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Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) is Interviewed about Extremism in the Military, Russia's Threat to Ukraine and Afghanistan; Dr. Adnan Munkarah is Interviewed about Michigan's Covid Surge; Dow Climbs after Three Days of Losses; NHL To Pause Season. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired December 21, 2021 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Such as recruiting, training, fund-raising, organizing, demonstrating at a rally, displaying paraphernalia or words or symbols in support of extremist groups. So very specific things for commanders to be aware of, to look at, when they believe there are troops involved in extremist activity.

And for the first time, this now does extend to social media. The Pentagon says it is not monitoring the social media of troops. They are responsible for what they post. But if it reflects active participation in extremist activities, then that also is prohibited.

So, for the first time, looking at social media and really trying to put a much sharper focus on what is prohibited in the U.S. military.

Jim.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, 45 out of 450 overall defendants from January 6th, ties to the U.S. Military.

Barbara Starr, at the Pentagon, thanks very much.

I'm joined now by Arizona Congressman Ruben Gallego. He currently serves on the House Armed Services Committee, also a veteran himself.

Congressman, thanks for taking the time this morning.

REP. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-AZ): Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: You served in Iraq. You're aware of the Pentagon's efforts here in response to extremism. Does the U.S. military have an extremism problem in your view today?

GALLEGO: I don't think it's a severe problem, but we can't deny that there is a lot of veterans that are coming out and have becoming more extreme through one matter or another. But I also think it's probably more a reflection of the overall society.

However, more importantly, you know, when we were in the Marine Corps, we were trained to become good Marines and eventually good citizens. So I think this is a good first step. I want to make sure that we also have some guidelines here because we don't want to also impede people's First Amendment rights. And I think as more directive -- more on the directive comes out, it's going to be a little more fine-tuned.

SCIUTTO: All right, let's talk Ukraine. You recently led a U.S. delegation to Ukraine amidst growing Russian threats to invade, as well as buildup of forces along the border there. The White House is still allowing time for diplomacy, even as Russia continues to send more forces to the border. And they're delaying sending some military assistance that Ukrainians and others have been pushing for.

Is that delay endangering Ukraine?

GALLEGO: Well, yes. I think the idea that we can't do diplomacy and, at the same time, reinforce Ukraine and give them the ability for them to, you know, fight for themselves is a mistake. Russia doesn't use diplomacy for the sake of, you know, for the sake of, you know, trying to avoid war, they tend to use it as a time, you know, trick so that (INAUDIBLE) deploy their force and actually gain leverage.

So I hope that's not what's happening. Some of the communications that I've had, there is more urgency in actually being able to help Ukraine. But we certainly should not be afraid of, quote/unquote, provoking Russia by helping a democracy protect itself. It's a ridiculous thought. But I know that's how Russia thinks and that's how they operate, but we shouldn't play into that game.

SCIUTTO: I mean I wonder if you worry that the administration is allowing itself to get duped here. I mean Russia has played this game prior with Ukraine, going back to 2014, but also Georgia. I mean they've invaded other countries before and they're still there and now they're coming up with an idea that the U.S. has some chemical attack plans there. You know, the propaganda preamble to possible military action.

Why isn't -- why isn't Biden acting today?

GALLEGO: I will say that the fact that they have moved and have kind of gotten the whole coalition together to understand the severity of this problem, especially when most European partners did not actually believe that Russia would be willing to do it. So we -- you know, they -- it was the United States government that rallied the country to -- the world, I should say, to understand what the serious threat is. So, in that regard, I think they're doing well.

Again, though, I do agree that we need to be doing more and faster. And this is not an issue of us putting troops in Ukraine, this is us (ph) about giving Ukraine the opportunity for them to fight and fend for themselves. So every day that we don't send them the lethal aid that we need, even small things just as ammunition, is another day that the Russians get to put more leverage on Ukraine and just stall for more time while they reinforce the border.

