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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Eyewitness in Tears Rewatching Video of Floyd Incident; Pfizer: Vaccine 100 Percent Effective in Children Aged 12-15; Any Moment: President Biden to Unveil $2T Infrastructure Plan. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired March 31, 2021 - 16:00   ET

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

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JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

And we start today with our national lead and the murder trial of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin. We saw some very emotional moments in court this afternoon as never before seen videos were played for the jury showing the last minutes of George Floyd's life.

Just moments ago, a 61-year-old witness essentially broke down on the stand after re-watching George Floyd on the ground saying he could not breathe and crying out desperately for his mom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know this is difficult. Can you just explain sort of what you're feeling in this moment.

CHARLES MCMILLIAN, SAW GEORGE FLOYD BEING DETAINED: I feel helpless. I don't have a momma either, I understand him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Another witness today described feelings of guilt and disbelief, a clear sign of the weight of this trial as CNN's Sara Sidner reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sixty-one-year- old eyewitness Charles McMillian took the stand breaking down in sobs after prosecutors played this body camera video of George Floyd interacting with police.

GEORGE FLOYD: I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's not moving.

FLOYD: Momma, momma, momma.

MCMILLIAN: I feel helpless. I don't have had a momma either, I understand him.

SIDNER: McMillian is the man you hear on the video begging Floyd to give in to police before Floyd is taken to the ground.

MCMILLIAN: I've had interactions with officers myself and I understand once you get in the cuff, you can't win. You're done.

SIDNER: Earlier in the day, the jury saw not seen before surveillance video from inside the Cup Food store. Nineteen-year-old former cashier Christopher Martin took the stand to explain what was going on leading up to police arriving.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you recall what it was that you sold to him?

CHRISTOPHER MARTIN, FORMER CASHIER: A pack of cigarettes.

SIDNER: Martin says Floyd seemed high.

MARTIN: When I asked him if he played baseball, he went on to respond to that, but it kind of took him a little long so it would appear that he was high.

SIDNER: And paid for cigarettes with an odd-looking $20 bill. He testified the store policy is if a cashier accepts counterfeit money, it comes out of their paycheck.

MARTIN: I took it anyways and I was planning to just put it on my tab until I second guessed myself, and as you can see in the video, I kept examining it and then I eventually told my manager.

SIDNER: The manager of the store asked another employee to call police on Floyd after the teenage employees confronted Floyd at his car twice. The when police eventually detained Floyd, Martin heard a commotion and went outside.

MARTIN: George was motionless, limp and Chauvin seemed very -- he was in a resting state.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was going through your mind during that time period?

MARTIN: Disbelief and guilt.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why guilt?

MARTIN: If I would have just not taken the bill, this could have been avoided.

SIDNER: On cross-examination, Chauvin's attorney Eric Nelson pressed Martin about Floyd's demeanor and the counterfeit money.

ERIC NELSON, DEFENSE ATTORNEY FOR DEREK CHAUVIN: You are from the opinion that Mr. Floyd was under the influence of something?

MARTIN: Correct.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER (on camera): But it was Charles McMillian who shook the courtroom. We know tat George Floyd's brother Rodney Floyd was in there visibly emotional listening to McMillian. Look at Officer Derek Chauvin at one point and say I remember you five days before this happened. He came up to Chauvin's car and said to him, know what, you go home in your safety and let the next man go home safely, too. He said back then he looked at him as a man but today he looks at him as a maggot.

Now, we're also hearing brand new video from the body camera of Derek Chauvin and we hear for the first time Chauvin talking about why he did what he did saying, and I'm quoting here, we've got to control this guy, talking about George Floyd because he's a sizable guy, and it looks like he's probably on something. We have seen much of the body camera video from the several other officers on the scene, but we have not heard that -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Sara Sidner covering the trial for us.

Let's discuss with my panel.

Jennifer, let me start with you. We just saw video from Derek Chauvin's body camera where for the first time publicly we heart former officer explain why he restrained George Floyd as Sara just said.

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He told a witness, quote, we've got to control this guy because he's a sizable guy, and it looks like he's probably on something, unquote.

As a former federal prosecutor, what's the importance of those comments?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Jake, what they are trying to do, of course, is to chip away at the prosecution's case that what Derek Chauvin did was use excessive force and was unreasonable. They are trying to put forward the case that it was reasonable because he was so big and he was potentially on something. They have a real uphill battle here, of course, seeing how long Derek Chauvin kneeled on George Floyd's neck and how unresponsive he was, but that's what they are trying to do.

I don't think they are doing a very good job with this narrative. I think they're really going to have to stick to the causation as their main defense here, but that's what they are trying to do with that defense.

