investigation was illegitimate and our motives were improper, and to specific claims that Roger Stone was a victim of our office. Stone was prosecuted and convicted because he committed federal crimes. He remains a convicted felon, and rightly so.

Now that's a direct rebuttal of what the White House said on Friday. Calling this a witch hunt yet again and then of what the president said on Saturday and this was really more than we've heard from Mueller in quite a long time.

PHILLIP: Katelyn, President Trump is facing some criticism from Democrats and from a couple of Republicans on this decision. But how is the president reacting this morning?

POLANTZ: Well, the president really is doubling down.

[06:20:01]

He is embracing what the White House statement said on Friday that this was a witch hunt and he is putting up -- he has more to say now. This is what he said yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Roger Stone was treated horribly. Roger Stone was treated very unfairly. Roger Stone was brought into this witch hunt, this whole political witch hunt and the Mueller scam. People are extremely happy because in this country they want justice and Roger Stone was not treated properly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POLANTZ: Now, remember, that's a very different thing than what the Mueller investigation found. And that one of the reasons that this is such -- something that both Democrats and Republicans have reacted to is that Roger Stone, when he lied to Congress, he was lying to protect the president. That's something that the justice department said and that a jury found and found Stone guilty of -- Victor and Abby.

BLACKWELL: All right. Katelyn, thank you so much.

PHILLIP: Thanks, Katelyn.

Stone is the 36th person granted clemency by President Trump and many of those cases have been controversial.

BLACKWELL: With us now Elie Honig, former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and CNN legal analyst. Elie, good morning to you.

When you read it, I read it once and I read it as obviously a defense of the case compared to what we're seeing and hearing from the president. But if you read it a second time and with the exception of that first paragraph, it really is just a list of facts and a sober recount of what was discovered, not much emotion here from the perspective of being a former employee of the DOJ what does it mean to you that we see this from Robert Mueller?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Victor. I think it means a lot that Mueller came out and took this stand. I had a similar reaction to you. It's listed as an op-ed in the "Washington Post" but really it's a simple recitation of indisputable facts by Robert Mueller. I think his reason for doing it was to stand up for the truth and to stand up for the rule of law.

But what Robert Mueller, I think, was doing was reminding us of the core, fundamental principles about his investigation. That investigation was necessary, that investigation was well-predicated. It showed that Russia interfered in 2016. It showed the Trump campaign knew about it and hoped to benefit from it. And it showed that Roger Stone, the person whose sentence was

commuted, was the key conduit the Trump campaign thought could connect them over to WikiLeaks. And I think Robert Mueller, what he was essentially saying is, put aside the fluff, put aside the distraction, here are the facts.

PHILLIP: You know, I do think it's interesting that he decided to even bother to do that at all. He has been so reluctant, Elie, to speak out. I wonder if Mueller is mindful of what could be coming down the pike. You have Michael Flynn's case. You have Paul Manafort's case. Is he kind of saying to the public or to President Trump that this investigation is legitimate and in some ways warning them -- warning him about taking steps -- further steps to undermine it?

HONIG: I agree, Abby. I don't think the president has put away his pardon pen for the rest of the term. It wouldn't at all surprise me to see him issue more pardons to more people who have been his personal and political allies. And I think what Robert Mueller was doing here is sounding an alarm bell.

It really takes a lot to get Robert Mueller to speak out publicly. We saw the letter, you remember the letter that he wrote to William Barr. William Barr misstated his report. But even when he testified about a year ago, Robert Mueller really was reluctant to say much. So, the fact that he came out now and made this strong public statement I think was intended to put everyone on notice, this could happen again and this is dead wrong.

BLACKWELL: Yes, you referenced the testimony. So, when the Mueller report was released, there were Democrats who wanted an impeachment inquiry then. That did not happen.

When there was the impeachment inquiry related to Ukraine some Democrats wanted the scope expanded to include the Mueller report. That did not happen.

After the testimony, there wasn't much political consequence. What do you believe will be the consequences of this more than he spoke, but what will it mean moving forward?

HONIG: Yes. So, the consequences, I think, here are primarily going to be political. Legally speaking, there's really nothing that can be done to undo a pardon or a commutation. That just is the president has very broad legal power to issue pardons and commutations.

Now, look, under the constitution, impeachment as you mentioned, Victor, would be a remedy that I think ordinarily would be seriously in play. But realistically here we just had an impeachment. It's not going to go anywhere in the Senate. I think House Democrats and House members would recognize that. And we're very close to an election.

But I think the way the founders envisioned this is if you have an abuse of power, flagrant abuse of power, like we just saw, the constitutional remedy here would be impeachment.

