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Joe Rogan Responds to Complaints He's Spreading COVID Misinformation; Boris Johnson Responds to Report on Lockdown Parties; Rafael Nadal Wins Record-Breaking 21st Grand Slam in Epic Final. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired January 31, 2022 - 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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[10:30:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: The podcast host Joe Rogan is now apologizing to Spotify after COVID misinformation on his show led several musicians to remove their songs from the streaming platform.

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JOE ROGAN, HOST, THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE: Oftentimes, I have no idea what I'll talk about until I sit down and talk to people and that's why some of my ideas are not that prepared or flushed out because I'm literally having them in real-time. But I do my best and they're just conversations and I think that's also --

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SCIUTTO: Hold that thought. We're going live to the floor of the British parliament where the British prime minister responding to a new report on the parties he held during the COVID lockdown. Let's listen in.

BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: -- in this statement, but, firstly, I want to say sorry. And I'm sorry for the things we simply didn't get right and also sorry for the way that this matter has been handled. And it's no use saying that this or that was within the rules and it's no use saying people were working hard. This pandemic was hard for everyone. We asked people across this country to make the most extraordinary sacrifices, not to meet loved ones, not visit relatives before they died and I understand the anger that people feel.

But, Mr. Speaker, it isn't enough to say sorry. This is a moment when we must look at ourselves in the mirror and we must learn. And while the Metropolitan Police must yet complete their investigation, and that means there are no details of specific events in Sue Gray's report, I, of course, accept Sue Gray's general findings in full. And above all, her recommendation we must learn from these events and act now.

With respect to the events under police investigation, she says, and I quote, no conclusions should be drawn or inferences made from this other than it is now for the police to consider the relevant material to those incidents but more broadly, she finds that there is significant learning to be drawn from these events, which must be addressed immediately across government. This does not need to wait for the police investigations to be concluded.

That is why we are making changes now to the way Downing Street and the cabinet office run so that we can get on with the job that I was elected to do, Mr. Speaker, and the job that this government was elected to do. First, it is time to sort out what Sue Gray rightly calls the fragmented and complicated leadership structures of Downing Street, which she says have not evolved sufficiently to meet the demands of the expansion of number ten and we will do that, including by creating an office of the prime minister with a permanent secretary to lead number ten.

Second, Mr. Speaker, it is clear from Sue Gray's report that it is time not just to review the civil service and special adviser codes of conduct, wherever necessary, to ensure that they take account of Sue Gray's recommendations but also to make sure that those codes are properly enforced.

[10:35:05]

And third, I will be saying more in the coming days about the steps we will take to improve the number ten operation and the work of the cabinet office to strengthen cabinet government and to improve the vital connection between number ten and parliament.

Mr. Speaker, I get it and I will fix it. And I want to say to the people of this country, I know what the issue is. Yes, Mr. Speaker, yes, it's whether this government can be trusted to deliver and I say, Mr. Speaker, yes, we can be trusted. Yes, we can be trusted to deliver.

We said that we would get Brexit done. Mr. Speaker, and we did. And we're setting free ports around the whole United Kingdom. I've been to one of them today, which is creating tens of thousands of new jobs, Mr. Speaker. We said we would get this country through COVID and we did. We delivered the fastest vaccine rollout in Europe and fastest booster program of any major economy so that we've been able to restore people's freedoms faster than any comparable economy. And at the same time, we've been cutting crime by 14 percent, building 14 new hospitals and rolling out broadband, Mr. Speaker, and delivering all the promises of our 2019 agenda so that we have the fastest economic growth of the G7. We have shown that we have done things that people thought were impossible, Mr. Speaker, and that we can deliver for the British people. Mr. Speaker, I just -- I will remind the benches opposite. The reason we're coming out of COVID so fast is at least partly because we doubled the speed of the booster rollout, and I can tell the house and this country that we are going to bring the same energy and commitment to getting on with the job to delivering for the British people and to our mission to unite and level up across this country, Mr. Speaker, and a I commend this statement to the house.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I now Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition.

