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White House Open To Scaling Down Stimulus Checks; Source: Trump Selects New Impeachment Trial Lawyer; Angry Protests Erupt Across Russia In Support Of Jailed Putin Critic, 5,000-Plus People Detained; Interview With Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) About COVID-19 Cases; How QAnon Is Devastating Families; London Man Released From The Hospital After 306 Days. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired January 31, 2021 - 18:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:00:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM on this Sunday, and we have breaking news tonight.

A COVID relief package pitched today by a group of ten Republicans does not go far enough for the Biden administration. The $600 billion GOP proposal has a significantly lower price tag than President Biden's plan. I spoke to a senior administration official tonight. He tells me that Biden is open to some negotiation, including scaling down stimulus checks to households making more than $150,000. But the official I spoke with said the Republicans' counteroffer, quote, is not going to scratch the itch.

Arlette Saenz joins me now from the White House. Arlette, the let's start with the Republicans' plan offered today. What's in it?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, this counterproposal from Senate Republicans is much smaller than what the Biden administration had been pushing for. This GOP proposal is roughly $600 billion.

And just to go down the list of a few of the things that they are hoping for. They are looking for more targeted direct stimulus payments to go to the American families who need it the most. Biden's plan right now is $1,400 in stimulus checks. One of the GOP senators who signed on to this proposal said that maybe what they are proposing is more around $1,000.

They are also, the Republicans, asking for $160 billion for vaccines and testing, both the White House and senators have said that vaccinations and testing money is a top priority. It also calls for extending enhanced unemployment benefits and also provides about $4 billion for behavioral health and substance abuse.

But right now what you are seeing is this much more scaled down proposal, and as you said, the White House is suggesting that that $600 billion may just be a no go for them. Now, one question going forward is how long does President Biden want to give these Republicans to negotiate? The White House has not indicated if the president would actually sit down with this group of Republican senators, as they have requested to go over this counterproposal, but the president has been clear that his strong preference is to have bipartisan sign-on on a bill, but he has also indicated that he is willing to do this with or without Republicans. The question is how much time will he spend negotiating with them as he has stressed that he wants to see this package passed quickly.

BROWN: Right. The official I spoke with said there is no date for that. It's clearer that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer want to do reconciliation and go that route soon. The question is at what point will that happen because there's a lot at stake for Biden as well, he has other priorities to move through Congress.

All right, Arlette, thanks for giving us the latest there from the White House.

And we have more news breaking this hour. CNN has learned that former President Donald Trump is set to pick new lawyers to defend him at his upcoming impeachment trial. This time yesterday, we reported how Trump's old impeachment team has suddenly departed. A source tells CNN that they left after being told to base Trump's defense on his big lie about the election being stolen.

CNN Washington Correspondent Sunlen Serfaty is on Capitol Hill tonight for us. So, Sunlen, who is on the team?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Pam, this is a big development, President Trump making the moves this evening to rebuild his legal team essentially all over from scratch. Now, CNN is learning tonight at least bits and pieces of who will form this new legal team. CNN is told that David Schoen, an attorney and former attorney general from PA, Pennsylvania, both of those people on President Trump's new legal team.

[18:05:00]

Now, it's important to note that the Trump team has not confirmed any of these announcements and certainly this could just be one part of the broader legal team but it is certainly notable, of course, as you mentioned, that this comes just one day after an entire Trump legal team walked away, and as you said, it was reported by our team that the former president wanted his attorneys to base their argument over the notion that the election was a fraud, that there's mass election fraud, rather, of course, than arguing about the legality of the constitutionality of holding a former president that had been impeached towards a Senate trial.

So all of this coming just 24 hours after that certainly dramatic moment, Pam, but also important to point out here that the clock really is ticking. This is not only a dramatic development in the change of legal team but the fact that it is happening so close to the start of the Senate trial. If you look at the calendar just this week, we are now just a few days away from some key deadlines that his legal team will have to reach turning over legal briefs this.

This new team certainly needs to be up and running and, of course, it's all before that big Senate trial starts next week. Pam?

BROWN: All right. Sunlen, thanks so much for that. CNN Legal Analyst Elie Honig joins me live. So, Elie, my colleague, Kaitlan Collins, has this reporting that David Schoen was selected by the president to be part of his team. He's been on the phone a lot today, I'm told by a source, trying to figure this out.

