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Americas Are Dying Who Don't Have to Amid Vaccine Refusal; Crews Finding More Victims after Demolition as Storm Hits; Hurricane Watches for Parts of Florida Coast; Looters Ransack Bagram Air Base after U.S. Departs; New Fears Not Enough Being Done to Protect Capitol from Attacks. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired July 06, 2021 - 06:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm John Berman alongside Brianna Keilar. On this NEW DAY, the pandemic still killing 200 Americans a day, many of whom just don't have to die. Why the nation's hitting a turning point as the Delta variant spreads.

[05:59:45]

Plus, new signs that Afghanistan is on the verge of unraveling as the U.S. leaves the war-torn country.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And today marks six months since the insurrection at the Capitol, and there are new fears not enough is being done to protect it from another attack, as the FBI warns of potential violence by conspiracists.

And a goalie in the NHL killed during a fireworks accident. New details on the moments leading up to his tragic death.

BERMAN: Good morning to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. It is Tuesday, July 6.

Coronavirus is now a manmade crisis in the United States. Another way of saying it: we've now reached the optional part of the pandemic. People are dying who don't have to. The proof is in the numbers.

Dr. Anthony Fauci says that 99 percent of the recent COVID deaths come from unvaccinated people. Many Americans are refusing to get vaccinated and, as a result, they're losing their lives.

KEILAR: And today, President Biden will deliver remarks about the response and the vaccination rollout after being briefed by his White House COVID response team.

The administration did fall short of its July 4 goal of administering at least one dose to 70 percent of U.S. adults. Now, as the more transmissible Delta variant spreads, 67 percent of adults are partially vaccinated. Fifty-eight percent are fully vaccinated. And the vaccination rate is averaging around 1 million doses a day right now.

Even as life returns to normal, a bit, an average of 200 Americans are still dying every day from COVID, and top health officials warn that almost all new coronavirus deaths involve the unvaccinated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: If you look at the number of deaths, about 99.2 percent of them are unvaccinated. About 0.8 percent are vaccinated.

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: With vaccines available across the country, the suffering and loss we are now seeing is nearly entirely avoidable.

FAUCI: What you are going to see among under-vaccinated regions, be they states, cities or counties, you're going to see these individual types of blips. It's almost like it's going to be two Americas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. Joining us now, CNN senior data reporter, Harry Enten. Harry, so nice to see you.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA CORRESPONDENT: Hello, John.

BERMAN: When Dr. Fauci says 99.2 percent of all coronavirus deaths are coming from unvaccinated people. That's a stark number.

ENTEN: It's a very stark number. And you know, what's so amazing, when you look at the map right now of who's fully vaccinated, you just see these great contrasts across the country. Right?

What do we see? We see in the southern United States that, you know, states like Mississippi, only about 30 percent of folks are vaccinated at this particular point.

You know, and you can see here when you look across the country in terms of adults, you see that just 58 percent of all adults are fully vaccinated. There are all these people out there who have just decided for whatever reason that they don't want to get the vaccine.

BERMAN: And a greater percentage of deaths and cases at this point are coming, by and large, from the parts of the country that are unvaccinated.

ENTEN: That's exactly -- that's exactly right. You know, when we look across the country, what do we see? We see that in the Trump states, for example, the states that Donald Trump won, only about 40 percent of all Americans are fully vaccinated.

What we also see across those states is that, when you take an average across all of them, I believe that the increase in the case rate of the last seven days is 20 percent, versus in the Biden states, where you have 53 percent of Americans fully vaccinated. You see in those states that the rate, the case rate change has stayed the same.

So we see that, in the Trump states, where less people are vaccinated, case rates are rising, where in the Biden states, where more people are vaccinated, case rates are, in fact, not rising at this particular point.

BERMAN: About 67 percent of the people in the country have received one dose. It used to be that there was a significant percentage of people who were still sort of willing or curious about getting a vaccine soon. That's not the case anymore.

ENTEN: That's exactly right. That's not the case anymore. You mentioned that 67 percent. If you look at a Kaiser Family Foundation poll at the end of June, what you saw was only 2 percent of Americans said that they wanted to get a vaccine as soon as possible.

You know, if you go back to, let's say, the end of February, what did you see? You saw that 37 percent of Americans want to get a vaccine as soon as possible.

So right now, essentially what we're seeing is that the percentage of folks who say that they, in fact, want to get a vaccine but haven't gotten one has shrunk significantly. We've basically hit the point at which right now, there are vaccines out there. There are vaccines for everybody, people, and yet the people have decided not necessarily to get one.

BERMAN: If people who want them or have wanted them have basically gotten them at this point. And there are a number of people, Harry, who got one dose but aren't getting a second at this point.

ENTEN: That's exactly right. There's about 12 percent of the population have gotten that first dose, and then you've gotten them past that 21-day window for Pfizer or a 28-day window for Moderna, and they, in fact, for whatever reason, have not gotten one.

