Revolt, Players Union Wants Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) Out Of WNBA.
KEILAR: The WNBA Players Union is calling for Senator Kelly Loeffler to be removed as co-owner of the Atlanta Dream. They tweeted this, enough, out. That tweet a company by a picture of Senator Kelly Loeffler. And this comes after Loeffler voiced for objection to the league's plan to honor the Black Lives Matter movement. In a letter to the commissioner of the WNBA, Loeffler wrote in part, players, coaches and yes, team owners share differing opinions on many issues but to subscribe to a particular political agenda undermines the potential of the sport and sends a message of exclusion. Those comments after -- those are comments after the WNBA announced that it is planning to display Black Lives Matter prominently on basketball courts. Former Atlanta Dream player, Layshia Clarendon is joining us now, to talk about this. Layshia, thank you so much for being with us. Tell us, when you saw what Loeffler had written, saying that this is about exclusion, tell us how you reacted to this.</s>LAYSHIA CLARENDON, FIRST VICE PRESIDENT, WOMANT'S NATIONAL BASKETBALL PLAYER ASSOCIATION: Man, I was super hurt, honestly. I mean, her opinions have been public for the last couple of years now, how she's felt running for Senate seats and all of that. But to kind of see her double down in this moment where we literally have videos of black people being murdered, you know, and particularly when we were using Breonna Taylor on the back of our jerseys to honor her in this moment for this season, you know, it's really hurtful to hear that. Having played for her, having shared space with her and having had dinner at her house and her to do that as a woman, was like, wow, like really shocking and surprising.</s>KEILAR: Tell us about how you are honoring the movement and how you are honoring -- for instance, you talked about Breonna Taylor. Tell us what all you're doing.</s>CLARENDON: So, we came up with the Social Justice Council for this season to adjust social justice initiatives that we wanted to honor throughout the entire season and so that's some league members, some players members, people, activists and organizers. And so a big part of what we're doing most recently is making sure we put Breonna Taylor on the back of our jerseys to honor her life. She was an amazing EMT, woman who was murdered in her own home. They were going to have other things, like podcasts, you know, roundtable talks, breakout events and some initiatives. We want to make sure we educate people. We have calls to action. And so we could just use this platform as women for social change. And we really wanted it to be a uniting. So it was particularly hurtful and weird to hear Kelly say that, we're using this as a divisive issue because we know sports actually unites people.</s>KEILAR: What do you want the senator to do?</s>CLARENDON: That's a good question. I think we are surprised that she would want to be a part of this league given her feelings so we would love for her to, you know, not represent us anymore because what she stands for is not a part of our league.</s>KEILAR: And just real quick before I let you go, Layshia, you tweeted, happy to own us as long as we stay quiet and perform. Tell us about that.</s>CLARENDON: I think people have been asking the question of like, why would she own a WNBA team if she believes black lives don't matter when we're an 80 percent black league. But I'm alluding to the long history in this country of white people owning black bodies. And so it's not surprising that someone who particularly has views that doesn't believe black lives is matter would want to own black players, because we're so often comfortable with black people in this country as long as their entertaining us in sports, in music and culture, and so it's not surprising that she would want to own a team if she does truly have those views.</s>KEILAR: Layshia, thank you so much, Layshia Clarendon, for joining us. We really appreciate your perspective on this.</s>CLARENDON: Thank you.</s>KEILAR: Our special coverage continues now with Brooke Baldwin.</s>BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Brianna, we'll take it, thank you so much. Hi there, I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN. Thank you for being with me. We begin today with just this pair of grim milestones in the U.S. as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spiral. The nation now has 3 million confirmed cases. It's about a quarter of all cases worldwide.