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New Day

Officer in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Reaches out to Hispanic Community; CDC Issues Guidance that Those Who are Fully Vaccinated Need Not Wear Masks; President of Teachers' Union Commits to Returning to In-Person Learning Five Days a Week; Capitol Officer Speaks on Riot's Trauma as GOP Whitewashes; Israel Launches Fresh Gaza Attacks Amid Rocket Fire. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 14, 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]

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A tool proving to be even more effective in a pandemic. Officer Jimenez hosts a weekly show targeted towards the quickly growing Spanish community in Charlotte, discussing topics like crime prevention, road safety, and domestic violence.

OFFICER CLAUDIO JIMENEZ, CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG POLICE: I give out information, Specific, practical, truthful information that comes from the source. I answer questions. I clear up misconceptions that people have.

GALLAGHER: One of those misconceptions is people often believing that his police department works with immigration.

JIMENEZ (in Spanish): I am not ICE. I am a police officer, and my mission is to help the community when they are in need.

GALLAGHER: But bridging the gap is paying off.

JIMENEZ: I have received very, very positive feedback from the community. People are very happy that they have a Latino officer who speaks their language and who knows our culture.

GALLAGHER: Jimenez, a law enforcement veteran, also volunteers at a local food bank, feeding hundreds of families in need, and putting on toy drives. He is one of 103 Hispanic officers that make up the 1,800- member Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. For this Chilean native, this job is a dream come true.

JIMENEZ: I had to learn English, I have to do everything that everybody does, and work hard and become a citizen, and then I became a police officer, which was my dream. So I see the need. And I think I can make a huge difference in my community.

GALLAGHER: Dianne Gallagher, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEO TAPE) BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: I love seeing that story. I am Brianna Keilar alongside John Berman on this NEW DAY. Vaccinated Americans going unmasked. Could fully reopened schools be the next big milestone. A leading voice for teachers will join us in a moment.

Plus, a brand-new CNN exclusive. A Capitol police officer speaks out on lawmakers lying about the insurrection that he and his colleagues survived that day.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: House Republicans just minutes away from picking Liz Cheney's replacement. Is Elise Stefanik conservative enough to win the secret vote?

And the race to vaccinate just took a literal turn. We go to Talladega where they are giving away free laps to fans who get COVID shots.

KEILAR: A very good morning to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. It is Friday, May the 14th, so TGIF. A major pandemic milestone as well. The CDC now saying if you're fully vaccinated you can drop the masks, you can drop the social distancing, both indoors and out with few exceptions. President Biden out celebrating the news.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you're fully vaccinated and can take your mask off, you have earned the right to do something that Americans are known for all around the world -- greeting others with a smile, with a smile. So it's a good day for the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Right now, one-third of the country is fully vaccinated. Will the new guidance on masks help encourage Americans who have been hesitant to finally get their shot?

So CNN's Miguel Marquez live in New York's Times Square talking to people about the unmasking. Miguel, Brian Stelter said last night it felt a little bit like V.E. Day in New York. So I'm curious, have you come across a lot of people necking in Times Square?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there's not a lot of deep, passionate kissing so far, in Times Square, so we'll hold off on that. But hey, at least you can brush your teeth up, shave that pandemic beard, put your makeup on, because masks, at least for the vaccinated, are now out.

But looking around Times Square today, about 80 percent, maybe 90 percent of the people walking around outside here even with that new CDC guidance, they're still wearing masks. I think it's going to take a while for a lot of people to feel confident and comfortable taking that mask off after the hellish year we have been through. Here's what a few Americans across the country are saying.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is something that we've been looking forward to for a year that looked almost like a decade. It felt that long. And just to come out here and see people relax and be able to, you know, to roam around without feeling that pressure of who has COVID, it was just a great feeling.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's just wear a mask until no one has to wear it, just common courtesy for your fellow person, whether they're vaccinated or not.

MARQUEZ: What's the first thing you would like to do? A concert? Something you'd like to do?

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a deep breath.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's great. I love it. It's like another world right now. I'm fully vaccinated myself, Pfizer. Now I can just -- I keep the mask just to here because some of the people feel uncomfortable.

[08:05:05]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am so happy. I couldn't wait. More freedom. I'm tired of ordering things online and not going into the stores because the mask has to stay on so long.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was wearing my mask all the time. I no catch the COVID.

