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tv   Cuomo Prime Time  CNN  April 18, 2020 12:00am-1:00am PDT

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hey, i'm chris cuomo. welcome back to a special two-hour edition of primetime. i'm feeling good. this is a good test of how strong my body has gotten. so thanks for being here with me to test it all out. now, let's talk about the sober reality. as of tonight, at least 700,000 people in this country have been infected by coronavirus. i say at least because we're
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playing catchup. we don't know because we've inefficiently tested. testing is everything. it's the key to where we are right now. it is, certainly, the key to getting anywhere back to near normal. now, the grave toll. california, 1,000 lives lost. they passed that mark today. yesterday set a new single-day record for reported deaths in that state. so the situation is very grave and, yet, this president has decided to fuel the fire of protestors, who have decided to risk their safety and yours, by the way, if you live in their states because they're not happy about being told to stay home. staying home saves lives. here is the story from nick watt. >> huntington beach, california. a protest march complete with trump 2020 flags. similar scenes, also, other parts of the country. they're calling for the country to open up again.
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jacksonville, florida. they just reopened the beaches. the crowds came. immediately. many, completely ignoring the social-distancing guidelines that are, still, supposed to be in place. >> folks, this can be the beginning of the pathway back to normal life. but, please, respect and follow these limitations. >> in texas, state parks will open monday,. a week from now, stores can open, for pickup only. but -- >> school classrooms are closed for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year. >> governors, not the president, will be calling the shots. >> we must get this right because the stakes are very high. >> some saying we're just not there yet. >> the fact of the matter is it's better to be six feet apart right now than six feet under, and that is the whole point of this. we have got to save lives. every life matters. >> there were also protests against stay-home orders in michigan. and, today, the president tweeted liberate michigan.
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>> i think elements of what they've done are too much. >> you have to develop a testing capacity that does not now exist. we cannot do it without federal help. >> our best scientists and health experts assess that states, today, have enough tests to implement the criteria of phase one, if they choose to do so. >> reopening will be regional. >> opening some states and not others. it's a little bit like, you know, somebody said to me it's a little bit like having a peeing section in the swimming pool. >> soand let's not forget there are, still, thousands of healthcare workers on the front lines. >> we have a lot of sick patients. organ failure. >> still, so many lives in the balance. >> patient here is pregnant patient, who is, unfortunately,
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at the verge of being intubated. so we're trying to save her. >> there's so many people in such tough spots. our thank to nick watt for reporting. now, look. i don't know how what the vice president said can be true. why would the governors lie? democrat and republican. why would they not want testing capacity? why would they not want to reopen? they're feeling the same political strain trump is. they're just handling it differently. more responsibly, i would argue. now, let's bring in one of the leading doctors, who helped defeat small pox. why? because it's important to understand what worked then, and what we need to see now. dr. larry brilliant. how is that for a good name? very good to have you, doctor, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, chris. i hope you're feeling better. >> you know what? i am. but i have to tell you, a little bit of a digression. i don't understand what the heck is going on with my own case. you know, i meet the cdc guidelines. i have 72 hours fever free,
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which they say is like anything lower than 92 low point. 92. but my normal temperature is 97 something. so i am not back to baseline. so, then, they say to me something you know, dr. brilliant. but many of us don't, who have covid don't. oh, no, no, no, you don't just get better. there is a recovery phase. you've just finished a fight. your body is beat up. you may have low-grade fever. you will have respiratory discaress. you cann distress. you cannot just go back to the gym. this will take weeks, they are seeing in the research out of china. shouldn't people be aware of this? >> they should, chris, and, you know, this is a novel virus, which means it's only four months old. it's like a baby. it can't walk yet. we know so little about it. we are finding a lot of people that have blood in their urine because the virus affects the kidneys.
