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New Day

Biden Warns Democracy in Peril amid GOP's Assault on Voting; Vice President's Team Works to Get Distance Between Her and Border Problems; Cruise Lines, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) Square Off over Vaccine Passports. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired June 01, 2021 - 07:00   ET

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

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Very close to normal, but not normal out west, 15 degrees above in some spots.

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New Day continues right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: I'm John Berman alongside Brianna Keilar on this New Day.

President Biden warning democracy is in peril as Republican-led states move to restrict access to vote.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN NEW DAY: Avoiding an albatross on the border, new CNN reporting on Vice President Harris' public and private strategies to deal with the immigration crisis.

BERMAN: Major cruise lines on a collision course with Florida's governor over COVID restrictions.

KEILAR: And a mass shooting foiled in Texas just days after officials promised to turn the state into a Second Amendment sanctuary.

BERMAN: Welcome to our viewers in United States and all around the world, it is Tuesday, June 1st.

So how far are you willing to go to protect the vote? That's the question some Democrats are asking this morning. In Texas, Democrats in the legislature there blocked a new restrictive voting bill by essentially walking out, depriving the Republicans of a quorum needed to pass the bill. Now, that victory could be temporary as the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, will soon call a special session to make it law. But some Democrats are around the country pointing to Texas, this is what we need to do, pull out all the stops to keep these laws from passing. And President Biden, they suggest, isn't doing enough to help.

Now, for his part the president did condemn the Texas bill as an assault on democracy, calling it wrong and un-American. And he offered up this warning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: Democracy itself is in peril, here at home and around the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: President Biden also called for a federal voter protections, which are currently stalled in Congress.

KEILAR: The showdown in Texas is just the latest example of Republican attempts to make it harder for likely Democratic voters to cast ballots in 2022 and 2024. And many Democrats are now questioning why President Biden should continue to seek deals on issues like infrastructure if Republicans are hell bent on derailing his agenda.

BERMAN: Joining us now, Mara Schiavocampo, Journalist and Host of the Run Tell This podcast, which is awesome, and Errol Louis, CNN Political Commentator and Host of the You Decide podcast, which is awesome.

All right, Mara, so, President Biden, we heard him say democracy is in peril as he sees these Republican-led states pass new voter restrictions. Democracy is in peril, he says. Is he acting like it's in peril?

MARA SCHIAVOCAMPO, HOST, RUN TELL THIS PODCAST: Well, you know, what's interesting about the response that we're seeing here, as you mentioned, measures that are stalled in Congress, right? So, one of the most important things that needs to happen when you talk about executive actions and the ability to push a legislation through is that we have to get the John Lewis Voting Rights Act passed, because that would protect a lot of measures and efforts we're seeing across the country.

When he's talking about democracy being in peril, you have to add the word, again, to that. Democracy is in peril again, because this country is now a great democracy but that was not always the case. When this country was founded, the only ones who could vote were white males who owned property. So this was really minority rule for the majority of the country's existence. It's only been democracy the last 55 years since the last voting rights act was passed. So we have to make sure those protections are still in place as strongly as they were 55 years ago.

BERMAN: The Texas Democrats walked out, they walked out to stop it for a time. And, again, some Democrats are saying this is playing hardball. This is the hardball we need to play. The Senate should do away with the filibuster to pass the federal laws here. And, again, as it relates to President Biden, if he feels that democracy is in peril, why isn't he parked in West Virginia talking to Joe Manchin every day to try to make this happen? Why isn't he giving a speech on it every day?

I know this is an impossibly high bar to set, but if you feel that something is really fundamentally at stake here, could he do more?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The president is the man in the middle. He has this high-flown rhetoric that you use on occasions like Memorial Day to talk about the soul of the nation, to get back to basically the founding story of his presidency was the unite the right rally that we all were horrified by in 2017 when you had the Oath Keepers and the neo-Nazis and all of these different groups getting together and explicitly saying that they were going to attack democracy.

Well, it's not as explicit as January 6th, which is the culmination of all of that but the president does indeed have to sort of match up his rhetoric with his actions. If the threat is that serious, he's going to have to go a little beyond sort of jawboning about what state legislatures are doing, understanding, of course, John, that there are things that he really can't do as president of the United States. Texas legislature wants to change Texas state laws. He's powerless to stop it.

