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New Day

Will Employers Require Workers To Get COVID Vaccines? Why Young Americans Are Least Likely To Get Vaccinated; Trump Predicted Market Would Tank Under Biden, But It's Setting Records; Will GOP Still Parrot Putin's Disinformation Post-Trump?; NASA Helicopter Makes Historic First Flight On Mars. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired April 19, 2021 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, ANCHOR: I understand that many are concerned about public safety, but it's clear that more investment in police incarceration and criminalization will not deliver that safety. Instead, we should be investing more resources into our community to tackle poverty, education inequities, and to increase job opportunities. We should be extending the use of mental health and social work professionals to respond to disputes before they escalate. Your take on that clarification.

JAMES CRAIG, CHIEF, DETROIT POLICE DEPARTMENT: The clarification is spot on. We don't disagree with increasing support for mental health just as one of your prior guests or correspondence, Sara, we have a massive mental health issue in our country today, in large part fueled by the pandemic. We get it, we understand it.

And so, what she's doing now, she's pedaling back, because she got so much pushback on her reckless comments. And so, it didn't surprise me that she's now trying to take a softer approach.

BERMAN: Chief, where are your concerns in this week? When America is on edge with the Derek Chauvin murder trial, a verdict expected maybe as soon as this week, how concerned are you and what are you doing Detroit to prepare?

CRAIG: Well, as I like to always say, John, we're in a constant state of readiness. This is certainly not my first time, you know. I spent a lion's share of my career in Los Angeles. I had a front seat to the Rodney King and the acquittal of the officers, and then the subsequent unrest in LA.

So, things are very different today. We've seen the large scale protests across our country. We support peaceful protesting, but we also saw a lot of violence, the rioting and looting and burning, so all of us who sit in this seat are concerned. And I got to tell you, John, candidly, whichever way the outcome of this trial goes, I don't think it's going to make a difference. I truly believe that if they are, if he's acquitted or he's charged, you're going to still be in some places around our country that there we will see violence. I believe that.

BERMAN: Well, I think you and I both hope you're wrong.

CRAIG: Yes, I hope so.

BERMAN: But I appreciate you being with us. We always appreciate your insight. Thanks for coming on this morning. We look forward to speaking with you again.

JAMES: Thank you, John. Appreciate you and Brianna. Take care, have a great day.

BERMAN: You too.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Will your boss make you get a coronavirus shot before you can come back to the office? Is this going to be a requirement? Where the debate stands right now, next. Plus, starting today young adults can get their shot. The question is, are they going to?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:36:36]

KEILAR: Half of all adults in the US have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, those figures are coming from the CDC. But polls consistently show that roughly 20% of Americans don't plan to get vaccinated. And now, some companies are debating requiring workers to get vaccinated before allowing them to come back to the office.

Joining us now is Laura Jarrett. She's our CNN Correspondent and she's also the anchor of "Early Start." So many companies are wrestling with this question.

LAURA JARRETT, CORRESPONDENT: So many companies grappling with this right now, Brianna, can they make their employees get vaccinated? Now, legally, the answer is probably yes. The NFL is already doing this for many of its employees, whereas companies like Amtrak, are instead trying to use certain incentives like extra pay to nudge people along.

But, look, it's a complicated issue because you have to look at federal law, state law. And already we see lawsuits being filed across the country. So let's start on the federal side.

There's nothing currently on the books prohibiting an employer from mandating a vaccine for its workers, and plenty of companies have required workers to get other vaccine in the past. Think about something like smallpox or influenza, court say that's fine. So what does a company do in the context of COVID-19?

Well, the EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, that's a mouthful, but it's the agency that enforces federal workplace laws, and it put out some guidance late last year reminding employers. If you're trying to follow other non-discrimination laws, you need to provide exemptions for two groups when it comes to mandating a vaccine. One, those with religious objections to the vaccine and, two, people who might have a medical condition that could make taking the vaccine dangerous.

But if you're someone in one of those two categories, doesn't mean you're coming into the office. The EEOC says this, "It would be lawful for the employer to exclude the employee from the workplace. However, this does not mean the employer may automatically terminate the worker. The guidance goes on to say, "the employee may be entitled to certain accommodations, such as performing the current position remotely. So bottom line here, Brianna, it's messy. This is going to be a little bit of a negotiation, I think.

