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COVID Cases Rising Across U.S. With Delta Variant And Highly Contagious Omicron Variant; Vice President Kamala Harris's Comment On Unpredicted Variants Of Coronavirus Draw Criticism; Former Minnesota Police Officer Kim Potter Takes Stand In Trial Over Fatal Shooting Of Daunte Wright; Congressional Committee Investigating January 6th Insurrection Releases Text It Attributes To Rick Perry With Suggestions On How To Overturn 2020 Presidential Election. Aired 2-3p ET

Aired December 18, 2021 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:40]

AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining me. I'm Amara Walker in for Fredricka Whitfield.

We begin this hour with the reality of a surge in COVID cases just as the holidays are approaching. The list of curfews and event cancellations around the world is growing longer. The Rockettes calling off the remaining shows of their famous Christmas spectacular. Just moments ago, the Netherlands announcing a strict new lockdown for the next several weeks starting tomorrow morning. And in Ireland, a new curfew begins at 8:00 p.m. tomorrow for bars and restaurants. And in Rio de Janeiro and Paris, both cities deciding to cancel planned New Year's fireworks shows.

The World Health Organization warning today that the cases of Omicron variants double in under three days for countries already seeing infections. In the U.S., COVID hospitalizations are at levels not seen since September, which was at the end of the summer surge, blamed mainly on the still-spreading Delta variant.

And now an admission from Vice President Kamala Harris at a time when the administration is trying to instill public confidence in its handling of the pandemic. She tells "The L.A. Times," quote, "We didn't see Delta coming. I think most scientists did not upon whose advice and direction we relied didn't see Delta coming." She goes on to say, "We didn't see Omicron coming, and that's the nature of what this awful virus has been, which, as it turns out has mutations and variants."

Joining us now is CNN's Joe Johns at the White House and CNN's Polo Sandoval in New York. And Joe, first to you, these comments by Vice President Harris, it seems to contradict the White House's message that it's on top of the pandemic. What else is she saying?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: You know that messaging goes all the way back to July 4th when the president said essentially that the United States had gained the upper hand on the virus. He didn't suggest that the virus had been vanquished, but he said the country was no longer paralyzed.

You fast-forward to this interview that's been published in "The L.A. Times" featuring the vice president of the United States, essentially what she's doing, as you said at the top, is making an admission that a lot of people already knew, that the government, specifically the government scientists who the country relies on for guidance in the pandemic, were not able to anticipate the Omicron and Delta variants, the mutations, in other words.

One individual in the administration spoke to CNN on background indicating that while the vice president was well aware, and the government was well aware of the existence of mutations in general, they did not know about this specific mutation or these specific mutations.

So that's the state of all of this. The other thing they point out is that generally, the government has been well aware of the fact that mutations do exist, and they put in countermeasures. We all know the countermeasures include things like PPE and, of course, encouraging Americans to get vaccinated, Amara.

WALKER: And, Joe, also, a win to talk about for the Biden administration, which has been fighting and pushing to impose vaccine mandates. Many of them have been challenged or tied up in the court system, but now one rule for larger employers is now being reinstated, according to this appeals court.

JOHNS: At least temporarily, and that's what it is, a temporary win that we can see for the administration and OSHA. They're putting in a rule for large employers, people who employ more than 100 people essentially saying that those company have the power to tell their employees whether they have to wear masks, whether they have to get vaccinated. That rule was essentially blocked, put on hold. And now the sixth circuit court of appeals says it can go forward. But all of this is going to be decided at the end of the day by the United States Supreme Court in all likelihood.

[14:05:00]

WALKER: Yes, of course, it's all where it is headed. Thanks for that, Joe.

And to you, Polo. With COVID spreading -- surging right before the holidays, New York already seeing some of the most cases it's seen this entire pandemic, and they are mandates in place in New York. What's being done to slow down these infections?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And when you talk to many New Yorkers here, Amara, you do walk away with a sense that there is a feeling that maybe there is sort of a step back when you look at these numbers, right? When you look alone at what New York state logged this week, the highest daily COVID number, which is about 21,000, is certainly concerning. And then you also look, perhaps, nationally where you have two key indicators. You have the number of new cases, the average number of new cases right now, about 120,000. And then also hospitalizations, a little over 68,000 right now. That's about a 40 percent increase in the last month alone.

