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New Day
Gaetz Associate Expected to Sign Onto Plea Deal; Sen. Manchin: 'I'm Not Killing the Filibuster'; Medical Examiner Who Performed Floyd's Autopsy to Testify. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired April 09, 2021 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRITZ SCHELLER, ATTORNEY FOR JOEL GREENBERG (voice-over): I'm sure Matt Gaetz is not feeling very comfortable today.
[05:58:52]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The investigation surrounding Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz enters a new phase as a key associate signals he might strike a plea deal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's clear that everybody expects Greenberg to cooperate against Gaetz.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every statement he's made is potentially incriminating and can work against him.
DR. MARTIN TOBIN, PULMONOLOGIST: Mr. Floyd died from a low level of oxygen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dr. Tobin said four things caused Floyd to stop breathing, including Floyd's position on the concrete.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The doc has destroyed Derek Chauvin's defense theory.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Friday, April 9, 6 a.m. here in New York. I'm John Berman. Erica Hill with me here this morning.
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Happy Friday.
BERMAN: It is Friday. We're going to make it.
New overnight there are receipts, Venmo receipts. The latest sign the walls may be closing in on Congressman Matt Gaetz. A flurry of new developments. So Congressman Adam Kinzinger became the first Republican member of
Congress to call for Gaetz to resign in the face of the federal investigation into alleged sex trafficking. The investigation includes scrutiny of a trip to the Bahamas where women were allegedly paid to travel and have sex with Gaetz and others. It also involves an alleged relationship that Gaetz had with a 17-year-old girl.
All of these developments part of a broader probe into the congressman's friend Joel Greenberg, who's already facing one count of sex trafficking. Greenberg's attorney suggested that his client has flipped and is working with investigators on a plea deal and added, quote, "I'm sure Matt Gaetz is not feeling very comfortable today."
And then the receipts. New reporting from "The Daily Beast" about alleged Venmo payments to Greenberg from Gaetz and the records reportedly left behind.
HILL: Meantime, it is expected to be a very big day in the Derek Chauvin murder trial. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy on George Floyd expected to testify, and that comes on the heels of a really -- a day of very powerful testimony from other experts, including this man, Dr. Martin Tobin, a renowned pulmonologist, who stated unequivocally that George Floyd died from a low level of oxygen. He said it was not drugs in his system but that lack of air because of Derek Chauvin's knee on his neck is what led to George Floyd's death.
Let's begin this hour, though, with Ryan Nobles, who is live on Capitol Hill with these latest developments in the scandal involving Matt Gaetz.
Ryan, good morning.
RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Eric, good morning to you.
And this report from "The Daily Beast" outlines yet another connection between Congressman Gaetz and Joel Greenberg, the former Seminole County tax collector, who was at the center of a massive federal investigation that involves things like prostitution, sex trafficking, and a number of other crimes.
In this report from "The Daily Beast," they outline a series of transactions from Gaetz's Venmo to Greenberg's Venmo, the cash sharing app, that outlined in May of 2018 $900 in transactions from Gaetz to Greenberg that then ended up going to three unidentified women.
Now, the women are not underage. There's no direct evidence that they were paid for sex, but it does outline how close this connection is between Gaetz and Greenberg. And that is important, because yesterday in an Orlando courtroom, Greenberg and his attorney announced that they are prepared to make a plea deal with federal prosecutors.
And if that happens, it could mean that there is a cooperation agreement not far behind. And if Greenberg begins to dish on what he knows about Matt Gaetz, that could be trouble for the Florida congressman.
Listen to what Greenberg's attorney said yesterday outside the courtroom.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does Matt Gaetz have anything to worry about?
SCHELLER: Does Matt Gaetz -- that is such a broad -- does he have --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHELLER: Does he have anything to worry about? And you're asking me to get into the mind of Matt Gaetz. I'm sure Matt Gaetz is not feeling very comfortable today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBLES: Now, it's important to point out that Gaetz has denied all of these allegations against him. Even significantly, he said that he has never paid for sex, and that he has never had sex with a 17-year-old as an adult.
