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Tropical Storm Elsa Nearing Landfall on Florida's Gulf Coast; CNN Reports, McCarthy Plans to Put Republicans on January 6 Committee; 1619 Project Creator Rejects UNC Offer after Tenure Drama. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired July 07, 2021 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: Coy Wire, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

New Day continues right now.

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. I'm John Berman with Brianna Keilar. It is Wednesday, July 7th.

And we do have breaking news this morning, millions of people in the southeast bracing for the impact of now Tropical Storm Elsa. The system is nearing landfall on Florida's gulf coast. The storm weakened slightly overnight but it is still packing winds higher than 70 miles per hour.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN NEW DAY: Tropical storm watches and warnings are stretching now into Georgia, also into the Carolinas as Elsa is churning across the eastern sea board. And we're expecting an update from the National Hurricane Center in just a moment.

We do have reporters on the scene, including Randi Kaye, who is in Clearwater Beach, Florida. And, Randi, this rain and storm surge is still very much life threatening.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. Luckily, Brianna, things are looking up a little bit since we last spoke last hour, that sideways rain we were experiencing has disappeared, at least for the moment, also that memorial causeway, which leads from the mainland to here in Clearwater Beach where we are, that has reopened, so that is some good news. So there is beach access once again.

And I've mentioned those boats we saw yesterday last time we talked it was still dark out so I was wondering if they were still out there. The good news is they are still out there and I'm told they actually moved them out there and put them under these very large concrete anchors moved, them out of the marina because it's safer for them to be there.

But the worst of the rain and the wind came howling through at about 2:00 A.M. here. And that was when it got really bad, kept a lot of folks up here in our hotel. We've been talking to some folks this morning.

We were expecting hurricane warnings which we had and winds about 50 to 70 miles per hour, which we got, which are clearly very, very strong still this morning, and lots of rain about four to six inches. We are told by Clearwater Police that there was some flooding in the streets here, also some trees down on cars. They're expecting to see more of that as they make their way around this morning. They want people to stay home. So there is some minor flooding and some power outages as well.

So the story really was rain and some minor flooding but also the storm surge very concerning because the storm came through at about 2:00 A.M. as the high tide was hitting about 3:00 A.M. So the two of them converged and pushed a lot of water into the streets here.

And I should note that the National Guard is ready, Clearwater Police ready. They have their humvees out, their high water vehicles, they're ready to put helicopters in the air if they can safely. And they also are doing some search and rescue to make sure folks are okay. But the message still this morning is to stay home, let's make sure everything is okay in this area.

The last time Tampa Bay was hit by a major hurricane was 100 years ago, 1921. This was not a major hurricane and we were not hit right here, but still certainly people are on high alert this morning. Brianna, John, back to you.

KEILAR: Yes, keep riding it out as we await more impacts here. Randi Kaye, thank you so much.

Let's go live now to Tampa and our Meteorologist Derek Van Dam who is there on the ground. Folks have been told, as Randi notes, to stay indoors, to stay off the roads, Derek.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, Brianna, good morning to you, good morning to our viewers. You know, that's good advice, but obviously not everybody listening to that because you can see the causeway and Kennedy Boulevard behind me, people still driving about, the city slowly starting to awaken. There are still tropical storm warnings within this area. The Tampa International Airport still closed at the moment or no airlines flying in or out until 10:00 A.M. this morning. That's what they've reported to us. But we have been spared the worst from what was tropical storm and what was a hurricane at one stage, downgraded to a tropical storm overnight, of course.

You talked to Randi just a moment ago about the storm surge coinciding with the passage of the storm at its highest peak intensity and it did push water into the bay, but there was no flooding. We scouted the area in the usual places, Bay Shore Boulevard in Tampa, South Tampa, no flooding. The city of Tampa reporting no major incidents, so that's good news. Obviously, still electricity within this area, there are 13,000 people without power within the state of Florida, but that's really in the big bend area where they are bracing for the brunt of this storm still hurricane warnings located in that region.

Now, the threats are not over just because the winds are gusting and the rain is still falling in some locations. The threat of tornadoes spinning up, heavy rain fall, causing flash flooding and then we need to focus on the storm as it races along the eastern sea board. So, people vacationing to the Carolinas as well as Coastal Georgia, you're up next, you're on par. The storm is traveling your way in a weakened state but still one to be reckoned with. Back to you, John and Brianna, in the studio.

