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Interview with Texas Business Owner Jim McIngvale; Hate Crimes Increasingly Target Asian-Americans; North Korea May Have Hacked Pfizer. Aired 10:30-11a ET
Aired February 17, 2021 - 10:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:30:00]
JESSICA DEAN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, again, moving forward, this is something the Republican Party is going to see battle out as we head into this next election cycle.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: For sure. Jessica, thank you for the reporting on the Hill, to that.
All right, we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: So we're just getting some updated numbers, and they show that at least 3.3 million customers are now without power across Texas, still. This is after this deadly winter storm. It is really wreaking havoc across the southern United States.
[10:35:11]
Much of the state of Texas, blanketed, still, this morning, in snow and ice. The temperatures, not expected to rise above freezing until Friday. And there is huge concern -- despair -- among residents right now on how they will go another hour, let alone another few days.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: So what are folks doing about it? Well, one Texas business owner is offering his own help, turning his furniture stores into temporary warming shelters -- you see some of them there -- opening them up to everyone, everyone who needs it in the community.
Jim McIngvale, known as Mattress Mack in the Houston area, joins us now.
Jim, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for the work you're doing. You know, rather than complain about what should have been done to prevent this -- we see a lot of complaining on television and on social media -- you're doing something about it. So tell us the extent of this, how many centers you have open, how many people are you able to help?
JIM MCINGVALE, OWNER, GALLERY FURNITURE: Yes, Jim and Poppy. You know, there's no sense in pointing fingers, it is what it is when a bad situation (INAUDIBLE) with this winter ice and this freezing weather, and millions of Texans without power.
So opened up two of our furniture stores. We have these mega-hundred- thousand square foot furniture stores full of sofas, full of mattresses, full of recliners. And both of them have restaurants, those sort of things, all the human amenities that you need.
So we opened them up for people to come in out of the storm if their house was without power, without electricity, without lights. They (INAUDIBLE) --
SCIUTTO: Oh, goodness.
MCINGVALE: -- come here all night long. So we're here for the community. We believe that we all have a responsibility for the wellbeing of the community. And when times get tough, we try to open our doors and let Houstonians come in and regroup so they can go out there and hopefully go back today to their home with bright lights on.
SCIUTTO: Yes. Those two little kids in the bed there, I think, just about made my day as you were talking --
HARLOW: For sure they did, my kids would love that.
I mean, Jim, you know, sometimes when we think we see the worst of humanity, we see the best of humanity and that there are angels among us. And you're one of them, you're one of them right now.
You -- and this isn't the first time you've done this. You did this during Irma, you did this during Harvey. You know, why do you do it? What drives it?
MCINGVALE: Well, my parents always taught me that the essence of living is giving. And the Catholic church I went to taught me that to whom much has been given, much is expected. And let's face it, the customers of Texas have been great to us over the past 40 years. We started with $5,000 and now we're a fairly substantial business.
Our team members love giving back. My son James and his sisters, Laura and Elizabeth and Regina, they love giving back. My wife, Linda, is a giver. So we think that the essence of living is giving, and it's not our privilege to do this, it's not a right to do this, it's our obligation. This is what we were put on the earth to do, is help other people.
And when situations come up, that's when it's time for us to -- to spring into action and help people get a better view of the day. Because some of their lives right now are very, very dark.
SCIUTO: Yes. I'll tell you, 12 years of Catholic school, coming back to me as well, Jim, right there.
I wonder how people are reacting when you open those doors. We saw a lot of smiling faces. What do they tell you?
MCINGVALE: Yes, you know, they're happy to be here, they're thrilled to get inside, someplace where it's warm, and get something hot to eat and they can sit down for a while and relax, kind of regroup.
Obviously, they're not as traumatized as they were during Hurricane Harvey, when they had to wade here through four feet of dirty water, but they are extremely traumatized and two groups of people are the most traumatized.
We have lots of parents with young children, three and four, five children at a time, and lots of senior citizens. Obviously the two most vulnerable groups on polar ends of the spectrum, the children and the seniors. So we're here to help all the children, all the seniors and some precious moments as I walked through the store last night at 2:00, seeing the children huddled up in their parents' arms.
SCIUTTO: Well I'll tell you --
HARLOW: Yes.
SCIUTTO: -- in that kind of weather -- we've already seen it -- that sort of shelter can be the difference between life and death. So Mattress Mack, Jim McIngvale, thanks so much for what you're doing.
HARLOW: And, Jim -- Jim, I need to buy a new mattress for our house, I'm -- if I can order one from you, I'm going to order it to help your business. And if you ship to New York, I'm coming to you. Thank you for what you're doing.
MCINGVALE: Poppy, my cell phone's on the website. We ship to New York all the time.
HARLOW: Great, great, we'll do it. Thank you, Jim.
MCINGVALE: Thank you.
HARLOW: All right, bye.
[10:39:47]
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: Well this morning, community activists are sounding the alarm over an incredibly disturbing pattern of continuing hate crimes that are targeting Asian-Americans.
This is not new. This has been happening since the pandemic began, but it is now getting worse. We're talking about unprovoked recent attacks, especially on elderly Asian-Americans in the Bay Area, all caught on video.
SCIUTTO: Listen, and it's fed by lies and disinformation, so much of it out there including about the origins of COVID-19. CNN's Kyung Lah reports on this frightening string of violence. We will warn you, some of the video in this piece, it's upsetting.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE, RATANAPAKDEE FAMILY: Happy birthday, dear Grandpa --
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Turning 84 was a milestone for Vichar Ratanapakdee and his family.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- happy birthday, Grandpa.
