Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

U.S. Withdraw from Afghanistan; CDC Seeks More Information; Cold for the Northeast; Tributes to Prince Philip. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired April 15, 2021 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Is to use his position around the world. What does it tell us about Joe Biden. Someone who knows him incredibly well joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm now the fourth United States president to preside over American troop presence in Afghanistan. Two Republicans, two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth. It's time for American troops to come home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: President Biden announcing his decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan before the 20th anniversary of September 11th. Sources tell CNN the president made the decision despite recommendations from some of his top officials to keep some troops in place.

Joining us now, CNN contributor Evan Osnos, he's a staff writer for "The New Yorker" and the author of "Joe Biden: The Life, The Run, and What Matters Now."

Evan, there's so much interesting about this decision. You could argue whether it's the right decision or not, but one of the things that's crystal clear is, this is Joe Biden's decision. This is distinctly and in some ways uniquely Joe Biden. Not just now.

[06:35:00]

Something he's felt for a long time.

What does this tell us about him?

EVAN OSNOS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, I think what we're seeing is really, John, one of his core beliefs now. He's making a big bet here. This goes all the way back to when he got into politics. He's been warry of protracted American military ventures. After all, he was elected to the Senate in the early 1970s, partly on the basis of his opposition to Vietnam. He then voted for the war in Iraq and really came to regret it. And as he has said over the years, he said to me, talking about the prospect of bringing peace and democracy to Iraq, he said, we can't want it more than they want it.

And this has been, particularly during the Obama administration, he felt as if he was being muscled, in a sense, by the Pentagon, that there was an effort by generals to try to persuade the administration to stay longer, to expand its troop commitments. Not something he wanted do. And he was a voice against that.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Not just a voice. I mean he wrote that memo to President Obama from vacation in Nantucket and, I think, faxed it -- did they do that back then -- to the White House pleading with him.

BERMAN: Which is new technology for Joe Biden, let's be fair.

I'm kidding.

HARLOW: You said it, not me.

Faxed it to that -- to the president pleading with him, listen to me over your generals. Obama didn't listen to him and Obama surged but then eventually draw down. But then it was notable that President Obama, yesterday, came out in a -- with a full-throated support of Joe Biden.

And what's so interesting in your long profile during the campaign about Biden is that an Obama adviser told you something to the effect of, Biden's messaging translating into this country needs to just chill the f out and have a boring president.

But this isn't a boring president move. This is a bold move.

OSNOS: No, this is actually part of this fascinating patter we're seeing, which is that Biden is, in one thing after another, devoting himself to what he calls things that will change the paradigm. As he says, I don't want to tinker around the edges. You saw this first, after all, with a $2 trillion relief COVID plan, the American Rescue Plan, then, of course, with the infrastructure program, which is of the same financial scale.

And now this is about going after what has been, in his mind, one of the core facts that defines American life today, which is that we've been at war longer than we ever have in our history. There are, you know, young men and women who can join the military now and go to Afghanistan, a war that has been longer -- as been -- we've been at war longer than they've been alive.

And it's just personal for him, after all. You know, he is the first American president since Dwight Eisenhower to have a child who was dispatched to a war zone. Beau Biden, his late son, after all, joined after September 11th, and the Biden family had a lot of dealings with families of military service members over the years. The first lady was involved in a program called Joining Forces, which helped families at home. So this is very personal for him. And I think what you're seeing with

this move is an attempt to try to say there have been things I've wanted to do over the course of my career, including as vice president, and I wasn't able to do it, and this is my chance to do it now and to do it fast. He talks about FDR, he talks about LBJ. And one of the lessons from those administrations was it's about timing. You have to do it when the moment is available. And he thinks that moment is now.

But it is risky. I mean there are -- there are real chances that this could go badly.

BERMAN: Yes.

OSNOS: But he's willing to put his -- his name to it.

BERMAN: And, look, there's some irony here in that John Cornyn and some Republicans have chosen the last few days or weeks to publicly question whether the president is all there.

