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Avenatti Expected to Cross-Examine Client Stormy Daniels; Dr. Thomas Frieden Says He's Optimistic as Omicron Retreats; Moderna CEO: Vaccines & Boosters Best Chance Against Omicron; Florida Surgeon General Nominee Struggled on Whether Vaccines Work or Not; Bomb Cyclone Blizzard Headed to U.S. Northeast. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired January 27, 2022 - 14:30   ET

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

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[14:34:27]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Stormy Daniels is on the witness stand today, accusing her former lawyer, Michael Avenatti, of stealing about $300,000 from her book deal payments in 2018.

Now, Avenatti has ditched his own attorneys to represent himself in his criminal trial. And that means that he'll have a chance to cross- examine Daniels.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Avenatti, you'll remember, once represented the adult film star in the hush money scheme that she was paid to silence her allegations of an affair with Donald Trump.

So, let's go straight to CNN's Kara Scannell. Kara is outside the courtroom.

Give us all the details of what's happening in court today.

[14:35:04]

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: Well, Alisyn and Victor, Stormy Daniels has been on the stand for about two and a half hours.

This time, it's the prosecution's turn. So, they're questioning Daniels about this book deal that she struck that she says Michael Avenatti helped her get.

But then the essence of this case is that he allegedly stole $300,000 from her. And he's charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.

Daniels has been testifying. She's described how excited she was to get this book deal.

She said when she was sitting in a car in a gas station and she saw across her phone on an app that the first payment came through of $200,000, she said she screamed so loudly that she scared the security guard sitting next to her. Then, she went on to explain how she was -- you know, she had received

that first payment but then she wasn't getting the second or the third payment.

And prosecutors walked her through and had her read text messages that she had sent to Michael Avenatti as she was asking, where's my money?

So, they went through more than a dozen text messages where she was reading her texts to Avenatti and the prosecutor reading his response.

And she was quite animated when she was doing this. You could feel the frustration returning to her voice as she was saying, she was texting him, get me my money, where is my money?

She had gone through -- they have gone through methodically, one text message after another, comparing it to when the payments came in to Avenatti.

She said one of her last statements, at the end, she said, he lied to me almost every day for five months.

She also said when she signed this deal with Avenatti, she agreed that she would only pay him $100 and that he would not receive any other money.

She said they never had any other payment for that. And when she spoke to him about that, he said he would never take a penny from me, I was courageous, I earned it, I deserved it -- Victor, Alisyn?

BLACKWELL: Kara Scannell, thank you.

CAMEROTA: OK, we're just getting this into CNN. The car of Democratic Congresswoman Cori Bush was hit by gunfire early Saturday morning.

This happened in the St. Louis area. Luckily, Congresswoman Bush was not in the car at the time.

BLACKWELL: A spokesperson tells CNN there was no evidence the congresswoman was intentionally targeted.

Bush released a statement on Twitter. Here's a portion of it. "I'm touched by everyone who has reached out. Thankfully, no one was harmed. But any act of gun violence shakes your soul."

The former CDC chief says that he is more optimistic about the pandemic today than he has ever been, with Omicron in retreat in several parts of the country. We'll talk about what comes next.

CAMEROTA: But first, here are some other events we're watching today.

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[14:42:51]

CAMEROTA: Some good news today about the pandemic. The former director of the CDC making an encouraging prediction. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN, FORMER CDC DIRECTOR: I am more optimistic about the pandemic today than I have been since it was declared a pandemic nearly two years ago.

In another few weeks, the Omicron flash flood, not a wave, but a flash flood, will have largely passed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Now, until that day comes, the chief medical officer of Moderna says being vaccinated and boosted almost obliterates the risk of the Omicron variant, but that unvaccinated people could still get very sick.

Joining us now is Dr. F. Perry Wilson. He is an associate professor of medicine at Yale.

Doctor, welcome back.

So, Frieden says, if we do it right, that 2022 -- let me get it right here -- COVID doesn't dominate so much of our life.

But we haven't been doing it right. People aren't getting vaccinated as quickly as they should. They're not getting boosted.

So is the inverse true? If we don't speed this up, we are just in it for the rest of the year?

DR. F. PERRY WILSON, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, YALE UNIVERSITY: I tend to agree with Dr. Frieden here.

What we've seen is this Omicron wave cresting. And with this cresting, a lot of infections that fortunately did not result in an attendant increase in deaths among vaccinated people.

So, it really does show the power of vaccination, the power of immunity to fight against coronavirus.

I'm hoping this is a lesson moving forward. I'm hoping people are getting convinced to get vaccinated because they see how dramatically different the outcomes are for vaccinated people versus unvaccinated people.

There are good lessons to learn here with regards to testing as well and making tests more available.

So I'm hopeful, too. I think we're making real progress at this point.

CAMEROTA: Maybe this will convince them. Because every day I am astounded by the numbers. And 2,300 Americans died yesterday from COVID.

I mean, we don't talk about the numbers as much anymore because there's a feeling that we are almost coming out the other side of it. And I do think that all Americans want and are craving a dose of optimism. But that number is huge.