So you have people across the country that are certainly conscious and aware of that. I can tell you that's certainly the case in New York City. We spent the morning here outside of an urgent care facility, and early this morning, even though -- even before they opened up their doors, you had a massive line of people that were out here just eager to get their name down for an appointment so they could come back and actually take that test as authorities are recommending. This is a little bit of what they had to say leading up to the big obviously Christmas weekend that's coming up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAISSA DORFF, NEW YORK CITY RESIDENT GETTING TESTED: Because I've been potentially exposed, I've had friends -- or I had a niece that was going to come up here to visit and we canceled that. I have friends that were like, let's have a little gathering, and I already got texts saying maybe next year.

BRIAN MOSLEY, NEW YORK CITY RESIDENT: I'm not too worried because I got the booster shot. Just about the travel, so it's a requirement to get the test.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: Adding to that sense of perhaps -- or that deja vu moment, you have obviously a lot of disruptions and cancellations right now. You mentioned the big Christmas spectacular, it draws in people from around the world. They're canceling the rest of the season. And then you also have sporadic cancellations for many Broadway shows that, again, people look forward to. But unfortunately, they keep seeing many of these breakthrough cases in some of the cast and crew. So they -- the show can't go in in some cases.

So you do get a sense of all that, but at the same time, you also get -- you talk to a lot of people and they say, at least this time they have the added protection of a vaccine, Amara.

WALKER: That is the difference, right, this year compared to last. Joe John and Polo Sandoval, appreciate both of you. Thank you.

And let's dive deeper into all of this. Here with us now is Dr. Esther Choo. She is a professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health and Science University. Doctor, welcome. Thanks for joining us. So, tell me from your perspective, are you worried about the Omicron variant? What are your thoughts?

DR. ESTHER CHOO, PROFESSOR OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE, OREGON HEALTH AND SCIENCE UNIVERSITY: Thanks for having me on, Amara. We are very worried, and part of it is that almost no matter what, given the pace of the spread of Omicron virus, we will see enough cases that people will need hospitalization and they will need ICU units, even if this ends up being a milder disease than Delta or other variants. And any increase in hospitalizations right now is a lot of trouble for

health systems. We are already playing catch-up care from the last surge. There are a lot of people who have delayed care. Even at single hospitalizations, thousands of nonemergency surgical cases that are backlogged.

We've been really scrambling to try to see people for regular diseases and injuries, and layering on another surge is just not something we can envision handling, particularly because we have lost so many health care workers. We have projections -- new protections out from Oregon suggesting that the surge in January and February from Omicron will be larger than our fall surge. It is just hard to imagine how we are going to handle this.

WALKER: Yes, people need to think about the fact that this surge is going -- as you're saying, is going to impact people who have to go to the E.R. for other injuries or issues, and they're waiting hours to be seen because there are so many beds that are taken up, many by COVID patients.

Dr. Choo, I do want to play something that Dr. Anthony Fauci said during the White House's latest coronavirus briefing about this variant. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER: With regard to the seriousness of infection, really, it's still up in the air right now because there are a lot of confounding issues as to whether or not it is less severe. Certainly, looking at what we see, it does not look like it is more severe, but we have to withhold judgment about the severity being less.

With regard to long COVID, we don't have enough information on Omicron with regard to long COVID. I would not expect it's going to be any different than we have with Delta, but we'll have to wait and see until we get more experience.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: Let me ask you, how confident are you in the level of protection that boosters give us against this strain?

[14:10:05]

CHOO: It really seems like from the early data that boosters are a tremendous protection against Omicron. It not only increases the antibody levels, that's what we tend to ruminate over because we can measure it and we can see it, but it really seems like it increases the breadth of the immune response and ensures that our immune systems are able to recognize even variants like Omicron. So I do think boosters are a key part of our action to prevent the spread of Omicron.

WALKER: So I have to ask you, maybe what you're doing or what people should do when it comes to gathering for this holiday season. I had an awkward moment, I'll be transparent, with a relative over Thanksgiving as I learned that there were some people who were not vaccinated, and hence we decided not to gather, because I have children who are not eligible to be vaccinated, I have a brother, a new nephew who has a newborn. And so we said, no, we're not going to do this.