HARLOW: Right.

BERMAN: Whether there are people behind the scenes pulling all the strings.

And, again, I bring this up. This may be a good move. It may not be. But it's Joe Biden's move. This is clearly Joe Biden's decision.

The infrastructure push, again, some people think it's odd to be putting all of this political muscle behind that right now, but that's clearly Joe Biden's decision.

There is a certain decisiveness here with him on these actions, Evan, and I'm curious why you think that is.

OSNOS: You know, what we're seeing in some ways is a guy who's been thinking about what it means to be president for a very long time. He's thought about presidents that had a big imprint on history and presidents who did not. He met recently, as we know, with historians. He's thinking about what it is that can actually have a chance of changing how Americans think of one another and of our relationship to the government.

And so that's what drives a lot of these choices. He knows that a lot of them are politically, in some cases, difficult, they're risky, they might not work, and, ultimately, the verdict on whether he can achieve these is going to come down to whether he can get the votes.

But he really believes that particularly Democrats over the years have often negotiated against themselves. They've carved down their ambitions. They've reduced the possibility of making deep changes that might, in fact, punch through the crust of history and make some kind of fundamental change, and he sees that today. You know, less than 1 percent of Americans have served in these wars over the last 20 years, but in so many ways that's been the crucible of this, that this country has faced. And he wants to try to get beyond this twilight war phase and get people back into investing in this country again.

[06:40:03]

And that's something that is very much on Joe Biden's mind, and it is -- it is really baked into how he sees politics and how he sees his role in this moment in history.

HARLOW: Yes. And as he looks across the Resolute Desk to that portrait of FDR on the wall and thinks about, I think he said, you know, I'm kind of in a position that FDR was, to you. Let's remind people of your good book. Do we have it? Can we pull it up? There we go. "Joe Biden: The Life, The Run, and What Matters Now."

Evan, great to have you. Thank you.

OSNOS: My pleasure. Thank you.

HARLOW: The Johnson & Johnson vaccine remains on hold this morning after that big meeting yesterday. What is next? What will the impact be on vaccinations across the United States?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: So this is very notable and important that a panel of CDC advisers has for now at least put off making a decision about whether to restart Johnson & Johnson's coronavirus vaccinations. They say they need more information.

Our Elizabeth Cohen joins us this morning.

[06:45:00]

What are the top lines people need to know?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, the top line is that this advisory committee to the CDC decided not to decide, and they have said, look, we need more information, we need to think about this some more. So the pause on Johnson & Johnson is still there.

So let's take a look at what caused that pause. About 7.5 million people in the United States have received Johnson & Johnson. It's the only country where there's been a rollout of Johnson & Johnson. And they found rare blood clots in one man during the clinical trial and six women during the vaccine rollout itself. All of these people were ages 18 to 48. They were all hospitalized. One died.

This is very serious stuff. All of the women were in the intensive care unit. We don't know about the man. The FDA won't say whether he was in the intensive care unit or not.

So the CDC committee says that they need more information. They say that they will be meeting again sometime between now and May 5th.

In the meantime, if you've had the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the past three weeks and you develop certain symptoms such as severe headache, you should call your doctor. Poppy.

HARLOW: Thank you, Elizabeth.

Dr. Ali Khan is with us. He is the dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Good morning to you, Dr. Khan.

Can you explain the significance of the CDC not being able to make a decision yet and what more information they would need to make a decision? I mean I think every day that goes by the American people grow more concerned.

DR. ALI KHAN, DEAN OF THE COLLEGE OF PUBLIC HEALTH, UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA MEDICAL CENTER: Yes, good morning, Poppy, and nice to meet you.

A great question and it's on the minds of all public health officials right now. Remember, this was our one and done vaccine that had better handling conditions than the two mRNA vaccines out there.

