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New Day

Russian Criminal Group Believed to Be Pipeline Attackers; McCarthy Officially Backs Ouster of Cheney, Endorses Stefanik; State of School Reopenings: States Are All Over Map on 'Normal'. Aired 6- 6:30a ET

Aired May 10, 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, it's being called the most significant, successful attack on America's energy infrastructure ever. Now the White House is scrambling to deal with a cyber-attack believed to be the work of a criminal group from Russia.

[05:59:41]

Plus, Dr. Anthony Fauci says it's time for the U.S. to loosen indoor mask mandates, as he sets a new date for a return to normal.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The Republican leader of the House officially backing the ouster of Liz Cheney as the conspiracy caucus gets ready to cancel her for telling the truth.

And two of the doctors who worked at the hospital where Putin foe Alexei Navalny was treated died. And just in, a big development in the hunt for a third doctor, who had vanished.

Good morning to viewers here in the U.S. and around the world. It is Monday, May 10, and this morning, a critical pipeline that provides the East Coast with nearly half of its gasoline and jet fuel remains shut down after the operator discovered a cyber-attack. A former senior cyber security official tells CNN that a criminal group from Russia is believed to be responsible.

BERMAN: The Biden administration held emergency meetings over the weekend to determine its response, and it is working to figure out whether fuel supply might become an issue. This morning, there are growing concerns about cyber security vulnerabilities in America's critical infrastructure.

KEILAR: And joining us now is CNN political and national security analyst David Sanger. He is also a White House and national security correspondent for "The New York Times."

David, this attack is incredibly alarming, and this group that is responsible, believed to be responsible for this ransomware attack is named Dark Side. So tell us a little bit about what's a criminal gang, basically, and what they are alleged to have done here.

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, this is one of many criminal gangs -- We think there are dozens of them now -- that have found that ransomware is an incredibly lucrative business.

And basically, it involves going into a company or government agency's computer systems, locking up the data, encrypting it so they can't get at it, stealing some of it, threatening to put some of it up on the web or the dark web where it could be exposed. You can imagine the companies and investors, how difficult that is.

But what made this different was the pipeline, because the company came to the conclusion, clearly, that there was information there that might enable the group to take over parts of the pipeline, turn it on, turn it off, affect the flow, maybe even trigger an accident, so they shut down the pipeline. So the criminal group didn't even need to get into the operational side of the company in order to bring about this shutdown.

KEILAR: We're starting to see how these things can affect us, right? As consumers, we need gasoline. If you want to fly on a plane, jet fuel. That affects the prices of plane tickets, for instance.

You and your -- now the question is what is the government going to do about it? And you and your colleagues obtained a draft of the executive order that the Biden administration is currently considering preparing to combat cyber-attacks.

The thing is, this is an E.O. that is in response to that SolarWinds attack, which was an attack, ultimately, on federal agencies and contractors. This is a private company. Does this E.O. do what it needs to do to protect against things like the Dark Winds [SIC] attack -- Dark Side attack?

SANGER: You know, it's a start, but there's no evidence right now that the company involved, called Colonial Pipeline, which, by the way, provides 45 percent of all of the fuel going up and down the East Coast of the United States -- jet fuel, gasoline, diesel. No indication that it would actually apply to them.

Now, what it would do would be require certain levels of software security for providers to the federal government, anybody who wants to sell to the federal government; make restrictions for federal agencies and so forth. These are all things that should have been done, as everybody working on this executive order will admit, five, ten years ago. This is hardly a new problem.

I don't think from my reading of it that it would have offered particular protection against something as sophisticated as the SolarWinds attack, the one the Russians did. Not clear what it would do in the ransomware case.

KEILAR: The U.S. seems very unprepared for this problem. We seem incredibly vulnerable to this problem. And you point out that there's a large hole in this problem, because there's no legislation that requires minimum cyber-security standards like ones that could protect these attacks. SANGER: That's right. In fact, there was a big fight in 2012 to do

that. Led to a big fight, because many companies argued that this was basically an unfunded mandate. Right? That they were being required to do a huge number of things that they couldn't afford to go do, and it would be a big burden on them.

I think banks, most utilities have done a lot in the last ten years, and obviously, this is a problem we've been talking about for years on end.

But for smaller companies or private companies like Colonial Pipeline, which don't get much scrutiny and don't get much pressure from shareholders, it looks like their security was pretty poor. They have said almost nothing about how the attackers got in. And that means not only are they being secretive -- that's one thing -- it means it's hard to spread the lesson around quickly, because you don't know what other companies this group is headed for yet.

[06:05:10]

KEILAR: As you point out, recent Russia and Chinese cyber-attacks used domestic servers in the U.S., which is a no-go zone for the National Security Agency. What can the U.S. do to deal with these situations?

