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Pfizer Data on Omicron; Meadows Not Cooperating with Congress; Biden warns Putin of Consequences; Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) is Interviewed about Ukraine. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired December 08, 2021 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Who have been reunited or who know --

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So you're just -- you're cleaning that up right there.

KEILAR: My children better not be watching.

BERMAN: No, no. I'm sure you love them both equally.

KEILAR: Obviously.

BERMAN: Obviously.

CNN's coverage continues right now.

KEILAR: I'm so in trouble.

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

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

We are following two developing stories this hour, including the first real evidence that existing vaccines may protect against the new omicron variant. This morning, the CEO of Pfizer says preliminary lab studies show that three doses of its vaccine, two shots plus the booster, are able to neutralize the new strain. That's good news. We're going to have much more on that in a moment.

HILL: Also this morning, a crucial day for the investigation into the Capitol insurrection. CNN has exclusive new details on more than 100 subpoenas targeting former Trump officials and associates. And in the next hour, the January 6th committee is proceeding as planned with a scheduled deposition of former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Meadows is expected to be a no show. If that happens, the committee chair says they will hold Meadows in contempt.

Let's begin, though, with that breaking news on vaccines.

CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, with us now.

OK, so, Sanjay, you just spoke this morning with Pfizer's chief scientific officer. This sounds like good news with the caveat, of course, that it's coming to us from the company that is responsible for the vaccine itself.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right.

HILL: What do we need to know this morning?

GUPTA: Yes, we do need to hear, to your point, from the CDC and FDA about this data, but what we are hearing from Pfizer is potentially good news.

The headline for me, when I spoke to him, was that basically, you know, we used to think of the significant protection against illness that people got from two doses of the vaccine with the original strain. They're saying you can get that same level of protection against omicron with three doses. So, this is the two shots and then the boost.

Here's how Dr. Mikael Dolsten put it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MIKAEL DOLSTEN, CHIEF SCIENTIFIC OFFICER, PFIZER: I advise, and (INAUDIBLE) advise, given on this new day (ph) data that we are presenting, that everyone should get vaccinated. And those that have given the two doses should, as soon as possible, get the third dose.

Where do we need a variant vaccine or there may be need for additional boosts as we get into spring '22, that needs to be evaluated. We do believe that the third boost will carry you well protected for omicron through the winter and into the March season.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: So two big points there. One is that the booster does seem to offer protection in terms of antibodies. Really does increase antibody levels to where Dr. Dolsten at least thinks it will be very protective overall against severe illness and even, to some extent, against infections.

We don't know how long that lasts, though. The durability, if you will, of these boosters. And that's going to be sort of an open question going forward. And also, you know, at this point he's saying -- people say, well, there may be an omicron specific booster coming in the spring. What he's clearly saying is, don't wait for that because if you get a booster of the existing vaccine, it does offer you that protection we're talking about.

SCIUTTO: OK. So there are two big questions here. One was efficacy of the vaccines and boosters. That seems to be good news. What does the data show us to this point, Sanjay, on the severity of disease and, again, I know this is early in terms of the data, but the severity of the disease that omicron is causing?

GUPTA: Yes, I mean, you know, it's still small numbers of patients here. So, you know, we look at what's happening in South Africa. And talking to doctors on the ground there who are taking care of patients, it does appear to be that people who are testing positive have milder disease. We saw hospitalization rates go up for a period of time in Gauteng province, where Johannesburg is located, but they have started to plateau now as well. So they -- you see the numbers there.

But I can tell you, based on the trends that we're following this week, the numbers are starting to come down a bit. So, overall, again, early, want to be careful here, mild disease. As you well remember, Jim, it can take a couple of weeks for people to come into the hospital that do develop severe disease. That's part of the reason they want to wait a little bit longer before making more definitive statements.

HILL: You know, Sanjay, to your point, and we've talked about this so much over the last now almost two years, this is developing, right, and the science is coming at us, as it does, in drips and drabs in some respects. When it comes to vaccines here, we're talking a lot about Pfizer because we have this new information from Pfizer.

GUPTA: Right.

HILL: What about, though, people who are watching right now who were vaccinated with Moderna or with J&J and then maybe their booster was Moderna or -- what should they take away from this information this morning?