Still, there is a ton of pressure on the congressman right now. And he has not been in Washington for several weeks. The House is expected to be back in session here on Monday.
The question is will Gaetz even be here? He currently has an active proxy vote, which means that he could participate without actually being in Washington -- John.
BERMAN: Yes. Is Adam Kinzinger the first or last Republican member of Congress to call on Gaetz to resign in the face of all these allegations?
Ryan Nobles, keep us posted. Thank you very much.
Joining us now is CNN political analyst Margaret Talev. She is the managing editor at Axios. And Margaret, we played Fritz Scheller, who is the attorney for Joel Greenberg, the attorney who said that this man, this friend of Matt Gaetz, is working toward a plea deal. I want to play a little bit more of him, which just gives you a sense of the atmosphere surrounding Matt Gaetz now. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did your client introduce Matt Gaetz to any underaged girls for sexual relations?
SCHELLER: All right. So I'm just going to let you sit down there and so I can look over your head and ignore that question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: The question was, Did your client introduce Gaetz to any underaged girls for sexual relations? He didn't answer it. And Ryan let you hear all the denials that Matt Gaetz has given. But this is a tough world for Congressman Gaetz to be living in this morning, a tough reality. Where do you see this headed over the next few days, Margaret?
MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, John. We're watching a few things. Obviously, on the criminal justice front, those remarks, even the fact that Mr. Greenberg's attorney was willing to talk to the press and mention Congressman Gaetz tell you that the prosecutors and Mr. Greenberg and his attorney are all trying to send a message to Congressman Gaetz. It seems like prosecutors are pushing some kind of a plea or an admission or an engagement or moving the ball forward on that.
And it also certainly sounds like there are going to be, both in terms of testimony and in terms of receipts, records, electronic records, additional revelations that could definitely imperil Congressman Gaetz.
On the political front, it's a different series of questions, but, yes, I don't think that Congressman Kinzinger is going to be the only member of Congress to make this call, even if he is the first.
And it is noteworthy that all of this is taking place while Congress has been out on recess. So when everybody comes back, and there's that sort of flurry of news conferences and availabilities and statements, and this becomes a question again and again for Republican leadership, there's going to be a demand for a more fulsome answer.
Former President Trump himself gave sort of weak -- I wouldn't even call it an embrace -- weak support of Congressman Gaetz, not the full- thrown support you've seen him give so many other close allies.
And then you've got the billboard in West Florida, put up by an anti- Trump PAC that's getting a lot of headlines about Congressman Gaetz. You've got these additional revelations about the Venmo transactions. This is moving along a lot of fronts very quickly, and it's all bad news for the congressman.
HILL: It does feel like it's all moving very quickly. And to your point of what we're starting to hear and what we will hear -- whether they answer those questions or not, we know they will be asked in the halls of Congress as lawmakers are back and walking around with our colleagues.
The fact that we got this statement from Matt Gaetz's office just from women with no names, calling him a principled and morally-grounded leader with no hint of impropriety, I mean to put out a statement from the women in his office, but with no names attached, I'm not sure that sends the message they were hoping it would.
TALEV: It's also not clear, Erica, who the message is for. I think that that message is probably for Republican leadership in Congress as much as anything else. It's to say, Don't cut me loose right now. I -- you know, I'm not guilty of what I'm being accused of, is the message that he's trying to send. But leadership has a choice when they're figuring out who to keep on
committees and where to stand by their members. The predicate for being a member of Congress is not did you -- have you been convicted of any crimes? It's, you know, are you an appropriate figure to serve on these committees?
So I think Republican leadership is going to have more and more pressure to take a stand on this and say whether or not they can still support the congressman in -- in active kind of committee roles and such. And that's just not going to get any easier next week when Congress comes back.
