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Biden's Challenges; New Capitol Riot Footage Released; Omicron Surge. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired December 24, 2021 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: Which is why astronomers all over the world are just going to be holding their breath and hoping that everything goes according to plan tomorrow morning.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN HOST: But I feel like we will be done with unwrapping Christmas gifts by about 6:00 a.m., so I can tell the kids...

FISHER: There you go.

HARLOW: ... at 7:00 they have something to look forward to.

Kristin, thank you very much.

FISHER: You bet.

HARLOW: All right, it's the top of the hour on this Christmas Eve. Thanks so much for being with me. I'm Poppy Harlow, in today for Victor and Alisyn.

Omicron surge has grounded at least 470 domestic flights this Christmas Eve, as carriers struggle with the shortage of flight crews and operations staff. Airlines are asking the CDC to shorten the isolation time for workers who've tested positive for COVID-19, and the CDC just approved that measure for health care workers.

Medical staff who test positive, but are asymptomatic, can now return to work after seven days with a negative test, instead of waiting 10 days. Last hour, President Biden was asked if the isolation guidance for all Americans should be amended. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I just listen to my team that, the docs, and they think we should keep it the way it is for now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Let's begin this hour with our aviation correspondent, Pete Muntean at Reagan National Airport.

Pete, so many flights canceled today because of COVID.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Poppy, 600 flight cancellations here in the United States, 2,300 globally.

And airlines say that, as these coronavirus cases went up, their staffing levels went down, causing them to cancel some of these flights. These are the latest numbers from FlightAware, 180 flight cancellations today on United Airlines alone, 160 over at Delta Air Lines, also big cancellations at JetBlue and Allegiant.

Now, airlines say there is a way to fix this. They want the CDC to reduce the amount of time one would need to spend in isolation if there is a breakthrough case. Right now, it's set for 10 days. They want it to be five days. The head of United Airlines -- sorry -- head of Delta Air Lines and one of the industry's top lobbies wrote the CDC to have that taking down some, even though some airline worker unions oppose that.

Even still, huge numbers, according to the TSA, for air travel right now, 2.1 nine million people screened at airports across the country just yesterday. It's really the highest we have seen during this holiday travel rush, but we are not over yet, Poppy, another 20 million people expected to pass through security at America's airports between now and January 3.

That's when we expect all these people to come home all at once. But, by the way, we obtained the United Airlines memo about these cancellations, Poppy. And they say to their staff that this is all about worker shortages at the flight crew level and also for the operations folks, those behind the scenes, so a really tough go there.

HARLOW: Yes, for sure. Pete, thank you so much for the reporting.

Now to New York, where the state has just shattered its daily case record for the sixth time this week. New York state is reporting nearly 45,000 new COVID cases just today. That's a 14 percent increase from yesterday's 38,000 new cases. It's important to note that, so far, the state has not seen a dramatic rise in hospitalizations, though.

The latest data show roughly half as many New Yorkers currently hospitalized compared to this time last year.

Let's go to my colleague Shimon Prokupecz. He joins us in New York City's Times Square.

Shimon, the governor just announced new guidance in terms of isolation for some workers. What do we know?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Essential workers.

There's certainly a lot of concern that essential workers are going to get hit by the virus, and therefore they're going to be knocked out, and some of the much needed work that they do across the city and across the state is going to be affected. So what the governor has done is that she has changed the guidelines.

And what she's saying is, is that, after five days -- so, normally, it's 10 days, right? So she's saying after five days, if you show no symptoms, have not had any fevers for 72 hours, and you're asymptomatic, you can leave.

You can leave isolation. That is significant, because there's a lot of concern, obviously, for the transit workers, for the police officers, the firefighters, even EMTs, those front-line workers that we have been talking about now for well over a year, that they're going to get knocked out by this, and, therefore, some of those services are going to be lacking.

So she's changing the guidelines on that. This, of course, as we know about New Year's Eve here, the mayor out of concern of the rising numbers here saying that they're going to decrease the amount of people that they're going to allow into viewing areas, normally close to 60,000, now 15,000, still a substantial number.

Still going to have a substantial number of people here, but they feel they could do it safe enough with social distancing. And then, obviously, the numbers. The numbers just keep going up, the governor here saying that she expects that to even go higher next week, as people start testing again.

And then, obviously, the big thing here is hospitalizations, the state and the city feeling that, because we are not seeing those high number of COVID ICU patients, those high number really, really sick people, that right now there is not this great concern, that the vaccines are doing their job, and that hospitals right now are staying normal and steady and can handle any influx should there be one.

