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Doctor Describes Patients Sick with COVID and States Most are Not Vaccinated; Michele Bachmann Criticizes Federal Government Efforts to Go Door-to-Door to Educate Citizens on Vaccination against COVID; Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty Interviewed on Extremist Groups Attending CPAC; American Optimism Highest in More than 10 Years; Biggest Protests in Decades Erupt against Cuba's Communist Regime. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired July 12, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Dr. Jarvis, we appreciate the work you are doing. We appreciate you being with us this morning. You've written, talked about your frustration and what you're seeing. The patients that are coming in with COVID, what's the one common denominator they all have?

DR. HOWARD JARVIS, MEDICAL DIRECTOR OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE, COXHEALTH: The common denominator for the patients that we're seeing that are sick enough to be in the emergency department is that they're unvaccinated. And if they are sick enough to be admitted to the hospital, they are unvaccinated. That is the absolute common denominator amongst those patients.

BERMAN: The people you are seeing unvaccinated. Do they regret? Or what are they saying about their vaccination status?

JARVIS: I can see the regret on their face. We ask them, because we want to know, are you vaccinated? And it's very clear that a lot of them regret it. You feel terrible. I haven't had the disease myself, but just watching how people are suffering with their breathing, how hard it is for them to breathe, how poorly they feel, they feel terrible with this. And you can see the regret on their face. They don't necessarily express it all the time. But it's clearly there.

BERMAN: So the patients who are being hospitalized, unvaccinated. And what else, generally speaking? What's the age range of patients you are seeing now?

JARVIS: So it's kind of interesting, because earlier in the pandemic, and certainly before we had vaccinations, we were seeing a much older patient population in the emergency department and getting admitted to the hospital. In recent weeks, we've been seeing a much younger population, and really even quite a few people who don't have any underlying medical problems. So, the age skew is much younger. We're seeing people in their 30s, 40s, early 50s. We're seeing some teenager, and some pediatric patients as well.

BERMAN: How sick are the patients you're seeing?

JARVIS: Honestly, they're quite ill. They are quite ill. And it seems as though this variant that we're experiencing, and that's a lot of the problem right now is the Delta variant is very high in our region. So, we have patients who are very sick. Honestly, they seem to be getting sicker earlier in the course of their illness than what I recall six months ago when we were seeing patients. But they are quite ill.

BERMAN: So you know the federal government, the Biden administration, is trying to send people out door-to-door to educate them on the need for getting vaccinated. But the Governor in Missouri, Mike Parson, has been very critical of it. He said that the door-to-door efforts are not effective or welcome. What's your reaction to that?

JARVIS: My reaction is anything that we can do to encourage people to get vaccinated, we should do. When you have a statistic that 99 percent of the deaths from COVID in the United States over the last month were in unvaccinated patients, the data cannot be more clear than that. We really don't have great and effective therapies for COVID-19 once you become ill and have to come into the hospital. There are things we can do, and we think there's some benefit with them. But what we really have is the ability to keep you from getting very sick with this and keep you from dying if you get vaccinated. So, I think whatever we can do to encourage people to get vaccinated, we should do.

I'm seeing some of these very ill people that I'm admitting to the hospital, I don't want to kick somebody when they're down, when they didn't get vaccinated. Clearly, they regret it. I am asking some of them, at least, to at least consider reaching out to people that they know, family members, loved ones, friends, to encourage them to get vaccinated, because people that are that ill really recognize how severe this disease is.

BERMAN: Dr. Howard Jarvis, again, we appreciate the work you're doing. We appreciate the message you are sending. Go get vaccinated if you haven't. Thanks very much, Doctor.

JARVIS: Thank you.

