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New Day

Biden, CDC Director Warn of Virus Rebound if Americans Let Up; Derek Chauvin Trial Resumes after Dramatic First Day. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired March 30, 2021 - 07:00   ET

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

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Final four, go battle it out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:00:02]

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yes, many calling that comment irresponsible, guys, because there's strict health and safety protocols in place at both tournaments testing everyday for everyone's safety, really no reason to stop now.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN NEW DAY: Andy, have you checked my bracket lately?

JOHN AVLON, CNN NEW DAY: Yes, she's number five. I fell from 6th to 26th.

Here is my theory, one of my favorite things is watching Ali and you talk given her proud cluelessness about sports. She is crushing the bracket. I think this whole thing has been a hustle (ph).

SCHOLES: I'm right behind her, John. And I can't even overtake her because she's got the exact same thing as me the rest of the way. So, congrats, Alisyn, you have already beaten me.

CAMEROTA: Who do I have to win?

SCHOLES: You have Gonzaga over Baylor, which is a very popular --

CAMEROTA: The Gonzaga Zebras, fantastic. Okay. Thank you, guys.

SCHOLES: Bulldogs, Bulldogs.

CAMEROTA: Bulldogs, got it. Let me write that down.

AVLON: All right. New Day continues right now.

CAMEROTA: And we want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world, this is New Day. John Avlon is in for John Berman making fun of my brackets. Fantastic to have you.

AVLON: You know, it's my pleasure. You are crushing the bracket. Credit where credit is due. CAMEROTA: Thank you very much.

Okay. We begin on a serious note with dire warnings from President Biden and the director of the CDC. Dr. Rochelle Walensky believes the U.S. is on the verge of another deadly surge.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: I'm going to pause here. I'm going to lose the script. And I'm going to reflect on the reoccurring feeling I have of impending view. We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope but right now I'm scared.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Cases are on the rise in nearly half of the states. In Michigan, infections are rising sharply especially among people under 40 years old.

AVLON: And testimony continues this morning in the Derek Chauvin murder trial. Prosecutors began their case playing the video of George Floyd's deadly encounter with the police and they revealed former Officer Derek Chauvin held his knee on Floyd's neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds, even longer than we knew.

Peaceful protesters marched through the streets of Minneapolis to show their support for the Floyd family and demand justice.

But we begin with Miguel Marquez live in Detroit on the worsening pandemic. Miguel?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning there, John. Look, cases are up not only here in Michigan but in many places across the country, and guards are going down and going down fast in a lot of places. Cases among 10 to 19 years old in Michigan are the fastest growing numbers, but there's nothing more illustrative than the hospitalizations. That's what really tells you what is happening out there.

And one health organization here in Michigan has worked up a chart that, in March alone, those 30 to 39 hospitalizations are up 633 percent for 40 to 49s, hospitalizations are up 800 percent. And you can see in that chart at around the late 50s where it breaks, where people start to get vaccinated, the hospitalizations go way down.

Health officials begging people to pay attention that this is still a pandemic and they have to take care. The newly-installed CDC director, Centers for Disease Control, was nearly brought to tears as she went off script to make that plea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALENSKY: Now is one of those times when I have to share the truth and I have to hope and trust you will listen. I'm going to pause here, I'm going to lose the script, and I'm going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending view.

So I'm speaking today not necessarily as your CDC director, and not only as your CDC director, but as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter, to ask you to just please hold on a little while longer. I so badly want to be done. I know you all so badly want to be done. We are just almost there but not quite yet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: And that's about the basis of it almost everywhere. People are sick of the rules. They're sick of the masks. They're sick of the pandemic. But, it is still very much here. Businesses are reopening here in Michigan. More social gathering and even anecdotally just getting here from New York to Michigan, it's very clear to me. I've been traveling consistently and constantly for the last year, planes, restaurants, public spaces, airports, all packed to the gills, almost no social distancing and masks these days, it's kind of an option, maybe you wear it, maybe you don't. I see a lot more people without masks on. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: That's interesting. That's helpful for us to see what's happening on the ground, Miguel. Thank you very much.

