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The Lead with Jake Tapper

India's COVID Crisis; Emotional Funeral for Andrew Brown Jr. in North Carolina; Coast Guard: "Severely Overcrowded" Boat Capsized Near San Diego Killing Three People. Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired May 03, 2021 - 16:30   ET

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

[16:30:01]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The handful of medical staff working in this ward are stretched thin to breaking point.

WARD: This hospital is completely overwhelmed. The doctors say that they have about 55 beds. And, currently, they're treating more than 100 patients.

And you can see people are literally just lying on the floor, desperately hoping to get some medical attention.

WARD (voice-over): Thirty-two-year-old Kavita (ph) says she's been here for four days, begging for oxygen that has not come.

"I'm getting anxious," she says. "No one is listening to me here."

WARD: Are you struggling to breathe?

WARD (voice-over): "I'm unable to breathe freely," she tells us. "No one is taking care of me."

In the next room, more than 20 patients are packed in tightly. This is what now passes for the intensive care unit. Family members have taken on the role of primary carers, where medical staff are simply unavailable.

This man complains no one will change his wife's soiled bedding. Suddenly, there is a commotion.

"Will someone please call the doctor?" this man shouts. His mother, 55-year-old Rajbala (ph), appears to be slipping away. Her sons work furiously to revive her. A doctor comes in and tells them to stop crowding her. The family is inconsolable.

"We have been here for six days, and only today we got the ventilator for my mother," he tells us. "The oxygen is out. We had to bring an oxygen cylinder."

It's a story we hear again and again. One man approaches us, pleading, his wife can't get a bed. "No one's listening to me. I have tried everything," he says. "Please help me, or she will die."

WARD: I'm not a doctor. I'm so sorry. I can't help you.

WARD (voice-over): Another man tells us his wife is struggling to breathe outside, but they won't let her in.

We spot the hospital administrator and ask him what's going on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

WARD: This man says his wife is dying outside and needs oxygen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, there's a central line of oxygen.

WARD (voice-over): He insists that oxygen isn't the problem, but says they are desperately short of staff.

Those who do work here risk becoming patients themselves. These men tell us they move a dozen bodies a day.

WARD: Have you ever seen anything like this before? Are you not worried to be working here, and you're not wearing protective gear?

WARD (voice-over): "We should be wearing proper PPE," they say, "but even the doctors don't have it, so how can we?"

We hear screams coming from the ICU. Rajbala has flat-lined again. Her son desperately pumps her chest. A doctor comes in. He takes her pulse, but it's too late. This time, there is no point in trying to resuscitate her.

The agony of her sons is shared by so many in this country, failed by a health care system on the brink of collapse and a government accused of mismanaging this crisis.

Just a few hundred yards away, in the same hospital complex, it's a very different picture. Orderly lines of people patiently wait to be vaccinated, following the prime minister's announcement that anyone over 18 can be inoculated.

A state lawmaker is among 600 people getting their vaccine. The hospital administrator and local journalists eagerly stand by to capture the moment.

WARD: We were just in the hospital over there.

DR. SOMENDRA TOMAR, UTTAR PRADESH LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY MEMBER: Yes.

WARD: It was shocking to see the...

TOMAR: What?

WARD: It was shocking.

TOMAR: Why.

WARD: Because the conditions are so bad here.

Why do you think India has been hit so badly?

[16:35:01]

TOMAR: We are trying.

WARD (voice-over): The hospital administrator interrupts and warns him that we have been asking too many questions.

WARD: Sir, you don't need to coach him what to say.

He's telling him what to say.

TOMAR: We are trying the best to handle. Some problems are there. But we are trying. Now condition is better.

WARD: Do you accept that the government has failed its people...

TOMAR: No, no. No, no.

(CROSSTALK)

WARD: ... in the handling of this crisis?

TOMAR: No, no.

WARD: Because I have been talking to a lot of people, and I have to tell you, people are angry. People feel that this didn't need to be so ugly.

WARD (voice-over): "The situation is not only bad here. We're trying to find solutions," he says. "We're increasing the number of beds and we're working tirelessly around the clock."

But back in the COVID ward, the impact of those efforts is not yet being felt. Rajbala's body is left for nearly an hour before it is finally moved.

India's leaders may promise that everything is being done to end this crisis, but, for now, there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WARD (on-camera): And you see it there, Jake, I mean shortages of everything, shortages of beds, shortages of drugs, shortages of oxygen.

