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New Day
Fireworks Over Cotton's Speech; False Beef with Biden's Climate Plan; Russia To Classify Navalny's Group as Extremist. Aired 8:30-9a ET
Aired April 26, 2021 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:30:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MONDAIRE JONES (D-NY): I had no idea there were so many syllables in the word "white."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Wow.
MARA SCHIAVOCAMPO, JOURNALIST: Wow. Not mincing any words, right?
I mean the thing is, we know why there's so much GOP opposition to the concept of D.C. statehood because it would increase and it would give likely Democrats two additional senators and one representative in the House.
And so what Representative Jones is saying is that if they don't rig the system, if they don't manipulate the system, they can't win. So that's really the foundation of their arguments. That's what he said to his colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
And he has, you know, an argument there to be made because what we've seen, especially in the last few months, are all of these Republican led efforts to manipulate the political system because the shifting demographics are working against them, most notably with these hundreds of measures being proposed across the country to limit access to the ballot because what did we learn from Georgia in 2020? Georgia was never a red state. Georgia was a disenfranchised state. And so Republicans are seeing that if they can keep people from voting, then perhaps they can hold on to some power. And it seems that this is another effort to do that and in a different way.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: There's been so much controversy here in recent years when you see politics and sports colliding. And that's been the truth domestically. We're going to see it, perhaps, on a global scale.
The International Olympic Committee announced they have a rule banning protests and demonstrations and that that's going to be upheld in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. It's unclear, really, what the punishment is going to be here.
But are you surprised that with everything going on, athletes are not supposed to use their platform? And do you think some of them will anyways?
SCHIAVOCAMPO: You know, the -- so the people who were saying, well, this is not the place for it, right? These athletes have trained. This is for athletic performance and exhibition. I would say, what is the proper place to protest human rights violations, because it doesn't appear to some people that there is ever a proper way or place to do it.
The 1968 Olympics, they said, oh, this is not the place. By the way, the same people who protested those fists at the trophies -- podium didn't oppose the Nazi salute having taken place a couple years prior. People who opposed Colin Kaepernick, they say taking a knee, this is not the way. Mohammad Ali protesting the draft. They say this is not the way. LeBron James, shut up and dribble. Well, when is it the time, especially on an international stage, to stand up and say, there are human rights violations taking place in my country and I'm going to fight against them.
BERMAN: The Olympics has a uniquely awful history of its own, quite separate from the discourse in the U.S. Avery Brundage, everything they did in '68, the stuff with Hitler in the '30s. Really, you couldn't have a worse history than the Olympics has in terms of free speech and speaking out.
Regina -- we haven't talked about the Oscars.
KEILAR: We haven't.
BERMAN: All right, so --
KEILAR: But we have to.
BERMAN: Regina King, who directed one of the very few films that I saw that was "One Night in Miami," she spoke last night and she had a chance to raise the Derek Chauvin verdict. So let's listen to what she said about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REGINA KING, ACTRESS AND DIRECTOR: If things had gone differently this past week in Minneapolis, I might have traded in my heels for marching boots.
Now, I know that a lot of you people at home want to reach for you remote when you feel like Hollywood is preaching to you. But as a mother of a black son, I know the fear that so many live with and no amount of fame or fortune changes that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: What did you think? SCHIAVOCAMPO: What a powerful moment. I mean she kicked off the night
with the most powerful moment of the night. And, you know, what she said was really powerful because she reminded the country that no amount of fame or fortune can keep you from the realities of being black in America. Yes, she may be famous, but she fears for her son clearly and his safety in this country.
And this is something that you hear and you see again and again and again. You know, there was that Grammy award-winning musician who just a few months ago, his teenage son was tackled in a hotel in New York because a white woman accused him of stealing her phone. So fame, money, there is no way to escalate yourself socially out of racism. And so that's what she was speaking to.
And we also saw it from the filmmaker who won for best short film, "Two Distant Strangers," which is about a deadly police encounter, him using the opportunity to raise it again.
So much like with athletes, they are taking the opportunity, when they get the spotlight, when they get the stage, to raise awareness about issues that are very important to the community. People are not keeping silent anymore.
KEILAR: No way to escalate one's self out of it, no matter what Senator Lindsey Graham says.
SCHIAVOCAMPO: Right.
