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Long COVID; Interview With State Sen. Jay Costa (D-PA); Capitol Police Prepare For Right-Wing Rally. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired September 16, 2021 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:02]

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's no proof of that yet -- back to you both.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Oh, Martin, you're so right. It just gets twistier and twistier.

Thank you for the reporting.

It's the top of the hour. I'm Alisyn Camerota.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: I'm Victor Blackwell. Good to be with you.

In just two days, there will be a rally of the right-wing at the U.S. Capitol. And Capitol Police are now asking the Pentagon for support from the National Guard. And that temporary fencing that was up for so long after the insurrection, it's up again.

CAMEROTA: So, the organizers of this Justice for January 6, as they call it, rally, they say that it's being held to support the rioters who were charged in the deadly January 6 Capitol attacks.

Former President Trump has just issued a statement of support for them. Congress will be in recess this Saturday, so not as many, obviously, lawmakers will be in the area.

CNN law enforcement correspondent Whitney Wild and CNN Capitol Hill reporter Melanie Zanona joins us now.

Whitney, what have you learned about the precautions that they're taking for Saturday?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's a list of precautions.

And the fact that lawmakers are not in Washington is helpful in mitigating some of this risk. But make no mistake. Police are taking no chances here. The fence, as you mentioned, is back up. There are security cameras outside the Capitol Complex grounds to help law enforcement keep better track of what's going on, on the ground, something that just seemed to fail catastrophically on January 6.

We also know, Alisyn and Victor, that there are a list of law enforcement agencies who have been asked to assist. We know that, for example, a neighboring county, Arlington County police, has told CNN they plan to help Capitol Police as much as is needed.

The FBI, the Washington field office there says that they are also within their authority involved in this planning and security preparation for this rally that's supposed to happen on Saturday.

The organizer of the rally maintains, Victor and Alisyn, that they are pushing for a peaceful protest. A couple of the ground rules they have put forth, for example, are, don't wear political paraphernalia. Wear red, white and blue only. Bring American flags. Be respectful to the security team and law enforcement.

So, apparently, what they're trying to do is impress upon the people who may come to this rally not to bring weapons, to be peaceful. That is the hope. However, we know reality and hope don't always align. And it just takes one person to do something outrageous and cause mass harm. That is why police are taking no chances.

This is another major test for Capitol Police. They have already had incidents of people coming to the Capitol grounds. We just had someone -- we just saw someone arrested earlier this week for bringing weapons to Washington.

There are too many examples of people who might intend to cause harm trying to do so. There was a bomb threat a couple of weeks ago. So this is a huge deal. They don't want to take any chances. There will not be a repeat of January 6 on their watch, Victor and Alisyn.

BLACKWELL: Melanie, we know that there were sitting members of Congress who spoke at the January 6 rally.

What are they saying, any of them, about what's happening this Saturday? And, of course, we just got this statement from the former president himself.

MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: Yes.

Well, this time around, Republicans are actually trying to keep the rally at arm's length. There are no Republican members that are slated to speak at the rally. They also are not promoting the event. And there are also some on the far right who encouraged people not to attend, warning that it's a false flag operation designed to trap their supporters.

I mean, clearly, there's a concern in the GOP about a potential optics problem here. But even as GOP leaders try to distance themselves from the rally and its cause, Donald Trump doing no such thing.

In fact, he came out with a statement today, as you mentioned, essentially offering support for the rioters who were jailed in connection with January 6.

Here is what he said in a statement out this afternoon -- quote -- "Our hearts and minds are with the people being persecuted so unfairly related to the January 6 protest concerning the rigged presidential election. In addition to everything else, it has proven conclusively that we are a two-tiered system of justice. In the end, however, justice will prevail."

First of all, important to note, no evidence of a rigged election, no evidence that these people are being persecuted. But, second of all, it really shows that GOP leaders are in a bind here, because, on the one hand, they don't want to be seen as pro-insurrectionists. They want to move on from January 6. They know that Democrats could weaponize this against them.

But on the other hand, their base as well, as Donald Trump, is increasingly sympathetic to the rioters. And, increasingly, Republican voters believe the big lie about the election.

So you have Democrats now who are amplifying their warnings that this kind of rhetoric can lead to another January 6 repeat, and they're calling on leaders to denounce the rally, but, so far, no signs of that happening -- Alisyn, Victor.

CAMEROTA: OK, Whitney, Melanie, thank you both.

All right, Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania have voted to subpoena millions of voters' personal information and even voting histories in an apparent attempt to relitigate the 2020 presidential election.

