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Biden Meets With National Security Team As Crisis Intensifies; Canadian Officials Investigating Two Officer-Involved Incidents; Helicopter Crash At Miami Beach Sends Two To Hospital. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired February 20, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:38]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Until the tanks are actually rolling and the planes are flying, we will use every opportunity and every minute we have to see if diplomacy can still dissuade President Putin from carrying this forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: Happening right now in the NEWSROOM, the U.S. Secretary of State says Russia's playbook for invasion is moving forward, but there is still a chance to avert war, he says.

NEWSROOM is starting right now.

Hello again, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me, I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

And we begin with this breaking news on the crisis on the border with Ukraine. President Biden a short time ago wrapping up a situation room meeting with his National Security team on the crisis.

A U.S. official now telling CNN that nearly 75 percent of Russian conventional forces are now deployed within striking distance of Ukraine. The U.S. also estimates that Russia has around 500 fighter and fighter bomber aircraft within range of Ukraine.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken also arriving at the White House earlier today. Earlier, Blinken said he is not giving up on hope for democracy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLINKEN: While we believe President Putin has made the decision that the die is cast, until that die actually settles and until the tanks are actually moving, the planes are actually flying, the bombs are actually dropping, we are going to do everything we can with diplomacy and with deterrence and dissuasion to get President Putin to reverse the decision that we that we believe he has made, and part of that is making very clear what he risks in terms of sanctions.

(END VIDEO CLIP) WHITFIELD: The President is also expected to speak with French

President Emmanuel Macron soon. Macron spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's President Zelensky earlier in the day.

Arlene Saenz is at the White House and Jill Dougherty is in Moscow for us. So Arlette, you first. What do we know about this Situation Room meeting today?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fred, President Biden met with the National Security Council in the Situation Room for a little over two hours as the U.S. is charting out its next steps regarding this crisis between Russia and Ukraine.

We saw several Cabinet officials arriving here at the White House earlier this morning, including the Secretary of State, the Defense Secretary, as well as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President's National Security Adviser. Many of those officials had spent part of the weekend abroad in Europe meeting with allies. So, this meeting gave them an opportunity to brief the President on their conversations, as well as to talk about the latest Intelligence regarding Russia and Ukraine.

Now, the President is also expected to speak soon at some point with French President Emmanuel Macron. This follows those back-to-back phone calls that Macron had with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's President Zelensky as the French President is trying to chart a diplomatic path forward amid this crisis.

Now, one thing that the U.S. has been coordinating closely with allies on is a sanctions package to implement if Putin does move forward with an invasion, but that sanctions package has come under some scrutiny. Over the weekend, Ukrainian President Zelensky said that he wants to see those sanctions outlined and implemented before an invasion.

But Secretary of State Antony Blinken defended the decision to wait in a conversation with our colleague, Dana Bash. Take a listen.

And so what he essentially was arguing was that the sanctions are meant to act as a deterrence, but revealing them ahead of time would take that off the table. That is not something that they want to do now, as Putin is still evaluating about moving forward with an invasion of Ukraine.

Now, even as the U.S. says that Russia could attack at any moment, they still believe that there is a path to diplomacy, and Antony Blinken said that President Biden would be willing to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin in any format or in any way if it would be a way to avert war.

And I want to go ahead and play that sound of Blinken talking about those sanctions earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLINKEN: The purpose of the sanctions in the first instance is to try to deter Russia from going to war. As soon as you trigger them, that deterrent is gone, and until the last minute, as long as we can try to bring a deterrent effect to this, we are going to try to do that.

[15:05:09]

BLINKEN: As to laying out in detail what the sanctions will be. Two things, first, Russia generally has a pretty good idea of what we're going to do, but we don't want to lay out the specifics in advance because that would allow Russia to try to plan against them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: Now, just a short while ago, we also learned President Biden has changed his plans for the weekend, and he will be traveling to his home in Wilmington, Delaware after initially staying here at the White House to monitor this ongoing situation between Russia and Ukraine. So we will see if he is willing to stop to speak to reporters, to give us the latest update on where things stand -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, Arlette thank you so much.

And Jill to you in Moscow. So Russia's military exercises in nearby Belarus are supposed to be over, but they have been extended. What does that mean?

