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New CDC Reports Show Booster Critical To Preventing Severe Illness; Blinken Meets With Russian Counterpart On Ukraine Invasion Fears; DOJ Charges TX Man With Threatening To Kill GA Election Workers. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired January 21, 2022 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: But as you saw in that report, it's on an uptick and an alarming pace. Police have not released any details, motives or I believe, you know, any details whether or not this individual in this latest shooting was targeted, or perhaps a random attack.

But in a recent interview with "The Times-Picayune," NOPD investigators did say that a majority of the shootings are just chance encounters between random motorists that eventually lead to road rage. Jim?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: It's a shame. Nick Valencia, thanks so much. And thanks so much, all of you for joining us today. It's Friday. I'm Jim Sciutto.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Bianna Golodryga. Have a good weekend everyone. At This Hour with Kate Bolduan starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan. Here's what we're watching at this hour. Boosters work, the new data just released by the CDC, how a third dose holds up against Omicron.

Swift and severe, a new warning to Moscow from the top diplomat for the United States as the tensions between Russia and Ukraine intensify.

And legal pile up from the Capitol to Georgia to the White House residents, more trouble for Donald Trump.

Thanks for being here, everyone. We're going to start with breaking news. A trio of new reports just out from the CDC, offering the very first look at how COVID vaccines hold up against the Omicron variant and the data paints a pretty clear picture of how crucial boosters are, protecting people far better against this particular variant than just the two dose regimen.

The reports showing those with booster shots offer a better chance for staying out of the hospital if they become infected. The studies also come at what could be another critical turning point in the pandemic, almost half of the country now reporting declining cases, with some more glimmers of hope that the surge has passed in the northeast, but still hospitalizations are on the rise across much of the country.

And there's also this which reinforces what everyone knows by now. New data showing COVID hospitalizations are nearly 50 times, 50 times higher among unvaccinated seniors compared to those who've been vaccinated and boosted.

CNN's senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is joining me now live with more on this breaking news. Elizabeth, what are the details from these three reports out from the CDC just now?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Kate, this is really exciting, because if you remember last fall, you and I had so many discussions, do boosters work? Don't they work? Should we be boosting the entire population? Now there seem to be answers. These are three huge studies. And I usually don't use that word, but these are huge studies. And they're not in a press release, they are actually published. So let's take a look at what these three studies found.

So in the first one, CDC researchers looked at booster effectiveness of preventing Omicron hospitalizations. They found that boosters were 90 percent effective at presenting -- preventing hospitalizations. And the two shots were only 57 percent effective, and that's looking at 88,000 hospitalizations in 10 states.

Now let's look at booster effectiveness at preventing Omicron ER and urgent care visits, they look to 200,000 visits in 10 states, boosters were 82 effective, two shots, just 38 percent effective. Now lastly, let's look at booster effectiveness at preventing Omicron illness just from getting sick with Omicron. So they looked at 13,000 cases, they found that the odds of becoming sick with Omicron were 66 percent lower than for people who had a booster versus two shots.

And just to remind everyone, here are the rules about boosters in the United States because they sort of changed around for a while last fall. So the rules are, the recommendations are, I should say, that everyone should get a booster ages 12 and up and that you get them five months after your second shot. However, less than half of those who are eligible for boosters have gotten boosters, and only a quarter percent of the total population is fully vaccinated and boosted.

So Kate, again, all of these results are in the age of Omicron. It's not Delta. It's Omicron, which of course is you know, at least 99 percent of what's out there and it certainly begs the question should the CDC be changing the definition of fully vaccinated from two doses to three. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Great to see you Elizabeth, thank you for that information.

Joining me now for more on this is CNN medical analyst, Dr. Leana Wen. Dr. Wen, the first CDC study is really out really showing information concrete data about how vaccines are holding up against the Omicron variant, real data saying that boosters, by -- they are key to keeping people out of the hospital. What do you see in these reports?