SANGER: This is a really fascinating case. When the SolarWinds case, which got into nine federal agencies and more than 100 companies, the Russians actually got into affirm the compile software together that companies use around the world. And they changed code in the software that was automatically downloaded to the companies.

So once they actually mounted the attack, they did it from Amazon and GoDaddy servers inside the United States. And they did that, Brianna, because they know that the law prevents the National Security Agency, other American intelligence agencies, from operating inside the U.S.

So either the law has got to change or we've got to figure out a much more aggressive way to get into foreign networks before the attacks actually come here, and that's what makes this such a hard problem.

KEILAR: Yes. They took advantage. They took cover from that. It's a fascinating write that you and your colleagues have out today. David, thank you so much for being with us.

SANGER: Thank you, Brianna.

BERMAN: So developing this morning, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is officially throwing his support behind Congresswoman Elise Stefanik in her bid to oust fellow Republican Liz Cheney from her leadership position.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): Clearly, one of our biggest ever for this nation and the direction, whether this next century will be ours.

As conference chair, you have one of the most critical jobs as the messenger of going forward. That's why we need a conference that's united. That's why we need a conference chair that is delivering that message day in and day out and uniting the nation to make sure that we are on the right footing going forward.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you support Elise Stefanik for that job?

MCCARTHY: Yes, I do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Look, let's be clear. This is because Liz Cheney refuses to support the big lie that the election was stolen. House Republicans are expected to vote as soon as Wednesday to remove Cheney as the party's conference chair.

Joining us now, Mark McKinnon, former senior adviser to George W. Bush and the John McCain campaign to the executive producer of "The Circus" on Showtime.

So Mark, in the immortal words of Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia, Liz Cheney, she's gone. Nothing's going to bring her back. What about the Republican Party?

MARK MCKINNON, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, SHOWTIME'S "THE CIRCUS": That's right. Good morning, John. It just really means two things. First of all, it means that, in order to be a member of good standing in the Republican Party, you must endorse the big lie. If you tell the truth, you're gone, like Liz Cheney.

It also means that they are betting their future on the past, which is crazy, maybe. Because one of the crazy rules of politics is never run the last campaign. I'm just trying to imagine the Republican autopsy after this last one, where everybody sat down, as you do when you lose an election, OK, what happened.

And then they look around and say, Well, let's -- let's bet the future on the guy who, for the first time since 1933, lost his reelect, and lost the House, and lost the Senate, lost the popular vote twice and was twice impeached. So let's double down on that and do that again.

And to me it just says the future of the Republican Party now means that they are an incredible demographic cul-de-sac, because where in the hell are they going to get new voters under this strategic plan?

KEILAR: Yes, because in criticizing Cheney, you have Republicans, like Republican Congressman Jim Banks of Indiana, who said that Liz Cheney is distracting from the party's mission of pushing back against the Biden administration's agenda. It actually seems like the Republican Party is missing a chance to focus on the agenda and what they would rather see done, than just focusing on a bunch of, you know, lies about the election.

MCKINNON: Well, that's right. Liz Cheney is simply acknowledging what everybody else knows.

And by the way, when I say "everybody else," not everybody in the Republican Party, but everybody including the Republican attorney general under Trump, the Republican -- the Trump-appointed FBI director, and the Trump-appointed director of elections, who all said it was a free and fair election.

So the problem is that what's happening is that by doing -- making this step, McCarthy and the party are saying this is the party willing to believe the big lie.

BERMAN: So, Mark, there's an important policy discussion going on right now. This is rare in Washington. They're actually talking about policy.

The jobs report came back on Friday, and it was much weaker than people had anticipated. And there are some economists, and a lot of Republicans who are saying it's because the extended and enhanced unemployment benefits are working as a disincentive for people to go back to work.

So Republican governors in red states -- I'm talking about Arkansas, Montana, and South Carolina now -- that they're going to begin with holding those extra federal benefits. Governors can control them. They're going to hold back on those enhanced unemployment benefits. How will this play out, do you think?

[06:10:05]

MCKINNON: Well, I think this that is a good example where there's a healthy debate. We don't know. I mean, this is one of the most significant economic displacements that we've had in our history, most significant economic recovery plan in our history, so there's going to be fits and starts for sure.

And this could be an example where, you know, there's some bright on both sides, right? And it's certainly the Republican governor's prerogative to withhold those funds, but we may also see that a lot of that's happening because school's still in session, families are still trying to figure out how -- how both parents can get back to work, and that's why Joe Biden is suggesting part of his plan is to provide additional funds for -- for childcare.

But, listen, this is a very complicated situation, and we're not going to figure it out overnight. And by the way, I think it's wrong to overreact to one report in one week when so much is happening and it's so cataclysmic.

