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Cuomo Accuser Speaks Out; States Ease Restrictions; Pope Francis Visits Iraq. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired March 05, 2021 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

CHARLOTTE BENNETT, FORMER AIDE TO GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO: When, in fact, I was just terrified.

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): CNN reached out to Cuomo's office for comment on Bennett's allegations in this interview. His office referred to his apology on Wednesday.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): I now understand that I acted in a way that made people feel uncomfortable. It was unintentional and I truly and deeply apologize for it.

BENNETT: It's not an apology. It's not an issue of my feelings. It's an issue of his actions. The fact is that he was sexually harassing me and he has not apologized for sexually harassing me. And he can't even use my name.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JONES: Charlotte Bennett's interview was emotional. It was compelling. It's one thing to read these allegations. It's another thing to see and hear them. The question now is whether this raises the stakes for the governor and whether his other two accusers will come forward to give similar interviews.

Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Athena, thank you very much for all of that reporting. Obviously, we'll continue to cover it through the program.

Several states lifting mask mandates and rolling back restrictions as coronavirus variants grow. So experts warn another surge could be coming. We have a live report, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:35:22]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Overnight, more than 65,000 new coronavirus cases reported in the United States. Dr. Anthony Fauci says the U.S. should be below 10,000 cases per day. So that's a long way to go before states loosen mask mandates and other restrictions. Texas and Mississippi lifted their mandates this week, joining a dozen

other states.

CNN's Ryan Young live in Jackson, Mississippi, with the latest there.

Ryan.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, when you look at those numbers, you can see, we do have a long way to go. I can tell you just from -- by being in town for a few days, this is still a debate. We watch people either wear them or sometimes go into restaurants without them.

Something that's not up for debate, though, there are vaccination sites throughout this area. And, of course, they've been going through a lot of trouble here in Mississippi, just dealing with the path of the storm and the fact that they've had issues with water. So you add on the fact you're dealing with the coronavirus, they've been busy for the last few weeks.

Now, let's talk about the fact that Texas and both Mississippi have faced some backlash because of this. Health experts warning, it may be too soon to lift some of these restrictions.

Now, Alabama is extending their mask mandate, but setting an end date of April 9th.

And it's not just Republican governors. In fact, the Connecticut governor is lifting -- or loosening their mask mandate. All this going on while Dr. Fauci says we should be paying more attention to the coronavirus at this point.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Well, I wouldn't want to see a light switch go on and off with regard to restrictions, Jake. I would like to see, as we get the level of virus in the community to a very low level, well, well below the 60,000 to 70,000 new infections, somewhere, you know, I'll just pick a number, even though, you know, there's not a good model there yet, but I would say less than 10,000 and maybe even considerably less than that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: John, we're about an hour behind you. At this site here, we're told we're going to open at 9:00. But when we scouted this location yesterday, we didn't see a lot of cars in this area, people lining up to get the shot. And, of course, like I was saying before, depending on what restaurant or what area of town were you in, you saw a lot of people wearing masks. Still some of them wearing it wrong, below the nose, but that's a part of the conversation here.

Talking to some people who work in the health care industry, they say Saturday they plan to have another mass vaccination site here in Jackson, Mississippi. They're hoping to get more people to start lining up for the shots because, obviously, they see the numbers are going down once people get that all-important shot in the arm.

John.

BERMAN: Ryan Young in Jackson, Mississippi, for us.

Ryan, thanks so much.

We're going to have Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont on in a little bit to talk about how Connecticut is easing some of its restrictions. The mask mandate, I believe, is staying in place, but they are changing some of the rules for businesses and restaurants. He'll be on in a little bit.

Joining us now, William Haseltine, he's the president of ACCESS Health International, a former professor at Harvard Medical School.

Professor Haseltine, you say we're at an inflection point right now in the pandemic and we could go either way.

What will determine the path?

WILLIAM HASELTINE, PRESIDENT, ACCESS HEALTH INTERNATIONAL: What determines the path is the rate of the vaccine. How many people get the vaccine and how widely it spreads.

And the second is people's personal behavior. We know how this virus spreads. It's (INAUDIBLE) more. We know that people not wearing masks, people going to restaurants, going into bars, in big groups.

You know, everybody can sympathize with the idea we have to recover. (INAUDIBLE)) in a hospital. If you've had major surgery, many people are very eager to get out. And, of course, they want to resume their normal life. But we also know what happens if you get out too soon. You go right back (ph) into the hospital. That's what we're worried about for society at large.

We've seen big waves and we're just in the middle of the third or coming out of the third wave. We're going to do what we did before (INAUDIBLE) fourth wave. You know, it's no longer decreasing rapidly in the United States. It's more or less a plateau at a very high level. It's plateauing at the highest level (INAUDIBLE) had back in July. Sixty thousand people infected yesterday. A thousand people almost died yesterday. If you project that forward, and we just stayed in that plateau, it would be 600,000 people dying. This is not a time to be impatient (INAUDIBLE).

