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Facing Ouster, Liz Cheney Says GOP at a 'Turning Point'; McConnell Vows to Stop Biden as GOP Demands Bipartisanship; Biden Backs Suspension of Vaccine Patents in 'Extraordinary Measure'; Reopening Businesses Struggle to Find Employees; Some Baseball Teams Taking Advantage of High Vaccination Rates. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired May 06, 2021 - 06:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Brianna Keilar, alongside John Berman on this NEW DAY. Trump or the truth? Liz Cheney, being ostracized by her party, declares that Republicans are at a turning point.

[05:59:23]

Plus, the GOP slams President Biden for a lack of bipartisanship but an admission from Mitch McConnell hurts their case.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So we pointed out all the bizarre ways the Capitol insurrectionists have been caught, but there's a new one this morning. How Grandma's gossip did one of them in.

And as American cities begin to fully reopen, we'll speak live with a scientist behind the Pfizer vaccine about whether that's a risk.

KEILAR: A very good morning to viewers here in the United States and around the world. It is Thursday, May 6.

Liz Cheney is not going down without a fight. The No. 3 Republican in the House delivering a stark warning about her party's future while she's about to lose her leadership position for speaking the truth about the 2020 election.

In a new op-ed in "The Washington Post," she cautions that the GOP is at a turning point and that repeating lies about the election could provoke more violence. We're going to read you some big sections of what she writes here.

Quote, "The question before us now is whether we will join Trump's crusade to delegitimize and undo the legal outcome of the 2020 election with all the consequences that might have. I have worked," she says, "overseas in nations where changes in leadership come only with violence, where democracy takes hold until the next violent upheaval. America is exceptional, because our constitutional system guards against that. At the heart of our republic is a commitment to the peaceful transfer of power among political rivals in accordance of law. President Ronald Reagan described this as our American miracle."

BERMAN: She goes on to write, "While embracing or ignoring Trump's statements might seem attractive to some for fundraising and political purposes, that approach will do profound long-term damage to our party and our country. Trump has never expressed remorse or regret for the attack of January 6 that now suggests that our elections and our legal and constitutional system cannot be trusted to do the will of the people. This is immensely harmful, especially as we now compete on the world stage against communist China and its claims that democracy is a failed system."

KEILAR: Cheney says, "For Republicans, the path forward is clear. First, support the ongoing Justice Department criminal investigations of the January 6 attack. Those investigations must be comprehensive and objective. Neither the White House or any member of Congress should interfere."

"Second," she says, "we must support a parallel bipartisan review by a commission with subpoena power to seek and find the facts. It will describe for all Americans what happened. And finally, we Republicans need to stand for genuinely conservative principles and steer away from the dangerous and anti-Democratic Trump cult of personality. In our hearts, we are devoted to the American miracle."

She says, "We believe in the rule of law, and limited government, and a strong national defense, and in prosperity and opportunity brought by low taxes and fiscally conservative policies."

BERMAN: She writes, "There is much at stake now, including the ridiculous wokeness of our political rivals, the irrational policies at the border, and run-away spending that threatens to return to the catastrophic inflation of the 1970s. Reagan formed a broad coalition from across the political spectrum to return American sanity, and we need to do the same now. We know how. But this will not happen if Republicans choose to abandon the rule of law and join Trump's crusade to undermine the foundation of our democracy and reverse the legal outcome of the last election."

KEILAR: "History is watching," writes Cheney. "Our children are watching. We must be brave enough to defend the basic principles that underpin and protect our freedom and our Democratic process."

She says, "I'm committed to doing that, no matter what the short-term political consequences might be."

Let's bring in former Reagan White House official Linda Chavez. You know, it seems -- and thank you so much for being with us this morning.

LINDA CHAVEZ, FORMER REAGAN WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL: Thank you.

KEILAR: It is seeming right now that Cheney is going to be out of leadership, that she will be purged. Whether she holds onto her congressional seat is still to be determined. How you do see her future in the GOP?

CHAVEZ: Well, it's very hard to tell what her future in the GOP is going to be. I think the real question is what is the future of the GOP? Because what you have is President Trump dynamiting the very foundation of American democracy. You cannot have a democracy unless you have the people who vote accept the results of an election.

And he has basically taken a big stick of dynamite and blown that up, and I think the rubble is going to end up falling on the Republican Party. And it could be the death knell of the Republican Party. It may not happen next year or the year following. But this is not the party that I joined in the 1980s because of Ronald Reagan.

