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The Lead with Jake Tapper
CDC's Abrupt Reversal on Mask Guidance Sparks Confusion; Deadliest Day Yet As Scenes of Horror Unfold in Israel, Gaza; Biden Faces Angry Rift in Own Party Over Israel-Hamas Conflict; Insurrection Commission; Interview With Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ); U.S. Investigates Second Suspected Case of Mystery Syndrome Near White House. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired May 17, 2021 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:01]
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: "The Lead" with Jake Tapper starts right now.
Not doing that, not doing that.
(MUSIC)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Some governors and health experts now saying do not put away your mask just yet.
THE LEAD starts right now.
The CDC says more information is coming about masks, but frankly confusion has already set in with state, cities, even businesses all doing their own thing and too many American adults still unwilling to get vaccinated.
Then, no end in sight for the violent clashes in the Middle East as Israel pounds Gaza with airstrikes. Hamas fires back with rockets, and the U.S. does not call for an immediate cease-fire.
Plus, new details about a mysterious phenomenon plaguing U.S. officials near the White House, including one victim on the president's national security team.
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TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.
We start today with our health lead. And President Joe Biden this afternoon announcing that the United States will share hat least 20 million additional doses of coronavirus vaccines with other countries. That's in addition to the 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines that the White House has already pledged to send.
There's also good news in the fight against COVID here in the U.S. this nation recorded only 16,864 new cases of coronavirus yesterday. That's the lowest level since March 2020. For comparison, there were periods during this pandemic when the infection rail was more than 300,000 new cases every day, but there does remain much confusion about the CDC's abrupt reversal on mask guidance, announcing Thursday fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear masks.
The CDC director now admitting this is fully dependant upon the honor system and non-vaccinated Americans need to continue wearing their masks. The largest nurses union in the United States says the move is not based in science and puts lives at risk -- as CNN's Erica Hill now reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ERICA HILL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Get the shot. Lose the mask.
DR. JEROME ADAMS, FORMER U.S. SURGEON GENERAL, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: It was a little bit of whiplash for the American public in terms of them saying just a week before keep your mask on.
CROWD: Cheers!
HILL: The other issue is every uncovered face really vaccinated.
DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: In terms of the honor system, people have to be honest with themselves. You're protected if you're vaccinated. You're not if you're not vaccinated.
DR. CHRIS T. PERNELL, PHYSICIAN, NEWARK UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: Public health doesn't work by the honest system. I want the CDC not only to look at the science but to think about human behavior and to think about real world scenarios. That's how we're going to build trust in our public institutions and that's how we're going to build to population or community immunity.
HILL: That real world scenario today is a little confusing. CVS the latest chain to drop mask requirements for vaccinated customers unless local regulations still require them, joining Starbucks, Costco, Trader Joe's and Walmart.
DR. AMY COMPTON-PHILLIPS, CHIEF CLINICAL OFFICER, PROVIDENCE HEALTH SYSTEM: At some point, we have to actually allow for both private responsibility as well as the opportunity for businesses to do business on their terms.
HILL: Kids still need to mask up at school but what about camp this summer?
WALENSKY: We're working on that right now.
HILL: Amidst the confusion, more signs the vaccines are working. On Sunday, new cases hit a low not seen since March 25th, 2020. Hospitalizations down 11 percent in the last week, poised to drop below 30,000 for the first time in more than ten months.
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER (R), MASSACHUSETTS: We're safer, smarter and better equipped in this fight than at any time since it began. HILL: Massachusetts will drop all COVID restrictions May 29th. It's
one of seven states where more than 70 percent of the adult population has had at least one dose of the vaccine, President Biden's July 4th goal for the country as a whole. Several more are closing in but not these ten, where less than half the adults have shots.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now is the time to get your vaccine shot.
HILL: President Biden also hoping to boost vaccinations globally.
BIDEN: Over the next six weeks, the United States of America will send 80 million doses overseas.
HILL: The move health experts have been calling for to help close the equity gap.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HILL (on camera): And, Jake, just to circle back on some more of that confusion, so we just learned a short time ago that after Maryland dropped its mask mandate we heard that on Friday, Baltimore just saying a short time ago that its mandate stays in place for the city until 65 percent of the adult population has at least one shot.
