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New Day

Joe Rogan Wades into Anti-Vax Narrative; COVID Explosion Overwhelms India; Controversy over Cheney; Trump's First Months out of Office. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired April 28, 2021 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Eighteen and 49 are up 50 percent in the last couple of months.

And through the course of this pandemic, almost 2,500 people under the age of 30 in the United States have died from this.

But this virus doesn't have to kill you to hurt you. You know, everyone, I think, knows now somebody who is suffering from long hauler symptoms from this virus. And maybe most importantly now the young are the reservoirs of this virus in our community. They are really powering the spread. So the only way to put this virus down once and for all is to immunize and inoculate, vaccinate young people, and that needs to be done.

Joe Rogan really should walk this back and get educated.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, it's bad advice. It's bad science. It just is.

REINER: Yes.

BERMAN: So, yesterday, President Biden announced new guidelines for people wearing masks, largely for vaccinated people wearing masks outdoors and other places. They didn't change the guidance on wearing masks indoors yet, even for vaccinated people. Dr. Walensky, the CDC director, said she wants to wait until more people are vaccinated. But -- but why? Why not just say, if you're a vaccinated person working with other vaccinated people, you don't need to wear a mask indoors?

Do you think you need to see that guidance changed?

REINER: I do. Look, I sympathize with Dr. Walensky and what she needs to do. Right now she's really the director of the CDC for two different countries, a vaccinated America and unvaccinated America, and it's about 50/50 now.

But the truth of the matter is, data that has come out of the CDC, looking at the first 87 million fully vaccinated people in the United States, shows what we hoped it would show, which is these vaccines are amazingly effective. Out of 87 million fully vaccinated people, you know, only about 5,000 symptomatic infections and only about 70 folks have died. You know, those are percentages with multiple zeros after the decimal point.

So these drugs work exactly as advertised. And if you are vaccinated, you are largely immune. But I think the CDC is reluctant to tell people who are vaccinated, you don't need to wear masks indoors or outdoors because that's the message that unvaccinated people will get as well.

I'm hoping that they'll give us some incremental guidance and start sort of showing, you know, what's coming next. And what -- what's coming next is vaccinated people going to movie theaters and going to Broadway shows and sitting in more tightly packed restaurants. That, I think, is what is coming. But I think they're easing the country into it.

BERMAN: Dr. Reiner, thank you very much for being with us.

One thing I want to say, because I don't think we say it enough, just in case people were wondering, cases are dropping in the United States.

REINER: Yes.

BERMAN: The number of daily cases have dropped substantially over the last few weeks. We reported on when they were going up. I want to make clear, they are now going down, as are deaths.

REINER: Right.

BERMAN: Dr. Reiner, thanks so much for being with us.

REINER: My pleasure.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: India has just hit an all-time record for daily coronavirus cases and deaths. Hospitals have been so overwhelmed with patients that oxygen is running low there. Parking lots have been turning into massive crematoriums. One investigative journalist who has several family members to the virus says that she's become the target of harassment and government censorship for challenging the official death toll, and she's with us now.

Rana Ayybu, she is an investigative journalist and a global opinions writer for "The Washington Post."

Rana, first off, I am so sorry. I know you have been affected, like so many people by this personally. And you say that what you're witnessing is carnage.

Tell us about this.

RANA AYYBU, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST AND WRITER: Well, Brianna, what's happening -- what's happening to me is almost happening to every second, every third family in India because, you know, you -- you shutter to pick up your call because you don't know who's -- who's the next person who got -- who has fallen victim to this -- to this carnage (INAUDIBLE) India. The reason why I'm calling it a carnage is because, you know, just

right now I saw (INAUDIBLE) put out a tweet saying, can anyone (INAUDIBLE) get him a slot at the crematorium for a relative because the crematoriums are booked for the next three days. People are -- people are -- you know, the funerals are being carried out on roads (ph). There's no dignity for people in death, the dignity we needed to (INAUDIBLE) to them while they were alive.

The devastation is for everybody to see. India are saying we -- we are recording an average of 2,000 deaths in a day. But if you go by official figures, if you go by multiple reports, the officials that I have spoken to, the local reporters that I've been -- I've been speaking to who are regularly at crematoriums, I -- it is -- it -- I would not be exaggerating that the numbers in India anywhere -- anywhere between 10,000 to 15,000 deaths in a day, and I still think that's a very, very conservative estimate. So this is a carnage because this country right now is running on the generosity and kindness of strangers and acquaintances because the government of India, Narendra Modi, has criminally abdicated his responsibility as the prime minister, looking the over way.

