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Rep. Santos Pleads Not Guilty; Dr. Tom Inglesby Is Interviewed About The CDC; U.K. Sends Missiles To Ukraine; Skin Patch For Peanut Allergies. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired May 11, 2023 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:32:08]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Just before midnight tonight, Title 42, the Covid era policy that basically allowed near instant expulsion of migrants crossing the border, it is set to expire. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency is preparing as a surge of migrants arrives at the southern border. Many people have been there for quite some time. More than 26,000 people are in custody at this moment.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: So this morning there are growing calls for the resignation of Congressman George Santos, and also growing unease among fellow Republicans after he pleaded not guilty to 13 federal charges yesterday. Those include allegations of fraud related to filing for unemployment benefits, misusing campaign funds and lying about his personal finances on official filings.

Santos was released on a $500,000 bond. He's set to appear in court again at the end of June. And the judge ordered him to surrender his passport and he'll now need to get permission if he wants to travel outside of New York or D.C.

CNN's Brynn Gingras, she's been following this for us. She joins us now.

Brynn, George Santos, he goes -- he's taken into custody. He appears before the judge. He comes out and he is definitely not staying quiet amid these charges that he is now facing.

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Kate. In fact, it was my understanding his attorneys were saying, don't say too much. But you saw that media scrum sort of descend on him as soon as he left those doors and he made his way to the microphones, clearly wanting to defend himself.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. GEORGE SANTOS (R-NY): This is the beginning of the ability for me to address and defend myself. We have an indictment. We have all - we have the information that the government wants to come after me on. And I'm going to comply. I've been complying throughout this entire process. I have no desire not to comply at this point. They've been gracious in there. Now I'm going to have to go and fight to defend myself. The reality is, is, it's a witch hunt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GINGRAS: And you can see right there, he was drawing a tag line from former President Donald Trump.

This is an investigation that happened pretty quickly. In fact, the Nassau County district attorney, Anne Donnelly), who spoke after he spoke, and she talked about how, you know, she started an investigation into this, Kate, last year and then the feds came to her and said, you know what, we should work together on this because we might actually be able to bring stronger charges.

So, yes, it was a quick investigation. But if you look at the indictment, if you look at the details of it, they have text messages they say to prove this. They have his own documentation, as Evan Perez pointed out yesterday. Some of it is just public filings.

So, in that news conference it will be interesting to see. He says he's going to defend himself. But when asked if he has evidence or what evidence he has, he didn't really even give any clue as to what that is.

Now, another thing he was asked in that news conference at least two to three times is, why should anyone believe you? Because, of course, we know his checkered past of all the falsehoods that have come out around him and he really didn't answer that other than to say he's going to defend himself to that point.

[09:35:07]

So, we'll see. As you just mentioned, there are people calling for his resignation, if he is, as this process plays out and he is proven guilty, you know, he doesn't necessarily have to be removed from his seat. So, we'll see, again, how this all plays out and what sort of evidence he does bring to actually defend himself.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Which he said - which he at least publicly said yesterday that is what he is going to do. He is going to show evidence to prove himself innocent.

GINGRAS: Yes.

BOLDUAN: We will see.

It's good to see you, Brynn. Thank you.

Sara. SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. is officially ending its Covid-19 public health emergency today. Just before midnight it will officially expire, along with several pandemic-related measures. So, what changes will you see? No more free Covid testing for most of us. Now, most patients will have to share the cost with their insurance companies.

Certain treatments, which have been covered by Medicare and Medicaid enrollees will now have an out of pocket cost. Vaccines, however, will continue to be free for people with insurance. And, for those without insurance, Pfizer and Moderna say the vaccine commercial price will likely be between $82 and $130 per dose.

Dr. Tom Inglesby is the director of the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is with us this morning to sort through all of these changes.

I want to start with this. There is a lot - there was a lot of consternation as we look back because that -- hindsight is 20/20, when it comes to some of the measures that were taken by the CDC, some of the things we were told, like you can wear any mask. It doesn't matter what you put on your face. And then that changed over time. What do you see? Was there damage done by the CDC during this whole pandemic era?

DR. TOM INGLESBY, DIRECTOR, JOHNS HOPKINS CENTER FOR HEALTH SECURITY: Well, good morning, Sara. Thanks for having me.

I think, looking back over the last few years, we now see that while CDC has been a national treasure and has gotten us through many, many outbreaks, epidemics, and really is the envy of public health agencies around the world, CDC didn't have all that it needed to be able to respond to Covid. And so it exposed some of the challenges CDC has in gathering data quickly from around the country.

