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Trump's Finances And Freedom At Risk As Legal Issues Mount; What Happens To The GOP After Trump Acquittal?; Do Teachers Need COVID Vaccines Before Reopening Schools?; Trump's Shadow Looms Over Republican Party's Future; Duke University Starts Testing COVID-19 Vaccine On Children; Historic Blast Of Arctic Air Spreading Across Much Of U.S. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired February 14, 2021 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLANCA VELAZQUEZ, JUAN AND BLANCA RODRIGUEZ'S DAUGHTER: It's an epic love story, you know, that they went together in the same day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Well, Blanca and Juan Rodriguez were both 67 years old, and our best to their family.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D-VT): In accordance with the adjustment of the Senate as follows --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Now former President Trump's finances and freedom are at threat as his legal issues mount. Plus after the acquittal, is Trump's grip on the Republican Party and the extremism in its ranks here to stay? That is a big question. And also tonight the debate on safely reopening schools and whether or not teachers need to be vaccinated before kids can get back to class.

I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM on this Sunday evening.

And tonight, a source tells CNN that President Donald Trump has been flying under the radar because he's worried about facing charges for his action surrounding the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. But he's already on the radar of the D.C. attorney general as the mountain of evidence continues to grow.

Let's go straight to CNN crime and justice correspondent Shimon Prokupecz.

Shimon, what are you learning about this? SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes, so you have the

D.C. attorney general here in the District of Columbia here in Washington, D.C. that's been looking at some of what the president had said on the day of the insurrection, at the ellipse when he was speaking. The attorney general has said that they were going to be looking at it, but the attorney general has already been investigating the inauguration.

Remember, they've been looking at the finances back from the Donald Trump inauguration where Ivanka Trump had to sit for a deposition. So you have the Washington, D.C. attorney general. You also have the New York state attorney general which is conducting a civil investigation into the former president's finances and real estate dealings and some of his loans.

You also have civil lawsuits that have been filed against the former president while he was in office. And he used the excuse because he was a sitting president, he couldn't be sued, he couldn't face any kind of action as a result of him being the president. That's all gone now. So you have those civil lawsuits. Eventually he could be deposed in those civil litigations.

But the most important and probably the one investigation that if you talk to people close to the president and you talk to investigators, probably the one that could cause him the most harm is the one being conducted by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, which is vast. It's wide. It's very complicated and complex investigation because it involves at least eight years of the former president's finances.

It also involves the Trump Organization, people close to the former president, his family. They're looking at finances that go back for years with the organization. They're also looking at some of his real estate dealings. They, too, from a criminal perspective are looking at some of his loans and some of the ways in which he used perhaps some of his real estate deals to get some of these loans. So it's complex. It's going to take some time. That is still very much ongoing.

That investigation is so complex, Pam, that the Manhattan DA's Office hired outside accountants, forensic accountants to look at that investigation. And remember the Supreme Court has yet to rule and decide on finally whether or not the Manhattan DA's Office can get the former president's tax returns. So we're still waiting for that.

I mean, when you think about it we could spend hours talking about how much the former president is facing in terms of civil investigations and that Manhattan DA criminal probe.

BROWN: So basically he didn't face political punishment with a conviction, but he could face legal punishment. We shall see.

Shimon, I know you'll be staying on top of that. Thank you so much.

Well, beyond further potential fall out for Donald Trump, what comes next for a clearly divided Republican Party? CNN's Suzanne Malveaux is following developments on Capitol Hill tonight. So, Suzanne, after Mitch McConnell scorched Donald Trump yesterday in

his post-acquittal comments, Lindsey Graham rushed to offer support to the former president. Where are things headed?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's definitely a period of reckoning within the GOP at this time. Senator Lindsey Graham says that -- and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is going to have to answer to that speech that he gave, saying that it was a disgraceful dereliction of duty that he was practically and morally responsible for the U.S. Capitol attacks, that being Trump, and he says this is the kind of thing that's going to be used for campaign advertisements in 2022.