KEILAR: Mara, it is wonderful to see you.
SCHIAVOCAMPO: Good to see you, Brianna.
KEILAR: Thanks for coming on this morning.
SCHIAVOCAMPO: Thank you.
KEILAR: Up next, burgers with a side of lies. How the GOP has been totally twisting Biden's climate plan.
BERMAN: And what evangelicals in America are hearing from some pastors about COVID.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:38:27]
BERMAN: So a bunch of Republicans are claiming that President Biden is proposing strict limits on how much red meat Americans can eat or how many hamburgers they can consume as part of his climate plan. The governors of Texas and Idaho have tweeted about this like it's some kind of scandal. Greg Abbott says, not going to happening in Texas. And Brad Little says, Idahoans also have beef with this agenda and for dinner.
Joining us now to help us understand this controversy, CNN reporter Daniel Dale. Daniel, these Republicans are claiming that the president's climate
plan somehow wants to cut down on how much red meat you can eat by 90 percent by 2030. Is this true?
DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: John, this is completely imaginary. It's totally fabricated. When I come on your show, I often have some nuance to bring you about claims that are being made. There's no nuance here. This is completely, totally wrong. And so you have Republican governors taking a firm stand against a Biden plan that does not exist at all.
KEILAR: OK, so then where -- where did this originate from?
DALE: So this came from "The Daily Mail," a British tabloid. What happened was, there was an academic study out of the University of Michigan and Tulane University a year ago, before Biden took office, that looked at what would happen to greenhouse gas emissions if Americans hypothetically decided to change their diets in various ways. And one of the scenarios they looked at was, what would happen if Americans cut 90 percent of their beef consumption, when down to 4 pounds per year. In that case they found there would be a significant reduction in emissions.
But they didn't call for a mandatory reduction. And this has nothing to do with Joe Biden.
[08:40:01]
Like, why are we even talking about this study. But "The Daily Mail" did a piece after Biden announced that he wants to cut emissions by 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 and said, this Biden plan could make you eat a maximum of one hamburger per month, could result in a reduction of 90 percent in your meat consumption. But, again, there's no relationship with this study from a year ago and what Biden is actually calling for.
BERMAN: Joe Biden is not calling for this, full stop.
So who has been spreading this nonsense then?
DALE: So, as so often, Fox News had a big role. This went from a "Daily Mail" article on Thursday night to a whole bunch of Fox personalities on Friday and Saturday.
Listen to some of what they've been saying.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN ROBERTS, FOX NEWS: Say good-bye to your burgers if you want to sign up for the Biden climate agenda. That's the finding of one study.
LARRY KUDLOW, FORMER NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL DIRECTOR: They can't have a steak on the grill or a hamburger on the grill July 4th weekend.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Americans would have to cut red meat consumption by a whopping 90 percent. That means only one burger a month.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: So this is all inaccurate and there were other Fox personalities too. From there, on the weekend, it went to members of Congress. Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, Georgia Congresswoman Marjory Taylor Greene, North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn, Donald Trump Jr. amplified the claim, a whole bunch of other right-wing influencers made the claim. The gateway (ph) pundit, the right wing conspiracy website so often made the claim.
And, again, this is completely invented out of whole cloth. So it's been striking to see how complete nonsense has gone from a British paper to Fox to the entire right-wing eco system it seems.
KEILAR: Yes, those are not lawmakers, by the way, known for their truth telling.
DALE: Yes.
KEILAR: And we laugh because this is so ridiculous. But mark my words, there are people who will believe this and continue to believe this.
Daniel Dale, you are a fact check extraordinaire. Thank you.
BERMAN: It needs to be said, the people spreading it, meat heads.
KEILAR: Meat heads.
BERMAN: How about that?
KEILAR: That's right. Love it.
President Joe Biden giving his first address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. We have CNN's special live coverage that will be starting Wednesday night at 8:00.