In California the secretary of health and human services says they agree with the CDC guidance, but they're still going to wait to implement it.
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They want to make sure they do it well so masks will stay in place until June 15th. The governor had already announced that.
And here in New York, the governor says, we'll move to the CDC guidelines starting Wednesday. One place masks will still be required, schools and also the subway. Public transportation, of course, the subway today, Jake, resumed its 24/7 service.
TAPPER: All right. Erica Hill, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
Joining us now to discuss, Dr. Peter Hotez, the co-director for the Center of Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital.
Dr. Hotez, so President Biden says the U.S. will share 20 million more doses. That would be 80 million doses total with other countries in the coming weeks. Is that enough?
DR. PETER HOTEZ, CO-DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR VACCINE DEVELOPMENT AT TEXAS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: Well, I'm glad -- I'm glad the president is doing that. We need to do a better job sharing our vaccine. Two million of Pfizer, Moderna and J&J combined and I think, and hopefully, if the AstraZeneca gets released 60 million of that brings us to 80 million.
But, you know, we have to report scope of this, Jake. We're 1.1 billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa, 660 million people in Latin America and at least half a billion people in the smaller, low and middle income countries of Asia. That's 2.5 billion people. That's a 5 billion to 6 billion doses of vaccine. So, you put 80 million at the top and you put 5 billion to 6 billion denominator, it basically rounds off to nothing and that's the reality.
And so, what's missing here, Jake, is the Biden administration has not articulated a coherent foreign policy for vaccine diplomacy, how we're going to get this done. We need the Secretary of State Blinken to give an hour-long speech on what the plan is. What -- what are we going to do to produce, manufacture and distribute 4 billion to 5 billion doses of vaccine now by the end of 2021.
And so, that's what bothers me. There's still not that urgency. We're getting bits and pieces of good things. Yeah, it's great. They're donating 20 million or 60 million, whatever number you want to give to the vaccine and the patent waivers over the long term could have some benefit, but they still haven't stepped up to say that this is the big picture and that's what we need to have done.
TAPPER: So I take your point. Let me play devil's advocate here for a sec. What do you say to the viewer who is like 80 million is a lot of vaccine? Why should we be giving vaccine to other countries? Why can't they do it for their own citizens? Again, that's not me, but I know that there are people who probably wonder that.
HOTEZ: Yeah, and the answer is we eventually have to figure out why that's the case and why there isn't that global capacity for vaccine production. But right now, the world is on fire and the 80 million is simply inadequate, and the U.S. has always exercised leadership in global health. That's always been our position, not going it alone, but, of course, working with the World Health Organization and UNICEF and the Gavi Alliance, which we do, and we're big contributors of that.
But we need the U.S. -- the U.S. government doesn't step up it just didn't seem to happen and then you get the opposite which is you have Russian government, you know, pushing Sputnik-V on countries with no pharmaco vigilance mechanisms, and or what the Chinese -- some of the vaccines giving very low efficacy.
And it's both the right thing to do for humanitarian purposes but it's also in our own self-interest because we can't do business with Africa or Latin America so all the big international companies. It means our economy is going to start to accelerate in the summer and then it's going to plateau and it's going to get stuck because you can't run the United States with doing business only with Israel, the U.K., Western Europe and the Nordic countries and maybe Canada. That's not enough.
TAPPER: Not to mention the new variants that might arise if much of the world is left on its own.
I want to get your reaction to what former surgeon general, Dr. Jerome Adam, said about what the CDC made a mistake with how they announced this new guidance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ADAMS: The play call was right but they fumbled the ball at the one- yard line in terms of communicating this to the public. It is a little bit of whiplash for the American public in terms of them saying just a week before, keep your mask on and, then all of a sudden, they are saying now you can take them off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: What do you think, Dr. Hotez?
HOTEZ: What I think the problem is that we're, unfortunately, dividing it to two COVID nations. Where if you go and look at the New England states, New York, New Jersey, California, New Mexico, we're -- we're getting to that 70 percent of adults and pretty quickly, and I think those -- the current recommendations work really well.
