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Fox, Politicians Spread Anti-Vaccine Rhetoric as Americans Die; Bill Carter: Fox Employees Should Quit Over Anti-Vax Rhetoric; TX Dem Challenges Fox Host on Air to say Trump Lost Election; Dr. Sanjay Gupta Pens Essary with Message to the Unvaccinate; Tennessee Halts Outreach for all Vaccines, Including Coronavirus; Cheney Defends Seat on January 6 Committee in CNN Interview; Dems Unveil $3.5T Go-It Alone Budget Plan To Advance Biden Agenda; Cheney to CNN: Trump Not Off Limits to Insurrection Subpoena. Major Protests Sweep Globe as Pandemic Deepens Inequalities. Aired 7-7:30a ET.
Aired July 14, 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]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. It is Wednesday, July 14. And we begin with a deadly escalation of anti-vaccine propaganda in politics and on TV that is risking and costing American lives.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Forty-five states are seeing a sharp rise in new infections due largely to the Delta variant, 10 percent higher than the previous week. And in 34 states new cases are up 50 percent -- 50 percent higher than last week.
Officials attribute that to the unvaccinated population and the rise of the high transmissible Delta variant. Ninety-nine percent of the people dying from COVID right now are unvaccinated, more than 99 percent in fact.
An emergency room doctor told us this week that all of the sick COVID patients he is seeing are unvaccinated. All of them. And yet to some this is just a show, a deadly show.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: It makes you think, once you think about it, that maybe none of this is really about COVID. Maybe it's about social control.
LARA TRUMP, DAUGHTER-IN-LAW OF DONALD TRUMP: And this has never, Sean, been about following the science. It's never been about following the facts and the truth. It's been about control from day one.
CARLSON: I mean how -- I don't -- this is the great -- I think -- I honestly think this is the greatest scandal of my lifetime by far. I thought the Iraq War was, this seems much bigger than that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Six hundred seven thousand seven hundred seventy one Americans have died of the coronavirus. More than 99 percent of the people dying from COVID right now are unvaccinated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROB SCHMITT, NEWSMAX HOST: Obviously I'm not a doctor, but what I've always thought about vaccines and I always think about just nature and the way everything works. And I feel like a vaccination in a weird way is just generally kind of going against nature.
Like, I mean, if there is some disease out there maybe there's just an ebb and flow to life where something's supposed to wipe out a certain amount of people and that's just kind of the way evolution goes. Vaccines kind of stand in the way of that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Six hundred and seven thousand seven hundred seventy one Americans have died of coronavirus. Ninety-nine percent of the people dying right now are unvaccinated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So maybe it doesn't work and they're simply not telling you that. Well, you hate to think that especially if you've gotten two shots. But what's the other potential explanation?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: In Los Angeles, where cases are up right now, none -- none of the hospitals has admitted a single COVID patient who was fully vaccinated. The director says, quote this point, "This really is a preventable illness, a preventable infection."
BERMAN: This truly is the optional portion of the pandemic. To underscore that point the Biden administration is sending people to communities to educate those who are misinformed or maybe skeptical of the vaccine. They're not showing up to force needles.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: The Biden administration is about to take their pressure campaign to your doorstep. Now Republican officials are already pushing back and this is great. Missouri's Governor Mike Parson politely told the Feds to take their vaccine evangelization elsewhere.
REP. LAUREN BOEBERT (R), COLORADO: Don't come knocking on my door with your Fauci ouchie. You leave us the hell alone.
REP. MADISON CAWTHORN (R), NORTH CAROLINA: And now they're starting to talk about going door-to-door to be able to take vaccines to the people. Think about what those mechanisms can be used for. They can then go door-to-door to take your guns.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible).
CAWTHORN: They again go door-to-door to take your bibles.
BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: They're going to knock on your door. They're going to demand that you take it. And they're going to give you a third shot.
CHARLIE HUNT, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: When it comes to medical privacy they've become like the Taliban, which is a real problem.
KILMEADE: The focus of this administration on vaccination is mindboggling.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Again, 607,771 Americans have died of the virus and 99 percent of the people dying right now are unvaccinated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLIE KIRK, LEADERSHIP OF TURNING POINT USA: At Turning Point USA we are going to give it everything we have to make sure that students are not going to have to live in a medical apartheid because they don't want to get the vaccine.
