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Hospitals Strained as Coronavirus Patients Fill ICU Beds; Rush to Finish Border Wall Intensifies as Trump Term Nears End; Nashville Police: Explosion Downtown "Intentional". Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired December 25, 2020 - 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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[09:33:33]
ALISON KOSIK, CNN ANCHOR: Today, more than 120,000 Americans are spending Christmas in the hospital fighting coronavirus. That is another record. Hospitalizations have not dropped below 100,000 in 23 days. CNN's Jean Casarez is outside a hospital in Manhattan.
And Jean, this morning I can't help but think about the vaccine and what a gift it is for frontline workers this season.
JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, that's so true. And Andrew Cuomo is asking hospitals, rest homes and medical professionals please keep vaccinating today on Christmas, tomorrow on Kwanzaa, for next week and through New Year's. He says it's so important to get people vaccinated also saying that the best gift that you can give a nursing home resident is to get vaccinated. And the best gift that could be given to a frontline healthcare worker is to get vaccinated.
We're right outside Mount Sinai Hospital and they tell us that their frontline workers will be here throughout the holidays. They are fully staffed. They do have enough supplies.
But the State of New York is saying that they do believe that the COVID cases will go up today on Christmas, throughout the rest of the holidays and over New Year's. And they are asking hospitals that if they reach 85 percent capacity, that is alert, alert and that they need to tell the state that that is happening. Now, so far we understand there are no hospitals that are at 85 percent.
[09:35:01]
But the code word, according to Gov. Cuomo, is celebrate smart. That's what you need to do. And he says that at this point that the state of New York has 630,000 vials of vaccine. They're expecting 300,000 more by the end of next week, 218 rest homes in the state, 618, they believe they'll be vaccinated by the end of next week. And he's just saying vaccinate, vaccinate, let's keep this going. Alison.
KOSIK: Celebrate smart. Let's hope that resonates. Jean Casarez, thank you.
The President campaigned on his build the wall message and with just weeks left in office, the Trump administration is racing to finish at least 450 miles of it. How do people who live on the border feel about this push? That's next.
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[09:40:12]
KOSIK: Welcome back with just weeks left in his administration and President Trump is not giving up on one of his biggest campaign promises, the border wall. The rush to finish as much of it as possible is intensifying. CNN's Ed Lavandera has more.
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ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If you want a taste of life on the Arizona Mexico border, ride shotgun (ph) and Kelly Kimbro's 1992 Desert Beaton (ph) Ford pickup truck.
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KELLY KIMBRO, ARIZONA RANCHER: We're not big-time ranchers. We have a couple of cattle ranches. We make a living. We love the lifestyle.
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LAVANDERA (voice-over): It's hard to tell where the United States ends, and Mexico begins on Kimbro's 800 acres in southeast Arizona. This year that changed. The Trump administration is carving a 19-mile wall right through this wide-open valley.
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LAVANDERA (on camera): What's it like to see this massive construction project on your property?
KIMBRO: We did not think it was necessary.
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LAVANDERA (voice-over): Construction crews moved in about a year ago. This is what the wall looked like across the San Bernardino Valley in February. This is what it looks like today. Some see it as a long scar.
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KIMBRO: And the American taxpayer doesn't see they hear build that wall, it's going to secure this country. I promise you it's never going to secure the country. Not any better than it's already secured.
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LAVANDERA (voice-over): In the final weeks of the Trump presidency, the rush is on to finish building at least 450 miles of the border wall. Customs and Border Protection official say at least 438 miles of that are now complete. As the coronavirus pandemic raged this year, border wall construction never stopped.
For months, anti-wall activists have documented what they described as an environmental catastrophe unfolding along the southern border. Crews blasting and bulldozing through rugged mountainous terrain. Border patrol officials say the new walls are vital to patrolling these remote regions.
