Trump's Return To The Campaign Trail Goes From Bad To Worse; Firing Of Powerful New York Prosecutor Appears To Be Latest Move To Protect Trump; Brazil Reports One-Million-Plus Infections; Spain Ending COVID-19 State Of Emergency
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Not quite meeting expectations: President Trump promised a packed rally and thousands in an overflow area in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He didn't get either. On stage, the president made a controversial claim, saying he asked for less coronavirus testing. The White House is playing it down. The Democrats, seizing on it. Also this hour, a top attorney is out after a power struggle with the White House. Welcome to our viewers, here, in the United States and all around the world. I'm Natalie Allen. CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.</s>ALLEN: It is 5:00 am here in Atlanta, Georgia. We appreciate you joining us. U.S. president Donald Trump's return to the campaign trail did not match the pre-event hype. But the smaller-than-expected crowd at a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, didn't stop him from attacking protesters, Joe Biden, the media and COVID testing. The Trump campaign said almost 1 million people had asked for tickets for the rally. A second speech outdoors was cancelled when only dozens showed up. But inside the arena, many seats in the upper deck were empty as Mr. Trump painted the protests outside as violent.</s>TRUMP: The Left is trying to do everything they can to stop us. Every hour of every day, including even violence and mayhem, they will do anything they can to stop us. Look what happened tonight. Look at what happened tonight. Law enforcement said, sir, they can't be outside. It's too dangerous. We had a bunch of maniacs come and sort of attack our city. The mayor and the governor did a great job. But they were very violent people.</s>ALLEN: Well, despite what the president is alleging there, the Tulsa police tweeted out that the protests were largely peaceful, although they did use crowd dispersants at one point later in the evening. Back inside, Mr. Trump used a racist term to describe COVID-19. He also said he made this stunning call on COVID testing, which a pro- Biden super PAC is now trying to use in a campaign ad.</s>TRUMP: You know, testing is a double-edged sword. We've tested now 25 million people. It's probably 20 million people more than anybody else, Germany's done a lot. South Korea's that a lot. They call me they said the job you're doing. Here's the bad part. When you test stuff -- when you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people, you're going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down, please.</s>ALLEN: COVID-19 has killed almost 120,000 people in the United States, which remains the world's worst-hit country. An administration official says the president's comments about slowing down testing were a joke. CNN's Abby Phillip has more on the rally from Tulsa.</s>ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Plans for a blockbuster campaign rally, a campaign kickoff of sorts for President Trump, did not go exactly the way he planned. The campaign had been saying for days that they expected tens of thousands of people to be here at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, not just inside the arena but also outside. They planned for about 40,000 people in the overflow section. They planned on having an entire agenda for them, including for President Trump and the vice president to prepare remarks at a stage they had set up. But as the evening wore on, there were so few people here that eventually they canceled those plans. There were just a few dozen people standing outside, most of them being urged to go inside by campaign advisers. Now inside that arena, it was mostly full and a large rally by any standard. But the 19,000-seat arena was not completely full as President Trump had hoped for. Instead, it seems like many people decided to stay home or perhaps even stay outside. The campaign said they blamed protesters, saying protesters scared away some rally attendees, also blaming the media.</s>PHILLIP: Saying that the media has been talking so much about the risks of attending a rally during a coronavirus pandemic that many people, including families, chose not to come to the event. We should note that we had reporters all around the arena, including where we are here. And we saw many people coming into this event freely. There have been protesters throughout the city but none of a significant size that they would have stopped tens of thousands of people from coming into this rally -- Abby Phillip, CNN, Tulsa, Oklahoma.</s>ALLEN: Now let's take a look at what was going on outside the arena, after the rally. CNN's Gary Tuchman was there.</s>GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the overflow area outside of the BOK arena. People now streaming out of the arena. It's far more crowded here now than it was during the speech. And the idea was for it to be very crowded during the speech. The idea was for President Trump to speak on that stage before he went inside the arena, before thousands of people standing on the street. But because the stadium wasn't full, this ended up not being full. And the decision was made to cancel President Trump's speech outdoors. There was a big screen TV behind me that was on during the speech but there were only about 15 or 20 people there watching the speech. We can tell you one thing is people did not think that the rally should be held, a lot of people, including the health director here in Tulsa County, because COVID-19 rates are at their highest in this county since this all began. But it did take place. So that's a victory for the Trump campaign but it's not a victory because they thought there would be a huge turnout. They talked about 1 million people coming and it turned out they couldn't even fill up a 19,100-seat arena. But it was held. People were checked for their temperatures, they were offered masks. Most people didn't wear the masks. President Trump didn't have a mask, either, but he didn't have to stand around five or six hours around lots of people -- this is Gary Tuchman, CNN, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.