What A Day - The Covid Is Coming From Inside The White House

Episode Date: May 11, 2020

Top US health officials are self-isolating and quarantining after a couple White House employees tested positive for coronavirus. Plus, new data reveal a racial bias in enforcement of stay-at-home orders in the US.South Korea has been held up as a model for fighting coronavirus to the rest of the world. Last week, they were faced with a new breakout in Seoul. Now, bars and clubs have been closed to stem the spread in that city.Following arrests in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, calls are growing for an investigation into the handling of the case and local law enforcement.And in headlines: the Justice Department drops its case against Michael Flynn, Tekashi 6ix9ine goes live to 2 million people, and one salon owner’s grift-y GoFundMe in Texas.

It's Monday, May 11th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is what a day where we believe because of COVID-19 concerns, they should close down the White House. Yeah, and all that extra bleach they have there, they could use that to clean. The rooms and themselves. On today's show, new data reveals bias and policing of stay-at-home orders, then some headlines. But first, the latest. See, they didn't want a black guy to be the one to create the rock and roll because the white kids liked it. And they didn't want the white girls screaming over no black boy.

And by me being a black guy and a good looking black guy. And you know, I'm not conceited. No, no, I've never been. That was Little Richard talking about his legacy. He passed away this weekend at 87. Truly the inventor of rock and roll. But in news, you may have heard about top U.S. health officials who are self-isolating and quarantining after a couple White House staff members have tested positive for coronavirus. That's the heads of the CDC, the FDA, and Dr. Anthony Fauci at the NIH. It all started on Friday when Vice President Pence's press secretary, Katie Miller, who's also incidentally married to White House advisor Stephen Miller, tested positive for COVID-19. She has reportedly

attended almost all of the White House Coronavirus Task Force meetings. Pence has since tested negative for the virus and is reportedly not doing a full self-quarantine and plans to be at the White House today. A military valet to the president has also tested positive. Wow. All right. So they're all getting tested because of the risk to their own health while the president is encouraging the country to reopen? That's right. In fact, the White House is doing daily testing for the virus among top officials, all while downplaying the glaring need for more testing broadly. More do as I say, not as I do from the same administration that can't even spare

thoughts and prayers for the nearly 80,000 who have died so far in this crisis. All right, well, more in the way of authorities not helping their constituents. New data has revealed the racial bias in enforcement of stay-at-home orders. A ProPublica report out of Ohio has shown that Black people have been charged with violating stay-at-home orders at a rate of four times that of their white counterparts. So yes, even as we've watched, you know, these lily white protests of life-saving measures, it's still black people who are being over-policed relative to their population size. Disheartening, but also maddening what bias some will cling to even in the midst of a worldwide crisis. The NYPD released their data on Friday and it shows that more than 80% of

summonses for violating stay-at-home orders were given to Black and Hispanic residents. At the same time, viral videos show officers in major city parks distributing masks to white people well within six feet of one another. So now we have data to back up what our eyes have been showing us. But what's going on around the world? Yeah, so there were a number of stories from around the world this weekend that showed the challenges of reopening while the COVID-19 pandemic still rages on and provided some notes of caution as we in the United States move ahead with these very same sorts of plans. One of the more prominent examples is South Korea. Now, as we've talked about, the country has gotten a lot of praise for stamping out its outbreak with wide-scale

testing and tracing and targeted clampdowns. It's been held up as a model to the rest of the world. It was four days into this new phase in which the government was encouraging people to go back out while remaining vigilant with masks being worn, temperatures being checked and more. Then on the fourth day on Saturday, Seoul's mayor decided to close all bars and nightclubs in the city after a new coronavirus cluster broke out. According to a New York Times report, it began after a 29 yearyear-old man tested positive for COVID-19 last week. Using their contact tracing system, they were able to quickly find out that he had gone to three nightclubs the prior weekend. The result? Local epidemiologists said that they were attempting to reach 7,200 people who had been in the area on that day, possibly being exposed. That includes also people that they may have been in contact with. Between 27 and 40 cases have been linked to the clubs and people in close contact with them. The South Korean government has said that

its medical system can handle 50 or fewer new cases per day. And if epidemiologists are able to track the source of infections at least 95% of the time, meaning if a bunch of infections pop up and authorities aren't able to figure out how those people got it, then they could tighten restrictions. Yeah, I mean, that sounds like a good goal. It's nice to see a country with goals. But also, it gives you a sense of just how taxing it is to minimize the spread of this virus. You know, one guy builds to 7,000 potential exposures. It's wild. Yeah, and we're seeing examples of new clusters and spread in other countries as well, like Singapore and Germany, places that had also been heralded for their management of the first wave of infections. So we'll be tracking how they