BERMAN: All right, Margaret. Talk about great timing. So Joe Manchin, Democratic senator from West Virginia, writes an op-ed saying that he is opposed or reluctant to pass any major legislation on strict party line votes. Reconciliation is the word there. We'll leave that where it sides.
So he publishes an op-ed. It imperils President Biden's agenda. It puts in jeopardy the huge infrastructure plan he wants to pass.
So the day that comes out, our Lauren Fox is in West Virginia with Joe Manchin and got this exclusive interview. I want to play a little bit of that. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): January 6 changed me, and I was very clear with everybody. I never thought in my life, I never read in history books to where our form of government had been attacked at our seat of government, which is Washington, D.C., our Capitol, by our own people. So something told me, wait a minute, pause. Hit the pause button. Something is wrong. You can't have this many people split to where they want to go to war with each other.
LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Did the Biden administration talk with you before rolling out their infrastructure plan? And do you have other concerns besides just the corporate tax rate.
MANCHIN: They've been very, very kind in talking. We do talk. We have communication.
FOX: How often?
MANCHIN: As often as I would like. As often as they would like. You know, the president --
FOX: The president directly?
MANCHIN: Whenever he calls me, he calls and we have a good conversation. We've had a good friendship and a relationship for a long time. We understand each other.
FOX: Some progressives think that you're standing in the way of significant changes the president could make on voting rights, because you don't want to get rid of the filibuster. Other changes that they could make on gun reforms, that President Biden's --
MANCHIN: They can develop those changes if we try to work towards the middle. You can't work in the fringes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: So it's an interesting discussion, and there's a lot more. And we're going to play a lot more of it in the next hour, and Lauren will be here, Margaret.
But yesterday, Erica and I were here, and we woke up, I think, with the feeling that Joe Manchin might be a roadblock to the infrastructure plan. But listening to him and a little bit of handler routine, and I'm not saying that pejoratively, but listening to Joe Manchin work himself through his issues, it may be that he's giving them a roadmap to how to get infrastructure passed over the next several months. How do you see it?
[06:10:07]
TALEV: This speech is -- this interview and his op-ed in "The Washington Post" are going to be parsed again and again by everyone, each who wants to see something different.
But it seems like he's giving three pretty clear messages, No. 1, he's telling Biden and progressive Democrats, Don't try to jam too much stuff through without consultation or you're going to give me no choice but to say no, and I'm telling you that now.
No. 2, I think he's also telling Republicans, I'm clearing this space and saying Democrats have to work with you. If you don't work with them and you really don't work with them, that may give me an excuse to kind of slide over and side with my own party if I need to. Right? That's what he's saying.
And No. 3, he's telling the White House, don't send a staffer to come talk to me. I talked to President Biden, right, and so he is just sort of bolstering or solidifying how important he is as the guy to come see. He's the fulcrum. He's the lever. He can get anything he wants, essentially, out of a deal, but what is the deal that he's willing to make, right?
There's an old adage in politics that everybody has a price. And Joe Manchin seems to be saying, I don't have a price on this one. I'm not going to vote to get rid of the filibuster.
So you're going to have to use reconciliation, and you're going to have to do all the steps ahead of time to make it OK for me in my home state and with this kind of legacy issue that I have carved out around bipartisanship. You're going to have to make it worth my while to do the -- essentially to be the 51st vote. Like Harris is already there, right? He's the tiebreaker. Joe Manchin is the tiebreaker, is what he's saying.
BERMAN: Look, we're all becoming fluent in Manchin this morning. And, you know, Margaret, thank you for helping us decipher what this all means. Great to see you.
TALEV: Thanks, John.
HILL: We do have new details this morning about another mass shooting in America. This time in Bryant, Texas. Police say a gunman killed one person, wounded five others at a cabinet business.
The shooter is believed to be an employee of the company and is being charged with murder. All this happening just hours after President Biden announced a slate of new gun control measures through executive action.
