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Judge Merrick Garland Faces Senate Questions at Confirmation Hearing; Dr. Fauci Says U.S. COVID Response Worse Than Most Any Other Country; United Airlines Grounds Boeing 777 Jets with Pratt and Whitney Engine; United Airlines Grounds Boeing 777 Jets with Pratt and Whitney Engine; Millions Still Without Safe Drinking Water After Winter Storms; Axios: Trump to Send Message to GOP He is Presumptive 2024 Nominee. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired February 22, 2021 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:09]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Very good, busy, news-filled Monday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Poppy Harlow. We're so glad you're with us.

Moments from now the confirmation for President Biden's nominee for attorney general, Merrick Garland. That will begin very soon. The long-time federal judge denied, you'll remember, a Supreme Court hearing while he was President Obama's pick for the Supreme Court. But it's different today. Garland says he plans to tell senators, if confirmed, he will take politics out of the Department of Justice and go after those involved in the deadly insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.

Here is a part of his opening statement. You'll hear him say this, quote, "If confirmed, I will supervise the prosecution of white supremacists and others who stormed the Capitol on January 6th, a heinous attack that's sought to disrupt a cornerstone of our democracy, the peaceful transfer of powerful to a newly elected government."

SCIUTTO: And the DOJ would have a role there. Also today, President Biden will deliver remarks ahead of a candle-lighting ceremony planned to mark the moment of the passing of 500,000, half a million American COVID-19 deaths. It's amazing to reach this point. A tragic number. Though, we should note as well, signs of hope are emerging. New cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all trending down significantly. That's good news.

And after extreme weather caused millions of vaccinations to be delayed, Dr. Fauci says we'll be caught up, and this is pretty fast, by the middle of this week.

A lot to get to. Let's begin, though, on Capitol Hill with CNN's Evan Perez on the Senate hearing about to begin in minutes.

Evan, interesting history with Merrick Garland, of course, but tell us, is he likely to get Republican -- Democratic and Republican support?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, that's an interesting thing. We do expect that he is going to get some Republican support, which underscores the whole situation with which he was waiting for five years for a Senate hearing. The Republicans have obviously refused to even give him a hearing, most of them even refused to meet with him when President Obama nominated him for Supreme Court seat in 2016.

And so here we are today. We expect that he's going to emphasize not only his effort to go after the January 6th insurrectionists, but also to try to restore the order, regular order here at the Justice Department. That's something you're going to hear from Dick Durbin, the chairman of this committee.

Just the fact that we're having this hearing now, Jim, this is about 30 years since the last time the Justice Department has had to wait until March for an incoming attorney general, that usually is a priority for the Senate. Not this year because Republicans refused to do this hearing earlier than today.

One of the things we're going to hear Republicans, of course, ask about is whether Merrick Garland plans to stay hands off on some important investigations, including, of course, the Trump Russia investigation review that's still ongoing from John Durham, the Hunter Biden tax investigation which is being handled by the U.S. attorney in Delaware, and of course this new controversy involving Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York.

This is a man, Merrick Garland, who has a long history here at the Justice Department. He oversaw the 1995 investigation of the Oklahoma City bombing. He's a Harvard Law graduate, has served on the D.C. Circuit since 1997. So there is a long history not only here at the Justice Department for him, but obviously as a judge -- Jim and Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes. There is a lot and there are going to be many important questions on all those fronts.

Evan, thanks very, very much.

Let's turn now to the pandemic as we near this staggering tragic number of 500,000 American deaths from COVID, Dr. Fauci says the U.S. response to COVID-19 has been, in his word, and this is a quote, "worse than almost any other country."

SCIUTTO: Goodness. Disappointing to say the least and just gutting for so many families, half a million families. Fauci says a unified approach would have been key and he's now hoping for unity when it comes to everyone getting a vaccine.

Ryan Young is at a mass vaccination location in Atlanta, where people are lining up. Good morning, Ryan. Delays last week as a result of those big storms

where you are, are you seeing things beginning to pick up again?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. We're seeing a massive amount of people show up early for this, Jim, Poppy. Look, I remember being on TV with you guys a year ago and if you think about all the families that we've met along the way over this last year, so many people impacted, their lives haven't changed because, you know, think about all the loved ones they've lost, it really stand out to you.

And now you see somewhat of a turning of the corner when it comes to people feeling hope about these mass vaccination sites.

