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New Day

QAnon Delusions in America; Unemployment Numbers Released; Millions Relying on Food Stamps and Food Banks; House Votes on Greene; Food Blogger Battles Depression with Nutrition. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired February 04, 2021 - 08:30   ET

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


[08:30:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: More than others.

ARIEH KOVLER, POLITICAL CONSULTANT: That's an interesting question. And particularly QAnon actually emphasizes independence, ironically enough, as a lot of accounts (ph) actually do. You know, there's a big message of do your own research, find out for yourself. And, essentially, by helping you do the, you know, do the right Google searches, you feel like you've discovered the conspiracy for yourself. And that makes you're that much more invested in it and you think it's that much more real.

I have seen, in particular, in the broader Trump forums, the kind of MAGA world, a slightly different tone where people in particular are thinking, tell us what to do, particularly Trump, tell us what we should be doing right now. But then there are a lot of people who maybe started off as hard-core Trump fans who were radicalized into QAnon perhaps fall between the two.

CAMEROTA: And the reason this is so important today is because Marjorie Taylor Greene, a congresswoman, is a QAnon adherent. She's never publicly said she isn't. She's publicly espoused their same ideals. And so the woman who came out of QAnon, that Donie O'Sullivan spoke to, talked about that and why that's so dangerous.

So let me just play a portion of this for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ASHLEY VANDERBILT, FORMER QANON BELIEVER: If they're not going to call her out on it, then everyone else believing it, there's got to be some sort of truth. And then if there's some truth, why would anybody leave?

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: So you're saying that if senior Republicans aren't calling this out, they're essentially endorsing it in some way?

VANDERBILT: Uh-huh. Yes. I think that anybody that has an affiliation with like a QAnon conspiracy, they have no business being in government because it's dangerous. Things have the potential to get very dangerous with them because they are thinking that they are going to have to fight for this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So, Arieh, what's the answer to getting people out of this?

KOVLER: I think it's very complicated. I think that part of the problem is QAnon's much more bipartisan than you think, by which I mean, you know, they think the Republicans are in the conspiracy, too. And any Republican who does speak out against them is just going to be tagged as, oh, he's a member of the conspiracy. You saw how quickly they turned, for example, on Mike Pence and on Mitch McConnell. So I think it is very difficult.

The one person who maybe is immune from that effect is former President Donald Trump. Him they maybe they believe, although, at this point, people are so deep, if Donald Trump came out tomorrow and said, it's all fake, people would just think it isn't really him, it's a clone or a deep fake. I think the best path out for many people will be with the help and support of their families, the people around them, trying to dig them out rather than encouraging them to dig in further.

CAMEROTA: Yes, we have heard that, actually, from someone who deprograms people after cults that it requires just loving support and constantly reinforcing, you know, what is reality.

Arieh Kovler, always great to talk to you. Thank you very much for sharing your research with us.

KOVLER: Thank you for having me.

CAMEROTA: We have a new snapshot of the unemployment crisis in America. Breaking details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:37:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And we do have breaking news.

A new look at the unemployment crisis in the United States.

Chief business correspondent Christine Romans now with that.

New jobless numbers, Romans.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, 779,000 people filed for the first time for unemployment benefits in the latest week. And they're under the pandemic programs another 348,000 filed. So that's 1.1 million people who lost work in the most recent week filing for unemployment benefits. It just shows you the layoffs are continuing as the virus rages in this country.

John, this is 46 weeks in a row I have sat here at 8:30 Eastern Time on a Thursday morning and reported to you the depths of the crisis in the jobs market.

Overall, people with at least two weeks of unemployment benefits, 4.5 million. Taken altogether, all the people who are getting unemployment benefits, 17.8 million. The Treasury secretary this morning saying that essentially we need to get back to jobs. And if people don't have jobs to pay their bills, we have to find support for those people to pay their bills. This is the backbone of the economy.

Earlier this week, John, we learned that the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO, thinks the U.S. economy will get back to pre-pandemic size by the summer. You won't get back to those jobs, Alisyn, back to pre-pandemic jobs until sometime in 2024.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. I hadn't heard that year yet.

ROMANS: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Christine, thank you very much for all the reporting.

ROMANS: You're welcome.

CAMEROTA: So millions of Americans are receiving food stamp benefits for the first time amid this pandemic and the economic fallout. Struggling families turning to food banks to feed their children.

CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich has been covering this for us. She joins us now.

Vanessa.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, that's right. And that's why the Department of Agriculture is reviewing the program that they run this food stamps or SNAP program that they run to see whether or not they are providing enough money for families. We know from our reporting over the last ten months and from the people you'll hear from this morning, it is not enough. Many families are having to cobble together several forms of getting food in order to just put it on their tables.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VERONICA BEDICO, SNAP RECIPIENT: It was, you know, life or death. We were either going to starve or we were lucky enough to qualify for SNAP benefits.

YURKEVICH: It's that black and white for Veronica Bedico. Unemployed with three children at home, the government's food stamps program is her lifeline.