respond and what epidemiologists and policymakers here can learn from them. All right, so that's a look at the latest on coronavirus throughout the world. But let's get back to another news story that we've been following the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25 year old black man who was followed, shot and killed while out for a run in Georgia in February. Last Thursday, Gregory McMichael and his son, Travis McMichael, were each arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault. Over the weekend, to honor Arbery, people across the country went for runs of 2.23 miles for the date that Arbery was killed and used the hashtag I run with Maude. Gideon, can you lay out more of what we've learned since we last talked about the story? Yeah, so first off, these arrests are happening over two months after the shooting, which, as you mentioned, was in February, but within days of the graphic video of the

shooting being released. As we mentioned last time, a district attorney from another part of the state is now handling the case along with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, not the local police force for reasons that will become quite apparent soon. Activists are continuing to call for the resignation of the first two district attorneys that were assigned to the case, neither of whom took action. And a lawyer representing the Arbery family also wants a federal civil rights investigation of how this case was handled. More on that in just a moment. But back to the video of the shooting. There was also reporting over the weekend about who released it. A local criminal defense lawyer who had consulted with the McMichaels says that he released the footage after he got it from the cell phone of the person who filmed it.

Now, he claims it wasn't meant to exonerate or convict them and that he won't be involved in the case further. William Bryan, the individual who reportedly shot the video, shared it with police and is cooperating with investigators. All right, so definitely more to learn there. And there's another video that's been reported on as well from a surveillance camera. Right, so GBI is also apparently looking into this separate video footage that appeared to show an unidentified individual going into a house under construction in the neighborhood.

The video shows a person entering the house shortly before the shooting, lingering for a few minutes, and then jog reporting in the Times about a number of troubling incidents involving the police department in Glynn County, which initially declined to arrest the McMichaels. Tons and tons and tons of problems. Among the issues in the police department's recent history, just to name a few, are allegations of covering up misconduct, crime scene tampering, interference in police shooting investigations, and more. In fact, in a New York Times piece reported over the weekend that days after the shooting of Arbery, the police chief was indicted on charges that pertained to an alleged cover-up of another officer's sexual relationship with an informant.

The story goes on to say that over the last decade, the Glynn County Police Department has faced at least 17 lawsuits. And in one of those, officers allegedly shot through the windshield of a car, killing an unarmed white woman, and then subsequently tried to interfere with the investigation to protect the other officers. Little bit of a pattern there. Georgia's Attorney General Chris Carr said on Friday that he was planning to do a broader review of the justice system in the area and requested a federal DOJ investigation into the handling of the case,

which was a major update just last night. Yeah. federal DOJ investigation into the handling of the case, which was a major update just last night. Yeah. Gregory McMichael, the older McMichael, was a Glynn County police officer from 1982 to 1989, and more recently worked in the local prosecutor's office. So lots of conflict of interest here. That's right. Yeah. And the whole situation is a mess, like we're describing, and a mishandling of justice. And it sounds like we'll likely learn a lot more about the Arbery case and the broader police department going forward. That's the latest for now, though. It's Monday, WOD Squad. There was some major celebrity chef beef over the weekend, and you know what?

It truly bummed me out, because your girl's been eating, and why you gotta ruin food? That's the only thing we have right now. Okay, so New York Times food writer Alison Roman decided to publicly bash Chrissy Teigen and Marie Kondo in an interview for building their brands into product lines. The Chrissy hive came for her, and Teigen tweeted that the comments, quote, hit her hard.

Roman has since apologized. And there's a lot more backstory here that has to do with cultural appropriation. But it did get me thinking about historical celebrity beef. So, Giddy, do you have a favorite celeb beef of all time? There was one of the fast movies. Vin Diesel and The Rock were not getting along. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and The Rock was leaving little breadcrumbs

in Instagram posts saying like, oh, there's like this candy ass guy on set. Like there's this chicken shit guy. And so people were like doing detective work through all of these, like, who could it be? He did this post at the end of the like, when the movie wrapped, where he like, literally thanks every single person working on the movie, besides Vin Diesel. And then later in interviews, they both revealed like that they literally couldn't shoot the movie together. I love that because I like the idea that Vin Diesel got so under the rock skin

that he went back to his like wrestling roots and was saying things like candy ass. Like you only hear candy ass in wrestling. Candy ass also sounds like a 90s term too. I don't hear that many people saying like you candy ass. Yeah, it's wild.

What celebrities do you love to see hate each other? Call each other candy ass. I think my favorite celebrity beef is it's honestly like Madonna versus everyone. But really, it's like for me, it's Cher versus Madonna and then also Lady Gaga versus Madonna. Cher just like very publicly dislikes Madonna. And like we'll say like I respect her. I think she's talented. What she's done is amazing. It's a shame that that's not enough to make her a good person. And I mean,

the interviews, I mean, it's literally decades of interviews of her just like shitting on Madonna. But the Lady Gaga of it all is that in her documentary, she addressed the fact that Madonna doesn't like Lady Gaga, finds her reductive and like stealing her work, whatever. And she says that she wishes that Madonna would just tell her through the media like a real Italian girl from New York. So we love to see it. We love it. Wow.

