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CDC Director Really Worried About States Lifting Restrictions; Calls for Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) to Resign Grow as Third Accuser Emerges; Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) Faces Disturbing Allegations About His Past. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired March 02, 2021 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN NEW DAY: And there are also new developments in the misconduct allegations facing New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. A third woman now telling The New York Times the governor tried to force an unwanted kiss on her at a wedding in 2019.

Two former aides have already leveled accusations of sexual harassment against him. And calls for his resignation are now coming from both sides of the aisle, including the first member of New York's Democratic congressional delegation.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: We're going to give you the state of the pandemic. Joining us now is Jeremy Faust, Emergency Physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital and an instructor at Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Dr. Faust, let me just start with you, because you're in Massachusetts. It's a matter interest. Governor Charlie Baker has lifted restaurant restrictions. Other states have done similar things. South Carolina is lifting alcohol sales and mass gatherings, restrictions being lifted on restaurants in North Carolina, and other states are lifting mask restrictions. What's your take on the timing?

DR. JEREMY FAUST, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN, BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL: Well, we've learned a lot about the spread of this virus in the past year and lifting some restrictions in this moment might not be such a great idea.

Indoor dining has been really tightly associated with a higher odds risk, a higher risk of subsequently getting infected with coronavirus and getting COVID-19.

There are some things we have learned we can do well, things like going to the hair salon has not really been associated. The data don't bear that out, and some degree of office work. Even public transportation, if it's done correctly, hasn't really been shown -- this was in the summer the data we're looking at, but there are really big data sets the CDC has to share with us.

But indoor dining is really one of the big ones, coffee shops. The reason for that kind of makes sense prolonged exposure to lots people who can't mask up. So, in a moment like this where we are making progress, there are some of these decisions that could bite us and we want to make sure that the mutants and the variants that have come so far don't get any worse.

CAMEROTA: I really appreciate that reminder, Dr. Faust, that not all activities are created equal. And it's been a long time since we've talked about the research of hair salons versus restaurants. But, obviously, it's time for a reminder because, Dr. Marrazzo, the numbers are plateauing at about 67,000 cases per day. That's obviously stunningly high, much higher than any doctor would ever want it to be.

But, in terms of Dr. Walensky's warning of we could erase all of the gains that we've made, just explain haven't we learned that these vaccines, our current vaccines, do provide some measure of protection against the severest cases of coronavirus, even the new variants, they do provide against death, or do we not know that yet?

DR. JEANNE MARRAZZO, DIRECTOR OF DIVISION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES, UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAN: Alisyn, I think we know a lot that supports those statements. The new J&J vaccine in particular is really exciting for a couple of reasons, as you talked about. One, it's easy to store. It will be easy to transport. It's a single shot.

And it was very impressive in the study that was reported this past weekend to the FDA showing that severe illness, hospitalizations and deaths were really well protected.

I think the concern is, as you mentioned, not only are we seeing an average of over 60,000 new cases a day, we are still seeing over 1,500 deaths a day and in no pre-pandemic world would that have been acceptable. In some ways, we've just become a little numb to the numbers.

So I think what Dr. Walensky is saying is let's just hold on a little longer until we're sure we can push those numbers down in a more sustained fashion and really get a good grip on immunizing people as many people as we can.

The other issue is that these variants are modifying very quickly. This is a scary virus. And we already know that. We underestimate it at our peril. We know that the Brazilian variant, P-1, can re-infect people who were infected previously. We don't want to mess around with this and before we really open things up, we really want to make sure we're in a good place.

BERMAN: Dr. Faust, the vaccination news is good. I know there's frustration that Johnson & Johnson isn't coming to market today with as many doses as they originally promised, but they're going to have 20 million by the end of March, they say, and 100 million not long after that.

The daily rate of administering vaccines keeps on going up and up. We're like at 1.8 million a day. And if that keeps rising, there are going to be a lot of people getting shots in the next six weeks.

How will that change the situation?

FAUST: I think that's going to really come as a huge relief to many people because there are some behaviors that we're going to be able to safely do in the coming weeks and months that we have not been able to do, we haven't felt safe doing. So, when the more people who are vaccinated, the more often you can say, well, have you been vaccinated?

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Yes. Have you been vaccinated? Yes. Okay, great. So we can maybe get together and be a little less careful than we were.

It's not perfect. We don't know 100 percent about transmission whether that people might be able to bring it home but we are actually starting to see data on that deep in the FDA filing for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. We see yet again great signal that not just disease but also even infection itself looks like there's a decrease there.