[09:05:03]

I got to show you this one because we're actually at the Delta Museum. And this is one of the large mass vaccination sites. You can see the tail of this airplane that's here. But behind it, look at the massive numbers of cars that have shown up here. They believe they can do more than 1,000 shots here and this is the first day. When we first arrived here, there were cars already down the street that wanted to come here.

Now one of the things about this mass vaccination site, they're looking to make sure they get to minority communities, the underserved populations. We know for a fact that a lot of those communities have been devastated by this, and this is one of those sites that have been set up to hopefully address some of those needs better. Four sites across this state, we are told. So far Georgia has given over a million shots.

But when you think about the impact here, when you talk to the healthcare workers who are in this state, they have been frustrated by the idea they wish they had more shots. Well, now you're seeing these mass vaccination sites open up today across the state. And I can tell you, the line at one point was down the road here. You think about this massive airport complex and Delta really putting the site online.

You can see how it's been received so far. This is part of that turning point that so many people hope that will be a good sign for this pandemic in the future, especially after all the devastation that we've all had to witness over the last year.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: For sure, and I am sure anecdotally I start to hear friends and family, more people getting access to this, and they're relieved.

Ryan Young, thanks so much.

HARLOW: Thank you, Ryan. If you look at the latest COVID numbers, right now the U.S. is overall trending in a good direction. Look at that green, Jim. I'm so used to looking at red maps. And this is very encouraging. Cases are down. Vaccinations are rising. But experts agree these next few months are critical. Listen to Dr. Fauci just this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, BIDEN'S CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER ON CORONAVIRUS: Rather than even think about declaring victory and saying, well, we have herd immunity, we're in good shape, we've got to keep pushing and pushing because this thing could bounce back with the variants very, very quickly. We cannot declare victory because that curve is coming down so sharply.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Let's bring in Dr. Arabia Mollette, emergency physician at Brookdale University Medical Center in Brooklyn.

Good morning, Doctor. Thanks for joining us.

DR. ARABIA MOLLETTE, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN, BROOKDALE UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL MEDICAL CENTER: Thank you for having me today.

HARLOW: I wonder what it's like for you now looking at these numbers and looking at where we are overall as a country. We're not letting our guard down, to where we were when we first had you on this show. And it was like a war zone in your hospital.

MOLLETTE: Correct. I'm still cautiously optimistic. As we know that there has been at least 500,000 deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States, which is pretty alarming. And we also are facing these new variants. There are concerns -- for me, there is a huge concern about the variants because again we are not sure that this will be contagious or at least partly evade the protection provided by the vaccine, so for me, that's what my major concern is, and plus the vaccine rollout.

HARLOW: And there is big concern about equity in the vaccine rollout. You've spoken a lot about your persistent concern in terms of access for black and brown people in particular. You've got sort of five bullet points, five steps that you want people who can actually really affect change on that front to think about. What are they?

MOLLETTE: Right, so as we know that black Americans, indigenous and Pacific Islander Americans have had the highest rates of death of the COVID-19. And so these communities must be explicitly prioritized to get the vaccine. There are many members in these communities that don't having access to Wi-Fi or have health literacy. And so the CDC and Health and Human Services Department must use race and ethnicity to delineate vaccine priority groups.

Second, the vaccine distribution shouldn't only be handled by large healthcare systems and chain pharmacies because they are less prevalent in these communities. And so we're missing a lot of people in these communities that don't having access to these primary facilities. There is still lack of internet access. There's still concern about digital literacy.

The third thing is that why aren't we using community center schools, mobile units managed by community-based organizations as well as faith-based organizations to be utilized as accessible and trusted point of access to the vaccine so that people that are residing in these communities are prioritized to get the vaccine.

Also, there is no national healthcare campaign that currently right now that are addressing the concerns of people who have concerns of the vaccine, especially in the black community where there's already a huge mistrust of the medical community, and so that is really important that we need to provide basic science health education to those who may not have high literacy level.

[09:10:10]

And last but not least, let's be real about this. We talk about community, we need to train our community leaders, such as barbers, hairstylists, religious leaders and community activists. Why not provide training for them to be healthcare advocates, so they can also help spread the message, provide education to our beloved communities. Also help them get appointments, vaccine appointments, as well as help them to understand digital literacy.

HARLOW: Yes.

