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Tough Climb to Keep Riot Defendants in Jail; Businesses Can Now Apply for PPP; Biden Faces Backlash over Reopening a Migrant Facility; Protests in Rochester After Grand Jury Verdict. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired February 24, 2021 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[09:33:51]
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Soon, a House subcommittee will hear testimony focusing on the extensive damage done during the violent January 6th insurrection at the Capitol.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: So far the price tag on that just for the physical damage is $30 million to fix the building and to increase security. This as the Justice Department faces a tough time keeping several of the suspected rioters in jail.
Whitney Wild is following all of this for us again this morning.
Good morning, Whitney.
What can you tell us on that front?
WHITNEY WILD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Justice Department is having a hard time convincing all judges that these rioters should stay behind bars. They're getting inconsistent results when they go to these judges and say, look, these people are really dangerous, they should stay behind bars. And it's becoming abundantly clear, because in some cases these judges are being reversed by other judges. So people who are allowed to go out, then they're told they have to stay behind bars.
And it's also becoming abundantly clear when you look at these conspiracy charges, even among the groups of people charged, there are inconsistencies on whether or not they're going to stay behind bars. And it's really a sign from the judiciary that there is no consistency in -- there's really no agreement about what kind of threat these rioters pose to the public as they move through their trials, Poppy and Jim.
[09:35:03]
SCIUTTO: So another result of this CNN survey of the 250 that have so far been charged with federal crimes is the percentage of current and former military service members. This is truly concerning and we know the Defense Department has issued a stand down order to investigate.
What have we learned?
WILD: Well, it's really troubling. There are 27 members of the -- around 250 people who have been charged. These are 27 current and former members of the military. And that represents about 11 percent of the total population of people charged in this riot. And that outpaces the fraction that they make up of the total American population. About 6 percent of Americans are either current or former members of the military. So, again, over represented in these court proceedings.
And then finally what's so troubling about it is when you consider their background, consider their training, that they make up such a large portion is what is really -- is what is really driving these headlines and driving great concern among both prosecutors and the American public, Jim.
SCIUTTO: Yes, many of them served overseas in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Vietnam.
WILD: Exactly.
SCIUTTO: God knows the military's taking it seriously.
Whitney Wild, thanks so much.
Well, the Biden administration is facing scrutiny after reopening a facility in Texas to house migrant children. I'm going to speak with an immigration lawyer next about what that means about the Biden administration approach, what real changes following the Trump administration approach. That's coming up.
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[09:40:55]
SCIUTTO: Starting today, small businesses, which have suffered really horrendously throughout the COVID pandemic, those with fewer than 20 employees, can start applying for new COVID relief.
HARLOW: Yes, it's a really significant day for so many small business owners who have desperately been waiting for this moment.
Christine Romans, our chief business correspondent, is with us now.
And what's different about this time around, Christine, is the little guys aren't going to get shut out because the government has basically banned anyone with bigger companies from applying for, I think, two weeks, right?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
ROMANS: Yes. There's this 14-day window for companies, small businesses that have fewer than 20 employees. And this is their chance to get a bite at this money for the next couple of weeks. The first thing they should do is go to the SBA website. And there's a lender tool there to help you find a lender that you -- that you can work with on this and collaborate with this. There's also a couple of loan applications there either for first draw or second draw PPP. A lot of jargon, I know, but for months now these small businesses have been trying to get these forgivable loans so they can pay their workers and they can stay in business. This is for fewer than 20 employees. That's key here. Remember in the beginning when you saw some of these quote/unquote small businesses that were really just small divisions or franchises of big, deep-pocketed businesses that received an awful lot of money. This is design for very small mom and pop and minority owned businesses so they can get a bite at the apple.
And there's some new eligibility rules that are really important for people to understand. If you are self-employed, you can now apply. A sole proprietor, you can now apply. Independent contractors. Before, some of these loans were contingent on how many -- they were calculated on how many employees you had. So now this is really for the very small operator. Now you got a chance here.
There's still more money left in the pot. This is all money back from December. The last round of stimulus. So there will be some time in March for bigger companies to go out there and try to get a little bit more of this money. But, right now, a two-week window only for the little guy.
HARLOW: And $143 billion for them. So, yes.
ROMANS: Yes. And, you know, and COVID relief, if this COVID relief package from the administration makes its way through --
HARLOW: Right.
ROMANS: There's another $25 billion in there for small business.
HARLOW: Yes. It's a lot.
ROMANS: So there could be more funding coming as well. And they need it. Oh, my gosh.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
HARLOW: Yes.
ROMANS: Specifically for bars and restaurants, that's what that $25 billion is for in the COVID plan.
HARLOW: Yes. OK. Thank you, Christine, very much.
ROMANS: You're welcome.
SCIUTTO: All right, immigration now and a blow to one of President Biden's first immigration actions. A federal judge in Texas is blocking indefinitely the enforcement of the administration's 100-day pause on deportations. At the same time, the administration is under fire for reopening a facility at the southern border to house migrant children. Why? Joining me now to talk about this, immigration attorney Linda Rivas.
She's the director of the Las Americas Immigration Advocacy Center.
Linda, thanks for joining us this morning.
LINDA RIVAS, IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY: Good morning. Thank you for having me.
SCIUTTO: So I've heard the administration's explanations for this. They say they need more space to space these children out due to the pandemic. But I wonder, in practice, this administration is still holding children at these migrant facilities here.
How different is their approach and practice from the Trump administration approach?