So, what I think this is going to mean for people is that you can do the things we've all missed doing. And that to me is so important to emphasize that there is not just a health upside but there's an upside with respect to getting back to normal life. And I think that's a big motivating factor to getting people to those vaccination sites.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Marrazzo, we learned last night that former President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania got vaccinated secretly in January before leaving the White House. And so when they had an opportunity, as so many presidents have and big public officials to lead the way and show other Americans how it's done and how easy it and be role models they said, no, we'll just do it for ourselves secretly.

I mean, it is jaw dropping, that after all of the flouting of mask- wearing and everything, he knew what was best for him and the first lady knew what was best for her to get vaccinated but they decided not to model that behavior for America.

MARRAZZO: Alisyn, you raised probably one of the biggest challenges as we try to ramp up vaccination, especially for people who are most likely to follow the lead of their role models. We desperately need people who look like the people who -- we most want to get vaccinated to get out there and publicly demonstrate that this is a safe vaccine. They feel comfortable getting it. They're prioritizing it. They believe it's safe and they want their loved ones to get it as well.

So I could not agree with you more. It's really important as role modeling for this entire pandemic has been from mask-wearing to social distancing and now to vaccination. So, excellent points.

BERMAN: Look, our Drew Griffin did a story about how on January 5th and 6th, there were anti-vax rallies near rallies just before the insurrection. There was overlap there. So there, I guess, was a political reason in the former president's mind not to promote vaccinations.

But vaccine hesitancy, Dr. Faust, is such a problem, right? And I just wonder what a missed opportunity this is and how many thousands of people would be more willing to get a vaccine if he would have publicly led on this over the last few months, even after leaving office, it's something he could do today more.

FAUST: Yes. Vaccine hesitancy has been something we spent a lot of time on. And actually if you dig into the subsets, it's true. Actually, people of former President Trump's party actually are a group that really does represent decreased interest in this vaccine. We've actually seen a lot of progress in some other areas, such as persons of color and other communities that in the past have not really been included or felt included in a lot of our most important public health efforts.

So we want to make progress and every single American regardless of party deserves to have this vaccine because it is an incredible achievement of science. I think that the rollout has gone much better under this administration but I'll give credit to the last one for really making sure that the process was done correctly. This was a vaccine that also relied on -- I know it came in less than a year, people say, but, really, it didn't. We had people working on these technologies for decades.

And if you look back to the early part of the century, little papers in obscure journals that laid the groundwork and thank goodness for public funding research that led to a moment like this.

So, we can't squander all that work. We have to really utilize it to its greatest effect.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Faust, Dr. Marrazzo, thank you very much for all of your expertise.

So, this morning, there are growing calls for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to resign after a third woman accuses him of inappropriate behavior. It follows allegations by two former aides who say they were sexually harassed by the governor.

CNN's Athena Jones is live in Albany with the latest. What's happening this morning, Athena?

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. Look, it's getting worse and worse for the governor with this third woman now coming forward to The New York Times accusing him of new allegations saying that he made an unwanted advance at her at a wedding reception a few years ago. And this is coming on the heels of those two former aides accusing him of sexual harassment.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONES (voice over): Embattled New York Governor Andrew Cuomo silent Monday as a third woman came forward accusing him of an unwanted advance.

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33-year-old Anna Ruch recalling to The New York Times a wedding reception in September, 2019, where Cuomo approached her, put his hands on her face and asked if he could kiss her loudly enough for a friend nearby to hear.

The moment seemingly captured in this picture from the event obtained by The Times. The Times says they corroborated Ruch's story through contemporaneous text messages and photos. Ruch, who worked in the Obama administration and for President Joe Biden's 2020 campaign, was bewildered, The Times reports, and pulled away as the governor drew closer, telling the paper she was so confused and shocked and embarrassed, she turned her head away and didn't have words in the moment.

Cuomo did not directly respond to Ruch's allegations. His spokesperson referred The Times to his previous statement on Sunday where he wrote, I acknowledge some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation. To the extent anyone felt that way, I'm truly sorry about that.

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D-NEW YORK CITY, NY): The governor issued a total non-apology earlier and, in effect, treated sexual harassment as some kind of laughing matter. It's not a laughing matter. It's not a joke. It's very, very serious stuff. And we need a full investigation. If it proves that these allegations are true, how can someone lead a state if they've done these kinds of things.

JONES: Ruch never worked for the governor, but her allegation comes after two of Cuomo's former aides in the last week have accused him of sexual harassment. Charlotte Bennett, who recounted her alleged incidents to The Times this weekend responding to the governor's statement writing, it took the governor 24 hours and significant backlash to allow for a truly independent investigation. These are not the actions of someone who simply feels misunderstood. They are the actions of an individual who wields his power to avoid justice.

On Monday, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced she received the referral for an independent investigation with subpoena power from the governor.