MARQUEZ: So for you it's a safety thing. You want to be 110 percent sure?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: Now this is at the heart of it. Even people who are vaccinated aren't entirely sure it's going to work, or they live in a household that's maybe the kids aren't vaccinated. Maybe they have people with compromised immune system. So it's going to take baby steps, basically. I think through the summer and into September as people get used to it, we're going to be a lot more comfortable. But save the VE Day deep kissing for now in Times Square. Maybe down the road a little bit, John.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: Miguel Marquez, thank you very much for that advice on many different fronts there.

So on the same day as the monumental announcement about new mask guidance, the president of the second largest teachers union calling for schools to reopen in person five days a week. She joins us now, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. Randi, thank you so much for being with us. You were one of my last in-person interviews last March in this studio before the big shutdown, so it's great to see you here in person unmasked. Your announcement preceded the CDC new guidance. So they're not connected at all. So leave that aside for a second. So that aside, what changed for you to come out and say, five days a week, in person.

RANDI WEINGARTEN, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS: Several things. But number one, just like what changed, I think, for the CDC, was the efficacy of the vaccines. The vaccines -- we have seen the vaccines really work. What we -- look, we have always wanted to be back in school. Last April, a month after everything shut down, we were the first ones to put our report out about how to get back to in- school learning because we knew that in-school learning was vital for kids. Teachers do want what kids need. But we also knew that safety was not an obstacle to getting kids back in. Safety was the vehicle to reopen schools in person and keep them open.

But what happened is that Joe Biden actually did -- I don't want to be political, but he did what Donald Trump wouldn't. They created the kind of national guidance through the CDC, and they created the resources. So the national guidance, the resources, and the vaccines have been key -- 89 percent of my members have taken the vaccines, and what you're seeing over the last two months, since people have, is that no one -- or very few people are getting sick, and nobody is getting as sick as they were. So it creates trust.

And the last thing I would say is, I've been in, I guess it's been six or seven schools since I've been double vaxxed, and this is what I've seen. The joy of teachers and kids back in school. So we know it's not risk-free, but we think that you can mitigate all of the risks, and I think yesterday's announcement by the CDC is really great news.

BERMAN: Why not tomorrow? Literally, why not tomorrow? If 90 percent of your teachers are vaccinated, if we know what we know now, why not just go back in school in person tomorrow?

WEINGARTEN: Frankly, 97 percent of the schools are open for in-person learning.

BERMAN: Not five days a week.

WEINGARTEN: About 60 percent of them are. The real key right now is that about two-thirds of our parents, particularly black and brown parents, don't trust it. So where -- but I'm all in --

BERMAN: OK.

WEINGARTEN: -- for getting schools open all the time.

BERMAN: I have a few important questions based on some of the news about the masks. How do you feel about mask requirements in schools? Given that the vaccines are so effective, how do you feel about kids still being required to wear masks? WEINGARTEN: So kids who are vaccinated, teachers who are vaccinated,

it sounds like from the CDC guidance yesterday that it says that they can be unmasked, but we're going to have to have some protocols about who has the vaccine and who doesn't have the vaccine. So it's going to take a minute or two to try to figure out what those protocols are.

BERMAN: How do you feel -- some school districts require certain vaccinations anyway for students. How do you feel about requiring coronavirus vaccinations for students?

WEINGARTEN: So I'm a big believer in vaccinations. But with all the polarization right now and hesitancy right now, I think we have got to convince people to take the vaccines. We're still in emergency use, and I think for this period of time, it's about convincing people.

BERMAN: As we look back on this year, and I have kids who are in eighth grade, what do you think has been lost?

[08:10:03]

WEINGARTEN: I think the social isolation has been the worst thing that has happened because of the coronavirus. I think there are some kids who did very well on remote. You know that, before COVID, I was not a big believer in remote education. I think that in-school education is really important. And it's not just being in school, but we have to recover and reimagine public education.

But what's really been lost is the peer-to-peer contact. What's really been lost is the prolonged effects of social isolation. I think a lot of kids are going to recover academically. We've had education disrupted. But I think that the issue is, what kind of resources are going to be -- are we going to wrap around schools? The emotional, the social, the academic. But also, and this is probably the most important thing I'll say, it's not just -- we've seen all the huge inequities. We have to make sure that in the schools that were least resourced, the schools that had the most inequities, let's make sure we do civics, we do social studies, we do science, and we spark kids' passion.