[09:05:05]

GUPTA: I think what they -- they take away is that they probably also need to get a booster shot. I mean, you know, we -- the Pfizer data is just coming out this morning. We will probably hear about Moderna and Johnson & Johnson in the next several days or weeks.

But the reality is, even before we started talking about omicron, I think there was emerging evidence that the existing vaccines, while protective, their effectiveness may be waning over time. So all adults, they're saying, should get a booster shot, two months at least out from the Johnson & Johnson and six months at least out from Pfizer and Moderna.

So, one thing to keep in mind is, people will say, well, I'm not six months out, should I just go ahead and do it now anyways?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GUPTA: There is -- the way the immune system works, there is virtue in waiting. You want to give some space between the prime and the boost. Your boost will have more of an impact if you give it the right amount of time before you -- before you're actually boosting.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

So let me ask you this, Sanjay, given this news that a booster helps protect against omicron and what we already knew that you referenced that you have waning immunity after a number of months after the first two shots, are we reaching a point where we need to change the definition, in effect, of fully vaccinated, that fully vaccinated really means three shots?

GUPTA: It really sounds like it now at this point, Jim. I mean I asked the chief scientific officer at Pfizer that question, and I think he was -- he was pretty much saying that that is now going to be the definition, three shots to be fully vaccinated.

The government has not said that yet, to be clear.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GUPTA: And this affects people's travel plans and other things coming up. So, you know, I want to be careful in how we frame this. Still, two shots are considered fully vaccinated. But that may change.

And just keep in mind, there are other viral illnesses, hepatitis, for example, other illnesses which you get multiple shots, three shots or even more, before you're considered fully vaccinated, and then that's it. It's not like you're getting a yearly shot after that.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GUPTA: Or you may get a booster years down the line. So we'll see how that -- how that sort of plays out and how -- how durable the -- this booster is.

HILL: All right. An you'll be right there to walk us through it, which we appreciate every time.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GUPTA: Yes.

HILL: Sanjay, thank you.

GUPTA: You got it.

HILL: Turning our attention now to Capitol Hill, where the stage is set for the former White House chief of staff to be held in contempt of Congress. Mark Meadows is expected to skip his scheduled deposition with the committee investigating the January 6th insurrection. His attorney says Meadows will no longer cooperate because of what he cites as overreach by investigators.

SCIUTTO: Yes, a former member of Congress, Meadows, defying Congress.

All this as former Trump associate and chief strategist Steve Bannon bow does have a trial date set for his own contempt case, but you're going to have to wait a few months for that.

CNN law enforcement correspondent Whitney Wild has been following the story.

So, Whitney, what do we expect to see this morning, particularly if Meadows doesn't show up?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, an empty chair at a minimum because we know that they -- they are willing to go ahead on their end with this deposition. They expect that Meadows was going to skip it.

I think what's likely is that we might see a little bit of movement from the committee. There is some -- it's not exactly clear yet exactly what they're going to do. So there has been a suggestion that they are definitely going to move forward with a criminal contempt charge, but the chairman of the committee, Bennie Thompson, also said that they want to keep all of the options on the table.

So there -- there are a list of options and that could include immunity. He has stressed they want to get the information. That's the most important thing. So, this is not definite, but it is certainly something -- certainly a tool that is in their arsenal.

Meanwhile, as you pointed out, we have the Steve Bannon case, which is really the road map for how the rest of these criminal contempt cases are going to go. So we have basically a timeline here.

So Bannon, in September, being subpoenaed, bucking that subpoena later on. He -- you know, we had this status update. And November 12th he was actually indicted. Sorry, I'm just going through the timeline here. So, September 23rd, to be specific, the committee issues a subpoena. November 12th he was indicted for contempt of Congress. Now we know that he's going to go to trial in July. That date was sort of a splitting of the difference. DOJ wanted to go to trial in April. He wanted to go to trial in October. So a judge said, split the difference, we'll go through July.

But, again, there are a lot of people who are watching the Bannon case and trying to decide how they're going to operate around the committee, but it is proof that they are planning to move forward with criminal contempt cases. Another example of that would be the Jeffrey Clark case, where they got very close to actually going to a House floor vote on criminal contempt of Congress for Clark, but then, almost simultaneously with their vote to move forward with that, he said, OK, I'll do another round of testimony in which he plans to plead the Fifth.