Now, a source tells me the president keeps bringing up the fact that he wants his lie, the big election lie, that it was stolen from him, to be argued in the defense, and that his advisers are telling him that should not be part of the defense. It's unclear though if David Schoen or any of the other lawyers on his team right now will actually take up Trump's bidding and do that.

What do you think in this situation? If you're a lawyer and you're put in this position, what do you do?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Pam, so the big question for me is, are these new attorneys going to go along with that big lie defense, that rigged election defense? If you are a lawyer in this situation, look, you have a right and a duty to represent your client zealously and aggressively, but there is a line, and the line you cannot cross is you cannot make a defense that you know is a lie and cannot make a defense that could be dangerous to the public. And I think the rigged election defense is both of those things.

So my question is are these lawyers going to go along with that. If they do, Pam, they do that at their own peril, their own reputational peril and their own professional peril. They stand up in front of the Senate and promote conspiracy theories, they will live with that personally and professionally.

BROWN: Right. I mean, that's the question. If they do Trump's bidding in that regard, what would the consequences be? And, again, we don't know what they are going to do, but it does raise the question knowing what Trump wants and the fact that this new lawyer was hired about whether he's going do it.

HONIG: Yes. If they stand up and make a defense that's based on a lie, there could be consequences sort of on a couple levels. First of all, professionally, it could cause them their reputation great harm, it could cause them to lose clients, it could cause people to be hesitant to do business with them. Sort of the next level, every attorney, of course, is licensed in the state or states where they practice.

If you are openly espousing a lie, you could be disciplined by your state or you can be fined, in extreme cases, you can even be disbarred. And, again, just generally, from a sense of attorney ethics and responsibility to do that, I think, it really goes beyond what's acceptable.

BROWN: Yes. The sources I'm speaking with say they want the argument -- they have been trying to tell the president that the argument should be about whether it's constitutional -- in their view, unconstitutional for a former president to be tried like this.

What I noticed though -- so David Schoen is a trial and appellate lawyer. He has a solo practice. He is not from a big firm. What does that tell you?

HONIG: Yes. Well, look, if you're from a big firm, you have sort of larger institutional concerns, right? Your clients tend to be big corporations, so perhaps that's not the kind of clientele that he has and is concerned with. But that's really the question.

Look, if I got a call hypothetically from Donald Trump, I don't think it will happen, but if he asked me to represent him, I would tell him, look, I'm able to go in there and make the constitutional argument. I personally don't believe it's correct but it's a colorable argument.

I'll make the First Amendment argument, same thing, I don't that's winner, but it's colorable, it's legitimate but it absolutely will not go down this sort of election fraud, rigged election thing, I can't do that ethically. And I guess we'll see what these attorneys did and what the deal is that they struck with Donald Trump.

BROWN: All right. Elie Honigh, thanks for bringing on your analysis. I appreciate it.

HONIG: Thanks, Pam.

BROWN: Well, the race is on. Can we vaccinate enough Americans before highly infectious COVID variants get a foothold? CNN's Natasha Chen joins me now with the very latest.

So, Natasha, it's been more than a year since the coronavirus first arrived in the U.S., but it seems like the anxiety is only increasing right now.

[18:10:03]

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, Pamela, there's been a lot of anxiety built up over the last 12 months, first, preventing infection and then getting this vaccine done and now getting that vaccine into arms only to be met now with new variants popping up in the U.S., and we still don't know how well the vaccine stacks up against those. Now, while experts do have their eyes on all of that, there are some marginal improvements overall.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHEN (voice over): In some ways, Americans may feel the beginning of a light at the end of the tunnel. The number of people hospitalized from COVID-19 dropped below 100,000 on Saturday for the first time since December 1st. Only one state right now, Louisiana, is seeing an increase in new cases compared to the previous week, and more than 30 million doses of the vaccine have been administered so far.

RON YABROUDY, RECEIVED SECOND DOSE OF VACCINE: I feel now that I can go see my grandkids. Getting a second shot just has done wonders for me, and it really has boosted my confidence to the point where I feel that I can take on the world.

CHEN: Ron Yabroudy, who is about to turn 89, got both doses of the Pfizer vaccine, which showed 95 percent efficacy during trials.