This is a big statement, but it's almost this apartheid style, open- air hostage situation like, oh you can have your freedom back if you get the jab.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: It is just undeniable that being vaccinated will open up freedoms to work, to play, to accelerate the economy and quite frankly to keep breathing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. PETER MCCULLOUGH, VACCINE SKEPTIC DOCTOR: Overall the equation is very unfavorable for vaccination of anyone below age 30. Unless we really have a compelling case no one under age 30 should receive --
INGRAHAM: Yes.
MCCULLOUGH: -- any one of these vaccines.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: In Miami the hospital system is seeing a curve -- a surge. They are seeing a surge in COVID cases among people in their 30s and 40s, twice as many patients this past weekend than they had earlier in the month.
KEILAR: And then in Tennessee the Republican led state just fired its vaccination chief over what she says were efforts to get teens vaccinated. And now because of politics the state is scrapping all outreach to children for any vaccine. Not just for COVID, for all diseases.
[07:05:10]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILL CAIN, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: I cannot believe that we are on the verge against all science of mandating vaccines for children. That we are on the verge of East German style show me your papers.
TOMI LAHREN, FOX NATION HOST: There are so many good flight attendants out there. But there are some flight attendants out there that take their job as the mask police to extremes.
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, FOX NATION POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That is true.
LAHREN: Becoming almost Nazis of the air.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Millions of Americans are seeing this nonsensical, nonscientific propaganda instead of this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(VIDEO PLAYING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Six hundred seven thousand seven hundred seventy one Americans have died of the coronavirus. Ninety-nine percent of the people dying right now are unvaccinated.
BERMAN: Children are dying in other countries that don't have access to vaccines of any kind. Many of the Americans who died last year would not have died with the vaccine currently available right now for free, 607,771 Americans did. Some, many, maybe even most of whom would be alive today if the vaccine had been there in time for them.
KEILAR: And when history asks how so many Americans died when they could have been saved a simple shot or two you'll see these TV clips again that we've just shown in documentaries about the cautionary tale that has been America's response to the coronavirus pandemic.
About how a large part of our country mislead by information often echoed by elected officials and right-wing media was thrown a life raft and instead said, no I'll take my chances.
Joining us now for more is Bill Carter. He is a CNN Medial Analyst. And Bill, you have recently said that Fox employees should quit because the of the network's anti-vac push. Tell us about that. Tell us why.
BILL CARTER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, I mean, it's obviously pretty easy (inaudible) for someone outside an organization to tell someone they should not tolerate what their organization's doing. But you just sited the figures and it's staggering and it's so dishonest. It's just not honest.
I mean, what's the rational for this. What's their reason for saying, oh be skeptical about the vaccine. Oh, skeptical is one thing. If you mention that and then say, yes but 99 percent of the people dying are the people who aren't vaccinated at least you're doing your job. You're giving honest information. But to not give honest information and save lives I just don't understand how you can -- how you can justify that.
If you're -- if you're a professional in the information business and you're giving out this disinformation all the time that could cost someone their life, I don't know how you can function as a -- as a, you know, responsible journalist that way. It just doesn't make sense to me.
KEILAR: It's not responsible journalism, what we're seeing, right? This information taken to heart endangers their viewers. Why do you think Fox hosts are doing this?
CARTER: Well this is the big question Brianna. Why are they doing it? What's the reason? And the only rational you can come up with is that it's become the political point of view for the right-wing, for the conservative movement.
That you can't support this because if it works -- continues to work as it has worked brilliantly for people with -- who have been vaccinated, it might help Joe Biden, it might help his administration and you can't have that.
And that's the rational for going out and saying, well we're going to give people information that could wind up killing them. I mean, it just -- it's scary. And if you worked in an organization where some people were poisoning the water in a town how could you not speak up and say, don't -- you can't do this, this is poisoned information?
They're not stepping up and saying 99 percent of the people getting sick are the ones who aren't vaccinated and you can be among those who are safe if you're vaccinated. Why are you not saying that?
And by the way, Brianna, if Trump had won the election and he was in office they'd be doing the opposite and we all know that. They wouldn't be campaigning this way if they had a Republican in office. So the dishonesty is what is really bad to me.
KEILAR: And Fox is clearly worried about leading viewers to the even farther right networks, right? We saw that --
CARTER: Yes.
KEILAR: -- certainly around the time of the election and the insurrection. And it's not -- though it's not just vaccines, Bill that Fox is misleading its viewers on. Check out this moment yesterday when a guest challenged a host there to state reality, which is that Trump lost the election. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JAMES TALARICO (D), TEXAS You have made a lot of money personally and you've enriched a lot of corporations with advertising by getting on here and spewing lies and conspiracy theories to folks who trust you.