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people who have harm by the virus, sudden heart disease. we know about loss of smell and taste, means the olfactory nerve is affected. some people have diarrhea. it's not just a respiratory disease in the sense of a flu. it is a respiratory flu, like small pox was. it's spread by respiration, but it affects the whole body. >> one other question, and then we'll get into the analogy of what you learned from small pox and what you think we should be seeing now. and the question is about the state of play that we're having. i'm sure that you've been hearing, anecdotally -- i got beat up in the media and that's okay. the media likes to police itself and likes to say things are baseless. have you had people tell you, doc, i think i had this. i was never tested. but i had this crazy flu, and i couldn't breathe and i had a week of fever. this was back around
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thanksgiving. i've had dozens and dozens people around this country tell me exactly that. now, look. they could all be wrong. they could've had something else. but, man, does it sound eerily familiar, doc. >> and they had a terrible cough, and it lasts for three weeks. and it didn't quite feel right to be a flu. my wife had it, and so many of our friends had it. and we, kind of at the time, we wrote it off to bronchitis. i do wonder now, especially with the data that's coming from from the south bay of california, where they're finding, when they do proper testing, that the actual number of cases can be 10, 20, 30 times more. >> yeah. so from small pox, what did you learn that you don't see being applied fod? today. >> well, the most important thing we learned in small pox is early detection, early response. find every case, and then double down on the case in the area around it. three miles around it. 200 contacts. we had a vaccine.
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but we have something almost as effective as a vaccine, although it's shorter lasting, and that's quarantine. if we found every case by testing and testing and testing, did contact tracing with the enthusiasm that i know this country can muster. and, then, quarantined only the ones who were at risk, who had the disease, then we could begin to talk about opening up parts of the country. until we do that, we're fighting a losing battle. >> i don't want to bathe you in the politics so let's end it there. dr. larry brilliant, thank you for telling us what worked on small pox and that testing, identification, tracing, is everything now, once again. thank you for your perspective. stay in good health. i look forward to speaking to you again. all right. now -- >> thank you, chris. >> absolutely. thank you. one of the things we're learning about covid. it's the equal-opportunity virus, white. male. female. whatever. it gets you. however, many of us, millions of
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us, are at greater risk of having this hit them, and hit them hard, if they are minorities. why? let's discuss with van jones. he and don lemon are doing a great special tomorrow night on the color of covid. let's talk about the reality that's happening right now that's not getting enough attention and, boy, will it explode. next. it may seem like things all around us are going in the wrong direction. we have a choice.
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we can choose to fear, or we can choose to have hope. both have something in common. they ask us to believe something is going to happen that we can not see. we can either believe that god is in control and good things are still in store. or we can believe the fear that says it's only going to get worse from here. fear says there's no answer. fear says the problem is too big. but hope says the best is yet to come. hope says there is light on the other side. hope doesn't give up. no matter what is going on around us, we can have the hope knowing that god is for us and what he's destined for our lives will come to pass. so when you have the choice of fear or hope, choose hope. may the god of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope. and my side super soft? with the sleep number 360 smart bed, it can, with your sleep number setting.
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a lot of you online are saying, yeah, i feel the same way. they say i'm over it, but i'm still sick. yeah, i know, because they don't tell us about this recovery thing. we're still learning. we all have to learn togetherment together. as i go through it, i'll give you the information. now, here's something else that we have to learn about. we're not all getting hit equally here. black americans are twice as likely to know someone who's died or been hospitalized because of covid. all right.
