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Reporting Indicates Representative Matt Gaetz Sought Blanket Pardon from President Trump; Former Republican House Speaker John Boehner's Book Criticizes Former President Trump; White House Expects Half of U.S. Adults to be Partially Vaccinated by End of Week; George Floyd's Cause of Death at Issue in the Chauvin Trial. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 07, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us now are CNN White House correspondent John Harwood and CNN Congressional correspondent Lauren Fox. Great to see both of you.

John Harwood, "The New York Times" reports about these blanket pardons that Matt Gaetz was seeking. He really, they report, wanted one for himself, but he threw in some congressional colleagues and allies, and he also threw in everybody under the sun. Some associates have suggested that it was to camouflage that he was looking for a blanket pardon. Why would he be looking for such a pardon, John?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was a clever maneuver, but not quite clever enough to get past the White House and the president. First of all, Alisyn, let me just say congratulations on escaping the Berman forcefield and getting to the civilized hours of the afternoon, which is where I will see you going forward.

Look, Matt Gaetz was in big trouble in 2020. An investigation that was launched by Donald Trump's Justice Department under Bill Barr. He was trying to protect himself, and it didn't work. And Donald Trump is somebody who has an eye on his own personal bottom line. He did pardon some people who had committed financial crimes, who were supporters of his, and he wants to reward his supporters. But the issue of potential sex crimes involving children is something altogether different. And don't know whether or not these discussions ever reached Donald Trump, but certainly the White House aides understood that this was a radioactive request that didn't get anywhere.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And again, we don't know for sure if Gaetz was asking for the pardon because of the investigation. But, man, oh, man, the timing, Lauren Fox, is something. And, Lauren, just if you can, this story has been going on for a little while now, but put Matt Gaetz in perspective for us, if possible, where exactly he fits in this universe.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, he's certainly on the fringes up here on Capitol Hill. He was known as someone who was very close or wanted to be very close to President Donald Trump when he was in office. He was also someone who was known for some of these stunts on Capitol Hill. Of course, if you remember about a year ago when the pandemic was really getting under way, Matt Gaetz wore a gasmask on the House floor. That was sort of an effort to make it clear that he thought that people were all overreacting. Of course, given what we've seen over the last year, certainly it was not an overreaction to be taking the pandemic seriously.

You also just have someone here who, as our reporting has shown in the past, had to be talked to by leadership. We know that aides to former House Speaker Paul Ryan had to have a conversation with Gaetz back in 2017 just about acting professionally. We were told by our sources that wasn't tied to one single event. But obviously, it's significant when you're a freshman member and someone from the leadership team has to talk to you about acting professionally on Capitol Hill.

So I think that his reputation has always been someone who likes to be on TV, someone who likes to be in the middle of conservative politics. He really cares about his image on Capitol Hill. He is not known as a serious legislator up here. And he's not really that close to many lawmakers, and I think that's reflected in the fact that you have not seen many Republicans come out backing him or trying to defend him as he is going through this moment right now where it's public that the Department of Justice is investigating him.

CAMEROTA: John, he's supposed to be representing his constituents, but it's hard -- some of his votes are curious. And it's hard to see how they're representative given, for instance, 2017, he was the lone lawmaker in all of Congress, Senate, the House, to vote against a human trafficking law. And then, more recently, he voted against a revenge porn law. He was one of only two congressmen.

BERMAN: That was in the Florida legislature. He was a member of the Florida legislature.

CAMEROTA: Oh, it was? I thought more recently.

BERMAN: But the pattern is clear. You are the guy who stands up for revenge porn?

CAMEROTA: Now in the -- now, given all of this, those seem curious.

HARWOOD: Yes, extremely curious. And, look, there was a passage in Gaetz's book where he talks about getting a phone call from Donald Trump while he was having sex. This is not normal --

BERMAN: Which he took. He brags about taking the call, by the way, right?

HARWOOD: Exactly.

BERMAN: He brags about taking the call.

HARWOOD: Politics attracts some freakish personalities, freakish egos. It's a profession that involves getting affirmation from voters and other people, and people act out in politics. This is a guy who is way, way on the far end of the freakish spectrum. [08:05:06]

And he is telling on himself with those votes that you described, and it's not surprising that people don't want to defend him. It's one thing for people to stand with somebody like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has said a bunch of things that are way, way out there on the fringe. A significant part of the Republican base believes things that are way out there on the fringe. But this kind of behavior that Matt Gaetz is being investigated for and the kind of things that he has acknowledged publicly is -- are things that most decent people don't want to be associated with.

