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The Lead with Jake Tapper

FDA Authorizes Pfizer Vaccine Booster For Children Ages 12-15; More Than 2,900 Flights Canceled Today Due To COVID & Snowstorm; CNN : Jan. 6 Committee Has "Firsthand" Knowledge Of Trump's Actions During U.S. Capitol Seige; Jury In Elizabeth Holmes Trial Deadlocked On 3 Of 11 Counts; NY Attorney General Subpoenas Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired January 03, 2022 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Asking for a friend.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Yeah, asking for a friend can go because it's never really for a friend.

There's also circle back, deep dive, new normal, year on mute, which we need.

CAMEROTA: We need that.

BLACKWELL: And supply chain.

Can we add, it's the personality for me. Putting for me at the end of everything, let that go. Leave that in 2021.

CAMEROTA: That's a no from me, dog.

BLACKWELL: All right. Let's put that on the list, too.

THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts right now.

CAMEROTA: Wait, what?

(MUSIC)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: New Year, new you? Same old COVID problems.

THE LEAD starts right now.

As kids return to class, mask confusion and anxiety coast to coast about whether schools are going to open. But at least, there is some good news for kids today when it comes to COVID.

So what was Donald Trump doing or more likely not doing as his supporters rampaged the Capitol a year ago this week? New insight this hour into what the January 6th committee is learning.

And looks and sounds like a page from the Old Testament. We're going to find out why fish were literally falling from the sky. (MUSIC)

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

And we start today in the health lead. Major new announcements from the Food and Drug Administration today about Pfizer's COVID vaccine. The FDA today recommending the Pfizer booster for teens ages 12 to 15. Shortening for everyone the recommended time between your second Pfizer shot and the booster and okaying a third dose for some immunocompromised children between 5 and 11.

More than 115 million Americans have been fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine and now the CDC is going to meet this week to decide whether to sign off on the FDA recommendations as parents are stressing about sending their kids back to school given the recent spike in pediatric hospitalizations due to COVID. Though we should note almost all of the serious COVID cases among children right now are among the unvaccinated.

CNN's Alexandra Field starts us off this hour.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: If you look at the uptick, it is actually almost a vertical increase.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Amid a tsunami of new COVID cases, the daily average topping 400,000 for the first time. The FDA making major moves to add layers of protection, authorizing booster shots for kids ages 12 to 15, shortening the window between the initial doses of a vaccine and the booster shot for everyone from 6 months to 5, and authorizing a third dose of vaccine for some immunocompromised children between the ages of 5 and 11. All that as the omicron surge brings with it a growing number of hospitalizations, but at a lower rate than we've seen in other surges.

DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: The one group that may be a problem for is very young children, toddlers who have trouble with upper airway infections. We are seeing rising hospitalizations among that pediatric segment.

FIELD: School districts across the country now struggling with how to bring students safely back to school. Five metro Atlanta schools going remote for the first week of the New Year. While Seattle, Chicago and D.C. schools delay their start dates to allow time for more testing.

But the largest district in the nation, New York city schools is bringing students back to class with a new mayor committing to in- person learning.

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D), NEW YORK: We're not sending an unclear message of what is going to happen day-to-day. I'm going to tell you what's going to happen day-to-day. We are staying open.

FIELD: It's part of a shift being seen in more of the country toward finding ways to co-exist with COVID. Crowds filling stadiums for holiday bowl games, the NFL and NBA easing restrictions on players last week after so many cancellations and delays.

But there are still consequences. The crushingly high case count and it isn't business as usual.

New York City coping with a staffing shortage among first responders by instructing emergency medical services not to transport most stable patients with flu-like symptoms. The headaches for air travelers intensifying. A mix of staffing shortages and winter weather now causing another 2,100 cancellations today.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FIELD (on camera): All those delays, cancellations, shortages and climbing cases, we're going to be living with all of it for a while. The governor of New York saying we are not in a good place. This is the surge we expected, but on top of it, she says we'll soon be seeing another wave of cases coming from all those holiday celebrations -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Alexandra Field, thank you so much.

You just saw all the school districts imposing delays in reopening or changes to COVID protocols. But not in the Big Apple where the new mayor announced we want to be extremely clear. The safest place for our children is in a school building. And we're going to keep our schools open, unquote.

CNN's Athena Jones is in New York.

And, Athena, this is day three for the New York -- new New York City Mayor Eric Adams. And his message to parents seems to be pretty clear.