But down here where I am, in the southern part of the country, we're at half that level, and that's what we have to fix because those recommendations will not work down here but they are going to work in the northern part of the country. So we need to -- I think the emphasis -- rather than focusing on the specifics of the recommendation, I think the emphasis has to be what are we doing to bring the South up to the same level as the North and also some of the other states like Wyoming and Idaho which are also really lagging behind.
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And that's where all focus has to be right now in the U.S.
TAPPER: Dr. Hotez, what do you make of the largest nurses union in the U.S. criticizing the CDC, saying the decision to say that vaccinated people do not need to wear masks indoors or outdoors is not based on science and puts the lives of frontline health care workers at risk?
HOTEZ: Well, it is based on science, but it's also -- but it's in the context of levels of transmission, and we've had this discussion for the last 15 months, that the things that you can do when you're slowing or halting transmission are so much different from when there's still a raging amount of transmission, even though there were 16,000 new cases yesterday. Remember, the seven-day average is still pretty high. It's like 38,000, 39,000 cases a day.
So there's still a high level of transmission. I would have preferred that those -- I think the guidelines were okay. I just -- I wished they would have come later on after we've brought the rest of the country up to vaccinate.
TAPPER: All right. Dr. Peter Hotez, thank you so much. Appreciate your time today.
Airstrikes, rocket blasts, the violence building in the Middle East as the Biden administration has note publicly called for a cease-fire. President Biden just got off the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We'll tell you more about that coming up.
And then, people were promised gas by this week. But in a lot of states the tanks remain half empty. When will those shortages end?
Stay with us.
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TAPPER: In our world lead, no end in sight to the violence between Israel and Hamas, an organization the State Department classifies as terrorists.
Early this morning, Israeli warplanes hammered Gaza with heavy airstrikes claiming one commander of the different terrorist organization, Islamic Jihad, was killed. Hamas responded with more rocket fire, hitting a residential building in Ashdod.
The Israeli government says ten Israelis have been killed in this latest flare-up, while the Palestinian health ministry of Gaza says more than 200 Palestinians have been killed. All of this happening just one day after Gaza saw its deadliest day with 52 killed Sunday by Israeli airstrikes.
CNN's Ben Wedeman now reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Rescuers pull 6- year-old Suzy (ph) from the rubble of her home in Gaza City. She was trapped there for seven hours. Suzy's mother, two sisters and two brothers were killed in an Israeli airstrike early Sunday.
The last I saw of my wife says her father Riyadh (ph), she had thrown herself on the floor and concrete fell on her head.
The high-tech meat grinder that is 21st century warfare is gradually turning parts of this crowded strip of land on the Mediterranean into a lunar landscape of jagged concrete and twisted metal. The death toll here now exceeds 200 according to the Hamas-run Gaza ministry of health.
Three years ago, a senior U.N. official said the residents of Gaza are in his words caged in a toxic slum from birth to death.
The Palestinian situation is devastated and in crisis since 15 years. Now that crisis is worse and suffering has increased, says Gaza resident Ahmed.
The power grid was already barely functioning before the hostilities. What little fuel there was coming from Israel has now stopped. The Gaza power company warns the strip could go completely dark within two days.
Israeli airstrikes and Hamas missile barrages continue unabated. In parts of Israel, silence wailed Monday to warn of incoming rockets
from Gaza. People in Beersheba, Ashkelon, and Ashdod, including a CNN team fleeing to shelter for safety.
The Israeli military says at least one residential building in Ashdod was hit and it came after Hamas launched hundreds of rockets towards Israel over the weekend.
One squarely striking a synagogue in the city of Ashkelon. According to the Israeli military, at least ten Israelis have died as a result of more than 3,000 rockets from Gaza, the country's Iron Dome of defense enabling most to take cover.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We'll do whatever it takes to restore order and quiet.
