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Dr. Marcel Curlin is Interviewed about Breakthrough Infections; Chinese President Flexes Military Muscle; Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) is Interviewed about Taiwan and China; Perry Says No to January 6th Panel. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired December 22, 2021 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:31:42]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, this next study is really interesting, because new research suggests that those who get a Covid vaccine booster and then also experience a breakthrough infection could actually develop super immunity.

Dr. Marcel Curlin from Oregon Health and Science University co- authored the studies.

So, Dr. Curlin, this is interesting. You know, basically the idea of the combination of antibodies from the vaccine and what your body naturally produces in response to an infection combined to something stronger. Tell us what the data showed.

DR. MARCEL CURLIN, ASSOC. PROF. OF MEDICINE, OREGON HEALTH AND SCIENCE UNIVERSITY: Yes, good morning, Jim, thanks for having me.

Just as a little background and correction, so these are fully vaccinated individuals who have not been boosted.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CURLIN: So they've gotten two doses of one of the mRNA vaccines or one dose of Johnson. But in our study, it was just the mRNA vaccines.

Those people, fully vaccinated, compared with those who were fully vaccinated, and then got infection after that. In all cases the infections were mild. But when you compare the immune responses, they're astronomically higher in that -- in vaccinated (INAUDIBLE).

SCIUTTO: OK. And how long? Because there's been an essential question throughout the pandemic as to how long immunity post infection lasts as compared to immunity post vaccination.

CURLIN: Right. That's a very good question. And, of course, we haven't had the time to study this longitudinally since we just did the study. But one aspect is that the immune -- although antibodies do wane over time, that's just natural, people develop a memory response, right.

SCIUTTO: OK.

CURLIN: So, six months or a year down the road, if we fast-forward and you get re-exposed, you're going to mount a much better immune response just because of this memory phenomenon.

SCIUTTO: OK. Now, to be clear, this study was prior to the omicron variant. Do you expect similar results with omicron or do we just not know?

CURLIN: Well, we don't know directly. We haven't studied the omicron variant directly. We're work on that now. But what we did see was that when you -- when you take the folks with the augmented immunity, compared with those who are just vaccinated, and you test the serum against different strains, alpha, delta, et cetera, in all cases the combined immunity did better against -- to neutralizing those variants. So it's a -- seems to be a general principle. It should work with the omicron as well.

SCIUTTO: Now, you're not suggesting that people get infected, are you? You're just saying that this is a byproduct. You're not telling anyone to lower the guard is the point I want to make.

CURLIN: That's right. There's nothing in these data that suggests that we should either -- some people say, well, if that's the case, should I even bother getting vaccinated?

SCIUTTO: Right.

CURLIN: You definitely need to be vaccinated. There's nothing in the data that suggests that you should avoid vaccination. On the contrary, we need that combined immunity. And by the same token, we would never recommend trying to get Covid in order to avoid getting Covid. That would be self-defeating. If you -- it's much better not to get infected. But if you do, and you're also vaccinated, then hopefully your infection will be much milder and you'll also have a good immune response.

[09:35:02]

SCIUTTO: Just briefly, does this point, in your view, to the potential end of the pandemic, as more of the population is both vaccinated, but also many folks getting exposed?

CURLIN: That's right. That's exactly one of the things we have our eye on. So about half of the world population has had at least a dose of the vaccine. More infections are unfortunately happening. And as new -- as new kind of waves and surges come, many people get disheartened. You know, they think that maybe we're going to have endless cycles of infection. It feels that way.

But what we're saying here with these results is, while actually as more of the world becomes immune through the two means, vaccine and natural infection, we're going to eventually have a world population that's much stronger and able to fight off the virus. And I think that what we're saying here is that this will taper down the epidemic in its severity and its destructive nature. SCIUTTO: One can only hope.

Dr. Marcel Curlin, thanks so much for joining us.

CURLIN: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Still ahead this hour, Chinese President Xi Jinping used the past year to consolidate power at home and flex his military might around the region. Congressman Colin Allred, who just visited Taiwan, joins me live on what the U.S. can and should do to counter China's moves.

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[09:40:47]

SCIUTTO: The World Bank says that China's economic growth will slow sharply next year, but politically, 2021 has been a year of growth and consolidating power for President Xi Jinping.