[15:05:12]

But they are really confident right now because of the vaccines that this is not going to cause any major damage, certainly, at the hospitals or major concerns. And that is why they're still pushing for people to get vaccinated. And, of course, Poppy, the boosters, that's another big thing, and then the testing here.

The testing is going to continue. For today, it's probably going to be a little less, and then through the weekend, obviously, because of the holiday. But, then, next week, the city and state officials certainly expected to ramp up again, Poppy.

HARLOW: OK, Shimon, thank you so much for that reporting.

Happy holidays, merry Christmas. Stay healthy, friend.

All right, let's talk now to Dr. Chris Pernell, a public health physician and an American College of Preventative Medicine fellow. Also with us is Dr. F. Perry Wilson, associate professor at Yale University School of Medicine.

Great to have you both here. We appreciate it. Dr. Wilson, I was reading a tweet of yours. It's interesting. You said

-- you write: "When does the pandemic end?" And you say: "I think ending isolation requirements for those infected with COVID is a necessary and sufficient requirement to declare the end of the pandemic. To be clear, we can't do this yet, but it might not be far off."

DR. F. PERRY WILSON, YALE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Yes, exactly.

People are feeling, especially vaccinated, boosted and relatively healthy people, are really feeling the pain of 10 days of isolation. And the negative effect of that is that people actually are choosing not to get tested...

HARLOW: Right.

WILSON: ... because, if you test positive, you know you're going to do well, but it really ruins all your plans.

Now, that's a bad thing. That creates a bad incentive for people who are essentially doing all the right things during this pandemic. For it to feel like the pandemic is over, two things are going to have to happen. We're going to have to say, you know what, if you get COVID, you can go back into the world, just like any other respiratory infection.

But if we do that right now, we're going to overwhelm the hospital system. So I am asking people to buckle down as we ride this Omicron wave and get tested, even though, yes, it is onerous under the current isolation regime.

HARLOW: Right. But it protects people around you. I mean, ultimately, that is so important.

WILSON: It protects people who are unvaccinated primarily.

And I think some vaccinated people are starting to get frustrated that there's...

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Fine, but and our little kids, and our little kids, right, Dr. Pernell, our little ones who can't get it yet.

DR. CHRIS PERNELL, PUBLIC HEALTH PHYSICIAN: Yes, there are a host of factors, Poppy, that we have to think about.

First and foremost, I want to say the pandemic is by no means over, when we still have 1,200 people dying daily and we have case rates exploding because of this Omicron surge, especially in those hard-hit communities in those rural spaces, where testing and vaccination has not been on par where it had been in other parts of the country, and our kids, those who are not quite yet eligible to get vaccinated and those who are eligible, but their parents are not yet confident. I think what we need to do is to both understand the science and the

data and understand how people socialize and human behavior, and continue to be transparent and to help people understand how best to be vigilant and to protect themselves.

HARLOW: I want you both to listen to this from our reporter Sara Sidner. She spoke with a front-line health care worker who described what they're going through right now as a war zone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTTY SILVA, CHRISTUS ST. VINCENT REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER: To the point of it being almost unbearable to see that.

These are very good people. They're good respiratory therapists, good clinicians who want to do the best possible job, right? And they just can't. They can do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: I mean, Dr. Wilson, they're facing not only this continuing pandemic, but so much backlash from some of their own patients.

WILSON: Absolutely.

I have been taking care of COVID patients at Yale New Haven Hospital since the beginning of the pandemic. And there has been a shift, even in Connecticut, which is relatively highly vaccinated, from the sort of pre-vaccine era, where there's a lot of chants of heroism among health care workers, and now this strong backlash.

We have also lost a tremendous amount of staff, nurses, and older physicians who have left practice entirely. We're understaffed and starting to get overwhelmed.

HARLOW: If we could try to give people something to smile about amid a pretty tough set of news this holiday, I have to, Dr. Pernell, end with your retweet, showing how well vaccines work against COVID.

Here it is.

[15:10:02]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SCREAMING)

JOE PESCI, ACTOR: Heads up! Don't worry, Marv. I will get him for you.

MACAULAY CULKIN, ACTOR: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: This is so appreciated in my household, where "Home Alone" is a nightly occurrence. And my son is Kevin. That is my son. He would do that to our house if

he could.

(LAUGHTER)

HARLOW: But, seriously, you're trying to sing quite a message there.

PERNELL: Yes, Poppy.