BERMAN: Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: All right, let's bring in the former Republican governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty with us. Sir, thank you so much for joining us this morning. You heard, as John Berman spelled out there, Governor Parson of Missouri has been very critical of this door-to-door effort. A fellow Minnesotan has as well, Michele Bachmann, who was a Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota, said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: So, door-to-door, they're coming. They've got syringes. I don't think this is going to go too well, Michele. What do you think? [08:05:03]

MICHELE BACHMANN, (R) FORMER MINNESOTA CONGRESSWOMAN: Well, I'm glad that actually this is an issue. And I want to urge all the viewers to go out and buy "no trespassing" signs. The government has zero business to do this, zero right. And what they're wanting all of us to do is to check our Bill of Rights, our civil liberties at the door.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: What do you think about this, as we're seeing vaccination numbers not being where they should be, and you have outreach from the government, it is being described, characterized as the way Bachmann is characterizing it. What do you say?

TIM PAWLENTY, (R) FORMER MINNESOTA GOVERNOR: Well, we're hopefully in the final stages of a very serious pandemic, and I do think reasonable steps to get people to be vaccinated are OK. We have people come to our homes to read our water meters. I have people come to my home to sell me aluminum siding or vacuum cleaners or whatever the product might be. And as well as people coming to your home are acting reasonably, and of course, the homeowner has the opportunity to say I'm not interested. Go away. And if that person complies, it seems like a reasonable effort to get people vaccinated. Vaccines are important. They are the difference maker in fighting this pandemic, and all reasonable efforts to get people vaccinated should be encouraged.

KEILAR: There seems to be a litmus test for Republicans. We're having Governor Christie Noem of South Dakota who put into place really no restrictions when it came to COVID and has a very high rate of deaths per capita. She has taken aim at fellow Republican governors who did follow science and take more safety measures. What do you make of that?

PAWLENTY: Well, I did read her comments from CPAC. Look, whether it's Republican or Democrat, you can do a matrix of the steps that states took across this nation and look at ones that were more open or less open, and the results are mixed as to what that meant in terms of human health.

So I think we're going to have to take months or years to unsort who actually did what and when and what impact that had. And I think we're going to find that it's a mixed story. But the bottom line is, vaccines were the difference maker, and to the extent other measures helped, being courteous to others, like wearing a mask, trying to be helpful as we live in community with each other with things that are reasonable and not overburdensome, I think those are OK. So the idea that some governors did a great job because they were more open or less open. Let's look at the data before we start condemning people who are trying to lead and do the right thing in a pandemic that we're all learning in real time.

KEILAR: There's no argument that decisions, policy decisions about the vaccination have been very clear about the effect. So, where you do have Republicans in some states emphasizing that there shouldn't be any pressure to get the vaccine, or not even advocating on behalf of the vaccine, we see what's happening -- 99.2 percent of the people who are extremely ill or dying are unvaccinated. So, that's a measure where there is not a mixed bag, and that tends to go along with the governors making more moderate policy decisions.

PAWLENTY: As to vaccines, let me be clear, Brianna. I was talking about the other, not including vaccines. But as to the vaccines, they are the difference maker, and should absolutely be encouraged.

But let me just say this by way of background. We're at a point, sadly, in our country where with enough volume and enough repetition, you can convince 10 to 20 percent of the population of almost anything. And the Republican Party certainly wants to be the party of liberty and free will exercise and all of that, but we also have to be responsible, and we have to be smart. And the evidence and the data is clear. These vaccines, relative to all other vaccines throughout history, are very safe. They're making a huge difference for human health, and we should be encouraging them. And we need leaders who are informed and responsible and thoughtful setting the example with their words and actions in that regard.

KEILAR: I do want to ask you, because I'm sure that you have an opinion on the matter. CPAC, the conservative conference over the weekend, which is always colorful, right? We know that.

PAWLENTY: Yes.

KEILAR: But there were, according to our Donie O'Sullivan, Three Percenters and Proud Boys just walking around at CPAC. This is different.

