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Kash Patel Won't Testify; New Documents on January 6th; Deadline Day for Probe; John Deere Workers on Strike; FDA to Vote on Boosters. Aired 9:00-9:30a ET

Aired October 14, 2021 - 09:00   ET

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

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[09:00:20]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Good Thursday morning. I'm Erica Hill.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

It is deadline day for two of Donald Trump's former senior aides, and neither man is expected to adhere to those congressional deadlines. Last hour we learned that former Defense Department official Kash Patel will join Steve Bannon in defying a congressional subpoena to testify in front of the January 6th Select Committee today. The next step could be criminal contempt charges.

Overnight, Bannon's attorney confirmed his client will not be providing testimony, that is unless they say an agreement is reached with former President Trump who's claiming executive privilege over these communications, or if a court weighs in on the matter.

HILL: Now the committee is calling on another former Trump aide to testify, ex-DOJ official Jeffrey Clark. Now, that name may found familiar. He's the person who drafted a letter which falsely claimed the Justice Department had found voting irregularities in Georgia.

All of this as former President Trump is now facing an order to provide documents to the committee within 30 days. That order, of course, coming after the White House rejected his attempt to exert executive privilege here.

Our team is standing by with all of the latest developments and reaction on this busy Thursday morning.

Let's begin with CNN's senior legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid in Washington.

So, Paula, Kash Patel not expected to appear today, as Jim said, but sources are telling you that he is still engaging with the committee. What does that mean?

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. He was originally scheduled to appear for a deposition today, but sources tell our colleague, Ryan Nobles, and myself that his lawyers and the committee, they continue to engage. These conversations appear to be constructive. They are working towards what is usually referred to as an accommodation, a way to agree on how he can potentially comply with this subpoena. This is the standard process often when you receive a subpoena like this. But it's not clear if they're going to be able to reach an agreement that is amenable to both sides. And the committee has made it clear, they are going to move swiftly to potentially pursue criminal contempt against anyone who does not comply to their satisfaction.

Now, with Patel, off the calendar today, the committee is able to focus squarely on Steve Bannon. Now, he has made it clear that he does not intend to cooperate with the committee until ordered to do so by a court. He has made this blanket claim of executive privilege. Well, let's be clear here, Erica, Steve Bannon was not in the executive branch at the time in question, and the fact that he is making this blanket claim of executive privilege concerns and saying he has to wait for a court when no legal challenge has been filed, legally that is just untenable. And the committee has been clear, they are going to move swiftly, perhaps as soon as today, to refer him for criminal contempt.

SCIUTTO: So we know as well that the January 6th committee has officially subpoenaed former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark. This is key, right, because Clark is someone who is trying his darnedest, right, to use the DOJ to overturn election results. Explain why this is critical to the overall investigation.

REID: Absolutely, Jim.

In this subpoena that he received, the committee cites what they describe as credible evidence that he tried to interfere with the transfer of power. Specifically, they say, that he wanted to try to delay certification of election results in Georgia, and other states. He even allegedly wanted to hold a press conference to announce a federal investigation of voter fraud. Now, both of those proposals were dismissed for a lack of any factual basis and the fact that that is just not the Justice Department's role.

Now, the fact is yesterday, his former colleague, former acting attorney general, testified before lawmakers for eight hours. So a source familiar with Clark's thinking says, look, it's likely he will testify because his options are really limited at this point.

HILL: Interesting. We'll be watching for that.

Paula Reid, appreciate it.

We're also learning some new details this morning about warnings that came before January 6th. According to newly obtained documents, local police in Washington alerted their law enforcement partner agencies on January 5th that there were social media reports urging attendees to, quote, come armed.

SCIUTTO: It's been an ongoing issue because there were signs on social media, discussions of January 6th prior. The question is, why weren't they listened to.

CNN law enforcement correspondent Whitley Wild joins us now.

So, what are we learning about what was posted and crucially how did law enforcement treat those posts? I mean was it seriously enough?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think, based on what we saw on January 6th, it's pretty obvious that it was not taken seriously enough. This email, which was obtained by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, shows that following a briefing from the Metropolitan Police Department, that's the D.C. police department here, to their law enforcement partners and FBI -- a member of the FBI's Washington field office sent a summary to their law enforcement partners at the United States Secret Service.