[06:35:16]

As we talk, there are political rallies by a ruling party in the southern part of India and where thousands of people are out on the streets without masks.

Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, I mean, it is -- the idea that there are large gatherings right now that are being promoted is nuts. And there are major transparency issues as well with the government. I know that you have actually seen your tweets disappear from your timeline. Can you tell us about this?

AYYBU: Yes. So I tweeted -- I put a -- I put a thread on Twitter about -- about -- about fact-checking the government's data on -- on the number of deaths in India, especially the government figures versus (ph) the actual figures. For instance, I put out in one tweet that in one crematorium alone, a journalist has witnessed 19 funerals where the government -- whereas the government says only seven dead.

So I basically put out a list of the number states (ph) that this is happening. And the next day, when I went out to -- went on to go tweet that -- that particular tweet, it had disappeared from my timeline.

And I'm not the only one. This is happened to multiple journalists in India. The chief minister of the largest state in India, (INAUDIBLE), has -- has -- has called on hospitals saying that nobody will talk about lack of oxygen in hospitals. If they do that, they will be charged.

A person -- a young boy, yesterday, put out a Twitter tweet on social media that his father was -- was gasping for breath and he did not have oxygen, can somebody please help him. He was charged by the (INAUDIBLE) government for just putting out a single tweet. We are being arrested for putting out tweets asking for oxygen.

This government -- the government is -- I mean this is dictatorial if nothing else. Our tweets are being deleted. The -- the prime -- the Indian higher commission has written to the Australian government over -- over in -- over an editorial that talks about the hubris of the Indian prime minister and his irresponsibility and his enabling of this carnage. Instead of handling the situation, the government is either covering up the number of deaths, there's absolutely no transparency, and the people who are being -- who are speaking the truth, their voices are being silenced, their journalism is being silenced to (INAUDIBLE), which is perhaps the only place where people can speak the truth because the Indian media is clearly living in a (INAUDIBLE) universe (ph). Except for the international media and a few honorable exceptions, Indian media, by and large, is not speaking the truth. The truth that we know is only coming from social -- social -- is only coming from social media.

Our hospitals are a war zone. There's no oxygen. People are -- people are crying, they're howling because they are just -- they are just people (INAUDIBLE), begging each other, can you get me oxygen? And that's a devastation that is unfolding in India right now. I can't even explain. I mean it is -- it's -- it just leads to anxiety for us on a daily basis.

As a journalists covering this, I'm anxious. I mean there are days I can't sleep. I have not been able to sleep for the past two nights because my phone keeps buzzing, somebody's asking for an ICU bed, somebody's asking for oxygen.

I've lost my next door neighbor. I've lost dear friends in their mid- 30s. I've lost a relative. My maternal family, my -- six of them are in hospitals right now. I don't know.

And this -- and they got hospital bed after I had to put an SOS on social media. And I -- I'm somebody who enjoys a great deal of privilege as a journalist, as somebody who has a social media following, I'm thinking about 50 percent of India that does not even have Internet connectivity. To not even know what's happening in rural (ph) India where there is so little awareness of what's -- of COVID-19 that people have not been vaccinated.

A doctor that I spoke to in (INAUDIBLE), which is one of the northern states in India, said there are only dead bodies that he can count. There are no patients, there are only dead bodies. That's the scale of devastation. And the fact that instead of addressing the issue, the prime minister of India just wants to cover it up, and that's not going to help.

KEILAR: No.

Well, Rana, you are sounding the alarm, and we are hearing you loud and clear.

Rana Ayyub, thank you so much for being with us this morning.

AYYUB: Thank you so much, Brianna. KEILAR: She's on an island. Senator Josh Hawley firing back at criticism from Congresswoman Liz Cheney.

BERMAN: And where one Republican lawmaker rode out the Capitol insurrection armed with a Civil War sword.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:43:36]

BERMAN: Bad blood in the Republican Party spilling out in public. Senator Josh Hawley firing back after criticism from Congresswoman Liz Cheney, saying she is now an island with no support in her own caucus.

CNN's Lauren Fox is here with the latest.

First of all, Lauren, great to see you.

