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New Day

Vote on 1/6 Commission Delayed after Senate GOP Stall Tactic; U.S. Under Attack, Russia Hacks System Used by U.S. Agency; Restaurants Prep for Holiday Rush as Restrictions Lift. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired May 28, 2021 - 07:00   ET

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

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[07:00:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN NEW DAY: Hello. I'm Brianna Keilar alongside John Berman on this New Day.

And just a short time from now, the Senate restarts after some drama overnight. Will Republicans block a commission that investigates the insurrection?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: Plus, Paul Ryan spitting into the political wind, his whisper warning about Trumpism, round-out (ph) by party heroes, shouting about Nazis and calls to take up arms.

KEILAR: And breaking news, U.S. under attack. Russian hackers strike again just weeks before the summit between Vladimir Putin and President Biden.

BERMAN: And a Trump appointee on West Point's board pushing conspiracy theories that include President Biden trying to replace white people.

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. It is Friday, May 28th, and the U.S. Senate up all night, not to get lucky in the words of Daft Punk, but the daft part might be applicable. Republicans are on a path to ultimately block a bipartisan investigation into the insurrection, that vote now not likely to happen until this afternoon.

Why the delay? Well, Senator Ron Johnson and some colleagues are deploying of stall tactics on another bill.

Now, you may be familiar with Ron Johnson from his work denying the existence of the insurrection and calling it a peaceful protest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): Many of the marchers were families with small children. Many were elderly, overweight, or just plain tired or frail, traits not typically attributed to the riot-prone. I knew those are people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, and so I wasn't concerned.

Had the tables been turned and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned.

One of the reasons I'm being attacked is because I very honestly said I didn't feel threatened on January 6th. I didn't. There was much more violence on the House side. There was no violence on the Senate side, in terms of the chamber.

The fact of the matter is even calling it insurrection, it wasn't. I condemn the breach, I condemn the violence, but to say there were thousands of armed insurrectionists breaching the Capitol, intent on overthrowing the government is just simply false narrative.

By and large it was peaceful protests except for there were a number of people, basically agitators that whipped the crowd and breached the Capitol, and, you know, that's really the truth of what's happening here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: The Senate is back in session here in just hours and sources are telling CNN that over the past 24 hours, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has ramped up pressure on his colleagues to oppose the measure, asking wavering senators to support a filibuster as a personal favor.

BERMAN: So, joining us now, CNN Anchor and Chief Domestic Correspondent Jim Acosta. Sir, it is very nice to see you on the New Day set. Listen, Mitch McConnell making calls, telling people as a personal favor, vote against this bipartisan commission, this bipartisan investigation. And this is after these shenanigans all night long just delaying the ultimate here, which is a filibuster, to block looking into what happened on January 6th. Your take.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Hi, John, Brianna. I mean, I think that Mitch McConnell, the rest of the Republican Party on the Senate side and even in the House, they're now likely to become the complicit caucus. They are going to drive the getaway car for Donald Trump for what happened on January 6th.

And, you know, what is going to happen here obviously if they knock down this January 6th commission is we're going to see Democrats on the House side and on the Senate side, you know, set committee hearings to investigate. I talked to a couple of House Democrats last night who said, listen, of course, we're going to do this. There's no question we're going to investigate this and they're going to be subpoenaing witnesses, they're going to be investigating what happened.

But it just boggles the mind that on the Republican side, there is this willingness to look the other way and not get to the bottom of what happened on January 6th, not get to the bottom of the intelligence breakdown, why was it that, you know, there were leads coming, there were tips coming, so the Capitol Police to the FBI, and they didn't follow up on it. What was Donald Trump doing that day?

I talked to a former senior White House official who said he was loving the Capitol mob on that day. What was he up to? We're not going to get the bottom of those things unless we investigate. And now it seems House Democrats and on the Senate side Democrats as well are going to do it on their own.

KEILAR: The divide was really on full display last night, Jim.