[09:05:08]

So it shows that everybody was in communication here.

And this email shows that there was information law enforcement had that on social media people were posting, suggesting, urging people to come to Washington on January 6th armed.

However, the overarching conclusion from that email was that there were no credible threats. No threats identified.

Further, the email notes eight firearms were recovered, five arrests were made at a pro-Trump rally in November 2020, so they knew that there was the possibility that pro-Trump people would come armed.

However, it also notes that that didn't happen in the December -- with -- in relation to the December rally, that there weren't firearms recovered in that case.

The point is here that this is one more piece of evidence, again obtained by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has done a lot of work to dig up these documents, and it shows that there was ample evidence that law enforcement had that people were saying outwardly, in the open, come to Washington, come armed, and yet we still had that insurrection. Very clearly it was not taken seriously enough.

Jim. Erica.

SCIUTTO: No question. And, by the way, there were -- there were host -- a whole host of ways that those insurrectionists were attacking police officers without arms. I mean just remember those videos of crushing one of them in a door.

Whitney Wild, thanks very much.

Joining now to discuss, Elie Honig. He's a CNN senior legal analyst. Also a former federal and state prosecutor.

Elie, good to have you here.

So question here about these subpoenas, right, because this is not the first time that folks who have been subpoenaed have defied those subpoenas. And what we've seen, by the way under both Democratic and Republican presidents, is the Justice Department hesitating to then charge them criminally.

Why is that? And when you look at the situation now, do you expect that to change?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, that's a really good question, Jim. Why hasn't anybody been charged with criminal contempt of Congress by the Justice Department? In fact, in over 50 years. We've seen DOJ under both parties decline to bring charges. Why is that? I would attribute it to two things. One is, politics. It's just messy. It's potentially ugly. Some of the people who have been held in contempt, Bill Barr and Eric Holder, were the attorney general, especially awkward to -- for DOJ to charge the attorney general. And I think the second part of the answer is just timidity. It takes a lot of guts, it takes a lot of backbone to charge somebody for defying a congressional subpoena. You're buying into a potential trial there and it could get politically messy. But Merrick Garland really has to stand up here and do his job, even if it may be difficult.

HILL: What do you think the chances are that that happens, Elie?

HONIG: Well, I'm split on this. On the one happened, Merrick Garland has not shown a lot of appetite for anything that may be politically fraught during his time here. I think he's undercharged some of the January 6th defendants. I think he's not gone high up enough the chain in looking for responsibility on January 6th. He's shown no interest in investigating anything relating to Donald Trump dating back to Robert Mueller.

On the other hand, the Steve Bannon case in particular is so extraordinary. His claim of executive privilege, as Paula Reid just laid out, is so utterly ridiculous that you can't just let it go with no consequence.

SCIUTTO: Here's the thing, yes, the politics are messy and this is not the first time that politics have been messy or sensitive with an issue like this. But January 6th, and what happened prior and afterwards, a sitting president trying to overturn the results of an election, using multiple levers of government is inherently political, right? I mean it's weaponizing politics.

So is this a case, right, where you have to pursue the criminal path because otherwise there's really no remedy?

HONIG: Yes, two things, Jim. First of all, prosecutors should never hesitate because something may be politically difficult or politically controversial. That's sort of the whole point of DOJ. You just do your job. This is a law on the books.

And then, second of all, as you say, the circumstances here could not be more serious, could not be more dire. I mean if you look at past incidents where people have been held in contempt, they've all involved scandals and controversies, but nothing even remotely approaching January 6th with respect to sort of the future of democracy itself. HILL: It's such an excellent point.

I do want to get your take on what we're seeing now with executive privilege.

So the White House formerly rejecting the request from former President Trump. He could file a lawsuit, right, to try to continue to block that disclosure. Right now he has 30 days to turn over those -- for the release of those documents. How long realistically, Elie, could he drag this out?

HONIG: Well, Erica, you hit on the key issue there, which is delay. He's very, very likely to lose this argument. It's almost certain. It's near certain that the current president controls executive privilege, not the prior president. But this could be all about delay.