BERMAN: No doubt it's a different Republican Party, a different Republican leadership now than it was, say eight years ago when John Boehner was in charge there then as House speaker. And he has this new book out, or coming out, and we're seeing more and more excerpts of it. And the new one released this morning is a doozy, Lauren. He's talking about the former president, and John Boehner says, I'm going to read the whole thing on your last day. And it involves swearing. This is my gift to you.

So John Boehner writes, "Trump incited that bloody insurrection for nothing more than selfish reasons, perpetuated by the bullshit he's been shoveling since he lost a fair election the previous November."

CAMEROTA: That was your gift to me?

BERMAN: Because you don't like it when I swear.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: So Lauren, that's, A, that sounds like John Boehner, but this is a guy who was the Republican speaker of the House not that long ago.

FOX: Well, certainly. And I think as more and more excerpts from this book have come out, it becomes very clear. And we kind of got some glimpses of it at the time. I covered Boehner when he was speaker of the House eight years ago. But one of the things that is becoming very clear is his disdain for misinformation that really grabbed hold of the Republican Party. He views that as something that was problematic, whether it was the Ted Cruz gambit to shut down the government over defunding the Affordable Care Act, or whether it was what we saw on January 6th here on Capitol Hill because of lies perpetuated by the president.

Here you have someone who was in the seat of power for the Republican Party for many years, someone who was well respected by his colleagues, really watch his power wane in part because the rise of the Freedom Caucus and the rise of what Republican voters were expecting, in part because of some of the lies that they were being fed by the very politicians who were in his conference. And I think you are getting a lot of frustration, a lot of chest clearing happening from the former speaker of the House there.

BERMAN: It interesting to get that book the day after Tucker Carlson went on T.V. last night and laughed off the insurrection yet again, yet again. Lauren Fox, John Harwood, our thanks to both of you.

The White House expects half of adults in the U.S. to be at least partially vaccinated by this weekend. Despite that, President Biden says now is not the time for Americans to let down their guard.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The virus is spreading because we have too many people who see the end in sight, think we're at the finish line already. But let me be deadly earnest with you. We aren't at the finish line.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Joining us now, CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Also with us, Dr. Paul Offit, he's the director of the Vaccine Education Center of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the FDA's Vaccine Advisory Committee. Dr. Offit, I'm going to start with you this morning. Half of all adults vaccinated by this weekend, that's a heck of a number. That's a good sign. I know, literally, that means half of adults aren't vaccinated or haven't received one dose, but we're getting there.

DR. PAUL OFFIT, DIRECTOR, VACCINE EDUCATION CENTER, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: It's amazing. I remember about a month-and- a-half ago, people were hoping we could get to 2 million doses a day. Now we're over 3 million doses a day. That's one percent of the population every day. You have 55 percent of seniors now, those over 65, that are fully vaccinated, 75 percent have received at least one dose of vaccine. These are the people who are most likely to die, and we've been really good about protecting them.

CAMEROTA: But Sanjay, just because -- look, all that is fantastic. And President Biden saying that he wants to lower the eligibility for all adults starting soon. That's great. But, of course, it's still about access. So just because there's now lower eligibility, it doesn't mean in some states people are still going to be able to easily get a vaccine.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. That's definitely true. So many of the people like Dr. Offit was saying have been reached, people who are particularly vulnerable. But there are still a lot of people out there who aren't necessarily hesitant about getting the vaccine. They just have a hard time getting it. Simple, they may not have a car, they may not have a pharmacy or doctor's office in their particular area in these hard to reach populations. That's going to be a focus to these community mobile sites and things like that.

[08:10:00]

So we'll see, but it's an important point. And we talk about the country as a whole in terms of vaccinations, but it's also good to sometimes look at various places and see how they are doing. For example, we compared New York and North Dakota. And when we do the math on this, we find that they may both get to this point within the next couple of months where they have all eligible adults who want to get vaccinated vaccinated. But for very different reasons. I can show you the numbers. But New York, for example, they vaccinated 6.6 percent of their population last week, which is pretty incredible. North Dakota going a lot more slowly, but they have more vaccine hesitancy. All of this to say that there may be pockets around the country that are going to look different. It's going to be tough to paint this with one broad brush.

BERMAN: Dr. Offit, already in the show we've talked about the studies that indicate the lingering effects perhaps on the brain if you do survive COVID. And there are other concerning data points that we're seeing about the lasting effects here. First of all, I'm fascinated by the idea this is being passed now more than we've seen before among team sports among kids. I say that as a father of kids who play sports, and I know a lot of parents think about that. But also, I know you've been looking into in quite extensive detail now the new information about the multisystem inflammatory syndrome among children where we've seen more than 3,000 cases and a few dozen deaths. What are we learning about that now, Dr. Offit?

