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COVID Cases Rising in All 50 States as Misinformation Endangers Lives; GOP Kissing Trump's Ring Despite New Revelations, Riot Probe; Report Says, Milley Had to Fight to Stop Trump from Striking Iran. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired July 16, 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: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. It is Friday, July 16th.

And this morning, the pandemic heading in the wrong direction. We just learned that cases are now rising in all 50 states. Overnight, Los Angeles County reinstated its indoor mask mandate that's even for people who are vaccinated. And the New York Yankees hit by a new outbreak. Last night's game against the Red Sox was postponed after at least three Yankees tested positive. Three others are being monitored right now. No word yet on the status of tonight's game.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN NEW DAY: I do think sports really drives home what's going on here, right? I think this is what grabbed so many folks' attention because you also have the men's Olympic basketball team that was supposed to play an exhibition game against Australia tonight and that has been canceled. Starting point guard Bradley Beal will miss the games because of COVID health and safety protocols, missing the games here.

The virus hitting the broadcast booth too. Former E! News Host Catt Sadler and NFL network's Rich Eisen announcing that they are battling COVID even though they're fully vaccinated.

Leyla Santiago is live for us now in Miami where doctors say that they're seeing a growing number of patients who are younger in unvaccinated. Leyla?

LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, Brianna. We talked to a group of doctors running a mobile vaccination clinic here in South Florida. And they told me that the increasing infection rates in younger population, extremely worrisome for them. And this comes in a state where not even half of the residents are fully vaccinated.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANTIAGO (voice over): For Danielle Chen and her three children, getting vaccinated against COVID-19 is a family affair.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ready?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Relax. Just relax.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That was not bad at all, guys.

SANTIAGO: They all got the shot to protect the newest member of their family, Destiny.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have a brand new baby, which is in the NICU. And I need to be safe for her.

SANTIAGO: This mobile vaccination clinic run by the University of Miami Health System travels to schools and underserved communities where COVID-19 cases are rising again. And with back to school just weeks away, their efforts are ramping up.

DR. MICHAEL MAURER, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR PEDRIATICS, UNIVERSITY OF MIMAMI MILLER SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: It can vary. Some days, we vaccinate over 100 people in a day and other days are little lower numbers.

SANTIAGO: Right now in Florida, the number of new COVID-19 cases have roughly doubled in the last two weeks and only about 47 percent of residents in Florida are fully vaccinated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We were heading in the right direction. People were getting their vaccines. People were continuing to be careful while they got their vaccines but we jumped the gun. We jumped the gun because people who were unvaccinated were following what the CDC recommended for vaccinated people and mingling and co-mingling.

SANTIAGO: As the officer of governor, Ron DeSantis tells CNN he has ruled out any possibility of a lockdown. Hospitals like Miami Jackson's health system are reporting a surge in unvaccinated and younger patients. The age group with the lowest vaccination rate in the U.S., 12 to 15-year-olds, only a quarter of them fully vaccinated against COVID-19. One of the biggest obstacles to getting people vaccinated according to the U.S. surgeon general --

DR. VIVEK MURTHY, U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: The dangers of health misinformation.

MAURER: I didn't realize it until I had patients that were talking about the impact of things like TikTok and Snapchat and how that sort of plays into the perception that adolescents themselves have about getting their COVID-19 vaccine.

SANTIAGO: Shermiika Hodge (ph) also brought her son to get vaccinated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He had his TDAP and anything else if he needed it.

SANTIAGO: But not the COVID-19 vaccine. Hodge wants to wait. She tells us her 26-year-old daughter plans to get the shot soon and Hodge wants to see with her own eyes what side effects her daughter may experience before vaccinating her 12-year-old son or getting the shot herself. Until then, she plans to rely on COVID-19 testing, which does not prevent the infection.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't have a problem with the vaccine. I don't. Some people do for whatever reason. But I really don't. I just want to wait it out to see how it affects them.

MAURER: It's my job to sort of sway those fears a little bit to say, listen, COVID potentially could have a larger impact than this vaccine ever will.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANTIAGO (on camera): And an update on the Chen family. They actually, later in the day, as we were there, came back, brought grandma to get her vaccine. She was very afraid of it hurting and she said it was fine. She didn't even scream. And we checked on them and they said that all they've been dealing with is a few sore arms, Brianna.