KEILAR: It seems many House Republicans, even though you know they don't believe, some of them, the big lie, they're committed to it for their political ambitions. But how can they reject former President Donald Trump when to do so is, as Cheney shows us, political suicide?

CHAVEZ: Well, it is because there hasn't yet been a critical mass of people willing to do it. I think there was a moment after the January 6 insurrection when Republicans could have banded together, could have rejected President Trump, could have basically sent him off to Mar-a- Lago, never to be heard from again in any meaningful way.

[06:05:06]

They chose not to do so. And it's very hard to understand why. Yes, President Trump was popular with the Republican base, but I think that would have waned, particularly with his now being in jail, in Facebook jail and not being able to communicate through Facebook, Twitter, or some of the social media that he's used in the past.

But they chose not to do that. Instead, they went through the cult of personality. They have wrapped their future in Donald Trump, and I think that's very perilous for the party.

KEILAR: Is conservatism dead, do you think?

CHAVEZ: Well, Donald Trump never represented conservatism. He was never a conservative. He was a populist. He was all about Donald Trump. And whatever policy he thought could improve his standings in the polls, that's the policy he took.

Conservatism has always been, just as Liz Cheney suggested, about certain principles: smaller government, lower taxes, fiscal responsibility, and a devotion to the rule of law. But first and foremost in that rule of law is accepting the results of elections. And so long as the party continues this fiction that the last election was stolen, I think it does not have a long-term future. It has got to reject what Donald Trump continues to say. He's just a sore loser, and they ought to start calling him that.

KEILAR: So for people like Liz Cheney, for people like you, for people like Mitt Romney who are, you know, more traditional conservatives, it's -- it's like watching folks who are in the wilderness. Where do you go?

CHAVEZ: Well, I ended up reregistering as an independent. I continue to hope to vote for Republican candidates, particularly at the local and state level. Larry Hogan's been a great governor for my state of Maryland. And I support Republicans like that. There are plenty of good Republicans out there, but they need not wrap

themselves in the lie of Donald Trump, and that's what I think needs to get home. And they really need to understand that there are some of us who cannot abide the big lie.

KEILAR: Linda Chavez, thank you so much for speaking with us this morning. We appreciate it.

CHAVEZ: Thank you.

BERMAN: So more major political news overnight. Republicans have been demanding what they call bipartisanship when it comes to the infrastructure bill, and they've criticized the Biden administration for not being bipartisan enough.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R-WY): We want to work together with this administration on true infrastructure, and I think there's a deal to be had.

SEN. ROB PORTMAN (R-OH): If the White House is going to work with us, this is a deal we can do. Infrastructure has always been bipartisan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So they say they want bipartisanship. How bipartisan does this sound?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): One hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That was Mitch McConnell just yesterday, 2021, which sounds an awful lot like Mitch McConnell, 2010.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCONNELL: Our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second turn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Joining me now, Lisa Lerer, national political correspondent for "The New York Times."

First of all, McConnell's aged well. I mean, 11 years, he looks pretty good. But when you hear Republicans saying, we want bipartisanship, we want bipartisanship, but then the leader says, I want to stop everything that Biden is doing, it kind of undercuts their argument.

LISA LERER, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Oh, exactly. This was a major gift to Democrats. I mean, for the first 100-plus days in the Biden administration, Republicans in public and in private have been saying this is not how this president campaigned. He campaigned as someone who's going to reach across the aisle, someone who's going to cut these bipartisan deals like back in the day.

And now they're -- they're sort of playing -- revealing their hand, that they weren't here, necessarily, to cut those bipartisan deals. So it really strengthens the argument that Democrats have been making, in part pushed by their base, to just push through as much legislation, as much executive orders, as much of their agenda as possible before they get into the midterm elections and risk losing control of Congress.

BERMAN: See, that's what some Democrats are saying. One Democrat that's not saying that, though, yet, is Joe Biden. Listen to how he responded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It seems as though the Republican Party is trying to identify what it stands for, and they're in the midst of a significant sort of mini-revolution going on in the Republican Party. I think the Republicans are further away from trying to figure out who they are and what they stand for than I thought they would be at this point.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So it's interesting. That wasn't the bite I was talking about. Joe Biden was asked about Mitch McConnell specifically, and Biden says, "You know what? McConnell said that back in the Obama administration, and I, Joe Biden, was still able to get things done with him."

[06:10:09]

He campaigned this way, too. I mean, other Democrats said, I don't want to work with McConnell. There are no deals to be had. Biden said, You know what? I'm going to still try. I've had success in the past. He still -- still seems to be saying he's still going to try.