OFFIT: It's interest, when this virus left China, it was billed as a winter respiratory virus that could cause something like influenza. It's obviously far more than that. I was just on service the last two weeks at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, and we saw children who had this multisystem inflammatory disease.

As a general rule, they either had mild or asymptomatic infection. By the time we saw them, which was roughly a month later, they no longer were shedding infectious virus, but they had an antibody to that virus, which means that basically their immune system was working against them. And so they would have evidence of damage to their heart, their liver, their kidneys. And it's remarkable. Basically, their immune system was working against them.

I don't think we fully understand the pathogenesis or disease process that's involved here. But these can cause longer term effects. When people talk about being -- fearing SARS-CoV-2 or COVID disease, I think what they most through obviously is dying, but there's lingering effects that occur probably because what the virus does is it causes your immune system to react against your own blood vessels, causing inflammation of the blood vessels. And because every organ system in your body has a blood supply, therefore, every organ system can be affected. That's the scariest part of this virus to me.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Offit, Sanjay, thank you both very much.

GUPTA: Can I just say really quick, Alisyn, I am going to miss you on the mornings. I know it's been a stressful time for you. You may not remember this, but we've gone through great lengths to try and alleviate your stress over the years. In fact, we can show this clip. I don't know if you remember this happening. We'd have to bring in acupuncturists to try and calm you down. Do you see that? John actually has a needle sticking out of his head.

CAMEROTA: I have one, too. GUPTA: You have one, too, yes. Now you're going to get more sleep.

Now you're going to be able to hopefully not be as stressed. But I just want to tell you that I am going to miss you, Alisyn, here in the mornings. As I said last hour, you're often the first face I see, you and John, and you kept it real. You asked the questions that people really wanted to know the answers to.

And I always felt like I had to be on my toes because your questions often started with, but, Sanjay -- and then I knew some zinger was coming in that maybe I hadn't quite prepared for that made me think, but it did. And I really appreciate that. I'm going to miss you very much here, but I'll see you in the afternoons. OK, thanks for helping us get through this, appreciate, really appreciate it.

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, that's so kind. That means so much to me. And part of why I'm looking forward to my move is because I hope to have a fraction of the productivity and mental bandwidth that you have every day, Sanjay. I don't know how you do all that you do. I don't know how you host townhalls and do huge blockbuster interviews and write books and come on every morning and do brain surgery. I don't know.

BERMAN: He just did a podcast while he was on with us. Like literally, during that hit.

CAMEROTA: I'm not surprised.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: But I'm hoping that I can eke out a fraction of that. Sanjay, thank you so much. I look toward to seeing you in the afternoons. Thank you for everything.

GUPTA: I'll see you there.

BERMAN: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:18:27]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Prosecution will resume witness testimony this morning in the Derek Chauvin murder trial. We're still waiting to hear from several key witnesses, including the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy on George Floyd.

Joining us now, Cedric Alexander, he's the former public safety director for DeKalb County, Georgia. Also with us, criminal defense attorney Mark O'Mara. He led the defense of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin.

Mark, I want to start with you.

We're going into now the -- in terms of the medical evidence and the cause of death. And, of course, we've already seen that's a point of conflict, of course, between the prosecution and defense. How do you think -- where do you think this ranks in terms of what

we've already seen. Are we getting to the most pivotal part of the trial?

MARK O'MARA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE & CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Well, you have to look at the cadence of the trial. The prosecution started with the emotions of it. Obviously, the video very emotional, but also the bystanders, and all those people who came to try and help. So, the cadence was to get the emotions out and to really look at what Chauvin did and why.

Now, quite honestly, it's going to be slightly more boring or technical or scientific. Now, we're going to get into the experts and the defense has done a pretty good job, so far, of throwing out some of those seeds of doubt, the reasonable doubt that they have to convince this jury exists by talking about some of those witnesses. And now, I want to get into the meat of it, because the whole question truly is going to be and always has been, did Chauvin cause the death?

It looks like he did when we look at that video without question, but it's got to be proven by the state beyond a reasonable doubt.

[08:20:04]

And that's going to really rely on the experts and the questions of where -- where the knee was, the lack of injuries to the neck. It's going to be interesting for those who watch it, a little bit boring for the general public unfortunately.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Cedric, as you've watched this trial to the point where we are now, you've obviously got two versions from the prosecution and defense in terms of what police work really is. What is the policy? How are you supposed to act?

And as we are at this turning point from the police work to the medical condition, you know, how -- where is the case? What do you think the jury is left with? What is their takeaway?