But perhaps the most pronounced shortage that we saw on the ground was a shortage of medical personnel. Five doctors and nurses were responsible for looking after all those more than 100 people in that COVID ward.

And, today, the Indian government has come out and said that they are actually going to draft in final-year medical students to try to backfill some of the void and help tackle this crisis. But, listen, it's going to be an uphill battle, Jake.

And the peak hasn't even hit yet of this vicious second wave.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And, Clarissa, the lawmaker with whom you were speaking, he said that they're working around the clock to help. How do the Indian people feel in terms of their experience? Do they think their government is doing enough? Do they think the government's being supportive?

WARD: Well, that obviously depends who you speak to.

But the places we have been going to, and the people we have been talking with, and the stories we have been hearing, people are very angry. People are deeply distressed. There's a real sense that this crisis didn't need to be quite as pronounced, quite as awful as it is, that other measures could have been taken, that other preparations could have been made, and that, essentially, there's been some real negligence from the government here.

We're seeing a lot more people come out and be vocally critic of Prime Minister Modi and his party, the BJP. Who knows what that means for his political future, Jake. He is still a very powerful political figure and largely popular, but, certainly, many people here really feeling very angry about the mismanagement of this crisis.

TAPPER: And we have seen, Clarissa, some people in India taking to social media to ask for medical supplies. Oftentimes, it's their only hope for help, sometimes for information.

But the Indian government just started pressuring social media companies to take down posts like that. Why?

WARD: Well, they're not just pressuring the social media companies. They're actually threatening the people who are taking to Twitter and other online sources to put out their cries for help.

They're saying that they're spreading malicious and false information about COVID and that they're causing panic. But many people on the ground feel like it's a very thinly veiled attempt to silence the government's critics.

And we actually talked to one analyst today who said, listen, the only thing this government should be focused on right now is dealing with this problem. Any minutes spent engaged in this kind of activity, worrying about what people are tweeting about trying to get oxygen so that their loved ones can breathe, is, frankly, in their words, a disgrace.

TAPPER: Prime Minister Modi's party just got crushed in state elections. What does that say about his political future?

WARD: Well, I think it's difficult, because you can't really see these elections as a referendum on his handling of COVID. And so time will only tell whether this is a bellwether for things to come, whether there will be a broader backlash against the government's handling of COVID. But the question that a lot of people here had, Jake, was, why were

these elections held in the first place? Why were there huge rallies with thousands of people not wearing masks, with Modi himself praising them for these huge turnouts, when, on the same day, 261,000 new cases of COVID were recorded?

[16:40:09]

A lot of people saying that looks like negligence.

TAPPER: Yes. It also sounds very familiar.

Clarissa Ward in India, thank you so much for that disturbing, but important report.

Coming up: a suspected human smuggling boat packed with migrants torn to pieces -- why authorities in the area were, sadly, fearing a deadly accident like this would inevitably happen.

Then, the family laying to rest Andrew Brown Jr., but closure must feel miles away, as police continue to sit on the full bodycam footage.

Stay with us.

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[16:45:07]

TAPPER: In our national lead today, family members of Andrew Brown Jr. are saying their final good-byes at his funeral today, and demanding accountability and more access to body camera videos to see exactly how their loved ones final moments unfolded. The 42-year-old father and grabbed father was killed by North Carolina sheriff's deputies nearly two weeks ago.

Authorities have released very few details but district attorneys argue that Brown hit deputies with his car before the fatal shooting. Brown's family says he was driving away and trying to save his own life.

CNN's Brian Todd is live outside the funeral site in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, not far from the North Carolina-Virginia border.

Brian, we also just heard from Andrew Brown Jr.'s two sons. What did they have to say?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, you could tell how physically and emotionally difficult it was for his two sons, Jalil -- Ja'Ron and Khalil Ferebee to get up in front of the audience to talk about the loss of their father. They said essentially they are still trying to process this. They still cannot believe that he was taken from him and the way that he was taken from him.

Here's what Andrew Brown's eldest son Khalil Ferebee had to say about that. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KHALIL FEREBEE, SON OF ANDREW BROWN JR.: I just want to say everybody keep their heads up, you know. And keep God, you know, in your prayers because he's going to work all this out for us. It's a terrible way we had to be together like this, but, you know, seeing everybody, I'm glad we're together like this right now. He would have loved this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: And Khalil Ferebee also said that he keeps wishing and wishing and wishing that his father could see some of the emotion and the passion that's played out not only here at the church but in the streets and protests after his death, but, of course, he can't make that happen for his father. It was a very emotional moment for Khalil Ferebee.

