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New Day

Joe Biden to Hold Bipartisan Meeting on Infrastructure; Police Shoot and Kill Black Man at Traffic Stop 10 Miles from Derek Chauvin Trial; Cases of Coronavirus Surge in Michigan Especially Among Younger People. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 12, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

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POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: We'll continue this conversation. I know you guys have action ahead. Thank you for being with us this morning.

LYNN FORESTER DE ROTHSCHILD, FOUNDER, COALITION FOR INCLUSIVE CAPITALISM: Thank you.

HARLOW: We're following a lot of breaking news. Let's get right to it.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. I'm John Berman, Poppy Harlow with me this week. Nice to see you here.

And we do begin with breaking news. Tensions are running high on the streets of suburban Minneapolis after a fatal police shooting. It happened 10 miles from the courthouse where Derek Chauvin is on trial for the murder of George Floyd. Twenty-year-old Daunte Wright was shot by police during a traffic stop. This happened yesterday afternoon. His mother said he called her when he was pulled over and told her he was stopped because an air freshener was blocking his rearview mirror. Authorities claimed they had an outstanding warrant on Wright, and when they tried to arrest him, he got back into the car. That's when they say an officer opened fire. Wright drove a short distance before crashing, died at the scene. This morning, National Guard troops are deployed on the streets and a curfew has been imposed.

HARLOW: Meantime, Virginia's governor is ordering state police to investigate a very controversial police traffic stop. This one took place in December, but we're really just seeing it now because of the cameras. Look at that, two police officers holding Caron Nazario, a Lieutenant, gunpoint in the town of Windsor, Virginia. He is a black and Hispanic man. He is a second lieutenant in the Army. Body camera footage shows policy pepper spraying him, striking and then handcuffing him. Officials confirming overnight that one of those two officers has been fired.

Let's begin our coverage, though, with our colleague Adrienne Broaddus. She joins us live right outside of Minneapolis. This is in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, and it is the sight of a deadly police shooting overnight. Good morning, Adrienne.

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Poppy. We are about 10 miles from where the Derek Chauvin trial is taking place. I want you to walk and take a look at some of the damage that happened overnight. This the so sadly familiar to what we saw about 11 months ago here in the Twin Cities, broken glass, this business destroyed. Just behind me members of the National Guard redirecting traffic.

This morning, people are showing up for work, some of them surprised. And then that surprise follows devastation because they had not heard about the shooting that left 20-year-old Daunte Wright deceased. Police told us they were attempting to pull Wright over during a traffic stop when they realize, police say, there were warrants out for his arrest.

I just spoke with a man who identified himself as Wright's older brother. He said his brother was a comedian. He loved to have fun, laugh, and talk with people. And he said he loved to play the card game spades. He also told me his brother leaves behind a child, Daunte Wright, Jr., a little toddler. And that is what is most difficult for the family at this hour.

Meanwhile, we are still trying to learn what exactly led up to that shooting that left Daunte deceased. His mother spoke with reporters. She showed up at the scene here at Brooklyn Center and told reporters her son called her moments before he was pulled over. This was around 2:00 on yesterday. And that's not uncommon for someone to call someone else or even use their cell phone as a silent witness when encountering the police. So we're still waiting to find out more details. We are still waiting to learn what those warrants were. And right now, people who work in this community, people who live here, are showing up as the sun is shining in this space, you are able to get a better view of this ugly damage. John and Poppy?

BERMAN: Adrienne Broaddus for us in Brooklyn Center in Minnesota, again, the broken glass behind you, to your right, the National Guard troops now deployed.

Joining us, CNN senior law enforcement specialist Andrew McCabe. He's a former deputy director of the FBI. Andy, thank you so much for being with us. The big picture here, which we'll get to, this is 10 miles from where Derek Chauvin is on trial for the murder of George Floyd. Everyone is aware of the context of this. We will get to that. I want to talk about this specific incident, first, though. Andy, pulled over for, his mother says, a dangling air freshening on the rearview mirror. Out of the car, as then police say as he tried to get back into the car, that's when he was shot. What draws your attention here?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, a lot of things. There are a lot of really, really important questions to ask about the sequence of events. What did these officers know when they took each one of these actions?

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For instance, what was he actually pull over for? Were they aware of the warrants before they initiated the pullover of the vehicle? Was the vehicle pulled over for some, you know, very possibly pretextual thing like the air freshener violation or something along those lines?

And then, what happened after he's pulled over and he's out of the car? So the body camera images and video coverage will be very important in showing us the type of interaction that Mr. Wright had with the law enforcement officers on the scene. Was it hostile? Was he resisting? Were there words exchanged? Or was he acting completely normal in a non-threatening way? Were there any reasons why the officers can possibly have thought or mistakenly thought that Mr. Wright was armed? Had he been searched before he allegedly turned and tried to get back into his vehicle? These are all things that will go to whether or not it was reasonable for these officers to think they were in some sort of danger.

