tv Cuomo Prime Time CNN March 4, 2021 10:00pm-11:01pm PST
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those guys aren't my friends any more because i know what they really think. >> that's heartbreaking. >> right, you can't hang out with someone who is like i think it's a good thing to assassinate the house majority leader. >> and then by the smoker, renewing hope that barbecue and brotherhood could be stronger than politics. >> you guys are different parties? >> oh, yeah. >> is that right? >> yeah, we're not gonna go there. >> but tim can't help it. he goes there. >> what if trump ran for congress right, for the house, and then we took the house and then we took the senate and then he sent impeachment to president and vice president he'd be president for next two and then reelected for four. good idea. >> that's a new one. haven't heard that. so he'd be speaker of the house. >> yeah. >> all right. >> it's the old story of you don't talk politics or religion
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with your friends or your family. >> ah, yes, the good fences make good neighbors theory of politics. at least for now the arguments are followed by laughter. >> it's going to be difficult for me to be here after this. >> oh, i'm sorry. >> no it's okay, it's all right. >> no one ruins a barbecue like bill weir. >> bill weir, cnn lake minute -- minatanka, minnesota. >> news continues with andrew cuomo primetime. >> thank you. i'm andrew cuomo welcome to "primetime" millions and millions of americans are desperate and waiting for help and right now, right now, the g.o.p.q is showing their only position is opposition. they're delaying pandemic relief anyway they can. their primary target were the democrats and president biden, who are they really effecting?
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the starving, jobless and the suffering. america down 10 million jobs. another -- just last week, unemployment is going to run out in ten days unless the stimulus bill is passed. these people still insist the election was stolenle -- stolen. they sit in hearings denying the january 6th -- there's new investigation leading up to the january 6th attack, between g.o.p. qers and those who attacked us. question. is time to stop hoping for better in these people when they keep showing their worse. is this not the most perverse coopt big a party that we've seen in this country and yet president biden still extends a
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branch. >> i've been talking to a lot of my friends in the house and senate and will continue to do that and keep everybody nf informed? >> why? mr. president, every single house republican voted against covid relief. i've not seen anyone act like a friend towards you or your ambition, certainly not senator mitch mcconnell as promised. with friends like him, who needs eminas. more proof? he is allowing conspiracy theory ron johnson instead of dr. suess they're reading the 628-page bill that's been going on since 3:00 p.m. eastern. it's just a stunt to delay. it will drag out the process for days. listen to johnson.
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>> all i'm trying to do is make this a more deliberative process and shine the light on this abusive and obscene amount of money -- >> he knows all of that is bunk. nobody is deliberating. they're not even there half the time. he was a loan part of the period. if he wanted fiscal austerity why did he pass that middle class cut to give 83 cents to every dollar for the top, he wants to help kids enabling the denial of the pandemic, pushing conspiracy theories -- denying the reality of january 6th. are those things good for my kids? he's complaining today people are out to destroy him, i hope not. but stunts like this don't make you popular with people who are hungry and desperate for help. is what he's doing right now, not the advertisement for ending
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the filibuster, isn't it time to cut out the malignant middle man and just make deals with the people and then compel your party to keep its word. it stop trying to work with people who work for your failure while giving comfort to terrorists and just deal with the real questions about the bill. and there are a couple how do you know, mr. president, that we need $1.9 trillion right now when almost $1 trillion from the last two relief bills still hasn't been dispersed. also, you released this proposal two months ago, a lot changed since then. the needs, vaccines were just going out in january, covid cases were surging more than now. the majority of americans support this bill. but imagine that number if you go directly to them, speak to them, clarify the need and cancel the noise. do a press conference. do a lot of them. go hard hitting. let your members and team toxic
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hear people demanding actions where they live, where they serve and say their names and your party too. make them do what their constituents demand and what you promised or let them pay the price. healing the soul of america mean as voiding -- avoiding those who are determined to divide us. let's bring in the better minds, do they agree? we have the professor ron br brownsteei and jonathan swan. thank you. swan, am i missing what's happening right now in the senate chamber? is there some good-faith cabal that wants to do a deal among the righty? >> the deal they want is $1.3 trillion less. so, biden's been talking about bipartisanship in unanimity y -- unity. he invited moderate senators to