Candidates will either pick a side, whether it's Trump or whether it's McConnell. He says Trump is the future of the party. He spoke to the former president and he says he'll be visiting at Mar-a-Lago.

[19:05:03]

Interestingly enough, Pam, Graham is of the mind that there should be some sort of independent commission, bipartisan commission, similar to the 9/11 Commission, to investigate what are the facts in the unanswered questions. There are Democrats who also agree.

Why wasn't -- what did Trump know at the time that the violence was unfolding? Why was it that he didn't do anything to protect his vice president? Why didn't he immediately call for reinforcements when U.S. Capitol police were in trouble?

Graham believes the answer to those questions in a commission will exonerate the former president. Senator Chris Coons believe it will be a different story. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): But there's still more evidence that the American people need and deserve to hear and a 9/11 Commission is the way to make sure that we secure the Capitol going forward and that we lay bare the record of just how responsible and how abjectly violating of his constitutional oath President Trump really was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Now a commission of this sort would be independent. It would be able to subpoena witnesses, videos, all kinds of things to try to come up with this common narrative that the public could essentially trust.

Now, having covered the 9/11 Commission report back in the day, there were two challenges there. First, the commission always came back to Congress asking for more time and more money. Would this Congress be willing to give what is necessary to do that type of investigation? And secondly, it was a time when the country was united after the September 11th attacks.

It is a very different type of atmosphere here, whether or not you could get those kinds of independent and bipartisan folks to be a part of such a commission.

And Pam, I should let you know I just spoke with Representative David Cicilline, one of the House impeachment managers, who said, look, he too believes there should be a 9/11 Commission. But the Democrats when they come back from their recess they're going to be focusing on COVID relief and economic stimulus package and getting people back to work -- Pam.

BROWN: And of course, a commission like that would just keep Trump front and center. So we'll have to wait and see what happens on that front.

Suzanne Malveaux, live for us from Capitol Hill. Thanks, Suzanne.

And joining me now with more is CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein. He is also senior editor at the "Atlantic." Also with me is CNN political commentator and former Republican congresswoman from Utah, Mia Love.

Thank you both for coming on. Mia, let's start with you. Mitch McConnell made that fiery speech condemning Trump just moments after voting to acquit him. Are harsh words like that at a time like this effective, or is it a time for action, more action from party leaders? What exactly was he trying to accomplish there?

MIA LOVE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, there is no doubt in my mind, knowing Mitch McConnell, working with Mitch McConnell, that he is incredibly smart. And I believe that his number one job is to do everything he can to gain the majority back in the Senate. I think that that is what he is trying to give people a pass to do to say, look, you need to go into your districts and listen to your constituents, and it's OK if you move away from the president.

Your job is to make sure that you gain a seat in the Senate. And I think that that is where his focus is. As opposed to maybe someone like Lindsey Graham who either feels like he wants to run for office and needs those supporters or feels like he has got something to do to make up to the president for not -- for voting to certify the election. So I think that there are two different priorities there, but I would not count out what Mitch McConnell was doing. He doesn't do anything just for the sake of doing it.

BROWN: Yes. It's interesting, too. Lindsey Graham, you know, right after the riots he said something to the effect of Trump was part of the problem, not the solution. Now he's running to go be with him in Florida saying that he's the future of the party.

Ron, you wrote this really interesting piece on CNN.com in the wake of Trump's acquittal asking a very pointed question. Is the GOP's extremist wing now too big to fail? How worrying is this?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. Well, look, I think you have to look at the decision by 43 of the 50 Republican senators and virtually all of the Republican House members not to sanction Trump after he instigated, incited and really kind of pointed the fuse of a riot aimed at them. You have to look at that in the context of what House Republicans just

did on Marjorie Taylor Greene, where they accepted into the caucus someone who has not only said the things she's done, but harassed David Hogg, and in all of these ways as counter terrorism experts have said to me, they are normalizing extreme political behavior, the tolerance of violence, the tolerance of conspiracy theories.