It exposed the fact that CDC doesn't have enough operational people in the field or connections at times for state and local officials. And so I think CDC has really been thinking through and planning a lot of changes since last summer. Director Walensky really deserves a lot of credit for that. But they're going to need the help of Congress to really get the authorities and the budget flexibility they need to be able to respond to Covid-like events in the future.

SIDNER: Yes, I think Warren Buffett said it takes 20 years to build your reputation and five minutes to destroy it. And it's hard to get trust back for those who already have issues with trusting government agencies as a whole.

What are your ideas? You wrote an opinion piece for "The New York Times." What are some of the ideas that you have that you think will help the CDC going forward and rebuilding that trust?

INGLESBY: Well, I think the first thing is just demonstration of competence and continued one step in front of the other in responding to outbreaks. The country has relied on CDC for technical guidance. Doctors and nurses look to CDC for scientific advice when new diseases arise. And just doing that job well is going to be very important. And I think they have been - really changed their practices a lot since Covid as they began to respond to monkeypox, for example. I think they need more -- hiring authorities from Congress, the ability to contract with the private sector more quickly. Some of these things they can only get through new legislation.

So, I think they're going to do what they can internally and already have started to change this large organization over time, over the last ten months, but they're going to really need a lot of help from Congress to be able to do it as efficiently as possible to have the budget they need.

I mean here's an example. They have - their budget is divided into 160 lines which cannot be moved one to the other. So, if you're the director, imagine yourself in a business trying to move your budget around to respond to crisis. They can't do that. Congress could fix that. And I really hope they do.

SIDNER: You are about to testify to a House subcommittee on energy and commerce and health. Can you tell us what you want to say to them?

INGLESBY: Sure. I think I'd say what I just said to you here. I think that CDC has already taken a lot of initiative since last summer and through now and is trying to make the changes they can. They're changing the way they speak to the public, they've changed their websites, they're changing their interactions with state and locals. So, they have definitely observed what's happened, have really reflected and are trying to move in the right direction.

But what I think Congress can do is to really make those changes permanent, bring things to CDC that they haven't been able to do before, like budget flexibility.

[09:40:05]

The ability to gather data from around the country.

I mean last summer, when we had monkeypox in June, because CDC doesn't have authority from Congress to gather data from the states, it took them three months to get data agreements with all the states. And all of us want to know that day how many monkeypox cases are there, where are they? They can't do that without Congress' help.

SIDNER: Sounds like there's a lot of work to be done. Thank you so much for joining us and giving us that really good insight. Appreciate it.

INGLESBY: Thanks so much.

SIDNER: John.

BERMAN: All right, Sara, for millions of people with peanut allergies, lives could be changed forever. The promising results of a simple skin patch.

And the special delivery on the way to Ukraine that could boost the possible counter offensive against Russia. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:45:12]

BOLDUAN: Israel launched air strikes against militant targets in Gaza again today. The Islamic jihad says the head of its missile unit was killed. Health officials in Gaza say at least 25 people have died since the air strikes began Tuesday. Palestine militants have retaliated, reportedly firing more than 500 rockets towards Israel.

There's also some new developments in Pakistan we need to tell you about. The country's supreme court has just ordered the release now of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. He's been detained since he was arrested on Tuesday on corruption charges. Charges that he denies. His arrest, though, has sparked violent protests across the country. In Islamabad, for example, nearly 200 people were arrested in demonstrations that resulted in widespread damage.

And in Malaysia, quite a surprise for some local police when they found two brothers, just six and three years old, behind the wheel of a car following a late night crash. They were alone in the car, their parents still at home. The father was asleep. The six-year-old made it about a mile and a half before losing control of the car and crashing into a lamp post. Look at this little guy. No one was seriously hurt, thankfully. This is why I'm able to have this face. Police say the boys took the car because they apparently wanted to head to the store to buy a toy car, John.

BERMAN: I have two sons. Of course they did. Makes perfect sense to me.

BERMAN: A potential major development in Ukraine. The United Kingdom has confirmed that it is supplying Ukraine with multiple Storm Shadow cruise missiles. This equipment gives Ukrainian forces a new, longer range strike capability in advance of an expected counteroffensive against Russian forces. The news comes as Ukraine's military says that its troops have conducted what they call effective counter attacks in the Bakhmut area. That city in the east that has seen fierce fighting for 11 months now. According to Kyiv, Russian troops have already been pushed back as much as two kilometers in some areas.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Nick, Ukraine has been asking for missiles with a longer range for some time. It seems that they are finally getting it. What kind of a difference could this make?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it does appear they already have them. They've been asking the U.S. to supply the ATACMS, with its 185-mile range, but these U.K. Storm Shadows have 150 mile range, which essentially brings much of the Crimean peninsula, occupied by Russia, possibly even some part of Russia's border areas, although it's clear as part of this donation they will not be striking inside Russian territory proper before the 2014 reestablishing of borders by Russia's occupation. It does potentially allow Ukraine to be more targeting of key Russian military infrastructure in those occupied areas.