WEDEMAN: Three times in the past 13 years and now once more, the low intensity conflict between the militant factions and Israel has erupted into full-scale war. And each round ends with the same result, and soon the seeds of the next round of carnage and ruin begin to grow. Perhaps calm and order of sorts will be restored to Israelis and Palestinians until the next time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WEDEMAN (on camera): And the U.N. says that more than 43,000 people are now taking refuge around 50 schools in the Gaza Strip. The U.N. says it's also halted distribution of food because of security reasons.
TAPPER: All right. Ben Wedeman in Jerusalem, thank you so much.
Today, President Biden said he was going to speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the Biden administration refuses to even publicly call for a cease-fire.
CNN's Phil Mattingly is live for us from the White House.
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Phil, what is the White House saying about why they won't call for a cease-fire?
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, according to White House officials, this is a strategic calculated decision to keep much of what they are trying to do behind the scenes. You've not seen the president speak regularly publicly about this. All we've seen from the White House in terms of what the president has done has been readouts with phone calls to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Bt what they are focused on, what administration officials are focused on is what's going on behind the scene. Not just the president but some of his top national security officials in regular contact. More than 60 phone calls, not just with the Israelis or Palestinian Authority but also with key players in the region, the Egyptians, the Qataris and UAE, the Saudis as well. They believe that holds most promise right now to try to find some type of resolution to where things currently stand.
And, Jake, this posture, this decision not to go public and not to ramp pressure on Israel specifically runs counter to what they're hearing from a lot of their Democratic allies on Capitol Hill, more than two dozen Democratic senators signing on to a joint statement calling for a cease-fire. Even one bipartisan duo, Chris Murphy and Todd Young, both senators calling for a cease-fire making it clear Israel has a right to defend itself and calling for a cease-fire nonetheless, something the administration has not done.
And, Jake, just a short while ago, my colleague Manu Raju saying Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, an ardent defender of Israel, coming in support of that bipartisan call for a ceasefire. Still, no clear decision yet from the Biden administration to change their posture, making clear they believe their best course of action, at least for right now on a conflict that only seems to be expanding and accelerating is to keep things behind the scenes -- Jake.
TAPPER: Yeah, we're going to talk to one of the Democratic leaders who signed on to that letter coming up.
Thanks, Phil Mattingly. Appreciate it.
One state with popular beach towns is keeping the indoor mask mandate in place. Will it cost them tourism dollars? New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy will join us live.
Stay with us.
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TAPPER: In our national lead, major reopening news out of New Jersey today. Democratic Governor Phil Murphy announcing that by fall, all classes in the Garden State will be 100 percent in person, virtual learning no longer an option.
And while a promising sign towards life return topping normal, New Jersey is going against the monumental new guidance on mask-wearing from the CDC and the governor has decided to keep mask mandates in place indoors for the time being.
Democratic Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey joins us now live.
Governor, I'm sure a lot of parents are happy to hear their kids are going to be headed back to the classroom this fall. But why did you decide to go against the CDC guidance and keep the indoor mask mandates in place for fully vaccinated people?
GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D-NJ): Good to be with you, Jake.
I wouldn't say necessarily against it. We're just not ready yet. We've been clobbered not once but twice. We've lost over 26,000 people. We know the virus is more lethal indoors, and you're asking somebody who is at the hardware store working there or in a retail or a grocery store to make the judgment on who's vaccinated and who's not.
We're not there yet. We're close. I think we're -- you know, within a matter of weeks of getting to a better place. Our density usually helps us. Not in a pandemic. We want to make sure we get this right.
TAPPER: How would you feel if a business said if you show proof that you've been vaccinated, you can come into our store or our establishment without a mask but if you don't then, you won't? I mean, there is the idea of an incentive to encourage people to get vaccinated, right?
MURPHY: Yeah. I mean, I feel better about that, for sure. But, again, I don't think this is -- this is not remotely forever and always. This is a matter of a couple of more weeks on the clock.
Listen, I think we were the first state in America to put in place an indoor masking requirement. We know it's been hugely helpful. If we can save only one more life by waiting a couple weeks longer, I'll sign up for that.
TAPPER: So you say not forever and always, even though you're keeping the mask mandate in place for not -- for now. But what's the benchmark going to be to lift the mask restrictions?
