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Fauci Writes about Covid and Trump in Memoir; Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is Interviewed about Immigration; Jonathan Haidt is Interviewed about Social Media. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired June 18, 2024 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

SHERIFF JEFFREY GAHLER, HARFORD COUNTY, MARYLAND: And, you know, under his presidency the border has been much less secure. But it sits on both - really both parties. And that's what I said in my press conference. You know, bipartisan - they need to work together.

This is a public safety issue. It shouldn't be a public - a political issue. It should be a public safety issue. We take an oath. They take an oath to keep - to do our job. And part of that job - the largest part of that responsibility is to keep our citizens safe and having an unsecured border where fentanyl can flow across the border, as we've seen in higher amounts, and criminals can come in, you know, I - actually, there needs to be an effective system worked out and the politics need to end, and they need to focus on public safety and work together and get it right.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: You're saying ultimately Congress needs to do this. It is their job. And they haven't been able to come together for decades really to make a real strong immigration policy change.

Sheriff, thank you so much for coming on and, you know, for the - for the family of this young mother. I know they are so thankful that you are able to find a suspect and capture him. I appreciate your time this morning.

GAHLER: Thank you. Our hearts are with them. Thank you.

SIDNER: All right, appreciate you.

All right, even after the most hectic years of his long career, Dr. Anthony Fauci says he is not close to slowing down.

With the surgeon general's call for warning labels on social media apps, what can parents do to help protect their children? That is coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:36:09]

SIDNER: Dr. Anthony Fauci has advised seven presidents, usually behind the scenes, but Dr. Fauci, for better or worse, became the public face of the government's response to the Covid epidemic. In his new book, "On Call: A Doctor's Journey in Public Service," Dr. Fauci recounts the rather mercurial relationship with former President Trump during that crisis. That chapter is titled, "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not."

CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, was able to sit down with Dr. Fauci to get his side of all this, his proudest achievement I think in the book and what his legacy could be.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

SIDNER: Sanjay, you sat down with him. You had this conversation. I noticed the Brooklyn really came out of him a couple of times as you were interviewing him.

What did you hear that stood out?

GUPTA: Well, you know, I've interviewed him so many times over the past couple of decades and always it's in the throes of something, right, anthrax or zika, Ebola, H1N1. People don't realize that he's really been present for all these things.

But as you mentioned, HIV AIDS, going back to the early 80s, sort of the beginning, and Covid at the end. And I really wanted him to talk about the similarities between those two things.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: I don't think many people who sort of know you from Covid realize and in many ways you went through some of these same challenges before with HIV AIDS. Not just new disease, trying to find new therapeutics, but the activists.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, FORMER CHIEF WHITE HOUSE MEDICAL ADVISER: Right.

GUPTA: What was that part of your life like?

FAUCI: It just is very different because the activists were trying to get the attention of the authorities. The scientific authorities and the regulatory authorities. That the time proven way of approaching the development of interventions for a new disease doesn't work well for a disease that's rapidly killing themselves and their friends and their loved ones.

So, my - my - my interaction and my response to them, as I often get asked, is dramatically different than someone on the basis of no evidence accuses you of killing people or that scene of Marjorie Taylor Greene at the hearing. I mean, come on. That is nothing like what the activists were doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: You know, it's curious, the - that epidemic was terrifying to this country and around the world. But how did he deal with the - sort of that very difficult intersection of politics and science? We just heard him mention Marjorie Taylor Greene. The first year of the pandemic, people were coming for him the first, second, and even today.

GUPTA: Yes, you know, one thing to keep in mind is that he's worked for seven presidents. I'm not sure there's anybody else in history who has done that. So, he has this really interesting perspective on these different leadership styles and how people handle crises, especially public health crises in his case, but just really interesting.

But I think that intersection between politics and science. I mean, it's something, as you're - as you're alluding to, Sara, that the world, certainly the country, has seen laid bare over the past couple of years. But it's been ongoing for some time.

But I think this was a particularly challenging time for him and President Trump. And I asked him specifically about the beginning, March 2020, how he was sort of handling things at that point. And he talks about a specific instance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: You talk about this interesting press briefing that you did. This is in March of 2020. And you had to - to correct the record even if the president was talking.

And, first of all, how - how challenging is that.