And in the end, he can go, but so far, he can work with Congress, he can try and rally his own troops, his own political forces, but in the end, he can't stop all of these state legislatures from going down this path.

[07:05:07]

Over 250 laws have been put forward, most of which are going to try to restrict democracy. The president is powerless to stop that but he can alert all of us that something needs to be done.

BERMAN: Enough of the bully pulpit. Is he using it enough though, Mara?

SCHIAVOCAMPO: Well, I think that statements like the one he's made recently certainly helped. And this is something that he has been very clear on and we've heard very clearly from any on this, that nobody is fooled by the lie that this is about protecting voting integrity because there is no evidence that there was any threat to voting integrity. There is no evidence of voter fraud. This is not a continuation of the big lie, it is the genesis of the big lie about the election, because what allowed so many people to believe that the election could, in fact, have even been stolen.

So, you do hear people beating this drumbeat, but let's be clear, those who are putting forth these voting rights, these restrictive measures, it's not that they don't know the truth, they don't care.

BERMAN: Errol, this morning, the former national security adviser, retired General Michael Flynn, is denying that he endorsed the idea of a military coup in the United States. That's a hell of a headline there. Let me play you the sound that came at this MAGA event and listen to how he answers a question about the military coup in Myanmar. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to know why what happened in Myanmar can't happen here.

MICHAEL FLYNN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: No reason. I mean, it should happen here. No reason. That's right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. Now, you heard that there for yourself. Michael Flynn did put out a statement denying that he was endorsing the idea of a military coup. He claims what he was using is there is no reason for a coup. People heard it for themselves there, Errol.

LOUIS: Yes.

BERMAN: Michael Flynn said a lot of inflammatory things before. He has talked about martial law and that the former president could have declared martial law during the time after the election but before the inauguration, things like that.

I have a few questions about this. The mainstreaming, right, in some ways of this notion, to even hear it at a rally like that, questions about having a military coup in the United States, we should be like Myanmar, it's really shocking to hear that.

LOUIS: It is shocking. It never loses its power to shock. First of all, we should say, Michael Flynn should be lucky he didn't wake up in a jail cell this morning, right, I mean, were it not for the pardon that he was given by Donald Trump, he would be in a lot of legal trouble. This is somebody who has broken the law repeatedly, violated his oath of office, violated a military tradition out of which he comes.

This would be a good time for a couple of hundred generals, active and retired, maybe to sign a letter saying that they disassociate themselves from this breach with American tradition. But this is -- as you said, this is the mainstreaming. This is the fringe. This is somebody who is disgraced, somebody who was photographed dining at the table of Vladimir Putin, somebody who lied to the public and to his commanding officers about whether or not he was taking money under the table from Turkey while he was simultaneously supposed to be looking out for interest of the United States. In a million different ways, this is somebody who is not fit to be listened to.

On the other hand, here he is trying to incite insurrection. And people should disassociate themselves from it. This is not something that could be allowed into the mainstream of American politics.

BERMAN: Our friend, Brianna Keilar, knows he's still drawing a military pension there, which is notable.

Mara, I don't want this to pass by because I think this is a big day, historically speaking, which is the U.S. president, Joe Biden, is going to Tulsa to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Greenwood massacre there, the massacre on black wall street. This is something that I think went unnoticed by a lot of people, a lot of white people, in America for a long, long time. To have the U.S. president go there and to talk about measures to create some type of equity among African-Americans, financial equity, it's a big day.

SCHIAVOCAMPO: Yes, it is a big day. It's very important, the acknowledgment is very important. And you mentioned how it's really been buried by history. And I recall after 9/11 a lot of people talking about how terrible this terrorist attack was on U.S. soil and there were a lot of black people who were saying there was another terrible terrorist attack on U.S. soil that nobody ever mentions. So to have the president go there and acknowledge it in this way is very significant. The acknowledgment is important.

You also bring up the issue of economics and the economic cost to this community, not just to those who were living at the time, but to their descendants. This has a generational impact. Why are there no black Rockefellers? Why are there no black DuPont families? It's because it takes generations to amass that kind of wealth. That's what was robbed from those families in Tulsa.