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think that is probably the most significant thing, Fredricka, you know, in a way, we're looking at this kind of split screen, the military side and the diplomatic side, at least from here in Moscow. And as you said, those major military exercises that have been going on for quite a while were supposed to be over, people would be sent back to their bases, and maybe even equipment is sent back.

But that isn't happening and the explanation for it is that they are going to continue readiness checks. That's how their mission is described. And why are they doing that? Because of what is going on in the Donbas region and the instability.

Now remember, the Donbas region, of course, Russian speaking area in the east of Ukraine toward the Russian border, and as we have been reporting for a couple of days now, civilians, mainly women and children are being taken by bus across the border into Russia, and now living essentially in camps, because they say that they are afraid of attacks by the Ukrainians. Ukrainians say, we are not attacking and we have no intention to do that. And I should mention also that the men have been mobilized in those two breakaway regions in the Donbas.

Then finally, on the diplomatic track, you kind of went over that. I mean, from the Moscow perspective, we have President Macron of France speaking with President Putin and President Zelensky, and then tomorrow, Monday, we expect the foreign minister, Mr. Lavrov to speak with the French Foreign Minister.

But on that track, it does not seem as if there is much being accomplished. We don't know whether it is another track of negotiation or talks, but at this point, it doesn't seem to be getting very far.

WHITFIELD: All right. Jill Dougherty and Arlette Saenz, thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.

Let's talk more about all of this. Let's bring in now John Bolton. He's a former National Security Adviser under President Trump. Good to see you.

So the Secretary of State and the President both say Vladimir Putin has made up his mind to invade Ukraine. Already, there is a local separatist activity taking place.

In your view, is Putin's playbook already in play?

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER UNDER PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I don't think we really know what Putin's playbook is, but I think both the President and his top advisers have been displaying extraordinary defeatism. The President and his advisers like Secretary of State Blinken have flatly admitted that their policy has failed. They say they tried to establish deterrence, which is in the abstract, a reasonable thing to do. They've proposed economic sanctions.

And I think both, because those sanctions were inadequate, and because the President didn't have credibility, they failed. That's what it means when the President says that Putin has decided to invade. Deterrence has failed.

So what do you do? Talk about diplomacy. No, of course, not. The hour is late. We should have been doing many things weeks and months ago, but there is still time to ramp up new sanctions to make Putin feel the cost of his aggression now, not later, now.

WHITFIELD: Right. And in fact, that's what the Ukrainian President is saying. Deterrent is putting the sanctions in place now; after the fact, there is no deterrence for Putin. So is there time for President Biden -- his administration -- to put sanctions in place right now before an invasion is underway, a more full-throated invasion is underway?

BOLTON: Right. Well, it's not simply the sanctions that they've threatened after the invasion. The most important thing they could do right now, if they could get European agreement is say we will stop Nord Stream 2 effective immediately until all Russian forces that are illegally in Ukraine now in the Donbas, in Crimea leave.

And there are a number of other things we can and should do because if we fail to take whatever steps are possible, we are conceding the initiative totally to Putin. He has it now and we're just sitting back saying, we're going to keep hoping what has already failed somehow turns around, it will not. There are many other things we should be doing.

[15:10:14]

WHITFIELD: Like what? I mean, where is the international community on this besides saying: Oh, Putin shouldn't be doing this, this is a terrible thing. How is it -- and under what circumstances can it be allowed on the world stage? You've got 200,000 troops surrounding a border of a country and threatening with imminence that it's about to take over a country?

Where is everybody? What can be done right now to stop Putin?

BOLTON: Well, you need American leadership and we do not have it. I've given you the example of Nord Stream 2 sanctions.

Let me tell you another problem, President Biden talks incessantly about how unified NATO is. And yet on Friday, Reuters reported that Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy said that if sanctions have to be imposed by the European Union on Russia for invading Ukraine, he wants the energy sector excluded. Let me tell you again, he wants the energy sector excluded. That's Nord Stream 2. That's the entire effort to put pressure on Russia, precisely by restricting the energy sector.

So we've got major problems inside NATO unless Reuters reported that wrong.