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: These new studies should erase any doubt about the importance of boosters at this point in the pandemic. I think there's been unfortunately so much muddled messaging that made it sound like boosters are a nice to have rather than something that's really essential. But these studies show definitively that boosters reduce illness and the chance of contracting COVID, and therefore being able to give it to others.

[11:05:17]

They also very importantly, protect against hospitalization and severe illness, severe enough to cause you to go into the ER and to be in the hospital. And so I think it's time for us to change our policies. And by the way, this is not unusual. There are plenty of other vaccines that require three or four doses, hepatitis vaccine, for example. So three dose vaccine, polio vaccine is a four dose vaccine. It's time for us to acknowledge that the COVID-19 vaccine is at least a three dose vaccine. And I wish that something that the FDA and CDC will very quickly revise in their definition.

BOLDUAN: Well, and this gets exactly to a conversation I know that we've had for a long time and the debate that has kind of been going on amongst the medical community, public health officials over the definition of fully vaccinated. I just want to play for you what Dr. Anthony Fauci told me, it was back in the beginning of December about this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Is it a matter now of when not if the definition of fully vaccinated changes?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: You know, my own personal opinion, Kate, is what you said is correct. It's going to be a matter of when not if.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: And yet that still hasn't happened yet. Why do you think that is? I know, you think it should change? Dr. Wen, why do you think it hasn't?

WEN: I can only speculate, I think it might be bureaucratic red tape. And that is not an acceptable answer in the middle of a public health crisis. There are a lot of patients, Kate, who are so confused. I mean, I see my own patients were confused about whether they should be getting a booster. They heard mixed messaging earlier. They heard that there's some disagreement with the scientific community. They're not seeing this as something that they have to do to protect themselves and others around them.

If the definition changes on the federal level, it will help a lot because it'll also help businesses, universities that are making their own rules about what it is -- what it means to be vaccinated. But I also hope that doctors, hospitals, pharmacies will take matters into their own hands. And if they haven't already called their patients, not just elderly patients in nursing homes, but all of their patients who are eligible for boosters, but haven't received them because that is more than half of Americans who are fully vaccinated as of the current definition, but have not yet gotten their boosters, even though they're eligible. And they'll overdue for their boosters.

BOLDUAN: It does seem in that that approach that you're talking about, it does seem also the most effective way to convince people to do that, outreach from their own care providers seems to be one of the things we have learned in this pandemic. Looking at those numbers, you're just getting at only about a quarter of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated and boosted. So if this definition changes, the country has a long way to go again. How do you tackle that with the -- especially when you just were very honest about where we are here, right, an exhausted nation by the pandemic, which has quite frankly pushed some people to tune out a lot of this.

WEN: I actually think that it will be easier to convince people to get boosters than to convince those people who are still unvaccinated to get their first shots. Think about the individuals, the adults who remain unvaccinated. At this point, the majority of them, it'll be very, very difficult to change their minds. But if people got their initial two doses, there are a lot of people who are convincible who are able to be convinced to get a third dose, if they get the accurate information, which is something that we as a medical community, in particular, I hate to say this, but the Biden administration in particular, the CDC, they've had a lot of mixed messaging, actually the Biden White House with Dr. Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins and others were correct back in August when they said that they believed everybody should be getting a booster shot starting that September. But that messaging got so confused.

And so I actually think that we can do this. I know people are sick and tired of hearing about COVID. But if getting the booster dose is what allows everybody to move on with their lives, I think those who are vaccinated are ready to hear that message.

BOLDUAN: And there's some new concrete data out today showing just how important it is. A lot of people should be poring through this. Great to see you, Dr. Wen, thank you very much.

I want to turn now to another major story, the United States and Russia meeting face-to-face in hopes of deescalating the rising threat over Ukraine. The high stakes meeting between Secretary of State Tony Blinken and his Russian counterpart taking place this morning in Geneva, Switzerland. Blinken making it clear, very clear afterward, that Washington is committed to, in the way he put it is, a united, swift, and severe response if Moscow takes any further action against Ukraine.