YABROUDY: Let me tell you something. There's nothing like having 95 percent on your side.

CHEN: Moderna's trials did similarly well, but these modest signs of progress come amid a troubling development. In the U.S., there are more than 400 cases of the variant first identified in the U.K.

MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY: The fact is that the surge that is likely to occur with this new variant from England is going to happen in the next 6 to 14 weeks. And if we see that happen, which my 45 years in the trenches tell us we will, we are going to see something like we have not seen yet in this country.

CHEN: A variants first identified in South Africa and Brazil have turned up in a handful of U.S. states this week causing some health experts to sound the alarm.

DR. CHRIS PERNELL, PUBLIC HEALTH PHYSICIAN: My primary concern is that we need to do more surveillance in this nation. We actually trail our peers on this. We need to do more genomic sequencing. There are U.S. variants. We just don't know because we don't do the work to identify them.

CHEN: While new research is promising, it's not yet clear if those vaccinated could still get sick or even die from the variants, a troubling thought especially as we close the month of January with the most deaths of any month since the first reported case in the U.S. a year ago.

HOLLY VANTATTI, HUSBAND AND FATHER-IN-LAW DIED: That's been really hard too, because she's asking every day, where's my daddy?

CHEN: Some families, like Holly Vantatti's, have lost more than one relative. In her case, her husband and father-in-law died of COVID-19 within 24 hours of each other.

VANTATTI: Every day, I wake up and I think that this nightmare is going to be over and, unfortunately, it continues on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHEN (on camera): And that's something that so many families are waking up to every day, families of more than 440,000 people in this country who have died of COVID-19 so far. And some of them say, take this seriously, take the vaccine. But the CDC's late numbers show only 5.6 million Americans right now have gotten both doses of the vaccine, and that's less than 2 percent of the population. So this is still going to be a long road ahead, Pamela.

BROWN: Yes, a long way to go. Natasha Chen, thank you so much. And coming up next hour, I will speak with the self-proclaimed caucus of one at a time when many of her fellow freshman GOP colleagues are making headlines for spouting conspiracies and extremism. Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina is making headlines for calling them out.

But right now, it is a lonely road for Republicans who preach bipartisanship and warn against Trumpism. What will it take for her message to break through and what happens to her party if it doesn't?

And much more to come right here on CNN NEWSROOM, Russian President Vladimir Putin's opposition leader may still be in jail but his supporters still on the streets protesting. More than 5,000 of them were detained just today. I'll ask former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta how he thinks a Biden administration should respond.

Plus, conspiracy theorists force a vaccination site to temporarily shut down. CNN identifies some in the crowd as the same people at a QAnon event last year. Our Donie O'Sullivan has new reporting for us tonight.

We will be right back.

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[18:15:00]

BROWN: This is St. Petersburg. The crowds of people are protesting all over Russia today, and they are furious that a vocal critic of the Russian government is still in jail. More than 5,000 people were detained today after clashing with riot police in Moscow, St. Petersburg and dozens of other cities, and they are supporting Alexei Navalny, an opposition leader and fierce critic of Vladimir Putin, who survived being poisoned last year.

The Russian government denies any involvement in that. Navalny returned to Russia this month and was immediately arrested. This is just one of the national security flashpoints they see in the Biden administration. And I'm joined now by former Defense Secretary and former CIA Director under President Obama, Leon Panetta, for more on this.

Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for coming on.

LEON PANETTA, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF UNDER CLINTON: Good to be with you.

BROWN: This morning, Secretary of State Blinken tweeted. He said, the U.S. condemns the persistent use of harsh tactics against peaceful protesters and journalists by Russian authorities for a second week straight. Is that strong enough, in your view? Does President Biden need to be more forceful about Putin's crackdown?

PANETTA: When there are literally thousands taking to the streets in Russia and now the Russians are trying to do everything they can to try to contain these protests. [18:20:07]

I think the president in his telephone call with Vladimir Putin did point out his concern about Navalny and what was happening with regards to him. I think the president is going to continue to make that point with regards to the Russians. They need to know that the United States stands for human rights.

BROWN: Right. So President Biden made that point to Putin and yet we're seeing crackdown thousands being arrested. The secretary of state said that the U.S. condemns this, but what does that actually mean? I mean, Russia is continuing on with this behavior. Do you think the U.S. should be doing anything else?

