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Miami Beach Extends Curfew to Control Spring Break Crowds; Biden Vows to Ease Border Surge as Republicans Criticize Policies; Former Top Prosecutor: Sedition Charges Likely Against Insurrectionists. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired March 22, 2021 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Health officials worry about Americans getting complacent in the fight against COVID-19.

[05:59:46]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm concerned that the behavior is going to be a little bit more for us to be able to handle.

DR. PETER HOTEZ, DEAN, NATIONAL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: This is crunch time. This is going to be our most difficult period right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Protesters demand justice for the victims, among them, six Asian women.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want people to finally hear us for us, not only when we're trending.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This awakening moment for Asian-Americans to stand strong, stand up and raise our voice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Law enforcement will go through the work that they need to do, but we all know hate when we see it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Monday, March 22, 6 a.m. here in New York.

And we do begin with breaking vaccine news. AstraZeneca releasing brand-new information about its coronavirus vaccine. Data from a large U.S. trial shows that their vaccine is 79 percent effective with no serious side effects. The company will now apply for emergency use authorization from the FDA.

As of this morning, nearly one in four Americans has been at least partially vaccinated, and more 13 percent are fully vaccinated, but there are hot spots still developing around the country.

Overnight, the city of Miami extending its curfew for several weeks to try to control these rowdy spring break crowds that you're seeing on your screen. Police once again called to rein in those who ignored the orders. And over the weekend, police used pepper balls to disperse the largely maskless revelers, who were disobeying the curfew.

The CDC is still warning against travel this spring, as airports report seeing the most passengers in more than a year.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So overnight, the prosecutor who led the investigation into the Capitol insurrection said the evidence he has seen points to charges of sedition for some of the invaders. He also called the former president the magnet that brought the insurrectionists to Washington and said his criminal culpability is still being examined.

Let's begin, though, live in Miami Beach, where some of the scenes we've seen have been extraordinary. CNN's Randi Kaye is there -- Randi.

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR/CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John and Alisyn.

It was another wild weekend here in Miami Beach. At one point, there were more than 1,000 people in the street. And as you said, the police are doing all they can to try and control these spring breakers.

They say since February 3, more than a thousand people have been arrested, more than half of them, people from out of state. So now there is a state of emergency and a curfew in effect, but not even that stopped some spring breakers from dancing on and destroying a car overnight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE (voice-over): For Miami Beach spring breakers, the party is now supposed to stop by 8 p.m. in its popular entertainment district, thanks to a new curfew.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Skip that curfew. We're all here. We're all here. No sleep.

KAYE: Officials declaring a state of emergency as they struggle with massive and often maskless crowds.

MAYOR DAN GELBER (D), MIAMI BEACH: We had do it, simply because we're receiving too many people and too many people that are coming -- really coming with a desire to just let loose and go off. And that's creating a policing issue that is endangering, frankly, everybody.

KAYE: Florida's beach destinations aren't the only places receiving pandemic-wearing Americans looking to escape. Air travel is reaching its highest numbers in the past year. Over 2.8 million passengers traveled through TSA security checkpoints at U.S. airports Friday and Saturday. And that's extremely worrisome for health experts. DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: These are individuals who are going to get together, and they're going to go back to their home communities, and potentially fuel super-spreader events there.

KAYE: In Arkansas, the governor says he still plans to lift his state's mask mandate on March 31.

GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON (R-AR): I set some goals, and we're making those goals. It's not going to take away from the seriousness of the virus.

KAYE: Meanwhile, in New York City, high school students start returning to in-person learning for the first time since November. This morning --

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK CITY: A recovery for all of us hinges on us bringing back our schools.

KAYE: In Los Angeles, the mayor says it will offer more than 70,000 vaccine doses to its residents this week. The city is two to three weeks away from having enough supply to reach everyone eligible for the shot in the city's most vulnerable communities.

MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI (D), LOS ANGELES: I think that that is a time when we'll have enough supply to be able to have states and/or the federal government to allow us to go into hardest hit ZIP codes and just say, Look, anybody, regardless of age, can be vaccinated there.

KAYE: With variants on the rise, health experts say speeding the vaccine rollout is key to slowing the spread of the virus.

HOTEZ: So we're in a race. It could go either way right now. And this is why it's really important for the governors to stay the course and to implement masks and -- and social distancing.

KAYE: More than 13 percent of the U.S. population is now fully vaccinated, and the White House expects that number to grow before President Joe Biden's May 1 goal to make all U.S. adults eligible.

ANDY SLAVITT, WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISOR FOR COVID-19 RESPONSE: We've already seen the first handful of states begin to make everybody eligible and to prioritize that. We will have increasing supply of vaccines over the next month. By the time we get into May, and by the time we get to the end of May, we will have enough vaccines for everybody.

