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Restaurant Groups Urge Congress To Replenish Industry Grant Program; Top 10 Crime & Justice Stories Of 2021. Aired 10:30-11a ET
Aired December 31, 2021 - 10:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[10:34:42]
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, restaurant groups say the omicron surge could be the last straw for thousands of bars and restaurants unless Congress steps in. A recent survey done by the independent Restaurant Coalition showed 86 percent of restaurants have not received federal aid and are in danger of closing for good. That could put an estimated 60 million jobs in jeopardy.
Let me bring in David Nayfeld. He is the executive chef and the owner of two restaurants in San Francisco, Che Fico and Che Fico Alimentari. You saw him on the show just about a year ago. He's also a member of the independent restaurant board's coalition board of directors.
David, thanks for being with me. I mentioned that you were on a year ago because we thought things would be so much better now. Is it worse now for you guys?
DAVID NAYFELD, CHIEF AN CO-OWNER, CHE FICO: Well, it's worse by virtue of the fact we've been living this entire time with spikes and then, you know, lulls, and we still haven't received federal aid, especially for the majority of our industry. So we're -- I would say that's significantly worse right now considering the amount of debt that a lot of us have had to take on.
HARLOW: So, normally, Che Fico, you know, famous restaurant in San Francisco would be booked solid for New Year's Eve but you've had to close because of the spike in cases and cancel all your reservations, all of that income just gone?
NAYFELD: Yeah. So, I mean, normally a restaurant like Che Fico and a lot of restaurants are booked solid for New Year's Eve. It's the biggest revenue night of the year. Many of us including Che Fico have had to shut down completely because of the spike.
And, you know, right now, we feel abandoned by Congress because they're on vacation and restaurants all over the country are dying, regardless of whether if you're in a Republican state or a Democratic state. We are all on the verge of collapse.
HARLOW: So, quite a statement to say you feel abandoned by congress. There was, and it's important to note, the $28 billion in grants from Congress for the restaurant revitalization back in May. I understand a number of restaurants didn't get that money, but they did take that action. What more are you asking Congress to do now?
NAYFELD: That's a great question, Poppy. The fact of the matter is Senator Schumer said very specifically that was a down payment on what he knew was a grossly underestimated amount. We had been fighting the entire time for $100 billion, which is what we estimated to be needed for the majority of our industry.
What was shown is that was so oversubscribed that over 100,000 restaurants were able to take advantage of that. That left out 177,000 restaurants that signed up for it that weren't able to get it.
That puts Congress in a position of picking winners and losers, and we just can't have that. What we need right now is we need Senator Schumer and the rest of Congress to make good on their promise to refill the restaurant revitalization fund and get us the rest of the money so we can make it through disaster.
HARLOW: I hear you, I mean, 100 percent. I think other people watching in other industries, David, will ask, okay, and what about us? Whether you think of the arts, for example, right? Airlines, who also got a huge amount of money from Congress.
I mean, we don't know if omicron is the last variant, right? We don't know how many spikes. We don't know how many shutdowns or reopens that will have to be.
What do you say to people who ask, you know, where is the limit?
NAYFELD: Sure. And I don't argue against any other industry, but one thing I will put side by side, for comparison, show me the other industry that employs 16 million people and show me the other industry that adds as much to the GDP, show me another industry that adds as much to the collective tax base of any city we're in.
Show me the other industry that you can be a high school graduate or sometimes not even have a high school degree, you can get into, you can work your way and open a small business like a restaurant for yourself and make it into the middle class.
Our industry is perhaps one of the most important industries in the entire country, especially when you talk about independent restaurants. Think about the variety of people we employ. You could be formerly incarcerated, you can be newly naturalized, you can be in college getting a master's degree. We have a job for you and those are good jobs.
HARLOW: That's an important way to put it, David, for sure. Look at your trajectory and how you were able to work your way up and open up these two restaurants.
I was struck when I learned that you have spent I think $5,000 out of your own pocket to buy rapid tests for your employees. Even despite all of that, there was so much of a spike you had to shut down for New Year's. I wonder if you have a message for the Biden administration
specifically on testing?
