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House Passes Budget Resolution; Two Proud Boys Charged with Conspiracy; New Poll on Vaccinations; WHO Team in Wuhan; Scare for the Kansas City Chiefs. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired February 04, 2021 - 06:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[06:30:05]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Developing this morning, the House of Representatives passed a budget resolution that does allow Democrats to advance President Biden's $1.9 trillion relief bill without Republican support.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond live at the White House.

This is just one element. There was actually a ton of news overnight in terms of what the president is pushing for on the relief bill, getting support from Joe Manchin, offering in some ways, floating the notion of changing the plan a little bit. A lot going on here, Jeremy.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, a lot going on. But one thing is very clear, with both houses of Congress now having passed that budget resolution, it is very clear that this White House and Senate and the House Democrats intend to move forward with this $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. They may make some changes around the edges, make some trims to satisfy some Republican members who may perhaps consider voting for this, but they are moving forward with the broad strokes of what President Biden proposed.

And President Biden made that very clear on a call with House Democrats just yesterday, saying that he's not going to start his administration by breaking one of his key promises.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We can't walk away from additional $1,400 in direct checks we proposed because people need it. And, frankly, they've been promised it. Maybe we can -- I think we can better target the number. I'm OK with that. But we're going to start my -- we're -- I'm not going to start my administration by breaking a promise to the American people. I don't think the problem is that we're going to go too big to deal with this crisis. The problem is we're going to go to small.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: And that is a refrain that we have heard repeatedly from White House officials, that the danger here is going too small, not going too big. And that has been the pushback from the White House to Senate Republicans who have been asking for this $600 billion package. Just a third of the size of what Biden proposed.

Biden also said yesterday on that call with House Democrats that a package of that smaller size is simply not in the cards.

And so where does this leave us? Again, Biden willing to negotiate still with Republicans. But, again, it's just going to be some trims around the edges.

Today, though, Biden will still talk unity, addressing the National Prayer Breakfast in a pre-recorded video message, I'm told. And then later in the day we'll hear from the president on foreign policy, something that we haven't heard him address too much so far in his first couple of weeks in office.

But we're told that the president is expected to go to the State Department today and he will talk about restoring America's place in the world. We won't get any specifics on his foreign policy doctrine, but he will broadly address the theme of his presidency, which will be shoring up American alliances and restoring America's place as a leader in the world.

Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Jeremy, thank you for previewing all of that for us.

So, this morning, the Justice Department charging two prominent members of the far-right extremist group Proud Boys with new conspiracy charges related to the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

CNN's Josh Campbell is live in Washington with the details.

What do we need to know, Josh?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning to you, Alisyn.

The FBI's investigation into that January 6th attack on the Capitol continues to uncover apparent evidence of preplanning. The Justice Department announcing these charges against two prominent affiliates of this Proud Boys movement, two men named Nicholas Ochs and Nicholas DeCarlo.

Now, authorities alleged that they planned and fundraise for an effort to block Congress on January 6th. They're also charged with storming past police here in D.C. and entering the Capitol.

This conspiracy charge is just the latest indication of how serious the Justice Department is viewing that insurrectionist attack and how they are leveling federal charges in order to try to identify those who preplanned. Now, we're also learning that the government of Canada has announced

that it will designate the Proud Boys and several other extremist groups, that according to our colleague Paula Newton in Ottawa. Now, this designation means that authorities will be able to go after the funding sources of some of these groups, as well as make it a crime to engage in training.

Now, there's no terrorism -- domestic terrorism law here in the United States. However, we did learn that the Biden administration has ordered a review by law enforcement and intelligence agencies to study this domestic terrorism threat. Our colleague, Ana Cabrera, sat down with Alejandro Mayorkas, the newly confirmed secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, who provided his view on this threat.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: To see the insurrection, to see the horrific acts of January 6th, were not only personally devastating, but a commitment -- created in me a commitment to redouble our efforts to fight hate and to fight one of the greatest threats that we face currently on our homeland, which is the threat of domestic terrorism.

