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New Day

Town Keeps Mask Mandate in Place; Durbin Asks for Explanation; Migrants Risk Lives Crossing the Border; Democracy Under Attack by Demographic Panic. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired May 04, 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]

DR. SWANNIE JETT, DIRECTOR OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, TOWN ON BROOKLINE, MA: Well, you know, actually, if you keep a mask mandate in place, it might give them incent to look at the shot. And, remember, COVID is not over. The pandemic still exists. So we still have people dying. It still can be transmitted. And we do know that science shows that even though it's a small percentage, that people are still contracting COVID, even when wearing masks.

So this is the one safety public health precaution that we have in place that can ensure that a person probably doesn't contract COVID or spread it to somebody else. If we lift that, along with the social distancing, we don't know what the negative impact may be.

BERMAN: Dr. Swannie Jett, my mother went to Brookline High, grandparents lived there for more than 50 years. Appreciate your work. Thanks for joining us.

JETT: Thank you.

BERMAN: Just ahead, a powerful senator's demand for answers from the FBI. Did the bureau blow a chance to prevent the Capitol attack?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And the deadly collapse of a commuter train bridge overnight in Mexico City. We have some dramatic video of the moment that it went wrong.

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[08:35:01]

BERMAN: Breaking overnight, at least 23 people killed in Mexico City when an elevated train track collapsed as a train was traveling over it. Officials say at least 65 people have been hospitalized, seven of whom are in serious condition. The mayor says one survivor was trapped in a vehicle beneath the rubble but has since been freed. He say no other people were trapped.

KEILAR: That's terrible to watch.

Dick Durbin is demanding answers from the FBI. The Democratic senator from Illinois wants to know why the bureau failed to detect plans for an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, even though it had sources inside the far right group the Proud Boys.

Whitney Wild has some more for us here in Washington.

Tell us about this.

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, the question has always been, what was the mindset of the intelligence community, of law enforcement going into January 6th? Senator Dick Durbin wants more answers about that.

He heads the Judiciary Committee. That is one of the committees overseeing the FBI. He wrote this very direct letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray asking for answers about a Reuters report that alleges the FBI had sources within the extremist group, the Proud Boys, but didn't use those sources well enough to gain what could have been crucial intelligence about their intentions for January 6th.

In his letter, Durbin cites reports that starting as early as 2019, at least four Proud Boys reportedly provided information to the FBI, including a self-described Proud Boys organizer and thought leader, adding that he feels these reports raise further concerns about the FBI's failure to detect and develop intelligence concerning the threat that the Proud Boys and other violent right wing extremists poised to the Capitol on January 6th.

Federal authorities had charged more than two dozen members of the Proud Boys and others associated with the group in cases related to the Capitol riot, Brianna. More than a dozen defendants face conspiracy charges.

We have reached out to the FBI, who said that the bureau received that letter but they did not have any additional comment.

Again, the question has always been, what information were you working with? And that is what senators are working so hard to figure out because it will give us an idea of how we got to this point when we've reported so many times there was this overwhelming amount of intelligence out there that they should have seen but for whatever reason did not believe.

KEILAR: And let's look forward. They can't let this happen again.

WILD: Right. Exactly.

KEILAR: So these things need to be answered.

WILD: Right.

KEILAR: Whitney, thank you so much for that report.

Whitney Wild.

Up next, CNN's exclusive video of human smugglers on a risky mission just over the southern U.S. border.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So right now they're just making their way slowly towards the wall. They're crawling, clearly trying to avoid being seen by anyone who might be on the border.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[08:41:36]

BERMAN: New this morning, a CNN exclusive. We're about to show you extraordinary footage from a city just across the border from El Paso, Texas.

CNN's Matt Rivers and his team met with and followed human smugglers and captured the moment when they smuggled two migrants into the U.S. And this is video rarely seen from this perspective, from the migrant's point of view. Human smuggling is, of course, a crime, but we wanted to document this process because it is part of the reality of what's happening at the border every single day and what can be lost in all the numbers is exactly how so many migrants actually arrive here using smugglers. It can be a terribly dangerous journey that hundreds of thousands of people are still willing to take part in, desperate to get to the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): As long as there's been a border wall, people have tried to climb it, up from Mexico, down to the U.S., hoping for something better on the other side. Today, one such attempt starts here in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

We watched from afar as two men carry a makeshift ladder toward a car, latching it to the side. These are poietos (ph), or human smugglers, who help cross migrants who pay them to get into the United States.

Today, the smugglers had told us to be in this neighborhood at a certain time. If they had migrants to cross, they told us we could follow them but would not tell us exactly when or where this would take place.