And many white evangelicals are skeptical of taking the COVID vaccine, but where did that skepticism come from? We will roll the tape on what is happening inside some churches, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:47:06]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. FRANCIS COLLINS, NIH DIRECTOR: Some people feel like, OK, why should I trust science? Does that mean I'm not trusting God? And I think God works through science in cases like this and we ought to celebrate that and give thanks to God's grace that this kind of thing is possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: That is Dr. Francis Collins of the National Institutes of Health talking about one of the groups of Americans who are most skeptical about getting the coronavirus vaccine, that is white evangelicals. And we're talking about a lot of people here. About 41 million according to the Pew Research Center and 45 percent of them say they definitely/probably won't get the shot. Experts say what some evangelical pastors preach from the pulpit for months and months likely had a profound effect in shaping their opinions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GUILLERMO MALDONADO, PASTOR, KING JESUS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRY: Do not put the vaccine. Believe in the blood of Jesus. Believe in divine immunity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: That is Pastor Guillermo Maldonado, whose church in Miami has been a must visit for Republicans running for office in recent years, including former Florida governor, and current U.S. senator, Rick Scott, and President Trump, who launched his evangelical support group there and invited the pastor to the White House.
In Miami-Dade County, where Maldonado's headquartered, more than 6,000 people have died from COVID. Last year, while the CDC recommended limiting mass gatherings, Maldonado reportedly said that the fear that kept people home was, quote, a demonic spirit, and he also said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MALDONADO: I can't go to church today. Why? Because I think the pastor's going to have the virus. If we die, we die for Christ.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Maldonado is just one of a number of evangelical preachers who has spread disinformation about or downplayed the coronavirus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JESSE DUPLANTIS, JESSE DUPLANTIS MINISTRIES: And somebody get a little close, they go, that's called germophobic. Watch this. You think I'm sucking the virus off of her?
PAUL DAUGHERTY, VICTORY CHURCH: I came today to declare victory over the virus.
KENNETH COPELAND, TELEVANGELIST: COVID-19 --
CROWD: COVID-19 --
COPELAND: I blow --
CROWD: I blow --
COPELAND: The wind of God --
CROWD: The wind of God -- COPELAND: On you.
CROWD: On you.
COPELAND: You are destroyed forever.
CROWD: You are destroyed forever.
COPELAND: And you will never be back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: That last one was Texas mega church Pastor Kenneth Copeland, when, at the time, the U.S. death toll had just hit 10,000 because of the coronavirus. More than a year later, nearly 570,000 have died in the U.S., more than 31 million others have been infected. And even as infections and deaths climbed, Copeland suggested Christians were immune to the coronavirus because President Trump had recovered from it.
[08:50:05]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COPELAND: This display of our president giving God thanks for helping him in that time. And he walked out immune.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.
COPELAND: Somehow. Glory to God. Woo! Thank you, Jesus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, amen.
COPELAND: Oh, Hank (ph), come on, man. Some -- we're -- hey, we're -- we're immune.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right. That's right.
COPELAND: We're going through this thing with a Holy Spirit immunity from the works of the devil.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: At least he acknowledged there is a pandemic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN MACARTHUR, PASTOR, GRACE COMMUNITY CHURCH: There is no pandemic.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: That is John MacArthur, mega church pastor in L.A., who told his followers last August while holding indoor services, defying the state's health guidance, as congregants gathered, shook hands, sang, many did so without masks, even though we learned early on that churches and choirs were super spreaders after a choir practice in Washington state, attended by 61 people last March, had 53 people falling ill and two dying.
But rewind to before coronavirus became hyper politicized and MacArthur was singing a different tune.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MACARTHUR: This is not persecution of the church. This is government law for the greater good of the population.
It's not noble to say, well, we're going to meet whatever the government says. That is the kind of defiance that makes Christianity look anything but loving.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: We contacted MacArthur and his church about this shift in tone, and we did receive an email back from Jenna Ellis, former President Donald Trump's senior legal adviser, who said she represented the pastor and the church. Asked if they stand by the comment, the quote, there is no pandemic, Ellis did not respond. Turns out she contracted the virus herself back in December.
One expert told CNN that the anti-COVID vaccine sentiment among evangelicals is fed by a mixture of distrust in government, ignorance about how vaccines work, misinformation and political identity.
On social media, one conspiracy theory that some evangelicals seize on is that the vaccine is what they call the mark of the beast. It's a reference to the book of Revelations where a terrible beast blasphemes God and deceives the inhabitance of the earth.