PANETTA: Well, I think it's important now to reach out to our allies and to join with our allies in protesting what the Russians are doing. One of the things that the administration made a point of, and I was glad to hear it, is that we need to strengthen and uphold our strong alliances around the world, and that's particularly true with regards to our NATO allies.

I think it would be a good thing to join our NATO allies in uniformly condemning what Russia is doing and agree with our allies as to what the next steps should be in order to make the point with the Russians.

BROWN: Alexei Navalny's foundation is calling on Biden to sanction Putin's close allies. Do you think that that should be on the table?

PANETTA: I think everything can be on the table, particularly sanctions and particularly other steps to try to put additional pressure on Russia with regards to what's going on. This is one of those moments in time where we cannot just stand back and allow the Russians to do what they are doing with regards to legitimate protests that are being conducted in Russia.

BROWN: So, tomorrow, as you know, President Biden will give his first major foreign policy address about restoring America's place. What do you want to hear in that speech?

PANETTA: I think the most important thing is to make clear that the United States is back as a world leader. The last four years we gradually have withdrawn from a leadership role in the world. We've undermined our allies. We have basically encouraged our adversaries.

I think President Biden has to make clear that the United States is returning to a world leadership role. We will work with our allies to make clear that the United States is going to do everything necessary to try to confront our adversaries and stand up for the values that are what the United States is all about.

BROWN: So you have adversaries outside of the United States that pose a threat and you also have a threat growing right here inside the United States. One major national security challenge is this growing threat of domestic extremism. You say that the risk of ignoring that threat is huge. So what would a robust response look like? PANETTA: I think it's very important to recognize the threat from domestic terrorism. We saw what happened on January 6th. We saw what happened on 9/11. And as a result of that, we went to war against foreign terrorism. As a result what have happened on January 6th, I think we've got to go to war against domestic terrorism as well.

I think important steps are being taken now by law enforcement to try to make sure that we go after those that participated in that attack on the Capitol. I think we also have to have strong intelligence on just what exactly white extremists are up to in this country and whether or not they are planning additional attacks in the future.

BROWN: You mentioned 9/11. In the post- 9/11 years, there was a lot of focus on foreign terrorists being radicalized online. This week, you warned we're seeing a similar pattern domestically. And you wrote that some of the same frustrations that motivated foreign terrorists are also present in those who attacked the U.S. Capitol. They too are moved by lies promoted by their leader, Donald Trump.

How do you stem the tide of radicalization here at home given First Amendment protections and the fact that people are stuck inside with more time to go down rabbit holes online during this pandemic?

PANETTA: Well, there's a lot of truth to that with regards to what's happening on social media. We were concerned about social media radicalizing individuals in this country to conduct attacks against the United States. I think we have to be concerned about social media inspiring domestic terrorism as well.

[18:25:01]

I think the most important thing to do is to maintain strong intelligence which we developed since 9/11 on all terrorism, maintain strong intelligence on what those groups are up to, have strong cooperation between federal, state and local law enforcement to make sure that we are working together to prevent any possible act of terrorism again and to try to provide the security necessary to protect our members of Congress and protect the Capitol so that January 6th never happens again.

BROWN: All right. Secretary Leon Panetta, thank you for spending a bit of your Sunday evening with us. We appreciate it.

PANETTA: Good to be with you, Pamela.

BROWN: And one quick note, in the next hour, I'll have much more on the crackdown in Russia from our own reporter who was detained by Russian authorities simply for doing his job and covering those protests. You do not want to miss this eyewitness account.

And you are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. We are learning about the breaking news we told you about at the top of the show. Former President Trump announces the first members of his new impeachment legal team. Stay with us.

Plus, it was ventilators and now it is a vaccinations. States are in a race against each other to get enough supplies to meet demand. When we come back, I'll come to Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear about how his state is faring.

We'll be back.

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[18:30:58]

BROWN: In Kentucky there is guarded optimism about a trend downward in coronavirus cases and positivity rates, but on Thursday the state reported 69 deaths, its highest daily number yet. And although state officials say they are well equipped to receive and distribute vaccines, they are struggling to get more doses. So far Kentucky has gotten just over 650,000 doses and has administered about 400,000 of them so far. That's about a 60 percent rate of getting shots in the arms.