CEDRIC ALEXANDER, FORMER PUBLIC SAFETY DIRECTOR, DEKALB COUNTY, GEORGIA: Well, I think Mark pretty much summed it up. Let me reframe it from a law enforcement perspective and that of just the citizen like anyone else that look at this. If we look at the video, there's a very emotional part to this. This is what we saw during the first week of this trial, the emotional component of it.

Now we're getting into the science of the death. And that's the more intellectual piece of what may have caused this death. And that's going to be the challenge now for the prosecution, I can only imagine.

But from a law enforcement perspective, when I look at it, when I see it, when I think back over my career, having been in fights on the street, having to subdue someone, having to hold them down, we know that we have policies. We know that we have training that we adhere to, so we do not put a person that's in our custody at risk such as what we saw. So there's still a lot of this trial left to be determined as to what

the outcome is going to be. But let me be clear, that emotional piece, that video that we saw for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, I still believe is going to play a huge part in the outcome of this case. But the science is going to have to play a piece as well.

CAMEROTA: That's really interesting. Mark, how do you -- knowing that the video, we've all seen the video, and we have all seen George Floyd die before our eyes. How do you, if you were Derek Chauvin's defense attorney, how do you convince the jury -- well, that's not actually what he died from. What you saw with your eyes, you didn't see the whole thing. It was the drugs in his system.

But again, everybody saw that he was functioning. He was upright. He was talking. And then in the videotape, they watch him under the knee lose his life.

O'MARA: And that's a delicate balance the defense has to run. They cannot lose their credibility with those 12 jurors because if they do, then everything they say thereafter is going to be ignored.

But having said that, what Chauvin's attorney has to do is convince that jury that there is some doubt, some reason to believe that there's an alternative theory.

Don't forget, they do not have to prove innocence. They just have to sow that doubt in the jury's mind, and that can come from a number of different sources. One, ladies and gentlemen, we just don't know, we don't how much effect the drugs had on him. We don't know how much effect his restraint was. We don't know how much effect his resistance was.

There was a very telling point in this trial. I'll give you a quick example if I might. One of the experts came out and said, look, you can knock somebody unconscious in ten seconds if you do something improper, right? They talked about that knee on the neck.

Well, the alternative theory to that is, well, it he wasn't knocked unconscious in ten seconds. He wasn't knocked unconscious for five minutes.

So does that suggest that Chauvin was doing whatever he was doing properly? That's the -- that's what you're going to hear from this defense as they move forward. These alternative theories of, in effect, non-guilt.

BERMAN: Mark O'Mara, Cedric Alexander, thank you both for being with us this morning.

ALEXANDER: Thank you for having me.

BERMAN: So, you know, it's a weird, weird world we live in when Republicans are anti-big business. Mitch McConnell, you know, billions of dollars richer in his political accounts, now wants corporations out of politics.

CAMEROTA: In some cases.

BERMAN: Well, exactly. In the cases, he doesn't want them in politics. "Reality Check" next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:28:17]

CAMEROTA: Here's a peculiar headline. Republicans have become anti- big business?

It turns out a number of strange events are aligning to turn the political world upside down and John Avlon explains in our "Reality Check."

Hi, John.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: So, if you thought politics made strange bedfellows before, wait until you get a load of this. Big corporations are the new liberal mob. Yeah, that's the mind-bending tweet from Nikki Haley.

Did you ever expect to see Georgia Republicans calling for a boycott of home state business giants Coke and Delta? I mean, that's like denouncing the national pastime, which some Republicans are doing after Major League Baseball moved the all-star game from Atlanta to Colorado.

That's all small ball compared to Mitch McConnell asking companies to stay out of politics after a career of trying to do the opposite. On the flip side, many big businesses are condemning GOP efforts to restrict voting rights while business leaders like Jeff Bezos are backing President Biden's call for a higher corporate tax rate. You got all that?

All right. Let's start with the most surreal case of situational ethics.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): I found it completely discouraging to find a bunch of corporate CEOs getting in the middle of politics. My advice to the corporate CEOs of America is to stay out of politics. Don't pick sides in these big fights.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Don't pick sides? Stay out of politics? Seriously?

From the guy who sued over federal laws that limited corporations' ability to influence elections? Whose super PAC raised $475 million for business leaders and companies during the 2020 election cycle? Yeah, same guy.

But now he's concerned that corporations are responding to employees, customers and shareholders by standing up to laws passed in the shadow of Trump's big lie because, as the "New Yorker" reported, McConnell knows that Democratic-backed reforms making easier to vote are broadly popular, even with Republicans.

That's not the only shot.