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Biden Signs PPP Extension; Biden's Infrastructure Plan; Georgia's Voting Law Prompts Boycotts; Three Men Charged in Kidnapping Plot to Stand Trial; WHO Releases Report; NYPD Searches for Hate Crime Suspect. Aired 9:30-10a ET.

Aired March 30, 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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[09:32:25]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: It's a big week for President Biden as he pushes forward with his plans, big plans, for economic relief. Later today he is expected to sign a law extending the Paycheck Protection Program. That provides aid to small businesses hit hard by the pandemic. It was set to expire tomorrow without his signature.

Christine Romans joins us now with details.

And, Christine, the PPP program had a lot of success, but it didn't work perfectly. I wonder now, as it's being extended, do they feel they're able to correct some of those problems?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're just trying to get people more time. You know, it takes so long. You have these applications that are pending and people trying to get a hold of these loans. I'm told there are about 190,000 loan applications pending right now. So this gives those -- tens of thousands of businesses more time to get into this program.

So it extends the program until May 31st and gives, Jim, the SBA another 30 days after that to process these pending applications. The president is expected to sign this, this afternoon, Jim.

SCIUTTO: OK, the president's not done.

ROMANS: Not at all.

SCIUTTO: Tomorrow he's going to be in Pittsburgh to pitch just the first part of his sweeping jobs and infrastructure plan. I mean this is big, but there's also a tax rise in here for both corporations and wealthy individuals.

Tell us -- tell us what the numbers look like on both sides of the ledger.

ROMANS: Sure. OK, so this is a big potentially transformative to the economy package

the president is proposing here. Let's start with the infrastructure part of it first. This is roads, bridges. It's railways. It's clean energy, which could be a problem for some Republicans. It's also a focus on domestic manufacturing. Really upgrading the backbone of the American economy to compete better and put millions of people to work.

The second part of this is working families. It's the infrastructure that is the human infrastructure of the American economy with big, big, bold plans there. That's the second part that's going to be unveiled in April.

The tax part, you're right, the White House is considering raising taxes on corporations, on rich people, closing some loopholes. So some tax rises that Republicans will say, oh, no, no, no, they never will just keep it at -- at the rich and companies. Everyone will pay for this. But the White House is saying they want to focus this very clearly on companies, closing loopholes, and, if they have to, on very rich families.

SCIUTTO: Well, they're trying to head off criticism of adding too much to the deficits.

ROMANS: That's right, paying for it. Paying for it, right.

SCIUTTO: It will be interesting how -- how Republicans, yes, respond to that.

Well, Christine Romans, thanks so much.

ROMANS: Busy week.

SCIUTTO: This morning there is new criticism, as well as new legal challenges, to Georgia's Republican-backed election law. Several civil and voting rights groups have filed a second lawsuit now claiming the law discriminates in particular against black voters and other voters of color.

[09:35:03]

And there are fresh calls to boycott some of the state's largest businesses, including Coca-Cola.

Dianne Gallagher joins us now with the latest developments.

I mean this may have significant economic impact in Georgia, won't it?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's possible, Jim.

And, look, these lawsuits are something that were expected. There was even discussed on the floor when they were debating the bills before it became law, on the fact that it's likely there are going to be lawsuits.

And, in fact, one of those lawsuits filed on behalf of three different voting rights organizations by the Democrats go to election attorney Mark Elias (ph) was filed the day that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed it into law. The other one filed late Sunday night. The Georgia NAACP, as well as a handful of other organizations.

And, look, this pair of federal lawsuits basically argue that the Georgia law is unconstitutional and violates the Voting Rights Act. Talking about some of the components of this legislation, like requiring ID for absentee voting, putting different kinds of restrictions on drop boxes, getting rid of mobile voting which is used at this point only in Fulton County, and making it so someone cannot go and give food or water to a person who is waiting in line to vote. They argue that it will disproportionately affect black voters.

Now, that's sort of been the argument all along when they were trying to protest the bill before it became law. And that is what was -- this -- this pressure that was being put on many of these Georgia-based corporations, like Coca-Cola, like Home Depot, like UPS. And so this letter from the children of civil rights leaders, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s children, Reverend C.T. Vivian's children and the late Congressman John Lewis' son said basically to these corporations, we thought that you should have done more.

