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White House to Name Monkeypox Coordinator; Chief Justice Roberts Privately Lobbied To Save Abortion Rights; Official To Putin: Russia Space Agency To Withdraw From International Space Station Project After 2024; Former Ukrainian President Calls To Cut Off Russia Economically. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired July 26, 2022 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:08]

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So let's take a look at some of these case numbers. If you look around the world, there have been more than 18,000 cases worldwide in about 75 countries. As you said about 3,500 in the U.S., those numbers are both probably way larger in reality than they are -- then what we're seeing here. There's probably a lot that's not being detected or reported. 99 percent in the U.S. are among men who report sexual contact with other men. Now to be clear, it doesn't mean they actually have to have sex, just prolonged skin to skin contact will actually cause-- can actually spread monkeypox. Now let's take a look at the situation with the vaccine, because that's where we're having trouble.

So 300,000 doses have been distributed but 1.5 million people are eligible, and everyone needs two doses. So you can see that there's not nearly enough vaccine out there. So CNN spoke earlier with Dr. Anthony Fauci who talked about the need to distribute carefully, distribute it to people who've already been infected because this is a vaccine that can help you even if you're already infected and also to people who are at high risk of being infected. So let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There now has to be a balance between vaccines available for those who clearly have been exposed as well as those at risk and that's where the now the change in the distribution so that you anticipate that someone might get infected. As opposed to responding to someone who is infected.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: So what Fauci and others don't want to see happen is they don't want, for example, two men who are in -- in a monogamous relationship. They probably don't need to get this vaccine. This vaccine is really for people who are at high risk for being infected. So there's -- it's kind of a little bit of a tough situation because you don't want to turn people away, but you also don't want to be giving his valuable, scarce resource to people who aren't at high risk.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Elizabeth Cohen, thank you for the facts on all of it. So let me bring in now, Dr. Tyler TerMeer, he's the CEO of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. He holds a doctorate degree in public policy and administration. Dr. Tamir, thank you very much for joining us. I was reading about some of your concerns in the L.A. Times and wanted to hear more from you about what is happening there. Because in the city of San Francisco, the city has gotten 8,000 vaccine doses but there's one of their vaccine locations closed today because of a lack of supply and you guys have a wait list as I understand it. Right? Of people who want the vaccine now? How long has that list gotten?

DR. TYLER TERMEER, CEO OF THE SAN FRANCISCO AIDS FOUNDATION: Yes. Thanks so much for having me this morning. We continue to face a really complicated situation here in San Francisco. Our sexual health clinic Magnet currently has about 6,500 individuals on it who we have deemed eligible for vaccination, yet we have a scarce supply to respond.

HARLOW: OK. So yesterday, I was joined on the show by the Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and I asked him why has the U.S. not, as the WHO has declared monkeypox a public health emergency because he told me his concern level about monkeypox is a 10 out of 10. Here's his reply.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

XAVIER BECERRA, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: We want to get ahead of it. You don't want it to become a part of life, but how many people have died compared to say, COVID? Zero, we declare public health emergencies based on the data and the science not on our worries. We try to prepare for things and so our scientists, as with COVID, are making decisions as we speak.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: What's your reaction to that?

TERMEER: Yes. You know, this is a really overwhelming moment as someone who identifies, myself, as a black gay man who's living with HIV for the last 18 years. I, every day, am seeing fear in our community and concerns about the lack of availability of vaccine. And, you know, we're in a moment once again where people, they're transgender men and non-binary folks of the same social and sexual networks have been failed in this public health response from the Federal government. And it's hard not to wonder if the sense of urgency isn't there because of the population that is greatly impacted.

HARLOW: You feel as though they have been failed. Your word, I mean, FDA -- former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb echoed those sentiments and he said that monkeypox could soon become endemic which he says would be among the most unfortunate public health failures in recent times. Let's talk about solutions. Right? When this White House Coordinator for monkeypox is named, what do you want to see them do urgently?

[09:35:04] TERMEER: Urgently we need a response from the Federal government in terms of resources and funding to effectively respond. Our partners at the National Coalition of STD (Inaudible) are calling for HHS to provide $100 million in responds around the country. We need to reduce the (inaudible) and folks being able to access testing and treatment and our (inaudible) we need to reduce the bureaucratic barriers that exist in folks being able to access testing and treatment in our country and get the message out as broadly as we can to the community about how to recognize monkeypox and where to go if you have symptoms or believe you've been in contact. There's been a failure in providing accurate, real-time information and in getting the vaccine out to the community in the timeliness that is needed in this moment, in a short window by which we could gain control.

HARLOW: Let's hope that window is still at least slightly open. Dr. Tyler TerMeer thanks very much for the time this morning.

TERMEER: Thanks so much.

HARLOW: Jim.