And we should note that not only the insurance claims they filed were paid out. That's how egregious of a violation this was just from an economic standpoint, not to mention the human stand point. So the conversation about making those descendants whole is a really important one to have.

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BERMAN: And, Errol, thematically, this also fits into a political narrative that Joe Biden ran on.

LOUIS: Absolutely. Look, these are the sort of twin political pillars of Biden presidency where, first of all, fighting against the right, the unite the right rally, and also the revival of his candidacy when in South Carolina in the primary, you had Jim Clyburn step forward, rally the black base of the Democratic Party, not just in South Carolina but really throughout the nation and swept him both to the nomination and into the White House. So this is something he had to do. This is something he needs to do, go forward and speak truthfully about it.

And there are a lot of different laws, the open housing laws, the fair housing laws, the Community Reinvestment Act, where we've tried to undo so much of the damage that has been done over the last couple generations. For him to sort of step forward and say he wants to continue in that tradition is, in some ways, a kind of political reparation of a kind that a president can do. These much larger questions about what we do about race in this country, you know, we have to deal with it a bit at a time. Today, I think we're going to see a step in that direction.

BERMAN: Errol Louis, Mara Schiavocampo, you make us smarter. I appreciate you coming on this morning.

SCHIAVOCAMPO: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: Thank you very much for that. Brianna?

KEILAR: Definitely much smarter, I will say.

President Biden tapped Vice President Harris to lead the administration's efforts to, quote, stem, the migration on the southern border back in March. This morning, there is new CNN reporting about the political risk of Harris being linked to problems at the border and how aides are working to distance her from it.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand is here with more on this. This is pretty fascinating, Natasha. What's going on?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes. So, back in March, when President Biden first announced that Vice President Harris was going to be taking on this assignment, dealing with stemming migration to the southern border from these normal tribal countries, there was a lot of confusion surrounding what her role would actually be. Was it going to be a border assignment where she was actually responsible for stemming the tide of migrants to the border and surging resources there and making sure that this was a more manageable situation or was she going to be focused more on the root causes of migration that were actually driving people to the border in the first instance.

Well, Republicans kind of seized on that confusion. And they made it seem as though Vice President Harris was going to be the new border czar, that she was going to be responsible and be the envoy to the border and be responsible essentially for all the problems that arise there.

And so when her team kind of saw this being mischaracterized by some media outlets and by Republicans and questions swirling about whether she herself was going to visit the border in her new capacity, they kind of were dismayed by this because her role was always going to be focusing on these northern tribal countries and the root causes of this.

And they saw her being linked to the border as a potentially, politically perilous assignment and task because, obviously, it's a very fraught situation and it's something that has vexed many, many previous administrations trying to figure out how to both come up with a humanitarian with Trump administration excepted, come up with humanitarian approach to immigration while also trying to say that the border is closed and that people need to come in the proper way.

So, very politically fraught situation for the vice president and this is why now they are emphasizing, and they have emphasized, that she is going to be focused more on diplomatic efforts, on dealing with the leaders of those countries and trying to really get at the causes of why people are leaving these countries to begin with.

KEILAR: You know it's politically fraught just from how the Biden administration has responded to this crisis. For a long time, they didn't want to call it a crisis, right? So you know that this is just one of those very tough situations and maybe, politically, it's not one you want to be tied to.

That said, I mean, she does have this portfolio, right, dealing at least with the root causes of the problems. How is her work on that progressing?

BERTRAND: Yes. And what we're told is that she is extremely involved in crafting the administration's regional strategy for dealing with the root causes of migration. She has briefed regularly the national Security Council on these issues. She is meeting with immigration experts and she's doing roundtables. And she's focused on everything, from governance to climate change to tackling food insecurity in these countries to really get at what is causing these people to surge to the border. Of course, corruption, gang violence, all of this is within her agreement.

But she has wanted to emphasize both internally and publicly, frankly, her team has come out and said publicly, look, we do not own the issues at the border, we are not managing the issues at the border. This is for the secretary of defense -- secretary of homeland security. This is for the people on the NSC who are dealing explicitly with this issue in the Southwest United States and the vice president is going to be dealing exclusively with diplomacy. And this is why she's making this trip to Mexico and Guatemala next week.

