President Trump Ousted Michael Atkinson in the Midst of a Pandemic; COVID Cases Keeps Rising; No Stay-at-Home Order Yet in Eight States; Special Thanks to Our Heroes During the Coronavirus Pandemic; Don Lemon Remembers Singer-Songwriter Bill Withers.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon. 11:00 p.m. on the East Coast, and here the latest on the coronavirus pandemic. Tonight, the number of cases worldwide is nearing 1.1 million. The global death toll just under 60,000. Here at home the pandemic is worsening by the hour. Johns Hopkins University now reporting more than 277,000 confirmed cases in the United States. And more than 7,000 deaths in this country. More than 1,400 deaths reported just today. Tonight, nearly 96 percent of the U.S. population is living under orders to stay at home or shelter in place. That works out to nearly 315 million Americans out of a population of 328 million. But eight states are still resisting imposing stay-at-home orders, despite Dr. Anthony Fauci advising that all states should do so. President Trump is refusing tonight to issue a national stay-at-home order, saying he'll leave it up to the individual governors. And we had this bit of breaking news late on a Friday night. Under cover of a coronavirus, the president settling scores with a perceived enemy from his impeachment. A source on Capitol Hill telling CNN moments ago that the president has removed intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson, the official who told Congress about the anonymous whistleblower complaint that sparked the House impeachment proceedings against Trump. I want to get right to CNN White House correspondent John Harwood and CNN justice correspondent Evan Perez. Good evening to both of you. Evan, this is a big deal. What do you know?</s>EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: It is a big deal, Don. Look, we've been waiting for this exact moment, and it appears that the president took obviously the fact that the country is preoccupied with the coronavirus crisis to finally get rid of Michael Atkinson, who is the inspector general for the intelligence committee. He is the one who sort of kick started all of the controversy over the Ukraine -- the president's leaning on the Ukrainian government to announce that investigation that Joe Biden, his political rival. If you remember the inspector general was the one who received the whistleblower complaint and kicked it over and said he had to notify the lawmakers in Congress about it. And of course, that led to the president's impeachment. We know that the members of congress, the heads of the two intelligence committees in Congress were notified tonight that the president was firing Atkinson. And so, Atkinson was informed tonight that he is essentially being put, Don, on a 30-day administrative leave. So, he is essentially out of the job. He's still essentially working for the government for another 30 days, but he is fired. The president has decided that it is time for him to go.</s>LEMON: Evan, I want to read part of the president's letter here. And it reads, it says, "the inspectors general have a critical role in the achieve -- in the achievement of these goals, as the case -- as is the case with regard to the other positions where I, as president, have the power of appointment by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. It is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general. That is no longer the case with regard to this inspector general." So, if that is the rationale, it is rather thin.</s>PEREZ: Right. Look, the president and people at the Justice Department who reviewed the whistleblower complaint did not think that it deserved to be notified the Congress. They didn't believe that the inspector general that the officer, the director of national intelligence needed to even tell the intelligence committees about this whistleblower complaint. Instead, the intelligence community inspector general, he decided that he did. And so, that's one of the reasons why certainly the president, people around him were very, very unhappy with Mr. Atkinson and believe that essentially, he had started a controversy that they believe should never have gotten there, Don. So, you can see why Atkinson's days frankly were numbered from the time this inspector general decided that he needed to tell Congress about this whistleblower complaint.</s>LEMON: Yes.</s>PEREZ: You can see that the president is saying in his letter to the intelligence committees tonight that he has lost confidence in this inspector general. And of course, Don, you know, the president, he has this power. He can tell the lawmakers that he has a right to get rid of these people because they serve at his discretion. So that is what he has done tonight.</s>LEMON: So, John, let me bring you in here. So, this is what the president is doing late on a Friday night in the middle of a deadly pandemic, a historic pandemic?</s>JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Look, Don, he set out on this course before the pandemic flowered into a huge story. He started firing people who had called out his behavior. Alexander Vindman in the White House is one of those conspicuous examples, immediately after the impeachment process was over. He doesn't like people who call him to account within his administration any more than he likes reporters asking him difficult questions. And I should note that there is no indication that Michael Atkinson did anything wrong by reporting this information to Congress. Republican senators in the impeachment process agreed that there was a quid pro quo that was imposed by the president on Ukraine. He later backed off of it, of course. He just said it wasn't worth impeaching him for. So, the president is trying to purge the administration of people he thinks are disloyal to him. And this is not unrelated to the laggard response the administration has had on coronavirus. If your priority as the chief executive, and the head of the executive branch is to have people in jobs not because they're qualified to do the jobs, but because they're loyal to you, you're not going to get the highest quality people. We noted by the way, that the admiral in charge of the navy ship who called out the plight of his crewmen was removed by the president's navy secretary from his command. And so, this is a pattern with the president. And you saw it when Jared Kushner came into the White House briefing room yesterday. The president's son-in-law is taking a lead role in pandemic response. And that simply illustrates the problem that we're talking about. Not the best people, but the people who the president thinks are loyal to him.</s>LEMON: Well, you got to wonder if -- I said that under the cover of coronavirus. But I'm wondering if maybe it's to sort of change the news from the coronavirus to this. I mean, which came first, John, the chicken or the egg?