WHITFIELD: So what about the timing right now in so far as the end of the Olympics in Beijing. Apparently, there is some trend at the end of Olympic Games, there is Putin flexing muscle like this threatening a neighboring country? And why now as opposed to why not during the administration of Trump when it was clearly more Putin friendly?

BOLTON: Well, it's not at all clear that the Olympics have had any major impact on the timing of this activity, and it may be that Putin didn't think Russia was ready, didn't think his military was ready, didn't think he had prepared the ground adequately, or he thought that Nord Stream 2 would already be completed.

I think it's very hard to judge this in history at this point, but the threat we face now is very real and diplomacy is not going to fix it. All this talk about Emmanuel Macron calling Putin and so on, what he is proposing -- we know exactly what he is proposing.

He is proposing reviving the Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 deals from 2014 and 2015, that Ukraine had to accept, in effect at the point of a gun and it would give Russia, if fully implemented, would give Putin a lot of what he wants. So if that's the diplomatic track the Europeans are on, this is a dead end for Ukraine.

WHITFIELD: All right, John Bolton, good to see you. Thank you so much for being with us. Appreciate it.

BOLTON: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right, straight ahead. Tensions mounted between protesters and police in Canada this weekend, and now, there is an investigation into two of the incidents. We are live in Ottawa next.

Plus, terrifying moments caught on camera. Take a look at this, way too close to call, a helicopter crashing in Miami Beach, and you see a lot of folks in the water and on the beach, all this happening straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:17:22]

WHITFIELD: All right, tensions between police and protesters are intensifying in Canada's capital. Officials now saying, they are launching investigations into two incidents from Saturday, including report that a 49-year-old woman was seriously injured during an incident with a police officer on horseback.

And on Friday, police started cracking down after weeks of demonstrations demanding an end to COVID-19 mandates.

CNN's Paula Newton is in Ottawa for us. So Paula, what more do we know about these investigations?

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, tense scenes on the streets of Ottawa for sure, and this involves two specific incidents and one is what police are calling an interaction between a mounted unit and a 49-year-old woman.

Now, we know that this woman was seriously injured, non-life- threatening, but still serious enough to take her to hospital. The other was about police from Vancouver deploying anti-riot weapons.

Now both of these incidents, one happened on Friday and one happened on Saturday. Fred, this is what happens. It is a regular process when this happens in terms of this kind of police interaction with the public. I want to make clear though, Fred, what's going on here in the last few days has been absolutely historic and unprecedented.

We still have this Emergencies Act which is in place, which allowed the stepped up enforcement in the city. The city is quiet right now, but it really does resemble a fortress, Fred.

I mean, you've got to think there are fences around the Parliamentary Precinct where somebody could have played Frisbee just a few weeks ago. It's where they give free lunchtime yoga sessions in summer. That is the kind of jurisdiction that is now absolutely off limits to the public.

And the fact that you have to have it fortified by fencing and hundreds of police officers from all over the country, this is again to try and end those protests going on -- that were going on for more than three weeks here in Canada again against COVID-19 measures, but it became about so much more again police saying that they have 191 arrests, 57 vehicles towed.

I will say, a lot of people left voluntarily as soon as they saw that they would be arrested and left with their semi-trucks as well. Of those 191 arrests, though, I want to say a little more than a hundred people were charged, most of them released with conditions and will have to again appear in Court -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: And then Paula, all of this is ongoing and often, there is a wait and see approach on gathering information to verify et cetera. However, there is this ongoing stream of misinformation that seems to be clouding things as well. Talk to us about how this kind of reporting on things that are not

factually checked out, are disrupting investigations or even getting a handle on what's happening there.

[15:20:16]

NEWTON: Yes, this was really misreported on both sides of the ledger. So on the first instance, you had misinformation really on social media, a blatant lie really, that someone had died at the scene. That turned out to not be true and categorically, we have not heard from anyone reporting that with any kind of merit.

The point is, though, Fred, when we did speak to Ottawa Police, when we talked about what they call an interaction with a horse, with a mounted police unit, they told us that, look no one was injured, which was also not true and that is why the Special Investigations Unit is now looking into this.

But Fred, I have to tell you this entire, you know, 23 to 24-day period in Canada has been rife with misinformation. It has been difficult for Canadians to really figure out where the truth lies, and it is something we've all become used to.