MURPHY: So it's going to be a series of health data points that are all right now, thank God, at long last going in the right direction. Combination, we look at spot positivity, rate of transmission, hospitalizations, ICU beds, the whole range of things that we look at, again, all going well at the moment.
We just want to keep -- we've got this thing on the run. This is my simple premise. We've got the virus on the run at long last. Twice before we thought we had this thing on the run and it came back and clobbered us again.
I don't want to -- I don't want to see that again. We're the only state in America I think who has not lurched in one respect. In other words, opened up something and that had to pull back. I don't want to start now, Jake.
TAPPER: The majority of residents of New Jersey remain unvaccinated. What are you doing to change that?
MURPHY: Yeah. We started -- that's a fact. That's another factor here. I'm glad you raised it. And depending on the community you're in, that number has a long way to go.
We unveiled a couple of weeks ago Operation Jersey Summer -- a whole range of programs, everything for Grateful for the Shot, which has got a real faith-based element to it, mobile vans, door-knocking, aggressive campaign. We have a Shot and a Beer with our breweries. We have got some of the best craft breweries in America.
[16:30:01] We're going to unveil a couple of more programs later this week. We're doing everything we can. We went from this period when people came to the vaccine. Now we have got to bring the vaccine to the people, and we're going to stay on it until we get there.
TAPPER: So, I say this as a Philly boy, a big part of your state's income comes from tourism in the summer to your beaches.
Are you worried keeping your mask mandate in place, people from Philly and from other places, might instead go to New York or Delaware or Maryland, where, after they go to the beach, they can keep their masks off and go into bars and clubs without having to wear masks?
MURPHY: So, Jake, putting aside the fact that you know this, there's no substitute for the Jersey Shore. There's not a plan B here.
Listen, I -- this is going to be, as I, mentioned within a number of weeks until we get to the place we want to get to.
My reaction is, we're going to be, I hope, the safest state in America on any beach this summer as a result of the steps we have taken. But, again, we will get there, I believe sooner than later. And I think we're going to have a great summer on the Jersey Shore.
TAPPER: I hope so.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, thanks so much. Appreciate your time.
MURPHY: Thanks for having me, Jake.
TAPPER: Why the new bipartisan commission investigating the January 6 insurrection is leaving some lawmakers stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Stay with us.
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[16:36:07]
TAPPER: In the politics lead: The House of Representatives will vote Wednesday on whether or not to create a bipartisan congressional commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. And that vote will put several Republican lawmakers on the spot.
Voting in favor of a new commission will likely mean voting to investigate the actions of former President Trump, not to mention other prominent Republicans such as Mike Flynn or Roger Stone.
CNN's Ryan Nobles joins us now live from Capitol Hill.
And, Ryan, it's also very possible Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy will be subpoenaed if this commission comes to be.
RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Jake. In fact, two Republican members of the House of Representatives have
floated that as a possibility, Liz Cheney and Fred Upton both saying that they think it is possible that McCarthy could be brought in front of this committee.
Of course, he would only need to be subpoenaed if he didn't agree to come voluntarily. It's impossible to forecast whether or not this could happen. But it seems to be a likely scenario.
Now, this would be an independent commission. So we don't exactly know who would be on this body until after those members are appointed. But, of course, McCarthy was an important player in the events on January 6, including making a phone call to President Trump during a time when the rioters had stormed the building, asking him specifically to tell them to go away.
So, his recollection of what transpired on that day and his perception of how it all went down could be an important part of this process. Of course, the other important thing to keep in mind, Jake, is that McCarthy would have a role in appointing at least half of the members of this commission, as it's going to be five Republicans and five Democrats.
And at this point, McCarthy hasn't even said whether or not he is in favor of the commission -- Jake.
TAPPER: Yes. And he supposedly told President Trump -- Trump supposedly told him that the insurrectionists care more about the election than he does.
Republican leaders saying that they're not telling their members how to vote one way or the other; is that right?