You see in the new polling out from the American Enterprise Institute this week that half of Republicans say that it was Antifa that stormed the Capitol, and more than half of Republican voters agree that the American way of life is disappearing so fast we may have to use force to save it.

And I think all of this, Pam, adds up to a very ominous conclusion, that Republican leaders have concluded they are too dependent on voters drawn to these kinds of conspiracy theories and kind of extreme actions to fully confront them.

[19:10:10]

And McConnell's cynicism in basically saying we can't convict Trump because he's out of office after he himself delayed the trial until Trump was out of office really underscores that point.

BROWN: Mia, what do you think about that?

LOVE: Well, there's a lot to say about that. But I do think that where I think all of us are correct here is that the extreme parts of the party, the Representative Greenes, their voice will continue to be loud and they'll continue to have a presence as long as people aren't talking about what Republicans actually stand for.

If they do not get away from President Donald Trump and start talking about fiscal discipline, limited government, personal responsibility, all of the things that Republicans usually talk about, what they stand for, the reason why I put an R behind my name when I ran for Congress, those voices will be completely drowned out by the extreme ends of the group.

So if it were up to me people like Liz Cheney really should be actually just praised for standing up and saying, look, we're independent thinkers. I think that he was absolutely wrong, I'm going to vote for impeachment instead of being chastised for her, I believe, the vote she felt was the right vote.

BROWN: But, Ron, from what I gathered from your article is it's that the direction of Republicans, of the base is moving more away from the Liz Cheney types, the more mainstream Republicans. It seems as though they're moving away from them.

You talked about the polling and the data about, you know, the American way of life, they feel like they're losing it so they need to do something. It seems as though that's kind of the direction this is headed for Republicans.

BROWNSTEIN: Right. The treadmill of the Republican Party is on, as I've said, is Donald Trump has addicted almost the entire party to the drug that he is pushing.

It's not only Donald Trump but Republicans everywhere who have been losing ground among white-collar suburbanites who used to lean Republican, who now look at this party and question whether they belong in the same coalition as Marjorie Taylor Greene. And as a result, all -- virtually all Republicans running for office as Lindsey Graham is kind of reflecting need massive turnout among the Trump base.

And the Trump base includes a lot of voters who are drawn to conspiracy theories, who are open to violence as a way of advancing political goals. And as a result they I think have become much more leery about, you know, making a clear stand, drawing a bright line against the influences of those forces in the party.

Look at Kevin McCarthy. I mean, based on the evidence that we have as the rioters were rampaging through the Capitol. He called the president looking for help and the president scorned him, you know, basically said, I'm more with the rioters than I am with you, and yet he still felt the need to go down to Mar-a-Lago and bend the knee to Trump.

BROWN: Right.

BROWNSTEIN: And I think all of that kind of is indicative of where the balance of power in the party is heading if they don't find a way to re-establish barriers between themselves and this kind of extremism. They've done it before. They did it in the '60s.

BROWN: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: To a greater extent with the John Burke society, but right now there is simply not the will in the Republican Party. You can really see that I think in these twin decisions on Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

BROWN: So given that reality, Mia, how does a Republican like you survive politically given where the base is going, what Ron just laid out?

LOVE: Look, I think that we just need a place for the base to go. I believe that -- I refuse to believe the Republican Party is over. This country needs a two-party system to debate ideas, to make sure that our country functions correctly. We do not want a one-party system. So it is to all of our benefits that we do preserve the Republican Party.

But with that being said, I think that as long as there are people that are willing to stand up and say, hey, by the way this is wrong, this is what we believe in, by the way we are not what you saw on January 6th, we are much better than that, much more compassionate than that, we care about people. And when it comes to the House of Representatives, which was attacked, when it comes to the Capitol which was attacked, that House doesn't belong to Donald Trump.

It doesn't even belong to the legislators. It belongs to the people. It's time for us to get back to taking care of people and getting away from both extreme ends of parties.