KEILAR: Does this guidance cover both state and federal laws?

JARRETT: No. So right now, all we're talking about is the federal side. State law, though, is where the action is at right now. And here's the big wrinkle. Remember, the three vaccines available in the US right now, only have what's known as emergency use authorization. These drugs do not actually have full FDA approval. So some workers have already filed suit against their employers for trying to mandate the vaccine. And their argument is that, look, the risks of these drugs aren't fully known yet. Yes, they've been tested, but it would be unfair to make workers get a shot in this context.

Again, there's no federal law saying that that's illegal, but a handful of states are actually now debating legislation to prohibit employees, actually to prohibit companies rather from firing their workers based on their immunization status. So if those laws get passed, companies would of course have to follow that state law. So this is the space to watch.

KEILAR: Yes. There's going to be a lot developing here. Thank you so much for breaking it down so thoroughly for us.

JARRETT: Congrats on your first day.

KEILAR: Thank you. It's great, now we're like neighbors.

JARRETT: Exactly, even six feet apart.

KEILAR: That's right. In Michigan, dozens of parents and community members are demanding their school board make masks optional amid a statewide surge in coronavirus cases.

[08:40:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED speakers (in-unison): Let us in! Let us in! Let us in!

KEILAR (voice-over): So you're looking at this footage here. This shows parents banging on the doors of the Hudsonville Board of Education meeting last week chanting, of course, "let us in" there after they were reportedly locked out due to indoor capacity limitations. Michigan currently leads the nation in coronavirus infections with young people playing a significant role in the surge.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BERMAN: All right. Another question we should be asking, do some younger Americans even want to get vaccinated? I want to go through the numbers now with Harry Enten, CNN Senior Political Writer and Analyst. Harry, great to see you here. Thank you so much for coming on this new "New Day."

HARRY ENTEN, SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER: Your "New Day."

BERMAN: Look, we keep hearing when we're talking to the doctors and people in hospitals that the people getting sick now from coronavirus, they're younger. What does that mean?

ENTEN: So what does it mean exactly? It means that they are largely -- so here we have the percentage of all cases and a percentage of the population. The 20 to 39-year-olds, look at that, 35% of all cases, just 27% of the population, you see that same difference right here in the 40 to 59 year age bracket, 29% of all cases, 25% of the population. So when we say younger people, we really mean younger adults, Generation Z, Millennials and perhaps a little bit of Gen X, not those under the age of 20.

BERMAN: What's interesting here is what you're looking at is when this number is bigger than this number, it's disproportionate right now.

ENTEN: Correct.

BERMAN: Disproportionate number of cases are people 20 to 60.

ENTEN: That's exactly right. That is exactly what we're seeing is that those younger adults are making up a much larger share of the cases than they are of the population.

BERMAN: So the other thing about these people is we know they're less likely to get vaccinated, correct?

ENTEN: That's exactly right. So look here, COVID-19 vaccine have either gotten or will get it as soon as possible. Look at this, just 46% of those 18 to 39-year-old say they've either gotten it or will get it as soon as possible. That jumps up slightly to the 40-59-year- old, it's 52%. But it's significantly less than that 60-plus-year-age bracket which is 78%. So, those younger adults are lagging on the vaccinations. Obviously, there were some of those rules and state that said they couldn't get it. But even if they said they get it ASAP, they are still well behind on this.

BERMAN: Another thing about this age group, they're the ones misbehaving, right?

ENTEN: Exactly. So, the one thing right if you weren't getting the vaccine but you are willing to socially distance. But here, take a look at this, have not socially distance in the last week. This is according to an Axios-Ipsos average of polls in March. Look at this, 18 to 39 year olds, 36% say they have not socially distance in the last week, that's greater than the 40 to 59 year old age bracket, 31%, and significantly greater than that 27% in that age 60-plus-age bracket. So what we're seeing, again, is those younger folks are less likely to get vaccinated, they're less likely to socially distance. So it's not much of a surprise that their case total of the percentage of COVID-19 cases is significantly higher than those older adult.