KEILAR: Yes, certainly something that folks there on the east coast want to keep an eye on there on the southern states.

[07:05:01]

Derek, thank you so much for that.

BERMAN: All right. Joining me now from Miami, Ken Graham, Director of the National Hurricane Center. Ken, you've been watching Elsa. Give us a sense of where and when exactly you think it will make landfall.

KEN GRAHAM, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: Yes, John. In the next two to three hours, we'll make landfall here. Here is the center on the radar approaching the Florida coastline with time. But it's not just that center, John. Look at the rainfall stretching well out from the center, that tail end. And we really look at some of the dangers of the rainfall, some of the storm surge and really 90 percent of your tornadoes in these tropical systems occur on that right front side. So, tornadoes, heavy rainfall and some of these big bands from Elsa starting to get portions of North Florida and into Georgia over the next couple hours.

BERMAN: All right. It won't just be a Florida event up the east coast. Ken Graham, always a pleasure to speak to you. Thank you so much.

We do have breaking news, major breaking news. The president of Haiti, Jovenel Moise, has been killed, assassinated overnight in his home. Melissa Bell joins us now with the details of this.

Melissa, what have you learned?

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we know is from the statement put out by the acting prime minister in Haiti, which from which we learned rather that it was overnight about 1:00 A.M. in his private residence that he and his wife were attacked by a group of men, some of whom who were speaking Spanish. Jovenel Moise has been killed, we now know, according to that statement by the acting prime minister. His wife shot and not -- has not yet been killed but we know has been shot as a result of the incident.

It is an extremely shocking development, of course, that a president should be shot like that overnight but comes, of course, in the context of a country that has been particularly chaotic the last few years almost from his entry into office in 2017. Jovenel Moise's power has been contested, there have been regular demonstrations recently, the cost of living has risen hugely, and there's been a political crisis that has engulfed his government now for many months. So, big news now from Haiti, the big question is what happens next? What's interesting in the statement that we got from the acting prime minister was in his insistence on the fact that despite this assassination of the president overnight, the forces -- the forces of law and order remain firmly in control and, of course, that's a reminder of how unstable this country is. We have seen gang violence rise, we've seen a political crisis now that's gone on for months, streets that have been taken over by demonstrators several times. The big question is now as Haiti wakes up this morning to this news, how stable and how secure that continues to be.

BERMAN: That is a major question. Obviously, the United States watching this very closely, the United States having played a role in Haiti several times over the last decades. Melissa Bell, thank you so much for that. We're going to stay updated on this throughout the morning.

KEILAR: Turning now to Congress. It looks like House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy will play ball after all with the Democratic-led investigation of the Capitol insurrection. Sources say that McCarthy does plan to put Republicans on this high-profile panel to appoint some himself, and CNN's Melanie Zanona is joining us now with more.

This is quite the about-face because, initially, there was this debate about whether McCarthy would appoint Republicans to this panel and it seemed like he was leaning very much against doing so.

MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: Yes. I did some digging on this the last few days. And what my sources are telling me is that, ultimately, Republicans feel like they want to be in a position where they can push back on Democrats' in hearings, potentially write their own minority report, lay defense for Trump and essentially launch a counternarrative to what's coming out of this panel. And it feels weird to talk about in terms of strategy and politicizing this, but that's exactly what the prism through which Republicans are viewing this committee is.

BERMAN: So, do we have any idea who he is thinking of appointing here?

ZANONA: Well, I'm sure there's going to be some trusted Trump allies, people like Jim Jordan, who was given a very high-profile assignment to defend the former president during the first impeachment. And Kevin McCarthy will face pressure to put some women on the panel, so it's not just men. Two contenders there are Elise Stefanik, the current conference chair, Jackie Walorksi of Indiana, she's the top Republican on the House Ethics Committee.

