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Defense Shows Video Of A 2019 Arrest Of George Floyd To Jury; CDC & FDA Recommend U.S. Pause J&J Vaccine Over Blood Clot Concerns; White House Holds Briefing After CDC, FDA Urge Pause On Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 Vaccine. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired April 13, 2021 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

LAURA COATES, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: We have a paramedic talking about how he was able to be coherent, did not have a complaint at the heart trouble that we spoke about in the past. And now we've got a fifth officer. Remember that's important here. Derek Chauvin is on this -- is on trial right now. Three others are going to be tried later on this year. But we know the fifth officer available, who up until now the defendant said the crowd was so unruly and distracting, but not one. Even with a fifth officer on the scene, tried to get his help in any way. Nobody radioed for more backup to the Metropolitan Police Department, let alone the officer on scene.

The crowd was so unruly, that this officer never felt the need to intervene in any way, shape or form. I mean, this is one of those things, you think yourself, why is the defense presenting statement, video evidence that allows the jury to have another bite at the apple at watching this profoundly disturbing video and understanding. We all know how it ended and they're letting it play again. I don't know why the defense would take this tactic at all.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: But it's interesting you put it that way because we went through the last two plus weeks a very methodical, in some ways repetitive but on purpose prosecution build. And now we'll see how Mr. Nelson presents his case, he may have a very different strategy. And we may be talking later today or tomorrow about, aha, he tried to connect these dots.

But, Chief, we do know when we've talked about this before, he doesn't have a lot to work with because you have 9 minutes and 29 seconds of video where George Floyd is no longer resisting arrest. And Officer Chauvin is leaning on him -- kneeling on him. So the defense is trying to bring in anything that can distract. The one thing it did get of potential value, let me put it that way, from Officer Chang is listen here. He did say that when he arrived on the scene, he was somewhat concerned about the officer safety because of the crowd, listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER CHANG, MINNEAPOLIS PARK POLICE OFFICER: They were very aggressive, yes, aggressive towards the officers, yes. I was concerned for the officers' safety too, so I just kept an eye on as officers in the car and individuals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now, we've watched the video. Officer Chang, his perspective says they were very aggressive. We've watched the video, there were people shouting profanities, or one or two occasionally stepped forward doesn't look very threatening in anytime. You've been a law enforcement for 50 plus years now. But that point there I took as we know Mr. Nelson is going to say, you may disagree with Derek Chauvin's call, but he was distracted, he was worried about his life, et cetera, et cetera. Was that effective at all?

CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: I don't think so because it still boils down to. If you feel threatened, you call for backup, you call for help. It's understandable an officer who first arrives at the scene hears people yelling, you know, draws a conclusion that the crowd is being hostile or aggressive or what have you. But if he really felt that, one, he didn't go across to try to, you know, help the other officers. He never heard a call for assistance. He had four officers over there, he felt comfortable that the four can handle it.

I mean, so, you know, for me, and I've been in situations where we've had hostile crowds, one of the first things you do is call for backup. Now, hopefully you find out later, you really didn't need to back up, but you'd rather have it there and not need it than need it not having. And so, that would be one of the first things that you would do in a situation like that. People were yelling because of concern for Mr. Floyd. But I didn't see anything.

And I'm with Laura. I mean, other than a lot of getting dizzy watching him spin around a bit. And he's across the street, you couldn't see anything. I don't know what value that video added at all.

KING: All I can see so far it's just adds an element of distraction or confusion. But, again, we'll see Mr. Nelson just beginning his case. We'll see where he goes. But Laura, you mentioned, it's hard, you have to get the judge's ruling and the judge's ruling was narrow to bring in a prior arrest of Mr. Floyd, because there's relevance, why is it relevant to the situation at hand.

So this morning, we did see, and I want to play a little bit of the footage here and then have a little debate about its potential value to the defense. They brought in now retired Police Officer Scott Creighton, who, a year before Mr. Floyd's death back in May 2019,did pull him over at a traffic stop where he said he -- they were worried about some drug use and they were worried about, initially, Mr. Floyd was again in the passenger seat and his hands, watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, slowly come on out.

GEORGE FLOYD, BLACK MAN KILLED IN MINNEAPOLIS: Oh man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Put your hand on your head.

FLOYD: Oh man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, relax then.