[07:10:05]
PETE HEGSETH, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Now it's about my enrichment.
TALARICO: And so what I'm asking you to do --
HEGSETH: I see.
TALARICO: -- is to tell your voters right now that Donald Trump --
HEGSETH: Hey, at least you've resolved the lie --
TALARICO: -- lost the election of 2020. Can you --
HEGSETH: -- that is -- at least you've resolved the lie that is --
TALARICO: -- can you -- can you admit that?
HEGSETH: -- Democrats are now for voter I.D.
(CROSSTALK)
TALARICO: Did you -- did you catch what I just asked? Did you hear what I asked?
HEGSETH: But at least I -- at least you resolved the idea that Democrats are not for voter I.D.
TALARICO: Did Donald Trump lose the election in 2020?
HEGSETH: Real quick --
TALARICO: Can you answer the question? Did Donald Trump lose the election in 2020?
HEGSETH: I think I'm answering questions I'm not -- don't really feel any obligation to answer anything --
TALARICO: Is this -- is this -- is this an uncomfortable -- and uncomfortable question for you.
HEGSETH: -- for (ph) you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: You know, Bill, I do my best to not call it Fox News, to call it Fox, because it's not news. That is just B.S. You know, what do you think about that, what we heard there? CARTER: Well it's -- they know what their audience wants and they're -- the audience wants to be validated. And much of their audience has decided they're going to support this crazy lie that Trump actually won the election. So that can't go against that. They're afraid to lose those viewers to places that are worse.
I mean, it is worse to have a guy on another channel saying it's like we should wipe out people. It's part of the strategy of nature to wipe out people when we can save them. You might as well throw away penicillin that way. And the thing is so over the top crazy now.
But this all about policy (ph) -- all about we have to -- we have to take a position that supports what our -- what our viewers want or we'll lose our viewers. And it's about validation for them, not information. And it's obviously become incredibly dangerous.
And I just don't see how you accept that as a -- as a serious, you know, person trying to work in a profession. It seems to me that it's really -- it's something you couldn't -- I couldn't sleep at --
KEILAR: I think we just lost Bill, but I will finish that sentence. I also -- Bill you said you couldn't sleep if you were an employee of Fox. Is that what you're saying?
All right, I think we're having --
CARTER: Well, (inaudible) obviously there are people -- and some people at Fox are saying the right thing. But I think it's questionable. I just think this whole (inaudible) is questionable.
KEILAR: All right, we're having trouble with Bill's signal there. But, Bill thank you so much. Bill Carter we appreciate it.
BERMAN: You'll have to turn in next time to get Bill's response to that question. I was hanging in the balance --
KEILAR: I know, right?
BERMAN: -- to find out there.
KEILAR: I was like tell me.
BERMAN: It's a great tease.
KEILAR: Yes.
BERMAN: All right, joining us now CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay we put those vaccination numbers up there, 99 percent of the people dying right now are unvaccinated. As I've said before, it think we've reached the optional portion of this pandemic, which in some ways is truly scary.
And you've got an essay out today about what it means to be unvaccinated in America right now.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, I thought a lot about this obviously. I've been reporting on this for some time. Celebrated, I think, with all of you when the vaccines were finally made available to people and really relished at the impact they would have.
What the essay was, what sort of prompted this is that it's been this race that we've talked about for some time, right? The vaccines versus the virus, the vaccines versus the variant. And there was even a finish line that was sort of put out there. How would you know that you could sort of look at this think in the rearview mirror.
Well that was sort of a little bit arbitrary but the number was around 10,000 cases per day. If we got to 10,000 cases per day in this country we could basically say we have gone from just trying to slow this thing down to containing it, to getting our arms around it.
Let's take a look at the graph, where did we get. We came tantalizingly close to that number, about 11, 299 cases per day and then over the last week the numbers have really started to go up, really doubling really over the last week, closer to 23,000 now.
So this race that we've been talking about for some time, we were neck-in-neck, it looked like the vaccine was gone to win, but the variants have clearly started to take over. The Delta variant, everyone knows this term now, but it is a remarkable transmissible, contagious variant that you are very well protected by if you get the vaccine. But if you don't get the vaccine you are increasingly, almost assuredly likely to get infected.
One of the things that really prompted me to write this, again, was something that Barney Graham told me, he's deputy director at the NIH. And what he said is people keep thinking that the country is going to be split into vaccinated and unvaccinated.