Our David Culver has a closer look from Beijing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): 2021 marked 100 years since the party's founding in Shanghai. It's a triumphant rise that the leadership proudly displays at so-called communist party pilgrimage sites, historically revered spots that downplay or ignore failures and controversies, from the tumultuous cultural revolution, to the Tiananmen Square massacre. Instead, they focus on a century of successes. And China is now making other countries, including the U.S., increasingly uneasy with its rapid military expansions.

CULVER (on camera): With all the power that President Xi has amassed, coupled with an increased military might, many believe that one of his ultimate goals is to reunify with Taiwan. He has not even ruled out taking the island by force if necessary.

CULVER (voice over): China has been putting military pressure on the self-ruling democracy. Xi, stressing in a recent virtual meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden that on Taiwan, the U.S. is playing with fire. Biden trying to calm the rapidly rising tensions.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our responsibility, as leaders of China and the United States, is to ensure that the competition between our countries does not veer into conflict, whether intended or unintended. Just simple, straightforward competition.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Thanks so much to David Culver there reporting from Beijing.

So, joining me now is Texas Democrat Congressman Colin Allred. He spent Thanksgiving week in Asia as part of a bipartisan delegation. It included a surprise visit to Taiwan, which, of course, Beijing was not happy with. Congressman Allred, thanks for taking the time this morning.

REP. COLIN ALLRED (D-TX): Yes. Thanks for having me, Jim.

SCIUTTO: I wonder, when you go to Taiwan, do the Taiwanese believe a Chinese invasion could be imminent?

ALLRED: Well, it was an honor to meet with President Tsai. She's incredibly progressive. I think she is preparing for some kind of forceful invasion of some kind. They certainly are having to scramble their air force every single day to respond to Chinese incursions into their air space. The Chinese are doing that on purpose to try and wear out their air force. They're doing other aggressive actions to try and wear down the people of Taiwan.

But when I was there, I found their resolve to be very strong. They want to maintain the status quo and they want the United States' help in keeping that status quo in place.

SCIUTTO: Yes, for folks at home who don't know, this is a thriving democracy. It's also a thriving economy. It also happens to make a good 80, 85 percent of the semiconductors that are in everything we carry around in our pockets.

Do you believe the U.S. is doing enough, both economically, but in terms of armed sales and other military support, to deter a Chinese invasion?

ALLRED: Yes. Well, you used the right word. We have to deter them. We don't want to have this conflict. But folks in Taiwan are preparing themselves to defend themselves and we certainly have our military in place in the Pacific region to be able to respond to anything. We still have the most powerful military in the world.

But in my opinion, the way we're going to be able to respond to China and prevent them from doing something that I think is not in their interest or anyone's interest is economically because they rely on our marketplace. They rely on the democracies that we're also allies with to sell their goods to, whether that's Japan or Australia or India. We have so many allies in that region that we can bring together, I think, to try and use our economic power and our power as democracies that have thriving economies to try and box them in.

SCIUTTO: As you know, Taiwan is a friend. It's not a treaty ally. There is no defense agreement to come to their mutual defense if they're attacked. Do you believe -- And the U.S. is, by the way, sort of agnostic on the way it describes what it would do if China were to invade militarily. Do you believe the U.S. should be willing to defend or help defend Taiwan militarily, put U.S. forces at risk?

ALLRED: I think we're prepared to defend Taiwan if necessary. We don't think that we should see any forceful invasions of any country around the world, whether that's Ukraine, with the Russians, or Taiwan by the Chinese.

[09:45:04] And so this is something that we all recognize that we've seen in the last century when, you know, countries start rolling across borders and using tanks and armies to go in and create some of these conflicts, and that led to world wars. We don't want any of that to happen. And so we're trying to deter them. And part of that is by being strong.

SCIUTTO: Yes, listen, history has shown that folks feel like they can invade one place, they start to begin they can invade another.

You do have a perception, and you bring up Russia and Ukraine, and we have Chinese and Taiwan, that the Chinese and Russian governments perceive the U.S. as weak today. Divided at home. Political dysfunction at home. And also a tendency now to withdraw from the world stage. As you were visiting Taiwan, do you believe China judges the U.S. to be weak?

ALLRED: Oh, I think every day they're making a risk calculus. And part of that calculus is, how strong is the United States? How strong are we internally? How committed are we to the rules based order that we set up? Jim, as you know, the reason why we've kept this system in place is because it's allowed the world economy to flourish, it's allowed us to avoid world wars now for decades and we did it. We led it. And we're the ones who are at the heart of it. So our own instability does harm our foreign policy.