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[06:05:11]

KAYE: And today, some good news in terms of the vaccine rollout here in the state of Florida. Governor Ron DeSantis lowering the eligibility age of this morning to 50 years old if you're a Florida resident. And one week from today, the mayor of Miami-Dade County says she plans to lower the eligibility age to 40 and above.

Alisyn, back to you.

That is good news for Floridians. Randi, thank you very much.

Joining us now is Dr. Peter Hotez. He's the co-director for the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital and the dean of the School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

Dr. Hotez, great to see you. Let's start with the breaking news this morning. That's the AstraZeneca vaccine. Here's the efficacy: 79 percent, they found, effective against symptomatic illness, and then 100 percent against severe illness and hospitalization. I mean, that's the bottom line, right? And so when could Americans start getting this shot?

HOTEZ: Yes. No, it's really good news, Alisyn. And I'm pretty confident now that AstraZeneca will apply for request emergency use authorization, so we'll have that vaccine released to the American public. And so that will be the fourth vaccine that we have. That's good news.

It's also good news for another reason. And if you remember over the last couple of weeks, a number of European countries -- Germany, France -- did a lot to discredit or try to discredit the vaccine by suspending its use, which went against what the European Medicine Agency, the European regulatory authority, wanted to do. And that caused a lot of people to question the safety of the vaccine. And it had a lot of collateral -- it caused a lot of collateral damage, because this is one of our workhorse vaccines that we're expecting for Africa and Latin America.

So this is -- this is good news also, because it's reaffirming for the vaccines used for global health, as well.

BERMAN: So first of all, dr. Hotez, every time I see you with those headphones, I think you're cutting an album, and I just want to tell you, I'm all in. I would buy that album in a heartbeat.

Secondly, look, you say we're in the most dangerous times in the pandemic right now, where we are in this race between the variants and opening up and also the vaccine.

So we see these pictures -- and I don't know if we can put them back on the screen -- the pictures the likes of which we've seen from Miami Beach with people just jammed onto the streets, and no doubt jammed into the bars and restaurants, as well. I mean, they have to go inside at some point.

I want to know what your feelings are and which way this race you talked about is heading.

HOTEZ: Yes. You know, unfortunately, as a nation, we're trying do everything we can to give this virus a fighting chance, despite our efforts to begin vaccinating the country. Between spring break and what we're seeing in Miami, and also in South Texas; between that and the fact that we've got the B.1.1.7. variant and we're doing all of that air travel right now. And we have the governors prematurely lifting restrictions. This could go either way.

So if you notice, the numbers have not declined as much as I would have expected them to. So it's flattened out. In the sense, that is our next wave. It's already here. It's just manifesting as a flat curve because -- as a flattened screaming high level, about the same level that we had last summer. Because we started to vaccinate, but we're going to have to do a lot better in order to really get this under control.

CAMEROTA: But, Dr. Hotez, again, the math, 2 million people vaccinated a day.

BERMAN: Two point five, honestly.

CAMEROTA: Two point five. Fifty-four thousand new cases of coronavirus. So the vaccines are winning in this footrace.

HOTEZ: Barely. Remember how this works also. We have about 25 percent of the U.S. population getting a single dose of the vaccine. We also have a roughly around 25 percent of the U.S. population that's been infected previously with resolved infections. So you have about half the country that's partially immune.

But to really put the end to this, we're going to need at least three- quarters, maybe 80 percent. So that's the key now, getting the other 25 percent vaccinated.

For instance, I would have liked to have seen that AstraZeneca vaccine released emergency use back when the Europeans did it a few weeks ago. We could have been that much further ahead at this point.

But you know, it's going to be -- it's going to be really tough. Because you see the numbers going up precipitously in Michigan, in New York, in New Jersey. So we're by no means out of this.

This B.1.1.7. Variant is a bad actor. It causes not only -- not only is it more transmissible, but it produces more severe illness. It's higher lethality, higher mortality. So this is going to be one of the toughest parts right now in our epidemic.

BERMAN: Look, hospitalizations have basically stalled also, and hospitalizations are a very reliable statistic to see where things are headed. We've been right at 49, 39,000 for days now. You can see that flat line.

[06:10:08]

Also, we're averaging over 1,000 deaths a day at this point, and we just have to decide as a country, I mean, are we going to accept that as the norm? If we're stuck here for a long time, 1,000 deaths a day is a pretty high number, Professor.