And I don't know what those people are necessarily thinking. And it's sort of bizarre to me. If you made the effort to go get one, and you're not necessarily go getting a second one.

And the other thing that I'll point out, John, is you know, if you look at the Kaiser Family Foundation poll from last month, and you basically ask, why are you not getting your vaccine? Why have you not necessarily gotten one? You know, there have been all these folks saying, Oh, it's too difficult. Or, you know, oh, they can't get off of work. Or they don't know where to get one. That group of the population of those who have not gotten their vaccines at this point, either of those doses, make up just 11 percent of all folks.

In fact, most of the people who haven't gotten their vaccine, 89 percent of them, those are folks who basically believe a COVID vaccine lie, you know, like it could give you COVID, or they believe some other thing, you know, they don't trust the government. So most of the folks who are out there right now who haven't gotten the vaccine haven't gotten it because they simply don't want to and they simply, unfortunately, believe one of the lies that are out there.

BERMAN: Harry Enten, always an education. Thank you so much for being with us this morning.

ENTEN: Thank you, sir. BERMAN: So there is a coronavirus outbreak in south Texas. More than 125 campers and counselors who attended a summer camp run by a church have now tested positive. That number confirmed by the pastor.

The camp was held last month for 6th through 12th graders, and more than 400 children attended. The church says hundreds more were exposed when the virus infected the campers and counselors and returned home.

The vaccination status of the infected individuals is not clear, although look, it seems pretty clear that probably most weren't vaccinated at this point. That seems the most likely, and that's an enormous percent --

KEILAR: That's right.

BERMAN: -- of the people who were at that camp infected.

KEILAR: And as they pass it on to other people, I mean, yes, we're talking about, hopefully, mostly young people here, right, but who are they passing it on to? It could be older, more vulnerable folks, as well.

Let's turn now to Surfside, Florida, where search-and-rescue operations at the collapsed condo tower are entering their 13th day. Crews have recovered four bodies since the rest of the building was demolished on Sunday, and that brings the number of confirmed deaths to 28.

That demolition done as a safety precaution because of Tropical Storm Elsa beginning to hit the state. New video showing rescuers working in the rain on Monday.

CNN's Rosa Flores joins us from Surfside. Bad weather, not getting in the way of this mission, Rosa.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're absolutely right. These brave men and women have not been stopping.

Brianna, I've got to mention that, for the past 24 hours or so, it's the first time since this collapse that search-and-rescue crews have actually had access to 100 percent of this site.

Look, according to officials, searchers couldn't get to about a third of the scene because of that teetering building. Now, once it was collapsed late on Sunday night and that danger was no longer there, that's when search-and-rescue crews were able to get access to the entire site.

In fact, officials say that a portion of the pile was actually holding up the building that was demolished. Well, now search-and-rescue teams are going into these new areas. They're following voids. They continue to delayer, and we're seeing the death toll increase. It's at 28. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MAYOR CHARLES BURKETT, SURFSIDE, FLORIDA: Now that the damaged

building is down, it is -- the site is staffed with a tremendous amount of search-and-rescue workers.

The looming threat of that building, the dangerous situation where debris could fall down, is now eliminated. So we're operating at 100 percent capacity, and I'm very excited about that. And I believe -- I sense that the families were, too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Now, Surfside started to see the outer bands of Elsa yesterday. Search-and-rescue crews only stopping for the most dangerous lightning strikes.

As for the investigation, there are multiple investigations happening in tandem. First, homicide detectives are working alongside search- and-rescue crews. Then the Miami-Dade state attorney's office says that she plans to ask a grand jury to investigate. And finally, NIST, the National Institute for Standards and Technology, is conducting its own federal investigation -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right. Rosa Flores, thank you so much for that report from Surfside.

BERMAN: So parts of Florida under hurricane watches this morning as Tropical Storm Elsa bears down. When will it make landfall? Meteorologist Chad Myers joins us now. Chad, what are you seeing?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It probably misses Key West. That's the good news. But the storms and the squalls on the east side won't. It kind of goes out into the gulf a little bit and then to the north of Tampa later on tonight, into the early morning hours of tomorrow.

Hurricane watches, because there's a potential for the storm to gain a little bit of strength.

This weather is brought to you by Servpro, helping make fire and water damage like it never even happened.

So let's get to it. Parts of Cuba had tremendous amounts of rainfall overnight. There's likely flooding. We don't have any reports. But I know there's a foot or more of rain in parts of that, especially Matanzas province down there.

That rain is now moving into the lower Keys, and the wind is moving in, as well.

The storm goes all the way south of the Cayman Islands. So Cuba has hours and hours more of rainfall, and that big tail down there to the Cayman Islands will eventually get to the U.S. There's your 70-miles- per-hour gusts possible later on today into tonight and tomorrow.