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the white house and they had a civilized conversation, this is going back a few weeks now, but fact is they were proposing $600 billion he was proposal $1.9 trillion, no amount of golf games and try martini's and back slaps, whatever, that's $1.3 trillion it's a large gap and they're not on board with state and local funding biden wants in the bill. they're rhetorically talking about bipartisanship but they've made hard-headed decision the only way to get it through is to keep the caucus together 50 votes all democrats, ignore the republicans and barrel through. there's going to be hiccups but tlar going to get it done. >> the hard-hitting nature. ron, which side do you a scribe the trade to. there's no good side towards working a step towards
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biden, what am i missing? >> you're not. not is only did every republican vote against the police reform bill and against hr1 this week, which is probably the most important question other than covid in the next two years, all but three house republicans voted against the equality act for lbgtq rights. the covid bill poll today 71% of americans supported this bill including nearly half of the republicans. 70% of the country supports lbgtq rights and yet not a single republican, essentially no republican in the chamber were able to vote for it. that's the reality, chris, that biden is facing. as jonathan noted, biden's position is he is the voice of unity, always offering the olive branch, but in practice they're moving through the special budget rules with 50 plus 1.
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that's where they are. sooner or later those special budget rules run out, and they're going to have to confront the filibuster but for now, maybe their next better infrastructure plan they can do solely with democrats. maybe that's the road it will go. >> maybe this is biden swinging the swan song for traditional bipartisanship and really having just hunker down and get his own side together. because that's the trick. right? they have only the ability, if they are all together. to get anything done. do you believe that this will be the test case for biden's ability to say, listen, whether it's manchin in west virginia, or whoever the one or two are that are out there, we have to be all in or i'm going to have to call you out. >> yeah, i mean, to the extent that there's bipartisan negotiations going on it's joe biden trying to convince the
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democrat from west virginia who flirts with the republicans every few days. that's the extent of the negotiation and horse trading. and look, i think biden really did believe coming in that he could be this lyndon johnson type figure to reach across the aisle and use his republic over the decades in the senate but a lot the staff didn't think it was possible -- >> -- well, he is that figure. >> yes. >> but we all know that that is true, how he's seen, but you can't talk sense with a drunk person. you know. and they're drunk on a very specific, you know, intoxicant on the right right now now. they can't be friends with him, simple as that, they won't exist if they do it. >> that's the reality. you know, the congress is par partitioned more than it used to be only nine house in district
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one and three republicans in state that's biden won. 47 of 50 republicans are in states that voted for donald trump both times. they have a strong incentive to oppose him. and on the other sides of the ledger, chris, by standards historically the level of division among the democrats is really at the low end. i go back to the 1981 budget deals with the bo we've ills -- in the '90s bill clinton screaming on the phone trying to get the last vote on his stimulus plan in '93. and democrat from nebraska telling obama he'd support if he got three republicans which required obama to cut back stimulus plan, part of the reason many think made it so tough because the stimulus plan
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was too small so aside from all of that, i think they will be able to maintain another infrastructure pack age, maybe give manchin more clean coal spending, makes sense, ultimately it will be will manchin and minima and others allow them to end the filibuster some time in the fall because without that everything else they ran on, democracy reform, voting rights, gun control, immig immigration, lbgtq rights, you name it, pretty much everything else will be solved by mitch mcconnell that's the question where democratic unity comes to a head. >> that's why i call the professor, he puts it on you, comes flying out of him. at then evident the day, look -- at end of the day, don't the tea leaves show, you can avoid the optics but filibuster has to go. they want to kill biden times ten than what they did to obama. that's there strategy.