The road we're on now is if the country gets split into vaccinated and infected. And this is a bad virus. It is a worse virus. It is more transmissible, more dangerous, you do not want this virus. And there are too many people who are still very vulnerable.
KEILAR: Let's talk about just how transmissible it is. I mean we saw the scenes coming out of Wuhan, China at the beginning of this. The complete and total shutdown and obviously it's a very different type of government, but we saw what they were dealing with. And that is a variant, that initial one, that is -- it's tiny in transmissibility compared to the Delta variant.
GUPTA: Yes, no doubt. I mean this is -- this is remarkable and I thought a lot about how to sort of convey this. I mean, one way that, you know, and public health folks talk about this, is what's called the are not, which is basically if you are an infected person how many people are you likely to transmit the virus to.
[07:15:10]
So to your point, that initial sort of strain that we talked about, the are not was around two to three. Now with the Delta variant it's somewhere closer to eight -- six to eight. So, you know, right away you say so if you're an infected person, you're carrying the virus, you could potentially spread that to up to eight people. If you start to do the math on that it puts you into exponential growth very quickly and that's what you're starting to see in many countries around the world.
And in many places even within the United States, because they United States you can't paint it with one brush. You have some places where you have higher vaccination rates and lower transmission. Other where much lower vaccination rates.
But there was this remarkable -- you know, in some countries there's this remarkable ability to contract trace, so places like Australia and New Zealand, they can really contract trace really effectively and it gives you an idea of how transmissible these variants are. If you we see what's going on Australia, you see the numbers going up.
They have the CCTV footage of people who actually just had these brief walk-bys in shopping malls. They don't even -- they don't know each other, they're walking by each other, they're not sitting there and talking to each other and they find that there is actually transmission going on from those very brief encounters. It's pretty remarkable to actually watch.
In New Zealand they found that even a single sort of object they -- a rubbish can, you know, the top of it may have been a source of infection for many people because they were able to contact trace that.
So, this is a really, really transmissible variant. I mean, the things that you could have gotten away with before, you know, walking by somebody quickly, you know, in a grocery store or something, you simply can't get away with this Delta variant. It is very unforgiving in this regard.
So transmissibility, if you want to put a number on it, three to four times higher than it was. But it's the daily life encounters that are much more risky because of this variant.
BERMAN: You can't get away with it unless you're vaccinated -- unless you're vaccinated. And vaccines --
GUPTA: Unless you're vaccinated.
BERMAN: -- unless -- and when you're vaccinated that's the way to get past this. In Australia where, you know, it's exploding the vaccination rate is way lower -- way lower than the United States, which is why it took off.
And Sanjay, just to give a sense of how politicized vaccinations have become, and Brianna did a terrific interview yesterday with this Tennessee health official. Tennessee, the national "Tennessean" now reporting, the Health Department has been ordered to halt all vaccine outreach to adolescence.
We're not just talking about the COVID vaccine, we're talking about like measles, rubella. They can no longer do any kind of outreach or public information about the need to get vaccines. Now, I'm not asking you about the politics of this, I'm asking you this as a doctor and a -- you know -- a doctor who has kids.
You know, how frightening is this if all of a sudden there's no more vaccine outreach?
GUPTA: I -- it's -- you know, people forget just how effective these vaccines are. I mean, you know, when you -- when you become the victims of your own success because you don't realize how many lives are being saved become of vaccines it becomes as to sort of dismiss them or be dismissive of them in some way.
When we look -- if you just talk about COVID for a second and you leave aside the pediatric vaccines, because that is just mindboggling to me. I mean, I just don't even know how to wrap my head around the fact that there are kids who will die of totally, totally preventable diseases. It's -- with COVID it's kind of like people dying in a war after the peace treaty has been signed. I mean, just totally preventable, unnecessary tragic deaths.
With COVID alone they say that perhaps the vaccines have prevented 280,000 in the United States --
BERMAN: Wow.
GUPTA: -- 280,000 deaths. It's remarkable. If you -- if you follow what the trend lines look like before the vaccines came out, you layered on seasonal changes, all this sort of stuff, now they predict that, you know, 280,000 people more would have died by this point. How do you convey that to people? How do you convey what might have happened and let that be a clarion call for what they should now?
It's obviously challenging in this -- in this sort of environment. But that video you showed of younger people now struggling to breath, that's real. That's what they're seeing in hospitals. We don't show that on television, it's tough to watch.