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new york city. african-americans are dying at twice the rate of whites. come on. i mean, we know what this is about. all right. we know what we're doing, once again. let's discuss the problem and what we should be doing. van jones is co-hosting a new cnn special to look at the victims behind the data. "the color of covid" tomorrow night, 10:00 p.m., with don lemon. brother, it's great to see you. i hope your family is well. i'm not going to state it as some bs rhetorical question. we know why african-americans are getting hit. they got more underlying conditio conditions because they don't get right access to food. and they have density issues and they have general health protocol issues, and there is a laxity in getting them the health services they need. so we know the problems. the question is, how is it playing out now, in realtime, and is it being addressed? >> well, i think, you know, because of you and others, the alarm is finally being sounded and i can't tell you how much i
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appreciate your consistency on this and your clarity on it. the reality is we, initially, were hearing that this was going to be a disease impacting old people. you know, people who went to asia and stuff like that. a lot of african-americans said, well, that's not me. i'm 35, i'm 45, i'm 25, i'm going to be fine. what we didn't understand was that high blood pressure, which is an epidemic in the black community, is really linked to dying with this thing. and so, suddenly, when they said, you know, underlying health conditions, underlying health conditions. turns out that has been fatal for the african-american community. so we should now be rushing masks, tests, ventilators, respirators, to the black communities, to the brown community. i'm not playing the race card. i'm playing the data card. those are now the hotspots and you should be rushing the tests to the hotspots because what you know now is that you got a community, african-americans,
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latinos, and others, that are especially at risk for dying. more likely to get the virus because, you know, we have the jobs on the front lines. we're the essential workers. less likely to have insurance and healthcare. more likely to have the ur underlying conditions. in a situation like that, there should be an emergency response to rush masks, ventilators, tests to our communities. we are know so we're not seeing that yet but it's got to happen. >> and don't run this bs to van or me about well that's on them. it's bad habits and it's bad culture. no, it isn't. okay. it's about diet and underlying healthcare and systemic neglect of the communities. it's about poverty. okay? and when you adjust for poverty, you see that problem with diabetes, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and blood pressure run brown and white. it's more about poverty than it is anything else. now, van, what happens when and if -- let's hope it's if more than when -- we reopen but don't
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have the testing. don't have the prophylaxis in place, and we still don't have the capacity in the density areas, what would we see in these communities? >> massive death sentence for people of color. there's just no other way to talk about that. you cannot just reopen. the reason you have everybody sheltering in place is to buy us time. to buy us time to get the testing in place. to buy us time to get, you know, the ventilators and respirators and get more hospital beds. to buy us time for a vaccine long, long-term. but if you don't have the test in place and you just throw the doors open, guess what? people walk back outside. they're going to get hit with this thing, and we're going to be right back where we were and possibly worse because, now, you have a lot of healthcare providers that have been knocked out themselves. it is the most irresponsible thing to say we're just going to throw the doors open. we need to test people. in hong kong, in south korea, they tested everybody. and when you test, then you know. when you know, you can say you
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two stay indoors. you five can go outdoors and it works. if you're just going to guess and then giggle and hope it works out, this is lethal stuff. this is lethal stuff, for a whole community of people that cannot afford another round of this. we are already the ones that are dying in record numbers. >> and you know where the least testing is right now. and you know where the least access to testing is right now. in those communities. i got to tell you, you didn't mean it this way. but over your right shoulder right now, nelson mandela is staring at us. look over your right shoulder, and he is not -- he is giving the exact face he would give if he would have heard that the president of the united states, in the midst of what we're talking about, is telling people waving all their trump stuff -- and let's be honest, it ain't no coincidence that it's the trumpers in these states saying i've had enough with the stay home. and he is telling them to liberate their states. how dangerous is it, van, for the president, who says he wants
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to heal, to play the heel and get people angry at the only thing that's flattening the curve? >> listen. i -- i -- i would appeal to the president. i would appeal to every leader in the country. this is the one time we have to be data driven. it's very he said to be ideologically driven. if you are a mayor, if you are a sheriff, you have people's lives in your hand. and a wrong decision, you literally have the difference we between, you know, tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people dying. i would appeal to every leader, including the president, please, please, listen to the public health people. people that tell you you got to open this thing up because of the economy. here's what we don't seem to -- we have not gotten this through our heads yet. you -- nobody wants to go back to work more than black folk. nobody wants to go back to work safely than black folk, brown folk, poor folk.