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it's key being able to show, look at the economy, midterms, remember they wouldn't work with me, look at the economy, i get the credit. isn't it key for him, how to make that happen, which has to include getting rid of the fili filibuster. >> a lot of people agree with you, they believe voters won't penalize them on process. they don't care about process. they care about checks in the pocket. money. the economy. problem is joe manchin said he is not going to get rid of the filibuster. the question i have, once pelosi starts passing these bill that's democrats really care about, voting rights, we talked about that. >> hr1 is the biggest bill what they have, it's also their own demise if they don't get it done legislation will sweep this country to cut their numbers by a significant amount. continue, last point jonathan. >> so the bills pile up, schumer
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wants it done and facing left wing challenger. with all that pressure what's joe manchin going to do? potentially will change the calculus, not going to say he'll go back on his word but hard to believe he can with stand that pressure, it's going to be extreme. >> i got to go, i appreciate you both. so big question, january 6, did the capitol rioters get help from the inside. you heard mickey montrezl harrell say say i saw people get tours and now federal investigators examining communications why did the senate stay open with threat of violence, are they cowto wrking to terrorists are they on the same page?
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federal law enforcement is now looking into communications between members of congress and the mob that attacked the u.s. capitol in an act of domestic terror according to a u.s. official briefed on the matter. it will is no sign of any of this reaching a probable cause criminal threshold. but it's early. question is does it show the investigation shifted into whom rioters were working with planning before the insurrection. tonight we have a senator who has been digging into the events and before january 6th, democratic senators amy klobuchar, welcome back, good to have you senator. >> thank you, chris. >> are we aware whom the lawmakers are in this investigation? >> no there's been rumors but as a former prosecutor, you wait for the evidence. one thing we learned from director wray this week at
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judiciary committee there is extensive investigation, hundreds of thousands of tips and 200 arrested and they have to look at who was there, who planned it and who was involved in it. i don't know where that will lead, chris, but it has to be able to get to justice. we got to put in an attorney general and mayor garland has kmitded to -- committed to take on these -- and there's ethics -- >> what do you think of that? seven senate democrats want ethics investigation into hawley and cruz for inciting riot do you agree, will it happen? >> i don't know what the ethics committee does because they do it in secret but anyone coordinatoring with insurrectionists should be
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investigated, we don't know the facts but we know this was coordinated. there there was a complaint in washington state when prosecutors said this was a coordinated attack, through the committee hearing i chair with senator peters, portland and blount repeatedly every lawmakers leader said it was coordinated and planned, that begs the question who was funding them, who was coordinating with them, they must get to the bottom of it. >> listening to the hearings and then doing an analysis on phil mud who is a counter terrorism expert here at cnn, he put a question in my head i think is important, january 5th they had the planning meeting, the white house was supposed to be at that meeting. do you know if they had representation at that planning meeting january 5th how to deal with the next day and what they said was needed. >> i don't know if the white house had people there but what
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i do know is that there was multiple reports going into this. the capitol police themselves on january 3rd said that there were tens of thousands of people that were going to descend on the mall. there was an fbi report of raw intelligence the night before january 5th from the norfolk office which made it very clear that they had report that's people were going to go to war and that they were going to go after congress. the new york city police department gave against in december they were concerned about is this date, so one of the questions we keep asking, why didn't this get to the right people so they were better prepared. three people in law enforcement have resigned over this. we now have a new sergeant in arms. you can't have a police chief leading into an event not able to get the national guard as reinforcement. and the day of the event, we now know, that he was trying to call the argentina of arm -- sergeant of arms and they were trying to protect the members.
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complete chaos. and final worse fact for three hours the head of the d.c. national guard had to wait to get the authority while we were watching on tv these insurrectionist breach the police line, break the glass and still no authority given so plenty of blame, how do we fix it, so we have a better structure and intelligence gets to the right people and we have the ability to get the guard there when we need them. >> to be clear there's more reporting making it matter of fact that the former the former president said he asked for 10,000 national guard there is no proof of that. now joint chief of staff milli says he never heard anything like that. >> yeah, well, remember, we know that the president was literally -- refused to put out tweets tweling the rioters to get out of there and instead commended them.