So, how did Josh Hawley respond to this?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, yesterday, he told my colleague, Manu Raju, that he thought that Liz Cheney was on an island of her own. And I want to kind of put this into context because if you remember, Josh Hawley was one of the senators who led that charge to invalidate the election. And I think one of the things that Cheney was making the point of in her comments earlier this week was that anyone who was part of that really should be disqualified from running for higher office.

So Hawley here firing back. I want the read exactly what he said. He said, quote, this is somebody who has no support in her own caucus, who has hung her own members out to dry over and over. I think she's on an island.

Of course, Cheney, one of the Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump in the House, one of the very few Republicans who decided to make that vote.

And I think that one of the things to keep in mind here is that, yes, Cheney is in a different place than many Republicans in the House conference, but she's not necessarily the only person who has these visions. She's one of the only people willing to speak out about it right now.

KEILAR: And it's so interesting to hear what House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, said about Cheney's leadership position because she is number three in the House.

[06:45:07]

Let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is Cheney still a good fit for your leadership team, do you believe? REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): That's a question for the conference.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But what do you believe?

MCCARTHY: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you -- hold on, what do you believe?

MCCARTHY: I think, from a perspective, if you're sitting here at a retreat that's focused on policy and focused on the future of making America the next century and you're talking about something else, you're not being productive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: And I think it's important to remind everyone at home, this is supposed to be a policy conference. And what we've seen over the last couple of days is really a tit for tat between Republicans coming out of this conference, interviews with McCarthy, interviews with Cheney. And I think that that is something that speaks to where the Republican Party is right now.

He also said it's up to the conference to decide. We should remind people, they did take a vote back in February.

KEILAR: That's right. Why doesn't he say that.

FOX: The vote was resounding, 145-61. It was a secret ballot to keep her in her leadership post. They already had this discussion. They had this family discussion. It was an long -- hours-long meeting. They voted. They decided to keep her. He's basically saying, she's -- she's on a limb now and perhaps they need to have that conversation again. And I think that that is pretty stunning coming from McCarthy.

BERMAN: Yes, his language has definitely shifted on Liz Cheney over the last several months.

FOX: Yes.

BERMAN: That would be very interesting --

KEILAR: He shifts all language on everything, though, is also worth pointing out.

BERMAN: Well, on himself.

KEILAR: I mean that's --

BERMAN: I mean he contradicts himself often in the same day.

KEILAR: That's right. He's got it covered.

BERMAN: Lauren, what do we know about swordsman Congressman Bruce Westerman? FOX: Well, so, back on January 6th, he recounted this story to my

colleague, Kristen Wilson (ph), talking about the fact that he was in McCarthy's office with a number of other people on January 6th and then he went into another room for a period of time and when he came back everyone was gone. So he saw a sword, took it off the wall, went to the bathroom and hid with the sword. He said that he could hear the rioters in McCarthy's anti (ph) room, although they never got close to McCarthy's personal bathroom, where he was hiding.

But, I mean, I think this just speaks to the trauma that members felt that day, that staff felt that day, that is going to be a part of all of our lives. Anyone who was at the Capitol complex on that day recounting that story. I mean I can't think of anything that sounds scarier than feeling so afraid that you have to grab a sword off the wall and sitting on -- on a -- in the bathroom to keeping yourself safe. I think it's an amazing story. Also just terrifying to realize that you've come out of a room and everyone else is gone.

KEILAR: Yes, you're alone, abandoned.

BERMAN: With a sword.

Lauren Fox, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate it.

So, former President Trump out of office, off Twitter, and still complaining about election results. An inside look at Donald Trump's unconventional first months post-presidency. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:52:00]

KEILAR: Former President Trump's first 100 days out of office have been far from conventional. While his predecessors usually disengage from politics, Donald Trump has been weighing a full return to the spotlight with a potential presidential bid in 2024.

And CNN's Gabby Orr is live here with us in Washington with more on this.

He had a rough transition, I guess you could say, Gabby, to start his post-presidency.

GABBY ORR, CNN REPORTER: He did. This was not an easy transition for former President Trump. Part of the reason for that is because he refused to accept the election results. And my sources down at Mar-a- Lago said that the outcome of that was that they had nothing set up when he finally got down there on January 20th. There weren't office spaces, desks, phones, computers, nothing like that for the staff that he had in place.

And, you know, when you see these photos surfacing now of him meeting with candidates and former aides down there, those are actually being taken from the bridal suite above Mar-a-Lago's ballroom, which is now serving as his office. So that should illustrate to you just how unprepared they were for that transition to happen. KEILAR: Oh, my goodness.