</s>HARWOOD: Look, he would have done this anyway, as Evan said. We were waiting for this to happen. But he is suffering an avalanche of catastrophic news at the moment to the extent that he is embarrassed by this, yes, he is burying it. But in the current news environment, you can't bury stuff very effectively. The news is 24/7. And whether you do it on Friday night or do it Monday morning at nine o'clock, it's going get pushed back from Democrats. It's going to get attention from the press. But the president is not concerned about that. He is focused on somebody who has made him look bad, put him in a bad position. He's going to strike out.</s>LEMON: Thank you, both. I appreciate it. I want to bring in now James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence. He joins us now by phone. Director, thank you so much. First, I want to discuss the timing. Why is the president doing this late on a Friday night? Does the timing tell you anything, or do you agree with John, he is going to do it anyways?</s>JAMES CLAPPER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I think John is right. He is going to do it anyway. But of course, I guess figuring Friday night is the best time typically for revelation of bad news, but particularly so in the midst of a pandemic crisis. It looks to me like he's got his list of people he wants to remove or punish, who had some role at what led to the impeachment. And clearly Mr. Atkinson as the I.G. was a catalyst for this with his handling of the whistleblower complaint which for my part I thought was entirely proper.</s>LEMON: Yes. Let's be clear about this. He was doing his job. But what does this mean for the country, especially at a time of global instability and crisis?</s>CLAPPER: Well, what it means to me, Don, is this is bad message to the intelligence community if you care about his independence and objectivity and telling truth to power. So, this is another chilling message that you better cue the line here, and don't cross it. And I think the implicit message, which is even more serious is this could certainly I think affect or may affect the objectivity of the reporting that the intelligence community is doing. And that to me is what is very bothersome about all of this. You take this in the total context of the firing of acting director Joe Maguire and the emplacement of Ambassador Grenell as the acting DNI and the nomination of Ratcliffe, of John Ratcliffe, all of which I think the bottom line message here is loyalty is more important than professional confidence.</s>LEMON: Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, thank you, sir. I appreciate your time.</s>CLAPPER: Thanks, Don.</s>LEMON: I want to turn now to the news from tonight's coronavirus briefing. The CDC urging Americans to wear a makeshift shift face masks out in public. I want to bring in now the resident -- our resident fact checker Daniel Dale. Daniel, thank you so much for joining. The CDC now recommending Americans wear these masks, these coverings, face covers. Here is what Trump said about the new guidelines, even though he doesn't plan to wear one.</s>JEROME ADAMS, SURGEON GENERAL: Here's how you can make your own face covering in a few --</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: From recent studies, we know that the transmission from individuals without symptoms is playing a more significant role in the spread of the virus than previously understood. So, you don't seem to have symptoms. And it still gets transferred.</s>LEMON: But haven't health officials been warning of asymptomatic spread for months, Daniel?</s>DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: They have been warning to an increasing extent. I think to interpret this Trump comment generously, there is more evidence today than there was, say, two months ago. But way back in January, at the end of January, Dr. Anthony Fauci said he was convinced that asymptomatic transmission was occurring. In February, the director of the CDC said it was possible and concerning. And by mid-March, we had a story on cnn.com by our medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. In front of me a headline, people with infected symptoms might be driving the spread of coronavirus more than we realize. So, this is not breaking news in the last, you know, few days. We've known for at least some time now.</s>LEMON: The president also claimed tonight that he never gave a date for when this virus would go away. What's the truth?</s>DALE: So, Trump said over and over that he thought this virus would vanish from the United States in April. Listen to some of the things he said.</s>TRUMP: Looks like by April, you know in theory when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. Hope that's true. You know in April, supposedly it dies with the hotter weather. And that's a beautiful date to look forward to. I think it's going to work out fine. I think when we get into April and the warmer weather, that has a very negative effect on that, and that type of a virus. So, let's see what happens. But I think it's going to work out fine.</s>DALE: So, he didn't mention a specific date in April, but he kept saying April. And it's also misleading at best for him to suggest today as he did that his claims in February that it would just go away have somehow been proven accurate. He said, I said it was going away and it is going away. Well, he didn't mention back in February that thousands of Americans would die and the economy would be more or less be shut down before it allegedly went away.</s>LEMON: Daniel, the president keeps saying no one could have predicted something like this would happen. But we're learning his own administration had concerns.</s>DALE: Yes. So, Don, you and I have been talking repeatedly about how there were repeat warns from the U.S. intelligence community from outside public health experts. But reporting from our K-File team shows that Trump's own senior officials were warning about this last year. Alex Azar, the Secretary of Health and then senior national security adviser -- council official Tim Morrison were at a conference in April 2019, and they both said that possible pandemic was chief among their worries. And they suggested it was something that keeps them awake at night. Morrison said it's something that, you know, we're not -- might not be preparing for to a sufficient extent, but we need to think about. So not only were the warnings coming from outside, they were coming from quite close to the president.</s>LEMON: Daniel Dale, thank you very much. Next, on the frontlines inside a New York hospital, more than 6,500 new coronavirus cases reported in the city in just the past day. I'm going talk to a doctor and a nurse working, risking their own lives to save their patients.