I want to read you just a quick excerpt from it. It said, rather than sowing seeds to provide democracy, the greatest chance to grow today and prevail tomorrow, legislators are attempting to transport us back to the shameful period of American history when mass voter suppression for communities of color was the law of the land.

Jim, some of these corporations said that they had been speaking with lawmakers and that they felt like the bill that was signed into law was much better than what those original proposals were and they felt like that was, you know, in some cases because of the outcry before it was signed.

SCIUTTO: OK. Another moment that got a lot of attention, this is a Georgia State Patrol officer. And if you haven't seen this video, folks, you do want to see it. He was seen in a video arresting a Democratic state representative, Park Cannon, last week. Here's the moment. She was knocking on the door there. Quickly arrested. His explanation now is he was concerned about a January 6th-like insurrection.

What can you tell us?

GALLAGHER: Yes. Yes. So in this basically narrative from one of those officers, he said that, I felt like if I did not take action, the other protesters would have been emboldened to commit similar acts, and the events of January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol, were in the back of my mind. I didn't want the protesters to attempt to gain entry to a secure part of the capitol.

It was believed that he's talking, of course, about that room where the governor was signing SB-202, that voting law into law, the door where the representative was knocking on. In the video she does appear to be alone there. But I can tell you, there were other protesters in the rotunda area of the capitol. But, you know, obviously, it does appear to be a bit of a different situation, but that is what the officer said was in the back of his mind when he made that decision.

SCIUTTO: Yes, they were not assaulting police officers like we saw on January 6th.

Dianne Gallagher, thank so much for covering all of it.

Well, a district court judge has ruled on Monday this week that three Michigan men will stand trial in a plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer. All three face charges that they provided material support for terrorist acts, felony firearm charges and gang membership charges.

CNN's Whitney Wild has been covering.

And, Whitney, this may seem like a long time ago, but this was a truly alarming plot. I mean they had terror training videos for this, right, leading up to it.

So tell us about these charges they're facing now and what happens next.

WHITNEY WILD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this really represented a monumental case in this effort to try to really tamp down on what is domestic violence extremism.

So here's what we know about this case.

The plot here was to storm the state capitol in Lansing and kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. This plot was foiled before they were able to affect any harm. But now they re one of 13 people charged -- or they're among 13 people charged in this case.

We know that they are, again, facing firearms charges.

[09:40:02]

They are facing charges for providing material support for terrorists acts. And then, finally, they are also facing charges for gang membership for their alleged membership in this extremist group called the Wolverine Watchmen.

Again, this was a monumental case. It was -- it preceded January 6th. It factored into this wider conversation about domestic violent extremism in the United States. Already we know one person among those 13 has pleaded guilty, Jim.

SCIUTTO: And we should note the Justice Department says domestic terror groups, particularly white supremacist groups, are now this country's greatest terrorism threat. It's an amazing new reality.

Whitney Wild, thanks very much.

Well, the World Health Organization has released the long-awaited report on the origins of the coronavirus. We're going to have more on what it says and questions about what it says just ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:45:12]

SCIUTTO: The World Health Organization has just released its final report on its investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. And in just minutes they will give a briefing on the findings which say, in their view, is extremely unlikely COVID-19 leaked from a laboratory, a government-run laboratory, in Wuhan.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is in London. He's been following this.

So, Nick, it paints the lab leak story as very unlikely, but it gives a number of other possible scenarios for how this virus started. Walk us through those scenarios.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yes, importantly, it says, like we frankly expected given how nature and science works when tracing down the beginnings of epidemics, they don't really know yet.

But as we've known for quite some time, particularly when you listen to Trump-era officials talk about the lab leak theory, there's been no evidence behind that. And this report goes as far as to say that, in fact, people working at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were tested and tested negative. Yes, that was done by China, so it has that caveat.

But, like most scientists, they focus on the most likely way this got into humans, and that is it came from this reservoir, which is known where it originated, it seems, in bats through what's called an intermediary animal, which may be a mink or a cat. People have said pangolins in the past. But in that animal, that animal was possibly traded or moved in the wildlife trade, got into contact with humans and then it got into humans.