[06:10:13]

So here's what the radar is going to look like. Somewhere around 5 or 6 p.m. tonight, the radar really lights up. Some of these storms will be rotating. There likely will be tornado warnings. Keep that in mind. There likely will be flash flooding because of rainfall. There will also be likely some storm surge, maybe 3 to 4 feet of storm surge, even 3 to 5 from Tampa on up toward the Big Bend. So we're going to have to watch that, as well.

A complex storm, not a hurricane yet. It could happen. The east coast in better shape than the west coast, but still as the storms come onshore today, even the people around Surfside could still see something -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Chad Myers, I know you'll be watching it all day. Thank you very much for that.

MYERS: Yes.

BERMAN: So reports of looting at Bagram Air Base after U.S. troops leave. A sign that Afghanistan could be on the verge of unraveling.

KEILAR: Plus, a Republican congressman gets called out for claiming the military will quit if vaccinations are required.

And new CNN reporting this morning, a growing exodos of Capitol Police officers following the insurrection and new fears of another attack on the building.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:16:19]

KEILAR: Developing this morning, more than a thousand Afghan soldiers fleeing the battlefield, escaping into neighboring Tajikistan as the Taliban expands its area of control and U.S. forces depart.

New video shows American-made items from Bagram Air Base being sold at a local bazaar after looters ransacked what was once the center of American military power in Afghanistan.

CNN's Anna Coren just returned to Kabul after touring the Bagram Air Base, which is now under the control of Afghan forces. And Anna is with us now.

Anna, tell us about the turn of events here over the last 24 hours since we last talked to you yesterday.

ANNA COREN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Sure. Look, obviously, the Taliban making more ground, claiming more territory. That assault up in the north where you have a thousand Afghan troops fleeing across the border into Tajikistan. Certainly an alarming trend.

There have been skirmishes up there along the border. This is an area that the Taliban is trying to control. They want to control the highways. They want to obviously choke the rest of the country and -- and have that leverage with the Afghan government. We spoke to the spokesman of the Taliban overnight, and he said that,

whilst there is a -- ongoing talks happening almost every day in Dohar between low -- a low-level delegation, there hasn't been a firm date set for proper peace talks. So, you know, that process moving incredibly slowly.

And in the meantime, there is this violence happening across the country where, you know, tens of thousands of people have been displaced, particularly in the northeast.

The United Nations has confirmed this, as has the -- the first vice president here in Afghanistan.

So we are expecting this humanitarian crisis to also unfold. This all happening after the U.S. pulls out of Afghanistan. Of course, there are 650 troops remaining in country to protect the U.S. embassy. Obviously, there will be some troops to secure the international airport. We understand that there is talks, ongoing talks between the Americans and the Turks as to whether they can come up with a permanent solution there.

But it is a tiny footprint, and this is not about combat missions. This is about protecting diplomatic staff.

You know, we spoke to one Afghan official, military official yesterday, Brianna, at Bagram Air Base, and he said the departure of the U.S. was like an old friend leaving without saying good-bye. There is really a deep sense of abandonment in this country.

KEILAR: Yes. There certainly is. Anna Coren, live for us from Kabul. Thank you for that report.

BERMAN: All right. Joining me now, Jeremy Butler, CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Jeremy, so much -- so great to see you here. A couple things that Anna just brought up. No. 1, the idea that all these items that were at the Bagram Air Base are now -- have now either been looted or ransacked or leaked out of it, now for sale on the streets. Symbolically, what does that say?

JEREMY BUTLER, CEO, IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN VETERANS OF AMERICA: Right. Well, I think symbolic is the key word here. I mean, it's not new that there are U.S. and coalition items that make it out into the black market and things like that. That's not uncommon.

It certainly paints a negative picture right now of the way in which the withdrawal, the retrograde, if you want to use the military term, is being done. But you also have to remember that this is an incredibly tense time. It is very hard to, one, do a withdrawal in a combat zone, but especially there at the very end.

So it's not surprising that things right there at the end were a little more secretive by the U.S. government than many Afghanis would have preferred. But I think that's expected -- it's expected because the security of those removing troops was the highest priority for the U.S.

[06:20:07]

BERMAN: I think a much greater concern are the reports that about a thousand Afghan troops have fled over the border to Tajikistan. Why is that so concerning?

BUTLER: Well, it's concerning, one, because it's not a new thing. Certainly, the move to Tajikistan is somewhat new. But the high number of Afghan government forces, their losses, is not something new.

If you go back a few years, the Afghan government forces, the national army, the police, they were getting losses in a few months that equaled the number of U.S. combat losses that we had throughout our entire 20 years in the country.

So if you really look at the issue with stability there, it's -- it's a numbers game. It really is a war of attrition between the Afghan government forces and the Taliban right now.