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DANIEL HARNANDEZ, BORDER PATROL AGENT: Good infrastructure buys us more time and gives us the critical seconds and minutes that we need to get to an area. But as of now, a lot has been erected and we're hoping in the future it pays off dividends.
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LAVANDERA (voice-over): The Army Corps of Engineers says eight border wall projects have been finished with crews actively working around the clock on 37 other projects.
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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Good at my fellow Americans.
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LAVANDERA (voice-over): The question is what happens when President- elect Joe Biden takes office. Biden has pledged he would not build another foot of border wall.
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BRANDON JUDD, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL BORDER PATROL COUNCIL: There's construction that's taking place that's going to go up this mountain.
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LAVANDERA (voice-over): Brandon Judd leads the National Border Patrol Council. The Union has been a vocal ally of President Trump. Judd says it would be foolish for Biden to stop the construction now.
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JUDD: You can see that trench that goes straight up that line, those are the footers. What, you're just going to throw that away? That just doesn't make any sense because now you're just throwing money down the toilet.
KATE SCOTT, ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST: You can't flat walk in anymore.
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LAVANDERA (voice-over): Halting construction isn't enough for some anti-wall activists.
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SCOTT: Take the wall down in the areas that we need it to be taken down right away.
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LAVANDERA (voice-over): We hiked to this border wall gates stretching the San Pedro riverbed in Arizona with environmentalist, Kate Scott. She says this construction is a deadly threat to wildlife that migrates through this area.
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SCOTT: I can tell you, we wake up, we cry, we study ourselves and we get to work because it's been so painful for me to witness this monstrosity.
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LAVANDERA (voice-over): But the wall also isn't being built fast enough for Jim Chilton.
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JIM CHILTON, ARIZONA RANCHER: ... the international boundary.
LAVANDERA (on camera): This is border. All right. This isn't the kind of wall you want.
CHILTON: No.
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LAVANDERA (voice-over): His ranch fans out across 50,000 acres in Arizona, Chilton is lobbying for a wall on this spot. He says it's a low priority area because it's so remote, but he does have the ear of the border wall's biggest cheerleader. President Trump put Chilton in the spotlight during a rally last year.
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CHILTON: Mr. President, we need a wall.
I offered the federal government 10 acres of land over here, my private property to have a forward operation base. I offered it for $1 a year and I even told them. I'll give you the dollar if you can't find one.
LAVANDERA (on camera): You've made the Border Patrol, the federal government an offer that you thought they couldn't refuse.
CHILTON: They said they would study it. That was four years ago.
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LAVANDERA (voice-over): Chilton's ranch sits between a 25-mile gap and existing border wall and he says its prime terrain for drug smugglers. He's deployed hidden cameras to capture what he says are more than a thousand images of camouflaged smugglers marching across his ranch.
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CHILTON: My Ranch is a no man's land. It's actually controlled by the cartel.
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LAVANDERA (voice-over): Laiken Jordahl has spent the year sounding the alarm about border wall construction in Arizona.
[09:45:05]
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LAIKEN JORDAHL, CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: This wall is purely political theater. It does nothing to actually stop people or drugs from crossing the border.
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LAVANDERA (voice-over): Jordahl drove us around Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a breathtaking National Park in the heart of the Sonoran Desert. The tranquility of the landscape is broken by the sounds of crews building more than 60 miles of wall, part of it through this national park. He calls himself a disaster tour guide.
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JORDAHL: They're pulling out all the stops to rush this project through. This is all trash.
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LAVANDERA (voice-over): Jordahl used to work as a U.S. National Park Ranger at the Organ Pipe National Monument in Arizona. He says he resigned after President Trump took office.
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JORDAHL: It's really an insult to those of us who live down here. We're seeing our communities ripped apart. We're seeing these ecosystems be destroyed. We don't care what you call it. This thing is a disaster.
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LAVANDERA (voice-over): Ed Lavandera, CNN along the Arizona-Mexico border.
