[Wolf Blitzer, Cnn:] Thanks very much for watching. I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram @WOLFBLITZER. You can tweet the show @CNNSITROOM. Erin Burnett OUTFRONT starts right now.
[Erin Burnett, Cnn:] OUTFRONT next, Trump goes to Dallas for discussion on race and policing, excluding the county's top three law enforcement officials all of whom are black. The County Sheriff who was snubbed is OUTFRONT. Plus, a black teen arrested and another one handcuffed for jaywalking. Their attorney is OUTFRONT. And the former Head of the CDC says the United States is failing to stop the spread of coronavirus and warning of a resurgence. He's my guest. Let's go OUTFRONT. And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, not invited. The President in Dallas tonight hosting a roundtable on "justice disparities". The topic, of course, at the very heart of protests which erupted across this nation after the death of George Floyd, protests that are tonight on their 17th straight today. And in what should have been an important event, the President made a glaring admission, not inviting the top three law enforcement officials in the region. That is right, not inviting, not including the top three law enforcement officials; the Police Chief, the Sheriff and the District Attorney. We are going to be speaking to Dallas County Sheriff, Marian Brown, in just one moment about that. It does come as Trump described the National Guard breaking up protests as a knife through butter.
[Donald Trump, President Of The United States:] They went in and it was like a knife cutting butter right through, boom, there was some tear gas and probably some other things. And the crowd dispersed and they went through by the end of that evening and it was a short evening. Everything was fine. But if you're going to have to really do a job, if somebody is really bad, you're going to have to do it with real strength, real power. I said we have to dominate the street.
[Burnett:] Of course, when you do send in tear gas and the military against peaceful protests who are not armed, it is much like a knife through butter. Power domination knife through butter, those are the images given by the president today. We begin our coverage tonight in New York City on day 17 of nationwide protests where Shimon Prokupecz is OUTFRONT. And Shimon, I know there was a blocking of one of the major arteries into New York City by protesters moments ago. What are you seeing?
[Shimon Prokupecz, Cnn Crime & Justice Reporter:] Yes. Moments ago, Erin, we were at the Holland Tunnel, which takes commuters from lower Manhattan into New Jersey and several hundred protesters that you can see here all around, stood in front of the entrance to the Holland Tunnel, stopping traffic. Police shut down the tunnel and just stood by as many of the protesters chanted and were just allowed to express their frustration. Every night, this group comes out and they march. We went from the Washington Square Park south on the West Side Highway. They took the entire southbound lane of the West Side Highway and they marched down to the Holland Tunnel. We are now here at Foley Square, which they have filed into a place where many of the protesters have been gathering for the last two weeks. But what's so important in all of this, Erin, is just the energy. We've been out here every night and the energy just seems to grow and grow. It is hot, it rained today and still, all of these people have been coming out. They came out tonight. They came out last night. And the group behind me which has been organizing this, I spoke to him. One of the guys, he's only 21. His name is Carlos Polanco. He's from Brooklyn. And every night, he comes out here and he organizes this effort. And you can see hundreds of people night after night still coming out here, Erin.
[Burnett:] All right. Thank you very much, Shimon. Pretty incredible when you think about it, 21 years old to be able to do that. Let's go to Kaitlan Collins. She's OUTFRONT at the White House. And Kaitlan, the President confirming tonight that he is finalizing an executive order on policing standards after that roundtable, of course, in Dallas where the top three law enforcement officials were not invited. Did he offer any real details on his plan?