But certainly, quite serious when we start to deal with this kind of an Emergencies Act and these extraordinary powers that are at work right now in Canada -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, Paula Newton, thank you so much in Ottawa.

All right, coming up. A tweet read by former Vice President Pence on the day of the insurrection may have played a role in stopping this attempted coup. Details, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:25:56]

WHITFIELD: All right today, President Biden met with his security team to discuss the growing Russia-Ukraine crisis. U.S. officials now tell CNN that nearly 75 percent of Russian conventional forces are now deployed within striking distance of Ukraine. The massive troop buildup raising fears that Russia continues its march toward war.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize winning presidential historian. Her latest book, "Leadership in Turbulent Times" is out, and it is also the basis for her new History Channel three-part series "Abraham Lincoln: A Definitive Look into One of America's most Consequential Leaders."

Doris Kearns Goodwin, always good to see you.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Good to see you, too, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Oh, fantastic. Before we talk about Abraham Lincoln, let's talk about what the current President is up against right now. President Biden, you know, now says he is convinced Putin is going to

invade. The world is watching, you know, his nearly 200,000 troop buildup around Ukraine. Yet no country, not even the U.S. has been able to stop Russia before an invasion may take place.

So you know, what happened to American geopolitical influence, post- Cold War on the world stage?

GOODWIN: You know, I think the most important thing that strikes me now as we watch this crisis unfold, is we should appreciate what the stark differences between a democracy and a dictatorship. Here we are waiting the entire world for one man and what he is going to be doing. Is he stable? What are his plans? What's in his head?

And I think it should just make us appreciate even more the importance to preserve a system like ours, where people can vote to decide to keep their leaders in or put their leaders out.

And I think if you look at President Biden's situation right now, in some ways, he is facing all sorts of crises, multiple ones, maybe that's where a President lives, but he has got to worry about this crisis. He is worrying about COVID. He's worrying about inflation. He's worrying about Congress, and most importantly, an assault on democracy.

So in a certain sense, once this thing is settled in some way or another, that's going to be the major crisis that I think he has to face.

WHITFIELD: Right. So then how does the leader of democracy, President Biden, you know, fight a leader of authoritarianism in Putin?

GOODWIN: Well, the most important thing, I think, is that experience that he has had already. He has 36 years in the Senate, and then eight years as Vice President, one year of the presidency under his belt, has taught him that the most important thing is to get as close to your allies as possible, and bring as much of a united front.

And I think he's been gunned to do that with the NATO forces, and now, with his National Security team, he's got to show forcefulness, but at the same time, history would tell him, you want to have diplomacy as a way out.

I mean, the one thing that JFK did with the Cuban Missile Crisis was even showing that great strength of what he was going to do with Cuba, there was a secret deal with Khrushchev not to humiliate him in the end by promising to take the missiles out of Turkey.

So hopefully, there's some way of doing something that won't humiliate. In a certain sense, if Putin does, in a certain sense, make Biden's promise that they're going to go in there wrong, I think President Biden would be delighted, there is no war, okay. It's all right that I thought what's going to happen didn't happen, that will be good.

WHITFIELD: Well, that's fascinating, but it doesn't seem like you know, you've got a stage set similar to say, you know, Reagan and Gorbachev, that kind of moment for Biden and Putin, or do you see potentially that those predecessors did set some sort of framework on how diplomacy might win or might help broker a deal here to stop Putin from what he's doing.

GOODWIN: That's right. You think of these other crises that happened, they almost happened and now that they didn't happen, we forget that there was a lot of things going on at the same time. And hopefully, there is still that optimism until it actually happens, until this invasion takes place, there is still room for something to happen, and hopefully those backchannels are happening even now.

WHITFIELD: All right, well, perhaps President Biden should be reading your new book now on Abraham Lincoln called "Leadership in Turbulent Times." I mean, what are you teaching us about how Lincoln handled things?

[15:30:07]

GOODWIN: You know, I think the most important lesson that Lincoln provides for us today is on that larger challenge of the big crisis is our democracy in peril. In the first days of the Civil War, he had said right then that the central idea that they had to fight was if the minority that loses an election as the South did could decide to break up the union simply because they wouldn't accept that peaceful transition of power, it would prove that democracy was an absurdity.