So this is all, Jim and Erica, a long way of saying that these cases are not falling out in the exact same way, but people in the periphery are certainly watching them and they know for sure that criminal contempt is on the table, which is why it was our understanding that Meadows had agreed to cooperate in the first place.

[09:10:06]

He's already given over 6,000 documents. He is among these people who have been subpoenaed for their phone records for the telecommunications companies. And then, as we move forward, and look at that exclusive reporting by CNN, amazing reporting from my colleagues, there are people who are under investigation by DOJ who are wrapped up in that subpoena as well.

So there's a wealth of information, even absent of testimony, that is bringing how this all happened into much clearer focus, Jim and Erica. SCIUTTO: Whitney Wild, good to have you following it.

Joining us now to discuss, CNN legal analyst Paul Callan, former New York City prosecutor.

Paul, good to have you on.

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning.

SCIUTTO: The question with Meadows. Meadows is somewhat different in that he was chief of staff to the president. Does he have a stronger executive privilege argument than say a Bannon who did not have an official position at the time of this, which might then make it less likely DOJ prosecutes if there are contempt -- a contempt referral?

CALLAN: I think he has a much stronger claim here than Bannon did. The -- we kind of view the executive privilege as something that should protect the closest advisers to the president of the United States so that when he's making a difficult decision and needs advice from his advisers, they're not going to be worried about what they say winding up in -- before a congressional committee or on television.

So -- and who is closer to the president than his own chief of staff? So, I think Meadows has probably one of the stronger executive privilege claims of all of the witnesses who have been subpoenaed.

HILL: What has come up, though, and especially more so in the last couple of days, is you have this claim of executive privilege and you have Meadows attorney saying that the select committee has no intention of respecting boundaries concerning executive privilege. But we know, as Whitney laid out, documents have been turned over already to the committee. This book was just out yesterday. How do you square those two?

CALLAN: It's hard to square it because Meadows, on the one hand, was thought to be someone maybe who had been turned by the action against Bannon and was fearful of a criminal contempt indictment and suddenly became cooperative. But now he's withdrawn his level of cooperation. So it's really hard to figure where he stands.

But what we do know is that he has produced literally thousands of documents that are being reviewed by the committee, and there may be substantive information in those documents that will be helpful to their investigation. I don't think they're going to get anything helpful from him actually testifying before Congress.

SCIUTTO: So, Steve Bannon was charged by the Justice Department, but his trial is not going to be until July, notably four months before midterm elections when it's possible Republicans take over Congress. A lot of this does seem to be deliberate playing of the timeline here, right, pushing this out.

Can we expect, if Meadows does get a referral here, to be able to push this out as well? I mean it seems to serve the interests of the accused here more than the investigators. CALLAN: Yes, it does, Jim. And I think it also demonstrates how

utterly toothless Congress is in its ability to enforce its subpoena powers.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CALLAN: You know, a prosecutor who's presenting a case to a grand jury, if that witness doesn't show up, you send your police detectives out to pick him up, bring him into court. He's brought before a judge and told by the judge, you don't testify in front of the grand jury, you're going to remain in jail until you do. And if the witness says I'm not testifying, then he's hauled off to jail. And sometimes we've seen cases in the past where witnesses have been locked up for as much as a year refusing to testify before a grand juries.

Now, compare that to Congress. Congress has to have a vote of the entire Congress on the contempt citation. The speaker of the House or the president of the Senate then has to refer it over to the executive branch, to the U.S. attorney, who has to decide to prosecute. Then it has to be presented to a grand jury. Then there has to be an indictment and a full year passes by the time you get a resolution of it. You may have a new government in power by that time. So, it's really a toothless power.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CALLAN: They do have another power they never use, it's called inherent contempt, and that's similar to the power that I just described a prosecutor being able to do. They could have the sergeant at arms take the person into custody for a contemptuous act. But that hasn't been used really since the early 20th century, even though it's on the books.

HILL: Paul Callan, always good to talk with you. Appreciate it. Thanks.

CALLAN: Thank you, Erica.

HILL: Just ahead, President Biden sending a message to Vladimir Putin that an invasion of Ukraine will not be tolerated. We'll speak with one of -- one congressman who's been pushing for stronger actions against Russia to talk about what comes next.

