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Democrats Strategizing Their Next Move After Senate Republicans Knock Down Debating An Election Reform Bill; Joe Biden Is Going To Unveil The Administration's Crime Prevention Strategy; Police Have Released This Disturbing Surveillance Video Showing A Robery In New York City; More Than 150 Employees At Houston Methodist Hospital Are Now Out Of A Job After Refusing The COVID Vaccine. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired June 23, 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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[07:01:05]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY HOST: A major heat wave in store for the Pacific Northwest and the growing fire concerns for the drought- stricken southwest. Let's get to meteorologist, Chad Myers. Chad -

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: John, a remarkable heat wave about to occur in the northwest, also British Columbia as well. Hundreds of record highs will be broken without a doubt.

To the east of there, there will be some severe weather, but this remarkable heat wave across the west is going to happen Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and into Sunday. And at the same time we're going to get almost 10 inches of rain in parts of Missouri, so kind of a one side across the country to the other.

Seattle's only been over 100 degrees three times in history. The forecast is for three times again by Monday. NEW DAY continues right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN NEW DAY HOST: I'm Brianna Keilar alongside John Berman on this NEW DAY. Combating crime, President Biden taking action today to address a surge in big city violence.

BERMAN: Democrats strategizing their next move after Senate Republicans knock down even debating an election reform bill.

KEILAR: And CDC advisors are meeting today. They're going to discuss a vaccine booster shot. You want a third one?

BERMAN: How ever many it takes, right?

KEILAR: Right? OK, they're doing this because this Delta variant is spreading fast.

BERMAN: And a former sports fighter says she was raped by a Major League Baseball player, and this morning she's speaking out about her startling revelation. KEILAR: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. It's Wednesday, June 23. We're just about halfway there, aren't we? Halfway there.

BERMAN: Halfway to what?

KEILAR: Halfway to Friday.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: OK, OK.

KEILAR: Best day of the week. All right, in just -

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: We're well past, you know, halfway to July. I just didn't know if you -

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: That's true. We're almost there, folks. So in just a few hours, President Biden is going to unveil his administration's crime prevention strategy. This plan of his is expected to focus on curbing gun violence in the face of the violent crime wave that is raging across the country, and it's one that has only escalated during the pandemic.

Already this year in the U.S. there have been 296 mass shootings, 16 mass murders, 9,487 deaths from guns alone.

BERMAN: Just two examples in the past week here in New York, a gunman opened fire in the street on a man. Two children barely escaped the barrage of gun fire. Just horrible to see that.

And a father of twins was mugged and murdered while sitting in his car. His fiancee will join us in just a moment. First, I want to go to CNN's Jeff Zeleny in Washington with what we're going to here from the president today, Jeff, and also why we're hearing this at this point from the White House.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: John, good morning. President Biden is going to lay out a series of steps to address this growing crime rate. The reason why they're doing it, they are hearing from local officials across the country who are sounding alarm about the rising rate of homicides and other violent crimes.

So the White House does not want to be caught flat footed on this, so the president is going to be meeting with a series of mayors, Republican and Democrat, a police chief community activist, and the attorney general to lay out a series of anticrime initiatives focusing on guns.

Specifically on the rising level of homicides across the country, but he's also going to unveil a policy of zero tolerance for rouge gun dealers, going after some of these guns that are on the street. But of course the president making clear that the rise of violent crime coming after the pandemic is something that is simply unacceptable. He's going to be signing a series of executive actions as well as urging Congress to do more on guns, but we know that is something that simply has not happened over the last several years or so.

[07:05:00]

So this rise in crime rate certainly a concern to the White House, but he's also going to be calling for Congress to confirm the Director of the ATF. That, of course, is something that has not happened as well as a series of other things, but specifically the amount of money that is used for the American Recovery Plan, the big COVID relief plan, he's going to be calling for cities to use some of this funding for community policing efforts, so these are just a series of some of the efforts that he's calling on.

But the most important thing the White House is doing is trying to draw attention to this. He'll be talking with these local leaders for a couple hours this afternoon and then delivering a speech later, so clearly trying to draw a focus on this.