[15:05:04]

The info they're looking for includes names, addresses, driver's license numbers, partial Social Security numbers, and even portions of their voting history.

Now, Democrats in Pennsylvania say this is just another step to undermine democracy.

And joining us is one of those Democrats, Pennsylvania state Senator Jay Costa.

Senator, thank you very much for being here.

So here's what the Republicans in your state legislature say. They want the voters' names, they want their addresses, they want their driver's license numbers, they want their partial Social Security numbers. They say that all of this personal voter info is necessary to verify voters' identities.

What do you say?

STATE SEN. JAY COSTA (D-PA): Well, we say it's something that's totally unwarranted and, quite frankly, unprecedented.

For them to ask for seven million-plus voting records, but, more importantly, Social Security numbers, driver's license and driver's license number, and potentially even the ballots, that's something we think is totally unwarranted, as I mentioned.

We're going to continue to fight it. And we think it's wrong. And it's just, as you mentioned, just simply to undermine folks' faith in our electoral system and undermine Pennsylvania's new voting laws.

CAMEROTA: It also costs a lot of money, by the way, to get all this information from nine million voters.

The state senator who's spearheading this, Cris Dush, says it's going to be taxpayer-funded.

COSTA: It is going to be taxpayer-funded.

And that's one of the things that concerns us as well. When you think about having millions and millions of documents and information, personal information of Pennsylvania voters in the hands of a handful of Republicans, mind you, and then being able to be turned over to a third-party vendor, who today we don't know who that vendor is.

It could be the same vendor group that was utilized in our Fulton County here, which had ties to the Arizona work that was done. And we know what even what the Department of Justice has said about that. So we have great concerns. And we believe that it's inappropriate, as I mentioned, and we intend to take this to court tomorrow.

We're going to be in court raising a number of issues. Certainly, there's a separation of powers issues here. There's a privacy issue with respect to someone's ability and their expectation when they go in and vote.

And we're also looking at maybe that this particular committee has no authority to issue these type of things, because going back to -- as I mentioned, to the separation of powers issue.

This is an issue that should be resolved by the courts and by the Department of State. And that's something that we believe. The time for these election contests have well passed.

CAMEROTA: By the way, we have reached out to state Senator Cris Dush, who, as I said, is spearheading this. And we hope to be able to have him on the program at some point in the future as well.

It sounds like -- you just brought up what went on in Arizona, that bogus audit by these so-called Cyber Ninjas. And that was just riddled with, frankly, ludicrous problems from the beginning.

Is that what they're modeling this on, this audit that they want to do?

COSTA: Oh, there's no question this is modeled after Arizona.

In fact, two of the four members of the Republican Party in the caucus that is -- are leading this effort went out to Arizona with a couple of our House members and examined what Arizona did, and then came back to Pennsylvania and began to pursue this type of an audit.

Senator Dush and Senator Mastriano, along with some House folks, went out there. And we -- and also came back to Pennsylvania and brought with them the groups that did the audit, brought them to their home counties of Fulton County and pushed and pressured those counties to do an audit of their own process, by the way, which one of the witnesses to last week testified that there was no fraud in Fulton County.

So we believe that this is simply orchestrated as part of a national conversation, as we talked about before, to undermine our voting process, and all at the behest of our former president, who, by the way, our president pro tempore, who's also pushing this issue, checked with him to make sure it was OK, the process that we're utilizing today.

That tells you the lengths that these folks are going to be able to do this and really take people's personal information and utilize it for a political gain. And that's something we believe is wrong.

CAMEROTA: I mean, furthermore, it's not as though the Arizona bogus audit changed anything. It didn't turn around the election results.

And so why would they want to waste taxpayers' money?

COSTA: That's a great question. That's exactly what's taking place here.

And it reminds me, we had over 20 lawsuits that were filed challenging the validity of Pennsylvania elections, and every one of them were defeated. In fact, many of them were defeated by individuals who were appointed by President Trump on the federal side.

But at the end of the day, you're right. It's nothing but to waste money and to continue to erode the public's confidence in our electoral process, trying to undermine and trying to repeal our mail- in balloting process we now have in Pennsylvania, which has been very successful, and trying to be able to do this in '22 and ultimately in '24 to be able to continue to create this doubt, sow this doubt in people's minds about the validity of our elections, and undermine what they -- have taken place.

And, again, at the end of the day, it's something they should not be doing. It's wrong. And we're going to continue to fight to protect people's identity and the information and their expectations are what they had when they went into the ballot booth.

