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Trump Asks Supreme Court to Block Release of Documents; Trial Outcome Reached in Kim Potter Case; Omicron Less Severe Than Feared?. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired December 23, 2021 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

Two days to Christmas, and, today, two promising pieces of pandemic news. Early data is in, and researchers say Omicron is less likely to cause severe disease than Delta. Plus, a second COVID-19 pill designed to keep infected people from getting sicker just got the FDA's green light, much needed good news, as cases spike right now.

Omicron so transmissible experts say, nine out of 10 Americans who get COVID next week will be infected with the Omicron variant.

And that brings us to the missing puzzle piece here, widespread, accessible and cheap or even free testing. In a new interview, President Biden was asked, did he drop the ball?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Empty shelves, no test kits, is that a failure?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, I don't think it's a failure. I think it's a -- you could argue that we should have known a year ago six months ago, two months ago, a month ago.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: More on that answer in just a moment.

But, first, we start with these promising early studies on Omicron.

And CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is with us now.

What do they show, Elizabeth?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Ana, they show what we have been talking about for a while now, which is that, while this is an incredibly transmissible variant, the most transmissible we have seen so far, it causes milder disease. So that's great news.

It's good to know that. But I will remind people that just because something causes milder disease doesn't mean we should just say, great, this is the end. It's not the end. Even if a relatively small percentage of people end up in the hospital, this is so transmissible, so many people will get it, a small percentage of a huge number can still be a very big number.

So let's take a look at studies from South Africa, as well as from Scotland. In South Africa, they found that, when you look at Omicron, 2.5 percent of people end up in the hospital, but people infected with Delta, 12.8 percent of them end up in the hospital.

That's obviously a huge difference. In Scotland, they found a two- thirds reduction in hospitalization risk with Omicron. And they found that a booster was linked to a 57 percent reduction in the risk of symptomatic infection.

So, Ana, the advice -- while the news changes, the advice stays the same, which is get vaccinated. It helps against Omicron. And get boosted if it's time for you to get boosted -- Ana.

CABRERA: Let's hit that other piece of good news now, because the FDA just hours ago authorized this second pill to treat COVID-19, this time from Merck. What does this pill do? And how quickly will it be available?

COHEN: So this pill in many ways is similar to Pfizer. It's an antiviral that you take quickly within just days of getting -- having symptoms of COVID-19.

Let's take a look at what Merck found in their clinical trials. They took hundreds of people, and half of them were given a placebo. That's a drug that does nothing. And so what they found is that they had a 30 percent reduction in risk. With Pfizer, though, there was an 88 percent reduction of risk.

So the Pfizer one does seem to be more effective. For Merck, it's interesting. It is not recommended for pregnant women. It is also not recommended for children. It's only for adults. That's because of side effect concerns. And the FDA says only use the Merck one if no alternatives are available, in other words, if Pfizer is not available, if a monoclonal antibody, which is a shot or an infusion, if that's not available.

There seems to be more enthusiasm for the Pfizer drug than for the Merck drug, really, because not just the reduced efficacy, but also the concern about side effects -- Ana.

CABRERA: Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much, and happy holidays to you, if we don't talk before then.

Now to President Biden recently pressed about his COVID response and the next steps in this pandemic.

Jeremy Diamond is out the White House with his key takeaways from a new interview.

Jeremy, tell us more about what the president is saying.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, listen, Ana, in this interview, we heard President Biden on the one hand defending his administration's response to this Omicron variant, but at the same time acknowledging that some aspects of this response could have been better.

We heard the president say nothing's been good enough. We also heard him talk about the fact that he doesn't think it's necessarily a failure, but that perhaps there were some things, like, for example, this purchase of 500 million at-home rapid tests, that are only going to come online next month that he wishes he had taken action sooner.

At the same time, we heard the president insisting that he did not get anything wrong, saying nobody saw it coming. The White House, press secretary, Jen Psaki, expanded on that just moments ago in a briefing, saying that the -- while the White House knew that there would be variants, they didn't know specifically which kinds of variants and how transmissible they would be.