PAWLENTY: Look, at the grassroots level, there's a lot of, shall we say, interesting people in politics, right and left. But again, I really want to encourage -- we can't have a democracy without an informed citizenry. Leaders, we have to elevate leaders who are responsible with the information they share, encourage the example that they set. And we also have to make sure that we're not empowering, right or left, leaders or groups that are crazy or extreme. And it's not that difficult.

[08:10:00]

It shouldn't be that hard for Americans to say we're not going to elevate people who are obviously nutty to our leadership positions, or we're not going to elevate or embrace groups that are militant or extreme and dangerous in their behaviors. And that includes a bunch of groups on the left, too.

KEILAR: But, what we're seeing is this particular conference, I don't think we're seeing something like this on the left. I'm talking about Three Percenters, Proud Boys.

PAWLENTY: We may not see it on the left. We may not have yet seen it at the left in conferences, but we certainly have seen it in the streets all across America. In times that are dealing with Antifa's behavior in Seattle, for example. KEILAR: But this is a political conference. That is a difference.

This is a conference that is supposed to be attracting the base of the Republican Party, and you have Three Percenters and Proud Boys walking around.

PAWLENTY: Let's be candid, Brianna. Both parties have extreme elements that are just out of bounds in terms of a lot of behaviors, thoughts, and proposals. And it's incumbent upon the rest of us, if we're ever going to get this thing pulled back together to some semblance of --

KEILAR: But these are folks, anti-government extremists, who feel welcome enough that they're attending a political conference.

PAWLENTY: I bet if I went to any number of leftist gatherings, I could find a bunch of goofballs as well.

KEILAR: Do you know of any?

PAWLENTY: Do I know of militant leftist groups?

KEILAR: I'm saying, do you have an actual example of that? I ask you, governor, because this is an actual example. Do you know of an actual example on the left that basically says it's all the same, left and right, here?

PAWLENTY: We have all kinds of examples of people who are encouraging violence or behaviors that we would otherwise accept are outside the norm on the left demonstrating that all over the country --

KEILAR: But a political conference where a former president is speaking?

PAWLENTY: What difference does it make whether it's in a hotel ballroom or a street corner? What's the difference?

KEILAR: I think it speaks to whether they feel welcome at a particular event. And I ask because you're aware that the U.S. government has made clear about how big of a threat anti-government extremism is, that this is a huge threat to national security.

PAWLENTY: And I would put Antifa and other groups on the left in the same category.

KEILAR: But they -- I will say, I hear what you're saying about that. We have seen some violence. The federal government does not put them in the same category, just to be clear. And I'm just wondering, you said that you would find goofballs on the left. I don't see, actually, the example on the left at a political conference where you have anti- government extremists showing up. And I'm just asking you if you do. You said if you look, you would find them.

PAWLENTY: I think if you and I sent a CNN crew that wasn't otherwise obvious and evident to a left gathering, not the Democratic Party's National Convention, but some ancillary group, like their version of CPAC, and you went with a camera, notepad, or otherwise just observed, we could find you some people who would be problematic from your perspective, and from a normal, or the typical population's perspective.

So the idea -- your point is Proud Boys or whatever extremist groups are milling around CPAC, that's uncomfortable and shouldn't be embraced by the Republican Party. OK, that's a fair point. But let's also agree, in fairness, that this is not just a problem of the right, that there's also extremist militant elements on the left, and we should call that out as well.

KEILAR: Is it more than uncomfortable?

PAWLENTY: Well, the Republican Party does not want to become the party of extremist folks who have conspiracy theories and are militant and violent, and the same is true on the left. So, again, I think it's a disservice to the debate to say there's only crazy militant people on the right. There's also crazy, militant people on the left. And the rest of us in a democracy have to be united enough and have enough common sense to say we're not embracing any of that right or left in who we choose as leaders and how we govern our country.

KEILAR: I certainly think that last point has merit to it. I do think it's very clear where extremists feel welcome in attending a certain event that is actually very mainstream.