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KOSIK: And we've got new details on the explosion out of Nashville. I'll have more after the break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:50:35]
KOSIK: More information coming in now from Nashville, local authorities just gave a press conference, I want you to listen to part of it.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Before six o'clock this morning, the police department received a call of a suspicious vehicle on 2nd Avenue North outside the AT&T building. And officer responded and after assessing the vehicle had reason to call our hazardous devices unit. The hazardous devices unit was en route to the downtown area when an explosion linked to that vehicle took place at 6:30. The explosion was significant as you can see from the street there on 2nd Avenue.
Now, the Police Department, its federal partners, the FBI, ATF are conducting a large-scale investigation to this point. We do believe that the explosion was an intentional act. Our federal partners continue to join us here at the scene this morning and this investigation will be taking place throughout today.
Our police officers with the assistance of the Tennessee Highway Patrol are conducting a shutdown, if you will, of the downtown area while we assess this entire situation. So traffic in the downtown area from the interstate system really and in the immediate downtown area is going to be restricted as our teams attempt to assess exactly what's taking place, who may be involved, et cetera.
That's all the information I have for you at this point. We will do another update when we no more, certainly, in the next hour or so. At this point, Joseph Pleasant from the National Fire Department can talk about the response from his team.
JOSEPH PLEASANT: Good morning. As you can see, we have a significant response from our fire suppression bureau as well as our EMS division. We have multiple personnel here from our haz mat team as well as our Special Operations Division working to support our local, state and federal partners. Right now we can report we've made three transports to area hospitals. None of those transports at this point are critical.
Two those people went to Centennial, one of those persons went to Vanderbilt University Medical Center. We do have a special EMS division setup right now to monitor the situation. Once again, we are asking everyone to be mindful of the active ongoing situation here and to give our people space to work in. But once again, right now we don't have any significant injuries to report. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll be back in an hour, OK. One hour from now right here, OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Don (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks, Don (ph).
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KOSIK: I want to in Shimon Prokupecz who's following the details of this breaking news. Shimon, this looks like a pretty big explosion here. Do you know what buildings are surrounding this area where the explosion happened?
SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, I think Alison, when you look at these pictures, this does not look like a city anywhere in the United States right now. I mean, when you look at this and the extent of damage that we're seeing here, it is quite remarkable. This was a pretty powerful bomb. I mean, they're saying this was intentional.
What exactly was used? We don't know. But the fact that this was intentional and the size of this explosion, significantly, it's a significant explosion. I mean, this is more than a block of damage. We see vehicles that were damaged nearby businesses and we're also lucky that we're not talking about more injuries. Right now, the officials there are saying there have been only three injuries.
I mean, that is pure luck talk about on Christmas Day. This seems to be a business area. It's Downtown, Nashville. So, it's mostly stores and businesses. So perhaps that's why maybe people were not there, but this is really when you talk about a miracle in some ways, because look at the extent of this damage. And the damage here, stretches out for blocks.
So, a couple of very key points that I think we've already have heard from the police there in Nashville is that they got a call for a suspicious vehicle. It was still dark out. The sun had not risen, and the police were on scene. They were responding. And when the officer got there, he or she noticed something suspicious, they were calling in for perhaps the bomb squad to come in, the hazardous material team that would be the bomb squad to come in and help them out.
[09:55:02]
And some time after that there was this explosion. So, it's significant, so they have some pieces of information that perhaps where this call came from, was it intentional to try and set up the police that is something they're going to be looking at. But I just can't wrap my mind around the amount of damage that we're seeing here.
The other thing I should point out is that right now it appears that they don't have anyone in custody that this explosion is linked to an RV, a vehicle that was placed there. It does not appear that they have anyone in custody. So, it would seem that whoever did this left the vehicle there and left Alison.
KOSIK: Just incredible pictures there.
PROKUPECZ: Yes.
KOSIK: Shimon Prokupecz, thanks so much for those details. And we will come back to you when we get more. For now, we'll be right back.
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