Of course, this is no stranger to this issue. Joe Biden, of course, led the crime bill in 1994. Very controversial at the time, but now trying to get ahead of this as this rise in crime rate certainly is impacting the country, John.

BERMAN: All right. Jeff Zeleny, thank you very much for that reporting.

ZELENY: Sure.

BERMAN: So police have released this disturbing surveillance video showing a robbery in New York City which took the life of Milton Grant. Early Monday morning as Grant sat in his car speaking to a friend, three suspects walked up to his black BMW, pulled out guns and tried to rob the two men, and when Grant tried to drive away he was shot in the head, crashing his car nearby.

The surveillance video then shows one suspect hop into the crashed car to steal Grant's watch, ring, and chain. And this morning police are still looking for the suspects who remain at large, and Grant's family is demanding answers.

I am joined now by the fiancee of Milton Grant and mother of his twin boys, Nixia Jordan. Thank you so much for being with us. We are so sorry for your loss. So sorry that you are going through this this morning.

NIXIA JORDAN, FIANCEE OF NYC MURDER VICTIM MILTON GRANT: Thank you.

BERMAN: Just tell us about Milton.

JORDAN: My fiancee was a great father. He was a family man. He put his kids first and his family first, and now I have to tell my little ones that their father is not returning home any time soon.

BERMAN: They don't know yet. JORDAN: It's unfortunate. It's definitely unfortunate.

BERMAN: You had said you never thought this could happen to your family.

JORDAN: I never thought that my husband would be taken from me in this way. We talked about having forever together, about raising our kids. We just put them in sports. And so, now I'm thinking how am I supposed to take them to practice without their dad accompanying me. How am I going to do family vacations without him?

BERMAN: And it's all for his jewelry.

JORDAN: I'm sorry.

BERMAN: A robbery. How do you explain that?

JORDAN: My husband liked nice things. He worked hard for his jewelry, for his shoes, for his clothes, for his cars, and for someone to just murder him - senselessly (ph) murder him for his belongings instead of working hard for getting his own is just - it's a slap in the face. It's - to take a life just for his jewelry is just insane.

BERMAN: Why shouldn't we like nice things, right? Listen, you see what's happening -

(CROSSTALK)

JORDAN: Yes.

BERMAN: -- in New York City. Again, you never believed this could happen to your family, never happen to Milton yet you know -

(CROSSTALK)

JORDAN: No thought (ph).

BERMAN: -- that right we're seeing this rise in crime, you know, in cities across the country -

(CROSSTALK)

JORDAN: I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

BERMAN: -- and New York City. Why do you think it's happening?

JORDAN: I think many people are struggling due to COVID, due to unemployment rates. Even though we have jobs available, people don't want to work. They'd rather just collect unemployment, and I feel the government needs to put stop to people making claims that are - have the ability to work. Go out and work for your money. Go out and work to buy your own things. Don't steal and don't kill just to get those things. Work for them just like my husband did.

BERMAN: What have you heard from police so far in the investigation?

JORDAN: Not a thing. They have not contacted me since the death, and they didn't contact me about the death. His father-in-law was on the scene, and he - they took his phone to give me their number, Detective Walters (ph). I've contacted them yesterday about three or four times. No answer. I just want his phones back. I want his belongings. I want to get arrangements settled for me and his family to put and get him in the ground.

BERMAN: Do you think that the city at this point is doing enough to stop crime like this?

JORDAN: No, not at all.

BERMAN: What more should they do?

JORDAN: And I can't say what their - what needs to - I have no idea what needs to be done, but something has to be done.

[07:10:00]

We have to protect our husbands and our brothers and our children. It's just too much happening. It's not even safe to go outside your house anymore.

BERMAN: Look, I'm a father of twins. It's devastating. I can't imagine what you're going through right now and the discussion you're going to have to have with your children. Tell us about Milton. Tell us about what kind of man he was. Tell us about his life.

JORDAN: Milton was very confident. He always would tell you he was the greatest cook. Anything that you wanted to eat, I could make it. I'm the best. He always was around his kids. I mean, I don't even know how I'm going to go on. He has - he picked them up from school. He was just a very hands on father and a father hands on son. Him and his father's relationship is - they're thick as thieves. And that's how I wanted my kids to be with him, and now they've been robbed of that opportunity.