NAYFELD: Yeah. So, look, and I just want to be very clear -- that's $5,000 this month we've spent on that.
HARLOW: Wow.
NAYFELD: Because of overly inflated price gouging on tests.
My message to the Biden administration is a few things. One is you need to get tests out to these businesses that you depend on, especially things like restaurants, supermarkets, places where people cannot do anything but work in person.
[10:40:06]
And you need to get them in our hands and they need to be free and it needs to be quick.
The other thing I would say is the Biden administration can play a major hand in getting the restaurant revitalization fund and they can push the hand of Congress. This is something that's had wide bipartisan support.
If you have a bill -- you look at that Joni Ernst on one side and Elizabeth Warren on another side agree on, we all know that that's good business.
And one last thing I want to say about this, as you look at any cities and what activates streets, we're talking about bars, cafes and restaurants. That is what activates your city. And you think of your city or block without all of the restaurants without their lights on, that is not a city you want to live in.
HARLOW: David, thank you so much. I hope that Chi Fico opens back up and we get to a much healthier place and everyone can gather and enjoy. Thanks very, very much.
NAYFELD: Thank you very much, Poppy. Have a great New Year.
HARLOW: You as well.
We have much more ahead on CNN, including these events we're watching today.
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[10:46:22]
HARLOW: This is what bringing in the New Year looks like in North Korea. Thousands gathered near Pyongyang to watch fireworks and performances. Off in New Zealand, this light show replaced the annual fireworks display that was canceled because of COVID. In Australia, they rang in the New Year with fireworks over Sydney's world-famous Harbour Bridge. CNN is counting down the top stories of the year as we close out 2021.
Our Jean Casarez has a look at headlines that captivated the nation. We do want to warn you, some of this video is very disturbing.
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JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A musician behind bars, a manhunt that gripped the nation, a call for social justice finally answered, all part of some of the most gripping crime and justice stories in 2021.
Number ten, in June, prominent South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh says he discovered the bodies of his wife and son shot dead outside the family's home. Three months later, Murdaugh told police he had been shot in the head.
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: A prominent attorney in South Carolina resigned from his law firm and entered rehab. Police say Murdaugh admitted for arranging for a hitman to kill him so his son could collect millions in life insurance.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Deaths, murders, allegations, millions of dollars from his former law firm and clients.
CASAREZ: Murdaugh is facing criminal charges, and more than two dozen financial crimes. But the murders of his wife and son remain unsolved. He denies any involvement.
Next at number nine --
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Bill Cosby is a free man this morning.
CASAREZ: In June, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court overturned Bill Cosby's 2018 conviction of aggravated indecent assault, charges he repeatedly denied. The case marked the first high-profile celebrity criminal trial of the Me Too era.
CARROLL: Justices explaining their decision, saying Cosby was originally promised immunity in exchange for testimony in a civil case. A decade later, a different prosecutor used his testimony against him in a criminal trial.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I'm sad and I'm feeling like this is a loss for me and for the other women who came forward.
CASAREZ: In a rare move, prosecutors are now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the overturned conviction.
Number eight, R. Kelly convicted.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Breaking news in our national lead, disgraced R&B superstar R. Kelly was found guilty late this afternoon.
CASAREZ: Jurors found R. Kelly guilty of racketeering including acts of bribery and sexual exploitation of a child along with separate charges of sex trafficking. Kelly has been defending his innocence for years, but now he faces up to life in prison at sentencing, which is scheduled for next year.
Number seven, the rise of shocking incidents involving airline passengers becoming violent, some over refusing to wear masks and attacking flight attendants. This man even needing to be duct taped to his seat.
UNIDENTIIFED MALE: Sit down now.
CASAREZ: The FAA has now announced that abusive and unruly passengers can face federal penalties as high as $45,000.
Number six, another alarming trend.
[10:50:03]
2021 is on pace to be one of the worst years for deadly gun violence in decades.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: At least 150 Americans are dead and more than 380 wounded after an outburst of gun violence over the weekend.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Really tragic milestone for the city of Philadelphia, 500 homicides so far this year.
RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: CNN analysis of more than 40 of the most populous cities in the U.S. shows nine to have already set homicide records before year's end.
