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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

White House Focusing On Vaccinations Today; Top Police Officials Testify Against Chauvin In Floyd's Murder; Concern About Navalny's Health In Prison Amid Hunger Strike. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired April 06, 2021 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00]

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: And today, President Biden will take a firsthand look at how mass vaccination is working in the United States when he tours a site in Virginia this afternoon. He'll then return to the White House and deliver some remarks on the state of vaccination in the U.S. Vice President Harris sticking to the same theme with a visit to a vaccination site in Chicago.

CNN's Jasmine Wright joins us from the White House. Jasmine, since taking office we've seen the president and the vice president laser- focused on the vaccination program and it's working out well for them, and some have pointed out the strategy seems to be to underpromise and overdeliver. But now we have all these variants that are spreading and that's a big challenge.

So what do we expect to hear from the president today?

JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: We expect to hear get your shot when it is your turn. That has been President Biden and the White House's message for a while now, making sure that Americans get the shots when they can because they are trying to get this country past the pandemic and avoid a potential fourth surge that would be fueled by these variants. And the way that White House officials say that the country can do that is by getting enough Americans vaccinated.

Now, President Biden will be touring this facility in Virginia just after this weekend when the federal government stepped in to assert, kind of, control over a Baltimore plant, making sure that -- making sure that Johnson & Johnson would take control of this plant in a rare step, trying not to prevent any further trouble at a plant after potentially 15 million Johnson & Johnson doses were spoiled.

Now yesterday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki tried to make the case that everything is still going to plan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We are still on track to have the number of doses we need to vaccinate all adult Americans by the end of May.

This was not even a facility that was approved by the FDA so we were not betting on these doses. We were betting on doses coming from Moderna, Pfizer. And also, Johnson & Johnson has assured us that we will be getting the 24 million doses that they have promised in April.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WRIGHT: Now, President Biden has said that by May 19th, 90 percent of Americans would be eligible to get their shot and by May first, all adult Americans in this country will be able to get their shot. So they are going to go forward with that as well as trying to get, really, past this pandemic by getting Americans vaccinated.

JARRETT: Jasmine Wright live at the White House this morning. Thank you so much -- appreciate it.

A COVID outbreak in rural Illinois adding more proof that large gatherings can quickly turn into super-spreading events.

CNN has reporters covering the pandemic coast-to-coast.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): I'm Adrienne Broaddus in Chicago.

A bar in rural Illinois has been linked to at least 46 COVID cases, plus a school shut down. That's all according to a CDC report. According to the report, about two weeks after the event was held at the bar the daily average number of COVID cases in that county more than doubled. The report also says the event was held inside and there was no outside airflow.

It is unclear how many people attended this event. People who did attend reported inconsistent mask-wearing and said few people followed the physical social distance guideline of maintaining a distance of six feet.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): I'm Elizabeth Cohen.

A new study shows that since February of last year, nearly 40,000 children in the United States lost a parent to COVID-19. That means that for every 13 COVID deaths in the United States a child lost a parent.

Now, about three-quarters of those children were adolescents and about a quarter of them were under the age of 10. Black children were disproportionately affected. Those children represent about 14 percent of the population, but about 20 percent of the children who lost a parent to COVID.

The study authors urge services to help these children as they grieve the loss of their parents.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): I'm Alexandra Field in New York. New Jersey's Gov. Phil Murphy has announced that by April 19th

residents age 16 and up will be eligible to get a vaccine. That's the same date by which President Joe Biden has said 90 percent of American adults will be eligible to get their vaccine. Today, nearly one in four American adults is fully vaccinated.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): I'm Tom Foreman in Washington, D.C. where the mayor's office says as of May first, this town will be opening up a good bit. Live entertainment, business meetings, and conventions will be operating at 25 percent capacity. Recreation centers, museums, galleries, and more will also be operating at 50 percent capacity.

Yes, the mayor's office expects some bump in infections following spring break and the Easter holiday, but they think overall because of vaccinations and other measures the numbers here will keep coming down.

[05:35:12]

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): I'm Stephanie Elam in Los Angeles County, which is being downgraded to the orange tier as part of the state's four-colored tier reopening system. This means that there's a moderate threat of the coronavirus here in the county.

This means that restaurants and movie theaters can open at 50 percent capacity and indoor playground and amusement parks can reopen with modifications.