BROWN: All right, Ron Brownstein, former Congresswoman Mia Love, thank you very much.

LOVE: Thank you.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

BROWN: And join us Tuesday night when President Joe Biden joins Anderson Cooper live in Milwaukee for an exclusive presidential town hall. It starts at 9:00 Eastern only on CNN.

[19:15:03]

And the million-dollar question right now, can schools reopen safely without every teacher getting a coronavirus vaccine first? The CDC thinks so, but will my next guest? I'll ask Dr. Celine Gounder.

And heavy snow and ice behind multiple crashes in Texas and Oklahoma. Half of the country is under some sort of winter weather alert. We are following all of it, and we'll be right back.

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BROWN: Well, today CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said that all Americans should be able to get the coronavirus vaccine by the end of the summer. So far nearly 53 million doses of the COVID vaccine have been administered in the U.S. and today's total makes for a seven-day average of about 1.6 million doses per day. Well above Biden's baseline of a million daily shots.

[19:20:00]

And in another promising sign hospitalizations continue to decline, on Saturday just under 70,000 patients were hospitalized with COVID nationwide, but that is still above the spring and summer peaks. Deaths are also down but remain at an alarming level. Yesterday the virus claimed 3,313 lives here in the United States. That is still so high.

I am joined now by infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist Dr. Celine Gounder. She was also a member of the Biden Transition COVID Advisory Board.

I'm wondering, as you look at these number trending down, they are still far too high but they're trending down. Do you think that's here to stay potentially? We're just going to keep going down, down on the numbers? Like we're finally in a good spot in the pandemic in that regard?

DR. CELINE GOUNDER, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST AND EPIDEMIOLOGIST: Pam, I think this is really a reflection of the behavior from a couple of weeks ago. We know that there's a lag between the time when people are exposed, transmit, and later when they develop illness or hospitalize and die. So what we're really seeing is the surge from Thanksgiving, from Christmas, from New Year's, that is settling down so we are seeing the numbers trend down.

Now how things look in the future really does depend on what we do. So if we go back to socializing with family and friends the way we did over the holidays, you'll see another surge. And many of us are --

BROWN: Even with the vaccines and everything you still think so?

GOUNDER: We are nowhere near herd immunity right now. 53 million shots in arms is amazing, don't get me wrong. And the current administration is really on track to meet its goal and then some of 100 million shots in arms by 100 days, but that is still nowhere near the 75 percent, 80 percent of Americans who need to be vaccinated for herd immunity. So we should not confuse the trends we're seeing for an effect from the vaccine.

BROWN: OK, I see what you're saying. Don't put your guard down because you're seeing this trend. Reopening schools is obviously one of the most contentious pandemic issues. Here's the CDC chief this morning on teacher vaccinations. Here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: So I am a strong advocate of teachers receiving their vaccinations, but we don't believe it's a prerequisite for schools to reopen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Do you agree with that approach?

GOUNDER: Yes, I do agree with Dr. Walensky. We've seen -- we've learned a lot over the last year, we've seen what works, what doesn't work. We've learned a lot about the virus.

And so we feel pretty confident at this point that as long as you can support schools with the resources they need to mask, to enforce mask wearing, to appropriately ventilate classrooms and distance kids in the classroom, we've seen that schools have been able to reopen safely, and that's even without mass testing, without vaccination. The big if there is whether we are supporting schools the way they need to, to do this safely.

BROWN: So it was interesting because if you look through the guidelines of what we heard from Walensky today, they're safe with the proper precautions. That was a key phrase that we hear about schools. But actual implementation is very inconsistent. I mean, the CDC's weekly report says only about 60 percent of high school and middle school students are reliably masked. She talked about mask breaching.

It seems like there are no good answers, though, for parents who just want a simple answer. That just doesn't exist right now in terms of schools reopening.