We can also tell you this afternoon, Jake, that we've learned from one of the Brown family attorneys, Bakari Sellers, that the family through its attorneys are about to call for the recusal of Andrew Womble, the local district attorney from this case. Bakari Sellers telling us that they are drafting a letter at this moment calling for that recusal. They believe it's because he has worked extensively with the sheriff's department in many cases in the past and they believe that in the interest of fairness, he should recuse himself. We've reached out to Andrew Womble's office and we've not heard back for comment.

TAPPER: All right. Brian, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Dramatic pictures of a disaster at sea as a suspected human smuggling boat capsizes off the coast of San Diego. The latest on what went so horribly wrong. That's next.

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[16:51:50]

TAPPER: Also in hour national lead today, dramatic images of a boat suspected of having been used to smuggle migrants into the U.S. as it capsized off the San Diego coast yesterday killing at least three people. The Coast Guard says the boat was severely overcrowded. At least 29 people were packed on board. You can see some desperately trying to hang on as waves tore the boat to pieces.

The captain is now in custody.

I want to bring in CNN's Stephanie Elam.

Stephanie, days earlier the Coast Guard put out a warning fearing as though something like this might happen.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's really crazy and remarkable the timing of this when you look at how this all played out, Jake, and what we now know is the U.S. Coast Guard said that they have given us a new update on what they were doing. We know that they were continuing to search overnight. They now said that they have suspended searching for people and they now say that 32 people are accounted for, 29 of those people are alive.

Five people went to the hospital. There's one person of that five who remains in critical condition, and three people who have lost their lives. They are staying that when this happened that waters were just very choppy, that the 40-foot vessel hit a reef and then after hitting it capsized and broke apart. Some of those people were able to make it to the shore themselves.

Others of them were rescued out of the water which they said was 60 degrees or so. So, the first thing they saw from some of these people is hypothermia but also saw other physical injuries because of what happened here, Jake.

TAPPER: And, Stephanie, officials with San Diego Fire and Rescue told you that they see these types of smuggling boats weekly. Is there any way to crack down on what's happening in wide open waters like this?

ELAM: Yeah. It's also noteworthy that you had mentioned that the Coast Guard was saying that law enforcement would be out and would start patrolling the waters more so and that alert came out on Friday and then this happened on Sunday morning. They say that they have seen a 92 percent increase of apprehensions in fiscal year '20 versus 2019. They are seeing more of this of people just trying to blend into normal traffic out there on the seas of commerce and then bringing these people in.

And so, because of that, they were just saying that they were going to crack down because it's so dangerous and obviously as you can see lives were lost in this case.

TAPPER: All right. Stephanie Elam, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

In our tech lead now, just moments ago, one of the most well-known couples in the world announced that they were splitting up. In a statement on Twitter, Bill Gates announced that he and his wife Melinda are going their separate ways after 27 years of marriage. The Microsoft co-founder and his philanthropist wife helped start an initiative called The Giving Pledge which encourages billionaires to give most of their wealth to charity. Most recently, they pledged up to $100 million to help fight the coronavirus pandemic, including donations to the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization.

Liz Cheney may have taken a sledgehammer to the thin ice she's on with her own party with a tweet this morning saying the big lie is exactly what it sounds like.

Stay with us.

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TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

This hour, the pursuit of herd immunity. New concerns the U.S. might not ever reach that critical milestone in the fight against COVID-19 because of all the Americans who refuse to get vaccinated. Plus, prosecutors in the defense argue over the upcoming sentencing of

former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin. Coming up, prosecutor Neal Katyal joins me live first interview since Chauvin was found guilty.

And leading this hour, breaking news on Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the number three House Republican who is standing her ground, declaring that the 2020 presidential election was not stolen. Anyone who claims it was is spreading the big lie turning their back on the rule of law and poisoning our democratic system, unquote. In any other world, that would be an uncontroversial statement but not in this one, where much of the Republican Party is embracing the big lie that the election was stolen.

To be clear, it was not. Congresswoman Cheney had already upset party leaders for criticizing Trump's months of lies about the election, voting to hold him accountable for the insurrection and incited by those lies and refusing to back down.

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