What is your advice? If people are vaccinated, some boosted, not boosted, they want to gather, should they get tested at least before gathering even if they are all fully vaccinated and some boosted?

CHOO: This is the number one question. I think I've answered a dozen questions like this every single day, and it's so complicated now because there's such variety of situations. I think holidays are a great time to finally really push on getting family members vaccinated, particularly those who are older or who have medical conditions. Making it a condition of gathering is a wonderful impetus for people who just haven't managed to get there.

Ideally, people are vaccinated. If they're not vaccinated, then absolutely I would layer on testing. The testing should be as close as possible to the gathering time so these -- I'm going to test a day or two before arriving is really not acceptable in the age of Omicron. We really need to be testing as close as possible. Some people I know are making testing -- basically having people come in, take the test at the time of arrival and waiting that 15 minutes before people can come in and remove masks.

So I think as always, these layered protections, if at all possible, vaccinate everybody. If at all possible, make sure people get their booster shot. Test, wear masks unless you're eating, improve the ventilation in your home, HEPA filtration if possible, keep windows open and just put on a sweater.

Avail yourself of all the things that you can layer on. Multiple imperfect protections add to pretty good protections. So I'm with you, too. I have guests about to arrive, actually. I have a stack of rapid tests at the door. We're going to just try be careful and really mindful of symptoms. But I do think this year compared to last year, there still can be gathering. We have a lot of tools at our disposal, and hopefully people will use them as much as they can.

WALKER: Especially with people you trust, right, who are your friends who tell you that they are vaccinated and/or boosted. I was only gathering with people who were boosted, but that's just me. Dr. Esther Choo, I know you've been answering these questions a million times a day, so thank you for doing it a million and one times. I appreciate your time.

CHOO: Thanks for having me on.

WALKER: Sure thing.

Up ahead, the emotional testimony of the former police officer who fatally shot Daunte Wright during a traffic stop near Minneapolis.

And later, CNN learning that members of the January 6th committee believe Trump energy secretary and former governor of Texas Rick Perry was the author of a text message sent to Mark Meadows pushing for an aggressive strategy to undermine the 2020 election. Our exclusive reporting is next.

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[14:17:50]

WALKER: A lot of emotions on the stand as former Minnesota police officer Kim Potter testified in her manslaughter trial over the killing of 20-year-old Daunte Wright. Both sides agree the shooting was accidental, but they disagree on whether her actions were criminal. Closing arguments start Monday. and Josh Campbell has the latest from Minneapolis.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

KIM POTTER, DEFENDANT: I remember yelling, "taser, taser, taser!" And nothing happened. And then he told me I shot him.

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Former officer Kim Potter testifying for the first time, explaining the moment she shot and killed Daunte Wright last April. Potter describes seeing her fellow officers struggling with Wright during the traffic stop.

POTTER: He had a look of fear on his face. It's nothing I had seen before. We were struggling. We were trying to keep him from driving away. It just -- it just went chaotic.

CAMPBELL: Wright, who officers learned had an outstanding warrant for a weapons violation, was initially pulled over for minor offenses, pointed out by a rookie officer.

POTTER: We just discussed a little bit of suspicious activity. He noticed a pine tree, or air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, and the tags were expired.

CAMPBELL: Potter revealing they would not have pulled Wright over at all if she hadn't been training that officer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And why not?

POTTER: An air freshener to me is just an equipment violation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You did stop the vehicle, right?

POTTER: Yes. Part of field training is that my probationer would make numerous contacts with the public throughout the day.

CAMPBELL: That contact would turn fatal.

POTTER: I shot him! Oh, my God!

CAMPBELL: When she pulled her gun instead of the training.

The prosecutor asked Potter about training on confusing her taser and her gun. ERIN ELDRIDGE, HENNEPIN COUNTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: You were trained on it, right?

POTTER: Yes, but it was a while back.

ELDRIDGE: You were trained in March of this year on that taser, correct?

POTTER: Yes.