GOUNDER: Well, I think one of the challenges as we know that schools are not funded at the same level across this country. A lot of school funding comes from local property taxes. So some school districts are going to have a lot more funding available to do these things than others. And that's not equitable. There is going to need to be additional resources from the federal government to help support this.

And then to your point about compliance with mask wearing, this is where parents really need to step up because they need to be telling their kids, look, I want you in school and you're going to have to mask to make that happen. If you really want your kids in school, that needs to be the message. And so this is really a joint effort.

BROWN: I want to ask you, too, just given all the variants and everything that's come out about that, if you go out now with a mask on and you practice social distancing and so forth, how much more likely are you to get COVID, to come down with one of the variants than before the variants? If you compare before the variants came to now, how much more likely are you to get COVID?

GOUNDER: So the U.K. variant which is the one that is spreading quickly and rapidly and widely in the country right now, that's the one in a sense we're most worried about. It's about 50 percent more infectious than the old-school coronavirus that we've seen transmitting.

And this new U.K. variant is on trend to become the dominant strain here in the United States by the end of March. And that means we are going to see very likely a new surge at the end of March and into April of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

[19:25:04]

And this is precisely way regardless of what's happening with vaccination we really do need to be doubling down right now on mask wearing, social distancing, ventilation, all the things we've been talking about for the past year.

BROWN: So what I hear you're saying is it's a lot riskier now going to the grocery store even if you're masked than it was before the U.K. variant, for example.

GOUNDER: Yes, that's right. And this is why Dr. Fauci, Dr. Walensky, have been talking about this double mask wearing.

BROWN: Right.

GOUNDER: Surgical mask covered by a cloth mask to help make sure that you're properly protected.

BROWN: All right, Dr. Celine Gounder, thank you so much.

And coming up in just a few minutes from now I'm going to talk to a 12-year-old boy who is now taking part in a new trial to test the effectiveness of the vaccines on young kids. And I'm going to ask him why he wanted to participate.

Well, only seven Republican senators broke ranks to vote for impeaching former President Trump, so what would a former Republican congressman who voted to impeach Nixon say to these other 43 GOP senators? I'll ask former Defense secretary William Cohen for his answer up next.

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[19:30:40]

BROWN: Well, seven Republican senators cast a guilty vote against former President Trump drawing another line in the sand for this standoff within the G.O.P. that revolves around Trump and the future of the party.

But believe it or not, there is another group of seven Republicans in Congress who once took a similar stand.

Joining me now is William Cohen. He served as Secretary of Defense under President Bill Clinton, but before that he was one of seven Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee who voted to impeach President Richard Nixon for abuse of power. Nixon resigned, of course, before the White House could vote -- or the whole House, I should say, could vote.

So thank you so much for coming on. You decided that impeaching President Nixon would be the right move, despite the fact that he was the face of your party. What is your message to the 43 Republican senators who didn't vote to impeach Trump?

WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE UNDER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: I think you need to be loyal to your oath and that is to protect and defend the Constitution, not any one person certainly not any one President.

With Richard Nixon, in retrospect, it was almost a petty thief by comparison to Donald Trump who I think is guilty of grand larceny at the minimum.

But I want to say that the Republican Party likes to portray that it is a party of law and order. It is anything but, because former President Trump bent or broke virtually every law on the books or changed the rules to accommodate his own desires.

I just want to take a second to praise Jamie Raskin in particular along with all of the House Managers. They made a case that was persuasive. It was passionate. It was powerful, and it was persuasive. They made a case that I think was overwhelming, and yet the Republicans in the Senate Majority voted against them.

And it reminds me when I was in Law School. First day of Law School, the Dean said to us any connection between law and justice is purely coincidental, and I saw evidence of that this Saturday because justice was to have convicted President Trump and not to have found him not guilty. And I would say that --

BROWN: So, you don't buy the constitutional argument that, oh, yes, his behavior was bad, it was deplorable but we can't because of the Constitution, we can't convict him?