Afterwards, Sergey Lavrov, insisted to report is that his country is not planning to attack Ukraine. Take from that what you will. The meeting comes just two days after President Biden said in the way he said it is quote, my guess is that he will move in, he has to do something, talking about Putin. Also suggesting NATO might tolerate a minor incursion by Russia into Ukraine, comments the President has since clarified. We have reporters in Ukraine and in Russia this hour to tackle this. Let's start with CNN's Clarissa Ward, she's in Kyiv. Clarissa, what are you hearing from officials there after this big meeting between the top diplomats wrapped up?

[11:10:19]

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there hasn't been any official response yet to the meetings. But I think it's fair to say that for most Ukrainian officials, nothing that was said today by either side has provided them with a great deal of comfort, or a sense that there's real clarity and how to deal with the situation. Ukrainian officials would like to see the U.S. take a much more robust and indeed aggressive stance to Russia, imposing sanctions immediately, providing much more military support here, particularly in the form of sophisticated air missile defense systems.

But what we did see today almost certainly was both sides of the American and the Russian side, allowing for the possibility that diplomacy could still carry the day. There was a real fear going into the talks that this was going to be a dead end. And while both sides were standing very firm in terms of their positions, there is at least now a path ahead, particularly of course, with the Americans agreeing that they will provide a sort of written statement or response to Russia's requests, which was something that Russia had demanded.

For the Russian part, they said, Sergey Lavrov said that he did not intend to invade. But take a listen to what -- that Russia did not intend to invade Ukraine. But take a listen to what Secretary of State Antony Blinken had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: I believe that Foreign Minister Lavrov now has a better understanding of our position, and vice versa. Today's discussion was useful in that sense. And that's precisely why we met. We've heard Russian officials say that they have no intention of invading Ukraine. In fact, Minister Lavrov repeated that to me today. But, again, we're looking at what is visible to all, and it is, deeds and actions, not words that make the difference.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WARD: Blinken did say that at least there is now a clear path forward. The U.S. will supply -- give those written response to Russia's demands, then there's the possibility that the two will meet, he even opened up the possibility for another meeting between President Biden and President Putin. But there is still a huge amount of work to be done if diplomacy is indeed going to have a chance at averting a catastrophe here.

BOLDUAN: CNN's Nic Robertson, he's in Moscow, with this side of it. Nic, what are you hearing from there?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, no response from the Kremlin yet about what they think Sergey Lavrov actually achieved. But he has, in a way take that very important box that the Russian officials and the Kremlin spokesman have been talking about for some time, the need to get a written response from the United States. This, for to a certain degree sort of commits the United States to the diplomatic track to continuing these talks and negotiations in the way that Russia has been wanting to happen.

What's interesting here is Russia, Sergey Lavrov, and certainly President Putin know exactly what they're going to get in that written response. They're not going to get what they want. They're not going to get NATO and the United States saying that Ukraine can't join NATO. So, you know, there is definitely this opportunity for diplomacy to continue. And going into the meeting that was one of the important things for the Secretary of State Blinken, to ascertain, was Russia still prepared and committed to go down the track of diplomacy? And the answer seems to be yes.

But there's a parallel process that's playing out here. And that's the continued military buildup, you know, in the modern era, you can't hide a military buildup, you know, on the borders of any country. And it was the satellite images of Russian troops building up on the border of Ukraine that kind of precipitated these talks in the first place. Russia demanding that they happen, that the talks happened, that the talks happened quickly.

So you know, if Russia has another agenda outside of diplomacy, the way to achieve that agenda is to have a distraction and diplomacy some analysts would argue is the distraction that while this diplomacy plays out, the military troop buildup, Russia's military troop buildup close the borders of Ukraine continues, this big military exercises coming up in Belarus, the fact that, you know, sophisticated surface to air missiles are going to be deployed as part of that training.

But here's the catch, you know, if you have that analysis going that there's a diplomatic track that's being pushed down, and there's this military buildup that's going on, that would assume that Russia is going to invade and Sergey Lavrov very clearly says that's not going to happen. This is how he framed it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[11:15:07]

SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ( through translator): You claim that we are going to attack Ukraine, although we have repeatedly explained that this is not the case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: So this is a conundrum for the United States going forward. Yes, the diplomacy is working. But can you take that to the bank that this buildup won't lead to an invasion?