BERMAN: His legacy's going to have to live on through you (ph).

JORDAN: But I'll keep his memory alive for them.

BERMAN: You will. Keep his memory alive. Tell your children about him. Tell them about the cooking, the food, but I know it's not enough. I know it's not enough.

JORDAN: It's not.

BERMAN: Nixia Jordan, again -

(CROSSTALK)

JORDAN: It's not.

BERMAN: -- so sorry for your loss this morning. We do appreciate you being with us. Please let us know if there's anything we can do.

JORDAN: Thank you, John.

KEILAR: Just really drives home how senseless how all of this is, and we see the numbers and that's - that is the fallout from one person being taken in this scourge that we are seeing.

BERMAN: You know, as so often with tragedy when we see rising numbers, the most important number is one when it's someone you know, when it's your fiancee, when it's the father of your twins who doesn't come home one morning. You know, she says what I think a lot of people feel, which is that something has to be done. I can't tell you what has to be done. I know, though, that this can't keep happening.

KEILAR: No. There just shouldn't be more families -

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: No.

KEILAR: -- like Milton Grant's. It's senseless. We want to turn now to Congress where Republicans have essentially sunk Democrats' efforts to defend voting rights now under assault across the country. Vice President Kamala Harris provided over this 50-50 vote, and a result that means not only will the For The People Act not pass. It won't even get a debate, so this isn't even going to be debated on the Senate floor.

What is next then? Turns out Senate Democrats have other options as John Avlon explains in our REALITY CHECK.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Mitch McConnell wants you to know that everything's just fine with our democracy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), K.Y.: There's nothing broken around the country. The system upheld very well during tense stress in the latter part of the previous Congress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: I mean, despite the big lie and the insurrection and the continued baseless belief by majorities of Republicans that the election was illegitimate, everything's cool. The system worked. I mean, that's why Republican state legislatures keep trying to pass laws making it harder to vote, right? But that was just moments after McConnell had all Republicans kill the For The People Act, a wide- ranging bill to reform much of our democracy with federal election reforms to protect voting rights, restricting big money in politics, and establishing new ethics rules for officials (ph).

Now there's plenty to debate in that bill even with unanimous Democratic support, but Republicans shut down any debate via the filibuster. After all when Senator Mike Lee called it a bill as if written in hell by the devil himself, well reason had left the building a lot time ago.

So what can Democrats do next? Well there's the John Lewis Voting Rights Act named after late congressman, civil rights leader. The bill focuses on restoring key provisions the 1965 Voting Rights Act. This would overwrite a lot of the red-state voter restrictions and ensure a more level playing field. It even has bipartisan support in the lonely form of it's sole Republican Senate cosponsor, Lisa Murkowski.

But so many this would get fair hearing, right (ph)? Well not according to Mitch McConnell who called the bill unnecessary. Which brings us to plan C, the Joe Manchin compromise proposal, which would make voter restriction automatic, make Election Day a holiday, require at least 15 days of early voting, prohibit partisan gerrymandering, and require voter I.D.s.

Now this last point is seen as a major concessions to Republicans, so surely there'd be some bipartisan support, right? Even a Stacey Abrams and Barack Obama endorsed the compromise, but no. Senate Republican leaders quickly said they'd oppose it.

[07:15:00]

Democrats should bring it up for a vote anyway, make it clear that Republicans oppose expanded voting rights even when they get some of what they say they want. It's a little bit like Republicans asking for and getting specific conditions for a bipartisan January 6 Commission and killing it anyway.

Just more evidence that bipartisanship has become a partisan virtue in Congress. Republicans won't meet Democrats halfway. It's delay on the road to denial every time. So here's the deal. Do Democrats accept the refusal to negotiate in good faith and just wait for voting restrictions to kick in before the next election or do they go it alone?

Which brings us back to filibuster reform, and notice I said reform as in mend it, don't end it because maybe after Republicans show they won't accept compromise, Senators Manchin and Sinema will consider reform. Manchin said as much in a call with no labels obtained by the intercept (ph) expressing openness to reforms like lowering the threshold for a filibuster or returning to the old talking filibuster (ph).