FLOYD: (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're not going to get beat up or nothing if you just follow what we're asking you to do.

FLOYD: Yes. How does that (INAUDIBLE). I apologize, man.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And so again, Laura, your left asking why the defense brought this in. And on the -- you see George Floyd there. Yes, his hands were moving. The officers suspected maybe he was trying to hide some drugs or something, but he apologizes in the end. He gets out. He is handcuffed and he's taken into custody briefly. The paramedics came to see him peacefully, and he was fine in the prosecution and in the cross examination said he was alive, right? He did he cooperated, right?

So what could the probative value there? My take of being in a courtroom a long time ago, was that the defense wanted to get in the fact that, relax, you're not going to get beat or nothing if you just follow what we're trying to do. That they're going to try to show in later, but Mr. Floyd resisted in the later case. Work?

[12:35:12]

COATES: They're going to -- yes, they're going to try to show and I think it's ineffective here --

KING: Right.

COATES: -- that there is some element of an M.O. (ph) where he's not compliant, where he is essentially somebody who when officers approach him, he is purportedly combative and doesn't want to agree and has to almost be coaxed and convinced to do so. But remember, this was 2019. And it's odd to think that the defense would want to put into evidence this particular interaction, where an officer was able to de escalate and placate in whatever way and comfort -- he said he needed to be comforted George Floyd to help them understand that compliance was going to result in handcuffing, and arrest and not some sort of grave bodily injury or death.

Contrast that to what you see with Derek Chauvin, where remember as Mr. Ramsey was speaking about last week, a lot of it was going on with the manipulation of the handcuffs by the officers and ways to exert pain for him to comply when he had no ability to comply and do anything else besides lay on the ground in a prone position, unable to breathe. So if you actually look at the two scenarios here, it's really befuddling to people that this would come in through a defense witness because as you said, John, this particular police encounter, which began similar to what we saw the three other officers who were on scene with George Floyd before Derek Chauvin got there, that both decided to have some guns be drawn, both sets of officers put them away. They did not use guns or tasers to try to gain compliance or tried to subdue George Floyd.

And only distinction here is the defendant, Derek Chauvin and the application of deadly force. If in one scenario George Floyd lives and in your client's scenario, he dies, why on earth as a defensive tactic are you showing the video where he lives?

KING: And to that very point, Chief, again, we're watching now the tables have turned, if you will, the defense is driving the witnesses. It's calling the witnesses and the prosecution has to react and be nimble. We went through this last week, can Mr. Nelson be nimble now, and now can the prosecution be nimble?

And to the point Laura was just making is why do you go back to this May 2019 arrest. The defense is hoping it helps them. But watch here, both with Officer Creighton and then with the paramedic involved, the prosecutors tried to make the point Laura was just making. Mr. Floyd, yes, he may have been in trouble. Yes, Mr. Floyd may have done something wrong. But in the end, he cooperated and this was the result. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIN ELDRIDGE, PROSECUTING ATTORNEY: You were asking questions about what the other officers were doing, correct?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's correct.

ELDRIDGE: Your attention was focused on Mr. Floyd, correct?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it was.

ELDRIDGE: And Mr. Floyd didn't drop dead while you were interacting with him, correct?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

ELDRIDGE: Thank you. Nothing further.

He didn't have a stroke while you were with him?

MICHELLE MOSENG, FORMER HENNEPIN COUNTY PARAMEDIC: No.

ELDRIDGE: He was never given Narcan, correct?

MOSENG: Correct.

ELDRIDGE: He didn't stop breathing?

MOSENG: No.

ELDRIDGE: His heart didn't stop?

MOSENG: No.

ELDRIDGE: He didn't go into cardiac arrest?

MOSENG: No.

ELDRIDGE: He didn't go into a coma?

MOSENG: No.

ELDRIDGE: And you took him to the hospital, correct?

MOSENG: Correct.

ELDRIDGE: And he was monitored for two hours and released right after, right?

MOSENG: I don't know.

ELDRIDGE: Nothing further, Your Honor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: I wanted your perspective, Chief, effective in my view of the prosecution using the defense witnesses to make the point Laura Coates just made, that the difference between arrest number one and arrest number two was Derek Chauvin.