KEILAR: A few sore arms, good news.

[07:05:00]

Leyla, thank you so much.

BERMAN: All right. Joining us now is Kristin Urquiza. Her father in June of last year after a three-week battle with COVID-19. She since has founded an advocacy group called Mark by COVID that works to fight disinformation in the spread of coronavirus. Kristin, thank you so much for being with us. I also have to say, we're still so sorry for your loss. I know it was more than a year ago but it doesn't get any easier.

Your father died. He didn't have a vaccine available to him. So how does it feel for you when you see people now dying, refusing to get the vaccine that might very well have saved your father's life?

KRISTIN URQUIZA, DAD DIED OF COVID, SAYS HE BELIEVED TRUMP'S DISMISSAL OF VIRUS: Well, thanks for having me on. I mean, it's complicated. It's hard for me to actually put the blame on any one individual with so much health disinformation flying around. People like my dad, who made decisions about how to behave based upon what he was seeing on Fox News and what the leaders who he trusted were saying, are in a position in which they are being led to a place where they're susceptible to contracting the virus and getting very sick.

So, it is complicated in the fact that we are now really just seeing for the very first time how deep disinformation and misinformation run in our society, just like we've been seeing over the course of the last year-and-a-half how deep health inequities run.

BERMAN: And just to give people a sense of what people are talking about in terms of misinformation, this is just a small sampling of what people who watch certain television stations are hearing about the vaccines. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: The idea that you would force people to take medicine they don't want or need, is there a precedent for that in our lifetimes?

I honestly think this is the greatest scandal of my lifetime by far.

ROB SCHMITT, NEWSMAX HOST: I feel like a vaccination in a weird way is just generally kind of going against nature. Like, I mean, if there's some disease out there, maybe there's just an ebb and flow to life where something is supposed to wipe out a certain amount of people.

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: There's nothing more anti-democratic, anti-freedom than pushing an experimental drug on Americans against their will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Again, vaccine very probably would have saved your father's life.

URQUIZA: That's absolutely right. My dad, you know, he was otherwise healthy. He was incredibly active. And I wish he were here in order to have the vaccine, have the opportunity to have the vaccine. And we're right now in a situation where we have to really focus on how do we save the most amount of lives possible?

And with disinformation flying across cable news stations, like Fox, we need to be thinking about what is the data-informed plan. We need to bring other strategies into the mix to make sure that those most vulnerable, those who don't have access and young people under 12 who can't get the vaccine are protected.

BERMAN: Last year, you said your father's only pre-existing condition was believing Donald Trump, and you were upset. And so, again, when you continue to hear stuff like this, not from Trump in this case on vaccines, but from places like Fox, I imagine it's just got to be infuriating.

URQUIZA: You better believe it is infuriating because I know that more people are going to fall victim to this, disinformation, misinformation campaigns that are coming. And I would not wish a COVID illness and a COVID stay in the hospital, which is lonely, it's terrifying, it's painful. I would not wish that on even my worst enemy.

BERMAN: I don't think anyone would. Kristin Urquiza, and now, you're devoting your life to making sure people get the correct information that underserved communities get access and information about the vaccines, we thank you for your work and we thank you for being with us.

URQUIZA: Thank you.

KEILAR: And really it's just amazing. It has been amazing to hear her speak on her experience, John, since her dad died. BERMAN: No. Look, she's been through a lot. And the message she sent last year is her father didn't need to die. And that was from not wearing masks at that point, that was from not living safely.

Now, imagine, as she hears certain stations tell people they don't need a vaccine, the vaccine that could have saved her father's life, people can get them for free now. how much that must hurt.

KEILAR: It's a life raft and it is incredibly painful to watch people you love say, no thanks, as we said. I will take my chances. It's incredibly painful to watch that.

This week, we learned some terrible new revelations about the aftermath of the Capitol riots and how concerned lawmakers, military members and members of the Trump administration were that former President Donald Trump might try to overturn the will of the people hanging on to power.