All right, joining us now is Dr. Gary Roth. He is the chief medical officer for Michigan's Health and Hospital Association. Dr. Roth, thank you for being here.

[07:05:01]

Can we just look at the hot spots? I just want to pull up a couple of hot spots in the country right now, and Michigan is right at the top of the list. The cases there are up 57 percent in the past couple of weeks. Then you have Puerto Rico, 43 percent, Iowa 37, percent, Vermont, 37 percent, North Dakota, 34 percent. Why is Michigan at the top of the list? Why do you think Michigan is doing so badly? Is it, as Miguel just said, that people have really let their guard down there or is that there's possibly some sort of new variant that we don't know about in Michigan? What's going on there?

DR. GARY ROTH, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, MICHIGAN HEALTH AND HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION: Well, it's multifold. There's more than one reason. There's not necessarily a cause. We do know that there are more contagious variants out there. We know that where there's increased travel, there's increase in COVID fatigue, if you will. And that's leading to more social gatherings, less adherence to the COVID-19 preventive measures that we have been very accustomed to. And as was just said, we're letting our guard down, and that is a concern.

AVLON: Beyond lowering the guard, I want to bring up a graph that Miguel showed, P203, which shows this intersection, a massive spike among younger Michigan residents in hospitalizations. That's the blue line. And the orange line there is vaccinations. So, this would, I think, lead to two conclusions. First of all, the vaccinations are working in the older population to reduce hospitalizations but that massive spike, is that only due to a lack of vaccinations especially among young people, because this is a giant warning sign for Michigan? ROTH: Well, we know the vaccinations work. But before now, we had the data, the research relative to the vaccines. But now, we have the real world experiences. And, you know, the age groups that have been vaccinated, as you point out, they are not being admitted to the hospitals, they're not as sick and we are -- we're not aware of any cases of hospitalized COVID patients that have been vaccinated.

But the younger group tends to believe that they are not as likely to be affected, that they are not at risk. And as such, they are putting themselves much more so in harm's way.

CAMEROTA: But the vaccine also hasn't been available to the younger people. I mean, they didn't have the option until recently. Just now, some states are going to be, on April 1st, increasing it for 16 year olds and up, but they haven't been able to be vaccinated.

And so I just want to ask you one more Michigan specific question about this, the chief medical executive for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services says the cases are increasing most in teenagers, specifically the 10 year olds through 19 year olds. Now, are these kids in Michigan just testing positive or are they getting sick, because, obviously, sick kids in this country would be a game changer?

ROTH: There's no question that we are recognizing more of it in younger people and children, as you pointed out. Again, the children are being exposed at a higher degree. They're being exposed to adults that are carrying the COVID-19 virus.

And so, they are more vulnerable because they are attending more activities and they are more out and about.

CAMEROTA: But, Dr. Roth, are you seeing them get sick or are they just testing positive?

ROTH: Both. Most certainly with the increase in testing that's available, we're seeing more that are being tested positive, but, you know, thankfully, it's not huge numbers of children that are getting as sick but most certainly they are there. And we are seeing more children that are getting sick, yes.

AVLON: But I want to be clear. Is that a change from what you had seen in Michigan up to this point?

ROTH: Yes. We are recognizing more children that are being hospitalized with COVID-19, but nonetheless, that's not a huge change, but it is a change, yes.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean, it's just hard for all of us to know if Michigan is an outlier or harbinger of what's about to happen in almost every other state. Dr. Gary Roth, we really appreciate your time this morning. Thanks for giving us a status report on Michigan.

ROTH: Thank you so much.

AVLON: All right. Former President Trump blasting Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx after they criticized the Trump administration's handling of the pandemic in a new CNN documentary. Former president's fact challenged statement appeared to admit that he ignored the advice of scientists and doctors.

[07:10:04]

He called the doctors two self-promoters trying to reinvent history to cover for their bad instincts and faulty recommendations, which I fortunately almost always overturned. I only kept Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx on because they worked for the U.S. government for so long. They're like a bad habit.