But, nonetheless, significant to hear the president acknowledging, at a moment when Americans are struggling to get the at-home test that they need, that there are some aspects of this response that could have been better.

[13:05:08]

We also heard the president addressed this question of whether or not an additional second booster shot will indeed be needed, like Israel has done, for example, for certain segments of its population. Here's the president's response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I listened to the scientists, and I'm sure the scientists are paying very close attention to that. There may be a need for another booster. But that remains to be seen.

QUESTION: So it remains a possibility?

BIDEN: It remains a possibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: And we are also seeing the White House this week really boosting an unlikely source. And that is former President Trump, who has been talking this week at several occasions about the importance of getting a booster shot and the benefit of vaccines.

The White House press secretary told me moments ago, though, that there has been no contact between the former president and the current president or their teams. But the White House is certainly happy to see the former presidents changing his tune on the issue of vaccinations and being more vocal in urging his supporters to get the shot -- Ana.

CABRERA: Jeremy Diamond, thank you so much for your reporting.

And with us now is Dr. Leana Wen, emergency physician and former Baltimore health commissioner, also the author of "Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health." Dr. Wen, for the president and for the country to really get a handle on this virus and stop the spread. I think a key part of the equation is knowing who is infected, right? That's why this testing issue is still such a problem. And President Biden was pressed on this as well in that interview. He says this isn't a failure of his administration, but he wishes he would have thought of ordering more tests sooner.

Yet here is what he's been saying since the early days of his administration, as early as last January and as recent as September. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: We're expanding testing. We're investing nearly $10 billion to expand testing. We're going to deploy things like testing to expand detection of the virus. We're committing $2 billion dollars to purchase nearly 300 million rapid tests.

My plan will also expand free testing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: And yet it's December 23. We still don't have enough tests. Your thoughts?

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I think what happened, Ana, is that President Biden put all of his eggs into the vaccine basket. And, yes, that is really important.

And, ultimately, vaccines, vaccinations, that's what's going to get us out of this pandemic. But there's also the reality that a lot of people are not vaccinated. And, also, even for the people who are vaccinated, no one wants to inadvertently give COVID to somebody else. And so testing is part of our reality in living with COVID.

This is what many of us in public health have been trying to tell the administration for the past year. And I just wish that President Biden would come out and really give a moonshot goal to say that, within three months or even six months, that every American who wants a test is able to get a test whatever they want to.

Testing should not be the limiting factor here. And, right now, it is.

CABRERA: What else do you wish the president were doing or enforcing right now to be more proactive, to get ahead here, instead of constantly trying to catch up?

WEN: Well, that's exactly the problem, that the Biden administration has been very good at responding to emergencies as they arise. And they're doing the right things for this particular emergency with Omicron.

But I wish they would look at head, because it is almost certain that Omicron is not the last dangerous variant that we're going to see. And so how are we going to stop future variants? One of the key factors is, right now, we're facing a collapse of our health care system. And that's because the unvaccinated are the ones who are getting infected by the most -- for the most part.

And, also, they're the ones for the most part getting severely ill. They're the ones clogging up our hospitals and straining our overburdened health care workers. And so we really should be doing a lot more at this point to get the unvaccinated vaccinated.

So what President Biden should be doing now is to compel the unvaccinated, including through travel mandates, mandates for -- vaccine mandates for domestic travel, and also doing what many cities are starting to do with proof of vaccination required for restaurants, bars and other events.

That's what's going to get us ahead of the game so that we're not facing the exact same thing three months later, when we see another surge of a new variant.

CABRERA: I hear what you're saying about getting those unvaccinated to get their first shot. And now we're talking about some people getting a fourth shot.

You heard the president there say it's possible that that could come to fruition here. What do you think?

WEN: I think it'll be interesting to see what Israel decides to do. We -- the rest of the world has followed Israel. And so if Israel decides to go ahead with fourth doses, we should get data and that can help to inform us here.

But I think, right now, the bigger issue is, we don't have boosters for -- third-shot boosters for so much of the population. A large proportion even of nursing home residents have not gotten their booster doses.

[13:10:03]

And so I'd really like for us to focus on third doses and also reassuring people who are vaccinated and boosted that chances are, especially if they are generally healthy, they're going to do just fine with Omicron.

