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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Interview With Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA); COVID Numbers Dropping; 5M+ Without Power, Most in Texas Where Temps Are Below Freezing; Murder, Vandalism, Assaults on the Rise Against Asian- Americans. Aired 4:30-5p ET
Aired February 16, 2021 - 16:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:32:00]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: In our health lead today: States across the United States are being forced to delay vital COVID-19 vaccinations due to severe weather, this as new infections sink to the lowest levels since October.
CNN's Nick Watt reports now health experts are begging people to stay vigilant, to remain vigilant against the virus just a few more months longer.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This -- this is a little bit of a shock.
NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Snow and subzero temperatures, slowing vaccinations from Illinois to Texas, and delaying the delivery of doses.
GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): Sometimes by a day, sometimes by two days.
WATT: A momentary blip.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: The critical issue is that the demand far outweighs the supply. That's the issue.
WATT: Dr. Fauci had said everyone would be eligible for a shot by the end of April, now says Johnson & Johnson will deliver fewer early doses than hoped. So?
FAUCI: That timeline will probably be prolonged may be into mid to late May and early June. But it may take to June, July and August to finally get everyone vaccinated.
WATT: Meantime, just over 53,000 new cases logged yesterday, lowest tally in four months. New case counts and hospitalizations are falling faster now than at any point in this pandemic.
FAUCI: We have just got to be careful about getting too excited about that, because we do have the challenge of variants.
WATT: That faster-spreading variant first identified in South Africa now detected in eight U.S. states, the variant first found in the U.K. now confirmed in 40.
We're told masks and mitigation still required to keep overall case counts falling.
FAUCI: We have got to continue until we get it so low that it's no longer a threat.
WATT: But is complacency creeping in? Despite warnings not to, more than five million people flew in the five days over the holiday weekend.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WATT: Now, the Biden administration has said they are going to pick up the pace of vaccinations. They have just upped the number of doses they are going to distribute every week to 13.5 million.
And, Jake, this is what it looks like on the ground. This just opened today, a brand-new vaccination site run jointly by FEMA and the California governor's office. They are going to vaccinate 4,000 people today. They say by Thursday they will be up to their full capacity of 6,000.
And this is in East Los Angeles, an area that is traditionally underserved medically. It is a diverse area. Now, you make your booking online. I am told that there has been a huge demand. And they are going to try and do 6,000 a day -- Jake.
TAPPER: Nick Watt, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
There's a push to create a 9/11-style commission to investigate what happened on January 6 during the insurrection, but one of the 9/11 commissioners says it's only going to work if one thing happens.
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What's that one thing? Stay with us.
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TAPPER: In our politics lead today: President Biden says he supports an independent 9/11-style commission to investigate what happened during the January 6 insurrection, the White House says.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced plans to create such a panel after Trump was acquitted in the impeachment trial.
Let's bring in Democratic Congresswoman Madeleine Dean from Pennsylvania. She was a House impeachment manager. She's joined by her son.
The two of them have a new book out today called under our roof. Her son Harry Cunnane also joins us.
[16:40:01] And, Harry, we will get to the book in one second, but I want to start with your mom, if it's OK, because I got this big story of this 9/11- style commission Pelosi wants to establish to investigate what happened.
She will obviously need the votes of the House and the Senate and President Biden.
Congresswoman, how do you make sure politics doesn't interfere in something like this?
REP. MADELEINE DEAN (D-PA): Well, an insurrection the Capitol that took place on January the 6th incited by a former president, I pray to God never happens again.
So, I hope the will of the people in the House, in the Senate, and, of course, the new administration, will be that we have to have a complete understanding of exactly what took place, in part so that it never happens again. And the commission must be completely independent. It must be devoid of politics as much as humanly possible.
So, I support it. And I hope those who were in the Capitol who were both witness and victim will understand the importance of it and support the independent commission.
TAPPER: So, let's turn to your book. It's great. I have an early galley here, "Under Our Roof."
It describes Harry's drug addiction, his road to recovery. There are a lot of families facing the same type of crisis. Even during the pandemic, deaths from opioid overdoses hit a 12-month record last spring, according to the CDC, with 81,000 lives taken by this epidemic.
Harry, first of all, congratulations on eight years in recovery.
Knowing what it took to get to this point, what do you make of others going through this process, except in the middle of a pandemic, even more difficult, I might think?