Joining us now, CNN's John Harwood live at the White House. John, this return of Donald Trump, a public statement, that should be a tweet, what's the reaction inside this White House?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Oh, I think they're going to shrug this off. Look, Donald Trump does know self-promoters. We have to give him that. But with this statement, what the president, former president is doing is acknowledging asserting that he overruled Birx and Fauci at every turn. And by saying that, he is accepting responsibility for the U.S. response on his watch that's let the United States with the most cases and the most deaths by far in the world.

Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx have served across administrations of both parties. Anthony Fauci, of course, was instrumental in fighting the AIDS crisis beginning when Ronald Reagan was president and all the way up through the president. Dr. Birx worked on the same thing. This is a damning statement of the president, former president, put out by the former president, not to mention the fact that it was written in the language of a grade schoolboy on the playground, which is pretty sad when you think about that for a former president.

AVLON: But also what we have come to expect.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean, I don't know -- and, John, I don't know that he was accepting responsibility so much as proudly announcing that he ignored the doctors and the science whenever he could. I mean, again, this from a former president who went with his gut and got sick, got very sick, sicker than we knew with coronavirus. His family got sick and the White House became a super spreader hot spot on his watch, not to mention the death toll obviously of Americans.

HARWOOD: Right. He wasn't accepting it in a formal sense, but, in fact, he was by his statement. This is a president, as we saw in the documentary that Sanjay Gupta did on Sunday night that, you know, liberating states, shutting down for a short period of time and then reopening prematurely, not encouraging masks, all the things -- encouraging hydroxychloroquine, which was a bogus attempt at having a cure or a palliative for coronavirus.

This is a situation where President Trump, over and over, put his thumb on the scale in a way that ended up helping to mismanage the pandemic. This is why the Biden White House yesterday announced the initiation of a review of the ways in which science had been compromised by politics in the past and also trying to prevent that going forward. So, no, the president was not attempting to damn himself but he did, in fact, with this statement.

AVLON: Yes, it's what we call a self owned. And I think that investigation is going to find fascinating things.

I want to play a clip from the CNN documentary where Dr. Deborah Birx talks about the avoidable deaths, the stunning number that can be attributed to the mismanagement by this president -- by the ex- president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. DEBORAH BIRX, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: I look at it this way. The first time we have an excuse, there were about 100,000 deaths that came from that original surge. All of the rest of them, in my mind, could have been mitigated or decreased substantially.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: I want to pull the aperture back for a second. She is saying that President Trump's mismanagement of COVID led to 450,000 otherwise avoidable American deaths. To your knowledge, is there any presidential mismanagement that led to a greater death toll in American history?

HARWOOD: Well, no, of course that's more people than were killed in the Vietnam War, for example, if you want to say the Vietnam War was a massive mistake, or the Iraq War for that matter. No, it was incredibly damning of the president.

And if you're Donald Trump, who has always been a prisoner of his ego, think about what he is experiencing right now. He lost the election. He is watching -- credit him with a sound decision for pursuing and financing the quest for a vaccine. But Joe Biden is showing manifest superiority in the management of the COVID crisis in terms of trying to push out that vaccine, staying on top of the situation, maintaining focus.

[07:15:00]

We are now -- Joe Biden is going to reap the benefits through that management and through the vaccination of Americans in an economic recovery that is going to be much better than anything that President Trump experienced. President Trump never achieved 50 percent popularity throughout his presidency. Joe Biden has it from the jump.

And so, you're seeing Joe Biden sketching a contrast by his performance and by the results with the previous president that is exposing the management failures of the president, the judgment failures of the previous president. That's got to be tough for Donald Trump to take. And he's sitting in Mar-a-Lago watching the American people applaud what Joe Biden is doing and he's lashing out.

CAMEROTA: John Harwood, thank you -- AVLON: Thanks, John.

CAMEROTA: -- very much.

So, nine minutes and 29 seconds, that's how long prosecutors say Officer Derek Chauvin kept his knee on George Floyd's neck and they have the video to prove that. So more on the evidence as the trial is under way and what we should expect today.

