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Valieva Skates Into First Place As Backlash Over Drug Test Builds; CDC: COVID Hospitalizations Rose Rapidly In December For Kids Under 17; CDC Study Found If Moms Are Fully Vaccinated, It Reduces Risk Their Newborn Will Be Hospitalized Because Of COVID; Accounting Firm: 10 Years Of Trump Organization Financial Documents Unreliable; Judge Orders Jury Sequestered In Trial Of Ahmaud Arbery's Killers; U.S. Suspends Import Of Avocados From Mexico. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired February 15, 2022 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:30:41]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Emotions are high in Beijing as Russian skater, Kamila Valieva, is now one routine closer to earning a possible second Olympic gold medal, despite a failed drug test.

Here she was breaking down in tears after competing in a qualifying round today. The teen sensation is currently in first place ahead of Thursday's final routine.

But it's also what her team revealed before she took the ice this morning that has a lot of people talking.

Lawyers are blaming her failed drug test on an accidental mix-up with her grandfather's heart medication.

Joining us now is former Olympic figure skater and Canadian ice dance champion, Kaitlyn Weaver.

Kaitlyn, good to have you here.

First, I want to get your reaction to Valieva's skate this morning. She scored an 82.16, easily skating her way to first place at the moment, sealing her place in that final competition on Thursday.

Your emotions as you were watching her skate.

KAITLYN WEAVER, FORMER OLYMPIC FIGURE SKATER & CANADIAN ICE DANCE CHAMPION: It was difficult to watch, Ana. I have no words, quite honestly. I don't believe she should have been there to skate in the first place.

Not only that, but to be rewarded for her skate that was far from perfect and to see the results of the other skaters that have put their hearts and their trust on the line and skated amazingly to not even come close doesn't sit well.

CABRERA: How much of an impact do you think this whole doping scandal has had on the other competitors and their ability to perform at their peak right now?

WEAVER: I can't even begin to imagine what is resting on their shoulders right now, seeing some of the skaters finish their performance and break down in tears.

I think was just a small window into what their lives have been like the last week or 10 days. And it's undue pressure.

They've trained their entire lives for this highest honor of competing at the Olympic games, and I think we're still lucky to have them and not say, you know what, I don't deserve this. So it's tough to watch.

CABRERA: Got to be so demoralizing and defeating, even before you go out there to know that she could win and that she could, you know, get this gold medal and if you place second or third you don't get to have that medal ceremony.

Maybe she won't get the gold. We don't know what's going to happen in this final routine.

But I want to pivot and ask specifically about this claim that this heart medicine that can boost endurance, which is why it's banned, was found in Valieva's system was consumed accidentally.

Lawyers say it's a mix-up with her grandfather's medicine. They claim he drives her to practice a lot. It was just a very trace amount detected. So small it could have just happened by sharing a glass of water with him.

Do you buy that?

WEAVER: I'm no scientist, but I think it does add another layer of incredibility to this whole story.

I mean, as an Olympic athlete myself, you don't take one thing that you don't know what's in it.

You -- we understand these athletes, everything that goes into our bodies, every sip of water, every vitamin, every protein powder, just for the case that it might test positive.

So for me, I think this is very difficult to believe. And I don't believe also it's the first time we've seen this substance come up in other Russian athletes' tests. So I'm not sure about it.

CABRERA: She's just 15. She's a minor. That's one reason she was given this chance to skate as the investigation plays out.

Do you see her as a victim in all of this?

WEAVER: Absolutely. I am afraid to think of what she's been through as a young person. I think there are many more like her in the system.

And what's scary is how do we -- what do we do now to stop this? What do we to protect the youth of our sport and the future of our sport? And these children's lives? And coming into a sport that's really beautiful and wonderful and not

something that will take their lives away potentially and their health. That, to me, is what needs to become the first priority.

[13:35:02]

CABRERA: Kaitlyn Weaver, thank you for your time and perspective. I appreciate you.

Ready to risk it all. Tennis star, Novak Djokovic, is ready to miss competing in the French Open and/or Wimbledon because of his vaccination status.

He also says he's willing to risk his status in tennis history.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NOVAK DJOKOVIC, TENNIS STAR: Not being vaccinated today, you know, I am unable to travel to most of the tournaments at the moment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And that's a price you're willing to pay?

DJOKOVIC: That is the price I'm willing to pay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you prepared to forgo the chance to be the greatest player to ever pick up a racket, statistically, because you feel so strongly about this jab?

DJOKOVIC: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Of course, this all began with that saga about his vaccination status and details of his previous COVID infection ahead of the Australian Open last month.

His fans and critics were left waiting to see if Djokovic would be allowed to remain in the country to play. He wasn't. He didn't play. Instead, he was deported for not having a Valid vaccine exemption.