So, on an individual level, somebody who is vaccinated and boosted probably should not be fearing Omicron. On the other hand, we as a society should fear Omicron because of the potential to strain our health care system, and when our hospitals are full, we also have care compromised for patients come in with strokes, car accidents, heart attacks, and other medical emergencies too.

CABRERA: Speaking of Omicron, let's circle back to Elizabeth's reporting.

We now have two new studies showing this variant may be less likely to cause severe disease and hospitalization compared to Delta. But U.S. officials are still cautious about jumping to conclusions here. Why can't we be sure yet?

WEN: The issue is, we don't know exactly how much less severe Omicron is going to be. If it's just a little bit less severe, but causes much more illness and many more people are infected, then we could still see a lot more people ending up in hospitals.

And so I think there's also the issue of, can we really extrapolate based on data in South Africa, which has a much younger patient population than we do here? And, also, we have substantial proportions of the U.S. that Omicron really hasn't hit full force yet. And so are we going to see rolling waves, as in New York City being hit now, but then Florida being hit a month later?

We might see that. And that could wreak a lot of havoc for us in the coming months.

CABRERA: It's holiday times, and we know travel is starting to really pick up. We have been reporting on it the past couple of days.

But now we know yesterday hit a level that was higher than even pre- pandemic levels. In fact, it was more than two million travelers who were screened yesterday by TSA, higher than the same weekday in 2019. How much does all this travel concern you?

WEN: Actually, travel for the vaccinated and boosted and generally healthy, that doesn't really concern me. Chances are these are individuals who, even if they get Omicron, and chances are good, actually, that they're going to be exposed to Omicron just because of how much it's around and how contagious it is, but, if they do, chances are they're going to get asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic infections.

And so that's not the group that I'm worried about. I'm very worried about the unvaccinated and how much illness this is going to cause in them. I'm also worried about people who are medically frail, people who are immunocompromised, older individuals with chronic medical conditions.

And so, if you're gathering with older, medically frail individuals over the holidays, make sure that you're taking other precautions, including testing just before you see them. And, by the way, when it comes to who to test, it's not the people who are at risk for illness who should be tested. It's the people who are at high risk for exposure who should be tested.

And so don't test grandma who's already been hunkering down. Test the college student who has been going to bars. If you have -- I mean, if you have unlimited tests, test everybody. But if you have very limited tests, test the person with the highest level of exposure before getting together over the holidays.

CABRERA: Dr. Wen, thank you so much for this conversation.

And I just want to take a moment say thank you for being there for us this entire year. You are truly somebody we value so much. I really appreciate you and your time today.

Merry Christmas. Happy new year.

WEN: Thank you very much, Ana. Thanks for your work.

CABRERA: Breaking news.

This afternoon, former President Trump is now asking the Supreme Court to step in and stop the January 6 Committee from obtaining White House records that it wants from the National Archives. Remember this?

Plus, a nurse manager in New Hampshire is speaking out about the mental and emotional strain the Omicron spread is taking on her and her staff.

And, later, the jury in the Kim Potter trial is deliberating again. It's day number four for them. Where is the verdict?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:18:17]

CABRERA: Breaking news.

We are told an outcome in the trial of former officer Kim Potter will be announced shortly.

I want to get straight to CNN Adrienne Broaddus in Minneapolis.

Adrienne, what are you hearing?

Adrienne, this is Ana. You're live. Can you hear me?

OK, obviously, Adrienne is having a hard time hearing us. She's working to get more information, more reporting.

Let me bring in our legal analysts, Areva Martin.

And, Areva, again, the wording here is a trial outcome. What do you think that means?

AREVA MARTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Ana, it's a little misleading in some ways, I think, because people were expecting to get a verdict, if we were going to get anything today. And the court didn't say verdict.

It leads me to believe that it may be a hung jury. We know this jury has been deliberating for more than 25 hours. They're in their fourth day. We know there was a question on Tuesday about how long they should deliberate if they weren't able to come to some kind of agreement.

So the fact that the update on the court Web site says trial outcome, not verdict reached, leads me to believe there is no verdict.