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[07:20:00]

CAMEROTA: The Derek Chauvin murder trial continues today after a dramatic opening day. Prosecutors showed the jury the entire video of George Floyd's deadly encounter with Officer Chauvin, which went on longer than we knew.

CNN's Omar Jimenez is live in Minneapolis with more. Give us an update, Omar.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, this is officially day 14 but in many ways it's felt like a new beginning this week for the trial, this true test of what criminal accountability looks like for policing in America. And opening statements gave us a clear picture of what each side is going to argue either in favor of or against Derek Chauvin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JERRY BLACKWELL, PROSECUTING ATTORNEY: The most important number as you are hearing this trial, 9:92, what happened in those nine minutes and 29 seconds 29 --

JIMENEZ (voice over): Nine minutes and 29 seconds, that's the corrected length of time prosecutors say Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd's neck.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't breathe.

JIMENEZ: During day one of opening statements, Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell played a bystander's video in full for the jury.

BLACKWELL: Mr. Derek Chauvin betrayed this badge when he used excessive and unreasonable force upon the body of Mr. George Floyd.

JIMENEZ: Chauvin faces three counts, second and third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The defense argues that Floyd died of previous health conditions and his methamphetamine and fentanyl use. And autopsy said drug use was a significant condition but it listed his cause of death as heart failure during restraint.

ERIC NELSON, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Derek Chauvin did exactly what he had been trained to do over the course of his 19-year career. The use of force is not attractive but it is a necessary component of policing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Check his pulse.

JIMENEZ: Chauvin's attorney also argues the crowd that formed at the scene distracted the officers.

NELSON: They're screaming at him, causing the officers to divert their attention from the care of Mr. Floyd to the threat that was growing in front of them.

JIMENEZ: The jury heard testimony from three witnesses, including the 911 dispatcher who called the police sergeant while watching surveillance video of the scene. At one point, she said, even thinking the real-time video froze given how long the officers were on top of Floyd.

JENA SCURRY, 911 DISPATCHER: My instincts were telling me that something is wrong.

JIMENEZ: The jury also heard from Donald Williams, a mixed martial arts instructor who was at the scene. He is trained in the use of choke holds and says, he yelled to Chauvin of the blood choke he had Floyd in.

DONALD WILLIAMS, WITNESS: Every time his shoulder is moving, it was putting the pressure down on his neck.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Black lives they matter, hey.

JIMENEZ: The nation has been waiting ten months for this trial. Demonstrators flooding the surrounding streets around the courthouse in Minneapolis. Floyd's brother was in the courtroom Monday, he says this trial is a test for the justice system.

PHILONISE FLOYD, GEORGE FLOYD'S BROTHER: America is on trial right now. Minneapolis, Minnesota, they will have to get this right. We're tired of people getting killed and slaughtered. But if you can't get justices for this as a black man in America, what can you get justice for?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JIMENEZ (on camera): And testimony is going to pick up with Donald Williams, who told CNN back in May just days after witnessing what happened to Floyd from just feet away, that he believed they wanted to kill that man, speaking of Floyd, and of Chauvin, said he knew what he was doing.

Court gets back into session at 9:30 A.M. Eastern Time where the judge will hear a motion from prosecutors over whether to prohibit the broadcast of video and audio from four witnesses who were minors at the time of George Floyd's death. Right now, the court order is just for audio. But then after that, we'll get back into witness testimony as part of this trial, this culmination of what has been building over the past ten months since George Floyd's death. Alisyn?

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

Joining us is CNN Law Enforcement Analyst Charles Ramsey and CNN Legal Analyst Paul Callan.

Paul, I want to start with you. You were a defense attorney. If you were representing former Officer Derek Chauvin, how would you get the jury to unsee those nine minutes and 29 seconds that just seeing it again yesterday was so -- I mean, gutting is the only word I had to think of? I had to turn away watching it just at home, and the jurors, of course, can't turn away.