I have been talking about the need for people to be vigilant. I get it. We are fatigued. We are beleaguered, especially those of us in health care. But at the same time, we need to find ways to express to people in real-world emotions what it means to be protected in this pandemic.

And I thought the folks at Johns Hopkins did a fabulous job with doing that. What better way to reach into something that's a part of American culture to say, hey, get yourself vaccinated, so you can knock out the thugs, you can knock out Omicron?

HARLOW: It is so true.

Well, thank you both for being here on this Christmas Eve especially, and thank you for all you have done, both of you, for so long fighting this. We appreciate it very much.

PERNELL: Thank you.

HARLOW: Well, ahead: As former President Trump and some members of the GOP continue their efforts to whitewash the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the Department of Justice has released a disturbing new three-hour-long video of that day.

It has not been seen publicly before. The images show some of the most violent confrontations between rioters and police. We will take you through more of it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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HARLOW: New developments in the Capitol riot investigation.

The Justice Department just released the longest video yet of the January 6 insurrection. It is three hours' long, graphic video there that took place in the Capitol tunnel.

The video shows some of the most violent confrontations with rioters, as police desperately tried to hold the line.

Let me bring in my colleague Jessica Schneider for more.

what more does this video show?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, it shows three hours' worth of that battle between the Capitol Police and the rioters, all the while the Capitol Police holding them back.

And this is video that CNN had to sue to obtain from the Justice Department. It is the most in-depth look that we have seen so far from this particular location on the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol.

So, let's see some footage from it. It's a video that shows out really the drawn-out battle between the rioters and Capitol Police. At one point in this video, rioters actually grab two of the police officers, pull them into the crowd, and then beat on those officers with sticks, while another rioter is seen throwing some objects or at least one object at police.

Now, what's key here in all these videos is that Capitol Police actually succeeded in holding the line until the building was cleared out. No rioters actually made it inside the Capitol from this particular entry point.

And some officers have actually since said that they didn't even know the Capitol had already been breached in other spots. So, another part of that video shows an officer up high trying to fight back rioters with his foot, while more fights break out. And then there's also throughout this rioters bashing the Capitol Police officers with anything they could find, baton, crutches, other objects, including some of the police's own riot shields.

So this is a three-hour video. It's taken from a Capitol Police surveillance camera. That's why it's fixed in one spot. That's why there's no sound. And, Poppy, prosecutors have been using this video and other videos in court as part of their cases against the now more than 700 people who have been charged in connection to this attack.

CNN has been getting video like this from the scene throughout the past year. But we have repeatedly had to sue to get the video from court proceedings, actually to make them public to people who couldn't necessarily necessarily be in court.

But, Poppy, this one showing this prolonged battle from these police officers who actually never let those rioters breached the line and enter the Capitol from that particular point -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Remarkable heroes, and seeing this all from another vantage point, those officers.

Jessica, thank you so much for the reporting.

Former President Trump is ending his first year out of office repeating the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. But he's also now, thank goodness, pushing the truth about vaccines, urging his supporters to get the COVID vaccine, making clear the shots are safe and protect against hospitalization and death.

Let me bring in Astead Herndon, CNN political analyst and a national political reporter for "The New York Times," and Charlie Dent, a CNN political commentator and a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania.

Thank you both for being here. Merry Christmas Eve to you both.

ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Thank you.

HARLOW: So, I mean, it's great, Charlie, that the president is now correcting the record about anyone who says the vaccine doesn't work or don't get a booster. That's so, so, so important.

What's interesting, though, is, it's a remarkable turnaround from just back in July, when the Delta variant was surging. And he sent out a statement to supporters on Biden and the vaccine, saying -- quote -- "People are refusing to take the vaccine because they don't trust his administration. They don't trust the election," and on and on and on.

What do you make of the turnaround?

CHARLIE DENT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it's never easy to analyze what's going through the former president's mind, but I'm just glad he's gotten to the point where he is.

He should be taking credit for vaccine development.

HARLOW: Right.

DENT: And he should be pushing his supporters to get vaccinated.

It was a great success of his administration, development of that vaccine. So I'm glad he's out there telling that he got -- telling people he got boosted. And he should be doing more of it. He should be saying it every day and that would do a great service to our country.

[15:20:01]

Why back in the summertime casting doubt on it, again, I think it's just a lot of bitterness and sour grapes about the election. He's been obsessed with this election loss. And he's just not -- frankly, he's just not fit. And I question his mental health at times.

