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Former CDC Director on Coronavirus Origin; Texas Mom Escaped Anti-Vaccine Movement; Fox Faces Lawsuit from Dominion. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired March 26, 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]

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: He's not any Schmoe -- Joe Schmoe scientist. He was the head of the CDC, a lifelong virologist, in a position to know all this information. And he's making two very shocking allegations. One is that the virus started in September or October, according to his opinion, which implies that the Chinese government hid it for several months. And, two, that he believes, not just based on, you know, supposition, but based on the way that the virus emerged, and his professional analysis of the way it acted, that it was too strong and too advanced to have come from nature. And he's referring to the gain (ph) of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Now, that matches the information that came out of the Trump administration and was confirmed by the Biden administration to some degree when they came in and checked the U.S. intelligence work. So it's not just Robert Redfield's opinion. There's a growing body of evidence that points to this lab accident theory.

And while we don't know what happened, we can't say we know what happened. What this does is it makes it very, very important that there's more investigation and that we regard the ongoing investigation, frankly, by the WHO and the Chinese scientists as not the end of the inquiry here because, as you noted, they're poo-pooing this theory already.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Again, Redfield says it's just his opinion, but he's not just any guy or any Joe Schmoe, as you said. Don't we, at this point, need to see the evidence? Don't we need to see how this opinion of his and then the claims made by the Trump administration and verified to an extent by the Biden administration, we need to see the evidence of all this.

ROGIN: Of course. And that -- we need to see the evidence both on the Chinese side and on the U.S. side because, you know, Robert Redfield, remember, when he was CDC director, he was not, you know, a treated (ph) by the Trump administration. He has no incentive, no motivation to bail them out or to support their theory for their sake. He's doing this because this is what he really believes and it's based on what he saw when he was inside the government.

So the easiest thing to do is for the Biden administration is to release publicly the intelligence that they have. But the only real way to crack this is for the Chinese government to hand over the data of the early cases, all of the things that were in the lab.

Now, what they say is that, oh, well, the lab didn't have the virus, so that's that. But what Robert Redfield is saying is that we can't take that at face value. So we're going to need an independent investigation and a lot more transparency on the Chinese side. But the Biden administration could also be more transparent as well.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: But even if the -- there's an independent investigation, would China be inclined to hand over whatever documentation they have about what they were doing in the lab, number one? And, number two, why doesn't the WHO seem to be on the same page with Dr. Redfield?

ROGIN: Right. Well, on your first question, the Chinese government has had over a year to hand over the data and they've done quite the opposite. They've hit the data. There are allegations that they've manipulated the data. They jailed the journalists. They silenced the scientists. So that's a pattern of obfuscation and cover-up that's pretty much undeniable at this point, you know, so that's -- that's a problem that I don't think, you know, that we'll -- we're going to be able to solve, you know, and that's really unfortunate.

And the WHO team, you know, which I'm sure is full of like a lot of well-meaning people, simply doesn't have the access that they need. And some of the members of the WHO investigative team have conflicts of interest. And as -- their statements so far show that, you know, they're not really looking into the lab accident theory at all because they don't believe it to be true, they don't want it to be true. Suffice to say that we shouldn't ignore the WHO investigation, but we're -- it's not going to be the end all, be all of what we know. It just can't be because, as you just heard, the head of the CDC, during the time of the outbreak, says that the WHO investigation is on the wrong track.

CAMEROTA: Josh Rogin, so good to get your reporting and expertise into this.

ROGIN: Can't wait for the special.

CAMEROTA: Well, don't miss it.

ROGIN: It's going to be an amazing special.

CAMEROTA: Thank you very much, Josh.

Don't miss this unprecedented event with Dr. Sanjay Gupta when the medical leaders of the war on COVID break their silence. You can watch the CNN special, "COVID War: The Pandemic Doctors Speak Out." It airs this Sunday at 9:00 p.m. only on CNN.

BERMAN: And don't miss Josh's book, "Chaos Under Heaven," because I have to say, I mean prescient so much of this he writes about and just dead on.