BERMAN: Look, and if you're counting on the Afghan troops to keep the country safe, and they're leaving at that level, that's of obvious concern. The U.S. general in charge of the region is painting a potentially bleak picture of the future. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. AUSTIN SCOTT MILLER, COMMANDER, U.S. FORCES IN AFGHANISTAN: We should be concerned. The loss of terrain, and the rapidity of that loss of terrain has to be concerning, one, because it's a war as physical, but it's also got a psychological or moral component to it. And hope actually matters, and morale actually matters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: You know, General Austin Scott Miller. I think they're just vocalizing what everyone who looks at this region knows to be true.

BUTLER: Absolutely. And it is -- it is disconcerting. It's certainly -- I think the biggest surprise is how quickly this is happening.

But I think it also speaks to, in my opinion, the wisdom of making this decision at this time. If we have been in the country for 20 years, we've had upwards of 110,000 U.S. service members serving at a single time. We're down -- we were just recently 2,500 and things like that. If, even at this point, things are still so fragile in the country, what is it really going to take in terms of U.S. investment, personnel, time, money to get things to a point of stability where a U.S. withdrawal would make more sense, if you will? I mean, I think it speaks to how difficult the U.S. mission has been throughout.

BERMAN: Yes. No good choices, in some ways, at this point.

BUTLER: Right.

BERMAN: Listen, I want to ask you about something that Congressman Tom Massie said about the coronavirus vaccine and the issue of whether troops should or will be required to take them. And this is what Masie claims.

He says, quote, "I've been contacted by members of our voluntary military who say they will quit if the COVID vaccine is mandated. I introduced a bill to prohibit any mandatory requirement that a members of the armed forces receive a vaccination against COVID-19. It now has 24 sponsors."

So he says he's hearing people say they're going to quit. First of all, you can't really just quit. That's now how it works.

BUTLER: No. Unfortunately, it's not.

BERMAN: But what do you read in this?

BUTLER: Well, I read that we've been here before. So I've been in the military for a number of years. I was on active duty at the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. I was on active duty when President Obama in 2016 first did the repeal of the transgender ban.

Both times you had many, especially in the media, and certain parts of the government, you know, exclaiming that we're going to lose so many of our service members, that they were going to quit en masse if these changes were put into place.

I think you're seeing the same thing now here. It's just someone trying to use a talking point.

Vaccines are very common within the military. This is not something new. We're certainly vaccinated with the flu vaccine every single year, and then you go down the long list of things that you get when you're deployed that aren't more regular. Vaccines are not new to the military.

And this impending change isn't new either. The service branches have been talking about the fact that when the FDA approves the vaccine, it will likely become mandatory for everyone in the military.

So this isn't new, and I do not think you're going to get any losses in the military personnel.

BERMAN: Jeremy Butler, great to have you on.

BUTLER: Thanks.

BERMAN: Thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate it.

It's been six months since the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and officials say not nearly enough is being done to prevent another one. CNN's brand-new reporting next.

KEILAR: Plus, how did two QAnon proponents get press credentials to a Trump rally? We'll have that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [06:28:08]

KEILAR: It is six months to the day since a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a deadly insurrection, and there is great concern that not nearly enough has been done to protect the Capitol from future attacks.

CNN's Whitney Wild joins us with this brand-new CNN reporting.

Whitney, tell us what's happening here.

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: So we have spoken with more than a dozen Capitol Police officers, former officials, members of Congress, aides, and what we found is that there are a list of things that Capitol Police can control and make quick changes to fix.

However, they're -- what they're really facing is this demand for a complete cultural and operational overhaul, and so some sources we spoke with said not enough has changed to get the department moving in that direction.

Some members of Congress saying that Capitol Police is simply nowhere near where they need to be, in part because the leadership structure is still really anachronistic for the dynamics of law enforcement today.

So Capitol Police has made changes quickly that they can. For example, they've increased training. They have sent some officials for their civil disturbance unit, which is the unit uniquely responsible for fending off rioters, to trainings from Seattle to Virginia Beach.

In addition, they have spread intelligence wider within the department. That's important, because it was one of the key complaints from rank-and-file, who felt like they simply didn't have enough information about possible violence that was coming toward them on January 6. Now they get a daily briefing with intel information.

So there are some -- some granular changes Capitol Police is making because they can. However, this big overhaul, this reimagining of the department, remains elusive, in part, Brianna, because they don't have the funding. This takes a lot of time, and it takes a lot of money.

In addition, one of the biggest problems that Capitol Police is facing right now is the fact that they are bleeding officers. According to the union, they've had upwards of 75 people leave the department since January 6. That's about three people a week. That means that hours for the rank-and-file are getting longer. Morale is plummeting already. Fewer officers does nothing to help that.

KEILAR: No. It exacerbates it. You know, they really have to address that.