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New Day

Senator Joe Manchin Of West Virginia Says He Is Making A Committment To Work With Republicans; An Expert Medical Examiner Gave A Clear Vivid Description And Exhibit Of Floyd In His Final Minutes; Prince Philip Has Died At The Age Of 99; Another Mass Shooting, This One In Texas At A Cabinet Manufacturer; One Third Of Americans Have Now Been Vaccinated Against COVID-19. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired April 09, 2021 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D), WEST VIRGINIA.: Feel exactly like I feel.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: How does that affect his relationship with the White House?

MANCHIN: They've been very, very kind in talking. We do talk. We have communications.

FOX: How often?

MANCHIN: As often as I would like. As often as they would like. I'm always, you know, with the president -

(CROSSTALK)

FOX: The president directly?

MANCHIN: Whenever he calls me, he calls me and we have a good conversation. We've had a good friendship and relationship for a long time. We understand each other.

FOX: And he has a warning for fellow Democrats. Slow down on thoughts of ramming through legislation like voting rights.

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 because you have problems -

(CROSSTALK)

MANCHIN: Well maybe they can make all these changes if they try to work towards the middle. You can't work in the fringes. You just cannot work in the fringes. We want fair, open, secured elections. And what Georgia has done some things, which I thought were just atrocious, OK? But I'm also been a Secretary of State and I've been a governor, and I know the Tenth Amendment. I know my rights as far as states rights, and I don't think there should be a overreaching, if you will, federal elections.

FOX: What changes -

(CROSSTALK)

MANCHIN: I think the - you know, well I'll tell you the one they did, which is unbelievable to me, they took away the powers of the election - Secretary of State's office and put it in the hands of the Congress - I mean, in their legislature. Now you have no one person that you can hold accountable for. You have a whole legislature of 100 people or more. That's crazy.

FOX: And gun control.

MANCHIN: I support what the president did today from what I heard, OK? What he's doing on executive order. Now there's an awful lot other things he talked about, but the executive order says those guns should not be allowed to be legally made or sold or used. It's illegal because they're making them off of printers, and you can't detect them.

FOX: But you still can't support the House passed background check bill.

MANCHIN: Not the way the House bill is, but there - you know, that's negotiations.

FOX: Had there been any negotiations over this recess?

MANCHIN: We haven't gotten the bill yet. We haven't gotten the bill yet. No, we haven't. And I'm happy - I'm happy to work with them, sit down, and I think that's just we call common gun sense. And if you come from a gun culture, such as I do in West Virginia and I would think there's a person (ph), I don't know a person that have a gun (ph), OK? It's a different background. I'm anxious to work with them and try to do something in a most constructive way.

FOX: And on the administration's proposed infrastructure plan. Are you comfortable moving ahead with an infrastructure bill, an infrastructure bill that's going to be $2.3 trillion and potentially another $2 trillion -

(CROSSTALK)

MANCHIN: We're not - we're not sure what -

(CROSSTALK)

FOX: -- without Republicans if you have to?

MANCHIN: The more things that we do without trying to make this process to work and allow the minority to be involved, the further apart we become as a country.

FOX: But do they want to be involved?

MANCHIN: I think so.

FOX: I mean -

(CROSSTALK)

MANCHIN: Why are you here if you want to be involved? Why do you run for the Senate?

FOX: What does he think of his new found role as rain maker (ph)? Some of your colleagues joke that you're the President of the Senate now. I've heard them in the hallways remark that to you. Do you like this role?

MANCHIN: Now (ph)-

(CROSSTALK)

FOX: How does it feel.

MANCHIN: Let me tell you about - and I've said this before and I'll it again. I've watched people that had power and abused it. I've watched people that sought power and destroyed themselves, and I've watched people that had a moment of time to make a difference and change things and used it. I would like to be that third.

I'm just who I am. I - they don't look at me as, oh, there's the big bad Democrat, Joe. They look at, hey, there's Joe from West Virginia. That's exactly. The Democrats look at me that way and Republicans look at me that way.