LERER: And I think what the White house would argue is that he is trying, that he's having Republicans up to the White House. He's talking to McConnell. He's talking to a lot of Republicans, sometimes in calls that aren't reported widely, and that he's trying to cut a deal.

But they would argue that they're not going to wait indefinitely, and that if Republicans don't come to the table, the country is in the middle of all these crises. They're going to push forward.

And I think McConnell's comments have strengthened their hand on that.

We also know from talking to folks in the White House that Biden's views on -- on the Republican Party have evolved. That he did campaign believing that he could cut these deals, not thinking that the Senate was the place that was his home for nearly half a century, where he was, you know, going out to cocktail parties and wheeling and dealing, cutting these deals. He recognizing that some of those days were gone.

But what really changed his view of what might be possible was the attack on the Capitol, and watching the party in that moment, he began to think that perhaps he wouldn't have a dance partner on the other side in the same way.

But he knows that, you know, politically, it's extremely detrimental for him to just come out and say, Oh, I've given up on any kind of bipartisan legislation. So he's a little bit doing this -- this two- step, where publicly, they're sending out messaging that they're trying to work with Republicans. Privately, they're telling Republicans and Democrats, we're not going to wait forever. And I don't think the American public should expect them to wait forever.

BERMAN: A guy like Joe Manchin who's sort of danced around. He was pressed on this last night. He didn't give any actual solid answer on it. But -- but doesn't McConnell's statements put pressure on Joe Manchin? If McConnell's going to say, I'm 100 percent against everything Biden does, what's Manchin waiting for?

LERER: Well, I think it also gives cover to Manchin if he wants to just vote with Democrats. Right?

BERMAN: That's what I mean.

LERER: Yes. I think that's right. I think it does give -- it was an extremely detrimental statement from McConnell in one way, if the goal is to get bipartisan legislation.

But if the goal is to unify his base and to remind Republicans that, while they're spending all this time fighting with themselves over Liz Cheney, they have this common enemy, who is Joe Biden, then perhaps it is politically somewhat of a helpful statement. I think it's interesting that that response came when he was asked about the situation in the House and what Republicans were going to do with Liz Cheney.

BERMAN: It was interesting. Clearly, he thought about how he was going to handle that.

I want to talk quickly about California, the recall which seems likely there now. Caitlyn Jenner did her first extensive TV interview. She is running. Let's listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAITLYN JENNER, CANDIDATE IN CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL RECALL: He's been horrible for business. Obviously, companies are leaving right and left. Eighteen thousand companies have left California. My friends are leaving California. Actually, my neighbor, the guy across from me, he was packing up his house. I said where are you going? And he says, I'm moving to Sedona, Arizona. I can't take it anymore. I can't walk down the streets and see the homeless.

I don't want to leave. OK? Either I stay and fight or I get out of here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: She's talking about current California Governor Gavin Newsom there. I guess I'm more interested in the fact of this interview, with Caitlyn Jenner going on "Hannity" as a way to deal with the recall there. What did you think of it?

LERER: Right. Where this interview was done is really, really important. Look, I don't think we're revealing any massive political secrets by telling viewers that California is a pretty blue state.

BERMAN: This just in.

LERER: In fact -- breaking news. In fact, a Republican hasn't won there, I think, statewide in 15 years or so. So part of the argument Newsom and his team have been making is that this requires little more than a right-wing effort to basically steal the governor's mansion.

Now, obviously, there are real concerns in California about Newsom's leadership in the pandemic, about his handling of the schools, about the shutdowns, of course, about the infamous French Laundry dinner. But this sort of -- the fact that Caitlyn Jenner is sucking up so much of the oxygen, first of all, pushes off any real examination of Newsom's record, eat up some of the air time. And also, the fact that, you know, she's using all these Trump folks, that she's making her debut on FOX News helps really bolster his argument that this is a right-wing effort.

So I think that, if you're Gavin Newsom, you're pretty happy to see that interview and see where she is sort of coming out publicly in this campaign.

BERMAN: Lisa Lerer, great to see you. Good to see you in person.

LERER: It's a blast, right? So nice to be back in.

BERMAN: Thanks so much for coming in.

So we're going to speak live with a scientist behind one of the vaccines. Will you need a third dose?

KEILAR: I certainly want to know that. Plus, hear what stadiums and arenas are demanding of you if you want to start attending games.