But if you work in a hospital you see these patients, you walk by COVID wards, you're seeing that the patients are getting increasingly younger and it's tough to watch these images of people lying prone on their bellies with nurses holding these iPads in front of them as they are saying goodbye to their families. That is still happening.
I mean, we have made so much progress in this country, but the fact that not only would say, hey don't get vaccinated, but we will stop outreach on vaccinations for all sorts of vaccines. We are going to the dark ages when it comes to, you know, totally preventable disease in this country.
BERMAN: I had not heard that statistic, 280,000 lives saved in the United States by the vaccine. That's a U.S. city. That's a U.S. city alive today that would be dead without the vaccines that are available to all of us for free.
[07:20:10]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta thanks so much for being with us this morning.
GUPTA: You. Thank you.
BERMAN: Coming up, an exclusive interview with Liz Cheney about her role in the Select Committee looking into the insurrection. Her message to the House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
KEILAR: Plus, Democrats reaching a deal overnight to advance a key piece of President Biden's agenda. But will the moderate wing in the party get onboard?
[07:20:35]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:24:50]
KEILAR: Now an exclusive new interview with Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Congresswoman speaking out for the first time since becoming the only Republican named to the Select Committee in the House that is investigating the insurrection.
So let's bring in CNN's Melanie Zanona who did this interview.
[07:25:00]
Fascinating Melanie. And you report that actually Liz Cheney and Kevin McCarthy, the leader of the House Republican Conference, they're not speaking, right?
MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: Yes.
KEILAR: Tell us about this. Tell us what this means and what Liz Cheney thinks that McCarthy is going to do on appointing people to this committee.
ZANONA: Well not surprising they're not on speaking terms. He did kick her out of leadership earlier this year. They were already on bad terms before that happened. So she doesn't know who he is going to appoint to this committee, but she certainly has some strong thoughts about which Republicans should and should not be placed on the Republican side of the committee.
And I want to read a quote from my interview because she said, "It's very important that we have members who are committed to upholding the rule of law and members who are committed to their oath to the Constitution. And I would certainly hope that the minority leader will be guided by that as he makes his choices."
So in other words, she doesn't think any Republicans who are continuing to challenge the legitimacy of the 2020 election results or who are whitewashing the events of January 6, should be allowed to serve on that committee. Which, of course, applies to a very wide swath of House GOP colleagues.
But, you know, more broadly I think these comments just really underscore how she is approaching this very stakes assignment. She wants to keep the partisanship out of it and she's willing to call it out no matter where she sees it.
KEILAR: You reported last week, I believe -- I believe, that McCarthy is going to be appointing people. But right now he's kind of -- he's kind of being coy about whether he's going to proceed.
ZANONA: Yes.
KEILAR: We should mention that. Now, as she's on this panel what is she thinking about the possibility of subpoenaing the former president?
ZANONA: I asked her that and she said, absolutely no one, including Trump and McCarthy are off limits if they feel like their testimony is warranted they're absolutely wiling to subpoena them, to call them to testify.
That's in line with what Bennie Thompson the Select Committee's chairman has said and other members on the panel. It's very clear they're in agreement on that. The question is whether they will determine that's necessary and worth it, which is something we probably won't get answers on for quite a while.
KEILAR: What does this mean for her in 2022?
ZANONA: Well, of course, this panel's going to drag in to the next year when she has a primary race that's going to be very high profile. You can just imagine the clips that her opponents are going to try to use to try to seize on this. To try to paint her as in bed with Democrats and aligned with Pelosi.
But look, I talked to some Wyoming Republicans who said they actually don't think it's going to change the battlefield very much.
KEILAR: Really? OK.
ZANONA: Because the people who are supporting her and supported her impeachment vote, support her being on this committee. And those who thought her impeachment vote was a betrayal, again, think she's on a crusade for -- you know -- against the president.
So essentially the target on her back can't get much bigger in the eyes of Trump world. But, I asked her about this and she said, I can't be concerned about the politics here. This is so much bigger than that.
KEILAR: Real quick before I let you go. She's in danger. Those people you were talking to, do they think she's a goner?
ZANONA: You know, not necessarily because the primary field is so packed, those candidates might split up the Trump lane, Trump hasn't endorsed, but it could get very interesting if and when he does that.
KEILAR: Very interesting. Melanie Zanona, great interview.
ZANONA: Thank you.
KEILAR: Thank you so much. Up next, a dramatic budget deal over night. Will Democrats now go it alone and sidestep Republicans? We will talk to the White House next.
BERMAN: And scenes of unrest across the globe. The hotspots that have Washington worried.
[07:28:15]
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