If they want someone's who going to be up the other side (ph) because they're on the other side, they got the wrong person. If you want to send someone there to be totally partisan and just heck with the other side, don't send me.

FOX: And while he may not like the role he's been given, he says he knows he has a real friend in the other Joe.

MANCHIN: I'm no pleased to understand that we have a person sitting in the White House that understands the legislature, understands how Congress works and should work, and understands that basically we've got to represent the people who we represent. And I'm representing West Virginia in the best of my ability and I'm trying to speak for my state.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

FOX: And on infrastructure, on guns he is making a commitment to work with Republicans, but I just want to point out that he needs to get 10 Republican Senators to join him to pass any of this legislation with 60 votes. That's what's going to be needed if they want to actually move ahead on a bipartisan basis, and right now I just don't see where those 10 Republican votes are going to come from.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY HOST: The markers seem to be telling you - Senator Manchin telling you that the president has to try. He has to try to get Republican support, but Manchin didn't seem to rule out that after the White House try and if they fail maybe he will get on board with what the president is doing.

It was a really important interview, Lauren. I think really moves this story along. Thank you so much for being there. Great work.

Other major news this morning, a powerful moment in the Derek Chauvin murder trial. A medical expert describing George Floyd's final breaths as he was pinned to the ground by Derek Chauvin's knee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MARTIN TOBIN, PULMONARY CRITICAL CARE DOCTOR: The knee remains on the neck for another 3 minutes and 27 seconds after he takes his last breath.

[07:35:00]

There is - the knee remains after there is no pulse. The knee remains on the neck for another 2 minutes and 44 seconds after the officers have found themselves there's no pulse. The knee remains on the neck.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Joining us now, CNN Legal Analyst and Civil Rights Attorney, Areva Martin. Also with us Lawrence Kobilinsky. He's the forensic scientist - a forensic scientist and professor at John J. College of Criminal Justice.

Areva, this testimony from Dr. Tobin, this was not the type of thing that we're used to hearing in dry trials when we're getting testimony from medical experts. This was put in a way that I think everyone could understand. The jury taking furious notes during this period. What was the significance of what he said and what it did for the prosecution?

AREVA MARTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, John. You're right. This was devastating testimony for the defense. What he did was he established that the cause of death was low oxygen as a result of Derek Chauvin putting pressure, leaning on - kneeling on George Floyd's body, both his neck and his back and his shoulders. And he talked about it in a way that jurors could understand.

He personalized it for the jurors by using, you know, demonstrations, having them touch their necks, having them touch their backs and their shoulders, and that's unusual. It was a master class on how an expert can relate to jurors and get jurors to understand a central point of the prosecution's case, which is causation, and that causation goes to both the third degree, deprave mind.

Derek Chauvin remained on the neck three minutes after there was no pulse, there was no life in Mr. Floyd. It goes to that second degree intent. Intent - the intentional assault that happened with respect to Mr. Floyd, and I think it dispelled any myth that Mr. Floyd died from a drug overdose or preexisting health conditions. BERMAN: I want to play just a little bit more of Dr. Tobin to give people a sense in case they missed it of how he described things vividly to the jury. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOBIN: The beginning, you can see he's conscious. You can see slight flickering and then it disappears.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And -

TOBIN: So 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: That's the moment the life goes out of his body. Professor, you know, how was his science? How do you assess his science, his testimony? Is it true just because Dr. Tobin says it's true?

LAWRENCE KOBILINSKY, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: Well I think he rendered really terrific testimony. You know, Andrew Baker did the autopsy. We're going to hear from him today I believe, and he found that the death was due to cardio pulmonary arrest, complicating law enforcement subdual restraint and neck compression. But we don't really know - Dr. Baker didn't specifically say what caused the cardio pulmonary arrest.

Dr. Tobin - Martin Tobin did a splendid job indicating that it was insufficient oxygen to the brain, hypoxia, and that caused brain damage, which resulted in an arrhythmia of the heart, what is called pulse-less electrical activity, which devolved into asystole, flat lining, and cardiac death.