[07:05:02]

You saw Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene having their own event, very much in contrast to the former House speaker, Paul Ryan. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FMR. REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI): Once again, we conservatives find ourselves at a crossroads.

REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): Taking advice on party building from Paul Ryan would be like taking advice on how to interact with your in-laws from Megan Markle.

RYAN: If the conservative cause depends on the populist appeal of one personality or of second-rate imitations, then we're not going anywhere.

GAETZ: This is Donald Trump's party and I'm a Donald Trump Republican.

RYAN: It was horrifying to see a presidency come to so such a dishonorable and disgraceful end.

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): We've got clear something up. Who won the presidential race on November 3rd for Georgia?

RYAN: Voters looking for Republican leaders want to see independence in mettle.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Would it not be better for Republican politicians, for Republican supporters to move on and to look forward, even to look forward and ahead Trump in 2024 instead of keep on looking backward?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, because we think this was too great of a crime and we just can't let it go. We're not going to let it go.

RYAN: They will not be impressed by the set of yes-men and flatters (ph) flocking to Mar-a-Lago.

GREENE: You know, Nazis were the national socialist party, just like the Democrats are now a national socialist party. O'SULLIVAN: You don't need me to tell you, a lot of people don't like Greene.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's okay because, you know what, a lot of people didn't like Jesus Christ.

RYAN: Sometimes these skirmishers are just creation of outraged peddlers detached from reality and not worth anybody's time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Actually I don't know exactly what was said about the Holocaust as to what she said.

O'SULLIVAN: Yes. She compared COVID restrictions to the Holocaust.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I can understand that with Mengele, the Nazi, and how he used children and people to experiment with experimental drugs.

O'SULLIVAN: So, you're talking about the vaccine?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Wow, it's illuminating. I wonder what you think, Jim, because Paul Ryan, of course, he's speaking to Republicans. He's trying to make it okay to move away from Trump, but you can see where the energy is here. It's with Gaetz and Greene.

ACOSTA: Yes. You'd almost feel bad for Paul Ryan if he weren't sitting on the board at Fox News and Paul Ryan, when he was speaker of the House, had a chance to head it off at the pass. He saw these kinds of extreme movements building inside the Republican Party. He saw the rise of Donald Trump. And I think it can be said, I think, pretty convincingly that he didn't do enough to stop the rise of Donald Trump.

What we're seeing right now in the Republican Party, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, they're sort of the zombie party. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene are roaming the countryside, looking for brains to consume. And, evidently, there wasn't exactly a buffet of high-minded people there available down in Georgia last night.

I mean, one of the problems that I have with Marjorie Taylor Greene, John and Brianna, is what's the deal with all the Nazi talk? Why is she constantly making these Holocaust and Nazi references, never mind the fact that political science professors around the world, their heads are exploding this morning with the way she throws around the term the national socialism. She obviously doesn't know what she's talking about.

But this is a zombie Republican Party that Paul Ryan should have really done more to stop a long time ago.

BERMAN: My experience, people who have a history of saying anti- Semitic things, things about Jewish space lasers causing forest fires, who then make comparisons between health measures and the Holocaust and inspire, literally, I'm sick to my stomach from hearing that woman bring up Joseph Mengele and suggest in any way, it's applicable to the battle against coronavirus. It made my stomach turn, but you can see how she is affected by Marjorie Taylor Greene.

And if you're asking her Marjorie Taylor Greene's motivation, well, when people say things that anti-Semitic, it gives you a sense of what is motivating them, Jim.

ACOSTA: Yes.

BERMAN: And what I think about Paul Ryan, to back up to what we saw there, I mean, Paul Ryan, what is he doing? I mean, he center around the comments -- these were centered around the comments before like 12 hours before he gave the speech, like it was some dramatic line in the sand. I mean, I'm sorry, it's done, it's done. Paul Ryan is acting like there's a battle inside the Republican Party. And I'm like where's the battle?