But I'm glad he is where he is. And so that's the good news. He's saying the right thing at least on this issue for the moment.

HARLOW: Yes.

DENT: And I hope he continues to do.

HARLOW: So let's hope it moves the needle in terms of people actually getting vaccinated, getting boosted.

Astead, when it comes to the really number one job of the Biden administration now, which is to get more people vaccinated, more people boosted and a whole lot more people tested, you wrote something interesting a few weeks ago in "The Times." This was December 7.

You wrote: "Projecting competence has not persuaded enough skeptical Americans to be vaccinated against a coronavirus. His familiarity with Washington deal-making, while crucial and passing a bipartisan infrastructure package, has not moved the needle on issues like voting rights, police reform, or raising the minimum wage."

Does this change in the new year?

HERNDON: I mean, that's the problem for this administration, is that, for the entirety of the campaign, they were pitching a kind of new type of Washington based on the personalities of the two men involved.

You got Donald Trump, which obviously had -- was a chaotic administration that was lying to the public and the press at every turn. And he pitched himself as a calm, as a normal.

We saw that shift in the general election. He started embracing more of those big policies. But we never saw the embrace of things like ending the filibuster, like publicly pressuring his own party, the type of bare-knuckle politics that might have to come with passing those things.

And so right now you have an administration that's kind of playing politics and the inside game as usual, when they promised the public a lot of really big results. In the next year, if that changes, who knows? That means the White House is going to have to get Joe Manchin to move on some things, get larger Senate caucus to move on some things, or really make a case to the public that, even without these things passing, that this is Democrats delivering on the fullness of their agenda.

And we will see if the public buys it.

HARLOW: Yes.

Astead, you also -- your colleagues at "The Times" have really fascinating, important new reporting on the vice president, Harris, and reporting that she's been sidelined by the administration, has yet to carve out a role. Where do you think this goes?

HERNDON: Yes, this has been a long-running storyline in this administration that's gone from whispers to a larger course.

That was a great story for my colleagues Katie and Zolan and the Washington bureau. And it matches what we have seen the reporting be about the vice president up until this point. I covered her presidential administration -- her presidential campaign, and there was a lot of questions about personnel management in that and about a kind of competing set of ideas about what was the root cause vision that Senator Harris at the time saw.

And we have seen that kind of drift in to this presidency. And so this is a lot of -- her allies are looking for the White House to carve out a more specific role, to use her politically on the trail, to kind of show she's a more valued member of the team. But the problem is, that's going up against a White House that really hasn't done it so far yet.

HARLOW: When it comes to the former president, Charlie -- you're the Republican, so you get all these questions about former President Trump, but he's going to hold this press conference on January 6 at Mar-a-Lago.

That is obviously the one year-mark since the insurrection. And he's going to talk about what he continues to call a rigged election. And you have a number of key Republicans, Mitch McConnell among them, who keep saying over and over, you can't keep looking backward to win elections, you got to look forward, take a page out of the Glenn Youngkin playbook, if you will.

Does President Trump need to pivot on election fraud if he is going to run again?

DENT: Oh, absolutely.

I mean, again, we're dealing with his obsession. Elections are about the future and not the past. And I continue to believe that he is so obsessed about this because, if you look at the elections of 2020 and 2021, Republicans actually did quite well, Republicans not named Donald Trump.

And he was thoroughly rejected because of his behavior, his conduct in office, and the never-ending chaos, while other Republicans down- ballot were affirmed. And so he continues to obsess on this. He needs to get over it. Mitch McConnell is absolutely right, by focusing on the past, Donald Trump is actually hurting Republicans as they move into the midterms.

And we will see how this all plays out, but I'm curious to see what he says on January 6. I'm sure he's just going to say what he's always been saying. We're not going to hear anything new, I suspect, but it's unhealthy for the party. It's unhealthy for the country. And the former president continues to undermine many of the public's faith and confidence in our electoral system, which is really tragic and really putting our whole democratic system at a terrible position.

HARLOW: It certainly is.

Charlie Dent, thank you. Astead Herndon, thank you so much. Have a happy holiday.

[15:25:01]

HERNDON: Thank you.

HARLOW: COVID cases are spreading also on Capitol Hill. Nearly a dozen lawmakers have tested positive over the last week. We will speak with one of them.

And 'tis the season of giving. A UPS driver who left a sweet message for a stranger during one of his deliveries is now getting that kindness repaid -- that story ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Well, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky is the latest member of Congress to announce that she and her husband have tested positive for COVID.