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FDA Approves Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine for Emergency Use in 12 to 15-Year-Olds; Prosecutors Attempting to have Ex-Girlfriend of Representative Matt Gaetz Provide Testimony against Him for Sexual Misconduct; McCarthy Announces to Oust Liz Cheney for Trump Criticism. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 11, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Of people who were visiting the zoo. So this is the latest incident. But still, that leopard on the loose this morning.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Will, we know that you'll be keeping an on that. Will Ripley in Hong Kong, thank you. John Berman?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I was just going to say, when I was at ABC, I cornered the market on exotic animals that were on the loose, and I would start every one of my pieces the same way. This would be leopards on the lam, lions on the lam, bears on the lam. And it took like nine pieces for the producers to figure out I was doing the same thing every time. But I just wanted to say that.

KEILAR: We always do -- animal stories are a part of reporting. I think my first one when I was 20 years old was a bear stuck in a tree. But this one is very scary.

BERMAN: Yes.

KEILAR: The fact that people, of course they're going to find out, right?

BERMAN: Leopards on the lam. Very scary.

KEILAR: Social media. Leopards on the lam, no laughing matter.

BERMAN: NEW DAY continues right now.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: I'm John Berman alongside Brianna Keilar. On this NEW DAY, vaccines for kids. Americans as young as 12 can soon get their shots. On behalf of parents everywhere, let me say, hallelujah.

Plus, new focus on a key witness in the Matt Gaetz case. Could the Congressman's ex-girlfriend end up flipping on him?

KEILAR: And a surprise revelation from CNN's new interview with Caitlyn Jenner, what she did on Election Day when other Republicans were voting for Donald Trump.

And we'll speak live with the former NFL lineman who saved a man from a fiery train crash with just seconds to spare.

BERMAN: Good morning to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. It is Tuesday, May 11th. Millions of young people now one step closer to a safer return to sports and summer camps and normal life. The FDA greenlighting the Pfizer vaccine for emergency use in 12 to 15-year-olds. If you have a 12 to 15-year-old, man, are you happy this morning, I can tell you from personal experience. And 85 percent of the U.S. population can now get vaccinated.

KEILAR: I've got a two to four-year-old, so I'm waiting on that one. This decision, though, means that more schools could reopen for in- person learning. The CDC director is expected to sign off on the FDA's recommendation tomorrow, but shots could go into arms today since doctors already have the vaccine. And we are already seeing that happen.

Let's talk now with our chief medical correspondent and the host of the new podcast "Chasing Life," Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, this is a pretty big deal.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is. It's hard to believe. I was just thinking Berman and I have been talking about this for over a year. He has two 14-year-old twins. I have three kids, 12 to 15 years old. I remember, last summer, we were talking about, OK, they're not going to be able to do so many things this past summer, and now it's going to be a totally different year for them, which is amazing. So it's great to look back and reflect on that.

Thousands of people were evaluated as part of these clinical trials. We took a look in terms of what actually was required to get this vaccine authorized. Want to show it to you.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

GUPTA: This is 15-year-old Ben (ph) Dropik (ph). He's about to get the COVID-19 vaccine as part of a clinical trial. Thanks to Ben and about 2,000 other teens like him, 12 to 15-year-olds all across the United States are now able to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is just trying to beat the virus, trying to get everything back to normal.

DR. ROBERT FRENCK, DIRECTOR, GAMBLE CENTER FOR CLINICAL RESEARCH: The kids have been leading the charge on a lot of this.

GUPTA: Dr. Robert Frenck has been researching vaccines on kids for 40 years. He now oversees COVID-19 vaccine trials in kids at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.

FRENCK: One of the things that people have said is that teenagers, they only care about themselves and they're just looking out for themselves. And I have found that to be totally wrong. GUPTA: They've also found another piece of good news. Just one month

after getting the second dose, Pfizer's trials found that teens aged 12 to 15, had even higher levels of antibodies than 16 to 25-year-olds who had also received the shots, making them far less likely to get sick.