The threat of domestic terrorism proceeded that terrible day and it persists to this day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMPBELL: Now, we know that this threat is not just something that government has to grapple with. Indeed, American citizens need to know about this threat. I would urge our viewers to go to cnn.com, read about what Canada is doing, learn about these groups, read about some of the great work from our colleague Sara Sidner digging into the violent motivation behind some of these groups.

[06:35:10]

This is truly a threat that will endure.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Josh, thank you very much for all of that.

Now to coronavirus. Dr. Anthony Fauci warning that the U.S. is not vaccinating people fast enough to stay ahead of the new variants. So now what?

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BERMAN: Developing overnight, the death toll from coronavirus in the United States surpassed 450,000. Dr. Anthony Fauci now warning that the U.S. is not vaccinating people fast enough to stay ahead of the highly contagious variants. As of this morning, 8.3 percent of Americans have received the first dose of vaccine. Just shy of 2 percent are fully vaccinated.

Joining us now, CNN medical analyst, Dr. Jonathan Reiner. He's a professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University.

Doctor, thanks so much for being with us.

Look, Dr. Fauci says we're not doing it fast enough. And then there is this poll published by the -- actually it's Monmouth published it overnight about people's views of getting vaccinated.

[06:40:07]

I want to put this up on the screen.

Fifty percent of people say they'll get vaccinated as soon as allowed. But the number right below it, "likely never," 24 percent, and then 19 percent say they're waiting and seeing.

But the idea that 24 percent aren't even willing to get vaccinated ever, how much of a problem is that?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It's a giant problem when you think about, our goal is really to vaccinate between 70 to 80 percent of the public to achieve herd immunity. So if you take 25 percent off the top immediately, that means every other person in this country has to be vaccinated. We have a lot of PR work to do.

And I haven't seen a massive, public education campaign talking about the safety and necessity of vaccines. Where is it? Again, we haven't been, you know, surprised that these vaccines are here. We've been waiting for them. Why haven't we been talking about this?

We're only giving about 60 percent of the vaccine that is being delivered to the states. We need to give much more now. I totally agree with Dr. Fauci, that we're not vaccinating enough people, but we have the vaccine to do more.

I had a conversation with a vaccine scientist who works for the government last week who told me not to worry about the timing of the second dose. The key metric is how many patients -- how many people are we vaccinating with the first dose? How many new people are getting immunity? And, right now, that's not enough. We're averaging around 900,000 a day. We're giving about 1.4 million shots a day, but an increasing number of those every day are second shots. We need to be maximizing the number of first vaccinations.

CAMEROTA: Yes, but, Dr. Reiner, correct me if I'm wrong, it's not that we're pumping the brakes on giving out the vaccine, it's that we don't have the infrastructure and the manpower. I mean states are doing, I think, the best they can, but I don't know how they could -- I mean at least what we've been told, it's hard for them to accelerate it beyond what they're doing right now.

REINER: We need to harness the scale of the military and the National Guard. They have the ability -- and along with FEMA, of, you know, erecting temporary, large-scale vaccination centers, either using, you know, military mobile units or using existing facilities, like arenas and stadiums, drive-throughs through parking lots. They have the man and woman power to do this and the infrastructure to do this. We need to marshal those forces now. We need very large-scale events.

And although I welcome the arrival of vaccines in retail outlets, like CVS and Walgreens, you know, when I think of our -- you know, our local CVS, I'm thinking of, you know, not this massive throughput.

Now, again, they have, you know, 10,000 stores. But, still, we need large-scale events, drive-through events where thousands of people in cities, in each city, are vaccinated every day in these centers.

BERMAN: Dr. Reiner, quickly, the CDC director, Rochelle Walensky, overnight, suggested that teachers don't necessarily need to be vaccinated to have schools open.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: I also want to be clear that there is increasing data to suggest that schools can safely reopen. And that that safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated in order to reopen safely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: What's your view?