He ruled out fentanyl as playing any role in the death. Fentanyl is known to decrease respiratory rate, but (inaudible) Mr. Floyd was breathing in a normal way (ph) at about 20 to 22 breaths per minute. He ruled out methamphetamine as playing any role. He ruled out the fact that Mr. Floyd had a history of hypertension, that he had it in large heart, and that he had coronary artery disease.

Dr. Tobin said that this played no role in the death (ph). What caused the death was hypoxia, and that was brought about by the actions of Mr. Chauvin. His handcuffing in the back and proning of Mr. Floyd made it very difficult if not impossible to breathe.

The knee on the back, the knee on the neck contributed to the - to the death. The amount of force was about 90 pounds on each knee, and that prevented the thoracic ribcage from going up and out. So in other words the lungs couldn't expand to pull air into the - into the lungs.

[07:40:00]

And so, as a result of all of these things coming together at the same time, the neck compression causing lower air flow, cutting down on the blood supply to the brain, put it all together you're dealing with low oxygen and it went down to zero, and Mr. Chauvin -- (CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Right.

KOBILINSKY: -- did not doubt it (ph) even when Mr. Floyd lacked a pulse, and that talks to me about criminal intent. He was trained. He knew about - something about this, how to do CPR. CPR was given. So you know, the whole thing was a recipe for death.

BERMAN: Professor, Counselor, we appreciate you both being with us. Obviously it also was a precursor to the testimony from the medical examiner, which will come today and will be crucial. We thank both of you for being with us.

We do have breaking news this morning. Major breaking news. Prince Philip dead at the age of 99. Flags at half staff in the United Kingdom. We have breaking details about the new information about the ceremonies we'll see coming up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can we get (ph) - we got two seconds - two inches before it. Sorry (ph).

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BERMAN: The breaking news, Buckingham Palace just announced that Prince Philip has died at the age of 99. Philip married then Princess Elizabeth in 1947, five years before she became queen.

A statement from the palace reads, quote, "It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen announces the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle. Further announcements will be made in due course. The Royal Family joins with people around the world in mourning his loss."

[07:45:00]

We did just hear from the British Prime Minister, and flags at the Prime Minister's residence already at half staff this morning. We're going to have much more breaking news coverage on the passing of Prince Philip in just minutes.

ERICA HILL, CNN NEW DAY HOST: A mass shooting in Texas meantime leaving one person dead and at least five others wounded at a cabinet manufacturer. The shooting happened just hours after President Biden announced new executive orders on guns and once again urged Congress to take legislative action.

Joining me now is the father of Parkland victim, Jaime Guttenberg. He's the Co-founder of Orange Ribbons for Jaime, Fred Guttenberg. Always good to see you. As we know we wish we'd never met under these circumstances, but your voice is so important. You were there yesterday.

FRED GUTTENBERG, FATHER OF PARKLAND VICTIM JAIME GUTTENBERG: Yes.

HILL: Could you just reflect on that moment for us and what does this mean for you?

GUTTENBERG: You know, for me it means the start of a new direction. Since my daughter was killed I feel like we've been on this freight train moving rapidly in the wrong direction on this issue, and I feel like President Biden just slammed the breaks on that freight train and said we're making the turn now. It's time to start saving lives.

You opened with the Texas shooting yesterday, and I think yesterday could not make the choice more clear. President Biden spoke about saving lives. Shortly after that Governor Abbott put out a tweet about the stupid lies in it, and then there was a mass shooting in Texas to follow.

You're either on the side of saving lives or you're not. This isn't about the nonsense that Greg Abbott said. It is time to change direction. President Biden did that for the nation yesterday.

HILL: How do you get through on that conversation, though? I know this is such a difficult question and one you've been grappling with since this really became the focus of your life after your daughter was taken from you. It is such a hot button issue for people. There is to your point a lot of misinformation out there.

GUTTENBERG: Yes.