FRENCK: Eighteen cases of COVID in the 1,500 adolescents that had placebo and zero in the group that got vaccine.

GUPTA: Since the pandemic began, the American Academy of Pediatrics reported over 3.7 million children were infected with COVID-19 but less than two percent were hospitalized. According to the CDC, children under 18 make up about 12 percent of all cases but also represent just a tenth of a percent of all COVID-19 deaths.

[08:05:00]

The agency has found more than 3,000 children have developed a hyperimmune response to the virus known as MIS-C which causes different parts of their body to become inflamed.

I imagine that a lot of parents will say, look, I don't think that my kid or kids in general are that at risk of getting sick in the first place. What is the real reason that we need to get kids vaccinated?

FRENCK: So they have a runny nose, they have a cough. They don't seem like they're that sick. Mom or dad is not going to take them to the doctor, but they actually have COVID. And then end up then going to grandma and grandpa and accidentally infecting them or others, and those people get very sick.

And the other thing I guess is to remember that we have 75 million people under 18 years of age in the United States. If we don't immunize that group, that's going to leave a big population that's susceptible to the virus.

GUPTA: Remember, in order to stop transmission, we want to reach herd or community immunity. And you get there through a combination of vaccination, as well as antibodies from previous infections. The threshold of community immunity is based on how contagious the virus is. For example, measles, which is really contagious, requires around 90 percent herd immunity. For the novel coronavirus, somewhere around 70 percent to 85 percent. The FDA's expanded authorization for 12 to 15-year-olds now makes 85 percent of the U.S. population eligible for a shot. But even then, surveys show about one in eight adults aren't planning to getting the vaccine. About one in five parents say they won't vaccinate their kids either, which is why the focus is now on going even younger. Trials have now begun in kids, like seven-year-old Naomi.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Naomi, after seeing a friend of our family participate in the study, said that she wanted to do it. It will give me a lot of peace of mind because I know that she'll be protected.

Really proud of you. NAOMI, SEVEN-YEAR-OLD PARTICIPANT: I'm going to tell them that they

should get the vaccine so they can protect themselves, their family, and everyone around them so that -- that would be a great way to keep the world safe.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

BERMAN: Naomi is my hero. Good for her. Good for her taking part in the trials so that we know how safe the vaccines are for kids. Sanjay, this raises so many possibilities, but also questions. What about schools in the fall, can they, should they require vaccinations for students?

GUPTA: Well, it's interesting. I think there's three things at play. First of all, they can. But this is an interesting situation because the vaccine is authorized, as you know, not yet approved. That could change. There has been this application now for full approval of the vaccine. It really doesn't change things. It's the same data that they're looking at, it's just longer follow-up here which they now have, six months of follow-up. So we'll see.

Do they need to be vaccinated for opening schools? Not necessarily. We've shown, the studies over the past year showing schools could even pre-vaccinations open safely with a lot of the mitigation measures that we've talked about. It will be a lot easier, frankly, if the vaccine was -- if most of the kids were vaccinated before going back to school because you could not have to do all those things, the physical distancing and things like that.

So we'll see. We're learning this process together. There's not really a precedent for an authorized vaccine potential being mandated in schools.

KEILAR: So Sanjay, I love my podcasts. I know a lot of our viewers do, too. And you have a new project that we can be very excited about, which is this new podcast called "Chasing Life." The first episode is going to drop today. And you and your wife get personal in it. Tell us about this.

GUPTA: Yes, so she's my first guest, my wife. We've -- I don't know if we have a clip or not, but you can tell me if we do. But regardless, we have all been through this together, and we --

KEILAR: We don't, unfortunately, Sanjay.