Plus, Democrat plans to introduce a formal resolution to strip Republican Lauren Boebert of her committee assignments over her anti- Muslim remarks.

[09:15:03]

This as the Colorado congresswoman injects herself into yet another controversy, offering her own family gun photo.

SCIUTTO: Yes, those are children.

Next hour, opening statements begin in a manslaughter trial of Kim Potter. She's the former Minnesota police officer who claims she mistook her gun for a taser, rather her taser for a gun, when she shot and killed Daunte Wright during a traffic stop.

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SCIUTTO: President Biden will speak with the president of Ukraine tomorrow. This following his video conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday. Sources tell CNN that Biden issued a firm and direct warning to Putin over its buildups, Russia's buildup of forces around Ukraine and the possibility of an invasion.

[09:20:05]

HILL: The State Department says Russia's troop buildup itself is much more lethal now than it was during the 2014 invasion of Crimea. Biden also warning Putin that things will be very different this time around if there is a military conflict.

CNN White House correspondent Arlette Saenz is with us now.

So, what exactly would be different? What more do we know, Arlette?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erica and Jim, the White House is waiting to see whether President Putin will heed President Biden's warnings of dire consequences if he moves forward with an invasion of Ukraine.

Now, while the focus, the goal for President Biden in that two-hour conversation with Putin was de-escalation, sources tell CNN that the call did grow tense at times as they talked about that military buildup and the possible consequences that could follow. A senior White House official shared one of the quotes that President Biden said directly to Putin, saying, one nation can't force another nation to change its border. One nation cannot tell another to change its politics. And nations can't tell others who they can work with.

Now, the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said that President Biden also made it clear that the U.S. is ready to take stronger action if Russia does invade Ukraine than it did back in 2014. Now, this could include military shipments to Ukraine, as well as economic sanctions on Russian officials, including members of President Putin's inner circle. Also that Nord Stream 2, that controversial gas pipeline to Europe, could also be in jeopardy if there is an invasion.

Now, White House officials, they say that they do not believe that Putin has decided whether he will actually invade Ukraine in the coming months, but there are contingency plans that are being discussed at this moment about possibly evacuating American citizens from Ukraine if that security situation in the country gets dire.

Now, President Biden has also been speaking to allies in Europe, offering them a debrief of his call with Putin. And one thing that White House officials also say is that the president offered Putin some sort of off ramp to try it approach and address this diplomatically. There will be conversations on the lower staff level over the course of the coming days and weeks to see if a diplomatic path can be reached, but certainly the White House insists there is still more work to do as they're waiting to see Putin's next move. HILL: And so we -- and so we wait and we watch.

Arlette Saenz, appreciate it. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: I'm joined now by Democratic Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, she's the co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus.

Congresswoman, thanks for taking the time this morning.

REP. MARCY KAPTUR (D-OH): Thank you, Jim, very much.

SCIUTTO: So you heard Arlette there describe the warning that President Biden delivered to President Putin, one nation cannot force another nation to change its border. But also a sense of what the U.S. threatened if Russia were to invade, a combination of economic sanctions and other measures.

Do you believe the president said and threatened what's necessary to deter a Russian invasion?

KAPTUR: Well, of course, you can't predict Russia. She's invaded Ukraine in the Crimea area, (INAUDIBLE) area already and several other adjoining nations like Moldova, like Georgia, like Armenia. She's trying to reassemble her former set -- I call the colonies, Sovietized colonies. And so I think it's very unpredictable.

We know the 20th century was all about the politics of fossil fuels and oil. Most important steps that we can take as a world, liberty loving people everywhere, the right to become energy independent, including in Ukraine. It's taken too long.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

So, let me ask you, given that, the president had an opportunity to act in that space earlier this year and sanction and therefore block Nord Stream 2, which is a way this many Americans, many Europeans see that Russia keeps energy leverage over Europe.

Was it a mistake for Biden at the time not to block that?

KAPTUR: Well, it's too bad that former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder personally benefited by going to Russia and really becoming a client of the Russian state in pushing this pipeline.

We have very strong alliances. Our strongest alliance is with NATO, of democratic republics on the European continent. This has really up ended the discussions and so forth.

I think Putin, at this point, sees America disunited.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KAPTUR: And that this is the time to take advantage of that. And to rattle his saber, you know, around the region.