CAMEROTA: OK, a Texas mom now says she regrets being part of the anti- vaccine movement on social media.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEATHER SIMPSON, BELIEVED IN ANTI-VACCINE MISINFORMATION: I've had people tell me that they're not vaccinating because of my posts.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: How does that make you feel now?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Really bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Her story, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:38:33]

CAMEROTA: A return to normality depends on a vast majority of people getting the coronavirus vaccines. But anti-vaccination groups are working overtime online to promote some frightening and false theories about vaccines.

CNN's Donie O'Sullivan spoke to one woman who got pulled in, about how she got out.

Donie, tell us what you learned.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER Hey, that's right, Alisyn. Yes, Heather Simpson said she got dragged into this as -- before she was about to have her first child. She went on social media and she found a whole lot of misinformation.

Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HEATHER SIMPSON, BELIEVED IN ANTI-VACCINE MISINFORMATION: I was like, oh, my gosh, we are not vaccinating our kid. There's no way. The vaccine goes into our child, she'll just die. That's all there is to it.

O'SULLIVAN: You thought if your daughter took the vaccine, she might die?

H. SIMPSON: That she would die. Not might, just like would.

O'SULLIVAN (voice over): Until recently, 30-year-old Heather Simpson was somewhat of an influencer in the anti-vax space. Now she's changed her tune, although her husband has not.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): You're going to get the COVID shot when you can get it?

H. SIMPSON: Right.

O'SULLIVAN: Ben, are you?

BEN SIMPSON: Probably not. And that's because I already had it. Like, I had COVID, so I have antibodies.

O'SULLIVAN (voice over): The CDC recommends all adults get the vaccine, even if they have had COVID-19.

Heather says she blames herself for the vaccine misinformation she shared online and with her husband.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): When you went online, you became part of the anti-vax community. Tell me how you found it, how you got into it.

H. SIMPSON: When Charlotte was like 15, 16 months old, I decided to make a post thinking I was so brave about my anti-vaccine views and vaccine hesitancy, and it got shared like 600 times.

[08:40:10]

And I was like, holy crud. And then, after that, I just got this following of people.

O'SULLIVAN: You got the validation from the likes?

H. SIMPSON: Yes. Yes, the validation. I'm not an idiot. A lot of people believe this.

O'SULLIVAN: And then you got pulled in?

H. SIMPSON: Yes. I feel like a lot of the anti-vax moms all found each other all at once. I was getting like a friend request per minute.

O'SULLIVAN (voice over): With the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, the stakes of online misinformation about vaccines are even higher.

Renee DiResta, an expert at Stanford, explain how negative but not representative stories about vaccines go viral online.

RENEE DIRESTA, TECHNICAL RESEARCH MANAGER, STANFORD INTERNET OBSERVATORY: When I was a new mom, I joined a couple of groups on FaceBook for new moms where people were saying, well, I have a friend and she vaccinated and then this terrible thing happened. And it was this concept of like the friend of a friend narrative.

The power of the personal story is what social media really brings home for all of us. We may live in a world of facts and statistics in the aggregate, but in terms of what we personally feel, it's what comes to us from our communities, it's what comes to us from people who are like us. That's what people are really sharing. That's the kind of content that spreads.

H. SIMPSON: V is for vaccine that protects you from getting sick.

O'SULLIVAN: Heather says her views on vaccines and on medicine began to change when she needed surgery. H. SIMPSON: I posted about it. And my friends were like, this is the

lazy way out. You need to be eating this food and taking this silver to doing this to heal yourself. Getting surgery is lazy.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): So was it overnight you went from --

H. SIMPSON: No, it took months. And I -- and I had friends that really poured into me and listened to my fears and talked me through it, and it really helped to know that they were scared. Even though they're pro-vax, they're scared of giving their kids shots because that's just normal parental anxiety.

O'SULLIVAN: You said your intent by posting this was to inspire some parent to stop their child from getting vaccinated. Do you think you did that?