</s>ALLEN: Let's go back to that shocking comment Mr. Trump made on the stage, where he said he told his people to slow down coronavirus testing. If it was meant as a joke, as the White House claimed, health experts aren't seeing the humor. CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked Dr. Sanjay Gupta for his reaction.</s>DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You can't think of a better metaphor for burying your head in the sand on this. "I told people to stop doing colonoscopies, they're finding too much colon cancer." I mean, it's just a level of ignorance that I -- I'm dumbfounded by, five months into this now. The idea that we're still not doing enough testing and "I told them to slow down testing." It's the only thing we really have, Wolf. Testing and masks. There is no super effective medicine. Obviously, there's not a vaccine. And yet, countries around the world, you know, there are death counts in the hundreds, not the hundreds or hundreds of thousands like we have in the United States. Why? Because they tested. They tested early. They did enough testing and they were able to isolate people and stop the transmission of this virus. To suggest, now, that "I told them to slow down testing." First of all, who did he tell to slow down testing? Is this the Coronavirus Task Force that was told to slow down testing? I mean, this is obviously something we're going to want to dig into a little bit. But this is suggesting a complicity in the worst public health travesty of our lifetime. I mean, it's criminal, from a public health perspective, to say that was the right answer, that was the directive given to people around the country, to slow down testing. We needed to increase testing. We've done 25 million tests, so far, in this country. We should be doing 5 million a day. We've done 25 million in, what, 4.5 months. We should be doing 5 million a day; now 20 million a day, by the middle of July, according to the Harvard roadmap to global health.</s>ALLEN: Natasha Lindstaedt is a professor of government at the University of Essex and a frequent guest on our program. She joins me from Colchester in southeastern England. Glad to have you. The president was met with a smaller crowd then his aides had promised but it was a large crowd. It was a big arena. Let's talk about his performance, Natasha, what you thought of his speech. At some point he called himself the champion of minorities and pointing the fingers straight at Joe Biden for what he said was Biden's abysmal record in supporting black Americans. That was one aspect.</s>NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: Right. I do not think he can really say that he supports minorities. This would've been a great opportunity to talk about Juneteenth and what it represents. Instead he decided to spend 10 to 15 minutes rambling on about how he went down or was walking down a ramp and he did nothing to really reach out to all Americans.</s>LINDSTAEDT: It makes me wonder, does he not realize that he is the president of the United States and not just the president to this increasingly shrinking group of his adoring fans? At one point, as you mentioned, he referred to the coronavirus as kung flu. I don't know how he's going to attract Asian Americans with these types of comments. He spends most of his time spewing out lies or falsehoods or inaccurate accounts. What would appeal to the independent voter if they were hearing this rambling speech? What in there would resonate with them? I also want to point out the way he refers to the Democrats as this unhinged less left-wing mob. That doesn't focus on reaching across the aisle and trying to unite people.</s>ALLEN: And the rally comes in a time when his poll numbers are dropping, so one would think it would be good to unveil a strategy for why he deserves a second term. Did he do anything like that?</s>LINDSTAEDT: No, there was no strategy. It was he was just trying to attack the Left, trying to attack protesters. He did focus a little bit on the monuments because that is something that played well to the crowd. But it is more like a stand up comedy routine. It is recycling the same old comments over and over again and talking about things that are basically untrue and that could be easily fact checked. But he did not really offer much. And it is interesting that he did this going to a state that he won by 35 points and he could not even fill up the stadium. It was about two-thirds full. This was all about him. It was not about campaign strategy. He is going to a place where he thinks he's going to get a lot of adoration, which he needs, because his ego feeds off of this. And he was not even able to accomplish that.</s>ALLEN: Do you think Republicans in Congress will be disappointed or perhaps what they want to hear for him beyond the type of things that you just shared?</s>LINDSTAEDT: They are probably hoping that he will start talking about policy instead of getting distracted, just trying to get these, the base to support him, because they know, if we even look back to 2016, he did not win with a majority of votes in the popular vote. He will have to reach across to the middle a little bit to gain more support. They are going to be concerned that this is going to affect their tickets as well, those that are running for Senate, Congress, they're going to be affected by the fact that he represents the Republican Party. He is the Republican Party. They made this deal with him. And he is completely unable to talk about policies in ways that might connect with independents and other Republican voters that are not in his base.