Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Trial Over Arbery Killing Begins Today with Nearly All-White Jury; Pfizer Says, Experimental Pill Reduces Risk of COVID-19 Hospitalization, Death; Biden Speaks as Jobs Roar Back, Beating Expectations. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired November 05, 2021 - 10:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:30:00]

ERICA HILL, CNN NEWSROOM: The trial of three men accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery now underway in Brunswick, Georgia. Opening statements beginning just in the last hour.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: First, the judge ruled on two key motions that could end up swaying the jury in this high-profile trial, at least potentially.

CNN's Amara Walker is live in Brunswick, Georgia. Amara, this relates to evidence. Can you describe exactly what that evidence is?

AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. And, first off, the opening statements, by the way, are underway right now. And we are hearing from the lead prosecutor in this case, Linda Dunikoski, who basically opened up by -- started off by saying, look, this is a case about assumption that the three defendants made before Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed.

And she also just a few moments ago showed surveillance video of Ahmaud Arbery inside a house that was under construction that has been tied to these murders, and she emphatically stated, look, in the video, you can see nothing is stolen, nothing is damaged.

But back to the judge's rulings from this morning, which basically represent a pretty major blow to the defense. So, what these rulings mean regarding the evidence you were mentioning, Jim, is that, number one, the jury will be allowed to see the images of the confederate flag on this vanity license plate that was mounted on the front of Travis McMichael's truck. The jury, however, as the judge ruled, will not be able to hear anything about the fact that he was on probation at the time of his killing.

Back to what the jury will be seeing, so the defense regarding the confederate flag, arguing the images of this need to be limited, they're concerned that their client, Travis McMichael, who was driving that pickup truck that day, he's accused of pulling the trigger on the shotgun that killed Ahmaud Arbery, they're concerned that he's going to be painted as being racist, and they say, look, it's improper to comment on his character. But the state has steadfastly stated that this is evidence of a motive, has nothing to do with character. And, of course the judge sided with that.

The last thing -- another thing that this jury will be seeing is the body cam video, which has been described as quite graphic, from the responding officers. The judge ruling yesterday, saying that the body cam video is a very real depiction of what happened that day when it shows Arbery just gravely wounded, lying there on the ground.

[10:35:06]

And it shows really graphically the extent of his injuries. Jim and Erica?

HILL: Amara Walker with the latest for us. Amara, thank you.

Also with us, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, former defense attorney, and Page Pate, a criminal defense and constitutional law attorney also with us this morning.

As we look at where we stand in terms of this evidence and what the judge ruled this morning, I'm just curious, first of all, your take on that, Page, and what that could mean.

STEPHANIE RAWLINGS-BLAKE, FORMER DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I think that the judge made the correct call. I mean, it's not about character. It's definitely about motive. It's clear that the defense took a hard blow. They're trying to erase any notion that their clients acted out of malice, acted out of racism. And between the inclusion of the tape as well as the confederate license tag, that's definitely a big hit for them.

SCIUTTO: Page Pate with us now. And, Page, the jury breakdown has attracted a lot of attention, because here you have Brunswick, Georgia, which is 55 percent black, Glynn County, 26 percent black, yet there's only 1 of 12 black on an otherwise all-white jury. In your experience, does that impact jury decisions, right? I mean, it's clearly not reflective. But in your experience, has that been found to affect decisions?

PAIGE PATE, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I think it certainly can, Jim, especially in a case like this where race is going to play such a big part not just in the evidence that's presented to the jury but also in the arguments that the lawyers will make during the course of the trial and at the end of the trial.

You're absolutely correct to point out that this jury is not reflective of the population of Glynn County. It is not even reflective of the people that were found qualified to serve many the case. So after 2 1/2 weeks of jury selection, they were left with about 25 percent African-Americans in the pool and then all but one of those were struck. So this is a very different jury for Glynn County and it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out.

HILL: It certainly -- I mean, that fact alone is certainly getting a lot of attention nationwide. Those are the headlines we're seeing, right? It is really about the makeup of this jury and what that could mean.

Stephanie, as we're look at what we're expecting from the defense, I found this is interesting, this sort of two-part defense that they're expecting to lay out. So, number one, this was a citizen's arrest but, oh, it was also self-defense, and yet there's this video that shows Ahmaud Arbery who appears to run around the truck but then runs into Travis McMichael.

So, as you're looking at that, the video almost seems, in some ways, contradict that argument. How do you envision the defense putting that together?

RAWLINGS-BLAKE: I think the defense is going to have a tough time putting it together. You know, they have a hard case. These individuals, as the prosecutor laid out, don't own the property, weren't instructed to protect the property, yet they were -- they took it upon themselves to act as the police. So, yes, I think it's going to be tough for the defense to put those things together and lay out a credible case that will convince at least one juror that this was self-defense.

SCIUTTO: Page, I mean, what are the rules around supposedly making citizens arrests here, I mean, by the way, armed, against someone who is not armed?