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>> right. now on the relief bill. my suggestion at the top of the show, why even pretend that you can work with people who are working for your destruction and giving comfort to terrorists they want to get rid of you, use reconciliation, get rid of the filibuster and do what you guys promise to do. >> well i favor getting rid of the filibuster we have too much to do for the country. joe biden represents all america. democrats that voted for him, republicans that voted for him, many did, and those who didn't, if are you going to do that and that's your guiding light then you have to get something on on the pandemic and get the money out for distribution, he's now 70% more of vaccine getting distributed then the first week he came in office and has pledged to get enough vaccines for every single adult in america by may.
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that's extraordinary. to do that you need funding. so i look at it this way, he wants to work with republicans. i have a good track record working across the aisle and continuing to do it. you can do it on certain things, when it comes to this pandemic right now, you can't mess around, you got to get the funding out there and make sure our economy is strong so that when the moment comes we are ready to bounce back, we are there, ready, full throttle ready to do it and we're not on our heels in a deep recession. >> ron johnson is proving right now where their heads are at, his only position is opposition, this is to be deliberative, nobody is debating, they're just running a stunt, this is who they are. here's the forecast. you can do this reconciliation. you probably won't be able to do hr 1 through reconciliation and that bill is arguably the biggest pledge that your party made to its constituents, if you
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don't pass that bill there's a good chance there's going to be 250 laws across is this country on the state level to make it harder for folks to vote. >> exactly and one of the things that 457ed after we won georgia that we want change, i took over the gavel of the rules committee, that's where the bill is headed for the first time we're going to have a hear and senator schumer is on that bill with me, he's a big proponent, even if it's 50/50 split he's able to bring to the floor of the senate. this is what the party has done, they lost the election, okay, what do they do, they reflect, they look at what policies to bring forth, to reach out to people what they need to do to best-message their policies. you know what these guys are doing right now? they're doubling down at cpac and in fact are saying we can't win with the existing electorate
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so let's disenfranchise people and it is a raw abuse of power with over 200 bills to limit voters. voters aren't going to have it. they voted in droves in the middle of a pandemic and that's why hr 1 is so important. it's about the long-term problems with gerrymandering and campaign financing, also about making it easier for people to vote, not harder, that's why it has to be a major priority. we're having our hearing march 24th then that bill goes to the floor. >> question is, what happens when it gets there. senator amy klobuchar you're always welcome to argue the case to the american people. >> thank you, andrew cuomo. >> be well. we're getting closer to midnight. i don't think the messiah is going to come for the q a none
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kooks. which is why half congress is closed one of the most recognizable faces, this cat, is now talking. i get it, it is instructive in a way. i will explain why you want to hear what he says. next. - when i noticed my sister moving differently, she said it was like someone else was controlling her mouth. her doctor said she has tardive dyskinesia, which may be related to important medication she takes for her depression. td can affect different parts of the body. - [narrator] in today's trying times, we're here to help you manage td. visit talkabouttd.com for a doctor discussion guide to prep for your next appointment in person, over the phone, or online.
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we got chased by these wild coyotes! they were following her because she had beef jerky in her pocket. (laughing) (trumpet playing) someone behind me, come on. pick that up, pick that up, right there, right there. as long as you keep making the internet an amazing place to be, we'll keep bringing you a faster, more secure, and more amazing internet. xfinity. the future of awesome. too many in donald trump's party want to con you into thinking that january 6th is something other than what we all witnessed together. >> this didn't seem like an armed insurrection to me. >> this is not about security at this point. this is about political theater.
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>> i know you think that is worthless piffle that we should forget. let me make the case as to why you must expose and out absurd lying, all right. ignoring these guys is a mistake. trump being gone was not a cure-all. we are being poisoned by what and who remains. it's as real right now as the military guard standing guard in this nation's capitol as we speak. you can't let a cruz, and co-conspirators go, or will you see more metassizing the cancer of misinformation creating tumors like this guy in the body politic. jacob chancely, stupid antics, outfits but still believe he must be all in for trump.