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it's decimating people from the economic point of view. but we have to use the time to get the tests. nobody wants this to last. the minute that we've got the tests in place, then we can do this. so rather than prematurely pushing us back out there, we're going to get sick again. we're going to be right back here again, but at the cost of tens of thousand dolla tens of thousands of lives. use this time well to get the tests in place, and then open the economy. test, first. then have us take the risk. don't have us take the risk when we don't have the data and we don't have the tests. >> yeah. if you want to yell about liberating something, liberate the factories. and get them making the swabs and making the reagent, and doing the things that they did. a hell of a lot more expansive work back during world war ii. you know, people making vacuums, all of a sudden, they were making machine guns. he hasn't pulled that trigger. instead, he's pandering and he is playing to a negative politics that will just get us
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more sick. van jones, thank you for helping us. if anybody asks -- go ahead. what do you want to say? >> tomorrow night, at 10:00, i hope everybody comes back around this campfire. you're going to be -- you're going to be shocked at some of the voices from black america and brown america. some of the most famous people in the world coming around the cnn campfire to talk about this in an even deeper way, and i believe anybody who watches that will come to the right conclusion about what to do, as leaders. >> van jones, if anybody acts as if they have mandela on their shoulder, it is you. and, tonight, you actually do have him looking over your shoulder. tomorrow, van jones, d lemon, "the color of covid." 10:00 p.m. eastern. let's be honest, you're going to be home. you might as well watch here on cnn. all right. three of the best-known tv doctors and one isn't even an md. but what have they been saying? crazy stuff on state tv, man. crazy, dangerous, ugly stuff.
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who's giving them the runway? who wants to push an agenda that they help? we're going to talk about it. why would good people say such bad things? next. proven ingredients that fuel 5 indicators of brain performance. memory, focus, accuracy, learning, and concentration. try neuriva for 30 days and see the difference. - [announcer] at custom ink, we believe community is about having a common bond wherever you are. now, when we need to stay apart to stand together, we've built new tools to make and individually ship custom gear to group members, and soon, we'll stand together, together again. visit customink.com today. i'm a talking dog.
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i wish my trading platform worked like that. well have you tried thinkorswim? this is totally customizable, so you focus only on what you want. okay, it's got screeners and watchlists. and you can even see how your predictions might affect the value of the stocks you're interested in. now this is what i'm talking about. yeah, it'll free up more time for your... uh, true crime shows? british baking competitions. hm. didn't peg you for a crumpet guy. focus on what matters to you with thinkorswim. ♪ . >> why do we call fox news state tv? this is why. bring on celebrity doctors who make absurd claims to nodding heads. listen. >> the entire problem we're having is due to panic, not the virus. it's mild and the press needs to shut up. >> i just saw a nice piece
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arguing that the opening of schools may only cost us 2 or 3% in terms of total mortality. it might be a tradeoff some folks would consider. >> 480,000 from cigarettes. 360,000 a year from swimming pools but we don't shut the country down for that. but, yet, we're doing it for this? >> yeah, because i'm not gonna make you break your neck if i break mine in a swimming pool. the record shows us what? look, they've all backtracked. why? because they got busted and it's a ridiculous thing to defend. dr. drew, earlier this month, apologized for downplaying the threat. but he's not the only one who does it. they're encouraged to do it on that channel. it's still on him, but that's the message they want out there. dr. oz now says he misspoke when he talked about reopening schools. and the latest apology, today, comes from dr. phil, who's not a medical doctor, by the way. so he shouldn't be talking about this stuff anyway, and he
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acknowledges that none of his examples were contagious causes of death which is, of course, the key. and he knew that. he knew it was compelling bs. why did they do it? that's the discussion for us to have right now with oliver darcy, who's done a lot of the reporting on this. look, i argue the answer is as simple as where they said it, oliver. this is what fox is about. they want the message out there that this isn't that big a deal. and that's how you get the protests like we saw today. it's no irony that the trump folk, waving trump paraphernalia, and that they are encouraged by far-right groups. what's your analysis? >> right. well, one, you know, i would be alarmed if a member of my family were sharing this kind of misinformation. and health professionals, going on national television during a pandemic, and sharing this kind of, you know, frankly, dangerous information to millions of viewers is just, you know,