CAMPBELL: The state pointing out --

ELDRIDGE: You never saw a weapon on Mr. Wright, did you?

POTTER: No.

ELDRIDGE: Never saw a gun?

POTTER: No.

[14:20:00]

CAMPBELL: Adding, she did not try to save Wright or check on other officers in the aftermath.

ELDRIDGE: You didn't make sure any officers knew what you had just done, right?

POTTER: No.

ELDRIDGE: You didn't run down the street and try to save Daunte Wright's life, did you?

POTTER: No.

ELDRIDGE: You were focused on what you had done because you just killed somebody.

POTTER: I'm sorry about that. I'm so sorry.

CAMPBELL: Prosecutors continuing to push.

ELDRIDGE: You knew that deadly force was unreasonable and unwarranted in those circumstances?

POTTER: I didn't want to hurt anybody.

CAMPBELL: And the jury in this trial, they've heard from all of the witnesses who will be testifying. On Monday there will be closing arguments where the prosecution will sum up their case. Of course, all along they've claimed that a very senior officer should have known the difference between her service weapon and her taser.

Potter, of course, has pleaded not guilty. Her defense has claimed that this entire episode was a tragic mistake. The jury will be sequestered on Monday as they begin their deliberations. Josh Campbell, CNN, Minneapolis.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WALKER: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is visiting a series of disaster zones in his home state of Kentucky today. At least 77 people died in Kentucky during last week's historic, deadly tornados. Towns like Madisonville, Dawson Springs, and Mayfield were pummeled. McConnell spoke beside the mayor of Mayfield a short time ago vowing to help with the recovery.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, (R-KY) SENATE MINORITY LEADER: We want to stay with you for the long haul, because I know there's always a lot of attention in the beginning, and then it begins to subside as people forget and move on.

We're going to stick with this until we completely recovery. It's going to take a while with a devastating tornado like this. What we say to everybody, we're not going to lose interest in this in the next few weeks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: From family homes to theaters and churches and courthouses, over 1,000 properties were destroyed statewide. The total cost of the damage is yet to be determined, but it could easily end up being the costliest tornado outbreak the country has ever seen.

Still ahead, a CNN exclusive. January 6th investigators believe a text message pushing a strategy to undermine the 2020 election came from Rick Perry.

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[14:27:02]

WALKER: CNN exclusive reporting reveals new information about a text message sent to Mark Meadows pushing a strategy to undermine the 2020 presidential election. According to sources, members of the January 6th committee believe former Texas governor and Trump energy secretary Rick Perry sent that text. A spokesman for Perry telling CNN he denies being the author of the text message. CNN's Whitney Wild joining us now with the details. Whitney?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: This appeared in a tranche of documents that Mark Meadows handed over to the House select committee. It is just one example of really a wealth of information that the House select committee investigators are going through as they try to piece together how this happened, especially as they piece together efforts throughout the Republican Party to try to get people in Washington to overturn this election.

So here's exactly what the text message says. Again, our understanding is that members of the House select committee believe that it is former Texas governor, former Trump secretary -- energy -- secretary of energy Rick Perry who authored this text message. Here's what it says, "Here's an aggressive strategy, why can't the states of GA, NC, Penn, and other R-controlled state houses declare this as BS (where conflicts and election not called that night) and just send their own electors to vote and have it go to the SCOTUS."

And what it really shows, Amara, is that there's -- that there was this effort throughout the Republican Party beyond Washington, again, to try to overturn the election, and they were trying to appeal to Mark Meadows to try to affect that. So these are the types of documents that the House select committee investigators would like to question Mark Meadows about. However, even though he himself supplied these records, he is no longer willing to answer questions about them in a deposition, Amara.

WALKER: Hard to make sense of that, supplying all those documents, thousands of pages worth, yet refusing to testify. And Whitney, I understand you have new reporting on documents, speaking of which, from the Stop the Steal leader. What are those documents showing us?

WILD: So these are documents that were provided by a man named Ali Alexander. He has already testified in front of the House select committee. And what this late Friday night court filing revealed is what he spoke with committee investigators about. For example, he says he supplied around 1,500 communications, specifically text message and other records.