Here in the U.S., the CDC just released a study on the impact of the recent COVID peak on children, especially for those under the age of 5, the only group who cannot get vaccinated right now.

And CNN's senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, is joining me here on set.

DR. ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So fun, right?

CABRERA: Good to have you.

What does this study show?

COHEN: This shows the benefits of being vaccinated.

Let's look at that because it's so important. So let's look, for example, at adolescents, children aged 12 to 17.

What happened when they got vaccinated is that the hospitalization rates were six times higher if they were unvaccinated.

So COVID hospitalization rates were six times higher for adolescents if they were unvaccinated. And that's looking at the month of December, Ana. That's both Delta and Omicron were in play.

You see that number? Hard to explain why someone would not vaccinate their child.

CABRERA: The numbers don't lie.

COHEN: The numbers don't lie.

CABRERA: Such a simple way to protect ourselves and our families.

You have other important news from the CDC study related to pregnant women and the protection a vaccine can give their newborns if they get it while pregnant.

COHEN: Another example of the protection that vaccination gives you.

The CDC scientists said, what happens when pregnant women get vaccinated? So let's take a look at the findings when they did that study.

What they found is that when a woman is vaccinated during pregnancy, it reduces the risk of her newborn being hospitalized by 61 percent. I can't imagine why you would not want to do that.

So if a woman is pregnant and she's not vaccinated, get vaccinated. If you are not boosted, get boosted.

And if you were vaccinated and boosted prior to getting pregnant, that also protects you and your baby in various ways.

And I want to make a note. I was speaking with one of the CDC doctors, and she said, look, vaccination rates for non-Hispanic black women are very low.

And that's the group we want to focus on here. We've got to get vaccination rates up higher for those women to protect them and their babies.

CABRERA: So many women that haven't gotten vaccinated and who are pregnant are worried that perhaps there's a negative impact with the vaccine.

COHEN: And there isn't.

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: It's positive.

And it's just tragic that these women think getting vaccinated is going to hurt them or their baby when it's the opposite. It's going to help them.

And you think all of those lives that could be saved if that misinformation could be corrected.

CABRERA: Elizabeth Cohen, thank you.

COHEN: Thanks.

[13:38:40]

CABRERA: New details revealing even more about the men who are convicted of killing Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia. Today, testimony kicks off in the federal hate crimes trial. We have the latest.

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[13:43:41]

CABRERA: There's a new twist in the investigation of former President Donald Trump's financial dealings. His longtime accounting firm, Mazars, is now cutting ties with Trump.

On top of that, Mazars says it can no longer vouch for 10 years of financial statements the firm prepared for the Trump Organization.

Mazars says its decision is based in part on filings by New York attorney general, Letitia James. She's investigating whether Trump inflated the value of his assets to get more favorable loan terms and other economic benefits.

And Kara Scannell has been following all of this.

What more are we learning about Mazars' decision to cut ties with the Trump Organization and these financial statements and the potential impact it could have?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Ana, we don't see something like this every day where someone's accounting firm says you should not rely on a decades-worth of financial statements.

And you should tell lenders, insurers, others you've given them to that they should no longer rely on them.

Mazars is saying there's three reasons they've done this.

In part, in an internal investigation. They say internal and external sources. And they point to public filings by the New York attorney general.

Last month, she filed over 100-page document that said there were multiple false statements and omissions in these financial statements.

[13:44:59]

Pointing to even the amount of cash that the Trump Organization had on hand, the size of Donald Trump's apartment, and its subsequent value. And also the value of some golf courses.

Now Mazars also says that they are not saying that you shouldn't rely all on the statements.

They're not saying there's material discrepancies in the totality of the statements but they're saying they should not be relied on.

So, you know, they also said in this filing that they quit. That they're not going to do any further work. And they cite for that reason an un-waivable conflict of interest.

They don't say what that is but we know Mazars has been cooperating.

And that the partner that has been the main liaison with the Trump Organization has been before the grand jury, part of the criminal investigation.

So that could be one of the conflicts here. They've declined any additional comment on that.

The Trump Organization issued a statement in response to this. They received this letter last week.

But since it came out yesterday, they said, "Mazars' work was performed in accordance with all applicable accounting standards and principles and that such statements of financial condition do not contain any material discrepancies."

"The confirmation effectively renders the investigations by the D.A. and the A.G. moot."

So they're trying to take it as saying, well, they didn't say there were material discrepancies because that's what this investigation will turn on.

CABRERA: But Mazars say, don't rely on our statements. Makes you wonder what due diligence they did on preparing those.

Thank you, Kara Scannell. I know you'll be on top of that.