PATE: Yes. Jim, there are no rules in Georgia law, certainly not at the time, about whether you could be armed or not armed. The law, as we all know, has since been repealed in Georgia as a result of this case. But back last year when this incident occurred, it was okay under Georgia law if you either saw someone or had good reason to believe someone had just committed a serious offense, to try to track them down and then hold them for law enforcement.

So, it is a two-step question here for the defense. Can they convince the jury this was a legitimate citizen's arrest, and, two, when they confronted Ahmaud Arbery, did they have a legitimate claim of self- defense? It's a big challenge.

SCIUTTO: Interesting that law has been repealed since. Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Page Pate, thanks so much to both of you.

PATE: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: And still ahead this hour, we're going to go live to the National Cathedral here in Washington, where former Secretary of State Colin Powell's funeral will begin shortly. Next, the latest from the cathedral, also who's expected to attend, several presidents among them.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:00]

HILL: We are just moments away from the funeral for General Colin Powell at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Powell, who is, of course, the nation's first black secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, died in October from complications related to COVID-19.

SCIUTTO: We should note the general was vaccinated against COVID-19 but his immunity was compromised. He was being treated for multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, which weakens the immune system.

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux, she is live outside the National Cathedral this morning, a beautiful setting always. We're now seeing some people streaming into the church.

[10:45:00]

Can you tell us who is expected to attend and pay respects today?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Sure. Good morning, Jim. This is a beautiful, crisp, cold sunny day in Washington, D.C., as we really recognize one of those time-honored traditions at the National Cathedral to really recognize and celebrate the life of the most distinguished citizens, as you mentioned, General Colin Powell, a statesman, a patriot, a father, a friend to many and a trail blazer as well and a top soldier and diplomat. So, it is no surprise that it is going to be who's who here at the cathedral this morning, no less than three presidents and first ladies.

We do expect the first one, President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill to arrive shortly after the hearse and the family. We also will see President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as well as President George W. Bush and Laura Bush. We're also going to see former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. President Bill Clinton is not able to attend because of his own health issues. But they will all be sitting in the front row.

There are going to be a number of dignitaries, lawmakers, statesmen as well as diplomats. And they will be celebrating his life. It is going to be really a beautiful ceremony. We are expecting to hear tributes from people who meant the world to Powell. We are talking about his deputy secretary of state, Dick Armitage, who is going to be speaking, as well as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. They are very close, they are good friends despite being on opposite sides of the aisle, the political spectrum, And two of his three children, Michael Powell, who will pay tribute, as well as Anne Marie.

This is going to be a 90-minute ceremony. We expect that the hearse will be arriving within the next hour or so on this beautiful day, this tribute to an amazing American. Jim?

HILL: Yes, absolutely. Suzanne, thank you.

And, again, CNN will have live coverage of the funeral for General Powell, and that starts at the top of the hour. You can join Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer as the country honors the legacy of the former secretary of state. You can watch that full service right here on CNN.

SCIUTTO: Still ahead, some encouraging new results from Pfizer on a COVID-19 treatment for people who become infected. How their antiviral pill works and why Pfizer thinks it could be poised for emergency use authorization, that's next. And here's what else to watch today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:50:00]

HILL: Breaking news, Pfizer announcing its experimental pill to reduce the risk of coronavirus hospitalization and death. They say it does that by 89 percent among folks who are at severe risk of severe COVID-19.

This is data, we should note, that was put out by the company, has not been peer reviewed or published, though Pfizer says it will be sharing specifics in a peer-reviewed paper and with its submission to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

SCIUTTO: CNN's Elizabeth Cohen joins us now. And, Elizabeth, we should note, this is for people who have already become infected. It is not preventative. Doctors still recommend getting vaccinated. But tell us the significance of the data, the findings by Pfizer with this pill.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Jim, the findings were so significant that actually a board of monitors stopped the trial early. They call it stopping for benefit. It worked so well that they said, gosh, we want you guys to be able to go now to the FDA to apply for emergency use authorization. As you said, not a replacement for the vaccine, the vaccine is best, always better to prevent than to treat.

Also, this needs to be done quite early. The folks in this trial, the data I'm about to show you, these folks had only had symptoms for up to about three days. So that's -- you have to get it early.

So, let's take a look at what happened when they did get to it early. So, in this trial, there were about 775 patients, folks with very early COVID, they gave half of them a dummy pill, a sugar pill, a placebo. It did nothing. And what they found was that, over time, 27 of those folks were hospitalized and seven of them died from COVID. But when they received the pill when they got --

HILL: We have to interrupt y there, sorry. I do want to get straight to President Biden, who is speaking, of course, on the heels of this new jobs report beating expectations. Let's listen in.

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: America is getting back to work. Our economy is starting to work for more Americans. Thanks to the economic plan we put through in Congress earlier this year and a successful vaccine deployment, America continues to add jobs at a record pace.