KEILAR: All right. We'll be watching that trip. Natasha, great reporting, thank you so much.

A Texas man arrested over an alleged mass shooting plot at a Walmart, this disturbing discovery in a state moving to vastly expand gun rights.

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BERMAN: Cruise lines stuck in the middle of a coronavirus culture war involving Florida's Republican governor.

KEILAR: And help wanted, why the post-pandemic labor boom is being led by the youngest workers.

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KEILAR: Cruise lines are squaring off with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis after he passed a law that bans businesses from asking for proof that passengers have been vaccinated when proof is exactly what these cruise lines need in order to stay afloat and get folks safely back on board.

Joining us now is Maritime Attorney Michael Winkleman. Michael, thank you so much for being with us. Look, a lot of people, they want to get back out there, they want to go on vacation, you have the governor who has sued the CDC back in April to get cruises back yet at the same time there's no cruise line that is supporting the governor in his effort to stop cruises from verifying the vaccination or non- vaccination of its passengers.

[07:20:00]

Where is this headed?

MICHAEL WINKLEMAN, MARITIME ATTORNEY: To court most likely, Brianna. I think that's the most logical end to this game of chicken that's going on. It's really a bizarre time for the cruise line. I think you're 100 percent correct, there's tremendous pent-up demand for cruising. People want to go back to cruising. I think the CDC wants to go back to cruising and get Governor DeSantis is trying to mess things up as much as he possibly can. First, he sues the CDC and now he's basically threatening to sue the cruise lines if they're going to require these vaccine passports.

It's really untenable situation. Governor DeSantis should keep his nose out of the business of the cruise lines and CDC. It's simply not what he does. The cruise lines and the CDC are working together well to get back cruising. I think they will get back cruising but I also think you cannot cruise safely without the vaccine and without proof of vaccination.

KEILAR: Well, the federal government agrees because the guidance coming down says that basically all crew need to be vaccinated and almost all, the vast majority of passengers need to be vaccinated.

You know, of course, cruise ships, maritime law is something that we normally associate with being a federal issue. And this is the federal government that is also coming down with this guidance for cruise ships. Does the governor have a leg to stand on coming from a state with these rules?

WINKLEMAN: I'm going to give you a legal answer. I'm going to say, not really. You say it's federal, which is true, the CDC has discretion to regulate the cruise lines. I often complain when we're not in COVID times, that there's not enough regulation over the cruise lines. But certainly in this situation where the CDC shut down cruising, we see that as a unique exception to that.

But I think, ultimately, if this does go to court, I know the cruise lines are going to fight tooth and nail to say this is not valid. He doesn't have discretion to do it, et cetera. But that's one of the fun things about maritime laws, you always have this unique interplay between federal laws, state law, foreign law, international law, so there's not one plain bright line answer, Brianna.

But I do think at the end of the day, the cruise lines and the CDC win this battle, not Governor DeSantis.

KEILAR: All right. So you think the cruise lines will prevail. All right, we'll be watching, Michael. Thanks for being with us.

WINKLEMAN: Thank you, Brianna.

BERMAN: So, with 40 percent of the country now fully vaccinated, there are concerns over healthcare workers, healthcare workers who are not getting the vaccine.

My next guest is seeing this firsthand. She has been helping lead the pandemic response for New York City's public hospitals and addressed this issue at a New York Times op-ed, writing, quote, an unvaccinated healthcare worker can present a real threat if frontline health workers remain unconvinced and unprotected, it's an obstacle for getting everyone to full vaccination.

Joining me now is Dr. Syra Madad, she's an infectious disease epidemiologist and is the senior director of System-Wide Special Pathogens for NYC Health and Hospitals, the nation's largest public health care system. Doctor, great to have you with us.

Healthcare workers, people look at that and go, what? I mean, these are the people who, A, probably should know better and, B, are on the frontlines and have seen it firsthand. So why?

SYRA MADAD, LEADS SPECIAL PATHOGENS PROGRAM FOR NYC HEALTH - HOSPITALS: Well, I think there's a couple of things. First, it's been an uncomfortable reality since the beginning of when vaccination rollout started in December. I think there's a few things.