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, finally. And to get there, we've got to hold on until most people are vaccinated.

[06:40:00]

CAMEROTA: Professor, we're going to work on your audio. There's a little bit of an echo.

But in the meantime --

BERMAN: We've got the Peter Frampton (ph) setting on for Professor Haseltine right now.

CAMEROTA: Which is not bad.

But I'm going to ask you about, you know, it was jarring for our medical experts to hear that Texas was going to next weekend end the mask mandate, given everything that you've just spelled out. But there are also a dozen other states, a little more, that have already done that or are in the process of doing that.

And then there's West Virginia. And the governor there, Republican Governor Jim Justice, who says that this is wrongheaded.

Listen to him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JIM JUSTICE (R-WV): We're going to do the smart thing in West Virginia. We're not going to do the thing that's just politically correct.

I don't know really what the big rush to get rid of the mask is, because these masks have saved a lot, a lot of lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: I mean, what do you think, Professor?

HASELTINE: Well, you know, West Virginia has done a great job. They've done it by following the data. They follow the data probably better than any state in the U.S. And they have had very good results. Very good results with the vaccination programs. They've had very good results with control.

You know, we don't want to have another wave. And if we have (INAUDIBLE), if these people are relaxing too soon, and they're relaxing in the face of what clearly are more dangerous variants. They're more transmissible. That's why people are asking to get rid of a mask and add a new mask. They and (INAUDIBLE) the immune (INAUDIBLE) people again who have already been infected and possibly people who have been vaccinated. And, finally, they can get to (INAUDIBLE), which in a previous virus they couldn't do very well. So this is not a time to relax. It is a time to look forward to a time we can relax.

CAMEROTA: Yes. The Peter Frampton voice box works really well with "Show Me the Way," but not as well with medical advice and expertise.

Professor, thank you very much. Sorry for the audio issues.

But one more thing, John, that we should talk about, which is that the Detroit mayor turned away their allotment for the J&J vaccine yesterday because he thinks that the Moderna and the Pfizer are better and that Detroit deserves better.

I hope he's sending it to my house.

BERMAN: Yes, I mean -- CAMEROTA: I mean is this a time -- can beggars be choosers at this moment with vaccine allotment?

BERMAN: He says, so Johnson & Johnson is a very good vaccine. Moderna and Pfizer are the best. And I'm doing everything I can to make sure the residents of the city of Detroit get the best. That's mayor Mike Duggan.

You know, what every medical expert in the country tells you is that's the wrong thinking, that you take the vaccine that's available when it's available and that the difference in efficacy that shows up in the data may very well be because of the time that each vaccine was tested.

CAMEROTA: Great point. And, I mean, who knows, maybe there will be a booster shot at some point. But now, just get what you can get, it feels like.

BERMAN: All right. History being made. Fascinating history. Pope Francis, moments ago, arrived in Iraq for an historic papal visit. We have a live report, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:47:10]

CAMEROTA: Just moments ago, Pope Francis arriving in Iraq for a landmark visit. It is the first-ever papal trip to Iraq, and one the Vatican has been planning for decades.

CNN's Ben Wedeman is live in Baghdad.

Tell us about this, Ben.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this trip is hugely important in historical terms. Now, just a while ago, the pope arrived on an Alitalia Flight 4000 at Baghdad International Airport, where he was met by Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, the Iraqi prime minister. And, of course, there's lots of music and there were people out there chanting "viva viva." And now we understand that the pope's motorcade is on the way to the presidential palace.

Now, in terms of the importance of it, just imagine that back in 2014, I was here in Baghdad when ISIS was on the outskirts of this city. And now, just seven years later, the pope is here. It's safe enough for him to make a trip. Iraqis are immensely proud that despite the attacks we often report about in Iraq, that the situation has stabilized to the point that somebody of the stature of Pope Francis can come here and can go on a pre-announced, well in advance, unlike, for instance, when American presidents come here, when it's sort of a surprise visit, we all knew about this thing in advance, we all knew his schedule. He's going to be around Iraq, visiting important Christian sites, as well as meeting with Muslim leaders.

Now, this afternoon, he's going to be going to the Church of Our Lady of Salvation, where on the 31st of October, 2010, terrorists from the Islamic state in Iraq, a precursor to ISIS, burst in during mass at 5:20 in the evening and murdered 58 people, worshippers, priests, and security guards. So this is the beginning of a mission where he wants to convey the support of the pope, of the Catholic Church, of the world perhaps, for a people in this country who have suffered for decades and decades.

CAMEROTA: And, Ben, tell us about the security. I mean not only the -- against violence, but about COVID. What does it look like?