Kentucky governor of my home state, Andy Beshear, joins me now.

Thank you. Welcome to the show. I know it's a big deal for you to split away from your family on Sunday evening so thanks for coming on.

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR (D), KENTUCKY: Well, thanks for having me and anything for a fellow Kentuckian.

BROWN: Thank you. So you say, as I just pointed out, that Kentucky sees a decrease in new COVID cases, but there's also been a rise in daily deaths. Why do you think that is?

BESHEAR: Well, it's because deaths trail cases. We, like most of the country, saw an exponential increase especially in November and in December, and while we took significant action and ultimately blunted that third surge and prevented our Thanksgiving bump, the total number of cases sadly lead to more deaths.

While we are headed in the right direction, cases are still too high, and even with the mortality rate in Kentucky that's lower than the rest of the country, more cases, the more deaths. That's the hard thing about this virus. It is a battle where the longer it goes and the more people who get infected and the more people we lose.

BROWN: So as you point out it's heading in the right direction right now in terms of cases, but how concerned are you about the possible spread of the new variants? We know that so far two cases of the U.K. variant have been confirmed in Kentucky. Are you concerned that that will undo some of the progress you're seeing in the number of cases?

BESHEAR: We are concerned about the variant, but we've been concerned every day that we've been dealing with this virus because the moment you let your guard down, whether it's the traditional strain or any of the variants this thing comes by and bites you.

What we've seen is multiple times where people have gotten tired and haven't worn their masks as much, haven't engaged in social distancing or have really wanted to get together at traditional times of the year, and every time that's happened we've seen a surge but now there's light at the end of the tunnel. There are effective vaccines. There's not enough supply but they are there, which means we're going to defeat this thing and we're going to do it in 2021.

We just got to keep our guard up, wear our masks, follow all those important guidelines, and if we can do that we can win and at the same time protect the people around us as we get there.

BROWN: So let's talk about the vaccines. I want you to listen to what epidemiologist Michael Osterholm said on "MEET THE PRESS" today about the variants and the vaccine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, DIRECTOR, CENTER TO INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: The fact is that the surge that is likely to occur with this next variant from England is going to happen in the next six to 14 weeks, and if we see that happened, which my 45 years in the trenches tell us we will, we are going to see something like we have not seen yet in this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And he also talked about the speeding up, giving the first dose to people as well, so how are you preparing for that scenario? And is that something that you would consider giving more people the first dose of the vaccine?

BESHEAR: Well, we are currently giving more people their first dose in every week than we get first doses from the federal government. While it took us a little bit to ramp up like everybody else, now -- two weeks ago we vaccinated 82,511 people with the first dose but only got 56,000 first doses. The issue is supply. We could do 250,000 first doses a week, but, again, we're now scheduled to get about 64,000, and that's every other state as well.

[18:35:04]

But the only thing that's keeping us from defeating this virus next month is the amount of supply we get. Now, if this thing is six weeks away from becoming the dominant strain by then we will have vaccinated individuals 70 years and older, we will have done both doses for our long-term care which -- residents which make up about 64 percent to 66 percent of our deaths, so we will be better protected from the worst outcome.

But what it still means is that people have to wear their mask, right? We've got to prevent people from being infected. In many ways the variants are just a wake-up call about this thing is still serious. We've got to do all the preventive measures while vaccinating as fast as we can.

BROWN: So you're saying basically it's a supply issue. You're just not getting the vaccines, the shots quickly enough. What are you doing in terms of trying to get that, and is there any difference now with the Biden administration versus the Trump administration? Just, if you would, take us behind the scenes of what it's like as someone at the center of trying to get vaccines and give them to people in your state.

BESHEAR: Well, if we have three problems, it's supply, supply and supply. We could vaccinate, again, a quarter million a people a week on our state program as opposed to the long-term care that's run by the federal government. We're doing 90 percent plus of every doses of vaccine we get the same week that we get them so we want to do more, and our people are desperate. I know you hear from people over 70 that they want them faster.

You hear from essential workers they want them faster. Everybody wants to be vaccinated. We've gone from vaccine hesitancy to not being able to have enough vaccine to get it into people's arms. And while that's tough and while it requires real patience which is hard when you're dealing a deadly virus, it's a good thing in it we can get to herd immunity as quickly as we can get the supply out.