SCIUTTO: You were the target of a different kind of Russian threat, and that as a lawmaker who told state media very publicly that you should be abducted and imprisoned. I mean -- I mean, you can take that as a joke, but let's be frank, Russia has attacked and murdered opponents abroad. Should this be taken seriously? How should the U.S. respond?

GALLEGO: Look, I think in some regards it should be taken seriously. You know, this guy kind of seems like a joke of a politician from all the research and, you know, intel that we've got. He's kind of a nobody. He just run his mouth on TV.

But what it does show you, though, it's the Russian attitude, right, that they feel they can even do this to any other country, especially any other democracy. We've allowed Russia to get along with way too much already. Killing, you know, citizens on foreign soils, you know, when it comes, for example, the Skripal killing in the U.K., downing an airliner full of citizens.

[09:35:07]

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GALLEGO: And they just continue to go on and on. This aggression just cannot -- cannot -- cannot continue. We need to really put a wall together, a dogmatic really wall, to really push Russia back into compliance and stop acting like a world bully.

SCIUTTO: I want to talk about Afghanistan. You served in Iraq, but you follow this issue very closely. Today Afghanistan is in a real humanitarian crisis. And our own Anna Coren went there and spoke to folks suffering right now.

I want to play you, for a moment, an account of a father struggling simply to feed his family. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MASAFER, RAZIA'S FATHER (through translator): There is no work, no income, no food to bring her. Sometimes we have nothing to eat. Every time I see her, I get upset.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: The U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan. As you know, left many Afghans who worked for the U.S. behind, now facing threats. And now people can't feed themselves.

Is the Biden administration, in your view, is the U.S. failing Afghanistan here?

GALLEGO: Look, I think a lot of us are doing our best in Afghanistan. I just signed a letter with a couple of other veterans to try to get aid to Afghanistan in an appropriate way. The last thing we want to do, and this is usually what happens when you have kind of warlord-ism occurring is that when you send aid, the actual warlords, such as the Taliban, will use that for control and actually end up lining their pockets.

So, we want to work with NGOs and other organizations that will actually feed these kids. We want to make sure it's tied, for example (ph), you know, women to be able to go to school. And, lastly, you know, we have to make sure that the Taliban still

lives up to its requirements. We did leave a lot of people behind. And if they want us to help support their government, then they have to give us certain assurances, number one, that they're not going to give al Qaeda a safe haven and, number two, that they're going to stop hunting all of our allies that helped us during the war and let them leave the country.

So, this is a balancing act. It's a very difficult balancing act. I think, you know, a lot of us want to find a way to help the people of Afghanistan while, at the same time, not helping the Taliban.

SCIUTTO: Congressman Rubin Gallego, thanks so much. And we wish you and your family a Merry Christmas.

GALLEGO: Merry Christmas.

SCIUTTO: Still ahead this hour, in Michigan, hospitals are warning thing already the worst they've ever been in the pandemic. Those warnings, also their request for help ahead of the omicron wave.

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[09:41:45]

SCIUTTO: The omicron variant now accounts so quickly for nearly three- quarters of the nation's new Covid infections. And as you look at the hospitals around the country, Michigan already mired in red. The state has one of the highest rates of hospitalizations already. Thirty-eight percent of Michigan's ICU beds are now occupied by Covid patients. This is really before the full brunt of omicron felt here.

Joining me now to discuss, Dr. Abnan Munkarah. He is the executive vice president, chief clinical officer of the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit.

Doctor, good to have you on this morning.

DR. ADNAN MUNKARAH, EXECUTIVE VP AND CHIEF CLINICAL OFFICER, HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM: Good morning, Jim.

SCIUTTO: I think folks have a tendency, out of sight, out of mind on this, right? If they're not seeing it in their fact -- and, by the way, movie theaters are open and sports stadiums are full, you know, they can kind of put blinders on to what's happening in hospitals. So, describe to folks watching right now, who may not have seen it, what it looks like to be in the middle of one of these waves.