A federal judge has ordered the jury in Georgia to be sequestered in the hate crimes trial of Ahmaud Arbery's killers.

This order says it's "to protect the jury from trial publicity, extraneous influences and harassment, and to ensure defendants a fair trial."

The three defendants, Gregory McMichael, his son, Travis McMichael, and their neighbor, William "Roddy" Bryan, were convicted in a state trial in November of murdering Arbery. They pleaded not guilty in this federal trial.

CNN's Ryan Young joins us with an update.

Ryan, the prosecutor says, by the end of this trial, the evidence will show that, if Arbery had not been black, if he were white, this would have returned -- this would have been different, he would have returned home alive from his jog.

Tell us about what the prosecution has presented so far.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Really they believe that's the crux of their case so far.

Right now a GBI investigator, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, is on the stand.

I can't show you what's going on in court because it's a federal case so that's why there's no video coming from court.

I can tell you the prosecution has had several witnesses on the stand today talking about this case, talking about the feelings within the neighborhood.

In fact, one neighbor said, after the shooting, they were so disheartened by what happened, they moved from that neighborhood because they didn't feel like it was a place where they wanted to raise family.

But if you look back at this situation and some of the things coming out in this case, we're already seeing some evidence that was not in the state case.

And that's like text messages we've seen revealed that some of these men exchanged at some point or were talking about to other people.

In fact, let's put some of those on the screen.

I have to warn some folks, some of the language may be sort of crude.

So here we go with these text messages.

There's a text message that was placed out yesterday by Travis McMichael that said, "Zero N-words work with me. They ruin everything. That's why I love what I do now. Not an N-word in sight."

And then Gregory McMichael, talking about the civil rights leader, Julian Bond. "I wish he'd been put in the ground years ago. He was nothing but trouble. Those blacks are nothing but trouble."

And, of course, throughout this, we believe the federal case will be pushing on the fact of why these men were so angry when Ahmaud Arbery was running through the neighborhood.

There's one thing that's been for sure. Ahmaud Arbery was inside that house several different times. And people in that neighborhood did believe something was being stolen.

But they never connected what was being stolen in the neighborhood to Ahmaud Arbery. In fact, the video that shows someone taking something wasn't Ahmaud Arbery.

So all this puts together with this case whether or not these men were racially motivated when they chased him down, opened fire, and ultimately killing him.

Let's not forget that state case, they were convicted. Now this is their federal case. As it moves forward over the next few weeks -- Ana?

CABRERA: Ryan Young, thank you.

[13:49:13]

Up next, your chips and guacamole at risk. We'll tell you why.

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CABRERA: I hope you had your fill of guacamole during the Super Bowl because the U.S. has suspended imports of avocados from Mexico.

Mexico's president says he thinks this is a way to chip away at Mexico's massive market share.

In just the past six weeks, Mexico has exported more than 135,000 tons of avocados to the U.S. That's almost 20 million avocados each day. And it is now day four of this suspension.

CNN's Matt Rivers is in Mexico City.

Matt, holy guacamole, what more can you tell us about this threat and this decision to pause imports?

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Ana, the way this usually works is the U.S. government will send inspectors down here to Mexico to make sure that the supply of avocados being exported from Mexico to the United States meets U.S. standards.

And what happened here is, a few days ago, one of these inspectors, according to the U.S. government, received a verbal threat via cell phone.

[13:54:59]

Now, the government didn't say exactly what that threat constituted. However, they took it seriously enough to take this very drastic step of essentially suspending exports here from Mexico to the United States.

Now, some background here. There's only one state in Mexico that has this export license for avocados, the state of Michoacan. And that state has had this license since 1987.

However, in the past five years or so, you've seen a huge uptick in violence, extortion from different criminal organizations getting into this industry.

And so the idea that they'll be some sort of threat made within this industry isn't a huge shock.

What is a shock is that this threat was made against the United States. That's the cash cow here, far and away the biggest importer of Mexican avocados.

So it's going to have a huge impact here in Mexico. Hundreds of thousands of people rely on jobs within that industry.

But in the United States, you know, four out of every five, roughly, avocados that are sold in the U.S. come from the state of Michoacan.

There isn't some magic supplier that will suddenly appear if you take all those avocados away at once at once.

Which means that over the next coming weeks, if not days, when this inventory is sold out in the United States, things that have been shipped there already, the supply of avocado is going to be really hard to find them in the supermarket.

And if you do find them, Ana, the price will go up.

CABRERA: Yikes. OK. That's something to watch. Going to eat a lot of guacamole in the next couple days.

Matt Rivers, thank you.

And that does it for us today. Thank for being here. We'll do it again tomorrow, same time, same place. Until, then join me on Twitter, @AnaCabrera.

Victor and Alisyn pick up after a quick break.

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