[16:05:02]

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Jake.

It is clear and it's exactly what you just said, that school is the safest place for children. He's been pointing out the many drawbacks of not having schools open. For instance, children being exposed for criminal environment. Children who have trouble with remote learning which leaves behind a lot of kids, especially those in poorer communities, those who are housing insecure, also the challenges parents face when they don't have child care and, of course, missed meals. A lot of students in the New York City public school system relying on schools for meals.

But this is also part of a larger idea we're hearing from him which is learning to live with COVID while we modify our behavior.

Listen to some of what he had to say about this during a visit to an elementary school in the Bronx this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ADAMS: When a mayor has swagger, the city has swagger. We have allowed people to beat us down so much that all we did was wallow in COVID. That's all we did. And we no longer believe.

This is a city of swagger. This is a city of resiliency. And all of these messages out there of what is going to happen, what is going to happen -- we're going to survive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: So the message there, no more wallowing in COVID. So, the commitment to keeping schools open is certainly there but there's no doubt this is going to be a big challenge, perhaps his biggest challenge as he begins his administration.

Adams believes this can be done safely. He knows the transmission rate in schools last year was less than 1 percent. And there is a plan in place involving testing and staffing issues. When it comes to testing, about 1.5 million tests were delivered to schools across the city, all across the city over the weekend. And they're going to be testing students and the ones with close contacts to allow those who aren't testing positive to stay.

And also there is a pool of substitute teachers and also para- professionals, people who may have a teaching license but they're not working in the classroom. Those are folks that are going to bring in if they need to, should staffing become a problem -- Jake.

TAPPER: Right. And, of course, New York city has those vaccine mandates as well.

Athena Jones, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Let's bring in chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, you just heard the New York city mayor tell parents that kids need to be in school. You see the NFL changing its policy so that asymptomatic players can return to the field sooner after testing positive for COVID. There does seem to be a paradigm shift on how society is handling the pandemic, along with acknowledging that masking and vaccines and those measures are important as well.

What do you make of this change in thinking?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think there's two things that are happening. One is that we're dealing with a much more contagious virus. But at the same time, Jake, as you and I reported, the town hall on this last year, schools can be one of the safest places in terms of overall viral transmission.

All the things we talk about in terms of ventilation and testing and masking and all those things make a difference. I think what's interesting if you look specifically at what the recommendations are now and say, who needs to be isolated, for example, if they have actually tested positive? What if you've come in contact with someone who has tested positive, vaccinated or unvaccinated, you isolate for five days.

I think what that reflects, Jake, is that people can be -- they can be spreading this pre-symptomatic, even before they develop symptoms. But then it's usually a couple three days after they've had symptoms where they continue to spread. And I think that's where the five days is coming from and obviously then recommending people continue to wear a mask.

So it is a shift in thinking but it reflects, I think, some of the knowledge that we have about this virus specifically and how long it's actually contagious.

TAPPER: And some schools have opted for a "Test to Stay" policy. Meaning instead of mandatory vaccines or quarantines for unvaccinated students who have been exposed to COVID, students can remain in school if they test negative at least twice.

Does that policy work? I mean, we know that people can continue to test positive even after they are no longer contagious.

GUPTA: Yeah. Right. So I think there's two different types of tests that we're talking about here. The PCR test, which is the one that you're alluding to which basically will find even small presence of genetic material of the virus that may continue to test positive, even after someone has -- they're no longer symptomatic or contagious.

It's the rapid antigen test, the second one, that is really important here to fundamental point. This test oftentimes doesn't get as much attention. People are buying them in stores, obviously, but what we talk about with this test is its ability to determine if someone is contagious. Not just if they have the virus in their body.

And that sort of "Test to Stay" policy, first of all, they modeled it and done some studies and found it can be effective. If the real question you're trying to answer when you do one of these is, not do I have presence of virus, but am I contagious, then those rapid antigen tests can be very effective for that.

TAPPER: I want to go through the changes from the FDA. First, kids aged 12 to 15 are authorized to get the Pfizer booster if it has been five months since their second dose.

[16:10:04]

But 5 million teens fall into that category right now.

How long will it be? My kids are in this group. They're 12 and 14. How long will it be before they can get shots in their arms?

GUPTA: I think, you know, we're going to see what the final sort of consensus is from the FDA and the CDC, but as you know, we have been through this process so many times now, Jake. I think it happens quickly. You know, they have these committee meetings. They look at the data. They look at what's happened in the United States and also around the world in terms of safety data, for example, from Israel.