And how a grandmother's gossip leads to the new arrest of a Capitol insurrection suspect. This is NEW DAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:19:13]

KEILAR: Do that. Yes.

BERMAN: Thirty-two percent of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated, although the rate of vaccinations nationwide is now slowing. It comes as the Biden administration has announced that it supports a proposal to waive intellectual property protections for coronavirus vaccines in an effort to bolster access around the world.

Joining me now is Dr. Ozlem Tureci. She is the co-founder and chief medical officer of BioNTech, which developed the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. So Doctor, how do you feel about the idea of easing these patent protections?

DR. OZLEM TURECI, CO-FOUNDER/CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, BIONTECH: Well, John, patents are not the limiting factor for production, for example, our vaccine. There are a number of important factors in producing vaccines.

[06:25:00]

For example, our manufacturing process involves more than 50,000 steps, all of which have to be executed accurately in order to ensure efficacy and safety. It takes experienced personnel. It takes specialized facilities. It takes raw materials.

So patent waivers will not address this. We think that it's even more important to ensure legal, administrative, and organizational solutions for vaccine manufacturers, and to do this harmonize [SIC] and internationally.

BERMAN: To be clear, you think it's bad idea?

TURECI: Yes. Yes. It will not increase the number of doses we will be -- we will have available within the next 12 months. It will probably more act towards increasing chaos in production.

BERMAN: So Doctor, I want to talk about the Pfizer vaccine specifically, the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. Specifically, what's your view now on the need for boosters, for a third shot. And if people are going to need a booster, when? Like, the people who were vaccinated at the new year, in December, the new year, when will they need a third shot?

TURECI: So the answer to this, John, will be shown by the data we are producing. Naturally, infected people and those people, there are indications for waning immune responses. So that one would expect that also in immunized people at some point would have waning immune responses and need boosters.

When exactly and how frequently this needs to be, this is something which we have to extract from emerging data. We have already a six- month follow-up data which shows us that we still have a high efficacy of prevention of symptomatic disease of 90 percent. And we will continue to monitor this in order to get an understanding about when and how often boosters are needed.

The good news is that mRNA technology allows frequent boosters. We have used this technology in cancer patients and have seen there that frequent boosters up to 10, 20 times, for example, for patients -- patient are feasible. The exact time points need to be worked out. BERMAN: There's some good news in terms of studies on how vaccines,

the mRNA vaccines deal with the variants, the 1.1.7 variant in the U.K., the 1.3.5 variant that hit -- was seen in South Africa. What do you know about how the BioNTech, the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine works against the variant that is now being seen in India?

TURECI: We are investigating that. We don't have data -- data yet. That will be available soon.

As you have pointed out, our observations for the other circulating variants is that we get immune responses in vaccinated people with our vaccine, which are cross-reacting against variants such as the U.K. and South African, as well, and also (UNINTELLIGIBLE) data is supporting that. The India variant, we will see shortly.

BERMAN: What's your view -- I've got to let you go here, but in general, you know that there is some vaccine hesitancy in the United States. And there are people who will go on TV and say things that just aren't true about vaccines, instill fears.

So knowing what you know, when you hear that, what are your feelings?

TURECI: As a scientist, I believe that sharing data, acknowledged transparently, is the best way you have to educate people. At the end of the day, everyone has to decide for themselves.

BERMAN: Dr. Tureci, thanks so much for being with us. We appreciate the work you've done. We appreciate you being with us.

TURECI: Thank you. A pleasure.

KEILAR: With the country now reopening, many hotels and restaurants are facing a new COVID challenge: finding workers to fill their open positions. CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHILIPPE MASSOUD, CHEF AND OWNER, ILILIL NEW YORK: A war of survival. A new war of survival.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS & POLITICS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Philippe Massoud never thought he'd be facing a shortage of restaurant workers in the middle of the pandemic.

MASSOUD: We have no staff to open for lunch at all.

YURKEVICH: Dining in the U.S. is at about 90 percent of pre-pandemic levels, according to Open Table, and nearly 8.5 million Americans are still out of work, but Massoud can't find anyone to fill his 15 open positions, from manager to dishwasher.

MASSOUD: Normally, you get at least 30, 40, 50 people, 60 people. We only had three people respond to our ads, and none of them showed up.

[06:25:06] YURKEVICH: In January, 7 percent of restaurant operators named recruitment and retention as their top challenge. By April, that number was 57 percent.

One issue: some employees have left the restaurant industry for good, like John Jasieniecki, who quit in January after 16 years as a server and bartender.