This is just another attempt to impact people's voting rights. And that's something we're going to continue to fight.

[15:10:02]

CAMEROTA: Pennsylvania state Senator Jay Costa, thank you very much for explaining it to us.

COSTA: Great. Thank you for having me.

BLACKWELL: All right. Joining us now to discuss all this, former homeland security counterterrorism and COVID task force adviser to Mike Pence Olivia Troye and CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem.

Olivia, the Arizona audit -- air quotes around audit -- was such a clown show that even...

CAMEROTA: It at a carnival, I thought.

BLACKWELL: Yes, I mean, it was -- they had to go and store the counting machines at the fairgrounds while the carnival was going on.

This was led by Cyber Ninjas. It was such a clown show that some of the Republican senators who supported it initially said, we got to back away from this because this is not helping.

What -- how does it benefit Pennsylvania Republicans to say, you know what we want to do, that?

OLIVIA TROYE, FORMER U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICIAL: It doesn't at all.

I mean, the fraudit, as I referred to it in Arizona, should have shown them that it was just a complete waste of taxpayers' money, and that the majority of the people did not agree with what was happening there. And I think that's the same case with Pennsylvania.

And it's just a complete waste of time. And I think it'll backfire there as well. I think they're going to see it firsthand. I have written about this. I have been a very vocal opponent of these efforts, because they're undermining of democracy, and, quite frankly, they're just one big disinformation exercise after another.

CAMEROTA: And it would be ridiculous, obviously, Juliette, and it would be laughable, except that there are real-world consequences to misinformation...

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Right.

CAMEROTA: ... I mean, as we saw on January 6, and we might see this weekend.

KAYYEM: That's exactly right.

I mean, as Olivia said, there's a consistent theme here, right? So it's that the elections are fraudulent. And, therefore, that justifies for some people violence, because something legitimate was taken away from them, or it justifies these Republican and GOP state attempts to deny people the vote or to make it more harassment -- to do more harassment.

So they're all linked into this -- into the only legitimate elections anymore for the GOP are ones in which the GOP wins, and they will bring this country down or they will threaten the sanctity of our elections in the process of the win.

So, how do we -- and Olivia is a Republican. How do people who care about the rule of law fight back? And I think you're seeing it a little bit this weekend. I think -- I don't think this rally is going to amount to much. And I think that's because the Capitol Police, the federal law enforcement, the local law enforcement are saying, we're not messing around anymore. We know you're out there. We know what you're trying to do and we're going to do a show of strength that is likely going to minimize the number of people who come.

I view that as a success. Right? That's a success.

BLACKWELL: Juliette, we have had a conversation several times over the past couple of years about the similarities between foreign terrorists and domestic extremists as it relates to radicalization.

And former President Bush's speech on 9/11 really reminded me of that -- those similarities. Donald Trump is not Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

CAMEROTA: No.

BLACKWELL: But when he comes out and releases a statement saying that our hearts and minds are with the people who were persecuted on January 6, what's the value of a statement like this on the eve of this rally?

KAYYEM: So, that's a come hither, right? That's Trump's flirtation, his sort of, I'm not telling you what to do, but I'm going to use the language of fighting, right, and justice and justice will prevail, I'm going to use the language of fighting and war to essentially radicalize people who are willing to get radicalized.

I'm not forgiving that people who are radicalized, but they're listening to someone who used to be president of the United States. And Trump has been doing this for years. It's a form of terrorism or terror incitement. He got much more specific in January 6, as he is with this release.

And so that's why I have sort of become less shy about basically saying, we have a -- we have someone who is organizing terror who used to be president of the United States. And I think that's what the former President Bush was essentially saying. The through line between 9/11 and January 6 is hate and hatred of plurality and hatred of democracy.

And those -- and they're linked. And it just happens to be that their spokesperson, former president of the United States.

CAMEROTA: I mean, Olivia, obviously, it just complicates people in your world, your business so much in terms of homeland security, in terms of national security.

The guy who is spearheading this weekend's rally in D.C. in support of the rioters from January 6 has guaranteed -- and has talked to CNN and guaranteed that it will be peaceful, has effectively said there won't be any weapons, it will be peaceful.

That's comforting to hear. But how can he guarantee that. And are you -- do you take comfort, solace in that?

TROYE: Well, the reality is that he can't. He can suggest that to the supporters and the attendees, but they're going to do whatever it is that they believe in and they're going to do.

[15:15:04] And while I am less concerned as I was in going -- in the lead-up to January 6 about this rally this weekend, I think there's still potential for the smaller groups of people and clusters to engage in violent activity at this rally.