Now the Biden administration in its first six days increased our supply 16 percent, and I'll take that every six days. That was a good development. But it's not enough, and that's not necessarily their fault, but we just need significantly more doses. Certainly Johnson & Johnson coming online will help. We probably need another one as well. We just need a lot more.

BROWN: I want to point out something that's in Kentucky and around 17 other states I believe, and that is teachers are considered essential employees. You reopened schools on January 11th. How has that been going, and are you concerned that if these contagious variants get a foothold you may have to close schools again?

BESHEAR: We are on track to be the fastest state in the country to vaccinate its teachers, and these vaccines are effective against variants. They might not be as efficient against one. Variants, but our teachers with this protection are ready to be in class, continue in class.

We still need to get our two largest school districts back in person, but we think our decision, which isn't just prioritizing our teachers, it's really prioritizing our kids and the need to be in school was the right decision, and it's going to help us stay in even when others might not be able to.

BROWN: All right. Governor Andy Beshear, thank you again for coming on the show and all your work trying to protect people in my home state of Kentucky from COVID. Appreciate it.

BESHEAR: Thank you.

BROWN: Recapping on our breaking news tonight. Former President Trump says two new lawyers will join his impeachment legal team. David Schoen and Bruce Caster will lead the defense.

Here's what we know about them. David Schoen is a trial attorney and once a lawyer -- a law professor, rather, at Seton Hall. Bruce Caster was the district attorney of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, from 2000 to 2008 and served as the solicitor general and acting attorney general for Pennsylvania.

The former president's impeachment trial will start one week from Tuesday. Meantime, families across the country are being torn apart losing members who have gone down the QAnon rabbit hole. CNN's Donie O'Sullivan has spoken to some of them and joins me next.

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[18:43:29]

BROWN: Well, the QAnon conspiracy carries on despite President Biden's inauguration, a moment that believers were told would never come to pass. And CNN's Anderson Cooper is shedding light on the group's other beliefs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER 360" (voice-over): Jitarth Jadeja was a believer until June 2019.

(On camera): Did you at the time believe that Democrat -- high-level Democrats and celebrities were worshipping Satan, drinking the blood of children?

JITARTH JADEJA, FORMER QANON BELIEVER: Anderson, I thought you did that, and I would like to apologize for that right now, so I apologize for thinking that you ate babies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: CNN Business reporter Donie O'Sullivan joins me now.

Donie, a lot of us hear that and think, whoa, but you talked to so many people who are entrenched in the QAnon conspiracy, and you've also talked to the family members of QAnon believers, and it is no laughing matter for them. What are they telling you?

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Yes, that's right, Pam. You know, the past few weeks we've been speaking to a lot of family members who have people in their families, their moms or their dads, sons or daughters, who have gone down this rabbit hole, and you're right. It is not a laughing matter.

You know, most of the folks I've spoken to, they don't want to, you know, publicly speak out because they are trying to salvage their relationship with their QAnon-believing family members, but, you know, most of them speak about it as if they have lost someone to a cult, that they've lost somebody in their life who used to love them and has totally changed.

[18:45:03]

People say that, you know, people have gotten very mean, that, you know, if -- if you're a member of a family who has a QAnon believer, that that QAnon believer will consider you the enemy or a fool for not believing in the QAnon conspiracy theory. And also, you know, a lot of these folks I've been speaking to, they don't know what to do. You know, some of them have reached out to therapists, some of them have reached to experts, but they feel helpless.

There's very little that they feel that they can do to help draw people out of these conspiracy theories. People that I have been speaking to, one mother actually whose daughter is deeply entrenched in this conspiracy, she is trying to be as compassionate and listen to her as much as she possibly can hoping to save that relationship.

BROWN: Right, because in an interview that Anderson did with the former follower, he clearly snapped out of it at some point but that's not always the case with these QAnon followers, so it's difficult for their families. And then yesterday in Los Angeles operations at the Dodger Stadium vaccination site were halted after a group of a few dozen protesters gathered.

Were any QAnon believers involved in this?

O'SULLIVAN: Yes, they were. In fact, as I was looking at this footage last night from Los Angeles I recognized some of the faces in that crowd. I was at a QAnon event in Los Angeles in October, on Sunset Boulevard, and some of the people I spoke to there were actually in attendance at this anti-vaccine protest, again, something purely based on misinformation.

