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New Day

New Video Shows Moments Before Andrew Brown, Jr. Shooting; New York Post Reporter Quits After Forced To Write False V.P. Story; Billionaire Battle: Musk And Bezos Trade Barbs Over NASA. Aired 7:30- 8a ET

Aired April 28, 2021 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: After rising, the daily case count is going down and deaths are going down, too, which is important and which changes, I think, some of the equations here a little bit.

But Sanjay, what if enough people don't get vaccinated? If there are still huge numbers not vaccinated, will that determine how long this guidance lasts?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I think that it will determine how long the guidance lasts. Again, I don't think we'll necessarily go backwards as a result because that's something that they really clearly want to avoid.

Let me show you U.K. and Israel, and I've shown this graph a couple of times to you guys. I show it because I think it's just inspiring to see where we could potentially go here.

You know, I think if not enough people get vaccinated as quickly, we are just going to go through this process more slowly because eventually, there will be more people who will be developing immunity just through becoming infected, which is the wrong way to do it because you could get sick, you could have long-hauling symptoms. You do not want to get this virus if you can avoid it.

So we will probably go through these same steps that we're talking about and ultimately achieving some sense of normalcy again. I think we'll likely get into this community immunity over the summer. Now it's just a question of how many people will get sick along the way and how long it will take.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And look, the thing is we have worried less about kids, right, but they cannot, right now, get vaccinated in a large way. It's safer, obviously, for fully vaccinated people to do more in public, one person asked, but can we still contract COVID and pass it on to our children or our grandchildren who aren't old enough to be vaccinated?

GUPTA: Yes, you can, and that is absolutely a consideration.

Let me show you the numbers because we calculated these numbers just to show you the risk of five to 17-year-olds versus adults. A 50 to 64-year-old has a 25 times greater likelihood of hospitalization and 440 times greater likelihood of death. If you're someone who's elderly as compared to a five to 17-year-old, 3,200 times more likely to die. So the risk is very, very different.

But again, you don't want to get this virus no matter your age because there's still a lot that we're learning about this virus. I mean, one of the things that's really struck me is that even people with mild symptoms can have long-hauling symptoms. We -- typically, you correlate the severity of symptoms with how long something's going to last. Not necessarily in this case. You do not want this virus.

I've been talking to trial investigators. I think within the next couple of weeks -- maybe by the end of May, maybe -- we could have an authorized vaccine for 12 to 15-year-olds. We are now hearing about trials that are going in kids as young as seven years old.

Part of the reason they're doing that is because they're saying hey, look, we're just doing the math on the adults. We see what the vaccine hesitancy rates are. If those vaccine hesitancy rates stay where they are we're going to need to go younger and younger in order to get enough of the population authorized to get to the 75 percent or so of the country that is immunized. So that's going to be the issue.

Ultimately, though, there's likely to be vaccines available for young children as well. We're not there yet. Thankfully, they are far less likely to get sick or die.

KEILAR: Sanjay, thank you so much for answering all of our questions and all of our viewer questions.

And I heard your ears perk up to 15.

BERMAN: I want 14-year-olds to get vaccinated. It will change my life when 14-year-olds can get vaccinated. I know it will change the lives of so many parents of kids that age. It's very exciting and according to Sanjay, now that we've talked to you, it's soon.

KEILAR: Yes, very soon. That's amazing.

Coming up, the reporter who just quit her job, claiming she was forced to write a fake story about the vice president.

BERMAN: That story just the latest in a bunch of big lies spread by conservative media. GOP conspiracy theories, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:38:33]

BERMAN: Brand-new video obtained by CNN shows the moments county deputies arrived on-scene at Andrew Brown, Jr.'s home before he was fatally shot.

The source says the video shows sheriff's deputies arriving in a pickup truck to serve Brown a warrant as part of a drug task force probe. They move in quickly, shouting commands as they arrive. Soon after, Brown was dead, shot in his car as he tried to flee, his family says.

But this footage does not show the deadly interaction between Brown and the deputies.

Joining me now is the Rev. Javan Leach, the pastor of Mount Lebanon AME Zion Church in Elizabeth City, where Andrew Brown's family attended service this past Sunday. Reverend, thanks so much for being with us.

We had a chance to look at that video overnight. I don't know if you've had a chance to see it. If you have, what are your impressions?

REV. JAVAN LEACH, PASTOR, MOUNT LEBANON AME ZION CHURCH: Well, I have not had a chance to see the actual footage but I did speak with the reporters that were there -- the anchorperson -- and I had a lot of positive feedback from a lot of my friends who were able to see it. Unfortunately, I've been on the ground working and I'm very pleased with the results as far as my friends and family who actually saw the interview.

BERMAN: In terms of the public release of the body camera footage, we don't know when it will happen. The judge, I guess, is going to hear some arguments about it today.

[07:40:02]

But how concerned are you that given how long it's taken, given the bizarre back-and-forth on it, that when it is released that people aren't going to trust what they're seeing?