BERMAN: We've got a lot of work to do. There's a lot of work to do going forward. Thank you for coming in and joining us, appreciate it.

New this morning, a Capitol police officer not holding back on the politicians who keep lying about what happened on January 6th.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OFFICER HARRY DUNN, U.S. CAPITOL POLICE: It's insulting. It's a slap in the face, and it's like -- it's kind of like we're being dismissed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: More from him in a CNN exclusive, next.

KEILAR: And in minutes, House Republicans will choose a new leader. Will the, quote, "handmaiden of Trump" as one former GOP congresswoman calls her, prevail?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:15:27]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: A brand-new CNN exclusive this morning. We are hearing from another one of the brave police officers who faced off against a pro-Trump mob at the U.S. Capitol during the January 6th insurrection.

Officer Harry Dunn helped defend the Capitol. Of course, we also heard this week from another whose harrowing bodycam video we were able to finally see this week.

Officer Michael Fanone of the D.C. police getting assaulted from all sides, pleading for his life, telling the rioters he has kids in the hope that they would spare him.

We asked Officer Dunn about what he and his fellow officers endured that day and what he thinks about the politicians who continue to deny basic facts about the attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We heard Officer Fanone pleading saying, I have kids. I have kids. Trying to save his own life. You have said you didn't think you were going to make it through alive there.

And again, I don't want to make this about the members of Congress. You work around them and near them. There's an ocean out in the country among some people. These people, they weren't out there for harm.

I mean, how do you convince them?

OFFICER HARRY DUNN, U.S. CAPITOL POLICE: I can relate to Officer Fanone when it comes to that. I have a daughter. I had a moment where I didn't think that, hey, it was a possibility I might not make it home. So I relate to that. It's saddening because you know what you went through.

And I feel like that's a lot of the time where officers find like solitude in each other is because nobody really understands what we went through, even with thousands of hours of footage of what we went through. It's hard to believe that people still deny what really happened.

How do you look at that tape and see anything else than assault? I don't get it. I don't understand.

KEILAR: Have you wondered why some people either lie or they don't want to believe what they're seeing with their very eyes? Do you think that they are fooling themselves or do you think that they know that they are misrepresenting what we can see?

DUNN: I just think people in general -- not just politicians, people in general have a problem with being wrong. It's okay to say, hey, I've got it wrong or, hey, I didn't understand it this way or my initial thoughts were this, but once the film is released, whoa, I didn't know that. And when you have footage released and people telling you firsthand experiences what they went through for you -- for people to contradict that, it's insulting. It's a slap in the face, and it's like -- it's kind of like we're being dismissed as our opinions and what we experience didn't matter. So it's just frustrating.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Joining us now to discuss this further, CNN's very own Don Lemon.

Don, you spoke to Harry Dunn before and Officer Michael Fanone. We're going to play a little bit of that in a second. But I have to say, you know, just listening to Harry this morning, it blows your mind -- it blows your mind after what he went through to have people say, it didn't happen. It didn't happen.

You know, you didn't go through what we all see you go through there. They were tourists. It's just galling.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR, "CNN TONIGHT WITH DON LEMON": You saw the pictures and you didn't know what the media has said, it would be like a normal tourist day. It's B.S. Let's just -- and they should know better.

I think people are -- have gotten used to, in the Trump era, creating and living in their own reality. Creating their own facts and living in their own facts. But those are not facts. That's not reality.

What happened to those officers were -- was horrific. Every single officer from Officer Michael Fanone to Officer Harry Dunn, both of whom I know who are great men, who are family men, who all they wanted to do was go home to their families, trying to protect the Capitol. And the very people they're trying to protect are lying about them.

And diminishing and dismissing the heroic efforts that they went through. The hand-to-hand combat that they went through, the racist names that Officer Harry Dunn was called.

[08:20:05]

The "N" word about a dozen times or more. And Officer Michael Fanone saying when he got pushed out into the crowd. I got one! What did that mean? I got one? What am I going to do?

It reminded me of when you see those videos of people chasing people to lynch them in the south and -- before and during Jim Crow and slavery.

It's unbelievable. The lawmakers should be ashamed of themselves and they should be made to sit down and watch that video with the very officers who protected them on that day. KEILAR: And, Don, of course, Officer Dunn is one of those officers.