HARLOW: A big question is why would he even have been asked to get out of the car in the first place, Andy? If I'm thinking about driving around Minneapolis, I'm from there, and getting pulled over for an obstruction in the window, if it was the air freshener, we don't know. Yes, there is a Minnesota statute that says you can't have on obstruction of the windshield area. But that doesn't even seem like something you'd be asked to be out of the car for. It seems like you would be notified by a police officer, fix it and carry on.

MCCABE: Of course. Of course, you would, right? Of course, I would, if that stop happened to me or if it happened to you, we'd probably be treated the same way. This really starts to echo of earlier tragic incidents like Philando Castile, who we found out after his tragic police shooting that he had been pulled over an unbelievable number of times for the same sort of pretextual issues. So those are all really important things.

And ultimately, the courts will look at, I'm sure this will get presented to a grand jury. Most police shootings are. The grand jury will have to determine under the current standard, which is incredibly low, whether or not the officers' belief that Mr. Wright presented some sort of danger or physical harm to them or others, that's the Supreme Court standard, whether or not that was reasonable.

The reason that standard was so low is because the review is not done under an objective reasonableness standard. It's done from the subjective position of the police officers. Really, all they have to do is come in and articulate one or two facts that they base their decision of using lethal force on. It's impossible, it's incredibly low standing.

BERMAN: Ten miles from the courthouse where Derek Chauvin is on trial for murder this morning, a trial that will resume this morning. Poppy, you're from there. I don't know if the jurors are going to have to drive through the road blocks? Some might?

HARLOW: Of course, easily. They probably live all around Minneapolis. Most don't live downtown.

BERMAN: What's the impact of that? Just the bigger picture you think, Andy, on the community and maybe even on the trial, itself? MCCABE: John, it's hard to imagine that all of the coverage of this,

of the stop, of the shooting, of the protest activity that resulted won't have an impact on these jurors. You cannot look at this story and think anything other than here we go again, right. I think longer term, bigger impact, this is another tear in that fabric, that social fabric that knits us altogether. The belief that we live in a rule of law society, that the law is applied equally to everyone. Every time we have another one of these situations, that belief, that understanding, that common social compact is tearing apart, and it is truly undermining, very reasonably undermining entire community's confidence in law enforcement and also undermining law enforcement's ability to do their job. It's a terrible situation.

BERMAN: Andy McCabe, we appreciate you being with us this morning. Again, we need much more information about exactly what happened in Brooklyn Center. And we do expect to hear from police throughout the morning. So Andy, thank you so much for being with us.

MCCABE: Sure thing.

HARLOW: Thank you, Andy.

We do have this breaking news just in. Multiple police officers have been shot this morning. This is in Carroll County, Georgia. It follows a police chase there. A spokesman for the sheriff's office tells CNN that several agencies were involved in the pursuit. At this hour, we do not know the conditions of the officers who were shot. Of course, as we learn more, we will bring you those developments.

Now to the coronavirus pandemic. Michigan's governor is sounding the alarm, saying her state needs more vaccine doses as cases surge there. Nearly 6,900 residents in Michigan have confirmed COVID cases as of yesterday. Hospitalizations also on the rise, nearly two dozen hospitals in Michigan have reached 90 percent capacity.

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Joining us now, two Michigan doctors on the front lines, Dr. Liam Sullivan, an infectious disease specialist at Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, and also with us, Dr. Matthew Sims, director of Infectious Disease Research at Beaumont Health, that is in Royal Oak. Good morning to you both.

And Dr. Sims, let me begin for your personal experience having been in the hospital in Michigan, having seen what was set up there and how they were doing at the beginning of the pandemic to now, to yesterday, as I understand it, you saw more COVID patients than ever before.

DR. MATTHEW SIMS, DIRECTOR OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES RESEARCH, BEAUMONT HEALTH: Well, I wouldn't say than ever before, but I think I saw the most COVID patients I've ever seen in one day --

HARLOW: OK.

SIMS: -- at our hospital. It's busy, and it really does remind me of how things were last March, last April, with the number of patients who are coming in, with how busy our COVID units are, with the stress that everybody is being put under to care for these patients.

BERMAN: Dr. Sims, just to follow up on this, you say you are seeing younger and sicker people, yes? Talk about that.

SIMS: Yes. So, as you know, coronavirus, COVID, targets the older population more than the younger population. But there has been a concerted effort in our state and in most states to vaccinate the older population first. And also nursing homes have put in more policies and procedures to really try to protect their residents, to prevent COVID from spreading within their facilities. And because of that, it's limited the number of older patients that have really becoming infected in this surge.