MOLLETTE: Those are the points that we really need to focus on in the terms of us having a successful vaccine rollout.

HARLOW: So helpful, all of them. I wonder what you think about the debate now over potentially giving one dose of the Pfizer vaccine to more people and then delaying the second dose six to 12 weeks as we're seeing in the U.K. because of this study that said one dose is 85 percent effective. Not full protection but a pretty high number.

We had Dr. Zeke Emanuel on the show Friday. Of course he served as an adviser to the Obama White House on this front. And he said postponing the second dose to 12 weeks would improve the equity of vaccine distribution. He thinks it would really attack the issue you're talking so much about, which is the lack of equitable distribution. Dr. Fauci, though, told my colleague Dana Bash yesterday, he does not support doing that. What do you think?

MOLLETTE: I don't support doing that either. As mentioned before by the five points that I've mentioned that we're having an issue with the vaccine rollout so why delay it more? I mean, that's the U.K., that's the U.K. way of doing things. But here we're the United States of America, and we already have issues with health equity and systemic racism in medicine. And so again people are going to be left behind.

Why not give vaccines to the communities that were hit hardest by COVID-19? Why are we delaying this? People are dying in this country. People want to get back to work. People want to get back to their lives, whichever their normalcy is, everybody's definition of normalcy is pretty different. But still why should we delay this when we already had an issue from last year with the response to how the pandemic was handled?

HARLOW: So don't delay the second shot, that's your message? MOLLETTE: I would not delay the second shot. And I'm a person that got

my shot. But my mother who has a high risk, she has, you know, different sickness, well, illnesses that she's battling and she has yet been able to get an appointment for the vaccine.

HARLOW: Dr. Mollette, thank you. We'll have you back soon.

MOLLETTE: Thank you.

HARLOW: Well tonight, CNN is honoring the lives lost in the COVID pandemic. We remember 500,000. A national memorial service for COVID- 19. That's at 11:00 p.m. Eastern tonight.

SCIUTTO: Yes, a moment to remember.

For more now on the frightening mid-air engine failure, if you haven't seen these pictures, look at this, shot from inside the plane. Imagine being there seeing this. This was United Flight 328. It sent debris crashing down in and around Denver. Lucky no one was hurt.

United, along with airlines in South Korea and Japan, have now grounded Boeing 777s with the Pratt and Whitney 4000 engine like this one here that suffered this catastrophic failure. This after Boeing recommended they temporarily stop flying those jets.

HARLOW: Let's go to our colleague Dan Simon. He joins us at Denver International Airport, of course which is where that flight took off from.

I mean, seeing those images, Dan, on Twitter this weekend sitting in people's yards, nearly missing the house, it's amazing the crew was able to get that plane down safely. What do we know on the investigation? What has led Boeing to actually say no 777 with this kind of engine should fly right now?

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hi, Poppy and Jim. Regulators really have two primary goals at this point to figure out exactly what happened here and to prevent anything like this from happening in the future. And it's already been a couple of days, only been a couple of days and they already have a preliminary finding, the NTSB. And what they believe happened is that a fan blade fractured and that created another fan blade to fracture.

And we have a full screen, just kind of want to go over in terms of what they found. The inlet and the cowling separated from the engine. And you've seen some of those images where that giant metal in the front yard -- somebody's front yard. Two fan blades again were fractured, one fan blade was fractured near the root. An adjacent fan blade was fractured about mid-span. A portion of one blade was imbedded in the containment ring. And the remainder of the blades have, you know, some kind of damage to the tips.

Now what investigators, of course, are going to want to determine is how this happened. Was this some type of manufacturing defect? Was this from wear and tear? But in terms of trying to prevent this, we know that the FAA is saying that all 777s that have this type of engine, this type of Pratt and Whitney 4000 series engine, there really needs to be stepped-up inspections.

[09:15:00]

And United Airlines, the only domestic carrier that has that particular configuration, they have voluntarily grounded all 24 of their 777s in service. So, they're going to obviously look to see if there are any sort of defects. It's unclear exactly when those planes will be back up in the sky. Poppy, Jim?

HARLOW: Thank goodness everyone is all right.

SCIUTTO: Yes --

HARLOW: Amazing piloting, Dan, thank you. Still to come, water service is still out for so many people in Texas. You're talking about 9 million people still impacted there after this deadly weather across the state last week. We'll have a live report ahead.