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frankly, nuts. but, two, to your point, you know, i don't know why these medical professionals are saying this on fox. but what i can tell you is it has always supported fox's general message or editorial viewpoint about the coronavirus. so if you look at it early on, they were trying to downplay the threat. blame media hysteria. so they brought dr. drew on who delivered that message from a, you know, someone with a medical degree. then, you know, when they took it seriously, and they were hyping hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment, they bring on dr. oz and he does that. and, now that they are pushing for reopening the country and suggesting that maybe it wasn't even prudent to shut down the country, they are bringing on dr. phil. who's delivering a message like that. you know, it's -- it's dangerous when fox elevates a lot of these voices during regular news cycles. but when they're doing it during a pandemic, that -- that just
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adds a whole dangerous element to this, chris. >> it's always dangerous. it's always politics. it's always an agenda. now, look. i don't get in ttit for tat gam. i don't like it. they want us to stick to the news and, also, they don't really give a damn if i am in a spat with tucker carlson or whoever it is. but i do want to play this clip of laura ingram because i have known her a long time and i respect her intelligence. supreme court clerk. it's a smart lady, who is making a dumb argument, on purpose. and look at what tony faufrp had fauci had to do. here is the clip. >> we don't have a vaccine for sars. got close in mice. we don't have a vaccine for hiv and life did go on, right? >> no, but laura, this is different. hiv-aids is entirely different. we don't have a vaccine for hiv-aids. but we have spectacularly effective treatment. sars disappeared and we didn't
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need to develop a vaccine for sars. so i think it's a little bit misleading maybe to compare what we're going through now with hiv or sars. they're really different. >> all right. sidenote. white house shouldn't be putting tony fauci in that situation. you know they put him on state tv. you know what i mean? the white house decide where these guys go on from the task force. they put him on there because he's a big one and then have him defending this kind of bs on air. you know them. i know them. why? you did 15 minutes of homework. so she is intentionally representing something she wants to be true, and that's just the reality of what they're doing there. i mean, what am i missing? >> i don't think you're missing anything. you know, i felt like fauci was actually quite generous when he answered that question. it does not take an infectious disease expert to know that hiv and coronavirus are totally separate things, right, chris? you can't get hiv just going on a regular run to the grocery store. you can get coronavirus, very
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easily. it's very contagious and it doesn't take an infectious disease expert to know this. someone who is on fox news, again, talking to millions of viewers, every night, should do her homework. this is a basic fact. it's embarrassing, frankly, that she did not know this or that she is asking a question like that while knowing that it's not related. i don't know what's going on over there. i don't know why, if you look at her tweets today, she's comparing, you know, living under the stay-at-home orders to living under saddam hussein in iraq. >> gee, i wonder why. i wonder why. who's been saying that he's against the stay-at-home orders, all of a sudden? the great healer, president trump, is telling people to liberate states from stay-at-home orders, and he is throwing the second amendment in there, too, for a little bit more red meat. that's why they're doing it, oliver. i mean, it's just so painfully obvious. i just hope it's worth it to
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them on some level. go ahead. >> what i want to know is we hear all this noise about fox news taking this virus seriously. they put out a whole bunch of public service announcements featuring their anchors. but where are the executives like suzanne scott or even lochlin murdock when one of their anchors is, again, saying or suggesting that staying at home is equivalent to living under saddam hussein. and asking when we are going to liberate states. where are they? >> quiet, apparently. oliver darcy, thank you for being loud and proud about this. we've got to expose it. everything's different now in the pandemic age. everything should be reassessed. all the agendas should be laid bare. and the media should be reappraised, as well. thank you for doing it with me tonight, brother. be well, be healthy. >> thank you, chris. >> all right. look. i keep bringing us back, whenever i can, to the military. why? uniquely vulnerable.