Now, this report is also, I have to say, it's quite detailed. Yes, it was done with Chinese official assistance and with other information that China supplied, but it's got a lot of information in there which China may not have wanted that widespread, particularly when it comes to wider influenza-like illness outbreaks in December of 2019. That could be unrelated to the disease of coronavirus entirely or it could be the emergence we didn't see and also too when it comes to lots of different variations genetically of the virus that were around in that December before. So quite a lot in there.

SCIUTTO: Nick, there are concerns, and not confined to the former Trump administration, about Chinese government influence on this report and the investigation. I mean do we know how much autonomy the WHO team actually had as it was trying to figure out the origins of this?

WALSH: Yes, not very much. I mean let's be absolutely clear about this.

SCIUTTO: Yes. WALSH: Yes, they were there a year later because China seemed to slow roll their entry. Yes, they worked with parallel Chinese officials, working with them, when the work they did, they worked often with data supplied by China, and they clearly did want to know other things.

One of the recommendations, they want to get into a blood bank in Wuhan that goes back years, which may well provide exact traces as to how and when this began. Startling when we learned that news weeks ago that that hadn't already been done transparently by China. That's the big issue here, really, is how much knowledge has China got that it hasn't shared with the WHO panel.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

WALSH: But in their defense, with what they've been allowed to see, this is a substantial piece of work that will ask a lot more questions and contains a lot more detail than certain naysayers were suggesting might be the case.

I have to confess, I was quite impressed with the amount of stuff, frankly, that was in it.

Jim.

SCIUTTO: All right, Nick Paton Walsh, good to have you on it. Thanks very much.

Coming up next, the NYPD is now asking for the public's help in identifying an individual wanted in connection with what they say is a hate crime against a 65-year-old Asian-American woman. This is yet one more, a new attack. We're going to have the latest on this, next.

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[09:52:59]

SCIUTTO: This morning, the New York Police Department is asking for the public's help in identifying an individual wanted in connection with what they are now calling a hate crime. And the target, a 65- year-old Asian-American woman. It's just the latest in several acts of violence against Asian-Americans in this country.

Brynn Gingras has been joining me now.

Brynn, take us through this video here because some of the details just truly alarming.

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, Jim, the police commissioner here calling this disgusting. And it really is. I want to show you this video. But first I want to tell you that it is graphic. So I'll warn you there.

But it's coming from the vantage point of an apartment complex here in midtown Manhattan and it's showing the street where this attack happened according to police. You can see a person come up to what police say is a 65-year-old Asian-American woman and kick her to the ground and then continue to stomp on her head. Police say that person also said to the effect, you don't belong here, before walking off.

Now, police have released a picture hoping that the public will be able to help identify this person in connection with this attack. Also, though, Jim, which is equally somewhat disturbing is you can see from inside that apartment complex, there are a number of people just watching this happen and really not doing anything about it.

Well, the apartment complex is owned by a company here who released a statement saying that those staff members have been suspended while an investigation is ongoing with their union, but they won't tolerate this sort of behavior from their employees.

But, as you said, there has been a number of attacks, not only just in New York City, but across the country. But we've certainly been seeing more and more here in New York City. Just one happened over the weekend as well. According to police, a 37-year-old woman was slapped across the face in the subway system and said, again to the effect, you don't belong here, go back to your country.

So police, obviously, as you can imagine, taking this very seriously.

[09:55:00]

They deployed a number of undercover Asian-American police officers to try to curb this violence in addition to just boosting patrols in the subway systems, in Asian-American communities here in New York City. But this, obviously, becoming more and more priority and more and more disturbing as we see these kind of incidents play out.

SCIUTTO: Goodness, he kicks her in the head. That is truly disturbing.

GINGRAS: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Brynn Gingras, we know you'll bring us anything more they find. Thank you.

Well, day two of the murder trial against Derek Chauvin is set to begin in the next hour. Could testimony from key witnesses convict Chauvin in the death of George Floyd? We're going to bring you all the updates live, next.

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SCIUTTO: A very good Tuesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

He saw the final moments of George Floyd's life.

[10:00:03]

His final breaths. And says he witnessed a man going through torture.