PHILLIP: Yes. And to that point, Elie, we have not really seen Republicans running for the exits from President Trump. We've had two Republican senators Mitt Romney and Pat Toomey speaking out.

[06:25:00]

So, for the public listening here, I mean, what are the consequences if in fact this is an abuse of power?

HONIG: Yes, hardly running for the exits. It's more like two guys getting up and slowly strolling for the exits while everyone else stays put and watches.

The consequence, I think, the main consequence is going to be electoral and political. But I think also, people, I want people to understand none of this is normal. I served in the justice department for eight years.

I was four years under a Republican administration, four years under a Democratic administration. It made no difference to what we did because everybody respected the rule of law, everyone respected the attorney general and really the administration that the justice department will be allowed to do the right thing, to do justice. That has changed now and it really needs to change back no matter who wins the next election.

PHILLIP: Elie Honig, good to see you. Thanks for joining us this morning.

HONIG: You too, Abby. Thanks.

PHILLIP: You'll want to stick around because coming up in the next hour of NEW DAY weekend we'll be speaking with former deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe.

BLACKWELL: All right. Looking forward to that.

Also coming up, the hospitals in California, some of them are just overwhelmed. And now some coronavirus patients, look at this, they're being treated in tents in triple degree heat.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:30:00]

BLACKWELL: Bottom of the hour. Let's go to California now where the state continues to set records in coronavirus hospitalizations and ICU rates, more than 6,000 patients were treated this week alone.

PHILLIP: CNN's Kyung Lah has an exclusive look inside a hospital on the California-Mexico border, where new cases are surging so rapidly, they're putting up tents to handle the massive overflow of patients.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When folks say, hey, it's a war zone, a war zone of what? A war zone of us trying to combat the COVID-19.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The frontline in this battlefield. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just craziness still.

LAH: Southern California's El Centro Regional Medical Center, CEO Adolphe Edward is a former Air Force officer and Iraq War vet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have seen these tent actually deploy when were in Balad, when were in Iraq.

LAH: Now he's built them on American soil to handle a crush of COVID cases his hospital no longer has room for. Air-conditioned tents in the triple-digit desert heat to handle patient after patient.

El Centro is in Imperial County that sits on the U.S./Mexico border. This rural community is 85 percent Latino. One in four live in poverty. Per capita, it has three times as many COVID cases as Los Angeles. And the death rate is the highest in California.

Is it crazy for you that you are a physician working in a tent in America?

DR. JUDGE ROBLES, EL CENTRO REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER: Yes, it's incredible, isn't it? Yes, we'll make it through.

LAH: Inside the hospital, we visit the sickest patients in the ICU.

Every single patient in this 12-bed ICU has COVID. 11 of them survive with ventilators.

Can you explain what you're wearing?

AMBER MAREZ, NURSE, EL CENTRO REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER: Well, it's a device that helps keep everything kind of like closed so we're not exposed to anything.

LAH: It's what the Nurse Amber Marez (ph) needs to wear to stay safe while helping her 40-year-old patient.

How sick is he?

MAREZ: He's really sick and he's really young. So we're trying to do everything we can before we intubate him.

LAH: What is that suggesting to you as a nurse, that age dropping?

MAREZ: I think a lot of people aren't honoring like the stay-at-home. A lot of people aren't doing the social distancing.

LAH: That's what the El Centro Fire Department sees on the street. The battalion chief says in this town of 50,000 people, every single hour, it is this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a possible COVID patient on scene. So at this point, our personnel are gearing up for a COVID patient.

LAH: In a full hazmat suit, Captain Chad Whitlock revives an unconscious patient. It's a stifling, 110 degrees. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have to (INAUDIBLE) all the equipment and remove all the uniforms and take a shower and put a different uniform on for the rest of the day.

LAH: You're dripping?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, ma'am. We're inundated. Everybody is really tired and everybody is -- you can see it in my face, we're frustrated.

LAH: That patient, Captain Whitlock saved arrives at El Centro Medical's emergency room.

ANDREW LAFREE, MEDICAL DIRECTOR OF EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT, EL CENTRO REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER: We've hit capacity. We've transferred out two or three times the normal amount of patients that we're sending out. I think in the last two months, we've sent out something like 500 patients.

LAH: Some to nearby San Diego, others as far away as Northern California. This helicopter is here to pick up another patient.

E.R. doctors and nurses intubate under this blue drape to limit particle exposure. Stabilized, the patient heads out.

Why is it happening so badly in Imperial County?

LAFREE: There are a lot of U.S. nationals that live in Mexicali. They had a really bad outbreak there. There's a lot of people that cross the border here for work here that live in Mexicali and then come in and work here.

LAH: The fields in Imperial County sent produce across the country. And even in a pandemic, some 20,000 Mexican day workers enter legally every morning to provide the labor.