BERMAN: Right. Just to reiterate that, again, the people who are getting sick now are the people who are not getting vaccinated and the people who aren't doing what they should in terms of social distancing, and disproportionately those people are 18 to 60 years old.

Now, in terms of consequences I do want to stipulate. Getting sick, getting this virus is bad in and of itself, that have long term lasting consequences. But when you talk about the ultimate consequence, which would be death, what do we know?

ENTEN: Sure. So preliminary data from April suggests that those older adults who are doing everything right, those 65-year-old-plus, you know, they're getting vaccinated, they are social distancing. Unfortunately, they're still making up the large share of those who are passing away, right? The 18 to 39-year-olds are just 2%, so they are much lower percentage of those who are passing away than they are the case total which, you know, is unfortunate insofar as, though they can still be a vector into the community, right? They may hang out with their grandparents, and they may get them sick, and the older folks are still the ones who are sharing the larger brunt of that ultimate price.

One thing I should point out, though, is this percentage has dropped as they've gotten more vaccinated. This percentage has risen a little bit, but still those older folks still paying the ultimate price.

BERMAN: Harry, I really appreciate this because we talk about it so much, but seeing the numbers here to illustrate exactly what's going on is super important. Great to have you as always.

ENTEN: Thanks for having me.

BERMAN: So now that Donald Trump is out of office, will Republicans even remember how to speak out against Russia? A reality check, next.

KEILAR: Plus, Trump predicted the stock market would tank under President Biden, how did that turn out? Christine Romans breaking it down for us, next.

[08:44:30]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Russia is sitting high on cloud nine after the last two US elections were pumped full of disinformation, much of it aimed at helping Donald Trump. And American right wing media helped Russia do it. John Avlon is here with our reality check.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JOHN AVLON, SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Russia is building up troops on the border of a neighboring nation while a leading dissident is unjustly imprisoned and reportedly near death. Now, these statements could have been ripped from the headlines during the Soviet Union, which Ronald Reagan famously and correctly called an evil empire. But now, the threatened nation is Ukraine and the dissident (inaudible) evolving.

Over the past century in American politics, it was Republicans who were dependably the anti-Soviet hawks, accusing Democrats of being soft on communism. No one could have predicted the role reversal of the past five years, then President Donald Trump was silent when Navalny was poisoned. While our allies condemned the Kremlin, and he essentially condoned the annexation of Crimea, all part of an extensive pattern of refusing to confront Russia.

Trump's defenders and right wing media were all too happy to parrot his project and deflect talking points, scapegoating Ukraine despite overwhelming evidence that Russia interfered in our elections on his behalf as confirmed by the bipartisan Senate Intel Committee report.

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: It was all lies, literally all of it. Even the court claims about hacking that formed the basis of the entire story and the investigation that followed.

[08:50:00]

AVLON: All lies. Well, the Russia hoax became an all purpose deflection to attack the media and Democrats, and an orgy of whataboutism?

And if that sounds overstated, consider this. Fox News aired the phrase Russia hoax at least 877 times in 2017. That's according to transcripts on LexisNexis. And they're still at invoking the hoax 78 times so far this year.

So, why are we bringing this up now, because amid that drumbeat of disinformation, you might have missed some very big news. The Biden Treasury Department confirming that a Russian agent named Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime business partner of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort passed on internal polling data from the Trump campaign to the Kremlin. That's the result of new evidence that closes the loop on the question of collusion, as well as coordination.

Not only that, we know that Ukrainian politician Andriy Derkach was a major source for the alleged Biden-Ukraine scandals, was a Russian agent all along, despite being lauded in documentaries by OAN featuring Trump's lawyer and other loyalists. And that's an addition, Trump repeating and retweeting Russian disinformation designed to help them win reelection.

