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New Day

Interview with Michigan Governor, Gretchen Whitmer. Michigan GOP Candidates Leaning Into Far-Right Rhetoric. Interview with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Chief Medical Correspondent. Interview With National Health Reporter of "The Washington Post," Dan Diamond, UNESCO Proposes Great Barrier Reef to be Put on the Endangered List. French Women Who Killed Abusive Husband Goes on Trial. Iran's President-Elect Dashes Hopes of Stronger Nuclear Deal. First Openly Gay Active Player in NFL. Interview with former NLF player, Wade Davis, and CEO and executive director of the Trevor Project, Amit Paley. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired June 22, 2021 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D-MI): Well, I think it's really surprising to so many people, including family members of my own who used to, you know, probably be moderate members of the GOP. We were led for a long time by the Milken administration, this was a Republican governor who was a great conservationist, who was prochoice, who was a conservative when it came to, you know, policies that involved finance.

But this, I think, GOP in Michigan right now has really bought into kind of the fringe, and I think that's why so many people are still looking for a home and that's why I'm going to stay focused on doing bipartisan work wherever we can, but living our values of respecting and protecting all people in Michigan and making this a place where everyone has a path to a good life, to be able to raise a family and enjoy this incredible state that we all call home.

BERMAN: Can a guy like Fred Upton survive in Michigan Republican politics?

WHITMER: You know, Fred Upton has survived for a long period of time, and Fred has not changed, the party has changed. And I think it's harder and harder for moderate Republicans to call the GOP home and that's why I want to make sure that we continue to do that outreach and support anyone who wants to work to find common ground on the problems that we are all confronting, right? Getting our economy back to full strength.

We're making great strides. We need to work at this together, but the fringe is not going to lead the way. We've got to find people of goodwill to find that common ground and Fred Upton has done a great job and I hope he's got a long career ahead of him.

BERMAN: Governor Gretchen Whitmer, thanks so much for being with us.

WHITMER: Thank you. KEILAR: All right. Let's talk more now about the pandemic's path here in the United States. And for that, we bring in Dr. Sanjay Gupta who is, of course, our chief medical correspondent and the host of "Chasing Life," which is a great podcast, he's also the author of a brand-new book out in october "World War C: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic and How to Prepare for the Next One." He also has a book coming out about how to fit a lot more into your day, apparently.

BERMAN: He is also a chef.

KEILAR: Right. He is a professional water skier.

BERMAN: Mathematician.

KEILAR: OK. Sanjay, you know, we're hearing from this Missouri Hospital, CEO Steve Edwards, and he's painting really a dire picture of the situation in his health system. Let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE EDWARDS, CEO, COX HEALTH: We've seen now in four and a half weeks almost a six-fold increase in COVID patients. So, we were sitting around 14, we are at 83 this morning. It appears to be related to the Delta variant. We began to get news Delta variant about five weeks ago, maybe three or four weeks ago it was maybe 10 percent of those isolates that were sequenced. And as of last week, it appeared to be 90 percent. So, I think it's the Delta variant and there is a lot of kindling with low vaccination rates. So, it's spreading very rapidly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: That's the case in other states, too, Sanjay. I wonder if they should be taking notice here.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, this is the thing, if you dig a little bit deeper into some of that data, the people who are getting sick that are requiring hospitalization, perhaps no surprise, are primarily people who have not been vaccinated. So, this variant, the Delta variant, is a lot less forgiving than the other variants. This is 60 percent more transmissible than what we used to call the U.K. variant which was 50 percent more transmissible than the strain before that.

So, there is a significant sort of change, you know, obviously with these variants in terms of what they can do. And we see the effectiveness in how that, you know -- the vaccines can still be very effective against these, but it drops off if you only get one dose, it drops off significantly. And obviously, you really don't have protection against this unless you've been vaccinated.

So, at Missouri, where he's talking about, they have about 38 percent vaccination, that's a lot lower than the rest of the country. Thankfully, the rest of the country, you know, globally is higher across the country, but in places where you have unvaccinated pockets of people, you do see this increase in hospitalizations. So, it's what we sort of predicted, sort of thought would happen. And I think, you know, places that have not yet been vaccinated need to pay attention here. If you've been vaccinated, again, you have a lot of protection.

BERMAN: Just one more reason that vaccinations are the key, I think, to a different lifestyle going forward.

As we talk to experts like you, Sanjay, they point out we're doing pretty well on vaccines. We could do better but we're doing pretty well, but there are places in the country that aren't and there are places that could to be fertile ground for this Delta variant. So, game it out, what could happen if this takes greater hold?