This also goes for Orange County as well. Los Angeles County is the most populous in the state and Orange County is the third-most populous.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JARRETT: Thanks to all of our correspondents for those updates.

Just days after getting his first vaccine dose, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte has tested positive for coronavirus. The governor shared a video of him getting his first Pfizer shot last Thursday. His office says he's experiencing mild symptoms and plans to self-isolate for 10 days as a precaution.

The Republican governor ended Montana's statewide mask requirement in February.

Now to this. The judge in the Derek Chauvin murder trial will hear today from George Floyd's friend, Maurice Hall, who was in Floyd's car when police confronted them. Hall's lawyer says if the judge orders him to testify he will likely refuse, citing the Fifth Amendment.

This follows Monday's testimony that Chauvin violated department policy by kneeling on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes.

CNN's Sara Sidner has more now from Minneapolis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JUDGE PETER CAHILL, HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA: The testimony you are about to give will be the truth and nothing but the truth.

CHIEF MEDARIA ARRADONDO, MINNEAPOLIS POLICE DEPARTMENT: I do, sir.

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The prosecution's 21st witness in former officer Derek Chauvin's murder trial was his ultimate boss, the chief of police.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is the officer supposed to do to a person in crisis?

ARRADONDO: To attempt to deescalate that situation.

SIDNER (voice-over): Chief Medaria Arradondo testified he first learned of the severity of his officers' actions against George Floyd by a community member.

ARRADONDO: Close to midnight, a community member had contacted me and said chief -- almost verbatim, but said chief, have you seen the video of your officer choking and killing that man?

SIDNER (voice-over): The chief testified Chauvin violated the department's neck restraint policy. And he detailed its use of force policy, which also takes into account the severity of a potential crime.

ARRADONDO: Clearly, when Mr. Floyd was no longer responsive and even motionless, to continue to apply that level of force to a person proned out, handcuffed behind their back, that in no way, shape or form is anything that is by policy and is not part of our training. And it is certainly not part of our ethics or our values.

SIDNER (voice-over): We also heard from the emergency room doctor who treated Floyd when the ambulance dropped him off at the hospital unresponsive.

JERRY BLACKWELL, PROSECUTOR: Did you pronounce him formally dead?

DR. BRADFORD WANKHEDE LANGENFELD, EMERGENCY ROOM PHYSICIAN WHO TREATED FLOYD: Yes.

J. BLACKWELL: Did you receive a report that he had received CPR from any of the officers who may have been on the scene on May 25th, 2020?

LANGENFELD: No. It's well-known that any amount of time that a patient spends in cardiac arrest without immediate CPR markedly decreases the chance of a good outcome.

SIDNER (voice-over): Dr. Bradford Langenfeld testified he believes George Floyd died from hypoxia or a lack of oxygen.

GEORGE FLOYD: I can't breathe.

SIDNER (voice-over): The prosecution is trying to prove it was from the nine minutes, 29 seconds Chauvin had his knee on Floyd's neck restricting his breathing. The defense is trying to refute that, saying it was illicit drugs in Floyd's system coupled with his medical history.

ERIC NELSON, DEREK CHAUVIN ATTORNEY: Certain drugs can cause hypoxia, agreed -- specifically, fentanyl?

LANGENFELD: That's correct.

NELSON: How about methamphetamine?

LANGENFELD: It can.

NELSON: Combination of the two?

LANGENFELD: Yes.

SIDNER (voice-over): But the doctor testified paramedics normally report to him drug overdoses or extreme agitation.

J. BLACKWELL: Did they say to you for purposes of caring or giving treatment to Mr. Floyd that they felt he had suffered a drug overdose?

LANGENFELD: Not in the information they gave -- no.

SIDNER (voice-over): The commander who was in charge of police training back in May testified what she saw Chauvin do to Floyd was not consistent with their training.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And how does this differ?

KATIE BLACKWELL, INSPECTOR, MINNEAPOLIS POLICE DEPARTMENT: I don't know what kind of improvised position that is. So that's not what we train.

SIDNER (on camera): It was another extraordinary day because we heard from the chief of police. You don't often hear from so many officers -- and certainly, the chief of police, in this case, standing very strongly against the kind of force that his former officer Derek Chauvin used.

[05:40:02]

And he went down a list of what the reasons are for using force and they were pretty clear. It was whether or not the officer or others were in potentially grave danger. Whether or not he was actively -- and that's an important word -- actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest.