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listen. >> i honestly believe and still believe that he cares about the constitution and the american people. >> you don't regret the loyalty to donald trump? >> no. >> remember i brought him on to make the case, guys like chancesely -- his lawyer said he was like part of a cult with trump, okay. in court filing his lawyers argue he wasn't leading anyone anywhere, despite shot after shot of him at the head of the mob. tough to miss. that flag pole doesn't constitute a weapon they say. take a look at it. it's a six-foot spear, by the way, you wouldn't want to be beaten with it, i promise you that. they really think that because trump and co told them to go to whatter for them that it -- go
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to war for them that it made what they did was okay. he doesn't even believe it's an insurrection. he. >> my actions were not an attack on the country that's incorrect, my actions, how would i describe it, i sang a song, it's part of shaman annism, it's about creating positive vibrations in a sacred chamber, i actually stopped someone from stealing muffins out of the break room. >> i think he's going to have problems, that's not the point, he's not an aberration, why even listen, because there's a ton. remember the guy who broke into pelosi's office and put his feet on the desk, before stealing from the speaker and then gave all these interviews. richard barnett screamed at a judge today at a hearing because he doesn't understand why he's behind bars. no he's not been found to be
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mentally ill. this is a mentality they have. they don't believe there's any errors of this irways. why should they. there's an entire trump party telling them and who knows how many like them. you are right to believe the things you do even though they're fundamentally wrong, ask experts in extremism, ask the men and women who keep us safe, ask yourself if we don't with call out the people pedaling the bs and drowning it out with facts do you really think we won't see more violence in the name of this viral vitreal. the house of representatives shut down today because of a credible threat from cats like that. now the republican governor of texas is also part of this. he is making trouble for reason when it comes to covid. he believes that migrants are responsible for the spread of the virus. that biden is responsible for
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the spread of the virus. this is the message he's putting out. we must expose it and oppose it. and we will, next, with facts. i think the sketchy website i bought this turtle from stole all of my info. ooh, have you looked on the bright side? discover never holds you responsible for unauthorized purchases on your card. (giggling) that's my turtle. fraud protection. discover. something brighter.
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with audible, i can be transported somewhere that is impossible to go. the audible plus catalog is awesome. it's like having a streaming service, but just for audio content. there's so many options. there's podcasts. i'll listen to the meditations. i love audible originals. mythology, anthropology, a lot of the -ologies. they pretty much have whatever you like.
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texas governor greg abbott, an exhibit of someone who has to be given the spotlight for scrutiny because he is peddling trumpery. first, blaming the green new deal for the power collapse in the state even though it mostly used nonrenewable energy. that's a fact. now, without evident, he wants to blame biden and immigrants for the spread of covid in texas. >> his administration has been releasing in south texas immigrants who came across the border that they refused to test, it turned out there were more than 100 of them who had covid. the biden administration must stop importing covid into our country. that is neanderthal type of approach to dealing with the covid situation. >> now, there is a downside to the biden administration rolling back trump's programs that were very restrictive and maybe even not legally so, at the border. however, the idea that migrants
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pose more of a risk than covid, which has killed more than 500,000 of us, including nearly 45,000 texans in less than a year, come on. a senior homeland security official tells cnn, abbott has been stalling efforts by the biden administration to provide federal funds that would go toward covid tests for migrants released from custody. if you are afraid they have the virus, why wouldn't you want them tested? the fema funds are already in place to be sent to the border communities, but the state has to approve it. why won't you, governor abbott? let's not forget, the nation's top scientists have repeatedly warned not to ease up on safety restrictions right now, especially masks. because the contagious variants are spreading, and this is the chance for us to get ahead of
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the variants with a vaccine. texas, fact, known to have all four known variants at scale in america active there. and it is home to half of the top 20 counties when it comes to cases. vaccinations will take time. if the governor wants a bogeyman, look in the mirror. with less than 8% of the state vaccinated, how many lives, how many lives in order to seem like you're doing the right thing about opening up? no masks, opening too soon, burned you once. will you make it twice? apparently so. i want to bring in dr. ashish jha. good to see you, doc. let's test the theory of governor abbott. it's migrants. they're full of covid. you stop them, you stop the virus. that's our biggest threat. that's why i won't test them. >> so chris, thanks for having me on. i really don't know what to say about that migrant theory. it's obviously not, like, even remotely a major contributor to