NOBLES: Yes, that's right. And that's very significant, the GOP whip, Steve Scalise, telling CNN that he will not be whipping members on this, meaning that the Republicans will have -- will be able to use their own conscience in deciding whether or not to vote for this.
But I think it's important to point out, Jake, that the leadership here will still play an important role as to the number of Republicans that actually cast a vote in favor of this commission. So far, none of the three top leaders, McCarthy, Scalise, or Elise Stefanik, the new conference chair, have said whether or not they support the commission.
They want this vote to be as bipartisan as possible. They don't need Republican support for it to get out of the House. It'll be much more important on the Senate side. But, in order for most Americans to believe the findings of this commission, it's going to need buy-in from both Republicans and Democrats.
So the number of Republican members of Congress that vote for it will be very important -- Jake.
TAPPER: All right, Ryan, thanks so much.
Let's talk about this with my panel.
And, Nia-Malika, I mean, the people, the three top House Republicans, McCarthy, Scalise, and Stefanik, are election liars.
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes.
TAPPER: I mean, they fed the beast that created the insurrection. Why would they support such a commission?
HENDERSON: Yes.
And it's unclear, as Ryan was saying, whether or not they're going to vote for it, how many Republicans will actually vote for it. There is this odd position where McCarthy can actually name people to the commission that are then probably, possibly going to ask him to testify before the commission.
He is in this odd position. On the one hand, he at some point did blame President Trump for starting this and sort of...
TAPPER: For half-a-second.
HENDERSON: For half-a-second.
And then, more recently, he said, oh, no one's talking about the election or January 6 or anything like that. So, we will see.
Listen, Americans want to see this commission. I was looking at some polling data on it. Something like 55 percent want to see this commission. And by the end of the year, the results of this, of their findings and their testimony with different folks like Kevin McCarthy will be made public.
TAPPER: And, Gloria, Congresswoman Liz Cheney continuing, after being purged from the party for not lying about this.
[16:40:02]
Listen to what she's talking about, the Republican Party being in a bad place.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS WALLACE, FNC ANCHOR: I ask this about both McCarthy and Elise Stefanik. Are they being complicit in what you consider the Trump lies?
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): They are. And I'm not willing to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: And she believes, Cheney, that this commission will likely subpoena McCarthy, if he refuses to testify, over the conversations that he had with the president that day.
That could put McCarthy in a precarious position. GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.
Look, the bottom line here is that Donald Trump's going to hate this commission, one way or another, because it's going to talk about what occurred that day. And key to what occurred that day is his conversation with McCarthy.
And you alluded to it before. He said, "Well, Kevin, I guess these people," meaning the insurrectionists, "are more upset about the election than you are."
TAPPER: Right.
BORGER: To which McCarthy responded, "Who the F do you think I am?" et cetera, et cetera.
So, they went back and forth a little bit on this. And if he is testifying under oath, he has to tell the truth about the president.
TAPPER: But what are the odds that McCarthy, if he go -- this is going to happen, right? Democrats have that majority.
BORGER: Yes. Yes.
HENDERSON: Yes.
TAPPER: What are the odds that McCarthy puts a number of members from his fringe nitwit caucus on this commission?
HENDERSON: That's the thing.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan.
HENDERSON: The odds are high, because he -- because he I think he can name two members, I think. And then he has a say in who the vice chair is as well.
So, you can pack this committee with all sorts of people who would tout the lie.
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: And they can do a minority report, right, if they want to.
HENDERSON: Yes.
BORGER: Lots of commissions have had -- Iran-Contra had a minority report. You can do a minority report.
TAPPER: Yes.
BORGER: The question is, does the public -- as Nia is talking about, does the public believe the majority? And the important point is that this is narrowed down to what occurred
on January 6, not everything else that lots of Republicans wanted to throw into it. It's narrowed down to that day.
TAPPER: Yes.
BORGER: And I think that's important.
TAPPER: But so many House Republicans are trying to rewrite history about what happened.
BORGER: Yes.
TAPPER: Take a -- this is Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw, Republican from Texas, war hero. He did not vote to overturn the election. But he did sign on to that insane Texas attorney general lawsuit that sought to disenfranchise four states, based on a bunch of lies.