And after that, the process happens fast, within the next few days I would say, Jake. Maybe even sooner.

TAPPER: So, the FDA is recommending that we all shorten the time between the second dose and the booster. Not just for 12 to 15-year- olds but for adults as well, reducing it from 6 months to 5 months. Why?

GUPTA: Well, this is sort of an interesting point and to just back up for a second, there is a logic to waiting to boost somebody. You want to make sure the immune system is fully primed before you boost. So some people say just make it -- do it as quickly as possible. Well, that may not give you as much of an impact as waiting for the immune system to be fully primed.

I think what they are seeing now is they recommended six months based on that. And they are seeing now that even with a month shorter duration interval between the second and third shots, they can still get that impact of the boost. So they obviously want to do this sooner, you know, get people boosted more quickly, but they want to make sure you're not losing the punch of that boost by doing it too quickly.

TAPPER: And, finally, Sanjay, tell us about the FDA recommending this third dose for kids 5 to 11 who are immunocompromised. Who exactly falls under that category?

GUPTA: Well, this is always an interesting situation. You go to the CDC's website and look at what qualifies as some of these underlying conditions or immune compromised conditions. It can be a pretty big list. You know, people who clearly have weakened immune systems because of some underlying disease or because they are being treated with a medication that weakens their immune system. That's going to be the clearest.

But people who are also at risk for various things, including obesity, moderate to severe asthma. I'm going to be looking to see specifically how they define that in terms of the 5 to 11-year-old group of children. That's going to be really important.

I think there's clear examples, kids whose immune systems just don't work as well. Therefore, they didn't generate as much antibodies previously. But I think also -- are there going to be other people because of these underlying conditions that also qualify?

TAPPER: Sanjay, do you suspect that inevitably all kids 5 and older will be eventually eligible for a booster shot?

GUPTA: I think so, Jake. I think that's where we're headed. And if you look at other vaccination schedules that your kids and my kids have received over the years, often it's this model of the prime and then the boost. Even for adults, you know, hepatitis, for example. Prime and a boost if you've gotten that shot as an adult.

So I think that that's where we're headed. It's sort of probably makes the most sense in terms of how these vaccines work. But we also have to see at the time that this may be available what is happening with COVID in the country and in the world at that point. If the numbers are really low, that may dictate the thinking on whether those boosters will be recommended or not as well.

TAPPER: All right. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, good to see you. Happy New Year. Thanks so much for joining us.

The sky is anything but friendly as Mother Nature and COVID collide creating the perfect storm. How long will this last?

Plus, paging the Trump siblings. Why the New York attorney general wants Ivanka and Don Jr. to testify. That's ahead.

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[16:17:51]

TAPPER: And we're back with our national lead and an avalanche of flight cancellations across the country. More than 18,000 flights canceled since Christmas Eve. Today alone, airlines have grounded almost 3,000 flights. First because of COVID causing staff shortages and now pile on a big winter storm.

CNN's Pete Muntean is live for us at Reagan National Airport just outside D.C.

And, Pete, how long do airlines think these cancellations are going to continue?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, it seems the storm-related cancellations are about to subside, although the COVID cancellations because of crew staffing shortages are not over yet.

Look at the numbers of today, 2,900 flight cancellations nationwide. That's 16 percent of Southwest Airline's schedule cancelled, 23 percent of its flights delayed, 14 percent of flights at SkyWest, that's a regional carrier that operates flights for Delta, American and United. Fourteen percent of JetBlue's flights.

You know, airports have been frantically trying to clear ramps and taxi ways and runways to get things back open and operating across the Mid-Atlantic. In fact, there was a ground stop here at Reagan National Airport earlier today. It has just ended.

Also a ground stop at nearby BWI, 50 percent of all flights were canceled. About 80 percent of flights here were canceled, the most of any airport across the country. You know, January 3rd was expected to be one of the biggest days for holiday air travel.

Everybody coming back home all at once. Look behind me. Pretty much a ghost town here right now.

TAPPER: What about passengers? Are they getting any offers from the airlines when their flights get canceled for weather or COVID reasons?

MUNTEAN: Well, remember, a lot of airlines will default if your flight is cancelled, to giving you a credit, although the DOT regulations state if your flight is canceled by an airline for pretty much any reason, you're entitled to a cash refund, not a credit like airliners would like to give you.