GUPTA: You know, right now we're going into the summer, you know, it is a good time overall because the virus doesn't spread as easily when it's warmer, when it's more humid, the virus just has a harder time. But let's look at what happens as we get into the cooler and drier weather potentially, these are all just models here, looking at places where you have increased transmission because of the variants, that's on the left, but also high vaccinations. You see, obviously, compared to the peaks, we're not going to have those sorts of peaks.

[07:35:00]

The questions now are resurgences. What kind of resurgences are we going to have going into the fall and what kind of impact could they have? Will they shut things down again in certain places? Will they cause us to go back into mitigation sort of mode again?

On the left, if you have high vaccination, you get a little bit of increase, it's likely to get a little bit no matter what. But on the right where you have lower vaccination areas you get these larger resurgences, it's a -- you get these larger resurgences. It's as simple as that. I think there's no question, again, that we are going to see some increase in numbers especially as we get into the cooler and drier months. So, be prepared for that. It shouldn't come as a shock to anybody if we start to see little blips, it's just a question of how big will those blips be and how much will we need to react?

I mean, you know, we are talking about hopefully getting kids vaccinated, returning to a sense of normalcy in the fall. If we don't get to those points, we could have some -- at least in certain areas of the country, some regression in terms of where we are.

KEILAR: And young adults, I don't mean to knock all young adults because I know some who are being more responsible than their parents during this pandemic and they have a lot that they're giving up, that they have given up to do that, they're getting vaccinated. But when you look at the numbers overall, some of this vaccine coverage among young adults in the U.S., it's low and it's increasing really slowly, Sanjay.

GUPTA: Yes. I mean, we could show you the numbers here. It's interesting. So, about half the country, roughly, has gotten vaccinated in that age group and then you have different reasons as to why other people are not yet vaccinated. It's interesting, you know, talking to people, especially people who are in colleges and things like that, thinking about the vaccine, they sort of rolled out at a time when a lot of students were in the middle of finals. This is what they're telling me, and they didn't want to get the vaccine because they thought it would make them sick for a day, they wouldn't get their final exams or they would be going home not be able to come back to campus for their second shot. So, there's different reasons. They're just put it in the logistics sort of bucket.

Then, you know, there is another group of people who say, look, I'm not likely to get sick. This thing looks like it's in the rearview mirror. I really don't need to worry about it. I hope that when we show these other graphs two things pop out, you know, younger people are far less likely to get sick, that is true, but these variants, they are starting to cause hospitalizations in young people especially in other countries. And it's almost all unvaccinated people that are in the hospitals.

The second thing is that, if we want to get to the numbers that you and Governor Whitmer were just talking about, we are probably going to need more young people getting vaccinated to sort of get to that herd immunity. So, a part of it is do it for yourself, part of it is do it for your community and you're going to be far more protected going forward.

KEILAR: You can get the vaccine anywhere now. I know young people who got it in Pennsylvania and then they got the second dose in D.C. So, don't worry about that, right, is probably what you would say to them.

Sanjay, thank you so much. Good to see you this morning.

GUPTA: You got it.

BERMAN: It sounded like you were going to say, some of my best friends are young people.

KEILAR: They are.

BERMAN: I know a lot of young people.

KEILAR: I've inherited -- not inherited. I've gained young people in my marriage. So, they are my test cases.

BERMAN: There you go. All right. Up next, Former President Trump's idea to keep people infected with COVID on an island, and not just any island.

KEILAR: Plus, an NFL player is out with a personal revelation that is making history.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:40:00]

BERMAN: Stunning revelation this is morning about the Trump administration's response during the early days of the pandemic. In a new book entitled "Nightmare Scenario," "Washington Post" journalist, Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta, report how President Trump suggested sending Americans with COVID-19 to Guantanamo Bay, a place where the U.S. holds terrorism suspects.

Joining me now to Dan Diamond, national health reporter at the "Washington Post."

And, Dan, you are here with us because you got an early copy of the book from your colleagues and you read through it and that business with President Trump wanting to send COVID patients to Gitmo, is that for real?

DAN DIAMOND, NATIONAL HEALTH REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, it's really in the book. And having read it cover to cover, I can tell you there are lots of revelations like that in "Nightmare Scenario" that really just -- even as someone who has covered the pandemic for over a year, it still, at times, took my breath away.

BERMAN: And explain how that fits into how President Trump handled the pandemic at that time.

DIAMOND: Well, the Guantanamo Bay revelation is set in early 2020 when some U.S. officials were grappling with what to do with infected Americans overseas. John, your viewers might recall that the earliest outbreaks were in China or on cruise ships, and officials wanted to bring those sick Americans home to get them care. What "Nightmare Scenario" reports is that President Trump had the idea, repeatedly, that the infected Americans should go to Guantanamo Bay. And this appeared to be less about public health and more about keeping the numbers down on the mainland. The president was worried that numbers of cases here would look bad for his reelection bid.