Look, we have sort of some fence posts here. The Don McGahn subpoena dispute took two years. That's utterly inexplicable and inexcusable.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HONIG: I've been in federal courts. I know they have a lot on their dockets, these judges, but they have to prioritize. And if you're a federal judge and you get a lawsuit involving separation of powers and balance of powers, you need to handle that right away.

[09:10:03]

Realistically, they can get this done in three, four months tops if everyone recognizes the imperative of the moment.

HILL: Yes. Yes.

SCIUTTO: Yes, I mean the Don -- Don McGahn case is such a great one because by the time he got up to The Hill, Trump was out of office, right?

HONIG: Yes. Yes, nobody cared.

SCIUTTO: And the questions were about his activities during his time in office.

Elie Honig, always good to have you on.

HONIG: Thanks, Jim. Thanks, Erica.

SCIUTTO: Happening right now, some 10,000 employees of John Deere, members of the United Autoworkers Association, are on strike. Employees of the farming equipment manufacturer rejected a proposed deal regarding wage increases and benefits.

HILL: CNN business correspondent Alison Kosik following all this for us.

So, Alison, looking at this, look, this also has impacts on the labor market and where things stand right now. ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and this is also yet

another headache for the Biden administration which is already dealing with huge pressures on the U.S. economy, including supply chain pressures and inflation.

And now you have a kind of a situation where you have a lot of workers kind of rising up and saying, we want better. And so now we have this strike happening overnight, as you said, negotiations from a deal that was worked out two weeks ago, they broke down when 90 percent of the work -- the rank and file members said they didn't want to go for that deal because they wanted higher wages. They want their fair share of -- their piece of the pie.

You look at how John Deere did, at least this last fiscal year, it's revenue rose $32.7 billion. That's up 11 percent from the same period of 2019, ahead of the pandemic. So I think what you're seeing is workers saying, look, John Deere did really, really well. We want to see this reflected in our -- in our benefits and our wages. So, as I said, John Deere going ahead and striking overnight.

And they're not the only company. Kellogg also striking. They're ready to go into their second week. Fourteen hundred members went on strike, shutting plants. You know these cereal brands, Rice Krispies, Raisin Bran, Froot Loops. Those workers are not on the job as well.

This is a trend that we're seeing in the labor market now. We're seeing workers have actual leverage, organized labor, they're really flexing their muscle. But general workers as well. Now they're saying, listen, the leverage is on our side because we know you, the employer, you're having trouble filling these spots and we're going to fight for these better benefits and wages, so now is our time.

SCIUTTO: It's a great point, right, because you're seeing with unions here, but you're also seeing with people who are just flat out refusing jobs that they might have taken before saying, hey, you know, either not getting paid enough, too dangerous during a pandemic.

KOSIK: Right.

SCIUTTO: I mean, it's notable.

KOSIK: I -- yes, a job isn't just a job anymore. A job, I think, people want to be more fulfilled in what they're getting. They want to -- they want to get something out of it and not just, you know, work the same way we did before the pandemic.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KOSIK: By the way, before I go, there are two other potential strikes I want to mention that could be lingering. One, Kaiser Permanente, could involve 38,000 workers if a deal isn't reached. And then Hollywood, TV, film production, we could see them go on strike if negotiations break down.

SCIUTTO: Wow.

KOSIK: We could see them go on strike next week.

SCIUTTO: Notable.

HILL: Wow, it will be -- yes, absolutely.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HILL: Keeping an eye out for all of those.

Alison, appreciate it. Thank you.

KOSIK: Sure.

HILL: Well, at this moment, an FDA advisory committee is meeting to decide whether to approve a booster shot for Moderna's vaccine. All this coming out as a new study shows that mixing and matching vaccines could actually give people stronger protection. But is there more to that headline?

Plus, Dr. Sanjay Gupta goes into the lion's den as he calls it, Joe Rogan's podcast. Hear how he tried to dispel vaccine myths with the influential host.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, your risk of clotting is, as it turns out, 80 times higher from the disease COVID rather than from the vaccine. That's --

JOE ROGAN: Eighty times?

GUPTA: Eighty times.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Those numbers don't lie. It's a great moment here worth watching.

Later, the White House announces the Port of Los Angeles is now going to operate 24/7 to help clear a major cargo back load there. Business leaders were asking President Biden to do more, though, to fix the supply chain.