COHEN: Only one person said that that I can recall on the floor and that was Senator Mitch McConnell, and I agree with almost everything that Senator McConnell said in terms of his condemnation of Donald Trump.

What I didn't agree with him was that he has not gotten away with it. Donald Trump has gotten away with every single thing he has done in four years including calling upon Putin to help him in 2016, including calling upon President Zelensky to dig up dirt on his opponent, Joe Biden, including calling the Secretary of State of Georgia to commit a crime.

He has gotten away with every single one including calling on his mob to storm the Capitol in order to overturn the government. He has gotten away with all of that, and those Republicans who refused to speak out -- I didn't hear anyone else other than the seven including Susan Collins, my good friend and leader in this respect -- I didn't hear any other Republican speaking out condemning his actions, any of them for the last four years.

And he has gotten away with breaking the law consistently, paying hush money to Stormy Daniels. He was --

BROWN: Okay, I just want to be clear -- I just want to be clear though, did you want more Republicans who voted to convict to speak out like Mitch McConnell? Or do you think that they should have voted to convict and that the constitutional argument had no bearing, that that should have been put aside and they should have voted to convict? I just want to make sure I understand correctly.

COHEN: The way to discourse on that issue was that Congress has authority and the power under the impeachment clause to punish or not even punish, to actually purify, to purge the Congress, to purge this country of the kind of behavior represented by Donald Trump. That was the reason for the impeachment, not to punish but to purge.

And they had failed to do that, so now he is lining up to run again. Well, they're going to stand with him or with let's say with Susan Collins or Mitch McConnell or others. And I just want to say if I were running a campaign, I would do two things.

I would take a portrait of Eisenhower on one slide with the storming of Omaha Beach beneath that and then I'd put a picture of Donald Trump and the storming of the Capitol and say to my republican friends, you pick which candidate you want to be for or be like. Which Republican are you? One who believes in law and order or believes like Donald Trump in trying to overthrow the government? Make that choice which way the party goes.

[19:35:37]

BROWN: I get a feeling of a sense of urgency from you about this. How much of the votes of those 43 Republicans do you think was about political survival? What they thought was best for their political futures versus what they thought was actually the right thing to do?

COHEN: I think there were two things. Some of them were complicit in the sense they agreed with what Trump has done. Others were simply fearful that he is going to organize his supporters to go after them either politically or in body.

They have a lot of threats that have been made to individuals. I think some of them fear for their families and their lives. Others believe that Donald Trump represents the future of the Republican Party.

If he does and if that's going to be the party, I think it'll be smaller and narrower and probably more violent than ever before.

BROWN: And would you still consider yourself a Republican?

COHEN: I consider myself a Bob Dole, Howard Baker, Colin Powell, John McCain -- that kind of Republican. Not a cult Republican.

BROWN: All right, former Defense Secretary Robert Cohen, thank you so much.

COHEN: Good to be with you.

BROWN: Well, as the U.S. ramps up vaccinations, kids are not yet widely getting these critical shots, but that could change soon. I'm going to talk to 12-year-old Caleb Chung who is part of a new trial when we come back. Stay with us.

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[19:40:55]

BROWN: Well, so far, the U.S. has given more than 38 million people at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine, but that doesn't include young children.

AstraZeneca now plans to test its vaccine on kids as young as 6, and right now, Duke University is testing the Pfizer vaccine in 2,000 children between 12 and 15 years old and one of those children is Caleb Chung, and he joins me now along with his father who is also a pediatrician, Dr. Richard Chung.

Welcome to both of you. Thanks so much for coming onto tell us your story.

DR. RICHARD CHUNG, PEDIATRICIAN: Thanks for having us, Pamela.

BROWN: So Caleb, let's start with you. How did this all come about? When did you get the vaccine and how are you feeling right now?

CALEB CHUNG, 12-YEAR-OLD VACCINE TRIAL PARTICIPANT: Well, earlier I think in early December, my dad told me about the vaccine trial and kind of gave me some insight into how it would play out, and just like -- just him telling me about this really motivated me to participate in it.