[07:45:00]

BERMAN: It's amazing. And he did say it several times, at least, according to the book. One other excerpt that I want to read here which is a consistent issue that the president had with testing. He says, "Testing is killing me" Trump reportedly exclaimed at a phone call then-Health and Human Services Secretary, Alex Azar, on March 18th, yelling so loudly that Azar's aides overheard every word, "I'm going to lose the election because of testing. What idiot had the federal government do testing?" Do you mean Jared? Azar responded, citing the president's senior advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

What was the context here?

DIAMOND: Well, this was in the middle of March, the nation had already started shutting down, there had been a big rose garden event just a few days earlier where private sector leaders showed up with President Trump, there was the talk of Google helping track, tests and who might need them. And as a result, testing did start to shoot up, the Google effort didn't really pan out, but more people were able to get tests, the numbers started going up, President Trump who had said that the virus would go away imminently was now being proven wrong by the day, looking more foolish as those cases rose, he's looking to take his anger out on someone, he took it out on his health secretary. But in reality, there were lots of people, including the president's son-in-law, who were working to make testing a reality.

BERMAN: You know, this illustrates, I think, what may be one of the larger themes of the book or, at least, what I learned from the book from your reporting of it, which is that there was a consistent issue of who was actually in charge? Who was the one actually making things happen? Was it Mike Pence? Was it Deborah Birx? Was it Jared Kushner on testing? It doesn't seem like it was the president of the United States. Talk to us about why this ended up being such a detriment.

DIAMOND: Well, I think what ended up happening was President Trump, at times, credit where due his anger at the bureaucracy was sometimes warranted. President Trump thought the vaccine could be developed in under a year, he was right. But in many cases, his frustration and anger, it just became an obstacle to work around, where President Trump would rail about people needing to be fired, for instance, he wanted to fire the Emergency Preparedness chief, Robert Kadlec, who helped send those infected Americans back from overseas. He wanted to fire the state department official who helped with that effort. President Trump's deputy is basically just avoided carrying out that order. And obviously, President Trump wanted to fire Tony Fauci, too. That didn't happen.

So, John, I think, try to imagine putting on a morning show where someone is trying to fire you and Brianna constantly and you're trying to do your job. There's only so much of that that is going to be able to be walled off from what you're trying to do. And I think President Trump just constantly created challenges for his own team, including who was making the final call. Was it Mike Pence at the Coronavirus Task Force? Was it Deborah Birx, the top doctor advising the task force? Was it Alex Azar, the health secretary, who often got overruled early and removed as head of the task force?

So, what "Nightmare Scenario" does a great job of doing is exploring the consequences of those decisions that are not made because no one was ultimately willing to make some of the hardest calls.

BERMAN: Meanwhile, Brianna just looks at me and goes, what does he know? What does he know?

DIAMOND: I am a reporter, but nothing bad about CNN that I've heard.

BERMAN: Dan Diamond, we appreciate your reading and your analysis of this book which certainly sounds interesting. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.

DIAMOND: Happy to talk about my colleagues' good work. Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: It is a warning for the Great Barrier Reef and a woman who killed her abusive husband goes on trial. CNN reports from around the world.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IVAN WATSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Ivan Watson in Hong Kong.

The Australian government is furious with UNESCO after it proposed to put the Great Barrier Reef on the endangered list of world heritage sites. Now, the Great Barrier Reef is this incredibly rich and diverse marine habitat off the coast of Australia, but its coral forests have been dying due to rising temperatures of the ocean that are caused by climate change.

Australia is one of the world's biggest exports of coal, which contributes to climate change. The Australian environment minister insists that no government takes better care of a coral reef than Australia.

CYRIL VANIER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: I'm Cyril Vanier in London.

The murder trial of a woman who killed her abusive husband is underway this France. Valerie Bacot admitted in her bestselling book to shooting her husband in self-defense after suffering years of abuse, including alleged rapes and beatings, which she says began when she was 12. The couple's children told investigators about the relentless abuse their mother suffered, and two of them helped bury their father's body. Bacot faces a life sentence if she is convicted of murder. An online petition not to imprison her has so far received more than 600,000 signatures.

[07:50:00]

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Fred Pleitgen in Mashhad in Iran. This is one of the most sacred places in Shia Islam and it's also the stronghold the Iran's new hardline president-elect, Ebrahim Raisi. Raisi is going to give a speech here later on today where we expect that he'll outline more of the policies he intends to follow in his term in office. Raisi has already said that he will not meet with the U.S. President Biden and also refuses to renegotiate the Iran nuclear agreement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: It's great to have Frederik Pleitgen on the ground in Iran during this literal changing of the guard in that country. And our thanks to our reporters around the world.

Up next, a landmark moment in the NFL. The first active player to announce that he is gay.