SCIUTTO: And so many people still suffering. Plus this morning, "Axios" is reporting that President Trump will say to Republicans at the CPAC meeting later this month that he is the party's presumptive 2024 nominee. What does that actually mean? What impact will it have on the GOP? And just moments ago, President Biden's nominee for Attorney General Merrick Garland arrived on Capitol Hill where he will face what he wasn't able to get when he was the Supreme Court nominee, that is a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, confirmation hearings, we're going to bring those to you live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:00]

HARLOW: So, there are nearly 9 million people still this morning across the state of Texas dealing with either no water or water disruptions. This is, of course, a result still of the deadly Winter storm that ripped through that state.

SCIUTTO: Yes, a lot of people still suffering there. People with families, in just over a week, there have been at least 56 Winter- related deaths now in several states, more than half of those deaths in Texas. CNN's Natasha Chen is in Houston this morning. Natasha, so what's the plan to get these families clean water? I mean, this has been a number of days now.

NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It has been, and people are getting really emotional when they come to mass bottled water distribution sites. There have been many of those throughout the week, and we're at one again today here at Bethels Heavenly Hands Church here in Houston, and we're with James Lee, Pastor James Lee of this church. Can you tell us a little bit about what you're planning today, what you're giving out, how many people you're expecting?

JAMES LEE, REVEREND MINISTER: We're expecting probably around a 1,000 people, 1,500 folks, and we are doing a disaster food distribution and also water distribution. We at Bethels Heavenly Hands, we are a subsidiary of Bethels Family Baptist Church, I'm an associate pastor, Pastor Walter August is our senior pastor, and we're here in conjunction with the Houston Food Bank and Congressman Al Green, also Senate Point Energy has donated the water that we have here. So, it's just Houston coming together to serve these 1,500 folks that have a need.

CHEN: Yes, and I'm hearing so many stories from people who have busted pipes at home, there's no running water. What are some of the things you're observing? What are people telling you that they need?

LEE: Well, right now, what they're needing is some who are needing plumbers right now. But, of course, the food that we're giving and the water that we're giving, we're just kind of helping to fill the gap until we get back to some sense of normalcy.

The water is back on. The power has been restored but there's going to be some long-term effects, and that's why we're here. We're here to make sure that we cover them over the long term. Because we know for the next couple of days, there are going to be a lot of help, and there will be influx of help, but we have to make sure that we continue this on through next week and maybe even next month depending on how long they have to suffer or go through.

CHEN: Right, and you talked about the plumbers. There's actually a shortage of plumbers and shortage of supplies. So, this recovery, the repairs may take longer, and it's a really good point. I know that you've been doing this for more than a decade, well over a decade. How does this effort compare to what you did for people during Harvey?

LEE: The number of people of course is not -- we're affected because the entire city isn't completely shut down. But we're going to have to ramp up our operation at least for the next couple of weeks, whereas Harvey, we had to do it for a month. But the impact, the immediate impact is about the same if not a little bit greater.

CHEN: Yes, and of course, we're in a pandemic so things are different --

LEE: Yes --

CHEN: In terms of operations. Tell me about that.

LEE: Yes, now and during the beginning of the pandemic, whenever there is a crisis here in the city, especially on the southwest side of the city, we're not zip code restricted, but this is where we're located. So now, whenever there is a crisis, our numbers increase and the demand increases, so therefore, we have to increase how many times we distribute. We normally distribute mass distributions once a week, and then we do our daily distributions, but now we're going to increase our distributions to three days a week until we can see some respite for our community.

CHEN: Thank you so much, Pastor James Lee. And of course, things are slightly improving, a lot of boil water notices including the one in Houston lifted over the weekend. But again, a lot of people still waiting for plumbers to get those pipes fixed. And in the meantime, not getting running water. Poppy and Jim?

SCIUTTO: Well, it's good to see people like the Pastor rising to the occasion there. Natasha Chen, thanks so much. For more, not only on the fallout from the crisis in Texas, but a number of national security issues facing the country now, including domestic terrorism. I'm joined now by Republican Congressman Mike McCaul of Texas, he's on the Homeland Security Committee and the ranking member on the Foreign Affairs Committee. Congressman, thanks so much for talking the time this morning.