PAWLENTY: Well, CPAC, as you said -- yes, well, there's all sorts of gatherings all over the country. CPAC is one of them. If you want to be fair about it, let's go do some coverage of the other extremist left --

[08:15:00]

KEILAR: No, look, I do want to be fair about it, and I'm asking you to name one and you can't. But we can continue this conversation, certainly offline because I'd be very curious about that.

PAWLENTY: Well, Antifa would be -- Antifa would be one of them. Antifa would be one of them.

KEILAR: Oh, that's -- I mean, that certainly is a group, certainly, but I'm talking about being welcomed at an event. So, we'll continue to have this discussion, because I really do want to get to the bottom of it, and I certainly appreciate it.

PAWLENTY: I don't -- I don't think -- I don't think the root cause of what's going on in our democracy is who is welcome at a political, you know, hotel room, it's much broader and deeper and more nuanced than that.

So, I understand your point, which is that this was CPAC, but the idea that that's somehow the measure of what's going on underneath the hood of our democracy is that's -- you know, just touching the surface, I'm afraid.

KEILAR: Yes, I do think it is part of it. I will say that I do think it is part of it.

Governor Pawlenty, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

PAWLENTY: You're welcome.

KEILAR: John.

BERMAN: All right. A terrific conversation about the divisions in the country.

We will also about coronavirus, and how case rates are rising and how that's a concern. But there is an interesting element in some of the polling that we've seen over the last few days, which is that if you ask people how they are doing, how their lives are, by some measurement, they say, great, like historically fantastic.

Here to discuss, CNN senior data reporter, Harry Enten. Good news.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Yes, something completely different. How about that for a change? Look at this.

This is Gallup poll, U.S. adults who say that they're thriving. Look at this number in June of 2021, fifty nine percent, that is the highest that Gallup has ever measured on this metric going all the way back since they first asked that in the mid-aught, the previous high was 57 percent in September of 2017.

We are beating that and look at that jump that we've seen since the coronavirus pandemic, really it was beginning in March and April of 2020. We're up 13 points. So, Americans are thriving. They like the way things are going for themselves.

BERMAN: And when you look at it from a different perspective, if you ask people sort of the negative version of that, have things been bad over the last week, what do you see?

ENTEN: Right. So, look at this. This is from the AXIOS/Ipsos Poll, has your mental health worsened than last week? Just nine percent said that in the latest poll that was in late June of 2021 that is the lowest percentage who say that their mental health has gotten worse during the entire pandemic. Look at that, at the beginning of the pandemic, it was 35 percent. We've dropped down to nine, 24, 16, nine -- so people are feeling better about themselves. Few of them think that their mental health is getting worse over the last week.

BERMAN: Is there a partisan divide in that?

ENTEN: What's great about this is no, there is no partisan divide. Everything has a partisan divide. This doesn't. Mental health worsened over the last week, just eight percent of Democrats, just eight percent of Republicans, just 11 percent of Independents.

So, folks across the political spectrum think that their mental health is not getting worse. That's a good thing.

BERMAN: Your enthusiasm may be the reason people think they're thriving right now, Harry, in and of itself. How do people feel about coronavirus?

ENTEN: Yes, I think, look, this is the reason why I think people are getting so much happier with their lives while their mental health getting worse, that's been dropping.

Look at this, coronavirus is the most important U.S. problem, just eight percent in June of 2021 according to Gallup, that is the lowest percentage throughout the entire pandemic. You have to go back before March of 2020 to get a lower percentage who say that coronavirus is the most important problem.

Look how much further down we are from April of 2020 when it was 45 percent, which is down eight percent now.

BERMAN: People just think things are getting better, and in terms of people's concerns about getting back to life as normal.

ENTEN: Yes. So, I think this sort of sums it all up for you, folks, this is pretty clear. Returning to your pre-pandemic normal life, the percentage who say it's a larger, moderate risk, look at that. It is down to just 28 percent. That is -- that's nearly a drop in half from April of 2021 when it was 55 percent, just 28 percent say that now. Look where we were pretty much throughout all of last year, that should be 2020.