H. SIMPSON: Yes, like I know I did. I've had people tell me that they're not vaccinating because of my posts.

O'SULLIVAN: How does that make you feel now?

H. SIMPSON: Really bad. I'm sure it's not just those few like the amount of people I reached, because my main way of posting was fear based and emotional based and I can't take it back.

O'SULLIVAN: Are you afraid that you might have harmed some children?

H. SIMPSON: I mean, I don't -- I would hope not. I'm also hoping that if they still follow me, they're going to see that I changed and maybe I could reverse the damage. I know that's a long shot, but --

O'SULLIVAN: Have you sought to contact any of them to say, hey, wait, I was wrong?

H. SIMPSON: I don't even know who they are anymore. I shut that FaceBook down. And I started a new one. And I -- all I could hope is that they will somehow see me changing my mind. But, yes, it is hard to live with.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Wow, Donie, what an incredible story. I mean so one mother's misguided fear is one thing. And, obviously, that has ripple effect. But what's the role of social media in all of this?

O'SULLIVAN: Yes, I mean, what was stunning to hear there really was, was that, you know, she went online searching for this information. She was going to be a new mom. Concerned about, you know, everything when it came to her newborn daughter. Found this misinformation and then became a spreader herself.

And then once she saw -- when she started spreading it, she got that dopamine kick from social media. She got all the likes. She got all the shares, the love and the attention. And that is something which we're going to see, you know, across the board on so many different issues, social media addiction and how it really incentivizes how people share this type of dangerous misinformation.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Donie, thank you very much. That was a really interesting story.

BERMAN: So over the past several months hundreds of school children in northern Nigeria have been kidnapped. Many remain captives, pawns of terrorists in a place where militants have killed tens of thousands and displaced millions more. Some young victims from both sides of the Boko Haram conflict have found hope for bright futures thanks to this week's CNN Hero.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are children who do not even know what's their second name. What their tribe, their religion. Children who are not even having this war. They are confused and in a helpless state. You need to give them courage. You have to give them hope.

Morning, morning, morning.

We are in a community where every segment of the society is being ravaged.

Good morning.

KIDS: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What keeps you going is the resilience of these children. Whenever I see their faces, it gives me hope. It keeps my dream alive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:45:03]

BERMAN: To see how Zannah builds peace amid war and the pandemic, and to nominate someone you think should be a CNN Hero, go to cnnheroes.com.

Breaking just a short time ago, Fox facing a $1.6 billion lawsuit, accused of spreading election lies. We're reading through the filing right now. We'll tell you how strong a case it is, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:50:13]

BERMAN: So developing now, Dominion Voting has filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News after false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. Dominion's CEO says, quote, the disinformation campaign waged against our company has caused us severe damage and undermined trust in American democratic institutions. These lies also have threatened the personal safety of our employees and customers. No amount of money will repair the damage done. We're asking for $1.6 billion, though. I added that at the end.

Joining me now, CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter and CNN legal analyst Elie Honig.

Brian, tell us about what Fox is accused of here specifically.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Of profiting off the lies, the big lies that followed Trump's loss in November. This is the second lawsuit from a second voting technology company targeting Fox. You'll remember Smartmatics sued Fox, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell for $2.7 billion. That case now beginning to work its way through the system.

Now this is Dominion, which was falsely accused of being in cahoots with Smartmatic to rig the election. You had commentators and hosts like Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo fanning these flames, coming up with conspiracy theories, promoting them on the air. For many weeks this went on and on. And that's part of the argument from Dominion. They say Fox knew what it was doing. They say Fox took a small flame of disinformation and turned it into a forest fire. Fox has no immediate comment on the lawsuit this morning but in response to the earlier lawsuit they said they believe the charges are meritless and they're proud of their 2020 election coverage.

You'll remember that Lou Dobbs was kind of forced out of his job one day after the Smartmatic lawsuit. Fox claimed it was kind of a coincidence. But we will see if there's any further fallout as a result of this second lawsuit from a second voting technology company.

