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Arrest Made in Rape Case; Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX) is Interviewed about Abortion Bills; Demand Soars for Monkeypox Vaccine. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired July 14, 2022 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Facts that we're learning. We're learning more because this is sort of an evolving story, even at this point.

First of all, the mother of this 10-year-old went to Franklin County Social Services Center, children's services, and reported what had happened to her daughter. They referred a complaint to the police in Columbus, Ohio, and that's how it all began.

Now, yesterday, there was the arraignment of Fuentes. So, we heard a lot of things on the record. And one of the things was that this young 10-year-old girl did have a medical abortion in Indianapolis on June 30th. And it is true that in Ohio you can get an abortion and now the limit is six weeks. And the OB/GYN that helped a 10-year-old girl have that procedure told CNN that she was six months and three days pregnant.

Now, there are some things that we also learned that the DNA has been collected to make a confirmation on all of this, but the attorney general of Ohio, David Yost, said in a quote that the -- he had confessed to the Columbus Police Department that he did sexual assault and rape this 10-year-old girl.

Now, there's another issue that is brewing also in Indiana, which is where the procedure was performed. There, of course, is what is called mandatory reporting. As a mandatory reporter, there can be so many that deal with our children. If a child has been abused or assaulted or raped, the state must become aware, there must be reporting so that there is a documentation of it.

I want you to listen what the attorney general of Indiana said last night on Fox News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TODD ROKITA (R), INDIANA ATTORNEY GENERAL: We have this abortion activist acting as a doctor, with a history of failing to report. So, we're gathering the information. We're gathering the evidence as we speak. And we're going to fight this to the end, including looking at her licensure. If she failed to report, in Indiana, it's a crime for -- to not report, to intentionally not report. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: Now, CNN is reaching out to Dr. Caitlin Bernard (ph) to get her response to all of that. And Fuentes is being held on a $2 million bond.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Jean Casarez, thank you for all of those developments.

Meantime, House lawmakers are expected to vote tomorrow on two bills aiming to protection abortion access. They both face an extremely tough road in the Senate. One would re-establish the right to access abortion services in all 50 states. The other bill would prevent states from interfering with a person's ability to travel out of states, as Jean just explained there, for abortion services. That one, called the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act was introduced by my next guest, Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher, a Democrat of Texas.

Congresswoman, it's great to have you here.

I understand what this legislation does. You're essentially saying, look, the 14th Amendment, privileges and immunities, protects the right to travel, let's codify that.

My question is, given this Supreme Court and the make-up of the court and given rulings like Morrison, are you so sure that intrastate commerce, you know, arguing it that way would hold under the Supreme Court? Do you not believe this would go right back to the court and they would block it?

REP. LIZZIE FLETCHER (D-TX): Well, thanks so much for having me on this morning, Poppy, to talk about this important issue.

And I do think that this right is a constitutional right that the Supreme Court has and will continue to recognize. Who's not recognizing it are state legislatures and others who are working on model legislation to introduce in states like mine to prohibit women and people who are helping them travel across state lines to obtain abortion care. But this bill simply reaffirms that constitutional right. And Congress has the right to interstate - to regulate interstate commerce in the Constitution.

HARLOW: Well -

FLETCHER: So, we're affirming that and also giving tools to people to enforce their rights against those who would punish them for seeking to travel to other states to obtain the care they need.

HARLOW: So, I hear your argument, but I think it brings up a really important question in terms of a constitutional challenge, right? Victoria Norris (ph) at Georgetown wrote a great CNN Opinion piece where she really laid this all out. And I just want to bring up one of her points to you, and that is, given what the court ruled in 2000 in Morrison, they really limited what can be viewed as economic activity, right? That was about gender-based violence. And the court could apply that same legal reasoning here, could it not, and essentially say, no, this doesn't count. This is not on intrastate commerce lines. And I just wonder, given this court and what we've seen in the last term, if you think you face an uphill road there?

FLETCHER: Well, actually, the court addressed this in Dobbs. Justice Kavanaugh in his concurring opinion, said that the right to travel would not be affected and bans on the right to travel would not withstand scrutiny of the court.

[09:35:04]

And so I think we do have some guidance there.

What we have are lawmakers in states like mine who are threatening people who seek to leave. And we're in a crisis in Texas.

HARLOW: Yes.

FLETCHER: I think it's worth remembering that since September more than 1,400 Texans have left the state every month to seek abortion care in other states. And now they're having to go farther as those states roll back the right to access to abortion.

And so what we're seeing here is that people who are helping them, people -- employers who are reimbursing them for their travel expenses or covering their abortion care and their health insurance plans are getting threatening letters from state legislators, threatening them with criminal prosecution under a 1925 law, under SB8, and they're really advancing this extreme agenda that goes far beyond what we've heard for decades that this is an issue for the states.