[07:10:03]

And this week, we're seeing Republicans still lining up to kiss Trump's ring. They're hoping to keep his approval. Yesterday, it was House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who you will remember said this just one week after the attack on the Capitol.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: But just two weeks after that, he met with Donald Trump, and yesterday, he did the same.

Now, sources tell CNN that McCarthy did not speak about the Capitol riot or about the House select committee investigating the event, but, frankly, that's a little hard to believe. And if it wasn't discussed verbally, it might have been communicated in the unspoken language that they use, the language of love.

Here is what McCarthy said they discussed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCARTHY: These were some of the actual discussions I had with President Trump, talking about the border, talking about our success in the last election, talking about our first six months in fundraising. And we've talked about you a little bit too, Sean, and that was all good.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Okay. You didn't -- Well, I don't want to know that part. We'll see.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KEILAR: Political survival, of course, plays a part in this behavior. Take George P. Bush, whose father, 2016 Presidential Candidate Jeb Bush, who received this sort of treatment at the hands of Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Jeb Bush is low energy person.

How could Bush be in first place? This guy can't negotiate his way out of a paper bag.

I don't know why I mentioned Jeb. What happens is this, look, it's sad. It's very sad. His family is so ashamed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So despite that, his son, George P. Bush, who is running for Texas attorney general, met with Trump this week praising their friendship.

So then there's author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance running for Senate. CNN's K-File has discovered even more comments from Vance slamming Trump's behavior and policy positions, like this one from August of 2016.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I cannot stand Trump because I think he's a fraud. Well, I think he's a total fraud that is exploiting these people.

J.D. VANCE (R), OHIO SENATE CANDIDATE: I do too. I agree with you on Trump because I don't think he's the person -- I don't think he actually cares about folks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: How do you turn around from that? Well, he sure has tried. Now, Vance says that he's all in on Trump. Now that he's a candidate, he has deleted anti-Trump tweets and made this apology on Fox News last week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: I criticized Trump back in 2016 and I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016 because I have been very open about the fact that I did say those critical things and I regret them and I regret being wrong about the guy. I think that he was a good president. I think he made a lot of good decisions for people. I think he took a lot of flak.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Also a moment of honesty, he told Times National Political Correspondent Molly Ball that since Trump is the leader of this movement that he, Vance, needs to suck it up and support Trump if he cares about Republican voters.

And Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, whose campaign team promoted exclusive new merchandise that says, Don't Fauci My Florida, that merchandise coming as Florida sees an increase in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, one of the highest increases in the country.

But some you can't write off to craven election politics. Take former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin who made this dodge earlier this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When the former president says that the election in November was stolen, do you believe that was a lie?

STEVE MNUCHIN, FORMER TREASURY SECRETARY: Well, let me just say, I was very, very involved in the campaign in 2016 and I traveled with the president across the country and was integrally involved in everything. In 2020, I wasn't able to participate in the campaign. And I obviously was focused on a massive amount of work in COVID. So, I'm really just watching this from the outside.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Yes, because, apparently, you have to be heavily involved in a presidential campaign to miss the extensive reporting and the dozens of court cases that have failed to unearth this evidence of widespread election fraud. Again, these are the headlines just from this week.

BERMAN: How about Steve Mnuchin there, there was an election? Wait? There was what? What happened?

KEILAR: I was really busy.

BERMAN: I was so busy.

KEILAR: I was washing my hair.

BERMAN: I didn't notice.

Again, all just in one week, a week that shows where the power lies, where the loyalty lies and just how much some people are willing to compromise.

KEILAR: So let's talk about all of this, shall we, with CNN Capitol Hill Reporter Melanie Zanona. And joining us, David Chalian, our CNN Political Director and the Host of the CNN Political Briefing podcast, which is excellent, if you haven't had a chance to check it out.

All right, let's start with this trip to Bedminster, right? Kevin McCarthy at Bedminster, and I really have a hard time just knowing Trump. It would be like Trump malpractice to not discuss these things that they were very purposeful about saying they didn't discuss.

[07:15:03] DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes. I mean, I have a hard time believing it also. We know how focused Donald Trump is on anything related to January 6th, its aftermath, how it may be investigated. And also just look at what Donald Trump does on an hourly basis. He puts out a statement continuing to perpetuate the big lie, that the election of 2020 was somehow stolen and unfair and rigged.