I will say one thing that struck me from the footage we saw today is how calm and how unemotional Derek Chauvin is when he's saying this on the body cam footage. It's really kind of chilling the way he doesn't seem to have any emotion at all about it. I think that is likely to backfire on the defense. I don't think the jury is going to like that, that absolute lack of any empathy at all towards the person that he just put in the back of the ambulance. TAPPER: Van, the emotion of today. We saw one witness break down on

the stand. What must it be like being on the stand reliving this or be on the jury watching it?

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I mean, it's heartbreaking and devastating, and I think, you know, for people who -- for a lot of people who have not been able to bring themselves to look at that video. I talk to people who say I've heard about it. I understand what it is. I don't want to look at it myself, or I saw it last year. I never want to see it again.

So the people who are actually there and have their own traumatic memories of that, then they have seen the video and now they are seeing new video, and there's nowhere to run. There's nowhere to hide. You can't hit pause. You can't say, jeez, I'm going to watch in Netflix. You're there in real-time in front of the whole world and this -- if this doesn't crack through your armor, there's something wrong with you.

And that is why the officer's conduct is so shocking and so appalling because people are seeing, you know, something they can't even watch it third-hand on a video without crying, without being emotional, and yet this officer the entire time, he never showed any emotion, any empathy. He was nonchalant and he was killing someone the whole time and people were telling him. They have to guess, you're killing this man. The man says you're killing me.

And there's no emotion from this officer and every human being on the plan with a functioning brainstem is moved by the video and by the testimony.

TAPPER: And as you noted, Jennifer, the defense is likely going to lean quite a bit on the Hennepin County medical examiner saying that the reason George Floyd died was because of pre-existing conditions and his drug -- the drugs in his system as opposed to a police officer kneeling on his neck for nine and a half minutes.

Is there any risk at all in the prosecution bringing all these emotional testimonies forward? It's obviously devastating from -- on an emotional point of view -- from an emotional point of view, but the defense is going to say this isn't about emotion, it's about facts, and the facts are this is what the Hennepin County medical examiner said.

RODGERS: Well, when that -- when this trial shifts to that issue, to the causation issue, the prosecution will shift as well. You know, they won't any longer be calling these bystanders who were testifying about what they saw. They will be calling the medical experts, too. So everyone is going to kind of shift into the mode of let's talk science here. Let's talk about what actually caused the death of George Floyd.

But, remember, the prosecution only has to show that the kneeling on the neck was a substantial factor, substantial causation factor. So they don't have to show that there weren't any other potential issues that went into the cause of death, so it's not as high a standard as it might be. So I do think that they still have a good case. But you're right. It will be less emotional once we shift to the second part of the case.

TAPPER: And, Van Jones, that witness acknowledged that based on his interactions, the witness that worked at the store, based on his interactions with George Floyd he believed that George Floyd was on drugs to a degree, but he was also able to have many conversations with him. This seems to be the prosecution trying to blunt the argument by the defense that drugs in George Floyd's system accounted for his -- not only his behavior and the reason that the officers had to restrain him but also his death.

JONES: Yeah. Well, the reality is there are a lot of people in our country that use a lot of stuff. People are smoking. They are drinking. They are popping pills. I mean, we have an addicted society.

[16:10:02]

And yet that's not a capital crime, using a controlled substance in the United States is not a death sentence, and many people who are watching have used controlled substances, even within the past week. That's not a capital crime. There's a standard in our country called excessive force.

If you use more force than is necessary to affect an arrest, that's an excessive use of force, it is completely inconceivable.

Listen, he was fighting back. Nobody argues with that. He was resisting. Nobody argues with that.

But then once you have him on the ground and he's handcuffed, he's under control at that point, he can't do anything, and do you not have to continue to strangle him.

So, yes, he -- he was -- he was apparently on something; but it was no reason for him to die that day.

TAPPER: Yeah, and the jurors can think to themselves the last time I had three martinis, if somebody need on my neck for nine and a half minutes and I died, would that be because of the martinis or some of other reason?

Van Jones, Jennifer Rodgers, thanks so much.

Planes, trains and automobiles, just moments with the President Biden unveiling his massive infrastructure proposal. We'll bring that to you live.

Then the news many parents have been waiting for. How well does one of the COVID vaccines work in minors? That's next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:15:23]

TAPPER: Any moment now, we expect to hear from President Biden speaking in Pittsburgh unveiling his infrastructure plan. When he comes to the microphones, we will bring that to you live.

But until then, let's talk about our health lead.

There is good news on the vaccine front. Pfizer trial data shows that its vaccine is 100 percent effective in preventing severe coronavirus illness for children ages 12 to 15. On the other hand, coronavirus cases are up 25 percent nationally since last week in the U.S. Deaths are up 6 percent in the U.S. Hospitalizations are up slightly less than 1 percent since last week.