After we arrived, though, we're told they would indeed try to cross two migrants currently in the back seat of that car.

And so the car takes off, driving just a stone's throw from the border wall and El Paso, Texas, on the other side.

Further up the road, the car slows. Then a minute later, the trio heads toward the wall as we follow behind. This smuggler has never allowed cameras to trail him before. After months of repeated requests, he agreed to have only myself and a local producer following, only recording on our cell phones, knowing our presence could increase his chances of getting caught. Trying to cross the wall here is extremely dangerous.

RIVERS (on camera): So right now they're just making their way slowly towards the wall. They're crawling, clearly trying to avoid being seen by anyone who might be on the border, dragging the thing they're going to use to go up and over the wall. This is -- this is a difficult trek here, no question.

RIVERS (voice over): It's slow progress on their hands and knees and a bit further on they catch their breath, so we had about 30 seconds to talk with the migrants. They allowed CNN to record them only if we hid their identities. A young man and woman, 18 and 20 years old. Originally from Ecuador, they say they paid various smugglers thousands of dollars each to bring them to this point. They told us they're hoping to eventually find work in south Texas.

This is the last step of a journey tens of thousands of people make every year risking their lives and their freedom migrating to the U.S. with the help of smugglers. Smugglers who are often accused of everything from sexual abuse to extortion. Some taking terrible advantage of the vulnerable migrants they purport to help.

And some of those migrants are children, as record numbers of unaccompanied minors have been headed north recently, many from Central America. Some make it to the U.S. and others get caught by Mexican officials and end up in government-run shelters, like this one. Either way, it's likely their families paid smugglers to bring them here.

[08:45:03]

Officials at this shelter say about three quarters of the kids here were smuggled, a horrifically dangerous trip.

This shelter's psychologist says they can be raped, they can be robbed, they can be extorted, they can die on the journey. This 14- year-old girl says she was smuggled from Guatemala and that along the journey passed from smuggler to smuggler. The threat of rape was always there. At times, crowded into a van with many others, she felt like she couldn't get enough air. We couldn't make any noise, she says. They would only open up these little windows for a bit and then they would close them. It felt like you were choking.

Human smuggling like this is often run by loosely organized groups, but sometimes, and especially in Mexico, experts say there is a big role played by organized crime.

RIVERS (on camera): The cartels that operate so freely here. Smugglers bringing people north either work directly for those cartels or they work independently, but they have to pay the cartels for the right to move through certain territories.

VICTOR MANJARREZ, FORMER BORDER PATROL EL Paso SECTOR CHIEF: Human smuggling is a multimillion-dollar industry. And I would -- I would venture to guess that it's approaching a billion dollar industry.

RIVERS (voice over): Former Border Patrol El Paso Sector Chief Victor Manjarrez says some cartels have used that money to create wide- reaching, sophisticated smuggling networks.

MANJARREZ: And it's almost like a Fortune 500 company dealing with their supply chain.

RIVERS: And at the very end of that chain, smugglers, like these, the men that we would later follow to the wall. They say they worked for Lalina (ph), an armed wing of the Juarez Cartel. Each migrant they cross pays the cartel roughly $2,000, a staggering sum for most migrants that often leaves them penniless. The smugglers say the cartel gives them a small cut for performing what they call a service.

We try to help them, he says. People come and ask for help, kids, women, men. We support them.

But this isn't some selfless act. They get paid for this. And they are part of a system where rape, extortion, kidnapping and even murder are rampant.

We don't do that, he says. We're all humans. They want to arrive safely. We don't harm them. We give them food and water and help them cross. Other people may hurt them, but we don't.

We, of course, have no way to know if he's telling the truth, but he says for him this is a family affair. He works with his brother and even his 14-year-old nephew. They all smuggle people. The 14-year-old shows me one of the ladders they use.

Though when he crosses kids over the wall, some his own age or even younger, he does it another way.

He says, I tie a thick rope around their bellies and lower them down so they don't fall.

His uncle says, without them, two migrants like the ones that we followed through the desert who want to get to the U.S., wouldn't be able to.

We watch as they hook their ladder over the border wall fence. The young man goes first. Once he's down, he runs. And the young woman then follows. Once up and over, she hits the ground and races off as well. We can't watch where she goes because the smuggler tells us we've got to go.

RIVERS (on camera): We had to run back from the fence, obviously, because the smuggler was still afraid of getting caught. But, for him, it was a successful mission.

RIVERS (voice over): But for the two people that just crossed, their journey is far from over. It's mainly desert on that side of the wall and they didn't really seem to have a plan. The smuggler told us he had no idea what happened to them after they went over.