[10:45:00]
LAH (voice-over): The San Francisco grandfather had just received the vaccine, and stayed healthy through the pandemic, walking for an hour in his neighborhood every morning. It was on his walk when an unprovoked attacker ran across the street.
LAH: How did you find out what happened to your father?
MONTHANUS RATANAPAKDEE, VICTIM'S DAUGHTER: The officer answered the phone, and then he told us, like, they found him, got assaulted. He got injury very bad about his brain, bleeding. And he never wake up again. I never see him again.
LAH (voice-over): A 19-year-old suspect is charged with murder and elder abuse, but Ratanapakdee's family calls it something else.
ERIC LAWSON, VICTIM'S SON-IN-LAW: This wasn't driven by economics, this was driven by hate.
LAH (voice-over): Ratanapakdee's death is part of a surge in reported attacks against Asian-Americans during the pandemic.
In Oakland, a man walked up behind a 91-year-old man and threw him to the ground, one of more than 20 assaults and robberies like this one in Oakland's Chinatown.
In Portland, more than a dozen Asian-owned businesses in recent weeks have been vandalized.
These incidents are not new. In New York, the MTA retweeted this video of what they called racism. This man sprayed Febreze at an Asian- American on the subway at the start of the pandemic, prompting an NYPD hate crime investigation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Asian piece of (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my god.
LAH (voice-over): A coalition has tracked more than 2,800 anti-Asian hate incidents between March and December of last year, like this one at a California restaurant. Before the election, this man invoked President Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump's going to (INAUDIBLE) you, you (INAUDIBLE), you (INAUDIBLE) need to leave.
LAH (voice-over): The then-president's words -- DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- China virus --
Kung flu --
LAH (voice-over): -- have lasting impacts, says Professor Russell Jeung, who tracked those 2,800 hate incidents through Stop AAPI Hate because no governmental agency would.
RUSSELL JEUNG, PROFESSOR, STOP AAPI HATE: Mainstream society doesn't believe that we face racism, and we needed to document what was happening.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we're just offering like our support to the community.
LAH (voice-over): Identify and change them, says this group of Bay Area volunteers, offering escorts for the elderly and offering a bridge to those who may not even know how to talk to the police.
DEREK KO, VOLUNTEER, COMPASSION IN OAKLAND: You want to take that rage and it's like, let's do something for -- what can I do? And this is what we're doing.
LAH (voice-over): Vichar Ratanapakdee's daughter spent the last year ignoring what people said to her.
M. RATANAPAKDEE: You bring the COVID, screaming, spin on us, but we just walk away.
LAH (voice-over): She won't do that anymore.
M. RATANAPAKDEE: He got to be proud about, we protect a lot of the another people in this city or the whole country.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAH: Now, the suspect in this case has been charged with murder and elder abuse, but not a hate crime, in part because it is so difficult to prove.
Now, activists add that because of that, and that you're dealing with an immigrant community -- in some cases, language barriers -- they actually believe, Jim and Poppy, that the numbers of hate crimes and incidents are far higher than what we are already tracking -- Jim, Poppy.
HARLOW: Wow, oh my gosh.
SCIUTTO: Such important reporting.
HARLOW: Kyung, I'm very glad, very, very glad you've been on this and continue to do it. Thank you very much.
[10:48:34] Well, North Korean hackers reportedly targeting one of the world's biggest vaccine makers in the middle of this pandemic. We're going to have details on that alleged cyber-attack, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCIUTTO: North Korean hackers are reportedly now setting their sights on Pfizer. A South Korean lawmaker says that hackers from North Korea stole technology related -- crucially -- to COVID-19 vaccines and treatments from the U.S. drug maker.
HARLOW: That's right. South Korea's spy agency is denying the report, but there are lawmakers that maintain that they were briefed. Will Ripley is following this story.
Good morning, Will. So Pfizer's not commenting. Do we definitely know that this happened?
WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know that North Korea -- and this is according to multiple reports -- has been looking for information about the COVID-19 vaccines, and have been accused of sending these kind of phishing e-mails to multiple biotech companies.
Sort of like -- there was one instance, back in November, that Reuters reported, North Korea denied, claiming that they were posing as World Health Organization employees. And in fact, this was an accusation also made by Microsoft, that multiple companies were targeted.
What the South Korean lawmaker is saying is that North Korea successfully hacked Pfizer, and actually stole data and technology related to COVID-19 vaccines and treatment.
Now, this is puzzling because North Korea officially claims that they don't have a single case of COVID-19, but this lawmaker says that he was in a classified briefing this week, and he was told that they're trying to get as much information as they can about vaccines. The question is why.
Well, one theory is, is they could be trying to make their own vaccine. But in order to do that, North Korea would need actual COVID patients, unless they were to spend huge money to outsource testing to other countries, which would violate international sanctions.
Other analysts are telling me that a likely possibility would be North Korea might try to sell this information to an interested party that might want to bypass research and try to develop their own vaccine.
[10:55:00]
But what is interesting as well is that there are these new images of Kim Jong Un and his wife, seen in public for the first time in a year, not wearing a mask, North Korea trying to project that they don't have a problem with the pandemic.
But I've been speaking with sources saying that there are checkpoints in the country, there are extraordinary measures being taken and a sense of nervousness that a country that had the pandemic outside of its borders certainly wouldn't have. And these hacks certainly seem to indicate that North Korea wants to know about how to deal with this pandemic.
HARLOW: Certainly. Will Ripley, thank you very much --
SCIUTTO: Yes.
HARLOW: -- please keep us posted as you learn more. We appreciate the reporting.
And thanks to all of you for being with us today, we'll see you tomorrow morning. I'm Poppy Harlow.
SCIUTTO: We will indeed. I'm Jim Sciutto. NEWSROOM with Kate Bolduan starts right after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:00:00]