JOHN JASIENIECKI, CHANGED CAREERS: I'd intended on being a lifer.

YURKEVICH: But with unstable pay and after contracting COVID-19, he knew it was time for a career change.

JASIENIECKI: COVID was very stressful. Yelling at people to put on a mask is not what I want to do every day.

YURKEVICH: Jasieniecki now works in maintenance for several high rises in downtown Denver.

JASIENIECKI: It's a different world, working 9 to 5, as opposed to 5 to 2.

YURKEVICH: Restaurants in Miami have been at 100 percent indoor capacity since October of last year, but Carlos Gaztua say he doesn't have enough staff to open his dining room.

CARLOS GAZTUA, RESTAURANT OWNER: Florida is a bellwether state. We are -- we've been open a lot longer than many states in the United States. So this is coming to a theater near you.

YURKEVICH: And he says it's only getting worse. He can't fill more than 30 percent of his positions, even after raising wages. He says the $300 weekly expanded unemployment benefit is stopping people from coming back to work.

GAZTUA; People should keep the unemployment benefits if they go to work now and they commit to working to the end of the year.

YURKEVICH: The expanded unemployment benefits don't expire until early September.

MASSOUD: We're supposed to go hire people to retain them, but at the same time, you're paying unemployment, it creates a conflict of interest, so to speak.

YURKEVICH (on camera): Right. So for four months, what is the plan?

MASSOUD: Lose more money and do what we can to stay open.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

YURKEVICH: Now, those two restaurant owners you just heard from, they told me they've done something in their careers that they've never had to do before. They both just purchased robots to work at their restaurants. because they can't find enough humans to do it.

So the robot in New York will be making salads. The robot in Miami will be serving tables and bussing tables.

So, Brianna, the thought that robots are serving our meals in the distant future is actually more of a reality right now if we can't solve this labor shortage within the restaurant industry -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Wow, that is quite the development. Vanessa Yurkevich in New York, thank you.

BERMAN: I'm not sure I like vegetables whether they're robot or human- made at this point.

In any case, as state reopenings expand, it's looking closer and closer to normal at some baseball stadiums.

Joining me now, CNN senior political writer and analyst, Harry Enten. Harry, we are seeing some teams create special sections for vaccinated people. This is interesting. What and where?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER AND ANALYST: Five teams, and they're in the state of California and New York. The Dodgers, the Yankees, the Mets, the Padres, and the Giants are all having special little sections where they'll have non-social distancing for the vaccinated. Those under the age of 16, they can provide a negative test in order to get in there.

But basically, John, if you and I want to go out to a ball game and sit with just vaccinated people in New York, we can start to in a few weeks.

BERMAN: Shoulder to shoulder, as close as you want. You have to wear a mask still.

ENTEN: Yes.

BERMAN: But you can pack yourselves into that section, which is almost like normal.

ENTEN: You promised me to go to a game.

BERMAN: I won't go to Yankee Stadium. Last time I went to Yankee Stadium I got thrown out.

ENTEN: When?

BERMAN: On the other hand -- on the other hand --

ENTEN: I'm not surprised.

BERMAN: -- there are teams that aren't doing this. Where?

ENTEN: Yes, there are two teams really that are not doing this. So the Atlanta Braves and the Texas Rangers have allowed or will allow 100 percent capacity without vaccines required.

And I should note that these teams currently rank one and third in attendance so far this year. So there have been plenty of people that have been willing to go out and see these ball games. It's just a completely different picture in the southern United States, down in Georgia and Texas, than it is on the coast, in California and in New York.

BERMAN: What do we know about the populations in these areas where these areas are in terms of how many people have been vaccinated?

ENTEN: Yes, so look, in the places that are going to have these fully- vacc'd sections, California and New York, at least 51 -- 51 percent in the state of California have at least one dose so far. In New York, it's 48 percent. Look down here in Texas and Georgia. Look at this: just 39 percent of the population has at least one dose in Texas, just 36 percent down in the state of Georgia.

BERMAN: In some ways, Harry, none of this is really a surprise in terms of what we're seeing in behavior and decision that are being made, right?

ENTEN: Yes. So look, I guess it isn't so surprising that Texas and Atlanta are the two tops right now, or one and three in terms of attendance so far. Because look at this: Whether or not you've socially distanced in the last week.

The people who are not likely to vaccinate, just 46 percent of them have said that they have socially distanced in the last week. And this is something I think is very interesting. That is the people who are not likely to get the vaccine are the least likely to social distance at this point, versus those.