And that is why that war had to be fought right from the beginning, and the last speech he makes before he dies, just a few days before he dies, he is talking about extending the right to vote to African- Americans who had fought in the war. He then loses his life because that speech was where John Wilkes Booth heard him give that speech and decided, now it's time to kill him.

And here we are 150 years later, and there are people in the country now trying to get the idea that voting rights should be pulled back rather than pushed forward. People unclear about what happened in that election and claiming that an election fairly won was not fairly won.

This is the fight that we have to be fighting. I think Lincoln would tell him, this is your fight right now. Voting Rights is central.

WHITFIELD: And then if that's not enough, I mean, you are also executive producer of this History Channel three-part a series on Lincoln. I mean, let's take a listen to a clip from this series.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM "ABRAHAM LINCOLN")

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, I'm Frederick --

GRAHAM SIBLEY AS ABRAHAM LINCOLN: I know who you are, Mr. Douglass. Glad to see you. Have a seat.

I read your recent article about the tardy, hesitating, vacillating policy of the President of the United States.

Tardy and hesitating, perhaps. Vacillating?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I tend to speak my mind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: So I've watched some of your series. I mean, it is riveting, I must say and I just happen to be, you know, reading a book on Abe Lincoln now with my nine-year-old son, so it really does -- your series helps.

GOODWIN: Yay.

WHITFIELD: Yay. Help really bring to life, you know, so much of what we've read about not just his leadership, but even going back to his tough childhood and in your series, you know, you are also not only you are speaking, but we're hearing from former President Obama, Mary Francis Berry, just to name a few. I mean, do you feel like you all are helping to humanize Lincoln in a way that people haven't been able to see before?

GOODWIN: I mean, what the series really tries to accomplish is to have Abe, young Abe, become President Lincoln. So you're going to see the making of a leader. It's not simply a biography of him, but what are those moments in time when he develops the leadership qualities that we need as a great leader, humility, and empathy and resilience. He goes through such adversity and comes out at the other end.

You know, Hemingway once wrote that everyone is broken by life, but afterwards, some are strong in the broken places and that proves true time and again for Abraham Lincoln. And then he's got an accessibility, has people coming into the White House every day to talk to him, he goes to visit the troops, dozens.

You'll see scenes where he's in the hospital talking to the wounded soldiers, but I think most importantly, what you see in Lincoln is an ambition for the greater good not simply for himself. He was willing to lose the election. There's a scene for that, in 1864, the Republican leaders tell him: You're never going to win, unless you're willing to compromise on Emancipation. He said, "I'd be damned in time and eternity if I gave back my word."

Keeping his word was a central gem of his character, as he called it and that is what Frederick Douglass came to understand and respected him so much because of that as the time went by.

WHITFIELD: And your words, your books, and through this series, making it look like it was easy for him. But clearly, it was not, but he was willing to face adversity, especially for the common good.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, so good to see you and talk to you always.

GOODWIN: Thank you so much for having me here.

WHITFIELD: All right. I'll keep watching the series. I'm hooked.

All right, still ahead. Take a look at these live pictures right now from Newport Beach, the scene of a deadly helicopter crash which took the life of a police officer. Divers right now working to pull up the wreckage. We're there with a live report.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:39:03]

WHITFIELD: All right, terrifying moments at two coastal beaches separately involving helicopters.

Take a look at this. First, at one of the most famous beaches in the world, Miami Beach. A helicopter goes down right in the water, water packed with swimmers.

Two people were taken to the hospital and were listed in stable condition. According to police, a third passenger was not injured miraculously. The N.T.S.B. is now investigating.

And then sadly, passengers in another helicopter crash in California were not as lucky. One officer was killed, another injured in the crash at Newport Beach. CNN's Camila Bernal is live for us in Los Angeles.

So Camila, tell us more about what happened there.

All right, Camila. What is happening?

[15:40:06]

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Fred, we are in the middle of this investigation as we speak. You could even see a part of that helicopter here behind me and I'm going to step out of the way just so that you can see a better picture of what's going on here.

What we're seeing is both N.T.S.B. personnel and members of the Orange County Sheriff's Office. You're seeing those divers there. Well, the Sheriff's Office has a team of accident reconstruction, and so that's what you're seeing.

