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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Much of Europe Pulls AstraZeneca Vaccine Over Side Effect Worries; Biden Travels to Pennsylvania Today to Promote Rescue Plan; Two Men Charged for Assaulting Capitol Police Officer Sicknick; Dallas Convention Center Being Used to House Migrant Teens. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired March 16, 2021 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:25]

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: It's one of the most important vaccines to fight coronavirus right now. We'll tell you why most of Europe just stopped using it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Shots in arms and money in pockets. That's important.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: President Biden heading to Pennsylvania today to promote the benefits of his huge rescue plan. What you can expect in the next ten days.

JARRETT: And two men have been arrested for an assault on a Capitol police officer who died the next day. What we're learning about what happened.

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. We have reports from Rome, Berlin, the White House and Tokyo. This is EARLY START. I'm Laura Jarrett.

ROMANS: Good morning. I'm Christine Romans. It is Tuesday, March 16th. Five a.m. exactly in New York.

And we begin in Europe. It's cheaper, simpler to deliver and is being pulled off the market. More than half of Europe, some countries in the last few minutes now halting use of the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine after a small number of patients experienced blood clots.

It's another blow to the E.U.'s sluggish vaccine rollout. This vaccine is not authorized in the U.S. yet but it is being counted on to fight the U.K. variant spreading around the world.

JARRETT: All this comes at a really difficult time. A third wave of infections is sweeping across Europe and forcing renewed restrictions, hospitalizations on the rise in France, Germany seeing a spike in cases and Italians back under lockdown.

That's where CNN's Melissa Bell is live for us this morning. She's in Rome.

Melissa, good morning. What can you tell us?

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Laura.

It was even as Italy or parts of Italy, more than half of its regions entered that new lockdown that the news came that Italy was joining that growing list of European countries pausing the rollout of AstraZeneca vaccine since, of course, that list has continued to grow.

Now, we know that the company itself AstraZeneca says, look, 17 million doses have now been administered in the U.K. and in the E.U. and there have been just over 30 issues of patients who may have gone on to develop blood clots. The company says, look, this is what you would find in the average population or less.

But I think what began to change minds is there had been a divide between those countries in Europe beginning to pause the rollout and those countries in Europe like Germany and France, for instance, that were defending its continued use. Then they changed their minds yesterday. I think what's behind that was not so much the question of the numbers of people who had begun to develop blood clots but more this news from Denmark that one of the people who had died was found to have unusual symptoms before she did. I think that set off a bunch of alarm bells.

Now, the European Medicines Agency says that the vaccine rollout should continue, it's continued to defend its use, but it is investigating, Laura, and until we get those results from the European regulatory body on Thursday, it's very difficult to see that this debate is going to go away.

We happen to be at a vaccination center just outside of Rome when the news came, it was delivering the AstraZeneca vaccine, it stopped delivering it when the news came. People were turned away. We asked a bunch of them, look, if this advice changes, if the science shows that there is, in fact, no danger, will you come back and take it? All of them said no.

I think this is the final irony of this. It was partly because of the natural vaccine hesitancy of European populations that so many of those regulatory bodies decided, Laura, that they would pause as a matter of abundant precaution the rollout this have vaccine but that decision almost whatever the science says at this stage is only likely to make that worse.

JARRETT: Yeah, certainly, this is not helping public trust in people who already might have had worries about the vaccine. As you mentioned, people saying they would not come back is certainly revelatory.

Melissa, thank you for saying on top of this for us.

ROMANS: So that vaccine, that AstraZeneca vaccine, has not been considered yet for emergency use in the United States. That is expected to happen next month. But there are some doses being produced and packed in the U.S. and Mexico wants them.

The vaccine is approved in Mexico and the country's deputy foreign minister says the U.S. has been asked to share. Mexico's president says his country is close to reaching two vaccine deals. More details are expected later today.

JARRETT: The Biden administration is racing to prepare for another potential surge of coronavirus and for the very first time, plans are being drawn up to flood emerging hot spots with vaccines.

Jasmine Wright is live for us at the White House this morning.

OK, Jasmine, talk to me. What exactly is being considered here? How would this work?

JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, look, Laura, the White House, as you said, it's trying to head off any potential fourth surge, so they are making plans, really trying to prepare for it ahead of time. And that includes investing billions of dollars and a plan to ship vaccines to those emerging hot spots that they have identified through data working with those community leaders and elected officials to make sure that those areas are prepared for any type of uptick.

[05:05:12]

Because honestly the White House feels like they are in a good place right now. We know that they identified July 4th as a time when we can get back to normalcy and they want to keep along this trajectory.

And this is something that we did not see from the previous administration who oftentimes responded to those surges after they started happening.