LEACH: Yes. April 21, 2021, I was actually in the vicinity and I saw the tape. And at that point, I hadn't really realized what was going on until all of the reports were coming in and obviously, things were getting out into the community. And that's how long it's been since then -- the inciting incident.

And I agree with you in that I'm not quite sure if people now are going to believe because of the snippet that was given to the family, but I'm praying that full transparency will be the word of the day.

BERMAN: Have you had a chance to speak to the Brown family? Do you have a sense of how they're doing this morning?

LEACH: Yes. There was -- the first press conference with Bishop William Barber was last Saturday and the family was there (audio gap). Also, I have one of the members of the Brown family who is a member of my church. And I was so happy to be able to -- be able to uplift Andrew Brown, Jr. -- his humanity -- by the way of his family, and I was honored to do that. And we are here for the family.

BERMAN: Reverend Javan Leach, thank you very much for joining us this morning. Thank you for the work you're doing. We wish you and your community the best -- Brianna.

KEILAR: And later, how the space race between two of the world's richest men just went into warp drive.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:46:12]

A "New York Post" reporter behind a bogus story that went viral in conservative media quit -- up and left after she says the paper ordered her to write the article. Laura Italiano's story falsely claimed that migrant children were given copies of Vice President Harris' children's book as part of a welcome kit at a shelter in California.

CNN's Oliver Darcy joins us now. Oliver, there's like 14 levels of this, which are all concerning and interesting. Why don't you just tell us what you know?

OLIVER DARCY, CNN SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER: Yes, this thing has become an absolute mess for Rupert Murdoch's tabloid out here in New York.

It started, like you said, with this front-page story by this reporter that said that Vice President Kamala Harris' book was being distributed to migrant children in facilities at the border. And it sounded like a story of corruption that they were promoting her book using government officials and services.

And so, GOP officials -- they jumped on this. They started tweeting it out. You had Sen. Tom Cotton, RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, and other prominent personalities start spreading this narrative. It really went viral in right-wing media.

The problem is it just wasn't true. The "New York Post" story was based off a single photo. "The Washington Post" fact-checked this. It turns out that one book had just been donated as part of a book drive. It just was not true.

And so, the "New York Post," yesterday -- they took down their stories online and eventually republished them with an editor's note. Not a correction, an editor's note essentially saying that they got the whole thing wrong.

And then the story took another turn last night when the reporter at the center of this whole thing -- she announced her resignation. And she said that she had been ordered to write this story and that she should have pushed back harder, but she didn't, and so she was resigning.

I reached out to her and the "New York Post." You know, we're obviously curious who would have ordered her to write this false story. We haven't heard back.

But, John, the whole thing is really illustrative of how these false narratives about Joe Biden are being birthed in right-wing media, how they're going viral, and frankly, how after we fact-checked them it's almost too late. They've already spread quite a bit.

And the final point I'd make John is that it's pretty ironic that the people who scream the loudest about media bias, who scream the loudest about how journalists are sloppy, tend to be the sloppiest people out there in media who are motivated by partisanship.

BERMAN: Look, first of all, maybe first quit before writing the story.

Second of all, there's been a shift here, Oliver, where things that may have been based on the thinnest thread -- if you kind of squint you can sort of see how it might be a thing -- that's gone. Now things are just being made up -- completely made up and being accentuated and spread around the world by elected officials.

Oliver Darcy, appreciate your reporting on this. This really matters. Thank you.

DARCY: Thank you.

KEILAR: Let's talk now with former Republican congressman Francis Rooney. Sir, thank you so much for being with us.

We've been talking about some of these right-wing conspiracy theories, many of which center around coronavirus and the use of masks, in particular. If you were listening to Fox on Monday night, this was the advice that was given.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing somebody beat a kid in Walmart. Call the police immediately. Contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: What's your reaction to that?

FRANCIS ROONEY (R), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE (via Skype): That's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard in my entire life and I've heard a lot of dumb things.

This whole anti-vaccine hoax is not constructive and it's just impeding the ability to solve the problem before we have more mutations. I don't understand it. It makes no sense. Fortunately, more and more people seem to be getting vaccinated and ignoring this dribble.

[07:50:05]

KEILAR: But what do you think about all these lies? I mean, you just heard our reporter Oliver Darcy pointing out what we all know, which is they get fact-checked but not before they --

ROONEY: Yes.

KEILAR: -- have spread themselves like a virus. ROONEY: Well, Brianna, I think that's part of a bigger narrative right now, is people living in their own universe and their alternate realities getting news from wherever they want, not checking it, and believing that their views are so correct that they can't see any daylight for any imposing opinion. That's why everything's so polarized and difficult right now.

KEILAR: There was a "New York Times Magazine" report about a conference meeting of Republicans, which happened about a month after the January sixth riots.