And within those records, there's information to suggest that he had conversations with members of Congress prior to the January 6th riot. So for example, in this court filing, he says he had a couple of phone conversations with Representative Paul Gosar. He also says that he exchanged a text message someone he believes is Representative Mo Brooks. However, interestingly, in that filing it actually specifically says he believed.

So, again, these are -- this is revelatory in that it is deepening our understanding of the kinds of information that the House select committee is questioning these witnesses about. Ali Alexander sitting for this deposition on December 9th.

[14:30:02]

But this court filing comes as he seeks to challenge the House select committee's effort to try to get his phone records directly from his telecommunications provider. So we're seeing this sort of stop and start. So we're seeing some of these witnesses provide a wealth of information but then try to silo off other efforts to try to get even more information, Amara. So this story continues with more and more documents emerging all the time.

WALKER: Whitney Wild, I appreciate your reporting. A lot to get through. Thank you so much.

With me now to talk more about this, is Michael D'Antonio. He is a CNN contributor and a Donald Trump biographer who has written several books on the former president, including the book "The Truth about Trump". So suffice it to say, Michael, you know the former president quite well, how he functions.

And regarding this development that former Trump cabinet member Rick Perry may have sent a text to Trump's Chief of Staff Mark Meadows pushing him to undermine the election just after the polls closed, in your mind, do you believe that Trump was aware of these communications, many of which were flowing through Mark Meadows, strategizing how to ignore the will of the voters?

MICHAEL D'ANTONIO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I'm sure that he was aware. All of this is consistent with the Trump dynamic that's been at play with him his entire life. He has this sort of evil charisma where he can either attract people who are willing to do extreme things, or he can persuade them that it's OK to do extreme things in order to please him.

So there's this cycle that gets set up around him of people intuiting or even hearing directly for him what he wants done, and going out and cooking up these schemes that they then bring back in an effort to curry favor with him.

And the other thing that Donald Trump has always done is he's created these outlandish schemes, these crazy things that no one would imagine that someone would even try to do, and then he tries to do them. And that idea that it's too stupendous, too out there for anyone to believe is part of his cover. So the idea that prior to the election he would have been planning how to overturn the election, perhaps because he had polling that indicated that he was losing, it's very consistent with the Donald Trump I know.

WALKER: So speaking of this evil charisma that you speak of, and perhaps the power that it wields, the committee has these text messages because Mark Meadows was cooperating with the investigation, limitedly, right. He just turned them over, but he refuses to speak right now. So now he stopped cooperating. Do you think former president Trump may have influenced him or forced him to have a change of heart?

D'ANTONIO: Oh, I certainly do. This reminds me of the terrible process that Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, went through where we almost saw in real time that he was wrestling with his own conscience. Do I do what Donald Trump wants me to do, but the thing that I know may be wrong? Or do I seek the advantage that comes from pleasing him and taking the risk that I won't be caught?

What's terrible for so many people is that it's always the little guys around Donald Trump who have consequences. So far in his life, Donald Trump has never faced real consequences, and we're seeing now that some of the people who rioted on January 6th are very upset that the former president isn't helping them with their legal bills. Well, who is getting help with legal bills? It's Donald Trump who the Republican Party is giving $1.6 million to for legal fees. So, he always comes out on top, and the people around him always pay the price.

WALKER: So talking about potential real consequences for Trump, while a lot of the January 6th investigation developments this week has focused on those in and around the president's orbit, as you discussed as well, this week Congresswoman Liz Cheney turned her focus to Donald Trump's role on January 6th. Here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LIZ CHENEY, (R-WY): These nonprivileged texts are further evidence of President Trump's supreme dereliction of duty during those 187 minutes. And Mr. Meadows' testimony will bear on another key question before this committee -- did Donald Trump through action or inaction corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congress's official proceedings to count electoral votes?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:35:11]

WALKER: OK, so those are ominous words there. But, again, going to Trump's mind, you were saying it's the little guys around the former president's orbit that always seems to take the fall. Do you think former president Trump will ever face real consequences for his role on January 6th? And do you think he's worried in any way, shape, or form?

D'ANTONIO: From what we can see, the Department of Justice the not going after him for the alleged crimes, the crimes alleged by Representative Cheney. And at the time on January 7th and 8th, there was much discussion in the White House about the former president's potential vulnerability to criminal prosecution. But so far, it's not happening.