KEILAR: And voters heading to the polls right now here in New York City. Why coming in second in the mayoral race might be a good thing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Breaking barriers in the NFL, Raiders defensive lineman, Carl Nassib, has become the first active player in league history to publicly announce that he is gay.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CARL NASSIB, LAS VEGAS RAIDERS DEFENSIVE END: I just think that representation and visibility are so important. I actually hope that like one day videos like this and the whole coming out process are just not necessary. But until then, you know, I'm going to do my best and do my part to cultivate a culture that's accepting, that's compassionate and I'm going to start by donating $100,000 to the Trevor Project. They're an incredible organization. They're the number one suicide preventive service for the LGBTQ youth in America and they're truly doing incredible things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:55:00]

BERMAN: Joining me is Wade Davis, a former NFL who revealed he is gay after retiring from the league and served as the NFL's first LGBTQ consultant. And Amit Paley, CEO and executive director of the Trevor Project which is receiving $100,000 from Nassib.

So, Wade, I want to start with you because you had an interesting reaction that really affected me here. You said that Nassib is not coming out to the world, he's inviting the world in. What do you mean by that, Wade?

WADE DAVIS, FORMER NFL PLAYER, CAME OUT AFTER RETIRING FROM NFL: So, that's the language of a friend of mine named Darnell Moore, and the idea is that what Carl is offering us is an invitation, right, to get to know him better because the LGBTQ folks don't come out of some proverbial closets. We aren't monsters. We aren't smelly shoes. We aren't wire hangers.

And it's actually the society at large that is unsafe, that doesn't allow us to live in our full humanity. So, we're actually giving folks an invitation to do better, to get better. And, therefore, we will invite you all in. It's also a reframe in the labor that people have to do. It's not LGBTQ folks that aren't always present, that aren't always visible. We've always been here to be seen. What we haven't always done is trusted the society at large, that they will actually have the type of environment that allows us to live in our full humanity.

BERMAN: You know, I agree. And to an extent, I felt like that's what he was saying in his video, he was saying, this is how I've always been, right? I'm just telling you about it now. And how you choose to relate to that is up to you. I'm not going to change what I'm doing here. What kind of a difference, Wade, do you think this will make in the NFL?

DAVIS: I think it's enforcing function to ensure that players, that coaches, that owners have the fluency and the sophistication to be able to say words like LGBTQ plus inside of a sports space and be able to talk about, like, how the NFL locker room is not going to change for the worst. It's actually going to change for the better. It's going to ensure that we start to have the conversation at the intersection of sexism and homophobia. Because the root of homophobia is sexism. You know, so for someone like me, I didn't hear homophobic language, but what I did here was a lot sexist language. So, it's another opportunity for all of us but specifically those in the sports space to get more fluent and to get better at being able to have these types of conversation, and to force us to redefine and re-imagine what it means to be a man and a woman, and how the basis must be welcoming for everyone and not just welcome for a select few who perform a certain type of macho.

BERMAN: Amit, I saw you smiling at the beginning of the segment, and I truly believe it's not just because the incredible donation that Carl Nassib is making to your organization. I think it's because you sense that this may mean something beyond just football.

AMIT PALEY, CEO AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE TREVOR PROJECT: This is incredibly meaningful. Representation really does matter. And Carl's announcement, Carl living so proudly in his truth, sends a message to LGBTQ young people across the country and around the world that you can be successful. You can be who you are and you can still be a professional athlete.

And we know there's still a lot of discrimination in society, but I think this sends a message to so many young people that helps them feel a little more comfortable, a little bit safer and helps to bring more acceptance and inclusion into society.

BERMAN: He also said in his statement -- and I'm not indicating he's not really going to be doing interviews. This was it. This was him talking about it. He's going to be active socially because he's giving money to your cause here. Do you think he needs to do more?

PALEY: I think -- I don't think there is an obligation on any one individual person to do certain types of things in their activism. Carl is a human being and Carl made a statement about who he is. I mean, I think Wade really put it better, that the work is not on LGBTQ people who are coming out, the work is on people in the world to create a safer and accepting space for LGBTQ people.

And what I think made it so beautiful is that Carl also put the attention in this moment on the needs of LGBTQ youth who are -- many of whom are struggling because of COVID, because of attacks going on across the country on LGBTQ youth, including on transgender young people trying to prevent them from playing in sports. So, we need to have a broader debate in this country around steps that need to be taken to increase safety for LGBTQ youth.

BERMAN: Wade, Amit, I really appreciate you being with us this morning. I think it's a big deal. I think it's a big deal. And I'm certainly happy for him. He's going to go on tomorrow being the same person he was today and yesterday. He's a football player, a very good football player. I'm excited to watch him play. Thank you very much for being with us.

"New Day" continues right now.

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