So, make sure you stick up for yourself and ask for a cash refund if they're trying to give you a credit.

TAPPER: All right. Pete Muntean at Reagan National, thanks so much.

While his supporters stormed the Capitol, Donald Trump was doing, well, apparently a whole lot of nothing. New insight into what the January 6th Special Select Committee now knows.

Stay with us.

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[16:24:36]

TAPPER: In our politics lead, members of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Capitol insurrection now believe they have firsthand knowledge of what then-President Trump was doing during the deadly riot. A source tells CNN that the information comes not only from texts and other documents but from at least one witness who was with Trump in the White House while the attack was going on.

CNN's Jamie Gangel joins us with her brand-new reporting.

[16:25:01]

Jamie, tell us what you're learning.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, the emphasis here is on firsthand. First of all, Congresswoman Liz Cheney has revealed the committee has firsthand testimony that Trump was sitting in the dining room next to the Oval Office watching the attack unfold on television. We've heard this before, but now the committee knows it from a witness who was there.

Cheney also says, again, they have firsthand testimony that Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter, went in at least twice to ask Trump to, quote, please stop this violence.

In addition, a person with knowledge of the investigation has told me that the committee has information from, quote, multiple sources with firsthand knowledge that described what then-President Trump was saying, doing and not doing during the riot. That could be very important that he's not acting. The source said, quote, there's a collection of people with relevant information.

Translation, Jake, firsthand indicates the committee is now hearing from people with direct knowledge. It could be someone who was in the room. Someone on the phone, but these are people with firsthand information.

I would say, bottom line, Jake, this means the committee has broken through Trump's wall.

TAPPER: Jamie, Congresswoman Cheney was also asked about the possibility of criminal charges against Donald Trump. I want to play part of her answer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): The committee has firsthand testimony that President Trump was sitting in the dining room next to the Oval Office, watching on television as the capitol was assaulted, as the violence occurred. We know that that is clearly a supreme dereliction of duty. One of the things the committee is looking at from the perspective our legislative purpose is whether we need enhanced penalties for that kind of dereliction of duty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Walk us through Congresswoman Liz Cheney's thinking here because she still seems to think the committee can produce enough evidence to change the minds on some of Republicans on this.

GANGEL: Well, she certainly hopes so because after all, she has given up politics as she says for democracy. I think it's going to come down to what they are going to be able to learn, obviously, from witnesses, documents they collect. We will know much more when the hearings happen.

But just as an example, one witness that we know of who has given a deposition to the committee is Keith Kellogg. He was former Vice President Mike Pence's national security adviser who happened to be with Trump in the White House on January 6th when the riot was going on.

Our colleague Alex Marquardt reached out to Kellogg who told us that he testified under oath to the January 6th Committee. He declined to comment about the substance of his deposition, but he is a perfect example of firsthand testimony.

He's also an interesting witness, Jake, because as you know, he's considered a Trump loyalist. But he's also a retired general who I'm told takes his testimony seriously. Again, he was in the room with Trump.

TAPPER: Jamie, when Speaker Pelosi rejected two of Kevin McCarthy's original picks for the committee, one of whom Jim Jordan may be a witness for the committee --

GANGEL: Right.

TAPPER: -- McCarthy pulled all of his picks. He refused to have Republicans officially cooperate. I can't imagine that Republicans today see that as a smart idea. It's much, much wiser to have allies in the room.

Do you think the fact that they don't have anybody gumming up the works, any Jim Jordans or even, you know, some other nondescript Republican there, do you think that's having an impact on the committee's work?

GANGEL: Absolutely. I think it's having a huge impact. First of all, Liz Cheney is a Republican. Adam Kinzinger is a

Republican. There are Republican staff members on the committee. So there's bipartisan input.

But whether you're a Democrat or a Republican on that committee right now, there's really no disagreement. No one is objecting. There's no turbulence. They don't have to watch out for any Kevin McCarthy Republicans. Things are working very smoothly.

If Kevin McCarthy had had Republican members he appointed on the committee, who were objecting to the committee's work, he could have slowed the committee's work down. Also, and maybe most important, he would know what was going on.

Right now, he has no idea what's going on behind the scenes, Jake.

TAPPER: Yeah, governance by tantrum seldom works out.

Jamie Gangel, thank you so much.

GANGEL: Sure.

TAPPER: Here to discuss, legal analyst Carrie Cordero who previously worked with the U.S. Justice Department.