CASAREZ: Law enforcement expects point to a mix of factors including high gun sales, fewer cops and shifting police resources, changes in the court system and the pandemic.
It was a mystery and a manhunt that gripped the nation. Number five.
GABBY PETITO, YOUTUBER: Hello, hello. Good morning.
CASAREZ: In June, 22-year-old Gabby Petito and her fiance Brian Laundrie set out on a cross country road trip. The couple documenting their summer adventures on social media.
ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: But Petito's text to her family and her social media posts stopped abruptly in last August, about two weeks after this incident in Moab, Utah, on August 12, with police pulled the couple over after receiving a 911 call about a possible domestic dispute.
CASAREZ: Bloggers through the Tetons discovered they had a clip of Petito's van in a camping area where authorities later found her remains.
Laundrie had returned home to his parents house in Florida while Petito was missing. Then, he vanished.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: The FBI just confirming the human remains now in that Florida nature reserve are indeed those of 23 year old Brian Laundrie.
CASAREZ: The story ignited calls for other missing persons to garner the same attention.
Number four, a killing spree in Georgia that rattled the Asian- American community. Twenty-one-year-old Robert Aaron Long allegedly opened fire on three Asian spas leaving eight dead, six were Asian women.
NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: At the moment, you can just see the palpable anxiety of this community.
CASAREZ: Investigators say Long had been a customer two of the locations before the shootings. He was charged in two counties, in one, Long has already pleaded guilty to four counts of murder and was sentenced to over four life sentences. But in another, prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Our next two stories high-profile trials that put race and justice, self-defense and vigilantism in the spotlight.
Number three --
PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Breaking news in our national lead. The jury finding Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty on all charges.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Rittenhouse was 17 years old when he fatally shot two men and wounded a third with an AR-15 style rifle that he brought to racial justice protests in August of 2020.
CASAREZ: Dozens of witnesses came to the stand over the course of six days.
KYLE RITTENHOUSE, 17-YEAR-OLD: There's not a crowd, a mob that was chasing me. I continued to run after hearing people say -- people were saying cranium him, get him, kill him. I didn't do anything wrong. I defended myself.
CASAREZ: After 25 hours of deliberations --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We the jury find the defendant, Kyle H. Rittenhouse not guilty.
CASAREZ: The jury acquitted Rittenhouse on all charges.
Number two, it was a trial that nearly never happened but a mother and a movement made sure it did. Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was shot and killed while out for a jog near Brunswick, Georgia. At the time, no charges were filed.
WANDA COOPER-JONES, MOTHER OF AHMAUD ARBERY: It took 74 days. 74 days to get an arrest.
BROWN: The three men who shot and chased Arbery claiming self-defense.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can't force someone to defend themselves against you so you get to claim self defense. This isn't the Wild West.
JUDGE: We the jury find Greg McMichael guilty.
CASAREZ: The day before Thanksgiving, those three men were convicted of murder. Their claim of self-defense rejected by a nearly all-white jury.
And number one --
JUDGE: Find the defendant guilty.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This feels like we can breathe. It feels like something new. Hopefully a new day in America.
CASAREZ: The trial of Derek Chauvin. The former Minneapolis police officer found guilty of murdering George Floyd. This spring the trial, video of Chauvin with his knee on Floyd's neck for over nine minutes while he cried mama played over and over for jurors.
CHARLES MCMILLIAN, SAW GEORGE FLOWD BEING DETAINED: I don't have a mama either. And I understand him.
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: If a police officer can do this, what can't they do to us?
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What can't they do to our children? So, that is what's at stake here.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: The former police officer, Derek Chauvin guilty on all three counts.
CASAREZ: Chauvin never took the stand in his own defense but jurors would go on to tell CNN that it would not have made a difference.
PHILONISE FLOYD, GEORGE FLOYD'S BROTHER: George had no choice but to give up because he shut all the oxygen off in his body. My brother, man, he didn't deserve it. But he has changed the world.
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HARLOW: Jean Casarez, thank you for that reporting.
Thanks to all of you for joining us. I'm Poppy Harlow wishing you a happy and healthy New Year.
"AT THIS HOUR" starts after a quick break.