We also believe they're trying to maybe put a harness around that helicopter to pull it out of the water. The crane is here and the divers are coming in and out.

Now according to the Chief of Police in Huntington Beach, he says they just do not know why or how this happened. But as a result of this, what they're doing is pulling all of the helicopters out of the air as they conduct this investigation and figure out exactly why this helicopter went down.

According to police, it happened at around 6:30 PM last night. We know two officers were in this helicopter responding to a disturbance call. It was a call about a fight. But the helicopter crashed and instead, what you saw was officers, firefighters, lifeguards all responding to this crash.

Now, they were able to take one of the officers out of the water, a 16-year veteran with the Huntington Beach Police Department last night, they told us he was in critical condition, but things improved very quickly. And today, they are telling us that he is now out of the hospital. So, that is a bit of good news there. Unfortunately, that second officer did not make it.

And I do want to take some time to talk about this officer. This was a 44-year-old, 14-year veteran with the Huntington Beach Police Department. His name was Nicholas Villa, and we know that he was a father and a husband and the Police Chief, what he is saying is that he is hoping for prayers and support from this community because it is a really difficult day for law enforcement here in Newport Beach, but also in Huntington Beach.

So as they investigate and try to figure out exactly what happened, the Chief of Police here asking for prayers and support for the family and really for the entire community -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: It is terribly sad. All right, Camila Bernal in Newport Beach, California. Thank you so much.

All right, still ahead --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAMANTHA DIAZ, CUSTOMER: I was like melting into my chair and I got all disoriented and heavy and I thought: What is happening here?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: What was the reason? A mystery at the Secret of Siam, why more than 30 people complained to feeling faint and tingling after eating at a Las Vegas restaurant.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:47:08]

WHITFIELD: A real mystery at a Las Vegas Thai restaurant. More than 30 people were sick and complaining of hallucinations, confusion, and tingling all within hours of eating at the Secret of Siam restaurant.

Reporter, Brett Forrest from our affiliate KSNV has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIAZ: Their food is usually really tasty and we've never had a problem before, but this was -- this was a problem.

BRETT FORREST, REPORTER, KSNV (voice over): Samantha Diaz and her husband eat at the Secret of Siam all the time, a Thai restaurant in Northwest Las Vegas, but on a recent visit, something was off, taking a curry dish home, eating it two days later.

DIAZ: I was like melting into my chair and I got all disoriented and heavy and I thought: What is happening here?

FORREST (voice over): Samantha was scared thinking she might even be having a stroke.

DIAZ: I said to my husband I said, "Honey, I think I'm high." And he was like get out of here. We haven't left the house in two days.

FORREST (voice over): It wasn't until Super Bowl Sunday Samantha came across social media posts on Facebook and the Next Door app, sharing much of the same experience.

DIAZ: Ordering takeout and being drugged and she had explained her symptoms and I said, "Honey, get in here. I didn't make it up."

FORREST (voice over): Reviews about tainted food on the restaurant's Yelp page, too, about ER trips and testing positive for THC.

But just last week, the health district giving Secret of Siam an A rating. The restaurant looks to be closed since Sunday, and the phone numbers: "Welcome to Verizon Wireless. Your call cannot be completed as dialed."

FORREST (voice over): Disconnected.

Samantha says she called the Health District and filed a police report. As a cancer survivor taking medication, she is worried.

DIAZ: You can't drug people. If they choose to do it on their own, that's their business, but you know you can't mess with that stuff.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Investigation still ongoing, still no conclusion. Thanks to Brett Forrest from Las Vegas affiliate KSNV and the Southern Nevada Health District is asking for the public's help.

There is an online survey customers can fill out if they ate at that restaurant within the last few months and experienced any strange symptoms.

All right, this week, CNN launches a new series called "Taking Care of Business" featuring business owners of color turning personal passion into professional success.

Today, we meet a mother who launched a multimillion dollar brands that schools users on makeup.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REYNELL STEWARD, CEO AND FOUNDER, CRAYON CASE COSMETICS: I always have the hustle in me.

Hello, my name is Reynell Steward and I'm the CEO and founder of the Crayon Case Cosmetics and we are located in New Orleans, Louisiana.

[15:50:07]

STEWARD: before the Crayon Case, I was a housekeeper selling t-shirts, fanny packs, earphones, CDs, like just stuff just to keep income coming in so I could take care of my son.