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and, again, they play on one of the things that just drives me crazy in this society. we all say we love our troops. but we keep hanging 'em out to dry. va hospitals are hurting for supplies. why? when they are supposed to be our priority, and 13 million of them are over 55 years of age, and so many of them have underlying conditions. they're vulnerable. a friend to all veterans, pj rikoff is going to sound the alarm for us because, once again, we're falling short. next. ♪
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right? they deserve the best of everything, right? then, how come they never get it? how about this number? deaths among va patients jumped fivefold since the start of this month. unemployment, higher than we've seen in years for veterans. the toll on veterans, not getting a lot of attention, is it? let's change that right now. you know who's been tracking this, in realtime, and encouraging people like me to open our mouths about it? iraq war vet pj rieckhoff, amazing podcast called "the angry american." welcome back to primetime. pj says if you ain't angry, it's because you're not paying attention. and this issue falls right in that category. brother, beth brother, best to you, the wife,
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the kids, that you stay healthy because we need you. what's the reality of what's happening with our veterans? >> first off, good to see you on the mend. wish you and christina the best. you and your brother really continue to drive some important leadership and inspire the country so thank you for that. the bottom line is, the va, department of veterans affairs, was not ready. they put out public statements saying they were ready. and they're not ready. they say there is enough ppe for frontline workers, and frontline workers across the country are saying there's not. now, frontline workers in brooklyn and atlanta are protesting. so the frontline workers were lying or the secretary of veterans affairs was lying. and "the wall street journal" revealed internal memos said they hadn't had enough. and they have only tested about 50,000 people since this all began. your brother, in new york, tests more than that in two days. so they haven't been ready. they're not ready. they're not being honest, and they're not being transparent.
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and the entire country should be angry about that. >> weeks ago, you were saying on twitter, where is wilke? there is concerns about this. first of all, who turns down money and that he hadn't been out in front, and now we're seeing why. and the vulnerability goes on what we are seeing right now. 13 million veterans are above 55 years of age, and many have underlying complications and that makes them vulnerable to this. >> yeah. more than half the 9 million veterans served by va are over 65. and, now, we're starting to see them get hit really hard. one state-run veterans home in massachusetts has 56 dead. 56 dead in one veterans' home in one city. and now they're breaking out in 16 other states around the country. and secretary wilke can't even be bothered to do daily press briefings. he's been invisible in the national media. he hasn't been driving support
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to the local level. he probably won't come on with you, so that's why we have been using the hashtag where's wilke? it's about him not leading. he needs to lead aggressively. he needs to be transparent. why have they only tested 50,000 people in the veterans department since this began? and, another important point, chris, they're not even disclosing how many veteran va employees are dead. they won't even tell you how many of their employees have died. the department of defense can tell you how many people died on one single aircraft carrier. >> can't or won't becomes the question. and what will give us the answer to that is pressure. the kind that pj rieckhoff, is celebrated veteran, who serves this country, day in, day out, just like he did overseas. thank you for sounding the alarm here and elsewhere. we will respond to the call. pj, bless you and thank you. >> thank you, brother. get well soon. we appreciate you. >> thank you. and, remember, who we're talking about here.
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these are the arc typal americans. helping veterans in need. wounded warrior project. god love you. you want to step up. donate to the wounded warrior project. they're helping families who are having trouble buying food and paying rent right now. and there are many, many veteran families that are doing that. they're committing $10 million to the project. they will be reaching out to vets in their database and those who need it can apply for $1,000 grants. okay. so if you want help, there is a place you can help. wounded warriors. all right. nearly 800 cases of covid-19 now among workers in that pork factory in south dakota. remember, we spoke to the mayor from there? this crisis, also, reaches into the fields. why? density of labor. they don't have insurance. they don't have help. a lot of them aren't legal. what does this mean for them? and for your food? firsthand view next.