Yeah, that's pretty special. I like that, you know, maybe it's leading to good artistic things from all of these folks. The Rock, Lady Gaga, their careers are just getting better when they have that fire in them. Yeah, it also just makes me happy

to see that other people dislike people as good as Cher is in all of her life. She still has people that just get on her fucking nerves. And, guess what? Another perfect temperature check. I hope that all your favorite famouses stay friends, and that the ones who don't like each other can at least

keep it entertaining for all of us. But we're going to check back in tomorrow. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. The Justice Department decided to drop its criminal case against President Trump's former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn. As a reminder, Flynn pleaded guilty for lying to the FBI about his conversations with a Russian diplomat during Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. That was approximately 100,000 years ago. Late last week, the Justice Department decided to walk back that decision, stating that it, quote, would not serve the interests of justice. Many legal experts point out that it's not normal for the government to drop a case after the defendant already pleaded

guilty. It really feels like another attempt by Attorney General William Barr to tip the scales in favor of the president. Trump and VP Mike Pence have even said in recent weeks that they would love to bring Flynn back on board. It's amazing what happens when you wish upon a bar. That is getting rejected from the next Disney sing-along. A whistleblower complaint revealed that the government rejected an offer to produce over a million N95 masks per week earlier this year. Michael Bowen, the owner of Prestige America, the country's largest manufacturer of surgical masks and respirators, emailed the Department of Health and Human Services in January, just a day after the first reported case of COVID-19 in the U.S. That's according

to a whistleblower complaint filed by former Health and Human Services scientist Rick Bright last week. The complaint features email communications between Bowen and top officials who ultimately turned down Bowen's offer to give first dibs on medical supplies. Bowen even emailed Bright directly, writing, quote, Rick, I think we're in deep shit. I think Bowen was right. Just weeks after this, the country was hit with a severe mass shortage that the Trump administration is still struggling to fill. Yikes. All right. Tekashi69, Rapp's own Jojo Siwa, broke the record for Instagram Live viewers this weekend after two million people tuned in to his first post-carceral stream. 6ix9ine dodged much of what could have been a 37-year sentence for racketeering by helping prosecutors to convict members of his former gang. He served 13 months, then scored an early release because of coronavirus concerns.

Now he's back to his old ways of being very loud and confident while wearing a literal half a million dollar bejeweled shark from Finding Nemo necklace. Here he is on his stream. If a rat came home and did more numbers than me, I would be mad too. I would. I promise you I would be mad. You have every reason to be mad. All right, 6ix9ine has already had to relocate his quarantine house slash house arrest zone after neighbors spotted him on his balcony and posted his address. If he's looking for a new place to hunker down that matches his aesthetic, one good option is the inside of any gumball machine. He has very bright hair. A very advanced COVID-19 grift came to light in

Texas this week. Last month, Dallas salon owner Shelly Luther found herself at the center of a reopening controversy when she decided to open her business a few weeks ahead of Governor Greg Abbott's scheduled reopening, saying that she needed to feed her daughters. That led to her arrest last Tuesday for a contempt of court charge. She was sentenced to serve seven days but got released early by Abbott, who decided that jail time was too harsh a punishment for his own law in between all this a gofundme raised five hundred thousand dollars for luther calling her a quote american hero that has decided to resist tyranny to put that number in perspective five hundred thousand dollars buys a lot of daughter food also won

takashi pixar necklace the weird part of all this is luther GoFundMe launched the day before she announced she'd open her store. Apparently, she coordinated with the fund's organizers, Woke Patriots, to plan what now looks a lot like a PR stunt. Luther says she plans to donate her large haul to other beauticians. Yeah, she probably has to. All right. Well, and those are the headlines. Before we go, quick heads up. Tomorrow, we've got two special elections for congress one is in wisconsin's seventh district where democrat trisha zunker is running against republican tom tiffany

if zunker is elected she'd be the first native american to represent the state go off the other election is in southern california's 25th district democrat christie smith is up against trump backed republican mike garcia to fill the swing seat. If you live there, you can vote by mail, so get your ballots in. Also, congrats to California for enacting automatic vote by mail for the elections this November. As always, you can find out more about these races and how to get involved at votesaveamerica.com. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, show us your big shark necklace

and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just complex celebrity chef beefs like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked dot com slash subscribe. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And happy beefing to Cher and Lady Gaga. Go off.

Don't let Madonna oppress you. I do believe in love after beef. What a day is a product of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tun is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.