And then lastly, the police are supposed to consider the crime that the person is being accused of. If you look at that in its totality, the chief said, this was absolutely unnecessary to be on his neck with your knee for more than nine minutes. And it went against not only their policy but their ethical rules as well.

Sara Sidner, CNN, Minneapolis. (END VIDEOTAPE)

JARRETT: Sara, thank you.

In her first major address as Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen pitching the Biden administration's plan to prop up the global economy. It's a plan that has the world's largest economies acting in concert on taxes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANET YELLEN, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY: We're working with G20 nations to agree to a global minimum corporate tax rate that can stop the race to the bottom. Together we can use a global minimum tax to make sure the global economy thrives based on a more level playing field.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: The president has tapped Yellen and other cabinet members to sell his plan to raise U.S. corporate taxes to pay for the $2 trillion infrastructure plan.

Florida officials say there is no second breach in a wastewater reservoir containment wall in danger of collapsing. They're now ramping up efforts to pump the water out. This leak was discovered about a week ago.

Residents in the area, which is about 20 miles south of Tampa, were evacuated as officials warned that the containment wall could collapse at any time.

Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers hosting "JEOPARDY!" and getting stumped by a contestant. We'll show you what happens, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:46:12]

JARRETT: This morning, growing concern about the health of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who is in prison and said to be on a hunger strike.

CNN's Matthew Chance is live outside the prison camp in Russia where Navalny is being held. Matthew, Navalny has alleged sleep deprivation. He said he's suffering with back pain with no medical attention.

What's it going to take for anyone in power to do something about this?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well -- and Laura, you're right. First of all, there's a great deal of concern that's been mounting about the welfare, the health of Alexey Navalny. He's here in the penal colony number two, which is in the town Pokrov, a couple of hours' drive from the Russian capital. You can see the authorities are out here -- the prison guards -- because a whole bunch of people have come out. They're getting lots of journalists but also doctors that have come here today to try and lobby the authorities for Alexey Navalny to get the kind of medical attention he needs.

Now, in terms of what's wrong with him, he's already complained over the past couple of weeks of having a bad back and having a lack of sensitivity in both of his legs. That doesn't sound too serious. But when you consider that this is a figure who was poisoned with a suspected nerve agent back in August, there is a possibility it could be linked to some kind of neurological damage.

And so that's why Alexey Navalny and his team want a specialist doctor to be allowed through these gates to give him a proper inspection and to give him the right medicine if he needs it.

There are other complications as well. First of all, he's gone a hunger strike and has lost about 13 kilograms, according to his team, over the past -- you know, kind of several days -- and order and demand a doctor come in -- be allowed in to come and see him.

He's also got a high temperature and a bad cough, he says on his various social media platforms, which is obviously very concerning in a time of COVID. And what he's saying is it might not necessarily be COVID -- he's being tested for that -- but there's been an outbreak, he says, of tuberculosis inside this penal colony as well.

So all of those factors adding up to a great deal of concern about the welfare of Alexey Navalny, Russia's preeminent opposition figure -- Laura.

JARRETT: Matthew, you mentioned that there's a lot of pushback right now with authorities there and I can see everyone crowded around. But do you get the sense that they feel any real sense of pressure to do something about it or is it really just not in their interest -- not a priority?

CHANCE: Well, I think -- I think what we have seen over the past couple of days, in particular, is Russian state television or pro- Kremlin television in this country putting out video which purports to show Alexey Navalny sort of looking relatively normal.

He's complained, for instance, of being subject to sleep deprivation, which he says is a form of torture. But there has been video that's been put out of Alexey Navalny sort of sleeping in his bed inside this penal colony.

There's also been some closed-circuit television footage that's been released as well of him sort of walking around the sort of dormitory inside the penal colony, carrying a hot drink or something like that -- not looking like he's particularly in pain, sort of talking to a guard.

So the whole sort of narrative that the Russian authorities are trying to put across is that Alexey Navalny is exaggerating the state of his medical welfare and that actually, he's been -- what they're saying is he's been -- you know, getting all the medical attention he needs and he's being treated just like any other prisoner would in this penal colony.

JARRETT: All right, Matthew Chance. Thank you so much for being on the ground there for us -- very, very helpful.