JOHN SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: There is new CNN reporting this morning, the Chief Justice John Roberts tried to preserve Roe v. Wade. Why wasn't he able to sway the other conservatives on the court? We'll have that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:41:08]

HARLOW: New exclusive CNN reporting this morning. Multiple sources tell CNN that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts fought to the bitter end to try and convince his fellow conservative justices to preserve some Constitutional right to abortion.

SCIUTTO: But it was the unprecedented leak of a draft opinion reversing Roe that may have doomed Roberts' efforts and sealed that final vote count. Here with us now, the author of that piece and a Legal Analyst and Supreme Court Joan Biskupic. But Joan, you've covered Roberts for years. My question here is, was he trying to preserve Roe for the long-term of just for the short-term. In other words, go more slowly.

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN LEGAL ANALYST AND SUPREME COURT BIOGRAPHER: Yes. Good question and it's nice to see you and Poppy. You know, the chief has been against abortion rights in the past but this time it was going way too fast for him. First of all, the justices didn't even take this case initially to decide Roe v. Wade. It was just going to be consideration of the Mississippi Law that banned abortion after 15 weeks. So this was a huge transformation of the case. The chief anticipated what a -- what a jolt, to use his word, it would be for the country. So he wanted to stop what the majority was headed toward doing. But towards your bottom-line question, look he's somebody who has opposed abortion rights in the past. Maybe if there were full consideration of Roe, he would be a vote to overturn it but at this point it was too fast, too much and too much for him to handle in the end too.

HARLOW: Joan, so people understand. You, you know, you are the author of really the definitive book on John Roberts, the Chief and you know so well the court that he wanted this to be viewed as by the public. And I just wonder, you know, he's the one who launched the investigation into the leaked draft of Dobbs which overturned Roe. I wonder what you think this says about the court going forward for the next decades. Is the -- is the court, you know, when Anthony Kennedy was on it and you could -- you saw agreements made and you saw votes change at the last minute, and you saw some slower movements on and off cases. Is that gone?

BISKUPIC: You know, that's a great question Poppy and I -- I have to say that the chief, for as much as he really tried to stall what happened in this Dobbs case, he is part of a six-justice super majority that's plowing through the law in so many other areas. You know, on -- on gun control, on regulations of the environment, on religious liberties favoring religious conservatives. So this such a different court overall with virtually no middle. Now on abortion rights, there was a middle with John Roberts, by himself being the only one who wanted to preserve Roe but yet uphold this Mississippi law but for the long-haul.

How could this Supreme Court not be defined by what happened in Dobbs? That's why I've termed it, you know, it's the defining case of this generation for sure. I really can't imagine anything bigger. It's just that there's so much more that's effecting Americans and he's right there with the conservative super majority moving ahead.

SCIUTTO: So where does that leave his legacy because his intention was to, if you're going to move big precedents like this, that you do so slowly but also you at the same time, he hoped, preserve the impression of the court as a non-political body. Where does that leave his legacy?

BISKUPIC: You know, that's exactly the point that John Roberts has been pushing -- since day one when he was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2005. He has always argued that the courts are not partisan. They're not political and he's -- he's tried to say, you know, we are neutral decision makers. We're not politicians and rogues, but you have a decision like this Jim and Poppy and how can it not be perceived as being political. In part because Donald Trump vowed to appoint only justices who would overturn Roe and the five, very hard right Republican appointees are the five who were in the majority who would not budge in the end despite the pressure from a usually very persuasive chief justice.

[09:45:13]

HARLOW: Joan Biskupic, once again, huge scoop. Really important reporting, thank you very, very much.

BISKUPIC: Thank you.

HARLOW: To Russia next, our next guest says international sanctions against Russia are working and they're really working in putting the squeeze on Russian economy, what other steps should world leaders take to try to stop Putin's war in Ukraine. That is ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:50:00]

HARLOW: Well, this just into CNN, Russia says this morning that this is preparing to pull out of the International Space Station. That's a big deal. Space Agency official told Vladimir Putin it will leave the ISS, quote, after 2024.

SCIUTTO: This withdraw would be a major blow to the ISS, which has served as a model for international cooperation for decades. The announcement comes as the war in Ukraine is deeply strained Russia's relations with the U.S. and Europe, of course, Russia's invasion of Ukraine we're talking about here.

HARLOW: Exactly and in Ukraine, efforts begin tomorrow to try to export vital grain from the country, the Joint Coordination Center for Ukraine will oversee a system of maritime caravans transporting the grain, Jim, obviously made much more difficult in recent days.

SCIUTTO: Now to be clear, Russia signed a deal committing itself to the safe passage of grain through the Ukrainian port of Odesa, but since signing the deal, it's hit Odesa multiple times including just this morning. So how are economic sanctions effecting Russia? Are they truly hurting it? Are they truly cutting it off from the international economy? Let's bring in Jeffrey Sonnenfeld. He is the Senior Associate Dean for Executive Programs at Yale University. Jeffrey, it's good to have you on.