As such, more patients are younger, between the ages of 30 and 50, and they do seem to be sicker. A lot more seem to be needing oxygen. A lot more are requiring some of the bigger drugs that we're using now to try treat it. About the same in terms of needing to go to the ICU, but a lot of that is because we have learned a lot that it's better to not intubate than intubate most of the time. So we're willing to let them go with a little less oxygen in order to keep them off the vent.

HARLOW: Dr. Sullivan, you are also seeing these younger and younger patients. You call it the perfect storm of reasons. What is at play here?

DR. LIAM SULLIVAN, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST SPECTRUM HEALTH: So, I think it's a multitude of factors coming into play here. Number one, the state is opening up a little bit more over the last couple of months. Number two, I think people are very fatigued and tired of all the restrictions and masking and distancing and avoiding of crowds. I call it COVID fatigue as everyone is referring to it.

And then you have B-117 coming along, which is a strain that is at least 50 to 75 percent more transmissible than the other coronavirus strains that were previously circulating in the state of Michigan. And it's now become the dominant strain in this state. And therefore, I think it's created a perfect storm, and people letting their guard down, et cetera, the virus is taking complete advantage of the situation and rapidly spreading throughout the population.

BERMAN: Talk more about the variant, the B-117. One of the things that I've noticed is that you are seeing it in youth sports, you're seeing this being passed around much more transmissible. Youth sports, I care deeply about that as my 14-year-old boys are soccer players. Is this a situation now where an activity that they may have done 10 months ago is more dangerous today than it would have been then, that doing the same thing no longer an option?

SULLIVAN: I think potentially it's a little more dangerous are only because this train is so much more transmissible. And I don't know if it's the actual activity, itself, that's creating the issue, or if it's more the activities that go on around the sports that's creating it. The gatherings before and afterwards, the carpooling, the tea parties, et cetera, those are probably the things that are probably driving the spread of the variant more than the actual sport itself. I know in Michigan, there has been quite a few outbreaks linked to sports activities.

This strain, one of the other interesting things about this strain is we are seeing it a lot more in elementary school kids. They're not getting hospitalized, obviously, but we're seeing a lot more cases in elementary school kids because it is so much more transmissible from person to person. And I think that's a little concerning, and that's a change from previous.

HARLOW: It's really concerning, as the mother of two little ones, and you think about all the people they come into contact with who could be hospitalized if they're not fully protected.

Dr. Sims, just to you on the governor's plea there for a surge in vaccine doses from the Biden administration, the administration so far is saying no. What do you need?

SIMS: Well, obviously, more vaccines are better. The more vaccines we get into people, the more protected those people are. But it takes time for the vaccine to work. -

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If we were able to immunize everyone in Michigan today, and give them the booster shot in three weeks, it would still be five weeks before everybody is fully protected. So it's not enough to just say we need more vaccination, we also have to take more care to avoid spreading the virus and that's masking social distancing, avoiding crowds, and all of the things we have been saying to do from the beginning.

BERMAN: Dr. Sullivan and Dr. Sims, we thank you both for being with us. Thank you both so much for the work you are doing. We wish you the best of luck in the coming days and weeks.

SULLIVAN: Thank you as well.

SIMS: Thank you.

BERMAN: We want to remember the lives lost to coronavirus who had a special connection to CNN.

Fatima Zakaria was the mother of CNN host, Fareed Zakaria. She was a journalist herself, who rose to become one of the few women with a senior role in the Indian news media in the 1970s.

She was later an educator that ran a large American-style campus with her husband.

On his show on Sunday, Fareed honored his mother as the one person most responsible for his achievements. She must have been so proud. I know Fareed was so proud of his mother.

Mrs. Zakaria died in India at the age of 85. Our thoughts are with Fareed and the entire family.

We'll be right back.

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BERMAN: In just hours, President Biden will meet with a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Oval Office to talk about the infrastructure and jobs plan.

Joining me now is Jared Bernstein, he is a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Jared, great to see you want. It's a bipartisan meeting. This morning, what do you see as the specific areas of agreement?

JARED BERNSTEIN, MEMBER OF THE WHITE HOUSE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: Well, certainly, infrastructure writ large. We know that many of the members coming to that meeting from both sides of the aisle have a long history of sitting on committees that oversee investments that they, themselves, have long said need to be made.

Some of those investments are in the grid, which is a part of the American jobs plan, so we don't have a Texas-style freeze out. Some of them are in water pipes, so that no child should ever have lead reaching into their water. Some of them are in broadband so that 30- plus million constituents in rural and some urban areas can finally access the broadband that's essential to getting ahead in America today; standing up an electric vehicle sector, and I can keep going.

These are bipartisan agreements that these investments need to be made, and not just in Washington, but throughout the country as recent polls have shown.