HARRY CUNNANE, CO-AUTHOR, "UNDER OUR ROOF: A SON'S BATTLE FOR RECOVERY, A MOTHER'S BATTLE FOR HER SON": Jake, thanks so much for the question. And thanks for having us on to highlight this issue.
The pandemic has really impacted people who are suffering from substance use disorders and mental health. It's hard out there for people.
And I know, with everything in the media, it's been something that hasn't been focused on enough. We have seen the numbers that, through May, over 81,000 deaths. But I think, through our book, we wanted to highlight our story, because it's such a common story, and remind people that this is a disease, it's a treatable disease, and what is possible through recovery, and just the joys that it can bring to me as an individual and our family. TAPPER: Yes, it's a really interesting read.
You alternate writing. You have different fonts so you can tell who's doing the writing.
You recalled getting pulled over by police often in your teens and 20s. You write at one point -- quote -- "I skated past dozens of possible arrests. I passed field sobriety tests while high. One time, a cop pulled a bag of weed out of my pocket, only to give it back and send me on my way" -- unquote.
And something that I wondered about, you were a white kid from the suburbs of Philly. And you got a lot of passes. I mean, I'm -- just -- it's just a fact.
Do you think that that contributed to the problem, in a way, it enabled you, it allowed you to get away with it?
CUNNANE: I think, in some ways, absolutely. Had it been caught somehow earlier, yes.
But I think the flip side of that is not being caught and how fortunate I have been through that. The ability that I have been given that so many others aren't who get caught up in the criminal justice system, the ability to thrive in recovery has been such a blessing. But that's a real struggle for a lot of people, where my record is clean, really, by no fault of my own, just out of pure circumstance.
TAPPER: And...
DEAN: We write about that in the book, Jake.
TAPPER: Go ahead.
DEAN: We're clearly aware of that.
TAPPER: Yes. And I know. I know.
Just your final -- your final word out there, Congresswoman, to any parents out there who are dealing with this in their own family? What's your advice?
DEAN: Well, we wrote the book hoping that others will see themselves in us or see some of the struggles or stumbles or my own ignorance about what was going on as I tried to figure out what was going on with Harry, what was going wrong with him, why he was losing all of himself and his interests, as addiction stole all of those gifts away from him.
So, I hope people will see themselves in us and in our stumbles, and then also, much more importantly, that they will see hope. There is a world of hope out there. You pointed out the 81,000 people a year having died. That's 220 people a day. I call it a jetliner of souls a day.
So, we want people to recognize that this is a disease, we need to stop the stigma, and that parents need to ask for help. I asked friends for help. They had dealt with it in their own families.
And Harry finally said yes to help. I just want people to realize there is hope, there is recovery, there is treatment. There's an awful lot we can do.
And, as a society, to your point, we can do better...
TAPPER: Yes.
DEAN: ... in terms of how we treat people who are suffering from addiction and stop criminalizing it.
TAPPER: Yes, let's end the stigma.
[16:45:00]
I'll be joining both of you on Thursday night, an event anyone can join, politics and pros. I'll be tweeting about it to talk more about this.
Thank you, Congresswoman Dean. Thank you, Harry. Good to see you.
And to viewers, if you or someone you know needs help, please call the substance abuse and mental health services hotline, 1-800-662-HELP, 1- 800-662-HELP.
An 84-year-old grandfather assaulted, a 91-year-old man hit from behind. These gruesome attacks aimed at one group of American since the pandemic started.
Stay with us.
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TAPPER: In our national lead, more than 5 million people in the U.S. still do not have power as a dangerous deep freeze starts a domino effect across the country. In Memphis, where FedEx is based, the company says severe watering will slow its deliveries nationwide.
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At times, low temperatures in Texas and in Arkansas were colder than in Alaska. And across Texas, dangerous attempts to stay warm have led for several emergency calls for carbon monoxide poisoning and own the death of a woman and child in Houston.
CNN's Ed Lavandera joins us now from Texas.
And, Ed, many of these cities simply not equipped to handle this kind of freezing cold weather.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Jake. Well, officials, many local officials describing this as unmitigated disaster, what has unfolded here in Texas, because of this weather storm. But if there is a sliver of good news, we're at the peak of the number of people without power was 4.4 million here in Texas alone earlier this morning, and that number has dropped now to about 3.2 million.