JEFFREY SONNENFELD, SENIOR ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR EXECUTIVE PROGRAMS, YALE UNIVERSITY: Jim, it's a delight to join you and hi, Poppy.

HARLOW: Hi.

SCIUTTO: So early on in this, as the sanctions were imposed. The discussion was this is the end for Russia's economy. It's going to hurt at every level, the top level and the Russian people. Then more recently, there've been some who've said, well you look at the ruble. You look at other things. Maybe it's not really working. You wrote a piece where you, kind of, ticked through each of these points one by one and I want to begin with one of them. The idea that well, yes, Russia's not selling its gas and oil or less so to Europe than it did in the past. They can just sell it all to Asia and everything will be fine. What's your response to that?

SONNENFELD: I'm so glad you seized that one. That one has gotten a great deal of attention. That's the one that some self-professed media experts, energy experts in the media have gotten wrong. That authentic energy experts have been trying to point this out and we, sort of, gave them the mouthpiece to that and actually did some original data investigations on this, and that's absolutely right. It's nonsense, absolutely nonsense to think that gas is fungible. They can just merely redirect it to say India or Russia. There's only one small creaky pipeline that goes into India or China that is from Russia and it's a tiny fraction of what they put out. It's about 16 and a half cubic meters, where they're putting out about

7.5 billion cubic meters regularly into Europe. So it might be enough to help fuel something the size of Hoboken, New Jersey for a little while. That's really not going to be offsetting.

SCIUTTO: Wow.

SONNENFELD: It's -- and a part of it is, this is not liquefied gas. It's got to go through the pipelines. The pipelines just aren't there.

SCIUTTO: Wow.

HARLOW: And what Jeffrey about missed six in your piece. You say -- look it's a -- it's just a myth that Putin is running a budget surplus thanks to the high energy prices.

SONNENFELD: The finances, as another area that's confusing to people, he's actually running deficits and unlike other countries that have deficits. There's nobody that's going to fund this deficit. They've already reneged on paying off their debts. So nobody can invest there. They can't get bailed out and they have had some reserves. They've had $600 billion in reserves, $300 billion of that is frozen by the west and hopefully will be redirected as these western countries are thinking of doing to Ukraine to help with the rebuilding of Ukraine. So with that $300 billion, that's dwindling that they're drawing down on and it's hardly financial stability giving them a little bit of survival time and massive cutbacks and quality of life in Russia.

You know, we're seeing over a half -- a half of a million people that actually are even Kremlin, quiet estimates that we have documented that are close to 1 million top professionals that have left or 500,000 to 700,000 are easily demonstrated. Massive unemployment, the direct employment of the (inaudible) that have pulled out is 12 percent of the workforce and three times of that are dependent on that. So we could looking at more than 40 percent unemployment there and soaring 60 percent plus (ph) inflation.

SCIUTTO: The former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told Poppy just yesterday that -- that really all Russian goods have to stop being exported. The ships that take them out of the country, that kind of thing, to really, kind of, pressure Russia, you know, to the degree it needs to be pressured here. And I wonder, do you think those additional steps are necessary or what's been done so far to punish the economy is enough over time, right, to force Putin that the costs are too high?

[09:55:00]

SONNENFELD: I completely agree with former President Poroshenko and his former rival president -- current President Zelenskyy that we should stop importing anything from Russia. I, like them, I'm an absolutist. I don't even believe there should be pharmaceutical carve outs. There is nothing about clinical trials that needed to uniquely still be continued in Russia that couldn't be done on other nearby countries with very similar biochemical systems in -- in the people being tested. Similar nutrition and all the rest and there's no reason why that couldn't be relocated, and we've seen the grain deals evaporate before our eyes. Just as both of you remember as we saw in Syria. We've seen repeatedly and now in the headlines the space station, or Russia cutting off, you know, gas, to Europe even right now. Because renege on agreements all the time and I think any kind of grain deal is a mistake we should -- we should try to protect the navigation of Ukrainian grain out.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Look it's an interesting point President Poroshenko said yesterday on this show. Rule number one don't trust Putin. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld.

SONNENFELD: I'm glad you got that out of him. It's so true. Our original headline for the article was "Chicken Little Was Right". The sky is falling on Russia. Putin's wrong.

HARLOW: Yes. Well, your team always does such fascinating analysis deep into these numbers. Sort of, beyond the general thinking. So thanks for bringing it to us.

SONNENFELD: I'm honored to join you. Thanks so much.

HARLOW: You got it. President Biden does not believe the U.S. is headed toward a recession. He acted on the data (ph) this week that we are close to one or in one. Takes months to know but we'll get key numbers ahead.

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