Here is how he tries to defend that this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. DAN CRENSHAW (R-TX): That amicus brief was a simple question of the Supreme Court and saying, can you please speak to this question of whether -- of whether process changes in the election last minute, not approved by the legislature, can be deemed constitutional?
It was a question. Now, they didn't want to answer that question. And I said it's -- and then I said, it's unconstitutional for us to overturn the election in Congress.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: That lawsuit was insane. I mean, the way he makes it sound, as though it written by august legal scholars.
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: Right.
TAPPER: It was crazy.
BORGER: Yes, it was. And it still is.
And now everybody's working backwards to try and rationalize their decisions that were made at that moment for political reasons that were thrown out by the courts unanimously.
TAPPER: I would respect them more if they said, I got swept up in the moment, and I regret it. That's the honest answer.
BORGER: Right.
But that's not the answer you're going to get. And what about the Supreme Court? What about 60 courts? What about -- I mean, it's just absurd.
HENDERSON: Yes.
And you hear Republicans essentially saying, listen, January 6 was no big deal. I think there was one congressman who said, if you didn't know any better, you would think that these folks were tourists.
(CROSSTALK)
HENDERSON: Well, we do know better, and we saw it unfold on TV.
And I can't remember any tourists gathering where five people ended up getting killed and scores of police officers also injured. So, this, I think, started to take place, the kind of whitewashing of it, started to take place in sort of the hours that it was happening, as folks were saying, oh, this was really leftists, this was really Antifa.
And so we're seeing that continuously happen, which is why this commission is so important to get some sort of official record of what happened.
TAPPER: And, meanwhile, Kevin McCarthy is doing all this back the blue stuff, pro-police stuff.
There is a Metropolitan Police Department officer, Officer Fanone, who has been on Don's show a couple -- Don Lemon's show a couple times...
BORGER: Right.
TAPPER: ... who is upset, who is distressed at the way that Republicans are trying to whitewash it. He reached out to McCarthy's office. They hung up on him.
HENDERSON: Yes.
TAPPER: You could say maybe it was an accident or whatever, called back, whatever. He gave his number to McCarthy's office.
I checked with Officer Fanone this morning. McCarthy, a week later, still has not called Officer Fanone, even while he's off doing this back blue stuff.
BORGER: And let's just say that Officer Fanone was almost murdered.
And he is speaking out because he is so upset about what happened to him, how it's being whitewashed, and what happened to his fellow officers. You can't pretend on the one hand you want to -- you want to support the police and, on the other hand, not return this man's phone calls.
TAPPER: Right. I support the police, except when Trump supporters try to kill him.
BORGER: Yes.
HENDERSON: Right, which is essentially what the argument is here. [16:45:02]
I mean, taking the side of the Trump supporters, down playing the danger that they pose. You heard I think it was Ron Johnson said he wasn't -- he wasn't afraid of these supporters but he would have been afraid of them if they were Black Lives Matter supporters or Antifa supporters.
So, you know, this is all still about Trump and Trumpism. And no matter what, they're going to take the side of him and his supporters.
TAPPER: All right. Nia-Malika Henderson and Gloria Borger, thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.
Coming up, American spies, diplomats, military officers suddenly falling mysteriously ill. They could be the victims of a possible attack we're now learning occurred twice right near the White House.
Stay with us.
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TAPPER: In our national lead, a sudden mysterious illness in the president's backyard. The U.S. is now investigating reports of a second national security official hit by this sudden mystery illness which has already affected more than 100 U.S. officials and diplomats around the world.
[16:50:05]
The mystery illness which has been known as Havana syndrome causes headaches, head pressure, even traumatic brain injury. Two of these latest episodes happened near entrances to the White House grounds not far from where President Biden regularly disembarks for Marine One.
CNN's Katie Bo Williams is with us.
Katie Bo, what exactly happened to these national security advisers?
KATIE BO WILLIAMS, CNN REPORTER: Yeah. So what we've learned is that in November of 2020, there were two members of the president's National Security Council who were approaching entrances to the White House when they were struck by this sort of strange constellation of symptoms. One of them was leaving their car and actually walking through a gate onto White House grounds when they were struck with these symptoms and that actually took place quite literally a day after the election.