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infections of covid in texas. those infections have been high. they're spread across the state. this is not -- this is a distraction, not the real issue. >> tougher one, because it plays well. texas, but everywhere. cases are on the way down. things are moving the right way. vaccines coming up. just said it yourself, president biden will have it for everybody. get the masks off. weep can't take another day of economic pain. why is that not the right work? >> so here's why. right now, especially in places like texas where vaccinations are not going super well, a large chunk of their high-risk population hasn't been vaccinated yet. you let go of the masks, you open things up, you're going to see a spike in cases. that's happened over and over again. you're going to see a lot of people get infected and die. that's horrible at any moment, but when we're this close to being able to vaccinate high-risk people, i think it's irresponsible. i would not recommend it. >> his theory is this, listen to
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this. >> the last spike occurred during christmas and new year's at a time when people were not transmitting it when they went to restaurants or businesses. the lead area of transmission at the time was in the home setting where people were not wearing masks in the first place, and no one has ever mandated wearing masks in the home setting. >> response. >> yeah, so there is clearly some spreading that happens in the home setting, he's right about that. but we also know there's a lot of spreading in restaurants and bars and other places. so his point is, if you can't stop one, you shouldn't try to stop the other. i don't know if i buy that. there are things we can do to slow this down. we're talking about a few weeks. i don't see why we want to risk people's lives with restaurants and bars opening up. >> i want to try something new called where we could be. if things are done right and numbers are met on the federal side and it gets into arms and the variants are kept at bay, let's first look at spring.
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where could we be in the spring? >> yeah, so i think the next month, six weeks is the part that probably the most fuzzy. as we get into spring, things will start getting better, chris. i really do see cases coming way down. hospitalizations way down. and things starting to open up. >> and let's see what that looks like in summer. what are we doing this summer? >> you know, summer, i think the summer of 2021 is going to look a lot more like summer of 2019 than it did the summer of 2020. backyard barbecues, gatherings, some indoor dining gets much, much safer. it starts to feel not quite 100% normal but like a pretty close to a normal summer. >> and then fall, winter. >> yeah, so there's a little bit of a wild card. i expect the fall to begin really strong. i expect september and october to be good months. kids back in school, things generally doing okay. but this is a seasonal virus, and i do expect a bump in cases
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in november and december, maybe january. we'll see. they'll depend on how many people are vaccinated. it depends on how good our testing is. all that stuff will help us get through, but i would not be surprised if we see a bump in cases during that time. >> you get my kids back in school full time, and let's start healing their head and their heart from what this displacement did, i would give up everything else. dr. ashish jha, thank you very much. >> we have to start thinking about what our incentive is to do this instead of that, that would be wrong, that would be wrong, we have to do this, let's talk about the upside. >> now, the country needs all of our best voices that people want to listen to to help stop this spread. this is a pivotal time to make sure people want to get the vaccine, that they keep their mask on, and we do what we have to right now. that's where basketball great, sbra
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i didn't know why my body was moving on its own. it turns out i have tardive dyskinesia, a condition that may be related to important medications i take from my bipolar disorder. tardive dyskinesia can affect different parts of the body. it may also affect people who take medication for depression and schizophrenia. [narrator] in today's trying times, we're here to help you manage td. visit talkabouttd.com for a doctor discussion guide to prep for your next appointment in person, over the phone or online. it's a relief to know there are treatments for td. how do we deal with this tough situation? minority communities are much more likely to get covid, much more likely to be hospitalized,
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much more likely to die, but less likely to want the vaccine? let's bring in kareem abdul-jabbar. it's great to see you in prime time, brother. >> hi, how are you, chris? what's been going on? >> plenty. so, what do you believe we can do to help communities trust to take the vaccine? >> we have to gain the trust of minority communities by showing them that the vaccine is effective and that it's in their best interest to take the vaccine. the problem in times past was that no one wanted to give them the latest treatment. so, the experiment that everyone relates to, the tuskegee experiment, withheld treatment for the disease and just observed people with it until they died. >> right. >> that was a situation where something was withheld.