I think he will escape criminal prosecution. He may pay a price civilly in some other proceedings related to his businesses or conduct in the White House, but over the long run it will only be the judgment of history that will be the consequence for him. It will be profound and very negative, but I'm not sure he cares at all about that.

WALKER: We have to get going, but I do want to ask you this. Are you surprised at all that this is what it's come to, that Trump had this kind, and still continues to have this kind of influence for people to even break the law in his name, and fringe elements continuing right now working to take over the Republican Party, especially in 2022, and looking forward?

D'ANTONIO: Well, this all, I think, illustrates how important it has been over the generations that we've had responsible leaders, responsible presidents, who understood the danger of a mob mentality, who understood that there are vast numbers of people who don't follow politics closely, who don't understand how our government works, who may actually think that the president is a kind of king and can rally them to violence.

So we should be thankful for the ethical and moral leadership we've had in the past, and not surprised that it's come to this with Donald Trump because he's never evidenced much morality or ethical conduct in the past. It's all been about him and his own ego, and he doesn't have any other gear but the one that we've seen during the last five years.

WALKER: I think the cult following that he continues to exert and have, I think --

D'ANTONIO: Yes.

WALKER: -- surprises a lot of people.

D'ANTONIO: Yes.

WALKER: Michael D'Antonio, thank you for this conversation. Appreciate your time.

D'ANTONIO: Thank you.

WALKER: Still to come, major tech firms rushing to contain a critical software flaw that could expose hundreds of millions of devices around the world. More on that.

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[14:42:49]

WALKER: A warning this week to business leaders from the White House. Malicious cyber-actors are not taking a holiday. The concern is over a critical software vulnerability in a program known as Log4j. I have no idea what that means. We'll find out. Firms like Google, Amazon, and IBM all use the software. It's also used in Apple's Cloud computing services, and in the popular video game Minecraft.

To join us now to discuss the risks and challenges, senior intelligence analyst Allan Liska. OK, Allan, you've got to dumb it down for me, because I don't understand what this means. So what do we mean by vulnerability in the software? How does this impact regular folks at home?

ALLAN LISKA, SENIOR INTELLIGENCE ANALYST, RECORDED FUTURE: Sure. So Log4j is a library. Think of it like a plug-in that other software uses to manage system logs. So when you connect into a website or play Minecraft or whatever, companies want to log that information, and that's what this component does. And what the vulnerability does, it allows an attacker to gain remote access to those systems, so to the IBM servers, the Microsoft servers, the Minecraft servers, et cetera, and install their own software, steal data, and whatever else they want to do.

WALKER: OK, so let's say, because it says firms like Google, Amazon, IBM, all use the software. So when it comes to Google, I have a Gmail account. So does that mean that I could be vulnerable because I log into my Gmail account?

LISKA: You personally wouldn't necessarily be vulnerable. But the data that's hosted by Google or through your Gmail account could potentially be vulnerable.

WALKER: Got it. So what do we know about the cyberhackers, and have we heard about any reports of a lapse in security?

LISKA: We've been -- so yes, there have been a number of vulnerabilities -- excuse me, a number of threat actors have already exploited this vulnerability. Most of them at this point have been kind of low-level malware, so things like crypto-mining software, or software being used to redirect spam or phishing emails.

[14:45:02]

However, we know that ransomware gangs are starting to exploit this vulnerability. And we also know that both Iran and China have started at least scanning, looking for vulnerable systems to exploit. So it is being exploited in the wild, but the big dogs, the ones the cybercriminals and nation state actors we really worry about, we know they're scanning. We don't know if they have successfully exploited yet.

WALKER: OK, so what deterrents need to be put in place to prevent these kinds of situations now and in the future?

LISKA: Right. So the big thing right now is organizations around the world are patching. The Apache Software Foundation that maintains the software released a patch early on. They also released a second patch, and I know a lot of organizations, like ours directly, have not had any sleep over the last four days as they've been combing through systems that use this library and putting patches in place. So that's the big thing that you can do.