Carrie, what's your reaction when you hear about all this evidence the committee has gathered about what Trump was doing while his supporters attacked the Capitol?

[16:30:07]

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, one thing I think that's important, Jake, is that it sounds that people are actually cooperating. So up until now, we've heard a lot about those who are not cooperating with the committee but the example that Jamie gave of Keith Kellogg shows that there are individuals who are close to the former president who are voluntarily cooperating and providing the committee with information.

So, that's a really important development. I think the question that the committee has to look at, if they're exploring potential criminal referral or criminal charges is the actual conduct. So I think it will be a harder case for the committee to look at the absence of activity on behalf of the former president versus what did he affirmatively do instead of what he didn't do?

Because then you're looking at the actions of a president in his presidential capacity, which raises a whole set of other issues regarding a president who just simply isn't doing a good job and that could be potentially applicable in a whole other range of activities.

TAPPER: Right. We have Ivanka Trump. We just heard Jamie talk about Ivanka Trump, according to sources telling her dad, asking her dad twice, supposedly on that day, to call off the mob. She, obviously, thought he could have done something if that reporting and account is correct. But from a legal perspective, if Trump really did just sit there and

do nothing, is that a crime? Could he be criminally liable? Because Liz Cheney is talking about supreme dereliction of duty, but I guess my question is, is that a crime or is that just a term of art?

CORDERO: I think that would be a hard case to make under the actual law. So the statute that the committee may be looking at, which has been used to prosecute other insurrectionists who participated in the assault on the Capitol that day is 18 USC 1512 which is an obstruction charge. Charges for somebody who is obstructing the activity of what Congress was trying to do that day.

I think that say really difficult fact pattern to analyze with respect to the former president, if the alleged conduct is simply that he didn't do anything. The way that I would suggest the committee hopefully is conducting its analysis looks at it in two ways. Number one, what are the actual activities he was engaged in, and those close to him were engaged in leading up to January 6th and on January 6th, that were affirmative actions that may have incited or caused the assault on the Capitol.

And then the second area I think of potential criminal investigation, an investigation by Congress, Jake, would be actions that the former president may have taken after January 6th, in terms of obstructing the actual committee's investigation. I do wonder whether they are on the committee looking into him or whether the Justice Department is looking into obstruction, witness tampering, his efforts to keep people from cooperating with the committee itself, which would be obstruction as well.

TAPPER: Let's assume that the Justice Department finds evidence of obstruction or witness tampering as you say and not dereliction of duty. Do you think the Justice Department would actually act on that? Charging a former president -- I don't even think John Tyler who after his presidency joined the Confederacy, I don't think he was charged with a crime.

Would the Justice Department charge Trump with a crime do you think?

CORDERO: I don't think that this is a place that the current Justice Department would want to go. So it would have to be a very strong case. And so, from that perspective, if the committee is looking into this, then they would really need to establish compelling facts to make a referral that the former president was obstructing their committee investigation or, again, in the pre-January 6th, 2021 activities, affirmative actions by the former president.

I don't think absence of action, him simply sitting there and doing nothing would be enough for this Justice Department to go forward because if they were to pursue charges against the former president, obviously they would then open themselves up to accusations of acting politically which is the exact opposite that this current Justice Department wants to be perceived as doing.

TAPPER: All right. Carrie Cordero, thank you so much. Good to see you as always. Happy New Year. This Thursday, join Anderson Cooper and me. We have an unprecedented

conversation live at the capitol with Capitol Police, with lawmakers, January 6th, one year later, starts at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, only -- only on CNN.

Keeping it all in the family. Donald Trump's adult children, Ivanka and Don Jr., just got served. Find out why.

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[16:39:26]

TAPPER: In our national lead, jurors in the trial of Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of a failed blood-testing company Theranos, the jurors are deadlocked in a few of the counts against her after about a week of deliberations. Holmes, who was once one of the youngest billionaires in the country, at least on paper, is on trial for wire fraud and lying to investors, doctors and patients about the effectiveness of her start-up's blood test.

Let's get straight to CNN's Camila Bernal.

And, Camila, they're deadlocked on 3 of 11 counts. Now, usually, that could mean a mistrial. What does the judge have to say?

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it likely will not be a mistrial in this case.

[16:40:01]

Instead, what we would see is a partial verdict. And so, what would happen here is that the jury would deliver the verdict on those eight counts that they agree on and then the government would have the option to retry the case on those three counts that could be a deadlock here.