BERMAN: The bridal suite? Sort of where the magic happens.

ORR: Right. Right. He was reluctant to turn that into his office, but ultimately aides said, you need a space to operate at. And so that became that space.

BERMAN: Is there like a heart-shaped hot tub in there? But I digress.

Besides hanging out in the bridal sweet with other people, which is strange in and of itself, how does he spend his days?

ORR: Yes. So he stopped golfing on Mondays and Tuesdays, I'm told. Part of that is because he has just so many meetings to do with candidates and his team to talk about the endorsements that he's rolling out for all of these 2022 races.

But other than that, you know, most days he starts on the golf course at 9:00 a.m. He's usually golfing 18 holes, sometimes 27. And then it's back to Mar-a-Lago for more meetings. Occasionally he'll hear business pitches from people who are brought in to talk to him. He'll talk about his fundraising operation, which is still kind of getting off the ground. And then, you know, have these interviews with candidates who he's trying to recruit against Republicans who he deems disloyal.

KEILAR: And so -- well, that's the question then. So, how big of a factor is he going to be? What is his political presence going to be in the midterms?

ORR: Well, a bit of news on this front. He's actually planning to resume his rallies as soon as next month. A senior adviser to the former president told me yesterday that we could see Trump start doing rallies in May. So that would be for a lot of these candidates who he has endorsed already.

And on top of, you know, physically supporting these candidates, hitting the campaign trail alongside of them, he's actively working behind the scenes to infuse the Republican Party with more pro-Trump friendly candidates. So he's recruiting primary challengers against Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski. He's also heavily invested in the Missouri, Ohio and Georgia Senate races. So he's really getting involved in, you know, making sure that he molds this party in his image moving forward.

BERMAN: So the headline will be Trump leaves bridal suite for political rallies.

[06:55:00]

KEILAR: Right.

BERMAN: I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time getting past -- getting past the bridal suite. So -- so big picture, what about him and his plans for 2024? Where is

he on whether or not he will be an actual candidate, or just flirt with it for four years?

ORR: That is the biggest question looming over the Republican Party right now is, what does Donald Trump do for 2024? And it's actually caused a lot of tension between some of his allies. There are quite a few of them who want him to just take his time to figure that out. They're not sure that, you know, he'll be kind of up there in his 70s at that point, if it's the best idea to run again. But there are others who say, we really need to have a field clearing announcement soon, that we're already seeing candidates out there, you know, Mike Pompeo has traveled to Iowa, Nikki Haley has been to a number of states that will be crucial to the general election in the 2024 Republican primary. And so they want him to kind of get out there early and announce whether or not he's going to run so that some of these other candidates don't gain momentum and forge relationships with his base.

KEILAR: Let's clear something up real quick on the bridal suite because I think -- is this the bridal suite like where the bride and the bridesmaids get ready or is this like the bridal suite like the honeymoon suite?

ORR: This is the -- this is the bridal suite where brides would get married if they were get -- where they would get ready if they were getting married at Mar-a-Lago.

BERMAN: Oh, so they're primping.

KEILAR: So there -- there's no --

BERMAN: They're primping.

KEILAR: Yes. Yes.

BERMAN: Not the -- no the other stuff.

KEILAR: There's no heart-shaped hot tub is what she's saying.

BERMAN: So -- so Jason Miller's not like tossing rose petals as -- as Kevin McCarthy walks in there?

ORR: I don't think that's happening. Lots of phone calls, no rose pedals.

BERMAN: But we don't know for sure.

OK. OK.

Yes, I didn't -- I didn't know the difference between the bride -- because I've never actually been invited to the --

KEILAR: Never been a bride.

BERMAN: To the -- to the one where the brides gets ready. KEILAR: Or a bridesmaid. See, this is what -- this is the knowledge

that we gain as women, right?

BERMAN: All right.

KEILAR: Gabby, thank you so much. Great reporting there.

BERMAN: Thanks, Gabby. It's great reporting. Thank you very much.

KEILAR: Ahead of his primetime address tonight, President Biden is rolling out the next phase of his economic relief plan, and the price tag is $1.8 trillion. So how is he going to pay for it?

BERMAN: And new fallout from a fake story that went viral on conservative media. "The New York Post" reporter who wrote it just resigned.

So there's a whole suite?

KEILAR: There's a whole.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)