But Speaker Pelosi putting Liz Cheney on her side of the committee really ups the ante. So, Kevin McCarthy is feeling pressure to bring credibility to their side of the debate and have people potentially who voted to certify the election results, people who have expertise in security matters and law enforcement and legal expertise. So he's really trying to strike the right balance so that they can have a, in their eyes, credible defense against what Democrats are going to be doing here on the panel. KEILAR: It certainly appears that he will appoint adherence of the big lie or at least Republicans who have breathed life into it if they have not aggressively pushed it in the most convincing terms to their base. What is this going to do to the circus element of this panel?

ZANONA: Well, I think Kevin McCarthy wants to avoid a bit of that circus element. I am told he's expected to steer away from appointing a Matt Gaetz or a Marjorie Taylor Greene or a Lauren Boebert-type figure.

[07:10:05]

But the truth is a lot of the members who he would ideally appoint for something like this want nothing to do with it. It's a very politically fraught assignment. It's going to drag into the election year, especially those moderates in tough districts, they want nothing to do with this. So, they made clear they don't want to be assigned. So, the pool of people he has to choose from is actually limited.

KEILAR: Yes. Well, this is going to be informative and interesting to watch, no doubt. Great reporting, Melanie. Thank you. John?

BERMAN: All right. Joining us now, Tom Nichols, Contributing Writer for The Atlantic. Tom, great to see you. Thanks so much for joining us on New Day.

This news this morning, it's been leaning this way in a while that Kevin McCarthy was going to appoint members to this committee, but what do you make of what he's doing here, if it's someone like Jim Jordan who may lead the Republican charge on this committee, what does it tell you about what the goal really is?

TOM NICHOLS, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: The committee was formed and it was going to happen anyway, it was in McCarthy's interest to try to replicate the kind of thing we saw with impeachment, which is to put Republicans on the committee who will create an alternative narrative, who will create an alternative reality, really, for Republicans to be able to feed to their base, to create the sound clips and video bites and the kind of narrative that they're going to need to counter the pretty ugly narrative that's going to come out of any investigation of 1/6.

So it's understandable that at this point when they were faced with this thing happening one way or another, of course, they were going to put people on it to try to derail this and create a separate story away from the kind of story that they've been dealing with for the past six months.

BERMAN: I want to ask you about Marjorie Taylor Greene, who, a couple weeks ago, visited the Holocaust museum and gave this news conference where she claimed she learned so much after all these years of her life about how 6 million Jews and millions of others were killed there, yet, overnight, she still managed to issue a deeply offensive statement with Nazi-like references here.

She's talking about the White House effort to go door to door to inform people about vaccinations. She said Biden pushing a vaccine that is not FDA approved shows COVID is a political tool used to control. People have a choice. They don't need your medical brown shirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations. You can't force people to be part of the human experiment.

So, okay, it has received emergency use authorization from the FDA. They're not being forced to take part in anything. Those clear lies aside, let's talk about the brown shirt reference there, Tom. I'm not sure the Holocaust museum had the effect she claimed it did.

NICHOLS: Yes. Every time somebody like her gets caught doing something utterly offensive, they play the game sorry, not sorry. They say, gosh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize this was offensive. Let me now move to the next incredibly offensive thing I could say. Because, again, they're in a relationship -- they're in a relationship with their base. They're not really trying to speak to all of America. They're not really trying to represent anybody, not even everybody in their own district. They're just trying to represent the people in their base who sustain them in Congress.

So, this isn't surprising. I mean, she's not -- Marjorie Taylor Greene isn't exactly one of the most erudite members of Congress to begin with. But this is also a game of trying to turn to the media and say, no, I would never speak this way and then to kind of wink at the base and turn back and say, but we all know what I mean by medical brown shirts. And it's really just a very cynical and offensive game that a lot of these members play like this.

BERMAN: And the subject of cynical, then there's J.D. Vance, right, who was supposed to be different. The author of Hillbilly Elegy who very eloquently described an economic situation in the United States that may have contributed to the rise of Trumpism, factories closed, people feeling disconnected from Vances in the United States, who was very critical of Donald Trump in 2016, now basically apologizing for ever being critical. What does that tell you?

NICHOLS: It tells me he wants to be a senator, that, you know, you can accidentally speak the truth in a memoir, say things four or five years ago that are the kind of things normal human beings would think and then suddenly realize that you want to be a senator, that you have patrons that are handing you $10 million and super PACs that being formed on your behalf and then you realize you have to say things differently.