We have lawmakers here in Washington saying that they're going to introduce a federal ban on abortion to outlaw it in all 50 states. And what we're saying here is that, if this is an issue for the states, that the states that continue to permit legal abortion, that people who travel to those states have the right to do that, a constitutional right to travel, that has been upheld for years. And there's nothing that's happening now that should allow anyone to interfere with that right.

And I think it's really important for Congress to come out strongly on this and enforce the constitutional right for all Americans.

HARLOW: Let me ask you about -- you said something interesting about the executive order from President Biden on abortion at the end of last week. You said that it was a good place to start, but not a good place to stop.

I'm wondering if you could elaborate on that more. And if you agree with other -- some other Democrats in Congress, like Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, Senator Warren, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who called on the White House to do more. For example, one example, open up federal land to abortion clinics. What more do you want the Biden administration to do?

FLETCHER: Well, I do think there is several things the administration can do. And we continue to see things coming from the administration that are very useful. Yesterday, the Department of Health and Human Services issued important guidance. And I have called on the president, with 80 other lawmakers here, to declare a public health emergency and use the powers of the public health emergency to help people, both in the states where abortion has been outlawed in terms of giving guidance, but also in the states that people are going to, the states that people are traveling to, to make sure that doctors can perform medical care, can provide reproductive health care and can perform abortions from out of state. That's one of the things that we see in a public health emergency. It also gives Medicaid the ability to expand coverage.

And so there's some really important tools in declaring a public health emergency that the president can do. And I wrote a letter with Representative Lloyd Doggett from Texas asking the president to do exactly that.

So, like I said, I'm happy with the executive order, but I think that there's more that we can and must do in this moment, especially where women in states like mine are in crisis.

HARLOW: Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher, thanks very much for your time.

FLETCHER: Thanks so much, Poppy. Good to be with you.

HARLOW: Jim.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A real important conversation there.

Just ahead, with more than 1,000 confirmed cases of monkeypox in the U.S. now, demand for the vaccine, existing vaccine, is surging. Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here with what you need to know.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:42:52]

SCIUTTO: The Biden administration says the number of doses of the monkeypox vaccine distributed here in the U.S. has more than tripled since just last week. This comes as the case count in the country surpasses 1,000 nationally. And the demand for those vaccines is surging.

HARLOW: Our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes a look at why acting quickly is key to controlling this outbreak.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATT FORD, HAD MONKEYPOX: It started off with just a few lesions. I got intense flu-like symptoms. As the flu-like symptom abated, the lesions will, a, more of them start to appear, and, b, they became, at worst, excruciatingly painful and at best mildly irritating.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Knowing exactly what it feels like to have monkeypox, Matt Ford has taken to social media to now warn people about the virus.

FORD: This (EXPLETIVE DELETED) sucks and you don't want it.

I've got these on my arms.

GUPTA: But now his frustration is that even as awareness grows, those who need it might have a hard time finding a vaccine.

FORD: Supply is so low that there's not that much to go around.

GUPTA: Since May, the number of cases in the United States has continued to grow quickly. But the two-dose Jynneos monkeypox vaccine has been rolling out slowly.

DR. DAVID HOLLAND, CHIEF CLINICAL OFFICER, FULTON COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH: We got an allotment of 200 vaccines. And the appointments for that went in about an hour and a half.

GUPTA: New York City Mayor Eric Adams has reached out to the White House to underscore his state's unmet demand. The two doses are usually given four weeks apart, but Mayor Adams wants the White House to consider a longer interval in between the doses so more first doses could be administered immediately.

Right now, the CDC recommends the vaccine for high-risk individuals, people who have been diagnosed with or exposed to monkeypox and people who are at higher risk of being exposed to monkeypox. That means not for the general population's prevention.

DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE DEAN, EMORY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: The problem is, we simply don't have enough vaccine. So we're trying to play catch-up. We need to get vaccination to people because we know that it - you know, vaccinating people may not necessarily prevent the infection, but it will certainly decrease the severity of the disease.

[09:45:00]

GUPTA: The CDC estimates this vaccine is at least 85 percent effective. Giving it within four days of exposure is best to prevent the onset of disease. And even if given within 14 days of exposure, it may still reduce the symptoms.

GUPTA (on camera): I'm looking at something that I've never seen before as a doctor.

I want to introduce you to Koi (ph). She's 22 years old. And what she has is an active case of monkeypox.

GUPTA (voice over): But this is not necessarily what monkeypox always looks like.

For Matt Ford, the lesions started smaller and not as obvious.

FORD: I maybe would have suspected that they were like the herpes simplex virus or some other skin condition.