All right, now to this. The former crown prince of Jordan, Prince Hamzah, now declaring loyalty to his half-brother, King Abdullah II, after being accused over the weekend of plotting to destabilize the country.

CNN's Jomana Karadsheh live in Amman, Jordan. Jomana, nice to see you. There's so much intrigue here in all of the family drama. But now with this letter from the prince are things somewhat smoothed over or is that for show and is there more at play here?

[05:50:10]

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Laura, you get a sense that the leadership in this country wants to see an end to this crisis. And this letter was published late last night by the Royal Court, signed by Prince Hamzah, as you mentioned, pledging allegiance to the king and loyalty to the king and the crown prince, and saying that national interests must be put above all else.

This was after the king's uncle, who served as crown prince in this country for more than 30 years, was brought in to mediate and try and end this crisis.

But you really get that shift in tone if you compare it to the video and audio leaks we got from Prince Hamzah over the weekend where he vowed to remain defiant, saying that he's not going to obey orders by the military to cease communications and that he was going to escalate matters.

There are so many questions, Laura, still in this country. Jordanians don't really understand what happened in this country over the weekend. They've been presented with two competing narratives.

You've got the government on one hand telling them that the former crown prince was conspiring with foreign entities to destabilize the country in some sort of a plot that was never explained to the people. And you've got Prince Hamzah telling them that he is not part of any foreign conspiracy and this is an accusation the government levels against anyone who speaks out.

And so Jordanians feel, Laura, that they are in the dark and it doesn't seem like they're going to be getting any answers anytime soon. In the past couple of hours, the public prosecutor here issuing a gag order banning publishing anything related to this case -- locally, about the case -- and the investigation until further notice.

So you really get a sense that the leadership wants to close this chapter and put it behind them. This has been incredibly damaging for Jordan's image and for the image of the royal family here in the country and abroad.

JARRETT: Jomana, while I have you, everyone's watching this so closely. You mention these two competing narratives. If the worst is true what does it signal, sort of, about the larger potential instability in the region and the U.S. interest here?

KARADSHEH: Well, I mean, Laura, you can see how worrying this was. The minute news started coming out on Saturday evening that there was some sort of a plot to destabilize the country, you had an outpouring of support messages coming from different countries, including the United States, saying that they were watching the situation closely. And messages of support for King Abdullah that the U.S. has described as a strategic partner.

It is not just Jordan -- you know, this small country that is very significant because it borders Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Israel, the West Bank. So it has always been a very important partner for the United States militarily and when it comes to intelligence sharing.

But this is a country that has always been able to rely on. Always a country that is considered stable in a very turbulent region. So any sort of possible instability here would be very, very worrying for the United States and other countries, Laura.

JARRETT: Just fascinating to watch all of this play out.

Thank you, Jomana, for laying all that out -- very helpful.

All right. Back here in the U.S., LGBT advocates celebrating a surprise move by the Republican governor of Arkansas. Asa Hutchinson vetoing an anti-transgender healthcare bill that would have barred physicians from providing gender-affirming procedures for trans people under the age of 18.

The governor called the bill a vast government overreach, but Gov. Hutchinson predicted the GOP-led state legislature would likely override his veto. He urged fellow Republicans to study the science and come up with a more restrained approach.

All right. Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers made his hosting debut on "JEOPARDY!" last night but nothing could have prepared him for this moment when a contestant left him speechless after trolling him over the way the Packers' season came to an end.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AARON RODGERS, GREEN BAY PACKERS QUARTERBACK, GUEST HOST, "JEOPARDY!": Scott, did you come up with the correct response? Who wanted to kick that field goal?

(LAUGHTER)

RODGERS: That is a great question.

(END VIDEO CLIP) JARRETT: Stumped. The question, of course, refers to the Packers' NFC championship loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Packers chose to kick a field goal rather than a touchdown late in the game. It was a decision many questioned at the time, including Rodgers.

Thanks so much for joining us, everyone. Have a great day. "NEW DAY" is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:59:38]

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The current Minneapolis police chief takes a stand in the trial of Derek Chauvin, his former officer.

ARRADONDO: I vehemently disagree that was the appropriate use of force for that situation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He says it's not part of the training or the policies. It is extremely damaging to the defense.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Health experts worry the increase of COVID-19 variants puts the country on the cusp of a surge in cases.

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: Cases are increasing nationally and we are seeing this predominantly in younger adults.