In this historically strong recovery, unemployment rate has fallen again today down to 4.6 percent. This included a substantial drop for unemployment for Hispanics, which was much needed. Our economy is on the move. This morning, we learned that in October, our economy created 531,000 jobs, well above expectations. We also learned that job growth over the prior two months, August to September, was nearly 250,000 more jobs than previously thought. In total, the job creation in the first full nine months of my administration is about 5.6 million new jobs, a record for any new president. That's a monthly average of over 60,000 new jobs each month, ten times more than the job creation at three months before I took office. New unemployment claims have fallen every week for the past five weeks. They're down by more than 60 percent since I took office and are now at the lowest levels since the pandemic started.

And people continue to move from unemployment rolls to work. Unemployment has decreased this year more than any other year since 1950. So, any year since 1950, unemployment has decreased more in this year than since 1950.

And not only are more Americans working, working Americans are seeing their paychecks go up. Weekly pay went up on October with an average hourly earnings up almost 5 percent this year. That's more than some of the lowest -- that's more than some of the lowest paid workers in our country, men and women working in restaurants, hotels, in the entertainment, have seen their pay go up 12 percent this year.

Over 5.5 million jobs, unemployment down a record pace to 4.6 percent. Before we pass the rescue plan, forecasters said it would take until the end of 2023, to the end of 2023, to get to 4.6 percent unemployment rate. Today, we've reached that rate two years before forecasters thought it was possible. I would humbly suggest this is significant improvement from when I took office and a sign that we're on the right track.

This did not happen by accident or just because.

[10:55:00]

We laid the foundation for this recovery with my American rescue plan that Congress passed at the beginning of my term. It put money in working families' pockets. It gave families with kids a tax cut each month. It helped keep small businesses going in the dark days earlier this year. And it provided the resources needed to launch one of the fastest mass vaccination programs ever. We got more than 220 million shots in arms in my first 100 days.

We didn't stop there. In recent months, we've started implementing vaccination requirements, which have helped bring the number of unvaccinated adults down in this country from around 100 million several months ago to 60 million now. You know, that's good for our health, but it's also good for our economy.

Now vaccinated workers are going back to work. Vaccinated shoppers are going back to stores. And with the launch of the vaccine for kids ages 5 through 11 this week, we can make sure more vaccinated children can stay in school.

These plans I have implemented -- through these plans, we've had economic success. The economic rescue and vaccination plan, both of them, have made the economy the envy of the world. We're the fastest growing major economy and one creating jobs at a faster pace now.

Yet, yes, there's a lot more to be done. We still have to tackle the cost that American families are facing, but this recovery is faster, stronger, and fairer and wider than almost anyone could have predicted. That's what the numbers say. But we want to make sure that people continue to feel it in their lives, in their bank accounts, in their hopes and expectations, for tomorrow is better than today. That's what it's all about, making sure our recovery is fully felt.

To determine that depends on two things, two things that are entirely within our reach. The first for our economy to fully recover, we need to keep driving vaccinations up and COVID down. In that effort, we took two major steps this week. On Tuesday, the CDC recommended COVID- 19 vaccine for children between the ages of 5 and 11. We're prepared for this moment by securing enough vaccine supply for every single child in that age group in America. Those doses have started to arrive at thousands of pediatricians' offices, pharmacies, schools and other sites.

As a parent of one of the first children to receive the shots said, quote, today is such a huge sigh of relief, end of quote. Starting next week, our kid's vaccination program will hit full strength, with about 20,000 trusted in community places for parents to get their kids vaccinated.

And yesterday, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, issued a rule requiring employers with 100 or more employees to ensure that each of their workers is fully vaccinated or tests negative for COVID-19 at least once a week. And the centers for Medicare and Medicaid services issued a rule requiring that all workers at health care facilities participating in Medicare or Medicaid are fully vaccinated.

Together, these rules, along with other requirements we've put in place, means that two-thirds of all workers in the United States are now covered by vaccination requirements. These requirements have broad public support, and they work. Already we've seen organizations that have adopted vaccination requirements increase their vaccination rates by more than 20 percentage points, often as high as over 90 percent.

This is good for the workers, for their colleagues, for their loved ones and for their communities. It's also good for the economy. In a recent university of Chicago survey showed, every economist agreed that requiring staff vaccinations or regular testing among large employers would promote the economic recovery that is faster and stronger even than it is now. Analysts at Goldman Sachs projected these kinds of requirements could lead to up to 5 million more Americans reentering the workforce. That's because they feel safer to do so, because there are fewer disruptions to things like child care.

Again, beating COVID-19 remains one of the important ways to strengthen our economy, not just save lives but strengthen our economy. We're making progress. As of this week, 70 percent of American adults are fully vaccinated. More than 193 million Americans are fully vaccinated. It was less than 1 percent when we took office ten months ago. And one more piece of good news.

[11:00:00]

Last night, we received promising news about another potent and potential COVID treatment, a pill, a pill developed by Pfizer that may.