BERMAN: So why not pocket those areas of agreement? You know, the low-hanging fruit, you know, roads, bridges, broadband. John Thune talked about broadband yesterday. Take that -- why not take that, pass that with 66-plus senators if everyone agrees on that and save the controversial stuff -- when I say controversial, say the stuff where there may not be as broad of a consensus for something further down the line where you might need to use reconciliation.

BERNSTEIN: Well, I think I just gave you a list of items that some of these members agreed on. If we opened that group up a bit wider, we are going to get to all the other stuff in the bill and the President will be meeting with members from both sides of the party, broadly, widely, and they're all going to be bringing to the table issues that are in the Americans Jobs Plan.

So, this has to be a plan that meets the needs of the country, that speaks to the disinvestment that's occurred in housing and water systems and electric vehicles, competing with China, standing up our the manufacturing sector.

Building back better is not a small niche plan. It is a comprehensive approach to a resilient, robust, inclusive recovery.

BERMAN: So the President has proposed raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia says he wants to see the number at 25 percent. Are you open to that? BERNSTEIN: Look, the President, himself, said he is going to be

talking with members on both sides of the aisle. According to the President, compromise is inevitable.

So I'm not going to negotiate tax rates on TV today. I think the critical point from President Biden is that the plan pays for itself over 15 years and that is extremely important.

You know, one of my main areas of research in economics is fiscal policy, and when you are talking about the relief plan, a temporary measure. It's perfectly fine for that to be deficit finance, but when you are talking about longer-term investments in water and bridges and setting up key sectors that don't exist, in child care, helping people get into the job market.

The sustainability, the permanence of those sectors requires robust pay-fors. That's in the American Jobs Plan. If other members have different ideas, the President is willing to hear them.

BERMAN: So, again, if then, the corporate tax rate isn't raised as much as initially proposed -- and I have heard other White House officials say, sure, we're open to negotiate on that, we're open to negotiate on a lot of different things.

What are some ideas that you have of making up the difference in revenue?

BERNSTEIN: Well, I think what we have to do is see what kinds of ideas are being brought to the table. You know, this is important. I'm glad you teed up this question.

It is, yes, very much about paying for the plan. But also equally importantly, it's about shutting down a series of practices that have our effective corporate tax rate at a mere eight percent, okay? We collect one percent of GDP in corporate taxation. That's one-third of what other advanced economies collect.

We have a Tax Code that deeply incentivizes investment offshore, jobs offshore, profit shifting, stripping your profits out of this country and putting them in tax havens. That has to be shut down.

BERMAN: Well, why not pass a separate tax bill then? If you are trying to fix the Tax Code, why not do that?

BERNSTEIN: Well, I think the point here is that we have a plan, an essential investment plan to reverse decades of disinvestment, a build back resilience economy and we have a set of pay-fors.

And I think it is actually a very smart idea to put the two together. I mean, we will see -- you know, you are pushing me on legislative minutia, which is important, no question, but from an economic perspective, I can stress as I did before that the sustainability of these longer-term investment programs is greatly heightened if we have these kind of pay-fors and the goals of the plan in terms of creating American investments and jobs are very much in sync with those pay- fors. [08:25:26]

BERMAN: I am pressing you on the minutia because I know deep down inside you deal with some of that stuff and are in on the meetings there --

BERNSTEIN: Not that deep down.

BERMAN: Well, well, but if you are talking about a three percent difference in the corporate tax rate, that's a lot of money, so we have to make that up somewhere. Either you do less or you raise that money elsewhere. Am I right?

BERNSTEIN: You are right, and that is correct. And so that's precisely the kind of negotiations that we'll be getting into. And when the President says, if you have a better idea for a pay-for, bring it to the table. What he will not accept is inaction.

So if you are just talking about sitting on your hands and talking about how we need these investments, but are you not willing to pitch in and help. That's not going to get us across the goal line here.

But if members have other ideas about ways to help pay for the plan, that by the way, one line in the sand that he won't compromise on is that he is not going to raise taxes on anybody under $400,000.00, so these have to be highly progressive taxes, which they are in the jobs plan.

Look, again, I've played around in these fiscal sandboxes for a long time and I have long been frustrated by the fact that there are so many loopholes in our Corporate Code that not only allow wealthy corporations to get away with not paying their fair share, they tax work not wealth, but they incentivize far too much offshoring.

So I would urge people to take a closer look at this plan. In fact, I'd be happy to come back and go through some of the parts with you if that would be useful.

BERMAN: Deal, sold. And we'll fix the sandboxes while we're at it. Thank you very much. Jared Bernstein, appreciate you being with us this morning.

BERNSTEIN: My pleasure.

BERMAN: A U.S. Army officer is suing two Virginia police officers after they pointed guns at him, pepper-sprayed him, pushed him to the ground during a traffic stop. You are going to see some of what happened, next.

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