He works with Capitol Police. So he is still defending, you know, he is still there protecting lawmakers who are saying this didn't happen.

Officer Fanone is part of D.C. metropolitan police. He does have a little more distance. I think we've certainly seen how direct he has been. Let's listen to what he said about Republican lawmakers who are lying about the insurrection.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL FANONE, OFFICER WHO DEFENDED U.S. CAPITOL ON JANUARY 6: Those are lies. And peddling that bullshit is an assault on every officer that fought to defend the Capitol. It's disgraceful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: You know, we talked with Officer Dunn and he said this doesn't affect how I do my job, but what is so clear is that when they are dealing with this, whitewashing of what happened, it does affect how they cope with what they went through. It makes it very difficult.

LEMON: I spoke with a Republican lawmaker last night, and he told me during the commercial break, listen, I fought in the war, Denver Riggleman. He said I went to war. He said the difference was that I didn't have people denying the realities of war or denying my experience.

And what happened at the Capitol was nothing less than war, as I said, hand-to-hand combat. To have people deny that is just disgusting. And the only reason they're doing that, I believe, is because, one, they're embarrassed.

Two, because they don't want it marked down in history. They don't want it recorded, because of their -- they're complicit. They're complicit because of the lies they told and the way they were able to be co-opted by the former president.

To them, I'm sure it's embarrassing. And it's, you know, some form of trying to reconcile it in their minds, cognitive dissonance. But something -- you know, I'm not a psychologist, but something is off. Something is off.

BERMAN: I think there's a third reason they're doing it. They think they can get away with it. And that's part of it.

LEMON: They can't, John. We can't let them.

BERMAN: What are the consequences? Are there consequences for lying this brazenly? What are the consequences for lying this brazenly?

LEMON: Well, one, they should be voted out. Two, there should be a commission as Liz Cheney wants. There should be, as there was a 9/11 commission, there should be a January 6th commission.

And they should be held accountable and their words should be played back to them. The videotape of what they said, it should be recorded. Amanda Carpenter last night, who's one of our contributors, said, I asked her, and very profound, and simple. Very profound and simple.

It is up to us. It is up to the American people. And people ask me, why are you playing what happened on January 6th?

Number one, because it's important. Number two, because I care about the officers. And I -- three, I care about the truth.

And people need to know it happened. And we have to -- they have to continually be reminded of what happened. They have to face the consequences. What they did was wrong.

And as journalists and American citizens, if we let them get away without being held accountable, then it is on us. We deserve what we get.

BERMAN: Don Lemon, can I just say how great it is you're willing to come in and talk to us in the morning. It's really a testament to how much you like Brianna Keilar.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: So we appreciate you coming in. And watch "CNN TONIGHT" every night at 10:00.

LEMON: Hi, Brianna. Okay, John.

KEILAR: Hi, Don. Bye.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: All right. Up next -- really one of the issues right now that the world has to deal with. Violence rocking Israeli cities overnight. Is the conflict headed for full-scale war?

KEILAR: And the partisan divide is still playing out in public health. New CNN reporting on the CDC's struggle to get Republicans vaccinated.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:28:34]

KEILAR: The fight between Israelis and Palestinians intensifying this morning. Gaza coming under artillery fire overnight amid growing questions about whether Israel is preparing to launch a ground invasion against Hamas in response to days of rocket fire from Palestinian militants.

The United Nations warned this could become a full-scale war. More than 100 people, including 31 children, have been killed. The violence is now spread through Arab and Jewish towns that have peacefully co- existed for decades.

Joining us to discuss is Fareed Zakaria, the host of CNN's "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS." And he has a special coming out. It's called "A Radical Rebellion: The Transformation of the GOP." That is going to air Sunday night at 8:00 on CNN.

All right. Fareed, let's start with this conflict. It is horrible, the numbers coming out of this. We've seen these clashes escalate through the week. Now the fighting isn't just limited to Gaza. There's violence. There are ethnic clashes in cities that previously have been peaceful.

How did we get here?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": We got here largely because the Israeli government really forgot that it had a Palestinian problem, by which I mean it really had stopped trying to negotiate any kind of deal with the Palestinians for years now. And it had slowly been encroaching on land.

The specific cause here was the attempt to evict six Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem. And East Jerusalem, every square inch is contested.

And it's not just the Israeli government.