HILL: So if you feel that this is a moment, how do you carry through on that? How do you get through to people just to sit down and have a conversation and say here are the facts?

GUTTENBERG: Well listen, let's start with Senator Manchin who was on your program just minutes ago, and let me remind him because he keeps talking about how he represents the people of his state. You know what? No, he doesn't. He ran to be a senator. His decisions have national implications, and people die because of the things he does or doesn't do. My daughter died because of gun violence that was preventable. Because of things he (ph) now says he won't vote for.

More people will die across this nation because of things Senator Manchin said this morning, OK? So let's remind people like Senator Manchin, no. You got elected in your state. You represent the nation, and you need to make national choices. I plan to remind him.

Now after listening to him this morning, I just - I want to get on a plane and fly to Washington, D.C. and sit with him in person, but I can't do that. They're closed down. So Senator Manchin, let's find a coffee shop somewhere to meet. Let's meet. Let's get together. Let's talk about the realty of gun violence. Let's talk about why you need to be part of moving this Senate forward. The time to start saving lives is now.

HILL: To your point, he told our Lauren Fox he's happy to work with them, to try to do something in the most constructive way. Nicole Hockley told me colleague, Jake Tapper, yesterday that she sees one of the most effective ways of making change is to not look at things that are connected to the Second Amendment, right? Maybe take things in smaller chunks.

GUTTENBERG: Correct.

HILL: So are you seeing that path? And if so, what do you see as a path in the Senate at this point because we know the House bill isn't going anywhere right now.

GUTTENBERG: You know, listen. H.R.8, background check bill, is a bare minimum bill designed to save lives but also be palatable to - in a bipartisan way. It is a bare minimum bill. What Senator Manchin is worried about is trying to get Republicans who have already said it doesn't matter what you do, we're not coming with you.

You could talk about being bipartisan. The truth is the bill is bipartisan. It has bipartisan national support by over 90 percent of Americans. So if he's trying to appeal to Republicans who have said we're not joining you, to Republicans who didn't even vote to certify the election, OK, he's not going to get them.

So move forward without them before you have the next mass shooting and the one after that. The time to do this is now.

HILL: Always appreciate you taking the time to join us.

[07:50:00]

And I look forward to you letting us know when you've scheduled that conversation with Senator Manchin because I have no doubt that you will work tirelessly to get that done. Fred Guttenberg, thank you as always.

GUTTENBERG: I hope he was listening. Thank you.

HILL: A third of Americans are now partially vaccinated, yet there were nearly 80,000 new coronavirus cases reported overnight, so bottom line is this country headed in the wrong direction in the fight against coronavirus?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: We were just looking at the new numbers coming in on the pandemic. Nearly 80,000 new cases reported overnight in the U.S. Hospitalizations also ticking up now more than 42,000. This is such an interesting chart. As you look at this you can see how steeply hospitalizations fell, then they plateaued, and now they really are starting to rise. The question is how far will they go.

Joining us now, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, I know you're watching that chart very closely. You're also watching geographically certain parts of the country where things are clearly much worse than other places, including Michigan and Minnesota. What are you seeing?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, you know, Michigan is my home state. We've been following what's happening at the University of Michigan. The Chairman of Surgery just tweeting out there this morning that they're starting to cancel surgical cases again, trying to make room for the COVID patients. It's going to sound very familiar to what we saw last year, but let me show you what I think is an important graph.

Looking at the hospitalizations in Michigan by age group specifically and comparing it to the week ending December 23 of last year and comparing it to now if we can show that basically what you'll see is that the specific age group has changed. The green there is 40 or 69- year-olds, and they are starting to make up a more significant percentage of hospitalizations whereas people 70 years and older a smaller percentage.

[07:55:00]

So it's definitely shifted younger. We knew that. We've also known that younger people are far less likely you get severely ill or require hospitalization, but clearly it's happening. You know, you're seeing more and more people. Again 40 to 69-year-olds who are listening need to look at this graph and pay attention to this because that's the population of people that are increasingly needing hospitalized.