KEILAR: Let's talk infrastructure, because this is the big push coming from the White House this week, is they're set to host Republican lawmakers as -- it appears the president is at least making overtures for some kind of bipartisan approach to this.

That appears to be frustrating Senator Bernie Sanders. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): So the real issue is are Republicans serious about doing anything significant in addressing the enormous crises facing this country? If a Republican is serious about addressing crises, bring in a better way do it, we should listen carefully.

But there's a lesson to be learned. During the Obama years, they talked and talked and negotiated and negotiated. They never came up with it. I think Biden has learned a lesson.

If Republicans want to come onboard seriously, great. If not, we're going to do it alone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: When you see, Mark, Republicans going to the White House, do you just see this kind of perfunctory overture coming from the White House, or do you think this is actually the president thinking that he has a chance of bringing such Republicans onboard.

MCKINNON: So it's finally infrastructure week, right?

KEILAR: They swear it's like infrastructure year, basically.

MCKINNON: This is so ironic to me. This seems to me like the first thing that Donald Trump should have done and could have gotten done as a Republican president.

But listen, I mean, Sanders is right. Right? He's just saying what's -- what everybody knows out loud, which is Republicans really have very little interest in doing anything.

If you couldn't get any Republican votes on the most significant vote in a decade, for sure, at least, on the coronavirus package, then how are they going to get votes on anything else?

Now, the fact is maybe on a skinnied-down infrastructure bill, and separating out a lot of the other stuff, they could get a few votes.

But Sanders is right. But what Biden wants to do is to at least get caught trying to get Republican votes, and that's the dance we're seeing right now. But they don't have a lot of time. Because what's happening is they're having, I guarantee you, meetings right now where they're looking down the road, saying, Listen, 2022, we're likely to lose the House. So we've got about, you know, a year and a half, at best, to get everything done that we want to get done; and infrastructure is at the top of the list.

So they have limited time. So they'll give it a run. But at the end of the day, if they have to, they'll pull the strings they've got to to get it through reconciliation, whatever means possible.

KEILAR: The skinny bill you bring up. The skinny bill, we'll see. Reminds me of skinny margaritas. Not as good as the real thing, to be clear, but I guess it's something, something to sip on.

Mark McKinnon, thank you.

MCKINNON: You can't drink (ph) an infrastructure bill.

KEILAR: Yes. Mark, it's great to see you this morning. Thanks for coming on.

MCKINNON: Thanks to you (ph).

KEILAR: Dr. Anthony Fauci admitting that the U.S. may need to loosen indoor mask mandates, and he also sets a new date for a return to normal.

BERMAN: Plus, for the first time, the billionaire Elon Musk reveals he has Asperger's.

And just in, a big development in a hunt for one of Alexei Navalny's doctors who had vanished. This is NEW DAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:18:12]

BERMAN: There are new signs of progress this morning in the pandemic fight. No states are reporting an increase in coronavirus cases. Look at that map. I have to say, actually, this is the best map I've ever seen. I mean, in the last 12 months we've never seen a map like this. Every state in green there, coronavirus cases are decreasing. The beige or yellow states, that's where they're staying the same in terms of new cases. That is a phenomenal coronavirus map.

Almost 35 percent of the U.S. population is now fully vaccinated. Forty-five percent of Americans have relieved -- received at least one shot. Now, the rate of vaccinations is slowing, averaging around 2 million vaccinations a day. That's down from more than 3 million a few weeks ago.

Dr. Anthony Fauci over the weekend, he said next Mother's Day, things will be completely different; and he also suggested that some changes could be coming in indoor masking requirements.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: Former head of the FDA, Scott Gottlieb, said it's time to start relaxing the indoor mask mandates. Is he right?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: No, I think so. And I think you're probably going to be seeing that as we go along and as more people get vaccinated. The CDC will be, almost in real time, George, updating their recommendations and their guidelines. But, yes, we do need to start being more liberal as we get more people vaccinated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now nationwide, a small percentage of schools remain fully closed. Whether students are fully back in the classroom varies depending on where you live. What's preventing some districts from reopening further, and will they return to normal by the fall?

Let's talk with CNN's Bianna Golodryga for more on that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what does the GSF stand for?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Neveah (ph).

[06:20:04]

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Since last September, 11-year-old Neveah (ph) Bailey has spent every school day here at Charleston Progressive Academy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was very important for me to get her back in school.

GOLODRYGA: Equally important was that Neveah's (ph) schedule has allowed her mother, Charlene, to maintain hers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I work as a physician office specialist, so I have to be there five days a week.

GOLODRYGA: Parents in the Charleston County School District in South Carolina have had the option to send their children for five-day-a- week in-person learning since the school year began.

GERRITA POSTLEWAIT, SUPERINTENDENT, CHARLESTON COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT: As more parents became more comfortable, they came back. Our teaching staff and other personnel were, of course, apprehensive, but they were willing to come back after they saw the conditions, the safety measures we had taken.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thirty-two, cross thirty-one?