REP. MIKE MCCAUL (R-TX): Well, thanks for having me, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Lots to discuss this morning. I do want to ask you first about Texas. Your former Texas fellow Republican, Congressman Will Hurd said on Sunday that this was a preventable catastrophe and that lack of leadership and lack of long-term planning was a factor. I just wonder from your seat, did the state's leadership fail the people of Texas?

[09:25:00]

MCCAUL: I believe the state and federal to some extent. I was on a "STATE OF THE UNION" yesterday talking about a 2011 federal report talking about this very issue. They had a very hard Winter storm back then. They talked about how we could winterize our energy operations back then. It's not that Texas doesn't have energy.

It does. We're known as the Energy Capital. The problem, we're not used to already -- temperatures like that, that literally froze the state, and the ability of the state to push out the energy to the homes. And that was the major problem, I think it's going to be addressed.

SCIUTTO: Understood. OK. I want to talk about the domestic terrorism because both the Senate and the house, they're going to begin hearings this week on the Capitol attack. And you also have Merrick Garland in his opening statement, first confirmation hearing today, he's going to cite domestic terrorism as a real challenge to this country.

And to your credit, you've been on top of this, you're proposing legislation to treat a very similarly international terrorism. I just wonder, though, because there are Republican lawmakers, Ron Johnson who are still questioning the seriousness of the attack. He was even saying, and I don't even know if I would call this an armed attack. Can both parties effectively respond to this without an agreed upon set of facts about January 6th and other events?

MCCAUL: Well, I think what we can agree on, Jim, is the definition as put forward by Congress in the USA Patriot Act in 2001. At that time, they defined international terrorism and enlisted the organizations that would fall under that umbrella, like al Qaeda. I think we were very worried after 9/11, more about al Qaeda than say domestic terrorism. But they --

SCIUTTO: Yes -- MCCAUL: Did put -- Congress did put a definition of domestic

terrorism in the USA Patriot Act. So going off that definition that we can all agree on, which basically says dangerous acts intended to influence the policy of the government or intimidation to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, I can't think of an event that fits that definition more squarely than what happened on January 6th.

So, I don't know how a member of Congress could argue that somehow doesn't fit within the definition. I believe that it does, and on all my bill simply does is it adds charges and it adds penalty provisions similar to the International Terrorism Bill in it. I worked very closely with the FBI on this, I want to do this right. And I went to the ACLU --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

MCCAUL: To make sure civil liberties -- because I'm just talking about people under the constitution, not in some far off land in Afghanistan or Pakistan or Iraq. And so --

SCIUTTO: Right --

MCCAUL: We -- I think this is a bill that has a very good chance after January 6th of passing.

SCIUTTO: OK, listen, I hear you on the definition, and you're right, the FBI has been consistent on this for years about the degree of the threat. But you know how politics affects everything in this country right now. And even right up to the president who as the attack was happening on January 6th was talking about how he loves these people. I just wonder without leadership on this, from the very top, including the former president, can the country actually address the threat?

MCCAUL: Well, I -- that is not the Republican Party I know. I believe they were domestic terrorists that we did condemn, QAnon on the house floor, along with far left and far right extremist groups. I think that's where America is going now. And I think it's important to note that the FBI -- even when I worked counterterrorism cases back in the day, would open some cases as domestic terrorism cases. They just simply can't charge them as --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

MCCAUL: Domestic terrorism, and we think it's another tool in the toolbox they can use moving forward to add additional charges on to an indictment. But it also sends a very strong statement that we're not going to put up with domestic terrorism any more --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

MCCAUL: In the United States of America. And when I chaired Homeland Security, Bennie Thompson and I had many discussions about this. Now, I'm glad to see we finally have a bill that can go forward in the Congress. SCIUTTO: I want to talk to you about Iran. This is an issue that you

have been very vocal on. President Biden as you know has signaled his willingness to restart talks with Iran. And just moments ago, Anthony Blinken; the Secretary of State said that what the administration's intention is here is to lengthen and strengthen the old Iran nuclear deal. Now, you've called for exactly that, right? As a strengthening of the agreement and stretching out the time that it would have effect. If the administration were able -- were able to do that, would you support re-entering the deal?

MCCAUL: Well, my conditions are always -- we had to have intercontinental ballistic missiles to the agreement, and also added inspections anytime, anywhere, including military sites. We know that that's where they're doing most of their work today. We also know that probably two-to-six months out now from becoming nuclear power, which is unacceptable for both Democrats and Republicans on the Hill.