GUPTA: That's OK. You can hopefully listen to the podcast. And I suggest that all couples do this, actually, actually interview each other in a little tiny closet as it turns out, that's my podcast booth, and ask questions about this past year, because, as much as we've lived through it, I think very few people really take time to reflect sometimes and really understand the lessons going forward. So we have been through a tough time. "Chasing Life" is all about recovery, what comes next, and how to best thrive in this recovery period.

KEILAR: Did you learn a lot from her asking her as a journalist almost instead of as a husband about her concerns this past year?

GUPTA: I really did. I'll be honest with you. Just in terms of parenting our kids, like what she thinks are some of the most important issues, things she's learn about our community, how people have responded to COVID.

[08:10:7]

It's interesting, I've been so immersed in this story for a year learning about the science, viral transmission, the vaccines, but the real impact on families and people, it was just very interesting to hear it from her perspective. And again, we live together. We've been together all the time, but force the conversation, nurture the conversation, you learn some fascinating things.

BERMAN: I'm not letting my wife ask me questions. Those questions are too hard, man. She has tough questions.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: I want to hear those answers.

BERMAN: She's a tough interviewer. I'm not going there.

Sanjay, can't wait to listen your broadcast.

GUPTA: You should do it, John.

BERMAN: Not a chance. Thank you for being with us. I will listen to the podcast, though.

So this is a make or break week for prosecutors in the sex trafficking case against Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz. CNN has learned investigators are trying to get two key witnesses to cooperate. One of them is a former Capitol Hill intern who was once Gaetz's girlfriend. The other is a former Florida county tax collector Joel Greenberg. He's already been indicted and has four days left to strike a deal. It's important to note Gaetz has denied wrongdoing, including paying for sex or having sex with a minor, but decisions on whether to charge the congressman have yet to be made and will fall to prosecutors in the public integrity section of the Justice Department. That decision is likely to take some time. Another source familiar with the matter said as the Justice Department considers whether there's sufficient evidence for an indictment.

Let's discuss this with CNN legal analyst Elie Honig. He's a former state and federal prosecutor. Elie, two possible witnesses here, two different stories. Let's start with the former girlfriend who was a Capitol Hill intern, not Matt Gaetz's intern, but a Capitol Hill intern. Why might prosecutors want her cooperation?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: John, look, this is bad news, no question about it, for Matt Gaetz. Here's why. So much of what federal prosecutors do, so many federal criminal cases are built on cooperating witnesses. I've called dozens of cooperating witnesses in my career. But Joel Greenberg, if he's going to be your star witness as a prosecutor, you better back him up, because he is charged with, and presumably if he cooperates will plead guilty to some very serious, grotesque crimes, including sex trafficking of a minor. So he's going to need backup. And if you can get this other witness, this ex-girlfriend, to corroborate, to support what Joel Greenberg may say, then your case is much, much stronger. So it's a key moment for prosecutors.

BERMAN: The girlfriend news was new this morning. That was new for us. The Joel Greenberg news may still be bigger because, Elie, as you point out, what he's already indicted for and charged with, these are big, awful crimes. And if they're trying to get his cooperation, what does it tell you?

HONIG: As a prosecutor, there is no way on earth I would cooperate Joel Greenberg unless I intended to use his information against somebody else. It's a big deal. You don't just hand out cooperation agreements like candy as a prosecutor. It's a big deal, especially with somebody charged with as many crimes and as serious crimes as Joel Greenberg is charged with. So if I'm going to give him that opportunity to take a plea, to cooperate, to get himself a much lower sentence, I better be getting something in return as a prosecutor. I'd better be willing and able and ready to use his information to charge somebody else. Who that may be will be up to prosecutors. I've not seen any reporting of anyone other than Matt Gaetz who is potentially in the line of fire here.

BERMAN: So basically you're saying, it has to be good, serious stuff, if they're getting it from Greenberg.

HONIG: Absolutely. They have to trust it, believe it, think they have it backed up, and they have to intend to use it. I wouldn't cooperate Joel Greenberg, take that information, put it in the file, and let it sit. You have to be ready to act on it.