CABRERA: And, of course, we had just yesterday, they were continuing deliberations following a question they had sent to the judge the previous day asking, essentially, if we can't reach a consensus, what does that mean? What does the process look like for when we can stop deliberating, essentially? And they were told to keep on working on it. We didn't hear a word from them yesterday, and now still no questions today. That leaves a lot open for interpretation, doesn't it?

[13:20:00]

MARTIN: Yes, absolutely, Ana.

We know that the court had said at the beginning -- this jury has been sequestered. So the question would have been, if they hadn't reached an outcome or a verdict today, would the judge break that sequester, allow them to go home for the Christmas holiday, and then have them come back on Monday of next week.

This new notification on the Web site that there's some outcome will answer a lot of questions when we hear the judge actually speak from the courtroom. But this has been a long process, been longer than what a lot of people expected, longer than the jury was out even on the Derek Chauvin trial.

So, lots of questions yet to be answered. And, as you said, we didn't hear from the jury yesterday, leading us to believe that they did go back and do as the judge instructed to continue the deliberation process. But, clearly, something has happened this morning. There's been perhaps a verdict, perhaps not a verdict, which would lead us to a mistrial, but an ending, I think.

We're going to get into a case that has been gripping the nation.

CABRERA: And, Areva, again, to remind our viewers about this case, this is the case of the former officer who says she mistook her gun for her Taser, and then fired those fatal shots at Daunte Wright as he was trying to get back in his vehicle.

This was after a traffic stop. Now, all along, her defense has been that, yes, she made a mistake, but her attorneys have argued she was within her right to use deadly force in this particular circumstance, while the prosecution has been arguing that she was negligent and reckless here, so she's facing first- and second-degree manslaughter charges.

Is it possible when they say there is an outcome that they could come back with a verdict on one of the charges, but not the other? How would that work?

MARTIN: Yes, absolutely.

They definitely could determine that she was guilty of second-degree manslaughter, but not the first degree, which you just indicated is reckless conduct, vs. the negligent -- criminal negligence that's required for the second-degree manslaughter.

That was an option, to find on one of the charges, but not the other charge. And as I said earlier, there is this option that there is not a verdict, that they couldn't come to a consensus. And that surely was suggested by the question that was posed to the jury on -- the judge on Tuesday.

And also, Ana, there was -- Ana, I'm sorry -- there was a question about being able to see the gun and the Taser again, suggesting that maybe they wanted to hold the gun or the Taser, because there's this big looming question about how could someone make such a mistake, particularly a 26-year trained officer, an officer who had participated in training with respect to the use of a Taser very recently before the incident occurred?

So, this question of recklessness and criminal negligence can be troubling for jurors, particularly those that say, look, she made an honest mistake. So I never thought this case would be easy for the jurors. And then we had the issue, Ana, of the emotional nature of the testimony. We saw Kim Potter take the stand, which is not usual in criminal defense cases, always risky for the defendant to do so.

She did take the stand, though, and gave this very emotional testimony that the defense team referenced in its closing argument, hoping -- I think the strategy there was to try to appeal to the emotional side of these jurors and to cause them to sympathize with her and perhaps find her not guilty because she did express some remorse.

We saw the family, though, push back.

CABRERA: Yes, Areva, stand by.

I want to go back to Adrienne Broaddus now. We have established a connection with her. She's just outside the courthouse.

And, Adrienne, what are you hearing?

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, silence here outside of the courthouse. We did hear from some activists shortly before we received this message from the court. They plan to gather here and wait and listen and see what this trial outcome is.

This all comes after members of the jury have deliberated more than 25 hours. We know, earlier in the week, these jurors asked the judge a specific question. There were three questions on the record. But the question that caught the attention of the community was their question or concern, what steps should they take if members of this jury could not come to a consensus?

They wanted to know how long they should deliberate and how they should move forward. Keep in mind, over the course of eight days, they heard from 33 different witnesses; 25 of those witnesses were called by the prosecution. The other eight were called from the defense.

The first person who took the stand in this case was the mother of Daunte Wright, Katie Bryant. The last person to take the stand in this case was Kim Potter, testifying in her own defense.