Now McConnell will howl, but it is a matter of fact that the filibuster has been abused in recent years. It's also a matter of fact that the filibuster's lowest moments came form southern conservatives blocking voting rights in the past.

Now Mitch McConnell's contested even this, saying that the filibuster has no racial history at all. Well Dr. Martin Luther King would like a word with him (ph).

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER: We have a Congress with a Senate that has a minority of misguided senators who will use the filibuster to keep the majority of people from even voting. They won't let the majority of senators vote, and certainly they wouldn't want the majority of people to vote because they know they do not represent the majority of American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Yes. Times have changed, but some issues remain the same, and that's your REALITY CHECK.

KEILAR: John Avlon, thank you so much for that. There's a key question today for CDC experts as the Delta variant continues to spread, so will a booster shot be required? Are we going to need more to prevent a resurgence in cases?

BERMAN: Plus dozens of medical workers who refuse to get vaccinated get word on whether they get to keep their jobs.

KEILAR: And Billie Eilish apologizing for behavior from years ago, which brings us to this question. Has cancel culture gone too far?

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[07:21:30]

BERMAN: More than 150 employees at Houston Methodist Hospital are now out of a job after refusing to get a COVID vaccine. This happened Tuesday, 10 days after a judge dismissed a lawsuit against the hospital by those employees who opposed the vaccine mandate as a condition of employment. Houston Methodist was the first major healthcare system in the U.S. to mandate COVID vaccinations.

CNN has the latest reports on COVID from all around the world.

DAVID CULVER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm David Culver in Shanghai. China's expected to keep its strict pandemic border controls in place for another year. That would mark nearly two years that China's borders have been essentially sealed off. This is according to the "Wall Street Journal" which sites people familiar with the matter.

It would mean that travel in and out of this country would remain limited to certain visas and COVID-19 protocols such as government quarantine and Chinese vaccinations. The country aims to prevent any further outbreaks, especially before it becomes the world stage for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN EUROPE EDITOR: I'm Nina Dos Santos in London. The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has receive two different types of coronavirus vaccines as part of her first and second doses. Initially, Merkel was inoculated with the AstraZeneca vaccine, but then that was later on followed up with a second shot this time made by Moderna.

It's not yet clear whether the European Medicines Agency actually condones the mixing and matching of vaccines by different manufacturers like this. In the U.K., there's a big study underway to see whether or not the procedure is actually efficient in protecting against coronavirus. Having said that, though, the results aren't yet in. And the CDC in the United States actually advises against the procedure.

BERMAN: Well there is Dr. Anthony Fauci warning the Delta variant poses the greatest threat to progress against COVID-19 here in the U.S. Infections caused by the variant are doubling every two weeks. Joining us now, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, you know, at this rate half of all infections in the U.S. could be Delta variant infections, so what's the impact there?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, I think this is clearly going to become the more dominant strain in the United States and frankly around the world. We've been sort of tracking this for some time, and you can see sort of the growth over a period of time, so right now sort of doubling every couple of weeks, and I think that's why people are saying by, you know, mid July, end of July it will become over 50 percent certainly.

I think there's a couple of important things to the seriousness of this. This is a more transmissible virus. That's why it becomes more dominant. It can outrun the other viruses. It's 60 percent more transmissible than the U.K. variant, which is called Alpha now, and that was 50 percent more transmissible than the strain before that.

So you get the idea of sort of where this goes. The big question a lot of people will ask is well how well does the vaccine protect me? And there's more data coming in on that as well. The answer is good news there. Even when they pulled the vaccine data between AstraZeneca and Pfizer for example you still get really good protection against illness, against becoming severely ill.

Look at the far right there. Important sort of note we put on the screen for you. If you only get one shot that effectiveness drops way off. You remember there were discussions at one point should we just give one shot to people. Now we know why that wouldn't have been a good idea. The effectiveness drops, you know, close to half of what it was.

[07:25:00]

And just quickly I want to show something else. Florida, we pulled this data out of some of the Florida counties. You can start to stratify now areas where you have lots of people vaccinated and where you don't have as many people vaccinated.