BERMAN: That is very interesting. Elie Honig, great to see you, thanks so much.

HONIG: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: Just ahead, journalists run for cover from rocket fire near Gaza. We'll have the latest from our team on the ground in Israel.

KEILAR: And maybe Donald Trump is not as popular as some Republicans think he is. The poll numbers the GOP doesn't want you to see, next.

Plus, House Republicans set a vote to strip Liz Cheney of her leadership post. Reaction from a Republican who ran for president coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:17:42]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: As Republicans get ready to jettison reliably conservative leader Liz Cheney, it's clearer than ever that the party is afraid of Donald Trump. But why, exactly? John Avlon with a "Reality Check."

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: That's right. It's all based on a lie, and they know it, because even as Republicans make Liz Cheney walk the plank for the sin of telling the truth, there's more evidence to how weak Donald Trump really is and the lengths they'll go to deny that reality.

Get this, at a recent NRCC retreat, they reportedly tried to hide bad poll numbers that showed Trump is a liability in core battleground districts. Here's what they didn't want members of Congress to see, according to "The Washington Post." Trump's unfavorable ratings were 15 points higher than his favorable ones in the core districts. Nearly twice as many voters had a strongly unfavorable view of the former president.

Now that seems like useful information. So why would they want to hide its existence, even when a congressman asked a direct question about it? Well, it speaks to the insidious influence of group think. And the fact that fear is the glue holding together this cult of Trump, formerly known as the Party of Lincoln.

They know Trump isn't wise or kind or even particularly conservative on matters of policy, but, hey, he's popular with the base, they said. That's the rationalization.

So is that even true? Let's dig into the data. Trump's favorability stands at an anemic 32 percent. That's down eight points from January. Forty-seven percent have a very negative perception of him. That's 20 points worse than President Biden.

But here's the real deal. Trump is going down among Republicans as well. Back in late October, 54 percent of Republicans said they supported Donald Trump more than the GOP. Now that number is down 10 points.

So Trump's power is waning. He's less popular with Republicans who recognize that whatever they once liked about him is clouded by the chaos and division he created. That's no surprise that an ex-president would hold sway over his party.

But that person usually wouldn't be so massively unpopular with the American people. Reagan left office with a 68 percent approval rating. Trump? Literally half that.

So what the hell is everyone so afraid of? I mean, according to a January CNN poll, the GOP was evenly divided by people who said the party should move on from Trump and those who wanted him to lead. Among GOP-leaning independents, 62 percent wanted a Trump-free GOP going forward.

And there's just no support for the kind of Stalinesque purges of dissent we're seeing today. Seventy percent -- 76 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they do not want to penalize elected officials who express opposition to Trump. Now remember that just 26 percent of Americans identify as

Republicans, according to Gallup and you'll see that the current Kevin McCarthy off with Liz Cheney's head position is backed by just a tiny fraction of the American people. The only place where this is anywhere near a majority is among Trump Republicans in Congress.

So, why are they falling in line behind the big lie?

It's a function of fear driven by polarization. They are scared of being attacked by the ex-president from Mar-a-Lago. They're scared of losing a primary, scared of losing their jobs. So scared that they're not even doing their most basic job, which is to honorably defend our democracy.

If you don't get that one right, nothing else matters.

And that's your "Reality Check."

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: John Avlon, thank you for that.

AVLON: Thank you.

KEILAR: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has notified his members to expect a vote on the fate of Conference Chair Liz Cheney tomorrow.

And he writes this, quote: We are a big tent party. All members are elected to represent their constituents as they see fit but our leadership team cannot afford to be distracted from the important work we were elected to do and the shared goals we hope to achieve.

Let's talk about the state of affairs in the GOP right now with Tim Pawlenty. He is a former Republican governor of Minnesota.

Sir, thank you so much for joining us this morning. We really appreciate it.

And as we look at what McCarthy said there, he also said, quote, unlike the left, we embrace free thought and debate. And I wonder, is that how you see what's happening to Liz Cheney, an embrace of her free thought and debate?