KEIR STARMER, LABOUR PARTY LEADER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to thank Sue Gray for the diligence and professionalism with which she's carried out her work. It's no fault of hers that she's only been able to produce an update today, not the full report. The prime minister repeatedly assured the house that the guidance was followed and the rules were followed. But we now know that 12 cases have reached the threshold for criminal investigation, which I remind the house means that there is evidence of serious and flagrant breaches of lockdown.

SCIUTTO: Well, Bianna, it appears the U.K. prime minister knows this report has changed the game there because he led right up with an I'm sorry, I'm sorry. He went on to say, I understand the anger that people feel, in effect, saying, he's going to learn from this but stay.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN NEWSROOM: He hent on to say, I get it and I will fix it. And he said there will be changes made to how 10 Downing Street is run, that he understands people's anger and frustration. I'm just curious, Jim, if this had been the speech and the words that we've heard from him a couple of weeks ago, whether he'd be in the hot water that he is in right now.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And the big question, clearly not satisfying for the opposition. We heard from the labor party leader there, the question is, will it be satisfying for members of his own party? Do they stick behind him?

GOLODRYGA: Exactly. We will take a short break and be right back.

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[10:40:00]

GOLODRYGA: Spotify has announced that it is adding content advisories to all podcasts that mention COVID-19, this after several artists announced the decision to pull their music from the streaming service over Joe Rogan's controversial podcast.

SCIUTTO: Joining us now to discuss this and broader information about COVID, Dr. Peter Hotez, Professor and Dean of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Hotez, great to have you on.

I mean, the reason we're spending time on this disinformation is it has a real effect. I mean, it has led a large portion of this country to conclude vaccines don't help you or fake, COVID is fake, and people have gotten sick, lost lives because of it. So, Joe Rogan, apparently hearing this and he said the following, we want to play this because it mentions you. Have a listen.

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ROGAN: I had Dr. Peter Hotez on, who is a vaccine expert. I'm interested in finding out what is correct and I'm also finding out how people come to these conclusions and what the facts are.

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SCIUTTO: His apology basically, Dr. Hotez, is to say, okay, I'm going to have the deniers on but I'll also have the smart people like you, and I wonder if that's a sufficient answer to all of this.

DR. PETER HOTEZ, PROFESSOR AND DEAN OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Look, Jim, here's what we've got to do. We've got to flip all the cards and come to a hard reality here that over the last half of 2021 and now into 2022, more than 200,000 unvaccinated Americans have needlessly lost their lives.

[10:45:04]

They've thrown their lives away because they believed the disinformation and refused to get vaccinated. That is the reality.

Overwhelmingly, the deaths are among the unvaccinated, 85 percent to 90 percent, and we've got to fix this. Why? We've got to fix this because 2,000 Americans are still dying every day, and that's what we need to work with, people like Joe Rogan about, and it's more than an academic exercise or wokeness or anything else, we've got to fix this. And Joe Rogan has a lot of influence and influences a lot of people who we specifically need to reach, which are conservative groups, not exclusively but that's the reason for all of this. So, if he were to ask me on, of course, I'd go on and work with him, not to go to war with him but to work with him to try to help fix this and help the country.

GOLODRYGA: And I believe that was the impetus behind Dr. Sanjay Gupta doing the same and going on his podcast as well.

I'm just curious, Dr. Hotez, because not only Joe Rogan but other influential voices who have chosen not to get a vaccine have been public about it, continue to say they're going to do their own research and they're going to look into things.

And as somebody whose job it is to do extensive research, which you have done for years, I'm curious your reaction when you heard Joe Rogan just say, he comes on these podcast and he doesn't really do much research into the questions or the topics that he brings. He's not a journalist. That's fair enough. But he does have millions of people who turn to him for this kind of information. I'm just curious from a medical perspective, as a doctor, how does that make you feel?