[Kaitlan Collins, Cnn White House Correspondent:] No. And so far the White House has been really hesitant to say what they'll support as you're seeing these Republicans on Capitol Hill rush to respond to these overwhelming demands for some kind of police reform. And so the President did confirm that he is working on an executive order. But Erin, he really only gave broad outlines about what that could potentially look like and the White House has been hesitant to say as well. He talked about meeting professional standards when it comes to de escalation tactics or uses of force, but that was really the most detail that the President got into during that roundtable in Dallas. You talked about what he said about confronting those protesters in places like Minneapolis. He also talked about confronting bigotry overall in the nation, something that you've seen demands for. But the President said he was also concerned about Americans wrongly being labeled as racist. That was something that he voiced as he was sitting there with those leaders. And you saw there were law enforcement officials from other towns nearby in Dallas. There were some small business owners, some faith leaders, but there were those three key prominent black officials in Dallas that were not invited by the White House to this event, something that the White House confirmed to us. And that's the Dallas Police Chief, of course, the District Attorney and the Sheriff, all not invited to this sit down that the President had in Dallas tonight.
[Burnett:] All right. Kaitlan, thank you very much. And as Kaitlan mentioned, those three top law enforcement officials, I want to go to the Dallas County Sheriff, Marian Brown. And Sheriff Brown, you're one of the three law enforcement officials, the top three in Dallas. You were not invited in the President's event today. Of course, you happen to be black, all three of you happen to be black. The Police Chief of nearby Glenn Heights, who is also black though was invited. So why do you think the President didn't invite you?
[Sheriff Marian Brown, Dallas County, Texas:] Well, I'm not sure and so I can't speculate as to why I was not invited. But what I will say is that when you initiate a conversation and you purport that conversation to be about racism and policing in America and you fail to include the top three law enforcement officials in an area where you are speaking, I think that that says a lot and that causes one to raise the brow.
[Burnett:] And to make the point, you're elected and you're a Democrat. But if the President had invited you, given that you are one of the top three law enforcement officials, would you have attended because of the nature of the conversation being about policing?
[Brown:] I might have considered that simply because it is about policing.
[Burnett:] So the President said at that event in Dallas that he's finalizing an executive order and he said it will "encouraged police departments nationwide to meet the most current professional standards for the use of force, including tactics for de-escalation". Do you have any idea as to what specifically he's talking about and do you think that there could be police reforms that come out of this president in this White House that could be good for Dallas?
[Brown:] No, I don't have any information related to what specific initiatives he's talking about. But again, I say that if you're not getting information from the people who know about policing, if you're not getting their input, and if you're not sharing the information with them, then those are the very people who are going to be affected and those are the very people who can implement initiatives. Those are the very people who need to be included in the conversation.
[Burnett:] All right. Well, I appreciate your time, Sheriff. Thank you so very much.
[Brown:] Thank you.
[Burnett:] And I want to go now to the Los Angeles Mayor, Democrat Eric Garcetti. And I appreciate your time, Mayor Garcetti. You just heard the conversation there with Sheriff of Dallas. The president is threatening your fellow mayor today, the Mayor of Seattle saying, "Take back your city now. If you don't do it, I will." You just heard him talking about breaking up protesters outside the White House as a knife through butter. But in Seattle protesters have taken over part of the city. So if what's happening in Seattle were happening in L.A., how would you respond to the President? Would you welcome his words and intervention?
[Mayor Eric Garcetti  Los Angeles:] No, it's political pyromania. This is not somebody who wants to lower the temperature or move progress forward. He wants to turn up the heat. The language that he uses is wrong. The healing energy is not there. And he has power to do things today. It is his justice department that has not moved forward a single consent decree for police departments, something Los Angeles went through that made us better and helped us reduce fatal police shootings here. Be more community oriented, get more reflective police officers. This is somebody who's more interested, I think, in scoring political points, in pointing out who he excludes and rather who he includes. And look, as long as he's our president, I always hold out hope at any moment that somebody can do the right thing and I would urge him to get out of his bunker, do the right thing and stop criticizing others when you have immense power to make change at this moment. You're either going to meet this moment or miss this moment. And so far he's been missing it.
[Burnett:] He got a lot of pushback for his call to dominate the streets and I just talked about he used the word dominate. He used the words knife through butter. Here is what he said tonight.