The dean of Brown University School of Public Health, Dr. Ashish Jha, joins me now.

Dr. Jha, if Pfizer gets emergency use authorization to use the vaccine on kids ages 12 to 15, how will that impact getting kids back to in- person classes?

DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Yeah, Jake, thanks for having me on. Look, I don't think it's a necessary feature. I know we can get kids back to school safely without it. But it will certainly add more confidence. And it's good for the kids to get vaccinated.

So, I expect that a lot of 12 to 15-year-olds will start getting vaccinated probably June, possibly earlier just depending on when the FDA can review this data.

TAPPER: So I have a 13-year-old daughter, good for her. But what about my 11-year-old son? What does this mean for the kids under the age of 12?

JHA: Yeah. I have kids in the 12 to 15 and kids under that, same issue. I think kids under 12 we're probably waiting a little bit longer. We just don't have the data yet. And my sense is we won't until probably at least the end of summer, maybe the fall.

So for kids under 12, we're going to have to wait a while. Obviously, we could get lucky and see data before then, but we're going to have to let the data drive this.

TAPPER: But, as you know, you don't need the kids to all be vaccinated to open the schools safely.

Because of the high efficacy, do you think schools are nonetheless going to require children to be vaccined before they can resume in- person classes?

JHA: Yeah, this is an ongoing debate. I think I can imagine that once vaccines are available for all children, that it could become one of the many vaccines that schools require. There is certainly nothing against it.

What I don't want to do is see that somehow this is a minimum requirement in order to get kids back in. But once kids are back in and the vaccines are available authorized for younger children, I can see this becoming part of the routine vaccination schedule. TAPPER: Overall in the U.S., we should note, even though there is

this good news on the vaccine front, cases are up 25 percent since last week. Deaths are up 6 percent. Hospitalizations slightly up less than 1 percent. This must concern you.

JHA: It does, it does. And in some ways, it's really predictable, Jake. For about a month and a half, two months we've been saying that in the second half of March, we expect that B.1.1.7, the variant from the U.K. to become dominant. It is now dominant. It is spreading across the country. It's much more contagious. And I think that's a major reason why we're seeing this increase.

Of course, states relaxing their public health measures is not helping at all. So, our vaccinations are going great but not enough to keep up with the B.1.1.7 variant.

TAPPER: Delta Airlines announced that they are going to resume selling middle seats starting May 1st. Before that they didn't sell them so people could sit apart.

Do you think we're going to be in a good enough place by May that this won't be an issue? Or is this perhaps jumping the gun?

JHA: It feels a little early to me. I think by May 1st, most high- risk people should be vaccinated. But given what you just said about case numbers and where we will be throughout April, I would feel more comfortable if it was a little later in May where I expect a lot more people vaccinated.

But no doubt about it. Certainly by June, I think most adults who want a vaccine will have one, and we'll be in much, much better shape maybe by May, but it feels a bit more risky at this point.

TAPPER: The CDC just announced that COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in the United States, behind only heart disease and cancer. The U.S. death rate also increased by about 16 percent from 2019 to 2020.

Is this in line with what you might expect?

JHA: It is. It's actually quite shocking. Nothing ever makes it into that kind of list as heart disease and cancer. But it just tells you what a horrible toll this disease had on the American population last year. And the fact that, you know, so many more Americans died than would in a typical year really adds to that. So, not surprising but, of course, very upsetting.

TAPPER: So many more than needed to die based on what Dr. Birx told Sanjay a few nights ago for his special in terms of the mitigation measures not taken by the former president and his administration.

[16:20:05]

Dr. Ashish Jha, thanks so much for your time. We really appreciate it.

At any moment, we expect President Biden to step up to the microphones there in Pittsburgh. He will unveil his next major legislative priority. It will be the first of two parts of what his administration is calling the American jobs plan. This is a transportation specifically, $2 trillion over eight years, transportation and infrastructure push, one that the administration says will also help address the climate crisis and the racial inequality in transportation and infrastructure.

CNN's Phil Mattingly is traveling with President Biden in Pittsburgh, in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

And, Phil, what exactly is in the proposal, and how does President Biden intend to pay for it?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Jake, I think the most notable thing. And you're going to really hear the president lay this out is not just the scale in terms of the policy. Obviously $2.25 trillion is quite large. But also the scale of the ambitions of the administration.

When you break through this proposal or get into this proposal, yes, physical infrastructure is a key component of it, $621 billion to repair things like roads, bridges, waterways and ports. There's also more than $500 billion in the proposal for things like research and development. More than $100 billion for water infrastructure as well. More than $300 billion for things like school infrastructure.