BROWN: And so you've had both of your shots. How are you feeling now?

C. CHUNG: I'm feeling perfectly normal. After I got my two shots, I felt a few symptoms for about like a day or two, like some light pain and arm pain and like some headaches. But other than that, not really much long-term.

BROWN: So Dr. Chung, tell us, you're a doctor, you're a father obviously. What went your decision to let Caleb take part in this trial? Walk us through that process.

R. CHUNG: Yes, so like Caleb said, it was early December and some of my colleagues actually at Duke as was mentioned are participating in the actual clinical trial site, and we had heard that they were moving the age group down to 12 to 15-year-old age group.

And so when I heard about it, as a pediatrician, I mean, throughout the pandemic we've been really advocating for kids to be front and center in a lot of the planning and really ushering for the vaccine as soon as possible for kids as well.

And so, as a pediatrician and as a physician, I was really excited when I heard that they were starting that, but I would say particularly as a dad, you know, I think throughout this year, I've seen Caleb weather the storm of this pandemic quite admirably. I mean, it hasn't been easy for sure, but it's been something he has gotten through.

But I really wanted him to feel like he could do something specific, you know, it's a very disempowering thing this pandemic, particularly for a 12-year-old kind of going through a critical time period in life, and so this seemed like a wonderful opportunity for him to do something to push back specifically, in fact something that literally no adult could do for him, right, only kids can make these trials work.

So I brought it to him. We talked about it. Took about a day to kind of think on it, and pretty quickly he was onboard.

BROWN: So did it feel empowering to you, Caleb?

C. CHUNG: Yes, definitely, a great opportunity for something that I could do during the pandemic since I'm usually just cooped up at home just working on online school, and just having the burden of the virus over all of us, just being able to participate in this vaccine trial was definitely something amazing that I could do to help out.

BROWN: That's amazing. Were you nervous at all?

C. CHUNG: Only a little bit. Like I didn't really at first know how the vaccine trial worked or, like, how I heard this vaccine is a little bit different. Like the trials were a little bit different and the vaccine itself works a little bit differently than others in the past.

But after studying up more on, like, the side effects and just how the things I'd be required to do, I just decided to go ahead and proceed with doing the vaccine trial.

BROWN: And what do you hope your contribution will have, what kind of impact do you hope it will have?

[19:45:10]

C. CHUNG: Well, I really hope that other kids hopefully around my age group or even younger will be motivated to get the vaccine once it becomes more widely because I know some people and maybe some kids and maybe their parents as well don't feel comfortable with them having the vaccine.

But, like, if they see people like me and all the other kids participating in these kinds of trials, then maybe they'll be motivated to get their own kid to get the same vaccine.

BROWN: Wow. You are a remarkable young man, Caleb Chung and Dr. Chung, thank you. Thank you so much for coming onto share this really important story, and we wish you the best.

R. CHUNG: Thanks for having us.

C. CHUNG: Thank you.

BROWN: Well, hazardous winter conditions from coast to coast. In Oklahoma heavy snow and ice causing major crashes. Half the country is dealing with it, and we have the very latest right after this break.

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[19:50:32]

BROWN: Well, very severe winter snow and wind storms are slamming huge parts of the country right now, especially here. Take a look. Here in parts of Central Oklahoma and Texas, deep snowfall and dangerous ice buildups are causing enormous pileups and shutting down interstates from Southern Texas all the way to the Ohio Valley and conditions are worsening in the days to come.

Let's get to the severe weather center, our meteorologist Tom Sater. Tom, you're saying some parts of the country are seeing the most severe winter storms in a generation.

TOM SATER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: This is so broad, Pamela, and so vast that this Arctic outbreak is already being compared to years such as 1977, 1905, 1899. I mean, this is something. And this is a one-two punch.

I mean, we have got a second storm on the heels of this first one already that's moving into the southern plains.