BOLDUAN: Yes, it's great to see both of you. Thank you so much for that. Joining me now for more on this is a former Secretary of Defense William Cohen. Secretary, it's great to have you here. Thank you. We heard from Secretary Blinken today and how he described it is the discussions were frank and substantive. But how do you read kind of all of that's been laid out here by our correspondents in the region? Where do you think this crisis is in this moment?

WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, I'm skeptical on what Mr. Lavrov says. I've watched him and met him on occasion over the last 20 years. And I would be very skeptical in terms of his assurances they don't tend to attack. It's as if, you know, the West seems to think that, you know, President Putin is some hamlet like character who is psychologically afflicted, should I or shouldn't I? I don't believe that at all.

President Bush 43 said he looked into the eyes of Putin. And he saw his soul about President Biden has said, I've looked in the eyes of a cold light killer. Putin knows exactly what he wants to do. And he would not put 100,000 plus, perhaps even more today, troops on the border and say, oh, you're threatening me with sanctions? I guess I better pull my troops back and put them in the garrisons. He's going to get something out of this. It satisfies him that he's made his point that Ukraine can never become truly independent, cannot become a member of NATO, and cannot have any kind of offensive arms within this country.

So I think that the chances that diplomacy will succeed, I hope they do. I'm very skeptical that they will, because I think that Putin has made it clear he's move first. And now he's put the burden on us to respond in writing to demands that we can't meet.

BOLDUAN: Well. Exactly right. I think it's so interesting how you're putting it with such clarity, because I want to play for you with the Secretary of State said to ABC News after the press conference that he held earlier today. Let me play this for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLINKEN: I think we at least have some opportunity to continue to work to resolve this diplomatically.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bottom line, are we closer or further away from war?

BLINKEN: You really have to ask President Putin, it's ultimately going to be President Putin who decides what Russia will do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: What do you think of that Secretary?

COHEN: I think it's clear. It's Putin's call. Again, I don't think that he would just put 100,000 troops out for a training exercise. This is just a front for what he intends to do in any event. And looking at from his point of view, he's saying, well, the United States is divided, we saw how they pulled out of Afghanistan, we know that there's division, which we have helped so in both in the United States and in Europe. We know that the Germans are reluctant to take any kind of punitive action. We know the French were upset in terms of what the United States has done in working with Australia, et cetera.

So he's looking at from his point of view, it's wintertime. I have my troops there. And I've got a division in Western Europe, and I've got one in the United States. So from my perspective, now would be the time for me to take action. And I'll decide how little or how much it should be because the West is really not in a very big -- good position to respond, in terms of the economy, in terms of what you'll do to me, we've been through hardship before.

And by the way, I'm counting on my Donald to come back into power in just a couple of years. So whatever you do to me economically, I can bear that. But I'll see a different person in the White House shortly. And so from my perspective --

BOLDUAN: What impact do you think President Biden's comments about, you know, a minor incursion has had on all of this? What was your reaction to that?

COHEN: Well, it was an error. And I think, from my perspective, it's always dangerous to have your president have a two hour press conference, something is going to be said there's going to be an error in either tone or nuance or implication. But secondly, you need to be very clear that you don't send a message as we did, and they corrected it very quick. But I think what doesn't Biden was doing is he was telling the truth from his perspective. It's important that presidents tell the truth, but not every time.

And so I think that what he was revealing is what his intelligence community was telling him. I think he corrected it very quickly. But I don't think that Putin can use those an excuse. Now I can go because Biden has given me a green light.

[11:20:08]

BOLDUAN: You know this is a major foreign policy crisis from Biden and NATO. But if someone asks you, Secretary, why does this particular crisis between Ukraine and Russia, matter to Americans? How do you answer that?