BERMAN: Elie Honig, what jumps at you as to the legal merits of this case and what Dominion will have to prove here?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, John, Fox is in a tough spot here. And here's why. The First Amendment gives media companies very broad protections, but it's not unlimited. Dominion has to prove two things to make its case. One, the statements were false. We know they were false. Everybody knows they were false. There's no proof of them. And, second, that Fox knew they were false or was recklessly disregarding the truth of it.

Now, here's the thing to remember. Just a few days ago, earlier this week, Sidney Powell, the lead purveyor, one of the lead purveyors of this whole election fraud theory, said, my statements were so ridiculous, so obviously false that no reasonable person would have taken them seriously. That puts Fox News in the difficult position of either saying, yes, we were in on this whole sort of scheme with Sidney Powell, which is not going to help them, or, we were so gullible, so non-credible in our reporting that we actually did believe Sidney Powell's ridiculous theories. Either way they're in a tough spot here.

BERMAN: Put up the all-star team that was there before of who's named in this lawsuit. These are all people who were named in the suit. You can read the names for yourself. They are not specifically charged in this suit, Elie. The reason I want you to see this is because at one point Tucker Carlson, he explained to his viewers why he wasn't letting Sidney Powell come on. He actually went through this like ten- minute thing where he described at length what she was accusing of happening in the elections.

STELTER: Right.

BERMAN: But he said he wouldn't put her on because she couldn't provide evidence.

Does that put Fox in a weird way in even more trouble, Elie, because you have someone on TV saying, we don't have the evidence here. We don't have the evidence here. And elsewhere on the network they're promoting the lies. What does that tell you?

HONIG: Exactly, John. As to the issue of whether Fox knew, right there, of course they knew. And Dominion points out in the lawsuit, we notified them. We told them dozens of times, anchors, producers, that this was false. We demanded retractions.

And what's really interesting in this filing, which I just looked at, is Dominion alleges that Fox had a very specific reason, intentionality for pushing these lies. What Dominion alleges is Fox started losing viewers after the election because they were deemed not sufficiently pro-Trump. Not supportive enough of Donald Trump. And so the allegation Dominion makes is, in order to bring those viewers back, they knowingly and intentionally spread that lie.

BERMAN: Well, they corrected it apparently because last night they had the guy on spreading more lies.

Brian, listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: They go after people that -- I guess you'd call them lean toward the right and they wave American flags. In many cases they're waving the American flags. And they love our country.

It was a zero threat right from the start. It was zero threat. Look, they went in. They shouldn't have done it. Some of them went in and they're hugging and kissing the police and the guards. You know, they're -- they had great relationships. A lot of the people were waved in, and then they walked in and they walked out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:55:00]

BERMAN: So, Brian, that was the 10:00 insurrection hour on Fox TV last night where the former president gushes about the insurrectionists, saying they caused no harm. There are five people dead after that insurrection for one reason or another there.

STELTER: Nobody saw anyone kissing the police that day. We all saw people trying to injury the police. This incredible and just absolutely farcical attempt at revisionist

history is something that Laura Ingraham should have called out in real time. You know, she kind of tried to walk away gently after a little while. But, come on, give me a break, you know what happened because, you know, we all saw it on live television. And it's so revealing and so sad that the former president continues to promote these old stories about this big lie and tries to rewrite history. It's a shame on the conscience of the country to have a former president continuing to lie about this terror attack. And yet, you know, we all just accept it at this point because that's the former president.

And, by the way, you know, this is all (INAUDIBLE) about money and profits. The Murdochs now being targeted for their profits in this Dominion lawsuit. I don't know if, you know, perhaps Trump is safe at Mar-a-Lago, but the Murdochs have to be very worried about these developments.

BERMAN: Elie Honig, Brian Stelter, appreciate you both coming on with this breaking news. Thank you.

STELTER: Thanks.

HONIG: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: A lot going on this morning. CNN's coverage continues, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:01]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good Friday morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow. So glad you're with me. Jim Sciutto is off this week.

And it is a move that cuts to the core.