</s>ALLEN: Let's talk about the issue that so many Americans are involved in right now. During a speech he bashed protesters who support Black Lives Matter and police reform. Will this hurt him or help him with his supporters, if he continues to ignore an issue when these galvanized Americans are still in the streets.</s>LINDSTAEDT: We are seeing with the poll numbers that on average all the polls show that he has a 55 percent disapproval rate, which is incredibly high at a time when he is going to need those numbers to change. So he is only speaking to this space that is not that large, not large enough for him to win the election. The other problem is that he has activated the Democrats and people who, in the past, may not have gone out to vote. Would have voted Democrat but did not want to vote. We see him on the left side, the progressive side, people very active, more likely to vote than ever and he is doing nothing to unite people. That is going to be a problem.</s>ALLEN: Natasha Lindstaedt, we always appreciate your insights.</s>LINDSTAEDT: Thank you.</s>ALLEN: The top federal prosecutor in New York, who has investigated some of the president's close associates, now says he is stepping down. Geoffrey Berman's resignation came a day after saying he would not resign. Attorney general William Barr asked the U.S. president to fire him, which he says the president did. But curiously, the president says it was Barr's decision and that he wasn't involved. Evan McMorris-Santoro unravels this power struggle for us.</s>GEOFFREY BERMAN, U.S. ATTORNEY, SDNY: I'm just here to do my job.</s>EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On Saturday morning, Geoffrey Berman walked into his Manhattan office, vowing to keep working as one of America's highest profile federal prosecutors.</s>MCMORRIS-SANTORO (voice-over): By late afternoon, he was replaced by presidential order. In between the dramatic battle between Berman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and William Barr, the U.S. attorney general. Berman refused to step down Friday after Barr issued a surprise statement, announcing Berman had resigned, a move Berman said never happened. On Saturday afternoon, Barr sent a letter to Berman, saying that because he refused to step down, the president had fired him and replaced him with an assistant U.S. attorney. Berman is an experienced federal prosecutor and former defense attorney. He's also an active Republican. He donated $5,400 to President Trump's campaign in 2016, worked on the president's transition team and was a former law partner of Trump lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Berman was appointed to the influential position of U.S. attorney in 2018, after his predecessor, Preet Bharara, was fired after he refused to resign. The same thing has now happened to Berman. After initial concerns over his past associations with Trump, Berman continued the Southern District's tradition of independence.</s>BERMAN: Politics does not enter into our decision-making on charging a case. We bring a case when the case is ready to be brought.</s>MCMORRIS-SANTORO (voice-over): The office has overseen prosecutions of high profile figures in Trump's orbit, including his former lawyer, Michael Cohen; Representative Chris Collins and two associates of Giuliani. Friday night, Berman said, "Our investigations will move forward without delay or interruption." All this comes as the Trump administration is actually removing government employees who have investigated and prosecuted Trump officials. Independents counsels have been removed by federal agencies. Federal prosecutors have alleged meddling from Barr in cases against Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and campaign adviser, Roger Stone. Trump has been considering removing Berman since at least the middle of 2018, two sources tell CNN. And now Berman is out of a job. Trump fired him but told reporters the ouster was Barr's call.</s>TRUMP: That's his department, not my department. But we have a very capable attorney general, so that's really up to him. I'm not involved.</s>MCMORRIS-SANTORO: Now that he's gone, what happens next is anyone's guess -- Evan McMorris-Santoro, CNN, New York.</s>ALLEN: The now former U.S. attorney, Geoffrey Berman said, in a subsequent statement Saturday, that he would leave his office, effective immediately. That was, as you saw, after attorney general William Barr sent him a letter saying that president Donald Trump had removed him. A U.S. federal judge has ruled that former U.S. national security advisor John Bolton can publish his contentious White House memoir, against the wishes of the Trump administration. But the ruling says the book, entitled "The Room Where It Happened," does contain classified information. And Bolton could be held criminally liable. That had President Trump claiming victory.</s>TRUMP: We had a very good decision in the John Bolton book case. The judge was very powerful in his statements on classified information and very powerful also in the fact that the country will get the money, any money he makes. I hope a lot of books sell, I probably don't hope that. But whatever he makes, he's going to be giving back. In my opinion, based on the ruling. He's going to be giving back.</s>ALLEN: Bolton has suggested the White House retroactively classified details in the book improperly. The book, set to be released this Tuesday. President Trump's rally may have been smaller than expected. But health officials are still worried. Ahead, why experts fear it could become a superspreader event regarding coronavirus. Plus, we'll take you to Spain as it reopens most of its E.U. borders and lifts its state of emergency.