[08:40:00]

FAUCI: I said to myself, I have a responsibility to preserve my own personal integrity and a responsibility to the American public, regardless of what administration. I've been responsible to the American public when I first came here half a century ago, and I'm responsible to the American public now. So, when I walked up to the podium, I said, here it goes. Dr. Fauci, the president just said that hydroxychloroquine is, you know, the end-all. And I'll say, no, I'm really sorry, but that's anecdotal and there's no information that it actually works.

That was painful to me to have to do that, but there was no doubt that I had to do it. I mean it wasn't like, well, maybe you should and maybe you shouldn't. There was no doubt that I had to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: You may - you may remember those images, Sara, where Dr. Fauci's at the lectern and President Trump is sort of right over his shoulder, sort of glaring down at him.

What was interesting in the book, which I thought was interesting, was that we sort of got a behind the scenes then of what happened next. So, then they leave the - they leave the Briefing Room. They go in. Dr. Fauci thinks he's going to get yelled at by the president. That doesn't happen. Instead, what the president does, he takes him into this little anti room off the Oval Office and he looks at the TV screens and he looks at Fauci and he says, will you get a load of these ratings. These ratings are incredible. So, I think the country was thinking that there was this huge friction

between President Trump and Dr. Fauci that really wasn't there. In fact, at that point at least, early on in the pandemic, the idea was, hey, this is generating a lot of interest from the American people.

SIDNER: Oh, the ratings thing though with, you know, hundreds of thousands of people, you know, dying is hard to hear.

GUPTA: Yes. Right.

SIDNER: Did Dr. Fauci - I know you asked him this question. Did you ask him, hey, you going to retire anytime soon?

GUPTA: Right. No, I asked him that. And I'll tell you, you listen to what he says, but he's lived in the same house since 1977. I mean this guy has been sort of a stable sort of fixture, not only in public health academia, but I think in his own private life as well, 1977, married to Christine Grady, who's a bioethicist at the NIH. He is now a distinguished professor at Georgetown. He's - he's still going. He just became a grandfather. But we talked about this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: Are you ever going to retire, you think, or -

FAUCI: You know, Sanjay, that's a good question. When - when I decided to step down from - from the NIH, I said, I want to write my memoir, but I want to do it at a time when I'm, you know, energetic, passionate, and still healthy and feel good. and then after that, I want to continue to contribute in a way where I still think I'm making a contribution. And right now, you know, I may be 83, but I feel like I'm 55, you know. So, I - to me I - I don't see any end to it. But I do know that I think I have enough realism about myself. I mean the people who throw darts at me, you know, think badly of me, but I'm fundamentally a pretty humble person. And I know and can evaluate my limitations. And I can tell you, when I feel I'm not able to leave it all on the court, then I'll walk off the court.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: You know, it's interesting, Sara, just as a little bit of a side note, he is 83-years-old. We're talking a lot about age, you know, over the past couple of years. He's - he's a very sharp guy. Just wrote a 450-page book, that - that memoir. So - and you hear him. You hear how sharp he is. Twenty percent of the book roughly is about Covid, 80 percent is about all these other things that have happened over the last nearly 60 years in public health. So, a pretty incredible read. I read the whole thing. You learn a lot about public health. You learn a lot about the man.

SIDNER: Yes. And seared into my memory, Dr. Gupta, is when you were the first person to say, this is a pandemic. And I remember that moment thinking that our world is about to change.

Thank you so much. I know the interview is really good and we'll get to hear a lot more of it. I appreciate it, Dr. Gupta. GUPTA: You got it. Thanks.

SIDNER: John.

BERMAN: (INAUDIBLE) hear even more of that interview. You can listen to a new episode of Sanjay's podcast "Chasing Life."

All right, today, the president, President Biden, is expected to unveil a sweeping executive action providing legal protection for about half a million undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens and roughly 50,000 children.

With me now is Democratic congressman from California, Ro Khanna.

Congressman, thanks so much for being with us.

What do you think of this executive action?

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): Proud of the president. This is long overdue. These are, of course, spouses of Americans citizens and they have lived in the country for ten years. And so they can work, so they can pay taxes.

[08:45:03]

This is really a bold move by the president. One that I think will be welcomed across the Democratic Party and by many in this country.