President Trump, when he took office, he allowed the pipeline to proceed because it started construction in 2016. So those four years were wasted.

[09:25:01]

When President Biden got to the White House --

SCIUTTO: True, but President Biden had an opportunity --

KAPTUR: (INAUDIBLE) the pipeline had been built.

SCIUTTO: President -- as president, had an opportunity earlier this year, to turn that around. And, by the way, has an opportunity now. I mean it's CNN's understanding that -- that the administration has communicated, if Russia were to invade, Nord Stream 2 is done. But kind of gives Putin what he wants, right, does it, to let it go forward, even in the midst of this threat?

KAPTUR: Well, I think we have to use every diplomatic and military means we have, and that includes our alliances in NATO, to try to stop further Russian aggression. And that means to be more aggressive about pushing them out of Ukraine now in the Crimea. In terms of the pipeline, that gives Russia a real handle on European energy supplies in the future.

Now, we're told that through other sources that that gas pipeline would only make -- make up a smaller percentage of the fuels available to Europe, but we, as a country, we as the free world, we as a NATO ally, the leader of the free world, have to help ourselves and Europe become energy independent and do everything we can with Ukraine to try to give her the benefit of that as well.

I don't see as much pressure there. I don't see as much cooperation there as needs to happen. And that's the other side. So that Russia does not make Europe dependent on imported gas.

SCIUTTO: The -- tomorrow President Biden is going to convene a democracy summit designed as a show of unity, supporting democracy, particularly in the face of two, not just one, authoritarian regimes, that in Russia and that in China.

But I wonder, given U.S. divisions at home, and, by the way, attacks on democratic institutions here at home in the U.S., does the U.S. have the influence it had in the past to push this kind of message internationally?

KAPTUR: When you meet with people who've lived in subjugated societies and they meet Americans, you can see the desire for liberty in their eyes. It is -- unless you've traveled around the world, unless you've met these people, you don't know what I'm talking about.

Robert Dole, who will be honored here, Senator Dole, this week in the Capitol, said America must unify to rediscover her greatness. I think we are at that point in the society with some of the internal social divisions that I believe Russia has helped to exacerbate. We, as a country, have to grow up and meet our responsibilities to liberty on the face of the globe. That means strengthening our relationships. Nobody knows more about that than Joe Biden. He chaired the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate for over three decades.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KAPTUR: So he comes equipped for the job.

I think, you know, rather than just complaining about this pipeline, which is -- I don't like what's happened, but we have to put the foot on the accelerator of energy independence with our NATO allies and push Russia out of Ukraine.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you, because one issue at home, of course, is redistricting and gerrymandering. It's one of the reasons we have such a divided Congress, right, because the districts are drawn in such a way that it's easy to elect -- it's not easy to elect moderates. And, by the way, your district, under the new Ohio map, has become a lot less friendly for Democrats here.

And, by the way, Democrats in states they control have not been innocent of this sort of thing as well.

Are you concerned that both parties are worsening the divisions with this kind of redistricting?

KAPTUR: There's no question about it. That's one of the reasons, when the country is unrepresented here in the Congress because of the way the lines are drawn, it helps to fuel more conflict.

And, Ohio, we will, in the next Congress, have 15 seats based on our votes. So we voted both for President Obama twice and for President Trump, when he was elected. We should have eight Republican seats and seven Democratic seats out of 15. We will be lucky to get two, and maybe three seats as a Democrat, the Democrat, out of the 15 based on the way that the state Republican Party has drawn the map. And that's gone all around the country, Texas, other states. It's a tragedy. It's a national tragedy.

SCIUTTO: Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, thanks so much for joining us this morning.

KAPTUR: Thank you.

HILL: Still ahead, Speaker Pelosi says it's up to Republicans to discipline Congresswoman Lauren Boebert. Why progressive Democrats are now looking to force Pelosi's hand.

SCIUTTO: And, the opening bell on Wall Street just seconds away. Dow futures up again as investors react to news from Pfizer that three doses of its vaccine are proving effective against the omicron variant. Wall Street has been on a rally all week as fears over the new strain have dwindled. Tech stocks leading the charge, sending the Nasdaq up 3 percent yesterday alone.

[09:30:00]

Its best day since March.

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