TIM PAWLENTY (R), FORMER MINNESOTA GOVERNOR: Well, first of all, good morning to you and your listeners.

And as to Liz Cheney, she is speaking boldly and courageously. But that comes with a price. And the price here is, her current position of being number three in the U.S. House, the number three Republican, is a function of her colleagues electing her to that position. And when you lose support of those colleagues, you lose the position.

I used to be a majority leader in the Minnesota legislature. And that's the way it works. And those colleagues are really just concerned about making sure that their view of the political landscape in the Republican Party is, you know, comfortable to them and they are reading it as a Trump party. And that's the reality.

So, she's going to get tossed out, unfortunately, because she's willing to stand up and take on a prevailing Trump viewpoint.

KEILAR: You ran for president in 2012 and now, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik who is poised to replace Liz Cheney, served as your deputy policy director. She is not the moderate that she once was. I wonder how you are viewing her political move to embrace Trump.

PAWLENTY: Well, I think both Representative Stefanik and Representative Cheney are both very capable people, but they are now just proxies in this larger battle, really, which is what's going to become of the Republican Party. At the moment, make no mistake, it's still at base a Trump party.

But nothing stays the same. It's going to evolve and change as everything does. And I think the more interesting question will be what comes next. And I think the party is not going to be able to just quickly get rid of what was the Trump era. It's going to have to hang onto that. But it's also going to have to regain the support of Republicans and independents that it lost.

And that's going to take a new leader that can have a foot in both camps and hopefully somebody will emerge to do that. Probably most likely the 2024 presidential nominee, whoever that's going to be.

KEILAR: You really -- you really think it's going to be that soon? I asked you because when I read your sort of -- basically a postmortem you wrote after the January 6th insurrection, you talk about conservative policy prescriptions for modern problems. You know, you talk about admitting climate change is real. You talk about being more moderate on immigration and just being honest about immigration and the purpose that it serves to the country.

I don't see any of that right now happening in the Republican Party and 2024 is just around the corner. I mean, how does that change so quickly if you're expecting the party to do well in the midterms?

PAWLENTY: Yeah, short version is President Trump transformed rural politics in America but at the same time, Republicans lost support in second and third-ranked suburbs. And so, if you're going to regain some of that support in the second and third-ranked suburbs, you have to modernize.

And so, yes, we're against illegal immigration but we should be for reasonable, orderly and legal immigration. If done well and done in proper measure, it can be helpful to the country.

We need to admit and acknowledge that most of the world's scientists are not wrong.

[08:25:03]

Climate change is real and more.

But the Republican Party isn't there yet, but they will get there. They're going to temporarily benefit from redistricting, which is going to shift some districts to the south and to the west. You know, inevitably, the Democrats in total control will overplay their hand and the door will reopen for Republicans.

But long term, Republicans cannot be -- cannot be a majority governing party while losing, you know, women -- support among women so badly, minorities so badly, modest and lower income people so badly and on down the list.

We have to modernize. We have to grow this party. And throwing people overboard is not the way to do it. We need to be the party of addition, not subtraction.

That's why the Liz Cheney getting tossed overboard is not helpful.

KEILAR: Yeah. Well, we are not certainly to the addition unit of the Republican class right now, I will tell you that.

PAWLENTY: Not yet, not yet.

KEILAR: Not yet.

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

PAWLENTY: You're welcome.

KEILAR: New revelations today about Caitlyn Jenner who is now running for California governor as a Republican.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You said you haven't talked to Trump at all about any of this?

CAITLYN JENNER (R), CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: No.

BASH: Did you vote for him in 2020?

JENNER: No.

BASSH: Who did you vote for?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Her surprising answer, next.

BERMAN: Oh, I want to wait for that.

The sound of nonstop sirens amid rocket fire from Gaza. We'll talk to our team on the ground.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)