The medical examiner who performed George Floyd's autopsy is expected to take the stand today. How critical is his testimony? We have a preview of what we're likely to hear, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:16:36]
HILL: A key prosecution witness expected to testify this morning at the Derek Chauvin trial. Jurors will hear from the medal examiner who performed the autopsy on George Floyd.
Now, this comes after a very powerful of testimony yesterday in which a pulmonologist rejected the defense team's claim that drugs or a preexisting condition had killed George Floyd.
CNN's Adrienne Broaddus has more for us from Minneapolis.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In direct terms, expert medical witness Dr. Martin Tobin told jurors how he believed George Floyd died last May.
TOBIN: The cause of death is a low level of oxygen that caused the brain damage and caused the heart to stop.
BROADDUS: The pulmonologist backed up his analysis by using images, graphics, and videos during his testimony.
JERRY BLACKWELL, PROSECUTING ATTORNEY: Dr. Tobin, what do we see in Exhibit 943?
TOBIN: What we're seeing is that half of his body weight plus half his gear weight is coming down. That's 91.5 pounds is coming down directly on Mr. Floyd's death.
BROADDUS: And even used an animation to recreate the fatal altercation.
TOBIN: You are able to see how they're positioned at different points.
BROADDUS: Tobin told jurors Floyd slowly suffocated over the 9 minutes and 29 seconds officers pinned him on the ground. TOBIN: It was almost to the effect as if a surgeon had gone in and
removed the lung. Not quite, but along those lines.
BROADDUS: And described how long he says former Minnesota Police Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck after he stopped breathing.
TOBIN: The knee remained on the neck for another three minutes and two seconds after we reached the point where there was not one ounce of oxygen left in the body.
BROADDUS: Tobin also dismissed the defense's claims that Floyd could breathe because he was talking during the incident.
TOBIN: It tells you how dangerous is the concept of, if you can breathe -- or if you can speak, you can breathe. Yes, that is true, on the surface, but highly misleading.
BROADDUS: The defense focused in on its argument, saying Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose.
ERIC NELSON, ATTORNEY FOR DEREK CHAUVIN: You would agree generally that fentanyl is a respiratory depressant?
TOBIN: It can be.
NELSON: Right. It's -- it's used in operating rooms, right?
TOBIN: Yes. (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
BROADDUS: But Tobin testified neither drugs nor pre-existing health conditions were the cause of Floyd's death.
TOBIN: A healthy person subjected to what Mr. Floyd was subjected to would have died as a result of what he was subjected to.
BROADDUS: Emergency physician Dr. Bill Smock also supported Tobin's position during his own testimony Thursday.
DR. BILL SMOCK, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN, EXPERT WITNESS: He was saying please, please, get off of me. I want to breathe. I can't breathe. That is not a fentanyl overdose. That is somebody begging to breathe.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROADDUS: And Dr. Tobin's show-and-tell approach really captivated members of the juror. There were moments when he told the jurors to follow along with him, asking them to touch their neck.
The jurors did. Even after the judge said they didn't have to, they continued. And that powerful testimony is on the minds of jurors, most likely, this morning as they enter the courtroom.
[06:20:08]
Today they will hear from the Hennepin County medical examiner. That autopsy conducted by the medical examiner has been surrounded with controversy, and we will see how far the prosecution takes the medical examiner today, because that autopsy report does not mention asphyxiation -- John.
HILL: It doesn't.
BROADDUS: Erica.
HILL: It will be interesting to see, Adrienne, where that goes today. Thank you.
Just ahead, CNN's exclusive reporting from inside Myanmar amid the deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLARISSA WARD, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Fourteen-year-old Tun Tun Aung (ph), who was killed by your forces, what do say to his mother?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: We'll have more of Clarissa Ward's powerful report, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[06:25:12]
TOBIN: A healthy person subjected to what Mr. Floyd was subjected to would have died as a result of what he was subjected to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Powerful testimony in the Derek Chauvin murder trial on Thursday from a pulmonologist you just saw there who dismissed the idea that the defense is saying, it was drugs or pre-existing conditions that killed George Floyd.