RAMSEY: Yes, there's no question about it. If Derek Chauvin, the other three officers that handled George Floyd, like the officer in 2009 did, we wouldn't be having this conversation now. And so to me, it's not any more complicated than that. And in so many similarities where, you know, he's -- you know, please don't shoot me, don't do this, don't do that, I mean, very similar to what happened in, they handled it totally differently.

And as a result, you know, there was no injury to Mr. Floyd at all. You know, fast forward to 2020, exact opposite took place. So I think it hurts the defense more than it helps him. I don't think it helps him at all, to be honest with you. I never went to law school, but I'm having trouble getting it what the defense is trying to do here. It just doesn't make a lot of sense.

KING: We'll watch, as I said, we'll watch and see if there's some build that we can't see at the moment. But at the moment, I agree with both of you. Chief Ramsey, Laura Coates, standby, the trial is going to resume any minute. We'll take you back there live when it does.

Also some big vaccine news today, the federal government deciding to put a pause, recommend a pause on administration of the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine because of some rare cases, but some serious cases of blood clots. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:43:39]

KING: A major and an abrupt announcement this morning on the COVID vaccine front. The CDC and the FDA now recommending a pause in administration of the Johnson & Johnson one shot COVID vaccine. The federal agencies recommending that pause because they say there have been very rare but serious concerns about potential blood clots. Blood clots, in one case, a fatal case.

Johnson & Johnson in a statement after this government announcement saying, "The safety and well-being of the people who use our products is our number one priority. We have been working closely with medical experts and health authorities, and we strongly support the open communication of this information to health care professionals and the public".

Let's get to our CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. Elizabeth, the government says they hope this is quick and temporary, but why? How did the CDC and FDA come to the conclusion to hit the pause button?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, part of the reason why they decided to put the pause button, my sources tell me, is that there's sort of this fear of a big psychological impact that this vaccine rollout has been going well. Very little of it is Johnson & Johnson and they don't want people's fears about this to sort of take over because this is not a problem with Pfizer, this is not a problem with Moderna, and they kind of want to just settle this issue so that people know that the other two vaccines are OK, they are not associated with these blood clots.

But let's take a look at the Johnson & Johnson numbers. It sort of paints a picture of just what we're dealing with here. Nearly 7 million people have already received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, that's actually a tiny number compared to Pfizer and Moderna.

[12:45:06]

Out of those nearly 7 million, there were six cases of these rare and severe brain blood clots. They were all in women ages 18 to 48. The symptoms appeared six to 13 days after vaccination with the J&J vaccine. Now, if you're waking up this morning and thinking, oh my gosh, I just had one of these vaccines, especially if you're a female in that age range, this is what you should be looking for. You should contact your health care provider if you've had the J&J vaccine within the past three weeks, and you're experiencing severe headache, abdominal pain, leg pain or shortness of breath. Part of the reason for the abdominal pain, the leg pain, the shortness of breath, is that there's a fear that other kinds of clots might come into play by the same mechanism that these brain clots have come into play.

Now, this is a dramatic step that the FDA and the CDC have made. But one of the reasons if that if God forbid something were to go wrong after someone gets the J&J vaccine, there is a good chance that the hospital, in E.R., would actually give the wrong treatment. So let's take a listen to Dr. Peter Marks from the FDA and Dr. Anne Schuchat from the CDC.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. PETER MARKS, DIRECTOR, FDA CENTER FOR BIOLOGICS EVALUATION AND RESEARCH: Treatment of this specific type of blood clot is different from typical treatments for other types of blood clots, which usually involve an anticoagulant called Heparin. With cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, Heparin may be dangerous and alternative treatments need to be given.

DR. ANNE SCHUCHAT, CDC PRINCIPAL DEPUTY DIRECTOR: As we learned about the issue with appropriate treatment, and it was clear to us that we needed to alert the public.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: So the bottom line here is that this really is an immediate concern only for people who've had the J&J vaccine in the past three weeks. It is highly, highly unlikely that one of these clots will happen but you do need to watch out for it. Big picture as far as the vaccine supply goes. The federal government has made it clear that we can carry on and meet vaccine goals without having the J&J vaccine because it is such a small percentage of the U.S. vaccine arsenal. John?

KING: Elizabeth Cohen, thanks for the reporting and the very important context and insight. Appreciate it much.