Now, Laura, this comes at a time when the White House is grappling with the influence of former President Trump and that he has over the folks that voted for him, really those Republican voters who now are more hesitant to take that vaccine and whether or not former President Trump is doing enough to get them to get those shots in their arms.

Now, the White House is kind of taking a line while they would welcome President Trump's influence in getting more folks to get their vaccines, they likely are not going to ask him. President Biden yesterday in his remarks address it had and instead called on leaders in those communities to pick up the slack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: They say the thing that has more impact than anything Trump would say to the MAGA folks is what the local doctor, what the local preachers, what the local people in the community say. So I urge, I urge all local docs and ministers and priests to talk about why, why it's important to get that vaccine.

(END VIDEO CLIP) WRIGHT: Now, Laura, today we will see president Trump make his debut on that help is here tour in Pennsylvania where he will visit a small business to talk about how small businesses across the country can benefit from this bill.

JARRETT: President Biden obviously hitting the road, trying to make a real push. They say they're not selling t but they are trying to explain what is in that bill.

Thanks so much, Jasmine.

ROMANS: Yeah, explain, promote, publicize, the White House reaffirming President Biden's campaign promise now to raise taxes on the rich.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: His priority and focus has always been on people paying their fair share. There is a shared view that those at the top are not doing their part, obviously, that corporations could be pay higher taxes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Candidate Biden pledged tax hikes on the healthy and corporations by reversing some of President Trump's 2017 tax cuts. He promised to never raise taxes on anyone making $400,000 a year or less. The Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday tax hikes could be used to control the deficit, but Vice President Kamala Harris did not confirm these reports they would help pay for future plans to boost economic growth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We haven't really figured out what the next phase is going to be to be honest with you and we are going to make those decisions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: So, the next phase includes investments in infrastructure, clean energy, education, the Biden agenda here. The question is how to pay for it, with more borrowing, tax increases or both.

Meanwhile, a watchdog found the IRS is failing to hold wealthy Americans accountable for tax evasion. The treasury inspector general says millionaires have dodged $2.4 billion in back taxes. The report warns this adds to the belief the nation's tax system favors the wealthy.

JARRETT: I wonder what the new Justice Department plans to do about that.

Well, the White House staff working in-person or no longer being tested for COVID every day as vaccination rates go up around the White House complex. A spokesperson for the White House maintains strong COVID protocols like mask wearing, social distancing and regular testing is happening. The change only affects those in contact with senior leaders like the president and the V.P.

ROMANS: More than 20 percent of recent blood donations from unvaccinated Americans had COVID-19 antibodies, that was during the first week of March, a notable increase from 12 percent of people whose donations were tested in the first week of January. Now, the presence of those antibodies means those donors were likely infected or exposed at some point.

JARRETT: Undue influence not grounded in science, those are some of the key damning take a ways from a recent review of some of the CDC's coronavirus guidance under the Trump administration.

Now, this review requested by the CDC's new leadership found some guidance used less direct language than available evidence supported and that it needed, quote, to be updated to reflect the latest scientific evidence. The CDC also identified three documents that were not primarily authored by that agency but were presented as CDC documents. Two of those three related to reopening the country and have been removed from the agency's website.

All right. Still ahead, a Dallas convention center is the latest line of defense to handle the influx of children at the southern border. Migrants lining up to enter the U.S. left with no good option.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Someone stole all her money along the way.

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[05:14:06]

JARRETT: Two men have now been charged for assaulting U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick with an unknown chemical spray. Now, Sicknick died one day after the riot on Capitol Hill and his death has been one of the biggest unsolved tragedies of what happened at the insurrection that day.

Investigators say this photo shows Julian Khater wearing the Trump hat and George Tanios in the red hat with spray before Khater uses it. Officer Sicknick and two others can be received retreating from the line there, bent over and holding their face -- their hands to their faces. So far, Khater and Tanios is not charged with killing Officer Sicknick but charges could be added if prosecutors determine that the spray led to his death.

For weeks now, their pictures have been featured on FBI flyers seeking information, a tipster finally identified them to the bureau.

ROMANS: Security officials at the Capitol are organizing special emergency training for members of Congress.

[05:15:02]

The sergeant-at-arms and capitol police will review procedures including escape routes.

CNN has learned that Capitol police plan to remove that outer fence and are considering scaling back the National Guard presence. Capitol Police believe the rise in domestic extremism means this is still a heightened threat environment, there is no, however, known credible threat to the Capitol.

JARRETT: President Biden facing growing pressure even from some Democrats over his strategy on the U.S. Mexican border. The administration plans to use this convention center in Dallas to house more than 2,000 migrant teenagers who have crossed into the United States.