That didn't work the second time, but the scar tissue remains exacerbated by the big lie. Because Putin's overarching goal was to divide the United States, sowing the seeds of distrust between fellow citizens, and blurring the difference between fact and fiction. So while may feel strange to go from Trump's whataboutism to President Biden calling Putin a killer, we see the party's rolls on Russia reversed now America will need to lead other democracies, the deterred Putin's latest moves on Ukraine and punish the Kremlin if Navalny dies in prison. And we'll soon see whether Republicans even remember how to stand up to Russian dictators, or whether they'll continue to take dictation from the deeply compromised Donald Trump. And that's your reality check.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: I have to say, I feel like after an orgy of whataboutism, you might need a shot. Like that's the kind of thing, you know, you might want to make sure that you're OK, how the vaccination is in place after that kind of orgy, John.

AVLON: Yes. Yes.

BERMAN: So, remember when then President Trump predicted the stock market would tank if Joe Biden became president?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: If he's elected, the stock market will crash. Joe Biden, the radical socialist Democrat would immediately collapse the economy. Joe will drive the market into a depression. Everyone knows that if Biden gets in, this markets going to crash.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So the market has actually been breaking records. Chief Business Correspondent Christine Romans here with that. Romans, it really is like day after day.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And it shows you just because somebody says something over and over again and says it really loudly and scarily, it doesn't make true, right?

BERMAN: Right.

ROMANS: That was the dark warning from President Trump less than six months ago. In this tweet even, either a Trump super boom or a Biden depression. The reality is, we're at the beginning of a great American comeback here. In fact, a spring surge in the economy fueled by vaccinations, warmer weather, reopenings, those $1,400 stimulus checks. Fact, a stock market at record highs, riding a wave of central bank support and stimulus money from Congress.

The Dow and the S&P 500 ended last week at records. The Dow is up nearly 12% this year, the S&P up a little more than 11%. That crash Trump promised if Joe Biden were elected, the opposite has happened. When he bragged about his own stock market gains, Trump always sided the rally that began on election. So we're going to do the same here. Let's use the S&P 500, the index probably most representative of what's in your 401(k).

Look at these numbers. Since Joe Biden was elected, the stock market has soared 24%. That same exact period for President Trump, the Dow rose less than 9%. Since Biden's inauguration, the stock market is up 8.6%. That same period for Trump, 2.5%.

Now, John, you've heard me say this a hundred thousand times. Presidents get too much credit and too much blame for what happens in the stock market. Until President Trump, presidents avoided taking credit for the stock market wins for fear of being blamed for the losses. I think you'll see quiet from the White House about the intraday highs of the stock market in general.

BERMAN: You know what I was thinking as you're putting those graphics up on the screen, that if you still had access to Twitter, that's the kind of thing that the former guy would be tweeting about right now. You'd be hearing from him.

ROMANS: I would be.

BERMAN: Because those numbers, man, they must --

ROMANS: He doesn't have the megaphone anymore.

BERMAN: Christine Romans, great to see. Thank you very much.

ROMANS: Good to see you.

KEILAR: Thank you, Christine. NASA just did something that has never been done before. It's that little guy right there. We're going to take you to space, next.

BERMAN: Plus, we have a live shot from space. Are we going live to space?

KEILAR: I'm going to be there.

BERMAN: All right, sorry. Plus, we're moments away from the closing arguments in the Derek Chauvin, standby.

[08:54:47]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right, time now for the good stuff. NASA is celebrating its historic first flight on Mars overnight. The Ingenuity Helicopter lifted off and landed safely back on the surface of the Red Planet. The very first powered, controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet, which is cool.

So you know what else is cool? This was your first "New Day." It was great having you here.

KEILAR: I survived it. It was lovely.

BERMAN: I wanted to get you something. And like, you know, so the cliche would be get you an alarm clock, you know, welcome to morning news or a coffeemaker. You know, welcome to morning news. The truth is, I completely forgot. I didn't get you anything. So, what I did do, though, is I found in my office. I have this 1982 Carlisle Massachusetts Little League Trophy I want to give you. It's a participation trophy and I want to thank you for participating.

KEILAR: Wonderful. And I'm going to participate all week, and then some as I understand I think is the --

BERMAN: I think you're here for a while.

KEILAR: -- plan, two years after I was born.

BERMAN: She's -- all right. CNN's coverage continues right now with Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto.

[09:00:00]