And that's what -- I mean, but vast majority of them, unvaccinated.

[14:45:00]

And that's why this moment in Florida yesterday was so curious, where the -- the surgeon general, the nominee for the surgeon general, who is being confirmed, really struggled mightily to talk about whether or not the COVID vaccines work.

So, let me play that for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just a yes or no. Do vaccines work?

DR. JOSEPH LADAPO, FLORIDA SURGEON GENERAL NOMINEE: As a scientist, you know, I'm compelled to answer the scientific question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Scientifically, do vaccines -- do the vaccines work?

LADAPO: Yes or no questions are not that easy to find in science.

The most commonly used vaccines in the United States, which would be the Pfizer product and the product that was developed by Moderna, have been shown to have relatively high effectiveness for the prevention of hospitalization and death.

And over time, relatively low protection from infection.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Dr. Wilson, why did it take him so long to get there? Do vaccines work? Is that a gotcha question of some kind?

WILSON: No, no. This is ridiculous. Yes, vaccines work. The evidence is overwhelming at this point.

You have a 90 percent reduction in hospitalizations, even in the Omicron wave. You have a 95 percent to 99 percent reduction in deaths.

I'm a scientist too. I conduct lots of clinical trials. This is an easy one. Yes, vaccines work.

And the fact that someone, a public figure, and a doctor, is struggling so much just speaks to the fact that this issue has been so politicized.

Science doesn't need to be political. Data isn't political. And the data is right there.

They work. You can admit that. It's OK.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Perry Wilson, great to talk to you. Thank you.

WILSON: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: All right, a German archbishop says he is willing to take responsibility after a devastating report found he and Pope Benedict XVI mishandled sex abuse cases in the archdiocese's sex abuse cases. More on that.

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[14:51:52]

BLACKWELL: A top official in Germany's Catholic Church responded today to a damning report that found he and Pope Benedict XVI mishandled sex abuse cases in the archdiocese.

Munich's Cardinal Marx said that he's ashamed, and he admits he should have been more engaged in that matter.

CAMEROTA: An investigation found that Benedict knew about priests abusing children decades ago when he was archbishop of Munich but did nothing about it.

CNN Vatican correspondent, Delia Gallagher, is in Rome.

Delia, what else did Cardinal Marks say?

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, first, let me tell you what he didn't say, which is he didn't address the findings that he, himself, had mishandled two cases of sexual abuse.

Instead, he spoke more generally about his response to the report.

Let's take a listen to some of what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARDINAL REINHARD MARX, ARCHBISHOP OF MUNICH (through translator): After having read the report, I am repeatedly shocked about the harm and suffering of the affected persons. And also what the perpetrators have done and how those responsible have behaved.

What is clear here in the expert report is there's a dark side. And this will continue to be advisable in the history of our church.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: He was asked about the role of Pope Benedict XVI and he said that the pope emeritus will be responding. He wants to clarify this and that he deserves the opportunity to respond.

And also, Alisyn, Cardinal Marx said he is not going to resign for the moment.

That was something he tried to do last year in the wake of other sex abuse scandals in Germany. He offered his resignation to Pope Francis as a kind of symbolic gesture. The pope declined to accept it.

The cardinal said today that he will be staying on in his role as long as he can be helpful -- Alisyn, Victor?

BLACKWELL: Thank you, Delia Gallagher, there in Rome.

[14:53:43]

President Biden reaffirms his pledge to nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court now that Justice Breyer announced he's retiring. We have fresh angles on this developing story. Stay with us.

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[14:58:31]

BLACKWELL: A bomb cyclone is incoming. A winter storm, a big one, on its way to the northeast.

CAMEROTA: I don't like either of those words. I really don't like them together, OK.

So let's go to our meteorologist, Tom Sater, in the CNN Weather Center.

A bomb cyclone. What does this mean for us?

TOM SATER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I'm glad you asked. And I don't like those two terms either.

Much like we see with hurricanes, when the pressure drops dramatically and they rapidly intensify, with east coast storms, we measure the pressure in millibars.

So when the pressure drops 24 millibars in 24 hours, it's bombing out. It's exploding in growth. We could see twice that.

Here is the problem, though. Until this area of low pressure off the coast of Georgia forms, we just don't know the track.

The energy for this is still dropping out of central Rockies. So that will be tomorrow. We're going to know a lot more.

We've been watching this for some time. And that's why we have winter storm watches from eastern North Carolina up to coastal Maine.

There's a number of things we know, a number of factors. We know it's cold enough. We know there will be moisture. We know a storm will develop. We know it will produce some snow.

What we do not know is the track. So as this storm moves up, again, it will form tomorrow. We'll know much more.

But it's not until Saturday that it goes through that bombing process and really starts to explode, hurricane-force winds.

But because the path is unknown, there's so much uncertainty as to who will see so much snow.

[14:59:54]

Now this is the European model. And you can see how it buffets the entire eastern seaboard will snow.

But again, this will be gone by Sunday. So it will be a Saturday/Saturday evening event in towards Sunday.

Here are the tracks. The one to the left, if it hugs the coast, it will be more inland snow.