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, Alisyn, that's really, I think, sums up why the defense case is so difficult in this case. This may be the most filmed killing of a human being in the history of trials. The prosecutor opened with an unemotional but very factual and moving opening statement.

[07:25:05]

And he really put his emphasis on where his case is, and that is the film. And we saw that painful, painful bystander video of Derek Chauvin with his knee on a prone George Floyd, who is pleading and pleading for help.

But the thing I think was most impressive about the prosecution and then the defense response was that the prosecutor, he talked about -- and I think we saw that there was an indifference, a callous contempt expressed by Chauvin, the defendant in the case, in the film. And there was even a witness called at the end, Derek Williams, who described Chauvin as having dead eyes when he looked at the bystanders. He just didn't care about what was happening to George Floyd.

The defense attorney did, I think, what you can only expect in a situation like this, he tried to say to the jury, don't believe your lying eyes. He's saying basically there are other things going on here you have to understand. And he's saying, we're going to challenge the cause of death so keep an open mind.

I think in the end, the defense attorney is looking for a compromise verdict of guilty on a lesser charge, not an acquittal because the evidence looks to be so strong in this case.

AVLON: All right. Chief Ramsey, you spent a life time in law enforcement. So I want to play for you something the defense said. It's S4. I want to get your reaction to what they're saying about Derek Chauvin's training.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NELSON: And you will learn that Derek Chauvin did exactly what he had been trained to do over the course of his 19-year career. The use of force is not attractive but it is a necessary component of policing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Chief Ramsey, do you think that Derek Chauvin was doing simply what he had been trained to do by law enforcement? Is that anything resembling standard protocol for police officers? CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: No, it's not. First of all, use of force isn't pretty to look at. There's no question about that. I've reviewed thousands of use of force cases in my career in the last decade or so. Many of them have video associated with it. And what I do when I look at those cases from the moment of the initial contact to the conclusion of the event, you look at if an officer is using force, was it necessary? Was it proportional? Was it objective or reasonable rather during the entire period of time, what could have been legitimate at the very beginning?

And when you look at the film, you can see that there is some level of resistance as they're trying to put Floyd in the car. They're using force to get him into the car. But at some point in time, the use of force becomes unreasonable, it becomes unnecessary. And that's what you have to look at. Because just because it's justified at the beginning, doesn't mean a minute from now, two minutes from now, three minutes from now, it's still justified at that level. And that's what you're looking at.

It won't be long before you start to see the body-worn camera video. That to me is going to be critical because you'll pick up the conversation between the officers, and that's something that we haven't seen or heard yet, I don't believe. And that's going to be pretty insightful.

CAMEROTA: Well, that will be fascinating.

Paul, as a defense attorney, would you put Officer Derek Chauvin on the stand?

CALLAN: No, I wouldn't put him on the stand. I think it would be a mistake. There's a lot in his background that can be used on cross- examination and I don't think that he would be able to defend his use of force at this level. He just didn't make the kinds of split-second decisions about releasing the force on the neck and shoulders over that 9:29 period, as Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell so eloquently explained. So, I would be shocked if they put him on the stand. I don't think he will testify.

AVLON: All right. Chief Ramsey, quickly, before we go, what about the other police officers? What was their responsibility to intervene, because the bystanders were calling on them to do so?

RAMSEY: Well, now, I mean, that's why the body-worn camera footage is going to be so critical. There is a duty to intervene. Now, whether or not that was in their policy at that time, but just being a human being, at some point in time, you do intervene. Because your first responsibility is the protection of life, that includes those people that you're placing into custody. And so at some point in time, he's laying motionless on the ground.

Do you keep that pressure up at that point in time? The answer to that in my mind is no. And that's when the officers should have intervened and said, whoa, that's enough, let's get this guy up. He's in a prone position face down. That's positional asphyxia right there if you don't so something pretty quickly to get them up so they can breathe once again. And so that would be part of their training as well.

[07:30:01]

So that's going to be interesting. And, again, the body-worn camera footage is going to give us a lot more insight, but it's unfortunate that no one did step in.