GUPTA: Right now, public health officials are sounding the loudest alarms in the LGBTQ community. That's due to most cases being reported in men who have sex with men. But experts warn the outbreak could still expand.

DEL RIO: It's very reminiscent of the early days of HIV, right, in which it was impacting, you know, men have sex with men, the gay community in the United States. And it's almost like the general public were not paying attention. And then HIV became a disease that affected other people. It affected everybody. And then all of a sudden people got interested.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: And to give you a little context here. There are about 132,000 doses of this vaccine that have now been distributed to states. But if you look at who's considered high risk, who would be eligible here, it's about 1.5 million people. So, there's the shortfall. There will be more doses forthcoming in the fall, but, obviously, there's a huge demand right now.

SCIUTTO: So, Sanjay, this idea that the New York City mayor is proposing, posting the second shot, does that still offer enough protection?

GUPTA: Yes, you know, it really does. I mean this is something that's actually been studied scientifically. When you look at the first dose of these Jynneos vaccine, it does offer a significant amount of protection. The second shot really is to increase the durability or how long that protection lasts.

So, because we're in the middle of this outbreak, getting as many people those first doses now will give them significant protection. They could increase that durability, even up to two years later, by getting that second shot. So, it makes a lot of sense to just use these as first shots, especially given the demand right now.

HARLOW: Yes.

Sanjay, thank you so much for shining such a light on that for people who have so many new questions about it. We appreciate it.

In just moments, President Biden will meet with the president of Israel as he commits to not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. We're live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:51:56]

HARLOW: Right now, President Biden is on his way to meet with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

SCIUTTO: After signing a joint declaration with the Israeli prime minister to expand security ties, also to work together to counter the Iran nuclear threat. In a news conference this morning, the president did insist he would bring up human rights in his meeting in Saudi Arabia tomorrow. He did not commit to specifically mentioning the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by name at least.

We're going to take a short break as we continue to update you on the president's visit to Israel.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:56:48]

SCIUTTO: President Biden, in Israel, meeting now with the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, as well as children there waving U.S. and Israeli flags.

Joining us now to discuss the visit to the Middle East, "New York Times" foreign correspondent, former, and CNN Opinion contributor, David Andelman.

David, good to have you here.

I wonder if we can look forward to his next stop, which is Saudi Arabia. In his press conference this morning, Biden did not commit to raising the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. He did say he would bring up -- he would bring up human rights in general. But he also needs Saudi Arabia for oil, right? I mean with oil prices rising.

I wonder, in your view, is this a hat in hand visit to Saudi Arabia for the U.S. president?

DAVID ANDELMAN, CNN OPINION CONTRIBUTOR: Look, Jim, as soon as Air Force One sets down in Jetta, the Saudis have won. You know, the smile, the warm handshake, even the fist bump, there's some question as to whether they'll actually embrace, Biden and MBS, Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince, who is the person the CIA identified as the actual assassin of Khashoggi, or the person who ordered it. They're no longer the pariah nation that Biden described them as during his campaign. The -- it's just something that is really - is extraordinary.

The Saudis are setting up yet again by America's loyalty. They have so many administrations before this. This is not substantively different than what happened during Trump. Even during Obama. All the way back, frankly, to FDR. And I go back 20 years in my history with that kingdom. So, you know, I know a little bit what I'm speaking about.

HARLOW: Yes. You certainly do, David. And that's why I wonder what you think about the real question of, did Biden need to go? I mean is - is this not something that Blinken could have achieved or other high- level folks around the president? I mean, given all of those, they're not just optic concerns, they're really, what are our value concerns. And I just wonder if you think it's worth it.

ANDELMAN: There are -- sure. They - Poppy, they are our values. And not only that, the question is, how much the Saudis really can give to us now. You know, it's interesting. When -- we have some pictures of - of Emmanuel Macron, the French president, with Biden at the G-7 in Germany last month, he was warning Biden that the Saudis do not have that much of a bandwidth to raise oil production.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

ANDELMAN: They're almost up at their peak level at this point. So, how much more can we get out of them in those terms, in terms of keeping our oil prices down. Probably not all that much.

Are they, in fact, going to honor the ceasefire in Yemen, which is supposedly going on until August 2nd, one of the bloodiest wars that we've had in this century. It's just - it's -- that's a horrific issue that the Saudis are not apparently prepared to give in on at all. That's something we'd like.

And also, you know, when -- moving really substantively toward the other real big ask, which would be recognition of the state of Israel, diplomatic recognition, they might get some, you know, some twittles (ph) around the edges, ,if you will, you know, over flight privileges for El Al (ph) or whatever over Saudi territory. That's only a minor thing.

The Saudis have been telling me, back to my first visit there, the only way there's going to be a substantive change in relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia is if there's a resolution of some sort to the Palestinian issue.

[10:00:08]