Even in a Republican Party characterized by a remarkable amount of cynicism, J.D. Vance's about-face and willingness basically to turn his -- without argument, a compelling back story in his biography, to turn that into, you know, kind of political leverage against people back home to try to sell -- really, to sell the story of what he is now, to try to cover the story of what he is now, which is a east coast Ivy-educated, elite is really even in this GOP that is really a towering moment of hypocrisy and opportunism.

[07:15:17]

And you almost have to hand it to him just for the sheer audacity of the turnaround in such a short time.

BERMAN: Tom Nichols, I appreciate talking to you this morning. Please come back.

NICHOLS: Thank you.

BERMAN: All right. Coming up, the White House press secretary joins us live to discuss the president's vaccination strategy and whether it will work to prevent another surge.

KEILAR: And the creator of the prize-winning 1619 Project turning down a tenured teaching position in the journalism school that she graduated from. Nikole Hannah-Jones tells us why she made this decision, next.

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[07:20:00]

BERMAN: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones has declined a tenured teaching position at the University of North Carolina. The Board of Trustees at UNC Chapel Hill initially denied her tenure only to reverse that decision after protests from alumni, faculty and students. She has now accepted a faculty position at Howard University, tenured position, and will take on new roles focusing on race and investigative journalism.

Joining me now is New York Times Staff Writer and creator of the 1619 Project Nikole Hannah-Jones, if I can call you professor or soon-to-be professor, listen, thank you so much for joining us.

Your statement, something jumped out at me in the statement you released overnight and I want you to explain what you meant by it. You said, at some point when you have proven yourself and fought your way into institutions that were not built for you, when you have proven you can compete and excel at the highest level, you have to decide that you are done forcing yourself in. What did you mean by that?

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES, 2020 PULITZER PRIZE WINNER, NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: Well, as I also -- first, thank you for having me. But as I also said in the statement, I've been trying to prove myself in predominantly white and historically white institutions really my entire life. I started being bused into white schools as part of a voluntary desegregation order in the second grade and I've spent my life since then really trying to prove that I was good enough being in spaces that didn't value necessarily my perspective, my background, the type of work that I wanted to do.

And here I was at my alma mater, you know, having risen up through my profession from a small, weekly newspaper to the New York Times, having done really important work that has been recognized across my field, and yet I was still basically treated as if I was not good enough for the night chair to be tenured, which had been a tenured position since the 1980s at the university and that every other professor who also happened to be white before me had been tenured. So, I think this kind of final insult through a career of having to prove myself at institutions that are not diverse, that are not very welcoming to diversity, that I just decided I'm 45 years old. I don't have anything else to prove. I don't want to force myself into an institution that doesn't seem to appreciate what I bring.

BERMAN: Yes, it struck me as an answer to a question that I know probably arose in many people, well, why doesn't she go to UNC and change the system there.

HANNAH-JONES: Well, you know, this is the problem is the burden to change systems cannot always be on the people who are being excluded from those systems. The people who created this crisis, this situation at the University of North Carolina, are the people who have the power to change what is happening there.

I didn't cause this, as you know. I didn't even make public the fact that they denied me tenure. This is not what I wanted. I have a great love for the University of North Carolina. But we can't keep placing the burden on minorities, marginalized people, black people to have to stay and fight at organizations and institutions that aren't going to treat us equally and fairly. That burden has to be on the people in power who have created that injustice in the first place.

BERMAN: Again, that's what struck me about it, saying, look, this is about you. This isn't about me. This is about you and the decisions that you made. And I know you really haven't received a fulsome explanation for what the heck was going on, why you were denied tenure in the first place, but I know you have thoughts on it. I mean, do you think -- and this gets into what we're having, the discussion that some people are having now about what is and isn't being taught in schools, why do you think that you were so threatening to some people?

HANNAH-JONES: I mean, I think that's what's been so distressing about this entire debacle is not only the tenured denial but the lack of transparency from the administration at the university, the unwillingness to just be truthful about what happened and to let me, as well as the public, know what happened.

I don't know why people find me so threatening. I'm a journalist. I just produce journalism. But I think that we are clearly in this moment in our country where after, you know, George Floyd and kind of the global reckoning, we started to see some real shifts in the understanding of kind of the structural inequality of racism upon which this country was built.