And our adversaries around the world are watching very closely. They watch things like January 6th very closely. They're watching our upcoming elections very closely. We have to understand that our democracy is the linchpin for so much of what happens around the world. And we have to protect it here at home first.

SCIUTTO: I want to ask you about another issue that's close to your heart, and that is suicide among U.S. military veterans. You serve on both the House Armed Services and Veterans Affairs Committee. You've co-sponsored bipartisan legislation to create a pilot program to help prevent veteran suicides.

I wonder, I speak to a lot of veterans and I heard that post exit from Afghanistan, that there was a real crisis perhaps still today among many Afghan veterans in particular who see the end of that war, wonder what their sacrifice was for.

I wonder if you are seeing and hearing of the same thing and what you think needs to be done about it.

ALLRED: Yes, this has been a traumatic time for our veterans. It certainly has. And as a member of the committee, we've been watching this closely. And every veteran we lose to suicide is one too many. And we know that we're still losing, on average, about 17 veterans a day to suicide. And that about six of them have sought care at one of our VA health facilities prior to taking their own life. And so we know that we have to plug some of these gaps that are allowing folks to come in to be seen for maybe physical health issues but not getting the full comprehensive mental screening that could allow us to step in and hopefully prevent that suicide. And studies have shown that by taking a more targeted approach to

this, we can get in there and we can prevent some of these suicides. And that's something that we're trying to do.

SCIUTTO: Well, we wish you luck. It's important work. Congressman Colin Allred, good luck on that and we wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas.

ALLRED: Yes Happy holidays to you too, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Thank you.

ALLRED: Still ahead, Michael Flynn becomes the latest to defy the House committee investigating January 6th. The committee now weighing its next step with him, as well as a Republican congressman who's refused an opportunity to sit down. We'll have an update coming up.

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[09:52:49]

SCIUTTO: This just in to CNN. Four people who organized the pro-Trump rally just before the Capitol insurrection are suing the January 6th committee. This to block the panel from obtaining their phone records.

Overnight, former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn announced his own lawsuit for the same reason. And Republican Congressman Scott Perry, a sitting lawmaker, has denied a request to sit down for a voluntary interview with the Congress he serves for that January 6th panel.

CNN's Paula Reid is in Washington.

Paula, so this was a voluntary request to a fellow lawmaker here. Is there any sense that they would now take the next step of formally subpoenaing Perry?

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It's possible. And in response to Perry, the committee stopped short of saying that they would issue a subpoena, saying only that they will use other tools at their disposal to try to obtain the information they want.

But as you noted, what's so significant here is Perry was the first lawmaker who was contacted by the committee as part of this investigation, and his refusal to voluntary cooperate raises questions about whether lawmakers will now attempt to subpoena a colleague. Some Republican lawmakers have said that targeting a member of the GOP would be a step too far.

Now, in a tweet, Perry suggested that one of the reasons he didn't want to voluntarily cooperate is that he believes the committee is illegitimate and not duly constituted under the rules of the U.S. House of Representatives. But, Jim, a federal court has already rejected a similar argument about the committee's authority made by former President Trump. Now, this is not the only issue or controversy facing investigators.

As you noted, there's a lot of ongoing litigation. Over half a dozen lawsuits challenging various aspects of this investigation. In the most recent batch of lawsuits, we're seeing people trying to block the committee from obtaining their phone records.

Four people who were connected to organizing the pro Trump rally on the ellipse that preceded the Capitol insurrection, they are suing to block the committee from obtaining their phone records. But, interestingly, they do reveal that they have answered questions from the committee about the rally, about what they saw and heard that day. And their lawsuits to block the committee from obtaining their phone records come as former Trump National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and far right-wing media personality Alex Jones have also sued to block the committee from obtaining their phone records, arguing that these requests are overly broad.

[09:55:12]

Now, both Flynn and Jones have said they don't intend to answer or give any information to this investigation. If they do sit and answer questions from lawmakers, they intend to invoke their Fifth Amendment right.

SCIUTTO: And we should remember, a whole host of people, including those that served in the Trump administration, are quietly cooperating with the committee, despite the ones that are publicly defying it.

Paula Reid, in Washington, thank you.

In about 30 minutes, President Biden has a meeting at the White House on his efforts to help speed up the supply chain. Where do things stand just days from Christmas? Are you going to get all your presents? We'll bring you an update live.

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[10:00:07]

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