REINER: My mother was a first grade teacher in New York for 30 years. And I've been thinking about this a lot. And as much as I agree with Dr. Walensky in almost everything she says, I don't agree with her on this. The only way to get schools open now is to vaccinate every teacher in the United States.

Look, we've classified them as essential workers, but we don't treat them as essential workers. Why would you tell teachers that they need to go back into small, sometimes very poorly ventilated classrooms, sometimes with 20 to 30 kids, and just suggest to them that you'll probably be OK? You know, about a third of the teachers in the United States are over the age of 50. We should be bringing every teacher into school now, vaccinating them all over the course of a week, in their own school, and then, after their second dose, three to four weeks from now, every school in the United States can open. If opening schools (INAUDIBLE) how to do it.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I mean, Dr. Reiner, I mean, I -- yes, I hear you, and that's the -- that's, obviously, the ideal. We only have a few seconds left. But doesn't the data show that they're -- that schools are not super spreaders and that it is actually a low risk for teachers, even if they're not vaccinated?

REINER: You know, the data may show that, but teachers have to feel safe. The teachers unions, the -- you know, the AFT, you know, in particular is a very strong union, and teachers feel vulnerable. And it doesn't matter how much the data suggests that they can be made safe, they don't feel safe.

[06:45:01]

We have the ability to vaccinate them. So let's just vaccinate them.

BERMAN: Dr. Reiner, thank you for being with us this morning.

REINER: My pleasure.

BERMAN: So this lab in Wuhan, in China, has been at the center of some ideas about how coronavirus originated. CNN speaks with an investigator who was just allowed inside, next.

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CAMEROTA: This morning, a team of experts from the World Health Organization is in Wuhan, China, investigating the origin of coronavirus, including looking into a laboratory at the center of all of this.

CNN's David Culver spoke with one of the investigators about what they're finding.

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DAVID CULVER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): A caravan of vehicles pulling into the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Onboard, international experts representing the World Health Organization. Their mission, to find the origin of COVID-19.

DR. PETER DASZAK, WHO MISSION EXPERT: What we're trying to do right now at this stage is keep an open mind about every possibility.

CULVER: CNN connected with zoologist Peter Daszak.

[06:50:01]

He's part of the source tracing assignment here in China. Speaking to us from his hotel room in Wuhan, he had just visited the Virology Institute's highly secured and highly controversial lab. It is from here that former U.S. President Donald Trump and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, have alleged, without any evidence, the virus originated.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I think they made a horrible mistake and they didn't want to admit it.

CULVER: China has rejected the claim.

DASZAK: It was good to see the lab. And, you know, you confirmed your suspicions that it's an incredibly well-built, well-designed, well- managed lab.

CULVER: Members of the scientific community have said that Daszak has a conflictive interest due to his close ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its leading scientist Shi Zhengli (ph). DASZAK: If the bat did actually have SARS-like coronavirus.

SHI ZHENGLI, SCIENTIST, WUHAN INSTITUTE OF VIROLOGY: Yes (ph).

CULVER: This video, shot in 2014, shows the pair inside the institute examining coronavirus samples collected from bats. They've jointly published several scientific research papers.

DASZAK: She speaks very openly and quite directly and often goes counter to the sort of political trend.

CULVER: Shi Zhengli is known as "bat woman" in China. She's reached celebrity status. Since the SARS outbreak in 2003, she has focused her research on bats and the various coronaviruses they carry. But after COVID-19 was first detected in Wuhan, less than ten miles from where her lab is located, speculation surfaced that the virus leaked from her facility.

MIKE POMPEO, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE (May 2020): I've seen evidence that this likely came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

CULVER: The Trump administration provided no evidence to support those claims.

CULVER (on camera): Do you think it's possible this virus was engineered within that lab and leaked?