COVID fatigue, the variants, the fact that bars and restaurants are open, that's having an impact on hospitals. It's going to feel very familiar again. These are the same conversations we had last year.

BERMAN: Can we put that chart back up again because, Sanjay, that's the first item I've seen it, and I think it's really instructive and there's more I want to know about it. The green part there is 40 to 65-year-olds. So when we say that the population of people being hospitalized, getting sick at this point from coronavirus is getting younger, they are. I mean, they've gone from over 65 to under 65, but still the biggest group is still over 40.

The orange group there - and I can't read that from where I'm sitting - that's people younger than 40 -

(CROSSTALK)

GUPTA: 18 to 39.

BERMAN: 18 to 39, and that's growing, too, but not as much, and then people younger than 18 it doesn't look like it's really growing at all, which is something that I'm very curious about as the parent of 14-year-olds (ph). Sanjay, in that population that isn't getting vaccinated at all right now, what are we seeing there in Michigan?

GUPTA: Yes. No, I think you're right, John. There's a couple of stories that have come out. First of all, you know, we've known that younger people, and particularly kids your age, kids my age, kids are far less likely to get severely ill. And that still remains - seems to be the case.

Two things have changed. Again, 40 to 69-year-olds, I think many of them, especially 40 and 50-year-olds, probably said look, you know, I don't think this is going to be a big problem for me. You're starting to see a different trend now if you look at places like Michigan.

But also it's people under the age of 18 even though they're not being hospitalized are making up the greatest majority of the increase in overall infections. So they are becoming infected at a higher rate. They are likely transmitting at a higher rate, and they are as a result leading to those increased hospitalizations in age groups older than them (ph).

So younger people are becoming infected, but 40 to 69-year-olds now becoming the most likely to be hospitalized.

HILL: There are also, too, and we can't ignore the variants especially with the news over night with the variant first identified - it's not just that the variant identified in the U.K. is now the dominant variant in this country, but the one first identified in Brazil is now - is it now the second most prominent here?

GUPTA: That's right. It is. And you know, with the U.K. variant, you know, there's some 20,000 or so now cases that have been identified, but it's long believed that that's just sort of a sample of what's really going on here, and based on some of those same testing you see Brazil now sort of becoming the second most common variant, so it's a problem.

Again, if we could show Michigan for a second just in terms of how dominant the U.K. variant has become and how quickly this has happened, you'll see if we could put the graphic up that the red, which represents the variant has become much more common in Michigan, and we're seeing that in many places around the country.

One thing I will - I will point out is that the vaccines and preexisting immunity like if you've been infected in the past and have antibodies, that still works pretty well whether it's the coronavirus that was circulating more dominantly or now this variant, the U.K. variant. You could see that red, just how much more common that has become.

HILL: Wow.

GUPTA: With regard to South Africa, which is not the Brazil variant, South African variant, there has been concern that that may be a variant that could potentially start to mutate into immunity escape, meaning it's not as protected by the antibodies. With the Brazil variant, I think it's somewhere in between. The vaccines seem to work pretty well, but you may remember, guys, there was a lot of re- infections down in Brazil.

What that means is that people who become infected their antibodies weren't protecting as well against the new variants. That's what we got to watch out for here.

BERMAN: Dr. Sanjay Gupta bringing really helpful charts this morning. Thanks so much for being with us. We're going to talk to you again in a little bit about a really important CNN special coming up, so don't go far.

We also have breaking news from the United Kingdom. New Day continues right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BERMAN: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is New Day. John Berman here along with Erica Hill, and we do begin with major breaking news this morning.

The death of Britain's Prince Philip at the age of 99. A statement from Buckingham Palace reads, "It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen announces the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle. Further announcements will be made in due course."

HILL: He married then Princess Elizabeth in 1947, five years before she became queen. They were married for 73 years. Flags at Prime Minister Boris Johnson's residence have been lowered to half staff.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS JOHNSON, BRITAIN PRIME MINISTER: Like the expert carriage ride.

[08:00:00]