And I think powerful people have a big investment in maintaining the status quo. They don't want us to recognize the systemic inequality in our country, because if you recognize it, then you have to fix it. So I've just kind of been caught up in this larger concerns about the demographic shifts in our country, about the balance of power in our country and, you know, trying to really silence me at the university as part of a wave of these anti-1619 Project, anti-critical race theory, anti-history bill that are being passed.

[07:25:16] And they're being passed in the same legislatures that are also passing voter suppression laws. So these two things are going hand in hand.

BERMAN: You know, if you will, I want to bring in the dean of UNC School of Journalism AND Media who advocated for your tenure there, who wanted you there and tenured, Susan King. Dean, thank you so much for being with us. How much does this decision hurt with soon-to-be professor --

SUSAN KING, DEAN, UNC HUSSMAN SCHOOL OF MEDIA: Well, first, I have to say one thing.

BERMAN: Go ahead.

KING: Well, let's just say one thing, congratulations, Nikole. You are building a whole new center at Howard. You know, I think that this is a sad moment for me because I wanted her and this interview just proves why she's such an important voice in our time and in journalism. But let's just also celebrate what she's going to build at Howard University, a great university. And I'm thankful that all those foundations are supporting you. I just wish you were with me.

But, you know, there's no doubt that we are at a moment in this country where race again has come to the forefront and journalism is -- it doesn't make friends. Journalism really makes people feel uncomfortable. And I understand that our job as journalists and preparing a whole new generation, a changed generation, is to really prepare them to, as we say here, ignite the public conversation. And, boy, has Nikole ignited that public conversation. And we'll be forever changed here, Nikole, and our faculty are supportive of you greatly and I hope that we will be able to continue to really build a better public university where all students and all of our faculty feel welcomed.

And we would have loved to have done it with you, but we don't want to put the burden on you either.

BERMAN: And, Dean, again, I know you wanted her there, but how did UNC blow this so badly?

KING: On every front. And I don't totally understand it. I think Nikole and I are still sometimes unsure exactly what happened in every point. But the 1619 Project has been acclaimed and it's also been criticized and it raised questions over time. And we try to meet those questions at every moment.

And I do also want to emphasize that I think we've got to celebrate that last week when the board of trustees finally lived up to the responsibility of reviewing her package, they voted in favor. It might have been a split vote but it was in favor of a great journalist, of a great program. And I don't want to forget that. We didn't give up as a faculty and as a school. We wanted Nikole here.

But as I think you said so well, Nikole, we wanted you to come here to do great journalism because professors continue to produce great journalism. We wanted you here to really shape a new generation. We couldn't put the extra burden on you to try to heal everything we need to heal here at the public university.

But I won't give up that fight. i know my faculty won't give up that fight and we're united as a campus around the issues that Nikole's candidacy brought in a way I've never seen before. And I hope we can make things better in the next year and find common ground. It will not be easy, however.

BERMAN: Your reaction, Nikole?

HANNAH-JONES: Well, Dean King knows how much I admire and respect her and that's why it was really important in my statement to make clear that I don't have animus towards university. I was so touched and strengthened by the show of support from the faculty, from the dean and from the students. This -- unfortunately, they didn't have a say ultimately over what happened with my tenure and political appointees did.

And in the end, dean king and I did fight this battle. Dean King was not afraid to speak the truth when other leadership at the university went silent and we were victorious. We did get the vote that I should have received last year in November. And I'll always be grateful for that and I will continue to support my alma mater, will continue to support the university and the school of journalism.

BERMAN: Dean King, I appreciate you being with us. Soon-to-be Professor Nikole Hannah-Jones, I appreciate you being with us as well. I wish you all the best --

KING: Again, congratulations, Nikole.

HANNAH-JONES: Thank you.

BERMAN: All right. Look, it's all part of the discussion we were just having, but you are hearing some conservatives pointing to what they call critical race theory as this flashpoint. It's their new favorite talking point. And now parents are taking the fight against it into their own hands.

[07:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 600,000 people died in the civil war to end racism and slavery. Don't rewrite factual history or indoctrinate. Just present the facts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Plus another legal twist in the Britney Spears.