Now, it is important to point out that this is not the case at the moment because what the judge said was, go back and try to figure it out. Try to come to an agreement. We do not know exactly which of the 11 counts the jury is having trouble with. But we do know that these charges are divided between investors and then doctors and patients.

I want to go back sort of to the beginning of all of this. Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos. This was a blood-testing company that promised a wide range of blood tests with just a few drops of blood, just a prick of a finger.

And prosecutors say that a lot of these tests were inaccurate. So a lot of patients believing they were sick when in fact they were not. The federal government also says she lied to investors about the accuracy of her technology, about her relationship with the military, about pharmaceutical companies validating her technology. But the defense team, they say that Elizabeth Holmes always acted in good faith. That she believed her scientists when they told her that things were going according to plan. They say that in terms of the relationship with the military, that it

was more of a goal. Something they were working towards. Not necessarily a fantasy. And they say the investors -- well, some of them did their due diligence. Others did not and yet they decided to invest anyway.

So the jury here, Jake, will have to figure out whether this vision of the future that Elizabeth Holmes was selling was okay or it was fraud.

TAPPER: So they're deadlocked on 3 of the 11 counts. What about the other eight? How close are they to coming up with a decision for them?

BERNAL: Well, it appears that they have agreed on these eight other counts. We know it took them about 45 hours, seven days, and ironically, it also took Elizabeth Holmes seven days on the stand as she was defending herself.

So we're unclear of why this jury is deadlocked. And we're still wondering whether or not this jury believed her. This was sort of her expertise, her charm. She was able to convince people and sell her company and so the question remains, was she able to do this with the jury as well? Jake?

TAPPER: All right. CNN's Camila Bernal, thank you so much.

Turning to our money lead. In a different course case, the New York attorney general's office subpoenaed both Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. today as part of its investigation into the Trump Organization. The siblings are being asked to testify and hand over documents related to the investigation into whether the Trump family business manipulated the value of its properties. The attorney general's office previously issued a subpoena for former President Trump.

CNN's Kara Scannell joins us now live.

And, Kara, what information are invest -- pardon me -- investigators trying to obtain from Don Jr. and Ivanka?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: Well, Jake, we learned today in a court filing that the New York attorney general's office has issued subpoenas to Donald Trump Jr. And Ivanka Trump for documents and testimony as they're looking into whether the Trump Organization and its executives messed with the valuations for a number of properties that Trump and his business owns. Those properties include golf courses and office buildings.

What we know is that Donald Trump, you know, had been a longtime employee of the company when his father became president. He became one of the top officers of the company. He also had a history of involvement with a number of their office towers that they owned.

Ivanka Trump, she, of course, was also very involved with the business, particularly with a number of specific hotel properties. And now she left the company and joined her father's administration. But these subpoenas come as you mentioned, the former president

himself had been subpoenaed for a deposition. The Letitia James' office set a deadline for this Friday. These all came out in court because they're fighting this and Trump's lawyers and lawyers for the children are expected to file motions, possibly as soon as today, to quash these subpoenas.

So, the judge laying out a timeline here for when they will need to respond to this. The timing here is very interesting because you may remember Eric Trump had sat for a deposition with James' office. He was subpoenaed, a judge order him to do this. That was in the fall of 2020.

The times have changed because Letitia James has now joined the criminal investigation being run by the Manhattan district attorney's office. That obviously adds a layer of seriousness to this. More than a civil investigation and that's part of the issue that we expect lawyers to focus on. How she is having her hands in both the civil case and the criminal case.

But this will go to a judge and it may be at least a month or so before any decision is made on whether they'll testify and when that might be, Jake.

TAPPER: Yeah, Kara. I mean, I wanted to ask you about the Manhattan district attorney running a criminal probe into the Trump Organization. What do we know about the progress of that investigation?

SCANNELL: Well, we do know that they have been talking to a number of witnesses. They brought in a number of people before the grand jury in the last few weeks. And just on January 1st, the new Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, was sworn into office.

Now, he's coming in as an experienced prosecutor. He's one of the top officials, lawyers working on the investigation to stay on the case. He's agreed to do so.

So, he'll be getting briefed on the evidence that they have, on questions about statute of limitations that may exist and he'll really burrow in and be the ultimate arbiter to decide if there's evidence of additional charges against the Trump Organization or any officials, including the former president once he evaluates that evidence, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Kara Scannell, thanks so much.