HOTEZ: Yes, it's still one of the leading causes of death in the United States. And we don't have to be there. We could actually start to end this now, and yet we -- we're doing everything we can to -- to allow this to continue, and it shouldn't have to be this way. CAMEROTA: And Dr. Hotez, in terms of the vaccines, different states,

as you know, have tried these different approaches, and that has led to this, you know, kind of patchwork/piecemeal situation across the country.

So, for instance, Connecticut has done it just by age. So as of this past weekend, I think 45-year-olds and older are now available. Other states have done it based on comorbidities or based on profession. Do we know which one is most successful, which one has been the most effective?

HOTEZ: All we know is we just don't have a good system in place to really monitor this and to really implement -- implement the recommendations that came out of the CDC and the -- and the advisory committee practices.

You know, we don't have a health system for giving adult vaccinations. And so we made things very fussy and complicated when we knew we could never implement them. So I would say the easier, the more streamlined we can make this, the more likely it is that we're going to be successful.

BERMAN: I'd like to look at the glass half full aspect of the vaccines, though. More than six million people reported receiving a shot Saturday and Sunday. Those are incredibly high numbers. We're averaging 2.5 million doses administered a day, Professor, which means, and if you do the math, in Joe Biden's first 100 days in office, we could very well surpass 200 million -- 200 hundred million doses administered.

HOTEZ: That's right. That's right. Remember how this worked. The original plan was to fully vaccinate the American people by the fall, and those of us in the scientific community said, that B.1.1.7 variant is ascending. You said, look, this isn't going to work. We're going to have to figure out a way to do this by the end of the spring.

And you know what? The Biden administration listened to the scientists. So this is what you get when you listen to the scientists. And I think we can now vaccinate our way out of this. And by the summer, we're going to be in really good shape.

So we have a lot to look forward to. It's just a matter of keeping a lid on this and -- and not being reckless with lifting mask orders, lifting social distancing orders, and allowing all that travel. If we can just keep it together now for the next month and a half, next six weeks, I think we can -- we can end this, at least in the United States. We still have an enormous, awful global pandemic to deal with.

BERMAN: I'm just going to try to keep it together for the next six minutes.

CAMEROTA: That's good.

BERMAN: Appreciate it, Dr. Hotez, as always. Thank you so much for the help.

HOTEZ: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: So the Biden administration still not controlling the surge of minors at the border. What is being done to address this crisis? How can they control it? That's next.

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[06:17:18]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you thinking of going to the border?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: At some point I will, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you want to see firsthand what's going on in those facilities?

BIDEN: I know what's going on with the facilities.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, why do you think that message to the migrants, telling them to stay home, don't come now, why do you think that hasn't resonated yet? What more can be done, sir?

BIDEN: A lot more. We're looking at what has been established, just to be fair. They can stay in place and make their case from their home country. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And when will you allow the media into those facilities?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: President Biden pledging to take new steps to contain the surge of child migrants at the southern border.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez live in Dallas. Priscilla, you've covered this more extensively than almost anyone. Give us a sense of the situation, where things stand this morning.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN IMMIGRATION CORRESPONDENT: Just here at this convention center, John, this tells us just the urgent measures the administration is taking. This is one of the largest convention centers in the country, and part of it has been turned into an emergency intake site.

So here, the administration is transporting minors who are Border Patrol facilities to this site so they can get medical services, they can get meals, they can contact family while they work with case managers to be relocated with relatives in the United States.

This is one of many sites that are popping up by this administration to try to keep up with the sheer number of kids crossing the U.S./Mexico border alone. This site here operating since last Wednesday. We now know that there are 1,500 kids at this site. It can accommodate around 2,300, John. BERMAN: So Priscilla, legally, minors are supposed to be transported

out of U.S. Border Patrol custody within 72 hours. So why isn't that happening?

ALVAREZ: To put it simply, Alisyn, they just can't keep up. The number of children crossing is -- is creating a bottleneck in the system. So they're coming into Border Patrol custody. The administration doesn't have enough shelter space for them.

And here's why. A few months ago, the Trump administration had been turning away migrants who came to the border. Adults, families and children. The Biden administration took the position that they were not going to do that.

But the shelters were working under limited capacity because of the coronavirus pandemic. So all of that together, you have more kids coming into U.S. custody, but just not enough space to put them in shelters.

So that means that these kids are staying in a Border Patrol facility for kind of long periods of time. And those are facilities that are not intended for them. They look like jail-like conditions, like prison cells with concrete walls and concrete benches.

And these kids are spending more than the three-day limit than they're supposed to, according to federal law. So the administration racing here to find a space for these kids that is suitable for them.

BERMAN: So Priscilla, the question -- one question is why are so many children coming to begin with? And are we seeing all ages actually get across the border. Or, you know, are the people actually being taken into custody, and now on U.S. soil, predominantly children at this point?