JESSE MCKINLEY, ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF, THE NEW YORK TIMES: That investigation could have some teeth, you know, with a subpoena power you can draw down documents. You can compel testimony. You can get recordings if there's any recordings. Charlotte did speak to a lawyer inside of the Cuomo administration.

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JONES: Now, Ruch has not responded to CNN's request for comment and CNN has not corroborated her allegations. And back to the calls for the governor's resignation, at least one is coming from a member of Congress, Congresswoman Kathleen Rice, who represents part of Long Island, last night tweeted out The New York Times report writing, the time has come, the governor must resign. Alisyn?

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

So where does this story go from here? We discuss that, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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CAMEROTA: Congresswoman Kathleen Rice, a Democrat from New York, came out last night saying the time has come for Governor Andrew Cuomo to resign in the wake of now three women accusing him of inappropriate behavior.

The New York Times obtained this photo. It's from a wedding reception in 2019. And the woman pictured, Anna Ruch, claims that the governor put his hands on her face and asked if he could kiss her moments after meeting her.

Joining us now is CNN Political Analyst David Gregory and CNN National Political Reporter Maeve Reston.

So, Maeve, this story is moving quickly in the past few days. First, one of the former governor -- one of governor's former aides came out and wrote an essay about how he had sexually harassed her. Then a second came out. Then now this woman, who never worked for the governor but just encountered him at a wedding, she was, I believe, in her late 20s at the time and he put his hands first on the small of her back, which --

BERMAN: Bare, yes.

CAMEROTA: Bare back, and her dress was low in the back. She removed his hand and then he's seen here put his hands on her face and moved in for a kiss, she says.

So, now, an investigation by the state attorney general is being launched, but these investigations take a long time. So are these -- the question is will something -- will some action happen before an investigation is complete? What do you think happens next?

MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, I think we're going to be looking certainly to see more from Governor Cuomo as we saw that apology that he put out over the weekend was very much in the space of if my actions were misinterpreted by these women, then I'm sorry for that. A lot of people felt that that was certainly not far enough.

And what we're seeing here is a pattern of someone who clearly in the latest allegation didn't understand personal space and also a cue from a woman who would have removed his hand to then go on and go further in this encounter is really troubling.

And he hasn't yet answered the question of whether he created a really toxic work environment, which is what these women said that the two who worked for him and alleged sexual harassment, saying that people were afraid to speak up, that sexual harassment in the office was condoned. And I think the waterfall effect that we're maybe starting to see here is in part because the first two accusers are asking other women to speak up if they have seen this behavior. And the onus is now going to be on some of these national Democratic leaders, like Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and others to speak up about where the lines are and what his response needs to be.

BERMAN: Let me just read what Charlotte Bennett, who was the 25-year- old former employee of the governor said after Anna Ruch came out and after Governor Cuomo issued that apology of sorts, maybe of sorts is the important thing there.

She said the governor has refused to acknowledge or take responsibility for his predatory behavior. These are not the actions of someone who simply feels misunderstood but the actions of an individual who wields his power to avoid justice.

David Gregory, what do you think is the tipping point for national Democrats around the country?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think it's additional women coming forward. I mean, as there are more allegations that come forward, and as Maeve said, I think, rightly, until and unless the governor has a fuller accounting of this and really reckons with this and can apologize and account for his behavior and decide if he wants to draw a line and say where he's going to fight this if it comes to questions about his resignation, then I think he's only going to be in more political trouble.

I mean, we have seen these situations before where public pressure mounts, political pressure mounts. There's an investigation that, as The New York Times reporter said in the piece, I think this piece has some bite to it because there's subpoena power, the governor himself could be questioned. All of that is for down the road.

What happens now is we're in this stage of national Democrats saying, well, these are serious allegations. There's credibility to them. And so now we really must investigate. What moves them to the next point? I think Governor Cuomo has some time not to escape scrutiny but he has time to address this differently because there's still space for this investigation to move forward unless there are additional women who come forward.

CAMEROTA: But I'm just curious, Maeve, how does a stronger apology help? If he were to say, hypothetically, come out and say, okay, yes, I did it. I made an unwanted advance. I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry. I learned my lesson. Then it's over? Does that absolve him or there would still be calls for resignation after that?

Because let's remember just one thing, this is post-Me Too, okay? All of these things that are coming forward, these allegations, are after the 2017 tidal wave. Okay? And so it was after that that I thought that wildly powerful people, primarily men, but people were on notice that, okay, these things don't fly anymore, when you have a lot of power, you have to curtail your behavior, you have to have some self- policing, even if you think that somebody in your office is attractive, there's new rules. And so would a more robust apology change something? RESTON: Well, I don't know that it would. I mean, the question here, as Governor Cuomo is up for re-election in 2022, is whether he can, you know, earn the trust of New Yorkers again, maybe acknowledge mistakes that he has made here and whether that will be sufficient.