And I think that is going to be a big challenge in the weeks and the months ahead as we see more on social media, this misinformation being pushed about the vaccine. We see an overlap between QAnon, between election conspiracy theories, and between vaccine misinformation, so it's very much still a challenge and, you know, a concern for all of us as we go into these next few months.

BROWN: All right. And I know you'll be staying on top of it.

Donie O'Sullivan, thank you for coming on.

And we have a quick programming note for you. Make sure you join Fareed Zakaria for an in-depth look at American political hatred. How did it get so bad? This Fareed Zakaria special, "THE DIVIDED STATES OF AMERICA, WHAT IS TEARING US APART?" airs tonight at 9:00.

Well, Sunday dinner may have never tasted so good for a British man and his family. He's back home after spending 10 months in the hospital battling the coronavirus, and his sons may have come up with a secret weapon to help their father recover.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:52:03]

BROWN: Well, a British World War II veteran who made headlines for raising $33 million by walking laps in his garden in support of the National Health Service now has coronavirus. Tom Moore has been hospitalized, and he is also suffering from pneumonia. The 100-year- old was knighted by the Queen for his service last year. We wish him well. Well, as hospitals across the globe continue to be overwhelmed by the

coronavirus, we don't often see the moments of joy. A moment like this, a patient discharged after four months of treatment.

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BROWN: So that was Jeffrey Woolf back in July. But Mr. Woolf did not get to go home right away. He would spend another six months at a rehabilitation hospital. In all, 306 days hospitalized for the coronavirus before going home. And his son Nicky Woolf joins me now.

Nicky, thanks for coming on to tell this story of hope that I think all of us need to hear right now, a year into this horrible pandemic. First off, how is your dad doing?

NICKY WOOLF, FATHER WAS HOSPITALIZED 306 DAYS WITH CORONAVIRUS: Hi, thanks so much for having me on. Yes, dad's doing great. He's settling in at home. The lasting effects of the coronavirus now that he's paralyzed on one side and has Aphasia which he's struggling talking.

At least now that he's home and has his -- you know, has his house around him and has, you know, me and my brothers have been able to see him a little bit because obviously we haven't seen him for six months because the rehabilitation center was on lockdown. So it's just great to have him back home.

BROWN: So in March, to go back to the beginning, your dad collapsed and then he was put into a medically induced coma. He had a stroke. The doctors even told you and your family to say your good-byes. What was that like?

WOOLF: Yes. So after he went into hospital obviously this was in the first wave of the pandemic. Nobody really knew as much as we now know about this disease, so it was really -- it was just terrifying on a kind of day-to-day basis. Everything narrowed right down to the daily hospital phone call, oxygen out, oxygen down, creatine up, creatine down. And it has become incredibly difficult to think about anything else. Your whole world becomes just about that.

And then in the summer they said -- after they detected the stroke on a routine scan and after they lifted the sedation he just wasn't -- didn't come back to consciousness, so they said, you know, it's been two weeks if he was going to he would by now. And then there was this slight blip on one of the tests so we said, maybe we'll just hold on because they said you've got to make a decision now whether to take him off life support.

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And there was just a slight discrepancy so we said maybe let's hang on to like repeat the scan, and there was just a little bit more activity in the next scan and then slowly over the course of the next month or two, he sort of slowly came back to consciousness, which was just amazing to see.

BROWN: Right. So let's just get this straight. They essentially -- I mean, you guys were about to pull the plug and then you -- he had one more brain scan, you said let's go check one more time, you saw a little bit of activity and that's why you didn't pull the plug essentially, right?

WOOLF: Yes. And to a certain extent I think they did that second brain scan out of kindness as much as anything else. You know, if you lift the sedation and someone hasn't come around it's pretty much a sign that they're not going to, and I was in denial.

We had a lot of conversations. I've got two younger brothers and the two of them and mom, we were all dealing with it very differently. And I was just, no, I want more time. You know. But it wasn't about being right about anything. It was just --

BROWN: Right.

WOOLF: It's one of those things I guess.

BROWN: Remarkable story. Nicky Wolf, thank you so much for coming on. We'll be right back.

WOOLF: Thank you so much.

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