COHEN: Well, it matters in the sense that we have a an established world order international norms. Putin has violated that twice, once in Georgia, and again, in Crimea and Ukraine. Now, this is the third time where he is prepared to use military force to invade another country's sovereign territory. Is that something that we want to see in the future?

Secondly, the way in which he has his boot on the neck of the Europeans by virtue of a supply of energy, he can press that booth down, and basically cause their economies to go into a tailspin. So it's more or less, you want to have Russia continue to play this rule because what they do, they export oil and gas, they export military equipment, they have astronauts, but they also export trouble. And Europeans don't want that trouble. And the United States should not want that trouble. That's one of the reasons we have NATO, to prevent Russia from dominating the European theater. Ukraine wants --

BOLDUAN: Secretary, thank you so much. I'm so sorry to have to cut you off. I'm going to jump in right now is we're going to head over to the White House. President Biden about to make remarks, it looks like the Commerce Secretary is going to be speaking first. Let's listen in.

GINA RAIMONDO, COMMERCE SECRETARY: Good morning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning.

RAIMONDO: Good morning. Good morning. Thank you, Mr. President, for inviting me to join today. And thank you for convening us all today. Today is an exciting day for our country. And I want to begin by thanking Pat Gelsinger, the CEO of Intel, and Intel, for making this massive historic investment in American manufacturing right here in America.

Now, from day one, President Biden has recognized and being clear that if we want to compete globally, we have to invest domestically, and he's prioritize the revitalization of our manufacturing economy, and given those of us on his team of crystal clear mission, to get those jobs back from overseas to America. And thanks to the President's leadership, our economy added almost 6.5 million jobs last year, the most in any year in U.S. history. And our unemployment rate dropped nearly 70 percent.

Make no mistake about it. By any measure, the United States economy is strong. But the fact is, car prices are currently driving a third of inflation. Why? Because we can't -- we don't have enough chips. Last year, automakers made nearly 8 million fewer cars than they could have because of the semiconductor chip shortage. Electric vehicles for which the President has set an ambitious goal, 50 percent of new car sales by the end of the decade, require 2,000 chips each EV requires 2,000 chips, more than twice as many as a traditional vehicle. So that's why today's announcement from Intel is so exciting.

Semiconductors produced right here in America will allow us to shore up our supply chains, bring down cost, keep manufacturing facilities up and running and create American jobs. But if we really want to end the chip shortage and ensure our global competitiveness, there's more to do. Today our semiconductor supply --

BOLDUAN: All right we're going to jump out of this, we'll dip back in when President Biden takes to the microphone.

[11:23:49]

Coming up still for us, Secret White House meetings in the days leading up to the insurrection fake electors to claim Trump victory in states he lost. New revelations about how far Donald Trump and his campaign went to try to overturn the 2020 election that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: All right, we have some breaking news just in, the Department of Justice charging a man for allegedly making death threats against election workers in Georgia. Let's get over to CNN's Evan Perez, who's been looking through this indictment has the details on it. Evan, what are you learning?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Kate. This is the first indictment being brought under a six month old taskforce that is focusing specifically on election threats to workers. This is a man arrested in in Texas. His name is Chad Stark. And According to prosecutors in January of 2021, he went on Craigslist, a website and posted threats against at least three Georgia election workers. I'll read you just a part of what prosecutors said he posted on Craigslist.

He says Georgia patriots, it's time for us to take back our state from these lawless treasonous traders. It's time to invoke our Second Amendment right. It's time to put a bullet in the treasonous Chinese, and then this is apparently as the name of an official, an election official, specific election official that the prosecutors don't identify in these court documents. But this is just one of the multiple people that according to prosecutors, he was threatening in these messages. He's charged with making interstate threats. And this is a case now being prosecuted out of the Atlanta prosecutor's office. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Evan, thank you so much for that. I really appreciate it.

There's also new developments to round out what has become a hellish week for Donald Trump. The Atlanta area district attorney has requested a special grand jury to investigate the former president's election interference in Georgia. The House Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection is now requesting testimony from Trump's daughter, Ivanka, who was a senior White House adviser.

[11:30:06]