When I first got on social media, people connected with me because they felt like they were going through the same thing. But I realized I wanted my own products when all my followers used to ask me: What products are you using? What products are you using?

And then my whole -- I just tried to come out with my own make up brand.

The whole Crayon Case thing is for you to teach yourself how to do makeup. I used to just walk down school supply aisles, whatever the name of the school supply was, I'll turn it into something that was about makeup.

The very first day of the launch was June 1st, 2017. We made like $33,000.00. Cyber Monday, I made $1.3 million in 90 minutes.

I am like, "Hey this is go happen for me." I was only coming out with seven products and now, I'm at over a hundred.

I estimated that the Crayon Case made up to $50 million and it's not even five years yet. Any move I make, I show social media and when people actually see you struggling and they see you like getting it from the bottom and they really appreciate you more, I think that's why I feel like I really made it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:56:08]

WHITFIELD: A new CNN Original Series: "LBJ: Triumph and Tragedy" looks at one of the most consequential leaders in U.S. history.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB SCHIEFFER, JOURNALIST: The first politician I ever saw or had any consciousness of was Lyndon Johnson. That would have been 1948. He was running for the Senate. I was 11 years old.

We heard he was coming to the vacant lot where we played baseball in Fort Worth. It was a big event in the neighborhood because we heard he was coming in a helicopter and we have never seen a helicopter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He had a bullhorn and he would shout at the loud speaker "Come. I'll be speaking at the football field."

SCHIEFFER: Finally, the thing settled down, it landed there and then he stepped out. He waved at everybody. He would sometimes make as many as 16 stops a day as he crossed Texas in that helicopter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Are you joining us out right now, Peniel Joseph, he is the Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy. Peniel, so good to see you.

So Johnson has, you know, long been out of office, yet, he is often misunderstood, according to a lot of people. Do you agree with that, and why?

PENIEL JOSEPH, FOUNDING DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF RACE AND DEMOCRACY: Well, yes, Fredricka, it is good to be with you.

You know, I think that Lyndon Johnson is one of the most important presidents in American history for the good and I think his most consequential legacy is this idea of a great society that was going to amplify the gains of the New Deal, but go further by centering racial justice and racial equality to economic expansion.

So when we think about that great society, not only is there going to be a war on poverty, but we see the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, immigration reform. We would not be a multicultural, multiracial nation that elected Barack Obama, if not for President Johnson, but then also really helping the least of these.

When we think about the Johnson administration's policies, it provides money for the first time for elementary secondary education. It provides money for the first time for the federal government for clean water and clean air. Head Start for child nutrition.

So there are so many different things that happened that we normalized, Medicare and Medicaid. That is all the great society. So President Johnson's legacy is really this overwhelmingly positive legacy, but we often get caught up obviously, in Vietnam and sort of the urban rebellions and other things that happened during that period, but he called us to this great aspirational society and that legacy is still with us today.

WHITFIELD: And legacy is still with us today, but also what remains today, prominent concerns about voting. And, you know, we were talking about the 1965 Voting Rights Act. What do you suppose Johnson would make of things right now, because of action in the Supreme Court, inaction in Congress, and the perils of voting today?

JOSEPH: Well, I think President Johnson would be disappointed. On some levels, when very famously, after the Voting Rights Act was passed, Johnson privately remarked that the Democratic Party had lost the South for a generation because of passing Black Voting Rights in 1965, and when we look at that, the Democrats really did lose the White South after passing the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

But what's so interesting is that between 1965 and 2013, the Shelby v Holder decision that really takes away the teeth of the Voting Rights Act, what the Democratic Party is able to do and we see it most acutely with the rise of Barack Obama is to create a multiracial, multicultural coalition where you can win the presidency with a plurality of White voters and we saw Obama do this in 2008 and 2012.

WHITFIELD: All right, we are going to be watching because it is riveting. Peniel Joseph, thank you so much for being with us. The all-new CNN Original Series, "LBJ: Triumph and Tragedy" premiering

with back-to-back episodes tonight, 9:00 PM right here on CNN.

Thank you so much for joining me, everybody.

I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

The NEWSROOM continues right now with Phil Mattingly.

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