[Trump:] If you think about it, we're dominating the street with compassion, because we're saving lives and we're saving businesses. We're saving families from being wiped out after working hard for 20 and 30 years.
[Burnett:] So he talked about dominating with compassion. Do those two words is there any way that they go together in this context to dominate the streets with compassion, Mayor Garcetti?
[Garcetti:] I don't think any of us who exercise compassion try to dominate with compassion. It just shows the heart of what this administration has been about. It's about winning at all costs. It's been about dividing us. We Need to heal the soul of America right now. We need to step forward into a true multiracial democracy. And we need to look at compassion as something we understand when we listen to how African- Americans, not just with interactions with police departments, but grow up with less wealth, they're more likely to be sick, homeless, under educated, unemployed simply by where they are born and the color of their skin. If we are serious about moving this entire country forward for all of us and I'm very optimistic there's common ground for the first time in a long time. It's time to actually do that and the federal government, which has the biggest budget of all, instead of giving tax cuts to the most wealthy people in America should be putting that into education, putting that into health care, mental health, putting that into community safety in new and reimagined ways, that would be true leadership.
[Burnett:] So there have been calls across the country to defund the police, right? We just saw the signs in New York City. Black Lives Matter in Los Angeles is calling on you to cut the Los Angeles Police Department budget by 90 percent. And you say you don't support that, but you have talked about shifting money from the LAPD to black communities. Here's what President Trump said tonight, Mayor Garcetti, about defunding the police.
[Trump:] We'll take care of our police. We're not defunding police. If anything we're going to the other route. We're going to make sure that our police are well-trained, perfectly trained, they have the best equipment.
[Burnett:] So he's making it clear that training and equipment cost money, maybe more money, whereas you're going to be cutting their budget, what's your response?
[Garcetti:] It's just a false dichotomy that the President put forward. You can support public safety and reimagine it at the same time. You can make sure that the heroic moments where we need police officers to intervene to help people who have been the victims of violent crime or are caught in sex trafficking or a domestic violence situation are there. But should we be putting our police officers on the line to solve mental health problems, to deal with homelessness, to solve what need investments in education, health care and social workers rather than just always putting that on the backs of our police officers. So I think he's fundamentally missing this point and missing this moment that this is something that Americans are calling out for every color to say, yes, of course, we want safe communities. We're proud of progress that's been made in many departments. But still there's a fundamental different interaction that many Americans have with public safety and maybe there's a smarter way that's better for our police officers and for our public to look at the future.
[Burnett:] So before the protests began, though, just to be to be clear, Mayor Garcetti, you had proposed a 7 percent spending increase for the LAPD. So now with the protest...
[Garcetti:] Now, the rate of inflation took up our police budget, but we actually were going to be 100 officers down. We've grown by 50 percent. Programs like our youth intervention while the police department has been the same or gone down in terms of the number of people budgets have all grown. Other parts of our budget grew by even more than that, for instance, our homelessness budget by more than 2,000 percent. But this is a moment that we have to go even more. We have to accelerate even further. If people don't hear that on the streets, if they don't see that in America right now, they're missing this moment. So it's not an awakening, it's an acceleration and I think all leaders need to rise to the occasion certainly from the White House on down.
[Burnett:] Mr. Garcetti, thank you very much. I appreciate your time tonight.
[Garcetti:] As always, thank you, Erin.
[Burnett:] And next, officers handcuffing two black teens for jaywalking. One of them placed under arrest.
[Unidentified Male:] Why are you putting handcuffs on my [inaudible]... All he was doing was jaywalking. We just want to talking with him.
[Burnett:] The attorney for the teens is OUTFRONT. Plus, the former Head of the CDC with a sobering message for Americans tonight. The United States is failing in the fight against coronavirus, why and what could be the cost? He's OUTFRONT. And an update on the 75-year-old protester who was shoved to the ground by police. His lawyer says tonight he has a brain injury.