[06:35:00]

No work, no money for food says 65-year-old farm worker Jacinto Moreno. Four of his fellow farm workers have died of COVID, he says.

LUIS OLMEDO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COMITE CIVICO DEL VALLE INC.: We cannot win a war on COVID in the emergency room. Look at the big picture. We need to fight the war on COVID where it's breeding, and that's our neighborhoods.

LAH: In this binational county, COVID is not the disease. It's the symptom.

OLMEDO: They experience social determinants of health, like putting food on the table, like having to work in dangerous conditions, like not having a mask. We are the pollster of those inequities and the reason why we are not able to control COVID.

LAH: A hospital here is bracing for what's yet to come. This empty tent is the future COVID ward.

Is this tent a sign that this pandemic is here to stay?

EDWARD: Yes. So I keep telling folks, look, now it's a pandemic. Eventually, it's going to be an endemic. So is this really how we want to take care of our communities? And the answer is no.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAH: And this tent already is not enough. That's why the hospital's CEO wrote to California Senator Feinstein and Harris asking for more resources. That list includes 28 ICU nurses, 14 respiratory therapists and 20 ventilators. That is just a partial list. It's something this hospital needs by next week.

Kyung Lah, CNN, El Centro, California.

BLACKWELL: Kyung, thank you.

Coming up on State of the Union this morning, Jake Tapper will speak with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, and the mayor of Miami-Dade County, Carlos Gimenez. That's today at 9:00 right here on CNN.

PHILLIP: And up next here on New Day Sunday, the scrutiny over why Michael Cohen was pulled back to prison and whether or not it all came down to a book deal. Brian Stelter has all the intrigue when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:40:00]

PHILLIP: Welcome back.

Michael Cohen, the president's former lawyer and fixer, is back in prison after a dispute with the government over the restrictions placed on his home confinement. Those restrictions, his lawyers say, are related to his upcoming book on President Trump.

BLACKWELL: And Mary Trump, the president's niece, has one more day before she can share some of her family secrets ahead of her tell-all book released, that's Tuesday.

Here with us to talk about it, CNN Chief Media Correspondent and Anchor of Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter.

Stelter, good morning to you. Let's start here with Michael Cohen. what happened?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes. He was able to leave prison the way many prisoners have, due to coronavirus. He was given a leave. He was seen out in public having dinner. And then one day he had to report back to the authorities.

He was asked to sign a paper. And according to his lawyers, this paperwork would have required him to give up any ability to write a book. That is interesting. Because Cohen had been out there publicly saying he was finishing a book. He was finishing a memoir about his experience with now President Trump.

Of course, Cohen was a fixer for Trump for many years in New York. So, Cohen's lawyers are connecting those two dots and saying that the government is trying to stop Cohen from writing a book.

Here is a headline from this the Just Security website this weekend talking about this being a possible infringement on Cohen's First Amendment rights. Look, this is murky. We have not heard the entire story.

But I am really curious about this, because if it is true that Cohen is finishing writing a book and if it is true the authorities are trying to throw him back in prison to stop him, that is a really notable development. And, of course, now, as you mentioned, Cohen is back behind bars serving out more of his term.

PHILLIP: And, Brian, on to this Mary Trump book, we've heard so much about what is in this book already even though it's not out until Tuesday. And her gag order is up tomorrow. So do we know what to expect to hear from her and when most critically, I think?

STELTER: Another noteworthy situation. Of all the Trump tell-all books of the past three years, you could stack an entire library full of these books. Mary Trump's book is unlike any other because she's a member of the family, because she has firsthand accounts of the president's childhood and what he's gone through his entire life.

On one level, it's a very sad book. On another level it is a -- it's like the kind of book Joe Biden would dream about because it is so devastating to the president. And that's partly why the president's brother, Robert, went to court trying to stop Mary from releasing it.

And as you all know, the publisher was allowed to release the book. The book officially comes out on Tuesday. There are 600,000 copies printed. It's already the number one best seller on Amazon because there's so much interest in this book.

But because of Robert Trump's legal action, she is barred from speaking publicly. That's incredible for an author who is having a book coming out in two days. She's not allowed to give interviews. She's not even allowed to tweet.

So tomorrow, we're expecting a judge in the case to issue a ruling to determine if she can speak publicly or not. It's really another incredible situation where this niece of the president wants to speak out. She's written a book.

The book will come out. But right now, she's still subject to court action that actually bars her from speaking publicly, another example, perhaps, of the president or his allies trying to keep embarrassing information from coming out.

BLACKWELL: Yes, we saw that with the Bolton book, and that didn't happen.

[06:45:00] Brian Stelter, always good to have you.