And you see this drop right here, 72, 71, 73, 55 down to just 28 percent now, so people feel like they can get back to normal life, whether they really can, who can say, but people certainly feel that way. And so they're feeling much better about their lives and themselves.

BERMAN: Correct me if I'm wrong, this seems like good news, Harry?

ENTEN: This is good news. If you cannot tell by my enthusiasm, it is good news. There's a lot of bad news out there. So, why not celebrate some good news for a change?

BERMAN: Thank you very much.

ENTEN: Thank you, sir.

BERMAN: All right. Up next, Cubans taking to the streets in the largest protest there in decades, the regime blaming the United States.

KEILAR: Well, some swift backlash after three of England's soccer players are targeted by ugly racist social media attacks after losing this huge game, and then 12 big lies in a single TV interview on a single topic. We're going to fact check Donald Trump on the insurrection.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:23:35]

KEILAR: In Cuba, thousands of people are marching in cities across the nation protesting the country's food shortages and high prices amid the coronavirus pandemic. Cuba is in the midst of an economic crisis, and these anti-government protests are the largest that we have seen in decades.

CNN's Patrick Oppmann is live for us in Havana, Cuba with more you know. You know, it is hard to overstate how significant this is what we're seeing in it, and we wonder, of course, if it's going to continue -- Patrick.

All right, I think we're having a little problem there. Patrick, can you hear me?

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, I hear you now. Can you hear me?

KEILAR: Yes. Okay, Patrick, tell us a little bit about what you're seeing and how significant it is?

OPPMANN: I'll just go ahead. Yes, and just so everyone is aware, there have been massive problems ever since these protesting with the internet, not surprisingly, this is something that often happens here. The government slowing down the internet or actually cutting the internet, when there is civil disturbance.

We've been talking about how these protests are rare, they are actually unprecedented. Never before in the nine years that I've lived in Cuba, and from the more than 20 years that I have come here, have we seen so many places just spontaneously, where people come out to protest.

This isn't one city, it is dozens of cities, sometimes even in small towns. And it began kind of a rolling protest across the country yesterday, people watching these protests all unfold on social media online and people who told us they had nothing left to lose, nothing like the fear took to the streets. And the government, as you said is blaming the United States saying that U.S. sanctions, the U.S. embargo has caused economic havoc here.

[08:25:20]

OPPMANN: But many of the people that we've spoken to said, they've heard that for years, and they're just tired of it. Their life has become intolerable during the pandemic. We've seen more people leaving on this island by rafts. And yesterday, we saw something that, again, I've never seen before. I don't think anyone alive in Cuba has seen before, which is thousands of people across this island, not just in Havana, the capital, but in small towns, taking out to the streets to protest and say that they want change. So far, no indications from the government of any changes.

KEILAR: No indications that any changes will be coming, I think you were saying there, Patrick. Patrick Oppmann for us in Havana. Thank you -- John.

BERMAN: All right, joining me now is the Mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez. He joined demonstrators in a little Havana neighborhood of Miami yesterday, solidarity demonstrations with what is going on in Cuba. Mayor, thank you for being with us. You're imploring the U.S. government to take action? What do you want to see?

MAYOR FRANCIS SUAREZ (R), MIAMI, FLORIDA: Well, first of all, we'd love to see the White House and the President make a statement supporting the Cuban people in solidarity with the Cuban people. I think in addition to that, you know, the international community is now seeing as your correspondent said, the reality of what's happening in Cuba.

So, there has to be an international coalition that can construct some level of intervention in the Cuban island. The people there are starving, the people there are yearning for freedom, and the people there have absolutely no medicine and they're getting devastated by COVID.

So, there has to be some level of intervention. Obviously, there's a lot of people in Miami that would love to see military intervention.

BERMAN: Mayor Suarez, I think we may have lost your microphone. Mayor Suarez? All right. We're going to get him back after a break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:00]