My greater concern, though, is this dog whistle that Trump just put out with his statement. He knows exactly what he's doing. He does this time and time again, like she said.

And my concern is also that dog whistle going across to the country, because it's not just what's happening here in D.C. It's about what's going to happen across the country in state and local jurisdictions, which I'm sure that law enforcement hopefully are tracking this. And they're going to be extra vigilant, because it's going to be the lone wolves out there that concern me right now.

We're prepared for this, this time in D.C. They're acting on the intelligence that's out there. They're taking the precautions needed. But on another level, that statement by Donald Trump is a complete slap in the face to law enforcement, to those officers that bravely responded that day and the officers that got hurt on January 6.

When you come out and you sympathize with that mob and the people that hurt, and it led to loss of life that day, that is just incredulous and just in keeping with who Donald Trump is, and it's representative of everything that should be investigated by this January 6 select committee and everything that led up to that day.

BLACKWELL: Olivia Troye and Juliette Kayyem, thank you both.

KAYYEM: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: So, now to COVID.

Thousands of Americans have been dealing with the long-term effects of COVID, long COVID, as it's called. So, up next, we will speak to a researcher who is taking a deeper look at the problem.

BLACKWELL: Plus, the parents of a Florida woman who disappeared during a trip with her fiancee are pleading with him to speak with police and help bring her home.

We have new details and new video coming up.

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[15:21:35]

BLACKWELL: The NIH is launching a massive study to better understand why so many people are living with long COVID.

This is a condition that has left millions of people with COVID symptoms months after they got infected. We're talking brain fog, fatigue and, for some, organ damage. Scientists still don't know what causes it. But a new study today from the CDC found that roughly a third of COVID survivors may be affected. My next guest is part of a research team studying the illness.

Dr. Terry Harville of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences joins me now.

Doctor, thank you for being with me.

I mean, after you get the initial sickness and you deal with that, and sometimes the social and psychological side effects, this comes. Do we know why this is happening for really a certain population of those who get COVID?

DR. TERRY HARVILLE, UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS FOR MEDICAL SCIENCES: Well, our studies were looking at this.

And based on the way the immune system normally functions, if you make an antibody against a substance like the spike protein that binds to the ACE2 component for the (INAUDIBLE) or the cell, you will end up also making antibody against the ACE2.

And what we found in patients with COVID that have had -- previously had COVID is that all of them develop these anti-ACE2 antibodies. Further, we tested and found out that the anti-ACE2 antibody will actually interfere with ACE2 function.

ACE2 is critical in the body for helping to regulate the level of inflammation. So, if you interfere with this function, you increase the level of inflammation in the individual.

And our studies indicate that this may be one of the reasons why people continue to have lots of problems.

BLACKWELL: This CDC report finds that people 40 and over and black people have had higher rates of long COVID.

They suggest that one hypothesis is that the structural and socioeconomic inequalities in the health care system exacerbate that disparity. Is that what your research finds? And what's your reaction to that from the CDC?

HARVILLE: I agree with that. I agree that there is a health disparity, and I wish that we could do more to take care of that from the level of the federal government.

Our study didn't look at these items, though. Our study was only looking at immunologically what was occurring with the patients.

BLACKWELL: Now, as it relates to those who are vaccinated and unvaccinated, we know that people who contract maybe what's called one of these breakthrough cases of COVID after being vaccinated, that their likelihood or the severity of long COVID is diminished as related to those who are unvaccinated. Is that true?

HARVILLE: That's true.

But some of them still continue to have some of the symptoms, primarily the fatigue and the brain fog.

BLACKWELL: This is a relatively new virus. Do we know if these symptoms worsen over time?

I mean, COVID-19 is about to turn 22, but what do we know about how long these long COVID symptoms could stick around?

HARVILLE: Well, that is a great question. We really don't know.

And part of the issue, as you alluded to, is that we have not grown up with this virus. Evolutionarily, our immune system does not know how to deal with this virus. And thus our immune system is continually trying to do different facets of its function to see how to deal with the virus.

[15:25:08]

And so the symptoms may persist for quite some time in individuals until their immune system can re-regulate itself.

BLACKWELL: All right, Dr. Terry Harville, thank you so much.

Of course, your research very important, as we watch now a fourth wave across this country.

Thank you, Doctor.

HARVILLE: Thank you very much.

BLACKWELL: OK, now so this story.

A young woman goes missing during a cross-country trip with her fiance, and now her family is pleading with him to break his silence. More soon.

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