So we talked about the Delta variant spreading. We know that. I gave you some sort of global numbers, but we can get much more sort of precise. In areas where there's lots of unvaccinated people the Delta variant is growing faster. That's the red line over there. Where you have fewer unvaccinated people, it's not that the virus can't spread obviously among them but it's less likely to spread.

So if you're unvaccinated and live among a lot of unvaccinated people that's the worst possible situation. It kind of makes sense, but now you see it for yourself on the screen. KEILAR: Look, we know this is what viruses do. They want to be more transmissible, and that's part of the miracle of the timing of the vaccine when it came out. You look at those numbers, just how good it is at even combating the Delta variant, but I wonder, you know, over time we've discussed this do you need another booster? Do you need a third shot?

GUPTA: Yes. It's really interesting, Brianna, because in some ways you think as a virus changes it sot of changes out transmissibility for lethality. Meaning as it becomes more contagious maybe it becomes less lethal. It's not clear yet with Delta because there's younger people and sicker people in hospitals all over the world as a result of Delta, so we've got to keep an eye on it.

It raises the question about boosters. We've heard what the companies have had to say, but now we wanted to hear from the experts directly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

On December 14, a nurse in New York became the first American vaccinated for COVID-19 outside the clinical trial. That was six months ago. Now the discussion is all about boosters. Will we need them? And if so, when?

DR. ALBERT BOURLA, PFIZER CEO: There will be a need for a booster somewhere between 8 and 12 months.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: There's no set rule now that says in six months or in a year we're going to get - we're going to require a boost.

DR. AMESH ADALJA, SENIOR SCHOLAR, JOHNS HOPKINS CENTER FOR HEALTH SECURITY: It's frustrating because people want to know how long immunity lasts, but it's just going to take time.

GUPTA: Dr. Amesh Adalja is an infectious disease physician with expertise in preparing for pandemics. He has served in government panels responding to public health emergencies, not unlike the one we've been in for the past year and a half.

What are you looking for as maybe some early clues that we would need booster shots?

ADALJA: I want to know what's happening to these patients clinically? Are they getting breakthrough infections? And are those breakthrough infections severe enough to land them in their hospital?

GUPTA: With some diseases like yellow fever most people get lifetime protection from a vaccine, but for others like influenza we roll up our sleeves every year. Even among coronaviruses it ranges.

ADALJA: The first SARS in 2003, it appears that those individuals who were infected naturally did develop longstanding immunity. It's a little bit different with the community acquired coronaviruses because they're always causing common colds, and they maybe more tenacious to be able to cause reinfections. GUPTA: Booster studies are underway. In some cases boosting with a different COVID-19 vaccine or one that's been tailored to a specific variant.

Should we be worried that there be a particular variant that may start to escape the protection of these vaccines?

ADALJA: I think it's very hard for a virus to mutate in such a way and to get the perfect mutations to be able to completely evade a vaccine to make it worthless.

GUPTA: At the same time we're hearing more and more good news about just how robust immunity to COVID-19 might be. Six months out, both Pfizer and Moderna still have more than 90 percent efficacy against COVID-19, and even among people who've been infected we're still seeing evidence of immunity a year later, and it's not just antibodies we're talking about.

ADALJA: The antibody arm that everybody knows about and then there's a whole other arm which is called cell mediated immunity. You will find t-cells that are reactive to COVID-19 long after infection, and those may be really instrumental for how we determine when a booster is necessary.

GUPTA: But there may be some who may benefit from a booster sooner than others like immunocompromised people. A recent study found that a third shot provided a boost to a small group of organ transplant recipients who had low antibody responses, including a third of them who had no detectable antibodies after the first two doses, but for many of us the benefit is less clear cut, an issue that becomes even more complicated when you start to look around the world.

ADALJA: If you've got this pandemic raging out of control in many countries where they can't get single doses into people, it really is going to be difficult to justify giving people a third dose.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: So the good news is the boosters could be created pretty quickly. I mean, this technology for creating vaccines is pretty remarkable. Also it's not clear if we need them right now. What we're seeing is that vaccines work well. If you get more and more people.