When we talk about health care workers, it's a very broad category. So you have physicians, nurses, home health aides, so it's a very broad category. If we look down, physicians are getting vaccinated, nurses are getting vaccinated, but when you look at, you know, those that are not providing direct patient care services, you're seeing lower vaccination uptake there.

So we need to do better in terms of making health care workers are also getting vaccinated, because that's a big part of the solution that we have to get to community immunity across the U.S.

BERMAN: And you're seeing this firsthand in your own life. You have home health care workers who are helping you care for people.

MADAD: That's correct. I have four home health aides. And so within home health aides, they are a job category that are the lowest vaccination rates. And so when we look at home health aides, and look at people that don't want to get vaccinated, there's a broad reason why. Access is one. We have ongoing issues with access. If we look at other reasons, we have, you know, people thinking that these vaccines are developed at a faster rate. But when you ask, can you provide more information, they understand the accelerated timeline. If you look at other reasons, you look at side effects also a big concern for people. But if you provide ongoing education, ongoing conversations, it helps people.

BERMAN: What are some solutions beyond ongoing education? How do you feel about mandates in health care settings?

MADAD: So, I'm up for mandates, but I think there's a couple of issues here. So, the COVID-19 pandemic has already exposed shortages of health care workers. So if you mandate vaccination, you're obviously going to see uptick in overall vaccination. But the question more is how much are we willing to lose? We're going to see more shortages. So, it's a risk/benefit analysis. It's one of those things where you can mandate it but you want to also see what is that going to translate into into loss of health care worker shortages.

BERMAN: We talk about the risk overall. I mean, there's huge risk to being an unvaccinated healthcare worker. We have seen that.

MADAD: So those working in close proximity to patients, especially nursing homes where we have seen take a huge hit since the beginning of pandemic, they certainly can pose a significant risk not to themselves but also to the residents there, especially those that are immunocompromised.

[07:25:08]

We need to do a better job ensuring that health care workers are educated on all the benefits of COVID-19 vaccine, motivational interviewing also helps. So there are many things that we can do, but it's more of a direct conversation.

BERMAN: Well, thank you for what you're doing, shining a light on this and also your daily work. I really appreciate it.

MADAD: Thank you.

BERMAN: As the economy reopens and companies struggle to find employees, teenagers are picking up the job with higher wages. Chief Business Correspondent Christine Romans joins me now.

Romans, I've got two 14-year-olds, i can't believe what they're making at their age in the jobs they're doing. I'm asking them to chip in to various household expenses.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, exactly. You're going to take 10 percent.

BERMAN: Absolutely.

ROMANS: Look, The New York Times, John, puts it this way, the luckiest workers in America, teenagers. As the economy reopens, it's the best summer in years for teenagers looking for work. In fact, the largest share of teenagers working now than any time since 2008, the employment to population ratio, as we call it, for 16 to 19-year-olds, 32.8 percent. Times highlights the Pittsburgh Amusement Park Kennywood, starting pay there, $13 an hour for 18-year-olds and graduating high school seniors.

New this season, a free season pass for them and three members of their family. Perks, teens are taking those traditional summer jobs, lifeguards, amusement park workers, they are at restaurants and bars but they're also filling in a gap where some older workers just haven't come back yet.

For millions of workers, there are childcare gaps, new family responsibilities, health concerns because of the pandemic, we know there are 8.1 million job openings in America. That's a record high. Restaurants report difficulty finding enough workers. Big retail chains, they are raising wages to retract and retain workers, so teens in this environment are finding perks and higher pay to keep them.

Does it last? It depends on how long this big dislocation in the jobs market last, John. Economists say older workers in health care and education, they are not coming back. They're retiring. We know that some workers in hospitality, they have used the past year to retrain in tech and finance. Teens nab the vast majority of jobs in April, quarter million of them. We'll see what the jobs report looks like on Friday for May.

BERMAN: You said 10 percent is a fair contribution. I want 30. I said they should kicking back 30.

ROMANS: I don't know. The labor laws I don't think support you there.

BERMAN: All right. Christine Romans, disappointing, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Coming up, the FBI and Secret Service investigating a failed mass shooting plot at Walmart. Why authorities say the suspect had extremist ties.

KEILAR: And a Southwest Airlines pilot pleads guilty to watching porn in the cockpit of a flight and that's not all.

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