[06:20:17]

ALVAREZ: So there's a little -- there's several motivating factors here. So there are conditions in Latin America worsened over the last year because of the pandemic and as well as two hurricanes that hit the region last year.

So those conditions mixed a perceived relaxation of enforcement here in the United States has brought migrants to the U.S. southern border. Now, there are, still, the majority of encounters are single adults. And they are being turned away under that Trump-era policy that I mentioned that was put in place during the pandemic and allowed border officials to just turn away single adults and families who are coming to the border either back to Mexico or to their country of origin.

So we're still seeing single adults make up the majority, but children are more complex, because there is a process in place when they come into U.S. custody to get them out of those Border Patrol facilities and into shelters. But what the administration is facing here is just so many children coming across, usually, teens, although the homeland security secretary has talked about some younger siblings who actually traveled to the border and lost their mother along the way. So all of this creating a challenge for the administration on the border.

CAMEROTA: So, Priscilla, about how many minors are we talking about this morning? What are the numbers?

ALVAREZ: So in Border Patrol custody, we learned over the weekend that it was around 5,000 children in those facilities. We now know it's a little bit under that, just around 4,900, which indicates some level of progress.

And we also know that there are more than 800 kids who are in these facilities for more than ten days.

So what all of these numbers tell us is that the administration still hasn't been able to fully accommodate all the children coming across the border. We're coming toward the end of March. We expect the numbers to exceed that of February when we had around 9,000 encounters of children at the border, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. Priscilla Alvarez, thank you very much for all of your new reporting you're sharing.

BERMAN: Right. Overnight, the prosecutor who was leading the investigation into the Capitol insurrection reveals that he thinks evidence points to sedition charges, no doubt for some of the people you're seeing right there. That's next.

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[06:26:39]

MICHAEL SHERWIN, FORMER ACTING U.S. ATTORNEY: I personally believe the evidence is trending towards that and probably meets those elements.

SCOTT PELLEY, "60 MINUTES": Do you anticipate sedition charges against some of these suspects?

SHERWIN: I believe the facts do support those charges, and I think that as we go forward, more facts will support that, Scott.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That's Michael Sherwin, the former top prosecutor investigating the Capitol insurrection. He says in this new interview on "60 Minutes" that the evidence the government has seen likely meets the bar necessary to charge some of the insurrectionists with sedition.

Joining us now, CNN senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe. He's the former deputy director of the FBI.

Andy, sedition. What exactly does that mean? And how do they meet the bar for those charges? What's the significance here?

ANDY MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Sure, John. So sedition is a federal crime that basically says anyone who seizes by force the property of the United States government or who impedes or blocks the execution of a U.S. law can be guilty of sedition. Now, in this case, the U.S. law would, of course, be the Constitution itself, which specifies the process upon which we certify the election of the -- of our United States president.

So, quite frankly, John, to -- to think that we don't have abundant evidence of sedition here is -- is amazing to me, and I'm kind of shocked that they haven't charged some of these folks with sedition yet.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Thank you, Andy. I appreciate you saying that. Because I was like, what -- How is this not an open-and-shut case? I mean, if you just read the definition, they want to destroy, by force, the government of the United States, or oppose, by force, the authority. That's exactly what they were trying to do, I mean, by their own words. That's what they were doing.

MCCABE: That is exactly what they were doing, Alisyn. We all saw it. And it's not just what we saw them do on 1/6. You also have the benefit of the statements they made about it on social media and to associates and things like that.

So the fact that we haven't seen those charges yet is -- is really remarkable, and it -- it may be an indication that there's more kind of legal debate about that within the Justice Department that we're not aware of.

BERMAN: All right. Michael Sherwin was also pressed on the former president's role in perhaps inciting the insurrection and whether he could face any criminal charges. This is how he answered it.

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SHERWIN: It's unequivocal that Trump was the magnet that brought the people to D.C. on the 6th. Now the question is, is he criminally culpable for everything that happened during the siege during the breach.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Now, he didn't really answer that second part, Andy. What did you hear in that?

MCCABE: You know, like a good lawyer, Mr. Sherwin kept kind of both sides relevant. He said there's no question that the president summoned them and, you know, incited them, but it -- it comes down to the perspective of the people involved.

So some people have said that, yes, they went to the Capitol because the president told them to. And that would be very strong evidence of incitement on the president's part.

But he says then others say that they went because they didn't feel the president was doing enough or going far enough. For me, John, I'm telling you, the first category far outweighs the

second one. The fact that you do have some people who very clearly admit they went there and undertook those actions because they thought the president told them to.