So the CDC has an independent group called the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices. And they've recommended this pause. The pause will give them time to look at all of the data on these six and potentially eight cases of this rare blood clot. And I want to be very clear, this isn't your typical blood clots we see. You know, I've got a clot in my leg. This is -- these are special clots with low platelets that are occurring in these individuals. Probably three times more likely. So it's rare, abut still very serious, one death occurring.

So this pause will give us time to better understand what the data is on these, how they're associated. They all seem to be women between 18 and 50 years of age. How this is linked to what we're seeing with the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is the same type of vaccine that's being used in Europe.

And the pause will also give time actually to get the public health -- the health care system also ready so that people can recognize this disease and treat it.

BERMAN: One of the things that I felt like I was hearing from this panel yesterday, and we heard from Dr. Fauci here yesterday, was they want to see if there are more cases. In eight or ten days, you're going to learn if more cases come up. I feel like they're not -- they don't think necessarily there will be, but they're concerned that there might be.

What would the presence of more cases mean for the decisions that they make, Doctor?

KHAN: So the presence of additional cases will give you a better sense of how often this occurs as a side effect. And, again, it gives you more time, as I said, to get the health care system ready for these. Are they being recognized? Do people understand they need to test for platelets and that they need to treat it very differently than the way we usually treat these disorders?

HARLOW: What do people need to know waking up this morning who may have a vaccination appointment today or later this week for a Pfizer or a Moderna vaccine and they are getting cold feet? What do they need to know?

KHAN: So for those who are getting the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, they need to know that those vaccines have not been associated with this rare side effect and they need to know that there's a lot of people looking at each and every dose of the vaccine to ensure the safety of the vaccines, not just in the U.S., but worldwide. So finding cases of one per million shows that the system is working. It isn't good news, unfortunately, tragically, for the people who got this rare blood clot, but at least people are looking for each and every side effect of these vaccines.

BERMAN: One of the things that we're been looking for since people started getting vaccinated en masse was how many people would still get sick even when vaccinated. These are so-called the breakthrough cases where you still get COVID even though you've been vaccinated.

We've known all along that it will happen and we -- we get these -- we're not 100 percent effective even in the small trials. And now we have some statistics, the CDC does, to back it up.

So out of 66 million people who have been fully vaccinated, about 5,800 people have been infected, 396 hospitalized, and there have been 74 deaths. People need to understand these numbers in comparison to the 66 million that have received the vaccine. This is phenomenal news, Dr. Khan, yes?

KHAN: This is amazing news. So there's two pieces to vaccines. One is, do they work and one is are they safe? So we did the safe part. This is, do they work part. So 75 breakthrough infections out of a million.

[06:50:02]

That's absolutely amazing given what the risk of disease and death is if you just get infected with COVID.

So this is great news. More reason to go out there, you know, get that jab as soon as you can and still remember, since everybody is not vaccinated, that everybody should take appropriate precautions to mask on and social distance until we get this disease down in our communities.

BERMAN: All right, Dr. Khan, terrific to have you. So glad that Poppy gets to meet you because Dr. Khan is one of the best we have.

HARLOW: I am so glad about that. Stay up a little bit later and you can come on our show.

BERMAN: He always reminds us, mask on.

KHAN: Mask on.

BERMAN: Dr. Khan, thank you very much.

HARLOW: I love it.

BERMAN: Nice to see you.

HARLOW: Thank you very much.

KHAN: Bye-bye.

HARLOW: Well, just in, Secretary of State Blinken has just touched down in Afghanistan after President Biden announced he is withdrawing all U.S. troops by September 11th from the country. We will talk to the president's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, about the decision.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:55:15]

BERMAN: So it looks like spring will be on hold this weekend in the Northeast -- which is dumb, this is really a bad decision -- with a dramatic drop in temperatures.

So let's go to meteorologist Chad Myers.

Chad, why is this happening? Why are you making this happen?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Because I spoiled you yesterday, John. It was 72 in New York City and now we're going to get back to normal. We'll take normal.

But there will be some snow certainly into parts of New England. So that's the winter part that's still coming.