So, we spoke with the CEO of the Texas power grid that operates the system. He says they're hoping to have the system and all of the power generated to get everyone back online in the next day or two. But it has been a day of political finger pointing here in this state, as there is a great deal -- the blame game is essentially is going on, Jake, as many people are trying to figure out exactly what went wrong with all these power supplies and not enough power being generated, for a storm that was well advertised.
Many people here knew it was on the way. You know, we're standing out here, outside of one of these substations where not everybody is fully getting the power that they need to get their homes warm. And it has been a brutal day across the state of Texas, as you mentioned. A woman and child were found dead in a car, sleeping in the car to get way from the cold inside their homes and the calls of carbon monoxide poisoning, Houston fire officials are saying they responded to 90 of those call today.
TAPPER: All right. Ed Lavandera, stay warm, my friend.
In our national lead, Asian-American and Pacific Islander activists are raising alarms over frightening string of hate crimes against Asian-Americans in the U.S. As CNN's Kyung Lah reports, the attacks seem to be on the rise since the pandemic began last year.
We want to warn our viewers that some of the video in this piece is graphic and upsetting.
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(SINGING)
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Turning 84 was a milestone for Vichar Ratanapakdee and his family.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Happy birthday, grandpa.
LAH: The San Francisco grandfather had just received the vaccine and stayed healthy through the pandemic, walking for an hour in his neighborhood every morning. It was on his walk when an unprovoked attacker ran across the street.
How did you find out what happened to your father?
MONTHAUS RATANAPAKDEE, VICTIM'S DAUGHTER: The officer answered the phone and then he told us like, they followed him, got assaulted. He got injury very bad by his brain, bleeding. And he never wake up again. I never see him again.
LAH: A 19-year-old subject is charged with murder and elder abuse. But Ratanapakdee's family calls it something else.
ERIC LAWSON, VICTIM'S SON-IN-LAW: This wasn't driven by economics, it was driven by hate. LAH: Ratanapakdee's death is part of a surge in reported attacks
against Asian-Americans during the pandemic. In Oakland, a man walked up behind a 91-year-old man and threw him to the ground. One of more than 20 assaults and robberies like this one, in Oakland's Chinatown.
In Portland, more than a dozen Asian-owned byes in recent weeks have been vandalized.
These incidence are not new. In New York, the MTA retweeted this video of what they called racism. This man sprayed Febreze at an Asian- American on the subway at the start of the pandemic, prompting an NYPD hate crime investigation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED) Asian piece of (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my God.
LAH: A coalition has tracked more than 2,800 anti-Asian hate incidents between March and December of last year, like this one at a California restaurant. Before the election, this man invoked President Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump's going to (EXPLETIVE DELETED), you (EXPLETIVE DELETED), you (EXPLETIVE DELETED) need to leave.
LAH: The then president's words --
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: China virus. Kung flu.
LAH: -- have lasting impacts as Professor Russell Jeung who tracked those 2,800 hate incidents because no governmental agency would.
PROF. RUSSELL JEUNG, STOP AAPI HATE: Mainstream society doesn't believe that we face racism. And we needed to document what was happening.
LAH: Identify and change them, says this group of Bay Area volunteers, offering escorts for the elderly, and offering a bridge to those who may not even know how to talk to the police.
DEREK KO, COMPASSION IN OAKLAND VOLUNTEER: We want to take that we're Asians and let's do something. What can I do?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Uh-huh.
KO: And this is what we're doing.
LAH: Vichar Ratanapakdee's daughter spent the last year ignoring what people said to her.
RATANAPAKDEE: You bring the COVID, screaming, spit on us, but we just walk away.
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LAH: She won't do that anymore.
RATANAPAKDEE: He got to be proud about, we protect a lot of the another people in this city or the whole country.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAH (on camera): Police in the murder of Ratanapakdee have not charged the suspect with a hate crime because, as in many of these cases, it's so difficult to prove.
Jake, a lot of activists believe that in this community, which is an immigrant community, which has many language barriers, in many cases, that the incidents of hate are far bigger than we realize -- Jake.
TAPPER: All right. Kyung Lah, thank you so much for that report.
Coming up next, the NAACP president on the organization's new lawsuit against former President Trump.
Stay with us.
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