ACOSTA: Too late, exactly. He's too late. And, by the way, if he wants to stop extremism or do something about extremism in America, he sits on the board of Fox News, He can do something about it right now, because I described it as a bullshit factory over at Fox News.

[07:10:11]

I mean, it is becoming a dangerous haven for extremist ideas. And the fact that they continue to paper over and whitewash what Donald Trump did on January 6th, half the clips you showed of Ron Johnson a few moments ago denying what happened on January 6th happened on Fox News. Did those anchors step in and say something to Ron Johnson like, no, you're lying about what happened on January 6th? No. It's because of what they do over at that station that is just demolishing what was left of a civil discourse in this country.

And so if Paul Ryan wants to do something about it, enough with the speeches at the Reagan Library, please give a speech over on the avenues of America over in midtown Manhattan, because that's where he could do some good right now.

KEILAR: All right. Jim, we're going to have to stand by. We have a lot to talk about ahead.

Breaking overnight, a stunning escalation in Russia's cyber war against the United States, and this is really something that is affecting all of this just weeks ahead of President Biden's summit with Vladimir Putin. The New York Times is reporting that Microsoft has detected a new hack.

Our Senior National Security Correspondent Alex Marquardt has this story. Tell us about this hack, Alex.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, hi there, Brianna. This was a huge series of cyber attacks that took place this week by Russia that targeted 3,000 email accounts across more than 150 organizations mostly in the United States. Many of them were human rights and other humanitarian organizations. As you mentioned, this is according to Microsoft, which detected and first reported these attacks.

Now, the actor behind it is the same Russian actor, is the one that behind the massive SolarWinds hack, which the U.S. government said just last month was carried out by Russia's main foreign intelligence, service which is called SVR. The Biden administration has sanctioned Russia for that as well as for interfering in the 2020 election against Joe Biden. Russian diplomats were even kicked out from the embassy here in Washington, and yet, Brianna, clearly, that did not stop Russia from carrying out more of these sinister cyber attacks.

Now, the timing of this is critical. You mentioned it. It comes less than three weeks before Presidents Biden and Vladimir Putin are set to meet face-to-face for a summit in Geneva, in Switzerland. Of course, Russia's malicious cyber campaigns have been a major factor in derailing this relationship between Washington and Moscow. And, of course, this is going to only make things worse.

Now, I did reach out to the White House this morning for a response. I have not yet heard back, but we have heard from the Kremlin. They just told CNN that they don't know anything about these attacks, and President Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that he doesn't think this is going to affect anything when it comes to this upcoming summit.

Now, in terms of how the Russian hackers carried out this new wave of attacks, they used an email service that was used by the USAID, the American government's aid agency. From there, they sent out emails that looked authentic. Take a look at this one. This is one example from Tuesday, from earlier this week. It claims that Donald Trump has published new documents on election fraud. The link that's included in that email then installs a malicious file, if you click on it, which allows those Russian hackers to get inside, to steal data and then go on to infect other computers.

Now, another remarkable part of all this, as we've mentioned, like with the SolarWinds breach, it is yet again a private company that is announcing these attacks, not the U.S. government. And, of course, it is clear that the Russian attacks have not slowed down. In fact, they have been stepped up despite the fact that the Biden administration has carried out these recent actions, these sanctions and other actions against Russia, and President Biden's desire for what he calls a stable predictable relationship with Russia.

Brianna, many would say that this is predictable behavior from Russia.

KEILAR: It is, and at a critical time, as you mentioned. Alex, great report, thank you so much.

Back with us is Jim Acosta, and also joining us in this is conversation is CNN Counterterrorism Analyst and former FBI Senior Intelligence Adviser Phil Mudd.

Phil, I think we're all starting to see how these things affect us day to day. We saw that with the pipeline attack. How should we read this one?

PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Well, I don't see this as a cyber attack. I know it looks like that to me. I see this as cyber espionage. Look, Brianna, 30 years ago, if Putin wanted to acquire information in the U.S. government about political opposition, which is clearly a priority for him, maybe more important than having a successful summit with Biden, he would have had to Steele documents, maybe pay an informant.

In the 21st century, what you do is take the backdoor, in this case, through a U.S. company, and start stealing that data electronically. This looks like cyber warfare. It's not.

[07:15:00]

It's cyber espionage in a way that we would not have seen 25 years ago. He is stealing information. He would have had to get through documents from an informant years ago, Brianna.

BERMAN: Look, to me, this looks brazen cheeky, almost, right? You use this stunt email saying it's from the president and you're rubbing the administration's nose in this because it seems to me you know this is going to get out. You know this comes after the Biden administration imposed some sanctions, expelled some diplomats, Jim, but didn't go as far as some people were calling on because President Biden said he didn't want to get into this cycle of escalation. But here, the Russian are going ahead and escalating. I mean, what does the Biden White House do about this? How does he go and meet with Vladimir Putin after an attack this cheeky?

ACOSTA: Putin is going to Putin. I mean, there's just no question about it. And Brianna and I know from covering Barack Obama over at the White House, how he tangled with Vladimir Putin. I mean, the relationship between the United States and Russia, and Phil Mudd know this, fundamentally changed when Donald Trump came into the Oval Office. we saw him bow to Putin in Helsinki, Finland, a few years back.

I think that the Russians are in a mode right now where they feel like they can be provocative and test the United States on a regular basis, sort of flex their muscles in their region where they still have control over countries like Belarus and so on.

And I think this is a test for Joe Biden. President Biden is going to have to -- decides to keep this summit with Vladimir Putin, he is going to have to toe-to-toe with Vladimir Putin and say, listen, if you don't knock this off, there are going to be consequences and the consequences are going to have to be bigger than just the usual run- on-the-mill sanctions that we see from one administration to the next.

Putin has not gotten the message from the United States, no matter who is in the Oval Office. And these provocations, I think, are just going to keep on happening.

KEILAR: I think you are right. Jim Acosta, thank you so much. Phil Mudd, thank you for joining our chat here. Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are spiking in the U.K. despite it having one of the world's highest vaccination rates. So what is behind this?

BERMAN: Plus, the U.S. reopening from the Memorial Day weekend. One business owner will tell us how he is preparing for big, mask-less crowds.

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[07:20:00]

BERMAN: This morning, a potentially concerning development in the United Kingdom, coronavirus cases and hospitalizations rising again, as the variant first identified in India now continues to spread.

CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us. I saw these numbers and it raised my eyebrows, Elizabeth, because the U.K. has done such a good job with vaccinations and driven the cases and the deaths and the hospitalizations down. So when I saw the numbers tick up, I was wondering, what does this tell us?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: John, that's exactly the right question to be asking. Not the alarmed like, oh, my goodness, there is this increase, because their case numbers are so low that this slight increase is not going to overburden the U.K. health care system, but it's not a good thing to see this variant first spotted in India kind of take off in this way because this variant is concerning. It is quite transmissible.

Let's take a look at what these numbers are. So if we look at the week of May 20th compared to the prior week, it's an 18 percent increase in cases, as you said, at a time when the U.K. has done such a good job of controlling cases. It turns out that in the U.K., 50 to 75 percent of the cases are the India variant. So that's quite a bit. That's a big chunk of their cases.

Now, let's talk a little bit about the vaccine. We don't know exactly how effective the vaccine is against the India variant, but we do know there's one study that looks at Pfizer, for example, and says the vaccine is 80 percent effective. The vaccine is 80 percent effective against the variant first spotted in India. That's not as good as 95 percent, which is what Pfizer is usually, but still, 80 percent is a really, really terrific vaccine.