This weather is brought to you by Carvana, the new way to buy a car.

So where are we going from here? Well, temperatures are about normal for right now across the country. Nothing really all that spectacular except a very significant rain event going on down across the deep south. Temperatures through the weekend are going to be about where you are right now and where you will be today. Even New York, you get to 60, lower 60s for the next coupling of days.

There is the snow. It's an elevation snow. You must get up into the mountains to see the snow. If you're in the valleys, you'll just see rain. And an awful lot of rain in some spots as well.

Clouds across parts of the Northeast for today. But we have to focus on this. This is the storm across the deep south that is making flooding, making flash flooding, also making a lot of hail overnight and even some big weather into New Orleans for right now. Baton Rouge, I'm sorry, you just -- you're awake now because of the thunder and an awful lot of lightning here with the next storm system coming in. Spots have picked up over six inches of rain in the past two days.

Poppy. HARLOW: All right, Chad, thank you, very, very much. Bring us the sun next time or you're not allowed back.

Thanks, Chad Myers.

Now to the U.K. where Prince Charles has just wrapped up a tour of public tributes for his father, the late Prince Philip. This is ahead of his funeral this weekend.

Our Max Foster is live in Windsor with more.

Hi, Max.

MAX FOSTER, CNN ROYAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Poppy.

Yes, people have been discouraged from bringing flowers to any of the palaces because they don't want to create crowds. But this is acknowledgement that many people just felt the need to express themselves in some way. So you saw in the last hour Prince Charles, his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, viewing flowers. These were flowers left at Buckingham Palace but moved over the road to the Gardens at Marlborough House.

It's very important, I have to say, Poppy, for people who have left the flowers to see these images because they want the family to see them. They want the family to read the cards. Many of these cards will be scanned and the queen will be able to read them later on when she has time. And that's -- you know, I think that's quite a powerful thing for people leaving those flowers.

We're expecting more details as well today, Poppy, on exactly what we'll see on Saturday, the ceremonial elements, who's invited, and also what they'll be wearing. More details about these Land Rovers that Prince Philip himself designed and will be carrying the coffin. So some more details coming later on, Poppy. We'll bring that to you.

HARLOW: Thank you, Max, very much.

NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kim Potter charged with second-degree manslaughter.

BENJAMIN CRUMP, ATTORNEY: There was an intent to use what I believe is excessive force.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The death of Daunte Wright brought a third night of protests.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's a lot of frustration here that helplessness they feel when they come into contact with police officers themselves.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Biden announcing he will bring U.S. combat troops home.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We went to Afghanistan because of a horrific attack that happened 20 years ago.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Al Qaeda and ISIS are going to benefit very quickly from this decision.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We continue to make sure that the withdrawal takes place in a safe and secure and ordinary way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY.

BERMAN: All right, welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. I'm John Berman -- who am I?

HARLOW: John Berman.

BERMAN: Thank you very much. That's Poppy Harlow. Great to have you here to help where I need it.

In a matter of hours, the former Minnesota police officer who shot and killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright will appear in court. Kimberly Potter is charged with second-degree manslaughter and faces up to ten years in prison if convicted.

For the fourth consecutive night, dozens of protesters were arrested in clashes with police in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. This is just miles from the courthouse where Derek Chauvin is on trial for the murder of George Floyd.

Today's a big day. We could find out today if Chauvin will testify in his own defense. On Wednesday, a former medical examiner claimed Floyd died from heart disease, not from Chauvin kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes. He also insisted that carbon monoxide from the squad car's exhaust may have contributed to Floyd's death.

HARLOW: We're also following two critical international developments this morning.

CNN has learned the Biden administration plans to announce strict new sanctions against Russia. These could come as soon as today. This is in response to the Kremlin's election interference and the huge SolarWinds hack.

Also just in, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken touching down in Kabul, Afghanistan.

[07:00:02]

This comes after President Biden announced that he is ending America's longest war. They're pulling out all U.S. troops.