In any moment now, we're going to hear more from the White House. Dr. Anthony Fauci and the White House COVID Response Director Jeff Zients will speak at the White House briefing momentarily. We assume there will be new questions about this as well and how the White House plans to proceed.

Let's bring in our Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins. Kaitlan -- Kaitlan, my apologies, I need to go back to Minneapolis now. The trial of Derek Chauvin is resuming. There's Judge Peter Cahill.

JUDGE PETER CAHILL, HENNEPIN COUNTY: Your Honor, for the record, the defense recalls Officer Nicole Mackenzie.

KING: Apologies to our viewers, as we wait the witness here, we're going to take you to the White House briefing room. Jeff Zients who's the White House COVID coordinator now speaking, let's listen.

JEZZ ZIENTS, WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE COORDINATOR: -- use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, as they review data involving six reported U.S. cases of a rare and severe type of blood clot in individuals after receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Let me start by saying that this announcement will not have a significant impact on our vaccination program. The J&J vaccine makes up less than 5 percent of the more than 190 million recorded shots in arms in the United States to date.

The President has always said that this is a wartime effort. We're at war against the virus. And as such we've mobilized a wartime effort so that we're prepared for a wide range of scenarios. And that's why the President took action earlier this year before the J&J vaccine was even authorized to secure enough Pfizer and Moderna doses for 300 million Americans by the end of July.

Over the last few weeks, we have made available more than 25 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna each and every week. In fact, this week, we will make available 28 million doses of these two vaccines. And as we've done since we took office, we will continue to get the supply out the door as soon as it's available. So we have more than enough supply of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to continue the current pace of about 3 million shots per day. And that puts us well on pace to meet the President's goal of 200 million shots by his 100th day in office, and continue to reach every adult who wants to get vaccinated.

[12:50:12]

We're now working with our state and federal partners to get anyone scheduled for J&J vaccine quickly rescheduled for a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. And we're actually already seeing this happen today at sites across the country where J&J appointments are being adjusted, that we're for today to actually get Moderna and Pfizer today. So that's happening many places across the country.

The President has committed to the American people that his administration will always lead with science, tell the truth, and give Americans the facts as we know them. CDC and FDA will continue to do just that and provide regular updates to the public. And they will do so as they continue their investigation. With that, let me hand it over to Dr. Fauci. And then we'll take questions.

Oh sorry, let me get my mask.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Thank you very much, Jeff. Just to follow up a bit and maybe fill in a couple of points from what Jeff said and what our colleagues in the FDA and the CDC said early this morning at the press conference. A couple of issues come up of the importance of calling this pause because people say what does a pause mean? It really allows both the FDA and the CDC to further investigate these cases to try and understand some of the mechanisms of what it is, some more details about the history of the individuals who were involved and might shed some light on looking forward, what will happen and what we will do. That's the first thing.

The other thing is to make physicians out there aware of this. And there are some clinical implications of that, that I believe are important. For example, if someone comes in with this really rather rare syndrome of thrombotic, thrombocytopenia, where you get thrombosis, and when you have thrombosis, the most common way to treat that is with Heparin, that would be a mistake in this situation, because it could be dangerous and make the situation much worse. So there's a clinically relevant reason why you want to make this known to people.

Also, when individuals, particularly younger women, who might come into a physician with a particular thrombotic phenomenon, which is things that happen for other reasons, all the time that we want to alert physicians to take a history of a recent vaccination, that would be important. So the pause not only allows us to take a look at the cases and learn more, but it is also a signal out there to help the physicians.

Common question, and I'm sure we'll have a number of questions which Jeff and I'll be happy to answer to you, but one of the questions that comes up already rather frequently, does this have anything to do with the efficacy of the vaccine? So we know that there have been 6.85 million doses of J&J distributed in the United States thus far. So someone who maybe had it a month or two ago would say, what does this mean for me? It really doesn't mean anything. You're OK, because if you look at the frame, the time frame, when this occurs, it's pretty tight from a few days six to 13 days from the time of the vaccination.

The next question is one that we're all obviously aware of, what impact is this going to have about people's attitudes about vaccines in general. So you might know that there have been now 120 million people that have received at least one dose of a vaccine. Most of that subtract the 6.85 million, is in the messenger RNA from Pfizer and from Moderna. There have been no red flags signals from those. So you're talking about tens and tens and tens of millions of people have received vaccine with no adverse effect. This is a really rare event.