ROMANS: That's on top of another imagine take site in Texas opened over the weekend as the administration struggles to relieve the overcrowding at facilities along the border.

CNN's Rosa Flores is in the border in Donna, Texas.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Laura, as tens of thousands of migrants make the dangerous journey here to the U.S. southern border, that is just the beginning. We have talked to migrants who describe overcrowded processing centers without showering facilities and some say that they slept overnight under a bridge waiting to get transported to a processing facility. Once there, however, they do say that they get three meals a day.

This as CNN learns that about 4,200 unaccompanied minors are in the custody of border patrol. DHS sending CNN a statement saying that border patrol officials, quote, do everything they can to take care of unaccompanied children in their care.

According to Peter Schey, a lawyer who represents thousands of children that are in federal custody, and he said that the capacity at the Donna processing center that you see behind me is about 1,000 and that right now it's housing about 2,000.

The head of Homeland Security directed FEMA to help create more shelters for unaccompanied minors. This is an effort to create space to move children out of the custody of Border Patrol and into the care of HHS -- Christine and Laura.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Rosa Flores for us in Texas.

To Pennsylvania where police say a Pennsylvania woman created deepfake images of several members of a cheerleading gym to bully them online. Prosecutors say Raffaela Spone created phony images that made it look like these girls, these cheerleaders, were nude, drinking alcohol or vaping, all of these things could get them cut from the team. She is accused of sending texts from phone numbers purchased online urging one girl to kill herself. Her lawyer says he has yet to see the evidence against his client.

JARRETT: First, Russia poisoned him, now a look inside the notoriously rough prison camp opposition leader Alexey Navalny is stuck in for the next two and a half years. hat's next.

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ROMANS: Harsh conditions, psychological torture, even physical beatings, that's how former inmates described conditions inside the Russian penal colony where opposition leader Alexey Navalny will serve his time. And Navalny just made his first comments about his new home.

CNN's Matthew Chance takes you to this prison 100 miles east of Moscow.

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MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Okay. So we're coming up now on the penal colony where Alexey Navalny is going to spend the next two and a half years. It's actually a couple of hours from Moscow. So, it's going to be much easier for his friends, his family and his colleagues to come and visit him here.

But that does not mean that Russia's opposition leader is getting an easy ride because this particular penal colony in a Vladimir region is one of Russia's most notorious.

Hidden behind a corrugated fence and rusty razor wire, colony number two looks like a grim unwelcoming place. You can't see much from inside but Putin critic Navalny, his head shaven, has already aired his impressions on Instagram. I had no idea it was possible to arrange a real concentration camp so close to Moscow, he posted.

And the team behind Navalny who's already survived a nerve agent poisoning before being put behind bars also broadcasts these drone images from above showing the bleak barracks where penal colony prisoners eat, work and sleep. Fifty to 60 people crammed into a single dorm say former inmates. Not ideal during a pandemic.

KONSTANTIN KOTOV, FORMER INMATE: Is this a church?

CHANCE: This is where you were? This is where you stayed?

KOTOV: Yes.

CHANCE: Konstantin Kotov says he'll never forget his ordeal on the inside. He had been imprisoned here twice he told me after being arrested at anti-Kremlin protests and during nearly a year of psychological torture. It won't be easy he says for Alexey Navalny even.

They forbid you to talk with other convicts, he tells me. You're only feet all day from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. and never allowed to sit down. You can't even read or write letters he says for weeks on end and if you break any tiny rule, you'll be disciplined, humiliated and isolated even further, he says.

Russian prison authorities insist that insist Navalny will be treated like any other prisoner and won't be singled out, but scrutiny here isn't welcomed.

This is the front gate of the prison colony where Alexey Navalny is being in turned. These guards are waiting for us. One of the guys shaking his head with the lovely dog.

[05:25:01]

Is it possible to register to be in this area?

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

It's because it the territory of the prison they say we can't even register to be here. Russians are notoriously secretive about their prisons because the conditions inside are poor, not just in this one but in prisons around the country.

This disturbing video posted by a Russian newspaper shows prisoners being cruelly beaten by guards in a penal colony in Yaroslav (ph), the region next door to where Navalny is being held. A Russian court convicted several people of involvement of a national prison scandal that is common knowledge among inmates these kinds of beatings are widespread.

Navalny says there's been no hint of violence towards him so far.

It's forbidden.

It may be his enemies at the Kremlin simply want their most prominent critic out of public view.

All right. Thank you.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Vladimir, Russia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JARRETT: Matthew, thank you for that revealing report.

Still ahead for you, major European nations pressing pause on the AstraZeneca vaccine. Why trouble abroad could pose a problem in the U.S.

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