Coming up, cloudy with a chance of fish? The bizarre but surprisingly not completely uncommon phenomenon, next.

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[16:50:30]

TAPPER: In our national lead, it's raining fish. Yes, fish. In parts of East Texas. Late last week, people in Texarkana reported palm sized fish falling from the sky. One resident saying he thought it was pretty cool and started collecting them in a bucket to use as bait. Others shared pictures on the city's Facebook page.

Let's bring in CNN's Tom Sater.

And, Tom, this looks crazy or maybe a scene from HBO's "Watchman". but it's actually not that out of the ordinary?

TOM SATER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: You know, Jake it does happen once in a while. The last report in the U.S. was back in 2017 in California. We have covered stories like this once in a while for CNN international. But this is extremely rare. And let me break it down for you why.

Typically, it's because you need a waterspout and these are seaside communities that have that waterspout pick up fish, if they're in the right place. Texarkana radar from last Wednesday doesn't look very scary. A line moves through.

You're getting closer and just to the southwest, this is Texarkana, by the way, not a seaside community. There's a large lake, the Wright Patman Lake here, and that's a good ten miles from Texarkana. The National Weather Service in Shreveport did not report a tornado but here's the theory, it's believed that a waterspout developed over the lake and lifted the fish that just happened to be in the right position at the surface and took it high into the cloud tops.

The waterspout then dissipates over land and that storm carried the fish ten miles and then it deposit it over, of course, Texarkana. I mean, the stories we're hearing of people at the car dealerships, workers hearing the thud on the roof running out and saying it's raining fish. They don't believe them, obviously. They go, no, really, it is.

Our crack staff even put together that great animation so we've used this before unfortunately about another fish story. Some saying the one that got away.

TAPPER: I know we're on the East Coast, it's not fish. But lots of parts of the East Coast were being hit with a lot of snow. Tell us more about that and what it's looking like now.

SATER: Several elements of severe weather. A terrible flooding in the streets around Sea Isle, New Jersey. We got over ten inches in Atlanta City, snow on the coastline. Look at these totals here. I mean, you got good 8 1/2 at Reagan National and a good -- Gatlinburg, you know, I mean, you're up in many locations, in several states from North Carolina to New Jersey getting a foot of snowfall. And that cold air is tremendous. And with that a lot of wind damage, too.

Now, the warnings are starting to get whittled away and it's good news. It's a fast-moving system, and now, it's just a coastal areas. But with that heavy snowfall we're seeing widespread power outages. A few tornadoes down in Georgia, Jake, earlier today with some downed trees. With that heavy snow, really impacting the area, especially around Alexandria. We're going to have power outages for a while. And that bitter cold will be with us.

So, worst time to lose power up toward areas around Nantucket. But this one is moving out. I mean, hard to imagine, the first snowfall of the year in many locations and you had thunder snow from Boone, North Carolina, even in Baltimore. That's when it's snowing two, three inches an hour. Heavy concentration in areas of Virginia, areas of D.C. with the power outage.

Now the cold sets in. The cold front sliding down through Florida and Key West. The next batch is on the way from central Canada and here it comes a little clipper, even more powerful system out into the west. In case another storm system coming into the Pacific Northwest. That will move across the country.

In case you're wondering, Jake, they were mainly white bass.

TAPPER: Tom Sater, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Coming up next, CNN goes inside the nation's largest pediatric hospital where the hospital staff are treating a record number of children with COVID.

Stay with us.

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[16:58:52]

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

This hour, babies and young kid still too young to be vaccinated suffering with coronavirus. We're going to take you inside the nation's largest pediatric hospital which is seeing a surge in young patients right now.

Plus, President Biden makes a promise to Ukraine vowing that the U.S. will respond decisively if Russia invades Ukraine again. Will that warning work, however, given that Biden has already taken unilateral action by U.S. troops off the table? We're live in Moscow.

And leading this hour, the nation is nearing the one-year anniversary of the deadly insurrection at the capitol and the January 6th committee appears to be making significant progress.

CNN has learned the panel believes it has information from multiple sources with firsthand knowledge describing what then-President Trump was doing while that pro-Trump mob was storming the Capitol.

And now, as Ryan Nobles reports, the select committee is in danger of running out of time to produce results.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): with the first anniversary of the January 6th riot at the Capitol just days away, the House Select Committee is zeroing in on what was and perhaps more importantly what was not happening in the White House.