Joining us now is CNN legal analyst Elie Honig. Also with us, Dr. Priya Banerjee. She's a forensic pathologist and the president of Anchor Forensic Pathology.
And I want to get into what we heard and what we're going to hear today. But, Elie, could you characterize for us? I mean, I -- you know, I was watching that all day yesterday. We heard how the jury was just absolutely paying attention, taking furious notes, following along as Dr. Tobin suggested they feel their necks, even after the judge said they didn't need to, just so they could understand what he was trying to explain to them.
How would you characterize him as a witness, Elie?
ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Dr. Tobin was a remarkably effective expert witness, really about as good as I've ever seen. When you're a prosecutor and you're presenting a medical expert to a jury, that can be tricky because candidly, sometimes they can be boring or difficult to understand.
Neither of those things applied to Dr. Tobin. He did two things that were really important.
First of all, he provided well-grounded scientific opinion on a key issue in this case. As a non-doctor, I felt like I was truly understanding human breathing for the first time listening to him.
And every conclusion, he said, that's based on this piece of video, this piece of evidence.
The other thing he did is he left the jury with an indelible image in their head. He pointed out the fact that George Floyd was burying his knuckle into a tire struggling to breathe. He was using his face to try to lift his body up to struggle to breathe. Those images, I think, will really stick with the jury.
BERMAN: It's vivid imagery like this that that I'm about to play where the doctor went into the specifics about the moment he thought that George Floyd died. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOBIN: At the beginning, you can see he's conscious. You can see slight flickering. And then it disappears. So one -- one second he's alive, and one second, he's no longer. That's the moment the life goes out of his body.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: So, Doctor, again, this is your wheelhouse, your area of expertise. From your perspective, how was his testimony?
DR. PRIYA BANERJEE, PRESIDENT, ANCHOR FORENSIC PATHOLOGY: Good morning. Thank you for having me.
I actually agree 100 percent with Dr. Tobin. I thought physiologically and, you know, breaking it down, I think he did a great job. I think it will complement the upcoming medical examiner's testimony pretty well. And I think it lays a foundation for understanding why the autopsy came to the conclusion that it did.
HILL: I want to follow up on that point with you, Doctor. Because you said it will complement, you think, the medical examiner's findings really well. We're expecting to hear from the medical examiner today, but his findings, from what we know, don't exactly line up with Dr. Tobin's.
BANERJEE: Yes.
HILL: I mean, there was no mention in that autopsy of asphyxiation. He did rule the death as homicide but said it was resulting from cardiopulmonary arrest while being restrained by law enforcement officers. And also, you know, mentioned some pre-existing conditions and even mentioned the drugs in his system, which Dr. Tobin spent a long time going through why he does not believe that they contributed to his death. So it almost felt like Dr. Tobin was a prebuttal.
BANERJEE: Yes. I think you have to understand how we sort of summarize an autopsy. But I wanted to start by defining asphyxia. Asphyxia is just -- it's a very broad term in how the body is deprived of oxygen. That's really all it's saying.
It's such an umbrella catch phrase that, when I looked at Dr. Baker's report, he was much more specific and descriptive. And, you know, in a complex case, descriptive really captures all what happened.
So it's not that -- you know, maybe he didn't use the exact word "asphyxia," but I think he does cover the entire scenario more accurately.
And then, you know, when I look at these cases in my practice and in my legal reviews, it's -- you list the other significant conditions, and that doesn't mean -- you know, obviously Mr. Floyd had drugs in his system. Obviously, he had an enlarged heart. You are acknowledging these things.
It doesn't mean that -- you know, you can't just discount them. But I think Dr. Tobin really captured that -- that's why they're not the primary cause of death. And did they contribute, yes, but you know, but he really helps sort of qualitatively describe that they.