Those two migrants managed to get in, but for many, that's not the case. A few days later, we were filming something else on the border when we noticed something.

More people desperate to cross. A woman and three young children make a break for the wall. Here, though, the actual border is just the Rio Grande. More of a stream really. One by one, holding hands, they make their way. And once they've crossed, they're in the U.S. But then comes the wall. A towering steel presence between them and where they want to be. Border patrol detained them a few minutes later.

Matt Rivers, CNN, Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: It just strikes me, John. I'm watching that. We're watching that report. Matt Rivers is on the border in that report. He's just reporting live last hour from the subway overhang collapse in Mexico City. We had Clarissa Ward on from India and taking us inside the emergency room where people are dying. And it's just really giving us a sense, our colleagues are, of what is happening, you know, what is really happening on the ground.

[08:50:02]

BERMAN: These are perspectives, honestly, I don't think you see anywhere else. But these are perspectives -- I don't know that I've ever seen what Matt just showed us from that perspective, from the perspective of the migrants going over. And it was chilling, right? They get over the fence and then Matt, no one knows what happened to them as they cross what is a very potentially dangerous desert with no real plan as far as anyone knows. Just remarkable.

KEILAR: Yes, it certainly is.

Ahead, the Republican Party's hard relationship with the truth and what that means for American democracy. A CNN "Reality Check," next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Acceptance of the big lie as truth is now the litmus test for being a member of the Republican Party without being completely ostracized.

John Avlon has our "Reality Check."

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Mitt Romney got called a traitor and a communist for having the courage of his convictions and speaking out against Donald Trump. And it's just the latest example of old-school Republicans getting shouted down by angry mobs.

Of course, these cancel culture censures were refusing to buy into the big lie are small compared to the mob attack on our U.S. Capitol. So don't buy into the idea that this is a conflict between establishment and insurgents. Now, this is a fight between truth and lies, pure and simple. And right now, within the Republican Party, the lie seems to be winning.

Listen to Ohio Congressman Anthony Gonzalez on the pressure to push Liz Cheney from her position. Quote, if a prerequisite for leading our conference is continuing to lie to our voters, then Liz is not the best fit. Liz isn't going to lie to people.

This is a Republican saying it plainly, lying has become a litmus test for his party and this is dangerous for our democracy because we need a sane, center right party. That's why it's worth remembering that kowtowing to an angry mob is literally the opposite of conservativism.

[08:55:04]

This is a political philosophy founded in reaction to the French Revolution when the guillotine violence was enabled by ideology and cult of personality. The goal then was radical change. Now it's radical reaction to change. But the essential impulse is the same, anger fueled by fear resulting in group think and group blame.

To the base, this is about fear of demographic change and that's what's driving an assault on our democracy. They've been convinced by hyper partisan hucksters (ph) and media and politics that perpetuating power is nothing less than a matter of tribal survival and the refusal to accept an election loss is a symptom of that sickness. The claims of mass fraud are false but the demographic panic is real.

Now, the percentage of non-college-educated whites is declining dramatically in our country, including in 14 states that most closely contested the last election. And get this, a study of people arrested for the Capitol attack found that they were four times more likely to come from counties where the non-Hispanic white population is declining most. That couldn't achieve by force is now being achieved through bogus partisan recounts while the big lie is being used to justify voter suppression in 47 state legislatures according to the Brennan Center.

Majority rule is under attack as a way to resist demographic change. Mindful that counties that Joe Biden won are home to 67 million more Americans than Trump counties. This year we'll also see epic battle to rig the system through partisan gerrymandering, trying to override the popular vote by stacking the deck with safe congressional seats. These folks may pretend to be super patriots, but there's no way to attack democracy and defend America.

If you don't believe me, listen to Liz Cheney. Quote, we can't embrace the notion this election is stolen. It's a poison in the blood stream of our democracy. We can't white wash what happened on January 6th or perpetuate Trump's big lie. It is a threat to democracy. She's right.

And that's your "Reality Check."

KEILAR: John Avlon, thank you so much.

BERMAN: President Biden speaking soon on the race to vaccinate as we get big news about vaccinating children. A live report from the White House just ahead.

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[09:00:09]

BERMAN: Time now for a very quick "Good Stuff". We want to show you this photo from the Carter Center. This was the visit of President Biden and Dr. Jill Biden with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter in Georgia last week. They were unable to attend the inauguration due to the pandemic.

The former president is 96, the first lady, 93, and, Brianna, they're going to celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary in July.

KEILAR: That's amazing, 75 years. I live for the good stuff. It's great to see this photo.

CNN's coverage continues right now.