The government also recommended putting in mitigations so there are protections you can put in at the firewall level in order to prevent this if for some reason you can't patch immediately, or isolating systems, removing them from the Internet. If they're vulnerable, they can't be patched, and you can't put a firewall in front of it.

WALKER: No cyberattack to talk about right now. We're just talking about vulnerable software and fixes need to be put in to -- so that -- so the hackers don't hack you, is that correct?

LISKA: Right, exactly.

WALKER: Just trying to simplify it for my simple brain. Allan, appreciate you joining us. Thanks for your patients and your expertise.

LISKA: Sure, any time. It was very nice chatting with you, Amara.

WALKER: Same here, thank you.

Still ahead, Tiger Woods returns to professional golf less than 10 months after a devastating car crash. We're going to go live to the PNC Championship in Orlando next.

But first, a skater in Oakland, California, is looking to inspire everyone to get rolling in today's "Human Factor."

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

ANDY DURAN, FOUNDER, CHUB ROLLZ: I love skating. I just feel very free to be in my body and to be myself on a skateboard. When I was skating before, it was in the late 90s and early 2000s. I was a fat kid growing up. During the pandemic I really wanted to get back into skating. There was not really information online for fat skateboarders. Not only could I not find pads and gear in my size, but I also had difficulty with just seeing any other folks like me, which felt alienating.

We started putting our own videos up, and then we're immediately hit with fat-phobia, comments about our body size. I wanted to have a space where we could all come together and not be judged. The Chub Rollz started as a space for fat, plus-sized, chubby skaters to have a safe place to learn together and skate together.

We have our monthly physical event. I help to show people how to stand on a skateboard, how to gain their balance, how to ride, and what kind of information they may need for getting the right gear.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Being around a bunch of people who look similar to me really makes it feel more comfortable to learn.

DURAN: A lot of times when there's plus size groups, they tend to be focused on weight loss. And the reality is that not everybody who is fat is actually looking to change that.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WALKER: Tiger Woods has 82 PGA tour titles to his name, but this weekend, you can call him the comeback kid. Ten months after nearly losing his leg from totaling his car, Woods is making his return to competitive golf. The 15-time Major champion is playing with his son in Florida for this weekend's PNC Championship. It's so cute to see them together. CNN national correspondent Nadia Romero is in Orlando. Nadia, how are they doing today, Tiger and Charlie?

(LAUGHTER)

NADIA ROMERO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think that's the beauty of this. They four under par right now. The leader is about 11 under par, and so they've got a long way to go. But I can tell you no one is really looking at the leaderboard, because there are so many people wearing Tiger Woods shirts and merchandise. I've seen little kids running around with tiger tails attached to them.

People are just excited to see arguably the greatest golfer of all time, and definitely of our lifetime, and being able to see him standing up on two feet, on his two legs with that one leg, the right leg that was injured so severely in that crash back in February 2021.

And so now knowing that doctors said they might have had to have amputated that leg, but he's back out in at a Pro Am event with his 12-year-old son Charlie, I listened to Tiger talk about the excitement of just getting back out there, but not being back to 100 percent.

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TIGER WOODS, 15-TIME MAJOR CHAMPION: It was an awesome day. I was just awesome to be back out here playing, and be out there with my son. And we just had an absolute blast.

I think it's just being able to have the bonding the experience of being out there with Charlie. Unfortunately, this year has been very hard, and I haven't been able to play at all until -- I think this might be my second or third round this year. So it's been a long year.

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[14:55:00]

ROMERO: It's been a long year but a triumphant year for him. After all of the injuries that Tiger has had, notably his back injuries that he's had all those surgeries and treatments for. He says the right leg, that has been the most severe of his career. But he's coming back slowly, but surely. Still not giving us, though, a timeline and when he will officially come back to competitive play, but he says if they does, it will likely be part time. He's got a few more records, Amara, that he's trying to break.

WALKER: Of course, right. His ambition is not going to die. But I've got to say, watching Charlie, he's got great form, and that swing -- I can barely golf, but I was quite impressed. Nadia Romero, thank you so much.

And thank you, everyone, for joining me today. I'm Amara Walker in for Fredricka Whitfield. CNN NEWSROOM continues with Jim Acosta after the break.

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