But as you mentioned, I mean, not only did he watch the tidal wave that was Me Too, but he made these comments after getting actively involved in passing workplace safety measures that were supposed to prevent this kind of behavior.

And the idea that someone who is that age and of that stature would be asking these kinds of questions of a young woman in his office at the Capitol is sort of mind blowing after all that we've been through for Me Too.

So, I don't know that an apology would be sufficient but for him, it would be a start in terms of sort of starting to come to terms with what people are talking about here, Alisyn.

BERMAN: Maeve, David, thank you both very much.

Republican Congressman Madison Cawthorn facing allegations of inappropriate behavior over the last several years of his life. He is the youngest member of Congress and also under scrutiny for claims about his past.

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty has more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MADISON CAWTHORN (R-NC): If we don't start fighting for our country, then who will?

SERFATY (voice over): He is considered a rising star in the Republican Party, but Congressman Madison Cawthorn's past and the political persona he has cultivated is littered with inaccuracies and dark allegations.

CAWTHORN: I welcome increased scrutiny because I don't have anything to hide.

SERFATY: Cawthorn faced numerous allegations of sexual harassment while attending Patrick Henry College in Virginia just four years ago, accusations Cawthorn has denied.

CAITLIN COULTER, FORMER CLASSMATE OF MADISON CAWTHORN: His M.O. was to take vulnerable women out on these rides with him in the car and to make advances.

SERFATY: Caitlin Coulter went to school with Cawthorn and says she was taken on what he called a fun drive. According to Coulter, Cawthorn asked her about the purity ring and her sexual experiences. Coulter says she felt something was off and shut down the conversation.

COULTER: He got really upset and he whips the car around and started going back to campus at 70, 80 miles an hour, one lane roads.

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And it was really scary.

SERFATY: CNN spoke to two other women who wept to school with Cawthorn, both of them also mention his invitations of this so-called fun drives and that turning him down with result in more unwanted attention. There is a lot of sexual innuendo, Leah Petree told CNN, it got really uncomfortable walking to and from class. He would yell out, are you ready to take that fun drive today? That pestering continued. That attention was not what I wanted.

More than 150 people from the college signed on to a letter last year blasting what they said was Cawthorn's predatory behavior and urged voters in his district to reject his candidacy. In statement provided to BuzzFeed during the campaign, Cawthorn said, I have never done anything sexually inappropriate in my life.

Meantime, fresh questions about his own account of the car accident that left him wheelchair bound in 2014. In a 2017 speech, Cawthorn claimed that he was left for dead after he and a friend were in that 2014 car accident and his friend abandoned him at the scene.

CAWTHORN (voice over): He was my brother, my best friend. He leaves me in a car to die in a fiery tomb.

SERFATY: But CNN obtained the accident report which shows that Cawthorn was not declared dead, his injuries were listed as incapacitating. Bradley Ledford, Cawthorn's friend and the driver of the car telling The Washington Post that Cawthorn's accounting of the accident was not true.

Cawthorn's own parents undercutting their son's story too, saying the driver of the car rescued him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He wasn't scared, didn't run from the fire. He helped -- he pulled Madison out of the car because he was unconscious.

SERFATY: That accident went on to be the core part of the narrative Cawthorn weaved about himself as he ran for Congress.

CAWTHORN: I know something about adversity. At 18 years old, I was in a horrific car accident that's left me paralyzed from the waist down.

SERFATY: His campaign website claiming that he was nominated to the prestigious U.S. Naval Academy, but his plans were derailed by the car accident. But in this 2017 deposition related to the accident obtained by CNN, Cawthorn admitted that he was rejected by the academy before the accident.

The details of Cawthorn's background part of a Washington Post investigation into the freshman lawmaker who, at 25 years old, is the youngest member of Congress.

MICHAEL KRANISH, THE WASHINGTON POST: There are a lot of false statements, that there are baseless allegations made. There's no question he's trying to take that page from the Trump play book.

SERFATY: Those false statements include Cawthorn's baseless claims of election fraud, which he spread during his remarks at the January 6th rally on the National Mall, the same day rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, and has pushed in the aftermath of the insurrection.

CAWTHORN: Well, we do have concrete evidence that there were ballot drop boxes inside of Wisconsin. I don't have the white pages on me.

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SERFATY (on camera): A spokesperson for Congressman Cawthorn tells me that they believe all of these questions have been asked and answered over the course of the campaign, noting that he did go on to win by 12 percentage points but they did not make the congressman available for an interview.

Sunlen Serfaty, CNN on Capitol Hill.

BERMAN: All right. Thanks for that.

So, dozens of states driven by Republican lawmakers trying to restrict voting rights after the 2020 election, that's next.

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