You put all of these pieces together, there's also elements of climate agenda items that the Biden administration has wanted to push forward, directing funds to disadvantaged communities and other equity being a key piece of what the administration is focused on. All coming into a single proposal.

And one administration official has made very clear, Jake, that they don't want to pare back as they move forward through the negotiations process.

Now, obviously, paying for this plan is going to be one of the biggest sticking points with Republicans on Capitol Hill. What the Biden administration is proposing, what the president will lay out is to pay for the entire plan over the course of 15 years. And largely, they will do that by rolling back key components of former President Trump's tax plan, increasing the corporate rate to 28 percent from 21 percent, increasing a global minimum tax from 13 percent to 21 percent, also ending fossil fuel subsidies as well. That's going to be their main pay force.

However, the administration makes clear this is the first step, negotiations are to come. But it is very large and it is very ambitious, Jake.

TAPPER: And if I know Congress half as well as you do, Phil, it's not going to be passed by next week. This is going to be a process.

MATTINGLY: Yeah. And I think that's something to keep in mind. You watched what occurred with the American rescue plan, the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. That moves through largely how the president presented it, and it moved through relatively quickly. I think it was a cleaner process than some of the most optimistic White House officials believe.

This is not that. This is a very, very different process. Expect this to take months. Expect key elements of what the president proposes today, what he proposes in the second half of his plan in April to be changed significantly.

You're talking about energy policy. You're talking about tax policy. These are some of the thorniest issues that Congress deals with any time, let alone in a package that's this immense.

I think one of the things that everybody is keeping an eye on right now, Republicans have made clear they are opposed to tax increases. Biden officials say they are going to reach out to Republicans. They have briefed key Republicans already on this plan and plan to do so more in the coming days.

President Biden spoke with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell last night about this plan. But administration officials are also very clear, they don't expect Republican support given how they're raising revenue in this plan. And that means, once again, not unlike the coronavirus package, they are going to be extremely reliant on Democratic unity.

Obviously, very slim margins in the house. No margin for error in the U.S. Senate. And Democrats that have very different ideas about what they want in this package. We've already seen progressive Democrats say it's not large enough. It's going to be a long process, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Phil Mattingly, thanks so much.

We're going to squeeze in a quick break as we wait for President Biden to step to the microphone and lay out his enormous infrastructure plan at any moment. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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TAPPER: At any moment, we expect President Biden to stroll to the lectern there and speak. He's in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He's going to lay out his $2.25 trillion infrastructure plan.

Let's talk about it as we wait for Biden to begin.

Abby Phillip, put this in context for us. President Biden is hoping to shape his agenda with this major legislation. He's focused on coronavirus and the economy, and pretty much else, that's it for now.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yeah, it's a really big bet from Biden that this is going to be all about the economy and for the American people, specifically in that the rest of his agenda is tied up in how people feel about their households, about their futures, about their finances. And when you look at this bill, it's obviously not just

infrastructure, it has a lot of major sort of long-term human capital priorities in there to the extent that you're even hearing from some moderates that they view this as a kind of down payment on some of these bigger things like climate change, like changing the way that we deal with people who care for loved ones at home or care for children at home. I mean, these are big progressive priorities that they're trying to tackle in this bill. And I think it's a big swing for the Biden administration. And we'll see if they're able to, you know, to actually land it. I mean, I don't know -- I think the politics of it how this is going to work out with moderates, certainly Republicans are already pushing back hard.

TAPPER: And, Seung Min, this week, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told me that this is a jobs plan with what he called climate benefits. He said you can't separate from climate from infrastructure. If you're going to be doing this, you need to make sure it's green.

But there are Republicans on Capitol Hill who don't even want to hear the word green.

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right, right. I mean, climate and environmental policy has always been such a contentious political issue on Capitol Hill. Republicans are planning on opposing this package for a litany of reasons. Probably the biggest reason are the tax increases that the president is about to lay out as part of his proposal to pay for that $2.25 trillion package.

But the fact that it emphasizes so much on climate change, the greening of the economy is another reason that Republicans will be kind of reticent to latch onto this proposal. But it certainly, as Abby mentioned, really makes deep investments in climate in really shifting kind of the American landscape to a more renewable, to a more sustainable path.

I think one detail that's really illustrative of that. I believe the plan spends about $174 billion for -- to invest in electric vehicles, to try to have half a million charging stations for electric cars in ten years. So you really do see (INAUDIBLE) methodically thought through how -- how to take all pieces of classic infrastructure, you know, roads, bridges, other projects, and really focus on the environmental impact of these projects now and into the future.

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