And Congresswoman Liz Cheney -- this really centered around her leadership role. She had just voted to impeach Donald Trump. And she, according to the "Times," was accused of not being a team player, of having a defiant attitude.

One congressman even described her actions as, quote, "You look up into the stands and see your girlfriend on the opposition's side. That's one hell of a tough thing to swallow."

Are you surprised by that? This is your former conference.

ROONEY: Well, I'm -- what I'm really surprised about is Republicans continuing to go to Florida and stoke the -- stoke the beast here -- play up to Trump.

I mean, I think Liz is right. The party that I've been a member most of my life doesn't exist right now amidst all this populism and nativism and opposition to traditional Republican principles that we need to get back to. And we can't get back to them if we just continue to placate Trump.

KEILAR: Last night, sir, D.C. police officer Michael Fanone told our colleague Don Lemon about what he is experiencing -- trauma -- since January sixth. Let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OFFICER MICHAEL FANONE, DEFENDED U.S. CAPITOL ON JANUARY SIXTH: It's been very difficult seeing elected officials and other individuals kind of whitewash the events of that day or downplay what happened. A lot of us are still experiencing the emotional trauma and some are still grappling with physical injuries as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: It seems like the big lie is defining the Republican Party right now and a lot of Republicans -- they do not look. They do not listen to what someone like Officer Fanone is describing about how this has affected him and police officers that the party purports to support.

How do you see this moving forward as it defines the party?

ROONEY: Well, I think first of all, both Liz and the speaker are right. We need to have a focused January sixth investigation that's not distracted and watered down. That may help put some perspective on the horrible events that happened. I mean, we haven't had an invasion of our democracy that bad since the War of 1812 and it was terrible.

And it also reflects the fact that words do matter, especially by leaders. Just as Ronald Reagan and President Kennedy and FDR used words to unite America, this fellow that's been the president the last four years used words to break America apart and incite violence.

KEILAR: Congressman -- former congressman Francis Rooney, it is great to see you. Thanks for joining us this morning.

ROONEY: Thank you for having me.

BERMAN: All right. Next, billionaire bashing. Elon Musk takes on Jeff Bezos in a really low-brow fight over rockets.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:57:28]

KEILAR: The battle of the billionaires is launching itself into outer space, even as it is pretty low-brow here. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are sparring over the next contract to fly astronauts to the moon and their little war has gotten colorful if that's what you want to call it.

CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans has the details here -- Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT, ANCHOR, "EARLY START": Good morning, Brianna.

You know, it's a billionaire space race to build the vehicle to land the next astronauts on the moon with some vulgar body part humor thrown in here.

Look, Jeff Bezos has the rocket company Blue Origin. It's protesting NASA's latest contract with Elon Musk's SpaceX. NASA is moving forward with SpaceX as the sole contractor for the human landing system, citing costs. But, Bezos' Blue Origin filed a protest saying NASA downplayed technical challenges in this SpaceX proposal.

Here's what they wrote. "In NASA's own words, it has made a high-risk selection. Their decision eliminates opportunities for competition, significantly narrows the supply base, and not only delays but also endangers America's return to the moon."

Not uncommon to dispute a government contract. What is uncommon here, guys, Elon Musk's response.

Musk, on Twitter, replying to the news, mocked Blue Origin. Quote, "Can't get it up to orbit lol." And there's more. Musk also retweeting a picture of the Blue Origin lunar design known as Blue Moon with moon whited out and the word "balls" instead. So think rocket science meets locker room. And by the way, a third rocket company, Dynetics, also filed a

protest. The government has 100 days, Brianna, whether -- to decide -- to decide whether this has any merit.

KEILAR: I like how he put that part in parenthesis like we wouldn't know what his joke was about.

ROMANS: What he meant, right.

KEILAR: Like, he explained -- he explained it to us.

BERMAN: Explain it to us.

KEILAR: Thank you for -- right -- yes. No, I'm not going to -- no.

BERMAN: OK, sorry.

KEILAR: OK, so Musk is actually -- we're going to see a lot of him --

ROMANS: Yes.

KEILAR: -- because he's hosting "SNL" May eighth. And some of the cast are not happy about this, Christine.

ROMANS: You know, a couple of members -- cast members speaking out about the choice for Elon Musk to host "SNL."

Bowen Yang wrote, "What the f does this mean?" as a caption to Musk's tweet from over the weekend that said let's find out just how live "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE" really is.

Aidy Bryant posted -- reposted a tweet by Bernie Sanders. "The 50 wealthiest people in America today own more wealth than the bottom half of our people." Musk, of course, one of those 50.

Elon Musk, of course, not the first host to draw some pushback from the cast members. Remember in 2015, the big pushback on the show when Donald Trump was announced that he would be on the show during his campaign.

So we have seen the cast members show their -- you know, their concern and displeasure, but they have gone on to again host those shows.

Elon Musk will be hosting this weekend.

KEILAR: NEW DAY.