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AAA: Thanksgiving Travel To Hit Pre-COVID Levels As Gas Prices Surge; Eleven Democrat Senators Call On Biden To Right High Gas Prices; Bill Nye, "The Science Guy," Discusses Partnering With White House On Messaging To Push Democrat's Social Safety Net Package; Prosecution Rests In Rittenhouse Case After Calling 22 Witnesses. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired November 09, 2021 - 14:30   ET

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

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[14:33:49]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: President Biden is facing growing pressure to stop the surge in gas prices, which now sit at a seven-year high.

According to AAA, more than 53 million people will travel this Thanksgiving. And for those driving, they can expect to pay about $1.30 a gallon more than last year.

Today, a group of Senate Democrats are urging the president to take action. In a letter to the president, they say high gas prices have placed an undue burden on families and small businesses.

CNN business reporter, Matt Egan, has more.

Matt, what can President Biden do?

MATT EGAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Well, President Biden does not have a magic wand to dramatically lower gas prices. And if he did, judging upon his sinking poll numbers, he would use that magic wand.

Let me run you through some of the options that are being talked about and some of the drawbacks for each of them.

First, he could get on the phone and call OPEC, again, and try to persuade them to pump more oil. That has not worked so far. They're not doing him any favors.

The Senate Democrats also, in that letter, they suggested that Biden could try to ban oil exports.

Now, industry experts are telling me that would be counterproductive because this is a global market. And if you took U.S. barrels out of that market, global prices would just go higher.

So that would actually raise prices at the pump instead of lowering them.

[14:35:03] Then there's the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That is another option that he could use.

That's not going to be a long-term fix. It's more of like a Band-Aid. Because it doesn't solve the underlying issue, which is that supply hasn't caught up with demand as people drive and they fly more.

There also is the option that he could potentially try to team up with other countries and release barrels both at home and abroad from the strategic reserves.

Let me just explain a little bit more about what the SPR is. It's this underground series of caverns that hold 600 million barrels of oil, emergency oil.

It's been used by presidents of both parties in the past. President Trump used it after Hurricane Harvey. President Obama had used it in 2011 during the Arab Spring. Biden used it earlier this year after Hurricane Ida.

But those were all emergency supply shocks, you know, hurricanes and natural disasters, wars.

This is something different. This is an economy that is roaring back and that supply hasn't caught up.

But still, it feels like a coordinated release is where this is headed.

And one of the advantages is that they could try to use that as a bargaining tool with OPEC, to basically say, either you act or we will. And if we act, you're not going to get the oil revenue.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: So, I should say that Kaitlan Collins in that White House briefing just asked Karine Jean-Pierre about this.

And her answer was they're going to keep an eye on gas prices and take a look at these tools in the toolbox. But no specifics on, you know, what exactly they're going to do.

EGAN: Yes. One of the ironic parts here about the talk about banning oil exports is that it was illegal to export oil for 40 years. But Republicans and Democrats agreed to lift that ban in 2015. And the vice president during that time was Joe Biden.

CAMEROTA: OK. Matt Egan, thank you very much for helping us understand all this.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, Matt.

CAMEROTA: It's great to see you.

BLACKWELL: The White House is working on their climate crisis messaging and partnering with Bill Nye, "The Science Guy," to help push through the Democrat's social safety net package.

CAMEROTA: There he is.

BLACKWELL: And, yes, Bill Nye is going to join us to discuss, next.

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[14:41:46]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL NYE, HOST, "THE SCIENCE GUY": By the end of this century, if emissions keep rising, the average temperature on earth could go up another four to eight degrees.

What I'm saying is the planet on (EXPLETIVE DELETED) fire. There are a lot of things we could do to put it out.

Are any of them free? No, of course not. Nothing's free, you idiots. Grow the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) up. You're not children anymore.

I didn't mind explaining photosynthesis to you when you were 12. But you're adults now and this is an actual crisis. Got it?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Safety goggles off. Tell them why you're mad, Bill Nye.

I love that clip.

Bill Nye, "The Science Guy," is with me now, at the White House, to talk about the president's plan to fight climate change.

Thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us.

Listen, so, the White House has been criticized for not explaining what's in this legislation. And the climate portion could be the hardest part to explain. How do you do that?

NYE": Well, I guess the answer is we're working on it. We're working on young people, young voters, so that they'll influence their representatives to vote for these two bills.

Infrastructure is roads, water pipes, power lines, things like that, which benefit everybody.

And I like to remind people, as my mother would, the money that's spent on building things in the U.S. is spent in the U.S. The money doesn't go anywhere else. It's all spent here.

And then the other thing is about climate change. They're proposing $555 billion, with a "B," billion dollars to help weatherize houses with tax incentives and soil and forest conservation.

And a Climate Corps, people that would be analogous to AmeriCorps, Teach for America, and so on, that would help make the U.S. more resilient with these extreme weather events, which we're seeing more and more of. But the longest journey starts with but a single step. So we're

working to get the message out even more.

BLACKWELL: Taking that first step by recording some videos with the president that will be shared on social media.

The question for, you know, those families in Louisiana, the ones on the east coast, who are still recovering after the hurricanes we saw over the summer and early fall, was how soon will there be some real impact on what's in this bill?

NYE: Well, I'm not an expert on that. But the sooner it's passed, the sooner it will happen. That, I got.

So what we want to do -- the word everybody throws around right now is resiliency, which would mean seawalls and planning. Like having weather reports that enable people to take steps when a big storm is coming.