RIVAS: Yes, so, unfortunately, this is the reopening of a temporary facility. When we think of temporary facilities, we remember facilities such as Homestead and Dornio (ph). These are widely criticized facilities for lack of transparency, history of abuse. This is definitely concerning. Unfortunately, it has to balance with prolonged custody in CBP care, which has led to death of children. So there's no -- at this point, the solution has to be something different.
SCIUTTO: Your solution is to allow children to join their community in the U.S. while they await their cases to be heard, right? That's what you are advocating here. What's the administration's response to that? And how do you make sure that they show up for these proceedings?
RIVAS: Absolutely. Well, we first -- I mean we're talking about -- we're talking about children.
[09:45:02]
And so the best place they could be is reunited with their families as quickly and as safely as possible. Children, you know, in -- children in these temporary facilities, and this is another issue with them, they don't always have that immediate access to legal service providers. We definitely need them to have access to legal service providers. We need to move away from prolonged CBP protection and we also need to move away from anything that detains children. So we have to do this better. We have to do it with compassion and humanity in focus when we're talking about children.
SCIUTTO: There's evidence that the number of migrants coming across the border is increasing, partly a response to a rebounding U.S. economy, but also a response to a different administration, right? A sense that this administration will deal differently than the Trump administration.
How do you handle that, right? I mean if you're going to have more numbers, practically, how does the administration handle more children coming in and, therefore, more demand for space in these facilities?
RIVAS: So it's also important to put this into context with what's happening right now on our border. What's happening on our border is Title 42, which essentially eliminates any access to the asylum system for entire families. Under the Trump administration, these same children were actually being expelled from the country almost immediately.
SCIUTTO: Right.
RIVAS: We saw them, you know, during the summer being held in hotel rooms. Again, something deplorable, unacceptable. Children being expelled from the country. Now they are allowed to stay. But, again, the detention facility of children is just not enough.
We get phone calls from parents that we represent, who still are in Mexico, almost every day who are faced with impossible, horrific decisions that are really, out of sheer desperation, should I send my child to safety? You know, even as horrible as these conditions are, they are safer than the conditions that they find themselves back home or when they're forced to remain in Mexico, under this current administration, there is still people being held -- returned to Mexico immediately and not allowed to access the asylum system.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
RIVAS: So that asylum system needs to come back up. We need to rebuild this system better with humanity and dignity. I do believe it can be achieved and we need it -- we need the results to be sooner.
SCIUTTO: OK.
RIVAS: People cannot wait in these conditions any longer.
SCIUTTO: In general terms, is a child held today in any better conditions or with any better prospects than they were held six months ago under the Trump administration?
RIVAS: They are held now in an actual facility with a goal to reunite them. And while providing these basic necessities, I mean we need to demand more. We do need to recall that six months ago children were literally being expelled without a plan, without any sort of due process, access to attorneys, even sometimes without a phone call to their own family and expelled back to home country in a record amount of time.
So we're inching up. We're getting a little bit better. But, again, the -- it needs to happen sooner. We have to recall that we're working with extremely vulnerable populations and then children.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
Well, Linda Rivas, thanks so much for helping walk us through all this.
RIVAS: Thank you so much.
HARLOW: Such an important last question there especially. We'll keep an eye on it, we promise. Meantime, to this protest after a grand jury decides not to indict a group of police officers in the Rochester death of an unarmed black man, Daniel Perdue. We'll tell you what happened, next.
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[09:53:13]
HARLOW: Well, dozens of protesters marched through the streets of Rochester, New York, last night. This comes right after a grand jury decision not to indict the police officers in the death of Daniel Prude.
SCIUTTO: Yes. Yet another in a series.
Last March, Prude was having a mental health episode when video shows officers handcuffing him while he is naked on the ground, cover his head with a -- what's known as a spit hood and hold him down. He became unresponsive. He was taken to the hospital. He died a week later.
CNN's Athena Jones is covering this story, joins me now.
Athena, tell us the decision making here. Why did this not meet the standard for police misconduct?
ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Jim.
First, let's remind people what happened in this incident back in March. It is disturbing video. It is difficult to watch.
You see Daniel Prude there with a hood on his head, what police officers refer to as a spit sock, and a knee on his back. This video, when it was released in September, sparking protest and anger that continues to this day.
Now, we are -- we're told, according to Attorney General Letitia James that a judge is going to be releasing the minutes of this grand jury proceedings, something that usually happens behind closed doors. Attorney James has asked for that to be -- happen in the interest of transparency. We don't know when it's going to happen, but we should get more answers then.
Both I can tell you that, you know, both attorneys for the Prude family and the attorney general are expressing disappointment with this outcome. The seven officers remain suspended pending an internal investigation, but they're not going to be facing criminal charges. And that is what these attorneys and the people protesting in the streets of Rochester wanted to see.
And at issue here really is training. Attorneys for Prude's family say that this tragedy could have been avoided if these officers had been properly trained, had shown basic human decency and common sense and gotten Daniel Prude medical attention, which is what he needed on that night back in March.
[09:55:07]
They say they're going to continue to push -- advocate for the family in civil courts and push for federal police reform.
JONES: Now, Attorney General Letitia James is echoing the Prude's family attorney, saying that Daniel Prude was in the throes of a mental health crisis. He needed help from trained professionals. That is not what happened. She is pushing for reforms to use of force laws, says that the current deadly force laws utterly and abjectly failed Daniel Prude and many others before him.
Jim. Poppy.
SCIUTTO: Well, that poor family.
Athena Jones, thanks so much.
Still ahead, big news this morning, it's good news, Johnson & Johnson is now one step closer to distributing a single dose vaccine to combat the coronavirus. It will be three now in the U.S. with Pfizer and Moderna. How effective will it be? We'll have details next.
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HARLOW: Good morning.