HOTEZ: Well, I think for 90 percent of the things that Joe Rogan talks about, I think that's perfectly fine but this is different and because so many Americans are losing their lives. And so we have to put an asterisk on that one piece and say, when it comes to lives in the United States, when it comes to this massive loss of life that could be saved because of vaccines, that's a game changer, and that we have to now come to that reckoning and now try -- because we could still save lives. We have to stop talking about, like, COVID-19's in the rearview mirror, again, 2,000 Americans losing their lives every day. We could still save a lot of lives right now.

SCIUTTO: Okay. I do want to focus on the big picture as best we can here. Large parts of the country appear to be getting on the other side of the omicron, particularly in the areas that were hit first, such as Washington, D.C., where I am, New York, where Bianna is here, and also with less serious illness than there had been concerns about at the beginning of this. Should Americans take some comfort from that?

HOTEZ: Well, it looks as though the omicron wave is starting to subside, but, again, we just heard from Boris Johnson, look at what's happening in the U.K. now. It started to come down really fast and then it got stuck and now it's stuck in the U.K. halfway down and that's plateaued again. And that's -- whether that's because of the new version of omicron, BA.2, or some other factors we don't entirely know yet, but that's a real possibility in the U.S.

So, number one, omicron is not in the rearview mirror yet. That's the first point. Second, we still have to worry about the BA.2 variant that could rise in descendancy, and third, we have failed to vaccinate the planet, vaccinate the world's low and middle income countries. And we've seen how now the worst variants of concern are arising out of low and middle income countries. So, I think right now we're in a setup. We're in a setup for another variant to emerge this summer.

I don't know if it will be from the African continent or Southeast Asia or Latin America, but we have to assume it's going to hit us again. And just like in 2021 and 2020, it will hit the Southern United States and here in Texas and create another massive wave and knock off a lot of unvaccinated people once again.

And so that has to be the all hands on deck message for the White House right now is, how do we prepare for the fact that this omicron, current omicron may get stuck halfway down, and how do we prepare for the next big one that's going to hit us over the summer?

GOLODRYGA: Is it time, quickly, Dr. Hotez, to think of new strategies to get Americans boosted when you hear statistics, like Americans have a greater risk of dying in a car accident than those who have been boosted from dying from COVID?

HOTEZ: Yes. I mean, I've been saying for the last year and a half that the Biden administration has to realize that anti-science is a killer. Disinformation -- it's not even just disinformation. This is an anti-science empire right now and we need homeland security, we need the Justice Department, we've really got to figure this one out and Health and Human Services will not be able to figure this out on their own. GOLODRYGA: Dr. Peter Hotez, I'm here in New York but as someone who's a native Houstonian, I thank you for all your work that you've been down there in Houston, Texas. Thank you so much. We'll be right back.

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[10:50:00]

GOLODRYGA: History was made at the Australian open men's final yesterday. Spanish Tennis Star Rafael Nadal rallied from two sets down to win a record-breaking 21st Grand Slam men's single titles. Nadal defeated Daniil Medvedev in an epic five-set match, Jim.

SCIUTTO: I caught the set. I mean, it was fantastic to watch. Nadal's second Australian open win, his first in 2009, with 21 total Grand Slam titles, he's now one win ahead of Novak Djokovic, remember that name, and Roger Federer with the most Grand Slam titles.

[10:55:07]

They both congratulated him on social media after the match.

And I have to say, listen, graciousness, you know, we can praise that when we see it in sports, and Nadal was gracious and did attack the referees, you know, at this tournament. And, by the way, he followed Australia's COVID regulations.

GOLODRYGA: And listen, they both fought, a 5.5-hour match. I mean, sometimes we're exhausted after a two-hour show. These two were true sportsmen and you're right, sportsmanship really got them through to the end and a lot of people who are so happy to see him win.

SCIUTTO: Yes. I think it was 1:00 in the morning Australia Time by the end of it.

Thanks so much to all of you for joining us today. I'm Jim Sciutto.

GOLODRYGA: I'm Bianna Golodryga.

At this hour with Kate Bolduan starts after a quick break.

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