BEDICO: Let's see if we can get you to get all the way around.

YURKEVICH: Many families are facing hunger for the first time. The number of Americans on food stamps, or SNAP, has grown by more than 20 percent during the pandemic and spending skyrocketed to $90 billion. BEDICO: SNAP benefits came in, you know, perfectly to help me

subsidize the meals that we're going to increase because everybody was at home for every meal and every snack.

YURKEVICH: SNAP, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, is just that, designed to boost food budgets for families who live below the poverty life. Historic unemployment forced the government to increase benefits by 15 percent in December.

[08:40:04]

STACY DEAN, DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY FOR FOOD, NUTRITION AND CONSUMER SERVICES, USDA: It is supposed to be enough, but many experts, and more fundamentally the families who use it, are worried that it just isn't enough. So we're actually taking a look at that now to see if adjustments are needed to make it so that families can afford a basic diet with our benefits.

YURKEVICH: That's why these Americans find themselves here in this single food line at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. Those on SNAP say they need more food.

KATHALEEN WALLA, SNAP RECIPIENT: I'm homeless, so I'm staying with my sister. So, you know, it's hard to be able to go to the market and she'll go to the market with me and stuff but it's definitely not enough.

MANUEL ZARAGOZA, SNAP RECIPIENT: Not enough, but, you know, I lost my job.

KANYA EDWARDS, SNAP RECIPIENT: I get like $200. And, you know, I can make it stretch, but, you know, once it's gone, it's gone.

YURKEVICH: The L.A. Regional Food Bank serves 900,000 residents a month, one-tenth of the L.A. population. In Georgia, one in seven adults and one in five children are now food insecure. In New York, Public Health Solutions says SNAP sign-ups are up fivefold.

LISA DAVID, PRESIDENT AND CEO, PUBLIC HEALTH SOLUTIONS: This is a bit of a stop gap. It's better than nothing. It's great. But it's not helping people feel confident that they can put food on the table for their families every day.

YURKEVICH: Bedico doesn't know when she'll be back at work. A sign the recovery has a ways to go.

President Biden's proposed relief plan hopes to extend the SNAP benefits increase through September.

BEDICO: I would like for the administration to remember that we're real people and that we're not, you know, welfare queens that are just taking advantage of the system. I am a real person who had a real job. And now I need help so that I can provide for my children during this hard time.

(END VIDEOTAPE) YURKEVICH: And another program that the USDA is looking at closely is the WIC program. That is supplemental nutrition for women, infants and children. We know during this entire pandemic women, particularly women of color, single moms, have been very hard hit. And both President Biden and the Republicans have proposed in their stimulus bills adding another $3 billion to that WIC program, Alisyn, in order to meet this growing need.

CAMEROTA: Let's hope they can get that resolved quickly.

Vanessa, thank you very much for all of those stories.

YURKEVICH: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: How Republicans vote on Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene today will tell us a lot about where the party is headed. We get "The Bottom Line," next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:46:46]

BERMAN: Time of reckoning for the post-Trump Republican Party and a big moment for the whole U.S. House, which will vote today, the whole House, whether to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee posts.

Want to get "The Bottom Line" now with CNN senior political commentator David Axelrod.

Can I start with today, David, before we go back, about what we saw last night?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Absolutely. Yes.

BERMAN: What do you think today will tell us when the whole House will vote on whether or not to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon supporter, of her committee posts?

AXELROD: Well, let me just refer to your intro there. You know, the question is whether this is a post-Trump Republican Party. You know, Kevin McCarthy is a finely calibrated weather vane when it comes to politics. And what we learned is that the prevailing winds still come from Mar-a-Lago. He was, you know, resistant to do anything about her. He has been very tepid in dealing with her, you know, outrages. And I think what you're going to see today are a bunch of Republicans doing what Republicans have done lately, which is seek safe harbor in precedent, seek safe harbor in procedure and say, well, you know, we think what she said was vile, but we don't think this is the proper way to go. This will set a bad precedent.

They'll say she said these things before she was a member of Congress so, therefore, she shouldn't be held accountable for them, including calling for the assassination of the speaker of the House.

But, next week, Republicans in the Senate are going to argue, well, Trump said those things in office, so he shouldn't be held accountable for those. I mean they are -- they are -- you know, so they are looking for a life raft on procedure and I think some large number of them will vote no on this. But others are going to, you know, or peel away. I think you've got a divided Republican Party here.

But, clearly, Trump still holds sway with large members of this -- a large number of members of that party.

CAMEROTA: No better example of the divided party than last night. And so what are we supposed to take away from this high stakes, behind closed doors meeting during which both Liz Cheney and Marjorie Taylor Greene survived?

AXELROD: Well, I think that was McCarthy's sort of Solomonic -- or what he felt was a Solomonic solution. He wants to run as the party of Liz Cheney in those suburban swing districts and the party of Donald Trump in the red districts and keep those districts from flaking away from him. And he wants to maintain his leadership position. So he was on a high wire last night and he thinks this is the way he balanced it.