PHILLIP: Good to see you, Brian.

BLACKWELL: And be sure to watch Stelter on Reliable Sources. That is at 11:00 A.M. Eastern today right here on CNN.

PHILLIP: And still to come, why the Black Lives Matter movement is targeting the first black district attorney. She tells us why they want her out and why she believes they're wrong in a CNN exclusive interview when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Jackie Lacey is a surprising target of the Black Lives Matter movement. For two and a half years, protesters in Downtown Los Angeles have demanded that Lacey, the county's first black district attorney, must go.

PHILLIP: CNN's Stephanie Elam explains why.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As the nation grapples with changing how law enforcement treats black people, more protests are honing in on elected leadership and who is policing the police.

[06:50:05]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jackie Lacey must go.

ELAM: In Los Angeles, Black Lives Matter has been demonstrating for two and a half years. Their target, a black woman, Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey.

MELINA ABDULLAH, CO-FOUNDER, BLACK LIVES MATTER L.A.: As a black woman, I would rather be celebrating other black woman and I do. It's not a matter of emotion. It's a matter of struggling for justice for our people.

ELAM: Protesters recasting the November D.A.'s race, calling frontrunner, incumbent Lacey for what they see as an unwillingness to prosecute police officers for deadly shootings.

ELAM: How does it feel to hear Black Lives Matter target you?

JACKIE LACEY, LOS ANGELES COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: It's surreal. They're treating me like I'm the man. But if they only knew that I'm the girl from the neighborhood, I'm the first African-American woman to hold this job in 150 years. And here, I get in here, and the most vocal group who wants to take me out is a group known as Black Lives Matter.

ELAM: Now in her second term, Lacey is up for re-election in November, a seat she nearly won outright in the primary, gaining just shy of 50 percent of the vote. But that vote was before George Floyd's death, before the nation, even amid the pandemic, turned its attention to the checkered relationship between the law and people of

color.

In June, Congressman Adam Schiff, pulling his support, saying in a tweet that he feels his endorsement a year ago of the district attorney no longer has the same meaning.

LACEY: I don't know a lot about why he pulled his support. But I do know and I have heard from electors (ph) that they're being threatened, the emails.

ELAM: With a list of what they call Jackie Lacey's Seven Deadly Sins, BLM Los Angeles argues Lacey cares more about her law enforcement ties and the old guard establishment than she does about people of color. Lacey counters that she's led by the law and says only a fraction of police shooting cases brought to her since she took office involve unarmed individuals.

LACEY: You may look at a shooting by an officer and say, they could have shot them in the leg, that's not the test under California law. The test is, was somebody's life in danger.

ELAM: The division between Lacey and Black Lives Matter reaching a boiling point in March.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let's invite her out to the community meeting that she committed to.

ELAM: Protesters showed up at Lacey's home.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good morning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get off of my porch. I will shoot you. Get off of my porch.

ELAM: That's Lacey's husband pointing a gun at protesters on the front porch of their house.

The district attorney did apologize for her husband's actions. But that wasn't enough for Black Lives Matter.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it also speaks volumes that David Lacey was not charged in that act.

LACEY: I especially don't agree that you ought to be able to come on their property. I think that crosses a line.

ELAM: For your husband, was that crossing the line for him?

LACEY: I think so. It was just the two of us in there. And it was a scary event.

ELAM: Ironically, Lacey's opponent is former LAPD Officer George Gascon, who, more recently, was San Francisco's D.A. Black Lives Matter doesn't make endorsements but promises to take whoever wins to task.

ABDULLAH: No matter who occupies the office, there's going to be a problem with the office itself. And so we're going to have to hold accountable whoever occupies the office.

ELAM: If you were to win your third term, does it look differently than where you are now?

LACEY: My next term will be my last term. I want to continue to use the bully pulpit of the district attorney's office to push for change. So I don't want it to end like this, right, that as the first African- American to hold this job and protesters ran around, that doesn't seem like a just ending.

ELAM: Stephanie Elam, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIP: Our thanks to Stephanie Elam for that.

Just ahead, we'll get reaction from Andrew McCabe, former Deputy Director of the FBI on Robert Mueller's op-ed at the president's decision to commute the prison sentence of Roger Stone.

BLACKWELL: The next hour of your New Day starts right after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:55:00]

BLACKWELL: It's a New Day, it's a new hour, good to be with you. Sunday, July 12th, I'm Victor Blackwell.

PHILLIP: And I'm Abby Philip in for Christi Paul this morning. Thanks for joining us.

This morning, a top medical expert warns that if the U.S. stays on its current path dealing with this COVID-19 epidemic, it will reach, quote, one of the most unstable times in the history of our country.

[07:00:08]