Another baseless claim is that the vaccine is actually a rouse for implanting microchips in Americans. And recently televangelist Jim Bakker used his platform to host "Walking Dead" conspiracy theories, seriously, when one of his guests told the audience that COVID-19 nasal tested are meant the steal DNA samples to create biological weapons that turn people into flesh-eating zombies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PASTOR JIM BAKKER, PIONEER OF CHRISTIAN TELEVISION: Zombies that are on the earth are a disease like any other disease that affects people and they become like zombies, is that right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Zombies also have the evil spiritual entity known as demon possession.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: So Bakker also pushed a product on his show last year called Silver Solution that he falsely agreed could rid COVID from your body and it contained a substance the NIH says can be dangerous to your health.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BAKKER: This influenza that is now circling the globe, you're saying that Silver Solution would be effective?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, let's say it hasn't been tested on this strain of the coronavirus, but it's been tested on other strains of the coronavirus --
BAKKER: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And has been able to eliminate it within 12 hours.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Now, many of the comments that we just played came during the early days of the virus. But just last week, CNN's Elle Reeve went to Baton Rouge and met with controversial Pastor Tony Spells. While 95 percent of evangelical leaders who responded to a January survey said they would be open to getting a vaccine, Spells adamantly against it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Being anti-mask and anti-vaccine, this anti- government that I'm proud to be anti-government.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Listening to all of this disinformation, it might surprise you to learn that some of the biggest evangelical voice in the country have made a crusade of promoting the vaccine, like Pastor Robert Jeffrees, who is a prominent southern Baptist preacher.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PASTOR ROBERT JEFFRESS, FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH DALLAS: I'm calling these vaccines an early Christmas present from God. And it shouldn't surprise us that God would use science to bring healing into our world. I mean, after all, in the past, people like Isaac Newton and Blaise Pascal and Louis Pasteur were all not just men of science, but men of faith, who believed God created this world in an orderly way that could be studied and benefitted from.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[08:55:00]
KEILAR: And Franklin Graham, who is son of the late famed evangelist Billy Graham, wrote on FaceBook to his nearly 10 million followers that Jesus would advocate for people using the vaccine to save lives. Based on the parable of the Good Samaritan in the Bible, he said, I would have to say yes. I think Jesus Christ would advocate for people using vaccines and medicines to treat suffering and save lives.
There are 27,000 comments on Graham's post and they are chock full of conspiracy theories and misinformation, along with these types of messages, which appear over and over again, like "satanic sellout" and "you, my friend, Franklin Graham, are leading your sheep to slaughter," and, "Father, I pray you would open Mr. Graham's eyes and stop him from leading others astray, in Jesus' Holy and precious name, amen."
The loss this country has experience over the past year has been overwhelming and many Americans have turned to family, and to friends, and to faith for comfort and answers. Unfortunately, for many evangelical congregations, they're getting the wrong messages and, in some cases, lies from pastors that they have entrusted with their faith and with their lives.
BERMAN: So important there. So important.
So, ahead, one of Vladimir Putin's most vocal critics is about to be outlawed and given the same label as ISIS. We'll go live to Moscow, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BERMAN: New this morning, a secret trial in Russia as the government moves to outlaw jailed Putin critic Alexey Navalny and put him in the same category as ISIS.
CNN's Frederik Pleitgen live in Moscow.
Fred, what would be the consequences of this extremist label for Navalny's group?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it would be severe consequences, John. And already it's having consequences. In fact, Navalny's regional operations are already saying that they've stopped their operations because the prosecutor has already said they need to stop doing. Now, if this organization, Navalny's organization is label extremist, then anybody working for that organization would face significant jail time. Anybody publicly supporting the organization would also face significant jail time. Anybody trying to donate money for them would get thrown in jail. And even if people tweet or retweet support for Navalny's organization, they would face fines or possibly jail time as well.
It was interesting because one person who's very senior in the Navalny organization said they believe that essentially the Russian government is trying to label the fight against corruption as extremism.
Now, the Kremlin was asked about this earlier today.
[09:00:02]
The spokesman for Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Peskov, said that at this point they would not comment on this matter. However, as you can imagine, this trial is one that's very important here in Russia, and, certainly, the organization believes it could be destroyed, if it is indeed declared extremist. John?
KEILAR: All right, thank you so much Fred Pleitgen in Moscow for us.
CNN's coverage continues right now.