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now that people want to extend the cutting edge medicine and treatment to people of color, their suspicious of that. so, we have to gain their trust and go through all of the things that we need to go through to make sure that their trust is well-founded. >> got to work it like a campaign. got to work it like a campaign, sell them that johnson & johnson is just as good, one shot is better than two, obviously. fight the facts. but getting to the community. you wrote an interesting op-ed on how to do that. i don't think some people took it that way. they're saying oh, kareem wants all the basketball players to get the vaccine first. that's wrong. that's not what you're saying in the op-ed. you're talking about incentivizing people to see their heroes believing it's safe. >> a lot of people in minority communities respect the athletes that go out there and take their word on things of this nature.
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so, we have to make that connection for them and show them, you know, how many of their favorite athletes and some of their celebrities -- saw dolly parton a couple days ago. there are many people stepping up, and that's making a difference. any time that that happens, it's making it possible for more people to get the vaccination that they need and help us beat this covid-19 thing now. >> you are a social justice warrior. you're developing it as a brand. you sent me stuff. thank you very much. i was shocked that don lemon actually gave it to me because he's a thief and he usually takes all the good swag. but he shared it and thank you very much. you are looking at a lot of different ways to improve society. voter fraud, suppression efforts is what you call the real voter fraud. now we have this existential battle.
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if these 250 plus laws across the states are put into place, you will have rollback of what we just saw in this election and quick. what is your big concern? what do you see as the fix? >> well, my big concern is the fact that the republicans are pursuing this with such, you know, intense fervor. you know, it's -- none of the issues that they bring up, you know, voter fraud or people that are using crooked machines. none of these are reality. you know, the republicans remind me of zombies chasing a jeep. we've got to keep our foot on the pedal until we get to the finish line and pass laws that inhibit voter suppression. we've got to do that. >> now, you should -- >> now -- >> go ahead, finish your point, kareem, please. >> no, if we can't do that,
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we're not going to have a real democracy. if everyone wants the american democracy to look like it did in the 18th century, no. it's not like it was when the founding fathers were around. we will have a real democracy where people respect the laws and are able to live with one another. that's what we're supposed to be working toward. >> and that's what your shirt is about. make a friend that doesn't look like you. >> absolutely. >> you might just change the world. now, it is a beautiful reference to a beautiful idea. but also you were in one of bruce lee's movies. i'm a huge fan of yours as everybody is in so many different generations in this country now. i was watching the fight and we were watching this guy get his front leg attacked. and this buddy of mine randomly said just like bruce did to kareem, chopping him down by the front leg.
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when you fought in that scene with bruce lee. of course it was your friend. it was such an amazing message of two different genres of greatness coming together. thank you for the swag. thank you for the message, kareem. always a pleasure. >> oh, you're welcome. anybody who wants this shirt can go to kareemabduljabbar.com. this kind of moralizes him. he would have been 80 this year. >> the ideal lives on. >> thank you. >> oh, please. always a pleasure. i love what you're about, kareem. you're fighting the good fight. you're always welcome here. god bless and be well. >> thank you very much, chris. >> all right. we'll be right back.
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thank you for watching. it's time for the big show, "cnn tonight" with the big star d. lemon. >> you saw my message on kareem's shirt. wright? >> i did. >> mr. jabbar. >> make a friend with someone who doesn't look like you. you might just change the world. here's the problem with that shirt, though. as it applies to us, i am so much bigger than you that you should be kareem, but i am the fighter, so i am also bruce. >> so, you're saying you're fatter. you're admitting you're fat now? >> i am taller and more large. >> you are -- okay.
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