MUNKARAH: Honestly, Jim, we are -- we are very concerned about where we are at the present time. We are to our fourth surge now in Michigan. And the numbers of hospitalizations we are seeing is as high -- in fact, exceeded last week what we saw in the spring of 2021. And the problem with these numbers are not only in specific areas in Michigan, but throughout the state. It is taxing our healthcare systems, our hospitals, our staff significantly. And it is honestly taking away from our capacity to deliver care to patients who do not have Covid.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Let me ask you this. What you're seeing now, these hospitalizations, this is pre-omicron, right? Are the bulk of the folks you're seeing now crowding those ICUs, is that from the delta surge still? So, I mean, you haven't seen the worst of omicron?

MUNKARAH: Yes. You're absolutely correct. And this is honestly why we are very concerned, because this is still a result of what we've seen with the delta surge that started with us, in fact, in August. I was looking at our numbers and we started seeing the increase in August. And it has peaked last week. But we are very concerned because as (INAUDIBLE) our test positivity rate, the number of people are testing positive in our hospital. In the past few days (INAUDIBLE) our hospital, throughout our system, we've been running now about 25 percent positivity rate. Compared to a number of about 3 percent to 4 percent early in the summer.

So we know that despite the fact that our hospitalization rate is plateauing at the present time, we are very concerned that we are going to see another spike related to omicron.

SCIUTTO: What happens when healthcare workers test positive? We had Dr. Fauci on CNN earlier today saying, hey, we might have to relax or shorten the quarantine period from ten days to perhaps five days, particularly for healthcare workers because of potential shortages. Are you already seeing folks who can't come to work and what's your plan if you run into that kind of crunch?

MUNKARAH: Absolutely, Jim. And this is why, honestly, we're one of the first healthcare systems in the state to mandate the vaccine for our healthcare workers because we felt that we need to protect our healthcare workers in our community.

But, despite that, we know that breakthrough infections do happen.

[09:45:03]

And we know that they will happen more with omicron as we are facing this new variant at the present time.

As of today, we have not changed our guidelines with respect to having people quarantine when they test positive. We just want to make sure that they are protected, they are protecting the community, we are not contributing to the spread.

However, with that said, we are very concerned also about the workforce shortage that we are facing. In prior surges, we were able to rely on other healthcare systems that had some capacity, both within state and outside of the state, around the nation.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MUNKARAH: Now we are seeing it across the nation. It is very concerning.

SCIUTTO: Now, the Biden administration has been deploying emergency response teams to Michigan, other states, often composed of military -- members of the military to help. Are the hospitals in your state, is yours getting the kind of help it needs?

MUNKARAH: We've not got any before. We know a couple of hospitals in the past couple of weeks did get -- or in the past few weeks got some help. But we are watching very closely, and we might definitely dip into that resource as we need to because we are very concerned with the holidays. We've seen the spike after Thanksgiving, and we are very concerned what will happen after Christmas and New Year's.

SCIUTTO: Well, hang in there. I mean we do wish you the best of luck. We know it's going to be tough.

Dr. Adnan Munkarah, thank you.

MUNKARAH: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: And still ahead, how Senator Joe Manchin's no to Build Back Better and concerns about the spreading omicron variant could leave a mark on the U.S. economic forecast, economic growth. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:51:07]

SCIUTTO: Right now the Dow is actually up after three days of losses. Global financial markets, they've been all over the place as economists raised real concerns about the highly transmissible omicron variant.

CNN's chief business correspondent Christine Romans joins me now.

I mean you really have a double blow here, right, to economic forecasts. It is concerns about omicron, which, by the way, still cloudy, but also the apparent end for now of Build Back Better.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and a lot of economists had that built into their forecasts for the economy into the early part of next year. So without Build Back Better, that takes some juice out of the economy.