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[09:18:25]

SCIUTTO: Right now the FDA's Vaccine Advisory Committee is meeting to discuss whether they will vote to recommend booster doses for the Moderna vaccine. Moderna, the company, is asking for a half dose booster for people who have been fully vaccinated for at least six months, and either worked in high exposure settings, healthcare workers, for instance, are 65 and older, or are considered high at risk for other reasons.

HILL: Now, all of this comes as a new study from the National Institutes of Health finds it's not only safe to mix and match a COVID-19 booster shot, but in some cases it may actually be better.

Here to discuss emergency physician and CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen.

Dr. Wen, we always appreciate you breaking this down for us.

So this has been a question for some time, right, can I mix and match? So when we look at this study, what more can we pull from these results?

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: So this is a really important study that a lot of people have been looking forward to because people want to know, do I need to stick with the exact same brand of the vaccine that I got in the first place or can I switch to something else out of convenience or preference?

So it's a pretty small study so far. It involves 458 participants and there are nine groups because three of the groups are people who got the original vaccine and then the same booster and then six of the groups are people who got different vaccines the second time around.

What they found is that there is good safety. That it doesn't matter if you got a same or different vaccine, it all looks to be safe. There are no different or new or worse side effects that have come up.

And they've also found that there's pretty good efficacy throughout, as in you get a very strong antibody response no matter what kind of booster you end up getting.

[09:20:03]

Certainly it looks like Moderna and Pfizer, for each other, appear to be interchangeable.

The most interesting result is with Johnson & Johnson. And specifically people who get a second dose of Johnson & Johnson, after the one dose of J&J, they get a four-fold increase in the neutralizing antibody response. But if they get a Pfizer second dose, they end up getting a 35 fold increase in neutralizing antibody. And if they get Moderna, they have a 76 times increase in neutralizing antibody.

SCIUTTO: Wow.

WEN: And so I think it definitely should give pause for the FDA and CDC to say, first of all, people with the J&J vaccine, the 15 million Americans who have been waiting for some guidance, they should be getting a booster of some kind. The maybe it's important to recommend the Pfizer or Moderna booster for them.

SCIUTTO: So let me ask you, if -- if the data is showing waning immunity months after vaccination and if the data is also showing that a booster shot greatly -- I mean some of those numbers there, 76 times, greatly increases immunity, you know, why aren't we yet moving towards a recommendation for boosters for a broad section of the population? Is it about supply? Is it about distribution? Why the hesitation? WEN: So it's not a supply or distribution issue because we have the

supply.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

WEN: The Biden administration has secured the supply. And, actually, we have plenty of supply because there are, unfortunately, a lot of Americans who are refusing even their first shots of the vaccine.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

WEN: It's also not a distribution issue because we have the pharmacies and clinics that are ready to give the vaccine. But, rather, I think there is a question that some scientists have been arguing about, what is the goal of vaccination? Because for Pfizer and Moderna, it does look like the -- the protection against hospitalization holds up. Johnson & Johnson actually is decreasing. So I think J&J is pretty clear that they should be getting another -- another dose.

But for Pfizer and Moderna, if some people are saying, hey, as long as you don't end up hospitalized or you're dying, that's OK, you don't need a booster. But I think a lot of other people, including myself, are saying, but, wait, what is the goal of vaccination? Part of the goal should also be to reduce symptomatic illness. A lot of people don't want to get sick. They don't want to get long-haul COVID, they also don't want to end up missing work or potentially infecting their family. And so give everybody the option to get that booster dose I think should actually be the recommendation.

HILL: Here's where it gets tough, too. I think as we see these great numbers that you just pointed out as we go through this NIH study looking at the boosters and specifically mixing the boosters. The surgeon general, earlier this morning, said, though, maybe there should be a little caution and people need to step back and make sure they're not trying to play doctor themselves.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. VIVEK MURTHY, SURGEON GENERAL: What I would tell them is, number one, sometimes you've got to make individualized decisions in consultation with your healthcare provider. But we should generally, whenever we can, try to follow the advice of the FDA and the CDC here because they are looking at the totality of the data.