But the fact of the matter is, you still have Marjorie Taylor Greene sitting there. You know, she probably will be punished by what the Democrats do. But a lot of Republicans will now be forced to be on record supporting her and her outrageous conspiracy theories.

She apparently apologized to some degree within the caucus and got a standing ovation while Liz Cheney got hours of blistering tirades. But she hasn't done that publicly. She continues to be defiant. She goes on right wing podcast and media and doubles down.

[08:50:02]

So it's really hard to see, you know, from the outside, why she is any different than she has been for most of her public life.

I want to talk about one person and one place that hasn't been part of this discussion over the last 24 hours or few days that everyone's been so focused on Marjorie Taylor Greene, and that's President Joe Biden and the White House, which has very aggressively said we're not going to talk about that. And it seems interesting to me because this is something we saw from the Biden campaign, even starting a year ago, right, at the Iowa caucuses. Joe Biden has always seemed -- this version of Joe Biden to be playing the long game politically and saying, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to concentrate on these things. This is who I'm going to be. And now that he's president, David, I just wonder if between impeachment and Marjorie Taylor Greene and all these fights going on, if America is going to wake up, you know, the first week of March with a very big relief package that gets passed and be like, wow, you know, Joe Biden did this while everyone else was focused on something else.

AXELROD: Yes. Yes. Well, I think he rightly understands two things. One is that the country is very weary of divisiveness being from the White House and he wants to be a unifying figure.

But the bigger thing is, he's going to be judged on the basis of how quickly he gets us out of this horrendous crisis we're in with the virus and how quickly he revives this economy. And if he delivers something big, that's going to be a huge, huge plus.

Most Americans are not talk about Marjorie Taylor Greene. Most Americans are talking about how and when we're going to get out of this virus and when they can get out of their homes, when they can get their jobs back, whether they can revive their businesses. That is the -- that is the kitchen table talk of most Americans. Biden understands that and he's keeping his eye focused on that. And he's right to do so. And he'll be rewarded politically if he does. But it's also the right thing to do.

CAMEROTA: I thought it was interesting in that phone call that he had with Democrats where he said, I'm not going to start my administration by breaking a promise to the American people. So he's going to deliver those $1,400 -- I mean he thinks he's going to deliver -- he plans to deliver those $1,400 relief checks to Americans.

AXELROD: Yes. Yes, and he'll do it -- and he'll do it with masterful legislative, you know, command. And part of that will be that he -- this package will be different than the one that he introduced. There will be some concessions made. Not so much to get Republican votes, although I'm sure he'd like to have them, but to keep his caucus together.

You know, Joe Manchin has raised some issues that need to be addressed.

So Biden, you know, spent 36 years in that body. He knows a few things. And I think he -- you know, meeting with the Republicans was the right thing to do. He will -- there will be some concessions, but not major concessions. And this package will pass through reconciliation is my guess and it will largely be intact. And that will be a big win for him in the first months of his administration.

CAMEROTA: David Axelrod, thank you very much. Great to see you.

AXELROD: Good to see you guys.

CAMEROTA: More Americans, meanwhile, are cooking indoors, I mean in their own houses, not going out during the pandemic. In this week's "Human Factor," Dr. Sanjay Gupta introduces us to a food blogger who learned the connection between food and mental health 11 years after nearly taking his own life.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEVIN CURRY, FOOD AND WELLNESS BLOGGER: I think my earliest memory of feeling depressed and anxious was when I was in the fifth grade. In our household, we kept family things to ourselves. I didn't feel like I had like an outlet.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In his late 20s, Kevin Curry hit rock bottom. He lost his job and he lost his girlfriend. CURRY: I decided that it was time to end my life. I had researched how

to cut my wrist and I had drawn Sharpie marks on my -- on my arms.

GUPTA: He believes a random call from a former counselor saved his life.

CURRY: I started to tell her what I was feeling. I had never unpacked that before with anybody.

GUPTA: Ultimately, medicine and exercise made Kevin feel better. But it wasn't enough. He needed to change his diet to improve his state of mind for the long term.

CURRY: You can never out train a poor diet. If I was going to make significant change, it had to start in the kitchen. So I started to cook.

GUPTA: Kevin posted his dishes online.

CURRY: I started my blog in August 2012. I just began to grow. That's what created Fit Men Cook, the global community of people dedicated to living healthier and happier lives.

GUPTA: Today, Kevin uses social media to promote better mental health through food. He's also published his own cookbook, but he says his biggest accomplishment is simply being alive.

CURRY: I'm so happy that at the end of the day, with all that's gone on, that I'm still here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[08:55:07]

CAMEROTA: What a wonderful story. And that food looked fantastic.

BERMAN: I know. I'm so hungry.

CAMEROTA: I want to be a Fit Man. I'm going to go on to that website.

Meanwhile, we are moments away from hearing from President Biden. He's going to address the National Prayer Breakfast this morning.

So CNN's coverage continues, next.

BERMAN: The headline, you want to be a Fit Man.

CAMEROTA: I do.

BERMAN: There's a lot in there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:00]