Several weeks later, a second official was struck by a similar episode, also near entrance to White House grounds. That person was ill enough they needed to seek immediate medical attention.
TAPPER: Oh wow, and tell us, so what happens, what happens to these individuals?
WILLIAMS: Yeah. So, one of the things that made this so tricky for national security officials to sort of tell what's going on is that any one case of this is not necessarily like the other. Victims are reporting a really inconsistent set of symptoms.
So, over the long term headaches, vertigo, as you mentioned, even traumatic brain injury. But at the moment that this is happening, you have some officials who are reporting feeling head pressure, reporting hearing a piercing directional noise and even stranger they can step in and out of this symptom. They start to feel the symptoms and if they move to another room the symptoms disappear but they can step back into them by returning to their original position.
TAPPER: That is so weird. Do we know or have any idea what's causing this? Can we even say definitively that this is an attack of short?
WILLIAMS: No, we can't, because in part because the symptoms themselves have been so varied and in part because the intelligence community at this point doesn't have a really good sense of exactly what technology is being used to affect these strange attacks. There's a bit of debate about this. And so, I should say, the strange episodes. So if you don't know exactly what's causing it, it's difficult to say it's an attack.
And you know the seriousness with which the CIA is taking this, or the intelligence community broadly because the director of the CIA is currently receiving daily briefings on this issue. So they are really struggling to get to the bottom of what's causing this. If it is an attack, who is behind it? Is it someone perhaps just trying to collect data out of a cell phone and they have the juice turned up too high? So at this point, it's really a mystery.
TAPPER: And what is the White House saying, if anything?
WILLIAMS: They are saying that they are treating these issues very seriously and they are very concerned about the health and care of their personnel. One of the big controversies, this has been going on for five years now and one of the big controversies dating back to the Trump administration was that the CIA, according to some victims, wasn't providing them with the care that they needed and even in some cases appeared to be questioning whether or not the symptoms that victims were reporting were real or whether they were some kind of psychosomatic episode.
So I think what you're seeing right now is the Biden administration sort of led by the White House trying to kind of streamline their investigation of this matter and make sure they are getting victims the care that they need.
TAPPER: Wow.
Katie Bo Williams, thanks so much. And welcome to THE LEAD. Good to have you here.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
TAPPER: In our money lead, predictions that gas shortages would be a thing of the past by last weekend or early this week -- well, that seems a bit too optimistic. True, things are getting better but a GasBuddy survey shows about half the stations in the Carolinas still don't have fuel while the percentage was higher in the '70s in North Carolina last week, that's still a lot of folks with no way to get fuel. Things are also improving in Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee and Maryland.
But this crisis is not over. Colonial Pipeline's big fuel line got up and running late last week after a six-day shutdown caused by a cyber attack but fuel flows along the pipeline at just five miles an hour. Yeah, tell that to your gas gauge.
It's usually not good when your friend flips and pleads guilty and tells the feds he's got a lot to share about you. The possible legal trouble for Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz ahead.
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TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.
This hour, President Biden announcing today the United States will share 80 million vaccine doses with the rest of the world but still many Americans are refusing their shot, plus the friend flips. An ally of Congressman Matt Gaetz pleads guilty and promises to give prosecutors, quote, substantial assistance.
And leading this hour, the most serious violence between Israelis and Palestinians in several years with hundreds of Palestinians and ten Israelis killed so far with no end in sight. Today, Israeli warplanes launched airstrikes on targets in Gaza and Hamas which the State Department designates as a terrorist group hit a residential building with rocket fire in the city of Ashdod.
Now pressure is growing for more robust diplomacy by President Biden and his administration and more than two dozen U.S. Democratic senators are calling for a cease-fire. One of those senators, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, will join us in moment.
But, first, CNN's Nic Robertson is on the ground in the Middle East where sirens have been warning of more rockets and civilians have been taking shelter.
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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Close to Gaza, Israel's big guns speak louder than diplomats, racks more artillery shells ready for firing.
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