And if we go back to that first day of testimony following the opening statement from the prosecution and the defense, we heard Katie Bryant talk about the call she received from her son Daunte. She mentioned that he sounded scared. He wanted to know if he was in any type of trouble.

[13:25:12]

And when she was on the stand, she testified that she reassured her son that he would be OK. And she testified shortly after saying she heard someone telling her son to hang up the phone, and later we know what happened, based on her testimony. She tried to get in touch with Daunte, but was unsuccessful.

And the passenger in the vehicle that day, Alayna Albrecht-Payton, answered the face call time from Daunte Wright's mother and informed his mother that her son had been shot. And she turned the camera on that cell phone to show Katie Bryant her son's body.

Today, we will find out what this jury has decided now that we have heard a trial outcome, and perhaps the suspense will end today for these families -- Ana.

CABRERA: OK, Adrienne, stand by.

Again, for those who are just joining us, we have learned there is a trial outcome that has been reached in the Kim Potter case. We are awaiting word as to what that means specifically.

I want to bring in Josh Campbell, CNN security correspondent, who has also been following this case very closely, and has been covering the trial for us.

Josh, the fact that this jury has been deliberating for more than 24 hours, that they sent a note previously asking about what happens if we can't reach a consensus, as you have followed the details of this trial, what do you think they could be struggling with or could have been struggling with?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Right.

Well, one thing is clear, Ana. This is a case that has layers of complexity. Now, some people may look at that video and draw their own conclusion about what transpired on that day. The multiple angles that we saw submitted into evidence, but what is important to realize here is that the jury has been instructed on what they are to consider and what they are not to consider.

And it's important to remind our viewers what these charges are. One thing is clear. Neither the prosecution or the defense are saying that Kim Potter intended to kill Daunte Wright. She has not been charged with murder. What she has been charged with by the state, one count of first-degree manslaughter, one count of second-degree manslaughter.

And what the jury was told by the judge is that first-degree manslaughter is essentially reckless use of that weapon. But one thing that has had so many of our legal experts pointing out why this could be going on so long is that the instruction that went to the jury includes the word conscious, that word conscious, that Kim Potter consciously knew what she was doing. Of course, when you look at some of that body camera footage, you see

a Glock pistol in view, but the officer is yelling the word Taser, Taser, Taser, and so what her defense has claimed is that this was a tragic mistake. She did not consciously know she was pulling her firearm, which, of course, led to that deadly outcome.

The second-degree manslaughter charge gets into this idea of recklessness, but there is still part of that instruction that the judge told the jury, it includes an act of intentionality, that she intended to cause this harm, which, again, if you look at the defense's case, there's -- they claimed that this was an accident.

Now, the prosecutors have also said that they believe this was an accident, but a criminal one, and that an officer who has been on duty for so long should have known the difference between a service weapon and a Taser, hence these criminal charges that we're waiting to hear the outcome of today, Ana.

CABRERA: Josh Campbell, Adrienne Broaddus us and Areva Martin, my thanks to all of you. We're going to stay on top of this.

But we're also following more breaking news, former President Trump now formally asking the Supreme Court to block the release of White House documents to the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot.

Let's get right to CNN justice correspondent, Jessica Schneider.

Jessica, fill us in on this new filing.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Ana, so Trump's legal team right here asking for two things. They want the justices to consider this case and schedule arguments, since they're arguing that this case raises novel issues of executive privilege, mostly how much weight a former president has to assert that privilege.

But, more importantly and probably more pressing for the former president, his lawyers now are asking the justices to keep any turnover of documents on hold while they decide whether to take up the full case. And, specifically, their filing says this.

They say: "The limited interest the committee may have in immediately obtaining the requested records pales in comparison to President Trump's interest in securing judicial review before he suffers irreparable harm."

So Trump's legal team so far has been successful blocking hundreds of documents from actually being handed over to the committee, despite the fact that they lost at both lower courts below.

And these records really would be key for the committee to find out exactly what Trump was doing on and leading up to January 6, because these records, they include handwritten notes from his then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, drafts of speeches, also visitor and call logs from the White House.