BERMAN: Now, there are Republicans, John Thune of South Dakota, I was listening to John Cornyn of Texas, U.S. senators, Republican senators, who say that this will be what they call a pull factor for undocumented immigrants to come to the U.S. In other words, it will make them think it's more attractive to come here illegally. What do you say to that?

KHANNA: Well, as the son of an immigrant, I'll tell you, look, everyone wants to come to the United States of America. There are a lot of pull factors. Our great economy, our great education. I think it's absurd to say that giving a path to citizenship for people who are spouses of American citizens and have been here for ten years is going to add to that.

This is a rational policy of getting people who are spouses of American citizens to be part of the American process and paying taxes and contributing to American society.

BERMAN: You said you were proud of the president for this executive action. Two weeks ago there was another executive action from the president where he severely restricted the asylum process for undocumented migrants. Were you as proud of that executive action?

KHANNA: I respectfully disagreed with that. I understand the president's frustration because for three-and-a-half years he's been coming to Congress saying, give me more funding for immigration judges, give me more funding for technology, give me more funding for immigration attorneys to keep the border secure. The Congress has failed him.

But an arbitrary caps on asylum won't solve the problem because more people are just going to go to the smugglers, to the gangs, to come in and not at the port of entry. So, what we really need is a comprehensive immigration solution to keep the border secure and to have a humane immigration policy.

BERMAN: So, from a purely political standpoint for Democrats, is this a little bit of a - of a giveth and taketh away, or taketh away and then giveth.

KHANNA: I don't think so. I think this represents the president's honest belief that we need a secure border, but we also need a path to citizenship, especially for people who have been in this country for decades.

Now, the president is hamstrung because we haven't been able to pass anything in Congress. And as you remember, John, Donald Trump sabotaged the bipartisan deal in the Senate that could have actually had a better solution to this issue.

BERMAN: As you know, Congressman, I check up on you. You just did an interview a few days ago when you were asked if you thought that President Biden was running out of time with younger voters. That question at that time was focused mostly on how some younger voters don't approve of the president's handling of Israel's war with Hamas.

But I do wonder if there are other factors that you think are hurting the president with younger voters.

KHANNA: Well, I think the cost of rent is something that we need to address, and housing affordability. And the president has a plan for how he's going to address rents and more affordable housing. But we need to campaign on that.

I think he needs to be stronger in communicating the message of what we've done on (INAUDIBLE). I think his pause of the natural gas export terminals (INAUDIBLE) that people don't know about that. And I think we need to be more engaged with the content creators on social media and (INAUDIBLE) a lot of young people, you know, some of - many (INAUDIBLE) but a lot of young people are on social media and we need to campaign there.

BERMAN: Well, you mentioned social media. You know, I thought of you yesterday when the U.S. surgeon general came out in support of warning labels for social media. You're sort of the congressman from Silicon Valley, or the congressman from social media as it were. How do you feel about the idea of warning labels on social media?

KHANNA: I support them. I support more broadly the Kids Online Safety Act. You know, I don't want to plug someone's book, but Jonathan Haidt with "The Anxious Generation" wrote a very compelling book, which is that social media has some good, a lot of good in (INAUDIBLE), but people are getting addicted to it. It's - it's led to an increase in depression and an increase in anxiety and it needs to be regulated. BERMAN: If I'm not mistaken, I think Sara is interviewing him later in the broadcast here, so you just plugged a book we're going to be talking about next hour. So, good job. Thumbs up on that, Congressman.

You care to give us a debate preview, you know, nine days away from the earliest general election debate in U.S. history. This is an historic moment right here on CNN. What do you think we're going to see on that stage?

KHANNA: I think we're going to see two very different visions on foreign policy and economic policy. On foreign policy, you know, President Biden has made it very clear we need to stand against Putin's aggression in Ukraine. You're going to be discussing on the show the fact that North Korea is actually providing arms to Russia. I hope Jake and Dana are going to ask President Trump, do you accept Putin's peace plan because Putin's peace plan is, one-fifth of Ukraine belongs to Russia, more than Russia currently has. And that's going to be a big difference at the debate.

[08:50:04]

And then the economy. The president's going to emphasize his commitment to the working class, to bringing manufacturing back, and criticize Donald Trump, who four years ago gave tax cuts the rich people and corporations.

BERMAN: Congressman Ro Khanna from California, always great to have you on. Thanks so much for being with us.

KHANNA: Thank you. Appreciate it.

BERMAN: Sara.