So you have Goldman Sachs downgrading its expectations for the first quarter to about 2 percent. Mark Zandi over at Moody's telling CNN, he's going to go to the drawing board, sharpen his pencil and probably lower expectations a little bit as well here because that was expected to be a boost. You know, the extension of the child tax credit, all these investments into pre-k and to health care and to elder care at home. These were all things that were meant to support the working class and get some needed investments into working families. So that's got them kind of sharpening their pencils here.

Can I just revert to the big picture, though. You know, tomorrow we're going to get a GDP number for the third quarter that's probably around 2.1 percent, down a lot from the summer when we had a very strong economy in the summer. But, but big picture, Jim, this is still likely to be the strongest

year in U.S. economic growth since Ronald Reagan was president. I mean think of that for a minute. You're probably -- if you have 5.6 percent economic growth for the year, that's going to be very, very good in terms of annual growth. Next year, between 4 percent and 5 percent. That surpasses anything that we've seen in a long, long time.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

ROMANS: So this is a recovering economy. It's why the Fed is going to start to talk about raising interest rates.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

ROMANS: So, just big picture.

Also, gas prices, they are ticking lower, $3.30. They're down 12 cents from the peak just a few weeks ago.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

ROMANS: So just -- all the big picture here. We're going to go back and forth in the stock market until the end of the year.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

ROMANS: It's been up a lot. People are going to take money off the table. Don't worry about the day to day movements. Big picture is important.

SCIUTTO: Watch the trend lines, right? You know --

ROMANS: Yes. Exactly.

SCIUTTO: You're always good about that, Christine, thanks very much.

ROMANS: You're welcome.

SCIUTTO: Still ahead, at the beginning of the pandemic, professional sports, they were the canaries in a coal mine of coming lockdowns. The NHL is now halting its season, though, for a few days. To be clear, things are not the same this time. So how are leagues pushing on despite outbreaks? That's coming up.

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[09:57:37]

SCIUTTO: The NHL is now the first pro sports league in North America to put its season on ice due to the surge in Covid cases.

Andy Scholes joins us now.

Andy, how long will this be, and what's the goal here?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's just going to be a matter of days, Jim, and it's just to try to slow down all of these outbreaks. So the NHL is going to have two more games tonight, but then after that they're going to shut down through Christmas due to the rise in the cases they've seen over the past few weeks. Team facilities, they're going to reopen Sunday and then daily Covid testing for players will resume then. Nine NHL teams already had their seasons put on pause before this announcement due to outbreaks. The league had also shut down travel to and from Canada through Christmas.

Now, games are scheduled to resume on Monday. There have been 49 games postponed in the league so far this season. The NHL and its players association also actively discussing the matter of player participation in the 2022 winter Olympics in Beijing. They expect to be in a position to announce a final determination in the coming days. NHL players, they were set to participate in the games for the first time since 2014.

All right, in the NFL, meanwhile, they added 51 players to their reserve Covid-19 list yesterday. It was the highest single-day total since the pandemic began. And among the big names on the list are Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and the Chargers' Joey Bosa. And this comes as the NFL moved away from weekly testing of vaccinated players. Going forward, the league says they're only going to test vaccinated individuals slowing symptoms and then random groups each week. Since the start of last week, Jim, 213 players have reportedly tested positive for the virus. I mean that's nearly 10 percent of the league.

And, you know, Jim, as we see the leagues make these adjustments for players and staff, for fans, it's remained the same. You know, we have packed stadiums and arenas across the country.

SCIUTTO: Yes. No question. Well, it's interesting to see them tweak their rules there, though. And it will be interesting if other sports leagues, but other organizations, follow their lead.

Andy Scholes, thanks so much.

SCHOLES: All right.

SCIUTTO: A very good Tuesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

This morning, Dr. Anthony Fauci is telling us to focus on hospitalizations, not so much new infections, as omicron becomes the dominant variant of coronavirus in this country. That is because we still don't have complete data on the severity of cases here in the U.S.

[10:00:03]