GOLODRYGA: Superintendent Gerrita Postlewait says that today, nearly 80 percent of the district's 50,000 students are back in school full- time.

Nearly 3,000 miles away, things look strikingly different.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: April 12 when we reopened our schools. In San Francisco's public schools, a district roughly the same size as Charleston's deputy superintendent Gentle Blythe says full in-person instruction is only offered for preschool and special needs students across the entire district. K through 12 students recently started a hybrid plan.

GENTLE BLYTHE, DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT, SAN FRANCISCO UNITED PUBLIC SCHOOLS: While San Francisco certainly, I think, has gotten a lot of attention for being a district that hasn't reopened as quickly as -- as many parents would have liked. But we're certainly not alone within our state. GOLODRYGA: More than half of all public law students are still

learning virtually, and only 13 percent are in full in-person instruction.

(on camera): Why is there still this inability to offer in-person learning?

BLYTHE: We wish we could have done it sooner, but we are moving in that direction, and we have committed to a full in-person return in the fall.

GOLODRYGA (voice-over): A majority of school districts across the country find themselves in a position somewhere between Charleston and San Francisco. According to the Department of Education, more than half of K through 8 public schools have fully reopened for in-person learning.

But many also intend to keep a hybrid and online option for those families who want it,, even in Charleston, where district officials say nearly 500 families have applied.

MICHELLE SIMMONS, ASSOCIATE SUPERINTENDENT, CHARLESTON COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT: There will be families who have really concrete legitimate reasons to remain virtual in terms of medical fragility, and so we think it's important to offer a virtual academy option.

GOLODRYGA: But Principal Wanda Wright Sheets is optimistic that most students will be back in classes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Academically, the program would work better if they were here with us. Socially, for students, being with their peers is better than being isolated.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GOLODRYGA: So, John and Brianna, the big question now is what could a classroom look like when students return in the fall? Here's what Charleston is hoping for. They are hoping that students will not have to wear masks again and that they can remove the plexiglass dividers. In other words, going back to much more of a normal environment than our children have seen.

They're expecting 95 percent of their students to return for in-person learning. That's, of course, assuming that the levels and the rates of vaccination, especially for children, will begin 12 and up over the next few months.

KEILAR: So, Brianna, I want your take on something here. This is a big turn, but I know you've been following this.

Moments ago, Russian state TV reported that the chief doctor at the hospital where Putin nemesis Alexei Navalny was treated has been found alive after "vanishing," in quotation marks, on a hunting trip.

This raised eyebrows, because two doctors at the same hospital, including one who treated Navalny, suddenly died this year. Now, you were born in the Soviet Union.

And the reason I'm asking you about this is, A, I know you're following this very closely. But this has a very Soviet feel to it, like two dead doctors, one who goes missing and then is miraculously found. What do you make of it?

GOLODRYGA: And the one connection, John, was of course, to Navalny. And this is the hospital in Omsk where Navalny was taken last August after he had been, initially been poisoned.

As you mentioned, two doctors who had treated him or who had worked at that hospital have died subsequently and now the head, the former head of that hospital, Dr. Alexander Murakhovsky, who now is the regional head of the hospitals there in that city of Omsk, so he was promoted after stating that Navalny was not poisoned there. They didn't find any poison in his system.

Over the weekend, he went on a hunting trip, as you mentioned, and never returned, never called his family. There had been a two-day search for him. They found his ATV. They did not find him. There had been a lot of concerns about what this could mean.

He has been found alive. His wife said that she spoke with him, and he's OK. So a good ending here but quite a bizarre story.

BERMAN: Yes, and again, with your experience, I mean, they're asking us to buy into a lot of coincidences here all at once.

[06:25:03]

GOLODRYGA: Yes. And this is either a very unlucky hospital or, as we said, what is the one connecting thread here? And that is Alex -- that is Alexei Navalny. And of course, we have seen the Kremlin not even pretend to want to eradicate any traces of him.

He remains in a penal colony after he has come out of that hunger strike, thankfully. But many of his associates, any of his supporters can now be deemed extremists, which is a.k.a. the same as a terrorist would be treated. They have gone underground now.

Anything this Kremlin can do to clamp down on anyone related to Navalny is what they're doing, which is, of course, why many people were speculating about this doctor.

BERMAN: Bianna Golodryga, always great to see you on any number of subjects. Appreciate it.

GOLODRYGA: Sure.

BERMAN: All right. The inspector general of the Capitol Police set to testify later today. The critical issues he says led to the insurrection.

KEILAR: A Republican senator says he's just asking questions by pushing anti-vax conspiracy theories. We will fact-check Ron Johnson.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)