Let's begin with the weather map because this really says a lot. Cold front is all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico right now, and so what you've got is the coldest air on the planet from the North Pole that is poured down south across Canada and the U.S.

But notice the storm in the Pacific Northwest. Seattle has already picked up over 11 inches. That's the most snow in 50 years for them. But significant ice and power outages from Portland all the way to Vancouver. They have record snow in Boise, but then on the East Coast, you've got icing that has caused power outages in North Carolina and Virginia. But really, it has been areas of the Deep South.

When you look at this, it is hard to believe this, but we've got all 245 counties in Texas who are under a winter storm warning. That's never happened before. All 77 counties in Oklahoma, all 75 in Arkansas, I think you can drive from the Rio Grande all the way up to Burlington, Vermont and for days in a winter storm warning. It is amazing.

A hundred and seventy million are under a winter storm weather alert in some fashion, but it is not just the snow and the ice. We have had severe weather of course even down in Florida. In fact, we had some problems over there with Daytona 500. But there is more snow.

What you see in Dallas now is the second batch and that is going to come down quite heavy. So a lot of this is going to fall on top of already a third of an inch. It could have a half an inch of ice. That is going to accumulate areas in the Tennessee Valley all the way up into the mid-Atlantic states.

Now, in Daytona, they had heavy rainfall, and of course in the 15th lap, they had a 16-car pileup just before they shut it down for the weather, it has resumed. But this icing is significant.

When you look at what's going to happen across many states, all the way across the Tennessee Valley, in fact, significant icing tonight, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama all the way to the north. We're hopeful that the second storm which will be Wednesday-Thursday, it will follow the same pattern as this, dropping the same amounts of snow, the same amount of ice on the same communities.

Already over 500,000 are without power. I think that number could more than triple as we watch this first storm move out, again, moves up to the mid-Atlantic tomorrow before that second one dives into Texas for another round.

For the first time in history, the City of Houston is under a wind chill warning, Pamela. Unbelievable. This is going to hang around for more than a week. Over 245 million Americans could see below freezing temperatures for a good seven to nine days. This is not over with by any stretch of the imagination.

BROWN: No. Basically --

SATER: Just hang in there.

BROWN: Those people watching right now, hang in there. It is going to be a rough week ahead, potentially. Thanks for laying it all out, Tom Sater. Wow. We appreciate it.

SATER: Good luck.

BROWN: Coming up --

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I will never stop loving my parents, but it is this switch that flips in them.

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BROWN: We hear from two women who say QAnon is tearing their families apart. I'm going to talk to Dianne, a former member of the Unification Church who helps people who have lost loved ones to extremism and cults. We'll be right back.

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[19:29:03]

BROWN: Well, tonight the U.S. edges ever closer to an unthinkable benchmark. Nearly a half million people gone, a half million families shattered. That number is too big to comprehend. Consider just this one life.

At age 42, Zarina Rose was a cherished wife, mom and even grandmother.

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KYLA ROSE, ZARINA'S DAUGHTER: She was my biggest role model. I mean, she always pushed me.

VON ROSE, ZARINA'S SON: She was just such a sweet person.

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BROWN: Zarina was also a registered nurse working on the front lines of the pandemic in Las Vegas. When she discovered she was pregnant at 32 weeks in, she tested positive for COVID-19. She went downhill so quickly that doctors rushed her into emergency premature labor to save her son.

Thankfully, her son was born safely. But Zarina soon took her last breath on a ventilator.

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NICK ROSE, ZARINA'S HUSBAND: She was fighting. She was fighting really, really hard. She was fighting through the whole thing and I know for a fact that she was fighting really hard that way because she knew that baby Kenzo was still in the NICU.

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BROWN: Well, Nick says, little Kenzo is remaining strong in the NICU. Nick takes it as a sign that Zarina is watching over him.

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N. ROSE: If I could tell her anything, it is that I love you so much. I know that the Lord has you, but I've got this. I'll take care of the family.

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