So, that is top of mind for him. Everyone around him, all our reporting indicates, this is what consumes his thinking. So, all of a sudden, for Kevin McCarthy meeting that is not going to come up, okay, I'm not so sure that's true.

The bigger issue here, of course, is why does Kevin McCarthy still see Donald Trump as his best path to becoming speaker, because everything about Kevin McCarthy has to be seen through that lens. He believes in everything he sees that the way House Republicans get the majority and the way he becomes speaker is remaining loyal and solicitous of a former president who is clearly still perpetuating a lie on the American people.

BERMAN: It told us everything. On the very day, all this reporting about General Milley being concerned that Trump was going to somehow engineer a coup after election day, on that very day all that comes out, McCarthy goes to Bedminster to meet with Trump, why? Because he doesn't care, because he cares about one thing and one thing only.

And, Melanie, you have some new reporting about just how central Donald Trump is to Kevin McCarthy and his strategy of taking back the House.

MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: Yes, you're absolutely right. I mean, this is a calculation that Kevin McCarthy made really in the weeks after January 6th when he made his first trip to Mar-a- Lago, so it's not entirely surprising to see him go to Bedminster now.

And it's not just Kevin McCarthy, we have seen Elise Stefanik, Steve Scalise, the Conservative Republican Study Committee, all flock to these properties with Trump, trying to stay in his good graces, trying to seek his support.

And another trend that we have noticed is that Republicans are using Trump to fundraise and raise campaign cash. I sorted through a ton of fundraising emails. And pitch after pitch, invoked Trump's name or image in some way. One member was fundraising off of Trump's birthday. Another common one was to include a picture of the candidate flashing a thumb's up sign next to Trump.

So, I mean, look, also it's effective. Trump has been a fundraising gold mine for these members, both McCarthy and the house GOPs campaign arm have actually posted record-breaking fundraising numbers.

BERMAN: So this works in ruby red districts and ruby red states, but there are swingy areas, Melanie. I mean, are there risks to this?

ZANONA: Sure, of course, there's the political risk, right? I mean, the battle for the House is going to be playing out in these suburban battleground districts where independents and moderates fled the party under Trump. And also let's not forget that under Trump's watch, the GOP did lose the White House, the Senate and the House.

The calculation in the House is a little bit different than the Senate where candidates have to run statewide. But for the most part, Republicans see far more upside to keeping Trump front and center.

KEILAR: And, you know, we can't really overstate the timing of this because you have McCarthy looking at picks for a select committee.

McCarthy in this investigation by this committee, David, is probably -- I mean, he is going to be called to testify whether he testifies or he fights that, we're going to see. There are things here that should concern Donald Trump, right?

CHALIAN: Well, no doubt. I mean, Kevin McCarthy has already, we know from reporting, told members -- members of his conference, about the phone call with Donald Trump on that day. But I think what the committee is likely going to want to explore more than that phone call is everything that led up to that phone call. We don't have as much information about the constant flow of communication between Kevin McCarthy and Donald Trump in the days between mid-November and January 6th.

And so I think that is going to be of keen interest as they're trying to sort of investigate and lay the predicate for how this attack occurred on the 6th so that it can be avoided again in the future in any way, whatsoever.

BERMAN: David, just in general, framing here, I mean, his official title is House minority leader. But isn't it more appropriate to call him follower at this point?

CHALIAN: John, I think it's a good point and I think when you played that clip of him from January 13th or so, a week after the insurrection, where he said that Donald Trump bears responsibility, I think it shows he was following what he thought at that moment was potential break that Republicans were going to have as a party from Donald Trump, that the insurrection may have been the thing to break this relationship. And then he quickly realized that that was not the case. And so the following continued which is why he went to Mar-a- Lago just then a couple weeks later and why we saw him in Bedminster yesterday. He is following.

And I think the biggest question in American politics that is going to be answered in a year or so from now is Kevin McCarthy's bet right?

[07:20:02]

Is this commitment that Republicans have to Donald Trump because they believe he's still the life force in their party, is that the right political bet? We're going to see that in Republican primaries across the country next year in advance of the general election in the midterms to figure out sort of is that Trump power really still the life force in the Republican Party. KEILAR: Yes. It is a big gamble. We're going to see if it pays off. Melanie Zanona and David Chalian, thank you to both of you.