SIDNER: A great interview. Thank you, John.

A new whistleblower with information about Boeing's safety standards come forward at the last minute, just as the CEO is heading to Capitol Hill to be grilled. We'll have that story coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:55:03]

SIDNER: A new book about the mental health risks social media poses too young kids and teens is really getting parents attention. This is also a major issue that has lawmakers talking and trying to make some changes as the U.S. surgeon general is calling for warning labels on social media apps, just like people have on cigarettes.

Jonathan Haidt is an NYU professor and the author of "The New York Times" bestseller, "The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness."

Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us to talk about this. We just had Ro Khanna on, who mentioned you and your book. So, it's clearly got everyone's attention, even including those in Congress who are talking about this.

I want to ask you about, just first of all, the surgeon general's warning label that would warn parents of these harms of social media. And when you think about social media, a lot of people at the beginning just thought it was funny and cool and neat. And it's really turned into something else. Talk us through that.

JONATHAN HAIDT, AUTHOR, "THE ANXIOUS GENERATION": That's right. So, we kind of got tricked into letting our kids develop a phone-based childhood because the millennial generation in the 1990s, they grew up with computers and the internet and they were fine. And it was exciting. Almost all of these things start out nice. TikTok. Everything starts out nice, but it gradually gets taken over by people with bad intent and it - most of them become harmful.

So, between 2010 and 2015 is when everything changes for American kids. They go from having flip phones, which they used to text and call each other, to having smartphones with front-facing cameras, high-speed internet. They can be online all day. And it's exactly in that period, all over the developed world, that teen mental health collapses, especially for girls.

SIDNER: The suicide rates going up. This is such disturbing stories. We've done plenty of them with girls, especially who have eating disorders because of the scrolling through and looking at the bodies of people on social media and the messaging.

I want to just go to what the U.S. surgeon general said. He talked to our Erin Burnett last night. Here's a snippet of what he said about social media.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VIVEK MURTHY, SURGEON GENERAL: I have reason to believe that a warning label could be effective. But keep in mind, it is one part of a broader solution. And the main goal here is to make social media safe. That's going to require Congress to act. And that action cannot come soon enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Congress is talking about this. Haven't done anything yet after all these years. And seeing some of these disturbing numbers of what it does to young people. But will a warning be enough?

HAIDT: Well, I think the key thing to understand about the surgeon general's warning and his great essay yesterday in "The New York Times," is that he's saying, let's look at this like a consumer product that's affecting kids. If there's a problem with airplane engines or doors, we ground that model until the manufacturer gets it right. If there's a food or a - or a medicine that's making kids sick, it has to be pulled from the shelves until they get it right.

Here we have a consumer product, social media, which has taken over our children's lives. It's the dominant factor. It takes up five to seven hours of their day. Certainly many of them say it's making them sick. Many of their parents say it's the cause of their kids' suicide.

I mean the death toll, the suffering toll, is so much greater than any consumer product. And the surgeon general is saying, you know, what we as a government, we have an obligation to at least begin to warn about this. So, a warning label on its own, no, that's not going to change a lot. But the surgeon general's call for it changes the debate fundamentally.

SIDNER: Do you have any advice for parents - and, frankly, I mean, if we're being honest here, like adults have issues with this. Adults get depressed sometimes - sometimes if they put something out there and people don't like it and they start coming after them, it affects adults. So, the mind of a child, you know, imagine that.

Do you have any advice to parents on how to navigate this right now while their kids are scrolling through, like you said, five to seven hours per day. That is a lot of time online.

HAIDT: That's right. That's right.

So, the key to this is that when each of us acts alone, it feels hopeless. And when each of us tries to say, no, sweetheart, you can't have social media, and she says, but, mom, everyone else does, I'm cut off. When we act alone it's really hard. And that's why we're stuck in this situation.

What we need to do is realize, if we link together, we can get out of it. And so what I call for in my book, in "The Anxious Generation," is four norms that will get us out of this. One is no smart phones till high school. Just give them a flip phone or a brick phone. Two is no social media till 16. It's wildly inappropriate for children. Three is phone-free schools. And this is happening this year. And this we can get done quickly. And four is far more independence free play and responsibility in the real world.

[09:00:03]

So, my advice for parents is, team up with other parents. Team up with the parents of your kids' friends and say, hey, let's do this together.