Let's take a look at the differences of vaccination rates in the U.K. versus the U.S. In the U.S., about half of people have had at least one dose and 40 percent are fully vaccinated. And one dose does give you some protection. In the U.K., about 60 percent have had at least one dose and about 35 percent are fully vaccinated. So the U.K. and the U.S., a little bit different. In the U.K., you see more people with just one shot, again, gives some protection but not as good as two. But the U.K. and the U.S., two of the best vaccination rates in the world. John?

BERMAN: We'll watch it over the next few weeks, I think, to see if there are any trends building out of this.

Elizabeth, you've got data on the demographics of counties that are lagging behind in the U.S. in vaccinations. What have you learned?

COHEN: Yes. It's interesting. About 40 percent of Americans haven't had any shots. They haven't even gotten a first shot of the vaccine. And so at CNN here, we took a look at what do we know about these counties that have these low vaccination rates. And there are some things that they kind of have in common.

If you compare the counties with -- if you look at the counties that have below average vaccination rates, 35 percent more households lack internet access, in other words, more of a tendency to lack internet access. The medium household income is about 20 percent lower compared to counties with better vaccination rates and fewer adults who have bachelor's degrees, so, in other words, a lower education status.

Now, there's all sorts -- those things would correlate with low vaccination rates. Some of it is just plain logistics. If you don't have the internet, it's hard to make an appointment, obviously. I mean, you can walk in, but it's easier if you have the internet.

But some of this is just that people who live in these counties, they feel pretty strongly that they don't want the vaccine. So it's some logistical reasons and some belief reasons, if you will.

BERMAN: Elizabeth Cohen, as always, thanks so much for your reporting.

COHEN: Thanks.

BERMAN: Brianna?

KEILAR: Starting today, New Jersey will stop requiring masks inside restaurants, inside retail stores, movie theaters, gyms, setting up a potentially rowdy holiday weekend on the Jersey Shore.

Joining me now to talk about this is someone who is going to know how it goes, John Connor. He is the general manager of Water Dog Smoke House, which is a restaurant in Atlantic City.

John, I can only imagine how this feels for you. Tell us how you're feeling about the lifting of these rules of the mask mandate.

[07:25:04]

JOHN CONNOR, GENERAL MANAGER, WATER DOG SMOKE HOUSE: Well, we're certainly cautious, the lifting of the rules. We want to make sure that our team here at Water Dog is protected, as well as every guest that walks in. We'll be sure to be offering curbside pickup to anybody who isn't comfortable coming indoors, however, enforcing the mask mandate will become the most challenging. So we'll be sure to make sure every one of our guests is safe when they come through the doors but also offer curbside pickup.

KEILAR: So, what have you done to protect your employees? Are they all vaccinated? How does it work?

CONNOR: We've encouraging every one of our employees to get the vaccination. It's a huge part of reopening New Jersey and reopening the Jersey Shore. So we've encouraged it highly, however, we can't force them to get vaccinated. But any employee who is not vaccinated is required to wear a mask while the vaccinated ones will be not wearing a mask.

KEILAR: Are some of your employees, do you think, who are vaccinated going to wear masks anyway? Do they feel safer that way?

CONNOR: Some of them will be, yes, wearing the masks. And it's really on them and how comfortable they feel with guests walking in and out of doors without masks. We encourage them to wear masks. Luckily, we're social distancing and working with following the state of New Jersey, the CDC guidelines, and the Department of Health. So we just want to ensure that our employees are just as safe as our guests.

KEILAR: Look, john, I know that you've had actually a good off-season because a lot of people stayed at the shore. So I know you're looking forward to a good -- getting into on-season here. John Connor joining us from Atlantic City, thank you.

CONNOR: Thank you very much.

KEILAR: Her son died trying to defend the Capitol during the insurrection, but her pleas for a commission to investigate the riot are falling on deaf ears, the ears of Republicans. We're going to talk to a former congresswoman who accompanied Brian Sicknick's mother up on the Hill.

BERMAN: And how did former President Donald Trump get a Bush family member to kiss his ring.

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