If you look at what we know so far, there have been six out of the 6.85 million doses which is less than one in a million. So remember, this is something that we always out of a -- really out of an abundance of caution, as Jeff said, to give us a time to take a good look at it and see if we can get further information.

[12:55:08]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Mary (ph), you take this off?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You've described this as a really rare event, but this does seem like a pretty drastic step. Do you believe that the scientists sufficiently weighed the benefits of this pause against the damage or risk that this could do to the broader effort and the impact it could have on vaccine hesitancy?

ZIENTS: Well Dr. Fauci, maybe you'll go after me. But I want to say that we have plenty of supply. So I'd mentioned that we, for the last several weeks, have been sending 25 million doses out and while we're averaging 3 million shots in arms per day, the 25 million supports actually that level and even accelerating, and we just sent out 28 million doses today, or announced 28 million doses will be sent this week, to states, tribes, territories and through our federal channels. So we have plenty of supply to continue our vaccination program to hit our goals. But over the Dr. Fauci.

FAUCI: Yes. I believe your question is, did we pull the trigger too soon on this because it was such a rare event? Well, you know, our FDA is internationally known for their capability of making sure that we have the safest products out there. And that's what I meant when I said an abundance of caution. You want to make sure that safety is the important issue here.

We are totally aware that this is a very rare event. We want to get this worked out as quickly as we possibly can. And that's why you see the word pause. In other words, we want to hold off for a bit and very well may go back to that maybe with some conditions or maybe not. But we want to leave that up to the FDA and the CDC to investigate this carefully. So I don't think it was pulling the trigger too quickly. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And just a logistical question, moreso than anything. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is meeting tomorrow --

FAUCI: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- to discuss this. Why not try and meet today? I mean, is this not a moment to sort of drop everything and focus on this?

FAUCI: You know, I think you have to get people pulled together. I think tomorrow is not such a long wait. I mean, I'm sure they want to get everybody. There may be people who are not available, they want to get the full component of it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you talk a little bit about the process in both deciding for this pause and sort of what comes next? First off, did the White House have any advanced notice of the issues with the J & J vaccine and was there involvement from the White House in deciding this? And how do you evaluate when to pause vaccines? Are we going to see more of these pauses in the future if more issues pop up?

ZIENTS: Why don't you do the first part and I'll do the second part?

FAUCI: This decision was made by the CDC and the FDA, and that's one of the things that's I think such a good thing about our system here, is that we're ruled by the science, not by any other consideration. So that decision was really thoroughly made by the CDC and the FDA.

ZIENTS: I would say consistent with following the science, we were notified last night that there would be an announcement this morning and therefore had no other involvement other than knowing last night that there would be an announcement this morning from the FDA and the CDC.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And then just review what's going to happen, what are they looking for? What are they evaluating? When can we expect a conclusion?

FAUCI: Well, they want to see if there's any clues of other things going on. Were there any underlying -- for example, if they're going to just hypothetical, if they're going to make a decision to go forward and say, you know, we looked at this, if they find some common denominators among the women who were involved that might be synergizing and essentially enabling this type of an adverse event, they may know that for those who don't have that, it may be much safer. There may be clues when you go down and really get granular about every single case. In addition, they want to look at what some of the mechanisms are, the mechanisms may give some insight as to what is going on.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And could we expect to potentially see further pauses in the future? I mean, could this keep happening with the vaccines because they're so new?

FAUCI: Well, you know, if you look at the history of -- take a look at what has gone on with the Moderna and the Pfizer where you have, you know, literally tens and tens and tens of millions, this watch this carefully. There had been no red flags. When you have a red flag of something that is as serious as thrombotic thrombocytopenia, particularly when you have an individual, one of whom died, you take that seriously. So I don't think that minimal things that very likely have nothing at all to do with the vaccine, that we're going to pull the trigger so quickly as to keep stopping and stopping and stopping.

I think this is an unusual occurrence of a serious adverse event that you want to make sure before you go forward, you investigate it thoroughly. And that's exactly what they're doing. They're pausing so that they can look at it more carefully.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you. A couple for Dr. Fauci first.

[13:00:00]