And big storms are only one example.

You know, the world's getting warmer. And so, when things get warmer, they expand. The ocean is expanding. And that is a big reason why we're having sea-level rise in places like Louisiana.

And Florida, where the water is coming over the top, over the land when there's big so-called king tides and storm events at the same time, and water's coming up through the limestone.

[14:45:04]

I mean, it's big problems that are going to take big investment.

And that's what the administration is proposing is big investments here in the United States to address problems we are facing and opportunities we have here in the United States.

BLACKWELL: How close will you get to the political negotiations of trying to pass this legislation? Are you meeting with Senators?

NYE: No, not this time. Not this time.

You know, I've been talking about this for about 30 years. I've been talking about climate change, the importance of addressing climate change.

You know, it was -- you can discuss how it was discovered, but it was discovered by looking at the planet Venus. We realized that the atmosphere of Venus makes Venus extraordinarily hot.

And I've been to Greenland and been to the Ice Core Research Project where we pull up cylinders of ice and look at the air trapped in the ice and we have discovered that the world's getting warmer because humans are causing it.

So the sooner we get to work, the better. So, let's go, people.

BLACKWELL: All right. Let me ask you about something else.

I mean, you got "The Science Guy" on, you've got to ask about the other science conversation we're having, and that's on vaccines.

Listen, in the span of a week, Big Bird became a Communist, and Aaron Rodgers became an epidemiologist. I don't know how that happened.

But --

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NYE: It really is a remarkable time.

Sorry. Go ahead.

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BLACKWELL: But to that point --

NYE: The word vaccine comes from the word for "cow" because it was discovered 200 years ago that people who got cowpox did not get smallpox.

So by using cowpox infection, mild, mild, tiny infection, people discovered they wouldn't die from smallpox. This goes back centuries. This is an old idea.

And it's in the United States -- in the U.S. Constitution, everybody. As the saying goes, you can look it up. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, the part of the job of Congress is to promote the progress of science and useful arts.

The word "science" is in the U.S. Constitution. Vaccines are science. Climate change is science. Landing on the moon was science. The Internet is science.

Feeding eight billion people from the world's third most-populous country, the U.S., we do that because of innovations in agriculture, because of science.

Everybody, we're all in this together.

When people fly in space, they look at the earth, they have the overview effect. oh, my goodness, this is our only planetary home, we've got to maintain it and take care of it.

Come on, everybody. We're all in this together.

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKWELL: Great place to end.

NYE: That's the saying, Victor. Science rules, everybody. Come on. Science is for everyone.

BLACKWELL: Bill Nye.

NYE: It's how we know the world.

Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Bill Nye, "The Science Guy," driving it home.

I see why the White House brought you in to explain to folks.

Thank you so much for your time.

NYE: Thank you, Victor.

CAMEROTA: That was great. He didn't light anything on fire this time.

BLACKWELL: No.

CAMEROTA: There was no show and tell.

BLACKWELL: We were looking for something that was going to sizzle.

CAMEROTA: He also toned down some of his wording.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Maybe next time.

CAMEROTA: Kept it clean. That was great.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Now to this. After 22 witnesses called to the stand, the prosecution rests its case against Kyle Rittenhouse. We are live from the courthouse with all the developments, next.

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[14:52:55]

BLACKWELL: The prosecution has rested in the case against Kyle Rittenhouse, the armed teenager charged with killing two and injuring another during a protest last summer in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Now, over the six days of testimony, prosecutors called 22 witnesses. We also know the defense has already begun calling witnesses.

CAMEROTA: CNN's Shimon Prokupecz is in live for us in Kenosha.

Shimon, do we know if Rittenhouse is going to testify?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME & JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: We don't know definitively, Alisyn, if he's going to testify.

But certainly, the defense attorney, during opening statements, indicated that, in some way, that the jury would be hearing from Kyle Rittenhouse.

So it is expected at this point that he will testify. But the defense attorneys are not really telling us. I've asked them several times. They are sort of not tipping their hand. They keep telling us to wait and see what happens.

But you can see that the defense team here are moving quickly. They are already calling their second witness.

They just started presenting their case. They have to prove that Kyle Rittenhouse acted in self-defense.

Certainly, they have done a somewhat of a noticeable job during the presentation of the prosecution's case in trying to rip apart some of these witnesses who testified for the prosecution.

Today, for the final witness for the prosecution was a medical examiner who came in and described where two of the people, who were killed by Rittenhouse, where they were shot.

Anthony Huber, the doctor testified, shot in the chest.

But Joseph Rosenbaum, he described that he was shot several times, one time in the back. And the doctor testifying that this was the lethal shot. This is what ultimately killed Joseph Rosenbaum.

Questions could be raised in closing arguments whether or not Joseph Rosenbaum perhaps was fleeing from the scene. Does that somehow indicate some kind of self-defense if the person who was shot had his back to the gunman?

That is something that the prosecution will want to argue. But there's so much nuance throughout this entire trial. But there's a lot that both sides will be able to grab on and argue on.

[14:55:07]

But of course, the big question now is, does Kyle Rittenhouse take the stand? And that could happen in the next day or so.

CAMEROTA: Yes, shot in the back, that sounds like an important development for the jury to understand.

Shimon Prokupecz, thank you very much for the update.

BLACKWELL: Green Bay Packers quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, has a new explanation after coming under intense backlash for claiming that he was immunized when he had not actually received a COVID vaccine. Hear what he is saying now.

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