And I wonder if this announcement is perhaps coming out, to be clear, that it's a U.K. donation allowing them to have this greater effective range, so there's no confusion as to whether the U.S. had, for example, secretly supplied some extra capability.

It does potentially change the precision and depth that Ukraine can exercise into occupied areas. But also, too, it's important to point out, we've seen sabotage. We've seen drones attacking some of these areas in seems over the past weeks, too.

So, a clear sign, I think, of the United Kingdom often wanting to be the first to supply tanks or seeing the most pioneering in terms of what it's willing to give Ukraine. Does that put greater pressure on the United States to add to the inventory? We'll have to wait and see. But it again puts emphasis on when this counteroffensive may begin or we may see it publicly.

We're hearing today too from Russia's mercenary head, Yevgeny Prigozhin, that his forces are losing grounds in parts of Bakhmut, having to withdraw into that city center he says because of Ukrainian counter offensive. And he goes on, after days, frankly, of railing against the mismanagement of the war by the Kremlin's top brass, he goes on to warn, this potentially could lead Ukraine to push all the way through and make a decisive strike inside occupied areas.

On top of that too ahead of this counter counteroffensive, president -- former President Donald Trump's comments yesterday refusing to say he wants Ukraine to win the war. That's going to focus a lot of minds here as to how vital this summer is and how western support isn't a guarantee forever.

Back to you.

BERMAN: No question about that.

Nick Paton Walsh, something is happening in Bakhmut. We are getting more and more reports from that region. The next few days could be crucial. Thank you so much for your reporting.

Sara.

SIDNER: A man who survived after being shot nine times by sheriff's deputies in South Carolina is filing a lawsuit. The deputies were doing a wellness check. Why the man claims the deputies were reckless in their actions and what he wants to see happen now.

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[09:53:47]

BOLDUAN: New this morning, new hope for millions of families dealing with childhood allergies. A patch showing real promise for toddlers with peanut allergies now. An estimated 1.8 million kids in the United States they may have this -- what has become a very common and often quite dangerous condition. CNN's Elizabeth Cohen, she's looking at this.

Elizabeth, this really fascinated me. I mean we all know that peanut allergies have just become more and more and more common. What do you know of -- this comes from a clinical trial. What can you tell us about this patch?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Kate, this is a clinical trial that was published in the "New England Journal of Medicine." And what the researchers did is they gave children who had severe peanuts allergies a patch that parents changed out daily. It went on their back. Each patch contained 1/1,000th of a peanut, 1/1,000th of a peanut sort of equivalency. And what they found is that after a year of this. 67 percent of these toddlers, children ages one through three, could eat about one to four peanuts safely.

Now, you might think, one to four peanuts, that's not much. But, you know what, if one peanut could kill a child and now they could safely eat it, let's say they had like some kind of accidental ingestion, they didn't mean to eat something with peanuts but they did, that could actually save their life.

[09:55:04]

Now, this is not on the market yet, but there's an oral version of this that is on the market. The thinking is that the patch, there are pluses and minus, but that it might be more convenient for parents and better for the children.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes, I mean, and we're showing people images from the - obviously provided from the company of the patch and kind of what it would mean and what it looks like on the children's back. It's just really a kind of fascinating thought that it could be heading this direction. And the idea of protecting against accidental ingestion I think is a really important kind of - that could be really important. And think how comforting that is for families of kids who have a severe allergy to peanuts.

But in this trial, what are they saying about any bad reactions to the patch itself?

COHEN: These children, Kate, are so allergic to peanuts that some of them even had a reaction to 0.0001 of a peanut.

BOLDUAN: Wow.

COHEN: So, again, 244 children and four of them had anaphylactic reactions, four of them, to just having that tiny of an amount. Now, they were treatable. They could get, you know, epinephrine shots, and it was all just mild to moderate, nobody died. But, still, it is - it just shows you how allergic these children are.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. And also just how important it is to work with doctors, you know, as this trial continues and continues along the way, but how important it is for parents to have a solution, and a safe one, especially when they're so young.

It's good to see you, Elizabeth. Thank you.

John.

BERMAN: So, fired for being overweight. Several states and cities considering bills that would ban weight discrimination in the workplace. So, how often does that happen?

And as Title 42 nears an end, the White House is rolling out a plan that will place asylum seekers under a curfew and even force some to wear GPS monitors.

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