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all right. so while most americans are staying inside or should be, right, if they're not out protesting like fools. more than 2 million farm workers are still out in the fields. the orchards. the packing plants. why? because we need food, right? they're essential workers. but how about this combination? a lot of people working in tight confines, with no access to healthcare or inadequate access and inadequate protective resources. what kind of combination you think that is? greg asbott is the co-founder of amakale workers. amakale is the town. we welcome both now. gentlemen. >> thank you, chris, for having us. >> so, greg, what's the concern? >> well, amakale is a town of
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25,000, 30,000, farm workers, who are right in the cross hairs of this virus. now, it hasn't set a foothold yet but it's coming. we now have some 20-plus cases in town, and that's really just the tip of the iceberg because the testing has been so inadequate. but what we're afraid of is the fact that the conditions in amakale are ideal for the spread of this virus. you know, people live in overcrowded housing with 10 to 12 people in a single wide trailer. they go to work in vans and buses where they cramp 50 people in a van or 50 people in a bus. they work have unsanitary conditions and they get home and have to line up for taking a shower and cooking and the same cramped bathroom and t. we've been watching your story, chris, and we know how much you tried to have your family not be affected with the virus. and you have all the conditions in the world that could help
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make that not happen. now, imagine being in a trailer with 15 other guys where you sleep four people, and you sleep head to foot, beds arranged on the floor next to each other. it's impossible that, when one person gets that virus, the rest don't, immediately, get the same thing. >> i hear you. my wife had the mask. she had the gloves. she did everything she could and she still got sick. that's another reason i'm still in the basement. she's upstairs sick and nobody's happy mom got sick and everybody blames me. jeraldo, let me ask you something. what do you think the awareness is of this situation at the state level government in florida? >> well, i think that they know -- they know that there is a problem, but they have chosen to look the other way. and that is precisely why, you know, we sent the letter to the governor asking him to take steps towards the creation of a field hospital. we're asking for that because in our community, you know, as greg
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was mentioning, the problem is not just the -- the lack of distancing. we cannot do something like that. we need to be able to treat people and we don't even have a hospital in town. we have a little clinic. the closest hospital is about 40 minutes away. and we need -- >> has the state responded? >> -- to be able to respond to that. no. you know, there's been a lot of people joining in, asking the governor, and supporting this letter that we sent. more than 200 different organizations have asked the same thing. more than 30,000 people are asking him to -- to use his leadership and -- and start working, responding to this right away because we don't have time to waste. you know, we can see how this is, already, happening in other places in the country in regards to the food supply chain. >> sure. south dakota. we were talking to the mayor. you got people packed in tight. tight living conditions.
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the job requires proximity. because they're maximizing space all the time, right, and then you get it. let me ask you something, greg. please, i hope you can shoot this down. the idea that why wouldn't the state government respond to something that's a powder keg like this? do you believe there is an aspect of politics of documented and undocumented at play here? >> well, we know the virus doesn't discriminate. we know the virus will take anybody that -- yeah. it's -- if there is some sort of -- i don't care if it's politics about people's status or politics about people's party. whatever it might be, it's just not the right time to be playing politics. it makes no sense. we're talking about life and death. we're talking about a delay, so far, in weeks we've been asking the state to pay attention to this powder keg. that the cost will be measure understand human lives. and it doesn't -- there is absolutely no way that anybody
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sitting in hatallahassee or her can think there are certain human lives that are worth less than others. that can't be. i refuse to believe that. >> well, i agree with you. that we're supposed to be better than that. but we've been shaking our heads at this suggestion for a while now. whether it's separating families, how people are treated at the border. you know, how they're described by our president. so we've seen a lot of examples of how what's supposed to be done hasn't been done. hopefully, this won't be yet another. greg asbott, geraldo chavez, thank you for ringing the bell. you have an open bell line to m. we will follow up as well. >> thank you very much, chris. >> take care of yourself and your family. >> thank you. thank you very much. >> if i can just -- >> go ahead. >> if i can just say one more point. you know, we produce 90% of the
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fruits, of the tomatoes, that are produced nationwide. if we don't act right now, and tomatoes is not the only thing we produce. we produce everything. if we don't do something right now, we're going to see how a food crisis is going to unfold, on top of the pandemic. and we don't need that right now. we need to act. so that's -- that's the point that i wanted to make. >> you -- you are right. it shouldn't come down to selfish motives. it should be about humanity. but if humanity's not enough, think about your own belly. if these people get sick and they can't do the job, we're going to see disruptions in the food chain. it shouldn't be about avarice, it should be about humanity. if you need another incentive, there it is. gentlemen, i got to jump. thank you brothers and sisters for watching. two hours. i feel all right. stay tuned. the news is going to continue here on cnn.
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