There might be some reason people don't want to stick with the original vaccine they got. Maybe it has to do with the reaction they had. Maybe there are other considerations. But, by and large, I would follow the FDA and CDC recommendations on mixing and matching right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: So he's saying, even as we look at the results from that NIH study, and as you point out it was fairly small, we should still hold off until we hear from the FDA and the CDC. I understand why that's frustrating for some people.

WEN: Absolutely. And I think there's been a lot of confusion also, especially because the boosters have already been approved for people who got the Pfizer vaccine. And so people who got Moderna and especially the 15 million who got Johnson & Johnson who really have had no guidance are wondering, well, what about me?

Thankfully, though, we're really close. The FDA is meeting today and tomorrow. CDC is meeting next week. We will have guidance for people with Moderna and Johnson & Johnson very soon.

Though I will also add that many patients have already taken matters into their own hands, I hope in consultation with their physicians because my hope in all of this is that the FDA and CDC, our federal health officials, are not going to be preventing people from doing what's best for their health. People really should be making that decision together with their physicians.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Yes, they need clear guidance. We all do.

Dr. Leana Wen, thanks so much.

All right, so this is one of those conversations that needs to happen more often, frankly. Podcast host Joe Rogan, who has come under fire for criticizing the COVID vaccine, says he almost got it.

Our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, sat down with him for more than three hours on his podcast. A difficult conversation at times, but you see some progress made. Rogan says in the past he had an appointment to get the shot and two weeks before he got it he heard some news, for instance the J&J vaccine put on pause, that made him nervous. He decided not to do it.

But it's interesting, Erica, how Sanjay responded to that and other questions he had. He basically said, OK, here's the data as we know it. And it struck me that he seems to have made some progress.

HILL: I mean it just -- and to your point, conversations that we should have.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HILL: It's good to sit down and have a real civilized conversation with facts, with people who may be looking at things differently, that Rogan did admit to Sanjay he does think it's a good idea for vulnerable people, specifically to get vaccinated.

[09:25:11]

He says he's worried about the lack of long-term data, though, specifically when it comes to kids.

Here, listen to this part of the exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: The only way we can know long-term stuff is with the passage of time, you know, for certain.

JOE ROGAN: They're terrifying for parents.

GUPTA: Well, it is.

ROGAN: The idea that your son could get vaccinated and most likely he would have been fine if he got COVID, and that your son could catch myocarditis and have permanent heart problems.

GUPTA: I -- well, I don't know that we can say the person would be fine if they get COVID, Joe. I mean --

ROGAN: A young boy?

GUPTA: Well, they --

ROGAN: Most young boys with no comorbidities.

GUPTA: When you say fine, you mean what, that they're not going to die?

ROGAN: I mean, like me, I had COVID. I'm fine.

GUPTA: You -- you -- you look like -- you look like you're as strong as an ox. Yes, I give you that. But, you know, I -- you get teenagers who -- who will have these long COVID naps. You get -- you get --

ROGAN: What does that mean?

GUPTA: They just -- they're tired all the time. They get these sort of long hauler type symptoms. You know, less so in kids, but, you know, when you talk about 33 percent of people having persistent symptoms that last months, I just feel like we define -- like, I think we're allowed to have a nuanced conversation about this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Rogan, you may recall, had his own bout with COVID in August. In part of their conversation, he also asked why people with natural immunity should get vaccinated.

Well, Dr. Sanjay Gupta sharing some data from a recent study which shows unvaccinated people who already had COVID were actually more than twice as likely to be reinfected as those who had the shot.

And one other thing, too. I think we've talked about a fair amount, but what's not clear, because this is all so new, so there are questions about long-term effects, understandably, for both adults and children, but there are also questions about how long that immunity lasts if you've had COVID.

SCIUTTO: No question there. And another topic of the conversation which I think is important, right, is that getting vaccinated is not just about yourself or even your children's health, right, as important as that is, it's about not letting the thing spread, right, because even if you don't get horribly sick yourself, you carry it, it mutates, you might get someone else sick. And that's the bigger part of the conversation, which I thought was -- was important there too.

HILL: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Anyway, it's good to see it happening. All of us have had simpler ones probably around the dinner table or elsewhere. So it's good to see this happening with Sanjay Gupta.

Thanks so much to you for listening.

We'll be right back.

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