WEDEMAN: In terms of security, what we see, Iraq is currently under -- at least Baghdad is under a 24-hour, three-day curfew. This city where there's usually horrendous traffic jams, the streets are essentially empty. Only those who are attending these activities of the pope will be allowed out.

In terms of coronavirus, yes, that's a problem.

[06:50:00]

What we've seen in the last month is that the number of daily cases reported is about triple from what it was a month ago.

Now, all the events have been organized to avoid any sort of crowding. But, at the same time, what we've seen upon the arrival of the pope is that a lot of people greeting him either did not have masks, in fact the pope was without a mask for a little while, or they're wearing them below their noses. And, you know, having traveled around Iraq for the last week or so, what I've seen is that social distancing, masks, oftentimes seem optional. But the pope and his entourage have all been vaccinated. The problem, of course, is all the people who are out to meet and greet him.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Yes, we understand. You don't have to be in Iraq to see some scenes like that.

Thank you, Ben, very much. We appreciate all the reporting.

So the Senate is about to begin debate on the coronavirus relief bill after all-night delay tactics led by Republicans. So the latest on what we can expect in the hours ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:55:22]

BERMAN: So there is a nationwide reckoning with confederate statues and monuments and whether they should come down. But what about statues of Abraham Lincoln?

John Avlon with a "Reality Check."

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYSIS: It took our country 150 years to start taking down confederate statues. Some 150 of them since 2015. And it's part of our belated reckoning with racial justice. Looking at our history with more perspective and realizing that maybe statues to people who took up arms against the United States to defend slavery don't need to be honored in 21st century public spaces. They should be in museums.

Context matters a lot, as well, like learning that many of those statues were built long after the Civil War, some in reaction to desegregation. These civic debates are much bigger than the latest cancel culture panic on the right. But those claims game a foothold in people's minds when calls to take down statues start blurring the distinction between confederates and Abraham Lincoln.

D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton recently reintroduced her bills to remove several statues in the nation's Capitol, including the statue of Abraham Lincoln, known as the Emancipation Memorial.

Take a look and you can see why some folks don't like it and why Boston had a similar replica removed last year.

Now, good people can disagree, but context matters, history matters. Yes, intent matters, especially here, because this particular statue was built entirely with donations from freed men and women, formerly enslaved, soon after the Civil War. And the offending iconography of a man who's broken his chains, rising up from his knees with one fist clenched was based on the masthead of the abolitionist newspaper "The Liberator."

The statue was dedicated on the 11th anniversary of Lincoln's death. President Grant was there, but Frederick Douglas gave the keynote. Reconstruction was already in treat and Douglas had previously called Lincoln emphatically the black man's president, now challenged the country and Lincoln's legacy by calling him preeminently the white man's president. But he also said this anticipating and answering some of Lincoln's critics to this day, viewed from the genuine abolition grand, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, indifferent, but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.

Yes, societal standards change, but Lincoln changed. So did Frederick Douglas. And that sense of perspective should make us reluctant to start disregarding the fundamental differences between statues of Lincoln and confederate generals.

Now, if this was just a one-off, it wouldn't be worth focusing on. But Lincoln's statues, along with those of Douglas and Grant, have been toppled over the past year. And now Chicago has Lincoln statues on a list to review. Instead of focusing on what to tear down, we should be building more monuments to black Americans who deserve a more evaluated place in the story of America's second founding, from Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, pioneering congressman like Hiram Revels or Robert Smalls, and especially the black union soldiers who fought for our collective freedom, 25 of whom received the Medal of Honor. That's a movement we can all rally around.

And that's your "Reality Check."

BERMAN: A reminder, you can watch the new episode of the CNN original series "Lincoln: Divided We Stand," Sunday night at 10:00 on CNN.

NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Senate entering the end game on his cornerstone $1.9 trillion COVID relief package.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The bill spans 628 legislative pages, read aloud in full.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): We all know this will merely delay the inevitable.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: More states are ignoring the advice of health experts by rolling back COVID-19 safety measures.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I really truly see this as sabotage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mississippians can make their own decisions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It really is quite risky to act like there's no virus in the community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

CAMEROTA: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY.

And this morning the Senate will take up the COVID relief bill after a late-night read aloud of all 620 pages of this bill, courtesy of Republican Senator Ron Johnson. Johnson forced this reading of the entire bill as a delay tactic, even though the measure will pass.

There will be a series of votes now on a number of amendments today. That could last into the weekend, all while millions of struggling Americans wait for relief checks.

BERMAN: CNN has learned that federal investigators are examining communications between members of Congress and Capitol rioters to see whether lawmakers wittingly or unwittingly helped the insurrectionists.

[07:00:06]

At this point, investigators have found no evidence that members of Congress.