DASZAK: There's no evidence of that at all. But it is something that we talked about with people at the Wuhan lab. I got really honest and frank and good, informative answers to, because they, themselves, brought this up, the conspiracies around lab leaks, that they feel strongly and have no grounds (ph).

CULVER (voice over): Swarmed by media throughout their site visits, the WHO field team also inspected the hospitals where the early COVID- 19 patients were treated, along with the now-infamous Huanan Seafood Market.

CULVER (on camera): This place had a lot of attention over the past 12 months paid to it. There was a lot of concern that perhaps the virus was still festering in spots. So the Chinese authorities essentially wiped it clean.

CULVER (voice over): Daszak and other experts agree it is most likely that the virus originated from wildlife. Though without ruling it out, he stopped short of concluding it started in the market or even in Wuhan.

CNN obtained these images from December 2019. They show a variety of caged creatures inside the now shuttered seafood market.

DASZAK: We're still piecing together the evidence. So we're looking at the animal evidence, you know, what was sold in the market, where did it come from, what types of animals are they? The ones that could carry coronaviruses? CULVER: China's state media has also suggested, without evidence, the

virus might have been imported into the city on frozen foods, a claim leading health experts have dismissed as completely groundless. But it is an origin theory Daszak is not ruling out. The team's field study expected to continue into next week.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CULVER: One thing that we cannot overlook is the timing of this field visit, Alisyn. It's 12 months after the city of Wuhan went on lockdown. More than a year after that market was shut down. So you're talking about evidence that, as we saw firsthand, was wiped clean. And, of course, a very much delayed trip in looking into this firsthand.

I asked the scientists about that. He seems to think that they're still going to get good data, that they'll find the information that could ultimately lead to the origin.

The other thing I asked is about the access. How much are they really allowed to see freely? We've been on government trips here, Alisyn, where it's, look at this, don't look that way. He claims that they're actually getting a lot of transparency, that they have a lot of structure to the trip because they can't run rogue, but they feel as though the questions they ask are being answered candidly.

I should point out, that's one expert. There's more than a dozen others who are a part of this trip. So could be different opinions and experiences here.

CAMEROTA: David, that was so interesting. Obviously, we need to get an answer as to how it originated and it is good to know that they are looking into it, albeit belatedly. So, thank you very much for all of that reporting.

So could a haircut end up keeping some Kansas City Chiefs from playing in the Super Bowl? The "Bleacher Report" is next.

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[06:58:50]

BERMAN: A coronavirus scare for the Kansas City Chiefs as the team's barber reportedly finds out he tested positive for coronavirus, just days before the Super Bowl.

Andy Scholes with the latest in the "Bleacher Report."

This is something, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: I mean, John, can you imagine if a bunch of players ended up not being able to play in the Super Bowl on Sunday because of a haircut? Well, this nearly happened. According to multiple reports, a number of Chiefs' players were in line to get a haircut, including Patrick Mahomes, when they found out the barber had tested positive for COVID. Chief's backup center Daniel David Kilgore, he was in the chair when

they found out. Both he and the barber were wearing masks. Now, Kilgore poking fun at the whole thing, posting this picture on Twitter saying hash tag new profile pic.

According to ESPN, since Kilgore was already deemed in close contact, the barber did, in fact, finish his haircut.

Kilgore and receiver Demarcus Robinson are on the COVID reserve list right now. They could still play Sunday if they register five straight negative tests. But, John, could you imagine? I mean the timing of getting these results is just wild. Can you imagine if Mahomes was in the chair and he wasn't able to practice all week. I mean that would have been something.

BERMAN: Look, it's about football. It's also about life. It's everyday life for all of us now, just the precautions we all need to take.

SCHOLES: Yes.

[07:00:00]

BERMAN: It just shows how careful we all need to be.

Andy Scholes, thank you very much.

SCHOLES: All right.

BERMAN: NEW DAY continues right now.