We do have some brand new reporting that Pentagon officials feared Donald Trump would strike Iran to hang on to power after he lost the election. The former ambassador of Ukraine who testified in Trump's first impeachment trial will join us next.

BERMAN: Plus, checks for retired teachers in Texas in jeopardy after Democrats leave the state.

And is it a bad idea to be pouring trillions more into the economy right now? We'll debate.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00]

KEILAR: New reporting on an extraordinary conflict between former President Trump and his chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Susan Glasser of the New Yorker reports that Iran was repeatedly mentioned in Trump's meetings with General Mark Milley after the 2020 election. And Milley had to argue against the strike.

Glasser writes, Milley was worried that Trump might set in motion a full-scale conflict that was not justified. Quote, if you do this, you're going to have an f'ing war, Milley would say.

Joining us now to talk about this is Bill Taylor, former U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine. He, of course, testified during Trump's first impeachment hearing. He provided damning account of Trump telling his appointees to establish a quid pro quo with Ukraine aide in exchange for information, damaging information about his political opponent, Joe Biden.

I'm really curious, Ambassador, to have you on today to talk about how the world sees this. I mean, there's foes of America and then there are the friends. So, let's start with the friends. How are they seeing these new developments?

BILL TAYLOR, EX-U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE, TESTIFIED AT IMPEACHMENT TRIAL: Well, Brianna, they watch closely what goes on in the United States, friends and foes. Our friends, close allies, established democracies, they understand how the system works. They understand our checks and balances. They understand institutions and the importance of institutions.

Our allies who are new democracies, who are learning these issues and watching, they watch us closely as well and they want to see how this is supposed to work. I'm thinking, of course, of Ukraine. They would like to have an operating, functioning democracy that has checks and balances, that has the ability to identify problems and deal with problems. And so they watch the United States. They frankly watch to see how we deal with these issues.

So they'll be watching. And our example is the best thing we can give them, and it needs to be a good one.

KEILAR: They're waiting to see if this form of government they're striving for works. And someone, say, in the Ukraine case, like Russia, is going to say, clearly, it doesn't.

TAYLOR: The Russians are going to look for the problems. The Russians are going to look to see and point out to their friends and their citizens, see, democracy doesn't really work. The U.S. system, the democratic system, the western system, it doesn't work. They're as corrupt as we are. They won't say exactly that way.

KEILAR: I'm sure.

TAYLOR: But they have the problems and our system is better.

KEILAR: Trump yesterday claimed that the world didn't laugh at the U.S. when he was president. He was actually responding to another story, Pelosi telling the chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff, Milley, that she was concerned Trump might use nuclear weapons in his final days as president.

Trump wrote, quote, in fact, I was the one that got us out of wars, not into wars. And I was the one who got respect for our country again, not like now when the leaders of the entire world are laughing at us. They didn't laugh when I was there. What do you say to that?

TAYLOR: So, the importance of institutions is what people and the rest of the world will either laugh at or not. If institutions work, then people in the rest of the world will recognize that. Institutions, in the end, did work here. If they don't work, then we'll be exposed for having our own problems, which we clearly do.

But the laughter, the concern, the allegations of hypocrisy will come if our institutions don't work. So far, they have. We've come close a couple of times and you've talked about a couple of them, but so far they've worked.

KEILAR: Milley looked at Trump as, quote, the classic authoritarian leader with nothing to lose. And, certainly, in your line of work, you've had a lot of experience understanding authoritarian leaders. Do you agree with Milley's assessment there?

TAYLOR: So, authoritarian leaders don't have to worry about competition, don't have to worry about checks, don't have to worry about institutions keeping them from doing what they might otherwise want to do if they were unconstrained. So, that aspect of our system is one that we have to cherish and nurture and allocate.

KEILAR: But are you saying essentially then that the system itself, our system of government, is what then prevented Trump from being an authoritarian leader --

TAYLOR: That's exactly what I'm saying here, Brianna. That's exactly what I'm saying, that our institutions, independent, apolitical -- not independent -- apolitical military, independent judiciary, checks and balances within the judiciary, the Justice Department, an independent.