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Cassidy Blames Biden for Low Vaccine Rates; Two More Texas Lawmakers Test Positive in D.C.; Ambassador's Daughter Kidnapped and Beaten; U.S. Officials in Austria Experience Havana Syndrome; Death Toll from Flooding Rises in Europe; U.S. Gymnast at Olympics Tests Positive for COVID. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired July 19, 2021 - 06:30   ET

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

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[06:32:23]

JOHN AVLON, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is blaming the low vaccination rates in his state on the Biden administration and Democrats.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): People are surprised when citizens don't trust government, when you have partisan comments coming out of the White House regarding next Jim Crow laws or people like Senator Schumer and the White House not cooperating on a bipartisan bill. Oh, here we're going to be partisan but over here you better trust us. That just doesn't work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: There's a lot of dots to be connected there.

Joining us now to discuss, CNN Capitol Hill reporter Melanie Zanona.

Wow, OK, Cassidy is a responsible guy. He is a doctor. He is pro- vaccine. He voted to condemn the insurrection and yet he's taking this tack, connecting all these dots and saying the Biden administration and Democrats are to blame for low vaccination rates.

Is there anything resembling evidence for that?

MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: And I would also point out he represents a state with really low vaccination rates.

Listen, this has become a new talking point on the right is to blame Biden. Donald Trump issued a statement over the weekend saying something similar. And even among Cassidy, who, as you pointed out, was a doctor who has been preaching about the safety of these vaccines, there's so much politics involved at the end of the day, yet Republicans are refusing to look in at their own party and some of their GOP colleagues who are spreading dangerous information about the vaccines, refusing to call them out.

And part of the reason is because they do not feel comfortable with the idea of censorship on tech platforms. That is a rallying cry in the GOP. And so what we're really seeing here is just politics seeping in, in every corner of this debate.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: I want to ask you about some cancellations that we saw in Orange County, California. As you know, Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, two kind of far right members of Congress, have been having these America first rallies. And they scheduled them but then they were cancelled by the, I guess, places that were supposed to host them.

What do we know about that?

ZANONA: Yes, well these are very far from their districts, right? Matt Gaetz represents Florida. Marjorie Taylor Greene is in Georgia.

So, look, I think these speaking tours and rallies that they've been doing, nothing more than publicity stunts, trying to get attention.

Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't have committee assignments back in Congress. Gaetz, of course, is under federal investigation for potential sex trafficking violations. Not a lot of people in Congress want anything to do with him. So they're out there doing these rallies.

But, you know, I can just see them fundraising off of this. I think for them this is just going to feed into their narrative that the left is canceling them, that they're -- the woke culture is coming for them. It will come for you next.

And, unfortunately, as we've seen with the fundraising reports, is being extreme and being outrageous actually is an effective fundraising tool.

[06:35:05]

AVLON: To be sure, yes.

And we saw -- by the way, their supporters take to the streets after the cancellations, but is that why you think that these cancellations actually are a political benefit to them, not just the fundraising numbers, but it raises their notoriety?

ZANONA: Yes, and in some ways makes them martyrs, right? Like you saw their supporters rallying in the street and now they can not only fundraise off of this, but they've been on Twitter talking about this. So, for them, I think it's no skin off their backs.

KEILAR: Yes. Liberals say Orange County kind of, you know, pretty purple, historically conservative, and they cancelled on them. But, you know, maybe they want to watch what they're saying. May not be all bad news for Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

I want to ask you about something that we saw Jim Clyburn say. This has to do with voter ID laws, which have been a major sticking point when it comes to bipartisan agreement. And, look, there is some dispute over exactly what makes voter ID or what makes it the -- you know, Democrats and Republicans don't see eye to eye on the details here.

But let's listen to something that Clyburn said, a claim that he made about where Democrats have been on the issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JIM CLYBURN (D-SC): What I spoke about was allowing an ID, a picture ID of a driver's (ph) license to be good, but it was still an activity (ph) card to be no good. That's the kind of voter ID laws that I'm talking about that's unfair. I said this all of my life. I don't know why you asked me to misrepresented (ph) what I said. I have never said that you should not have voter ID.

No Democrat has ever been against voter ID.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: What do you think about what he said?

ZANONA: Well, that's just not true, right? I mean Democrats, Clyburn included, have compared voting IDs to voter suppression in the past.

But, I mean, he's talking about the nitty-gritty here and what he is doing is opening the door to a smaller scale voting rights package. And that's because it is clear that Democrats are not going to be able to challenge -- it's going to be very difficult to challenge some of these state laws in the courts and it's also clear that blowing up the filibuster in the Senate is not an option. So if they want to pass some form of voting rights, it's going to have to be smaller scale, something more narrow. They're going to have to find compromise with not just the centrists (ph) in their party, but also with Republicans.

AVLON: Is there any sign, because it's a significant concession, it was part of the Manchin proposal to try to scale down voting rights, that this concession to Republicans, on voter ID, is being accepted or welcomed by Republicans? Any sign of hope that that might --

ZANONA: As of right now, the dynamics have not changed on Capitol Hill. They're trying to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, actually, in the House, which is, again, a very small scale. It would shore up just a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that had been gutted. And even that one has one Republican co-sponsor in the Senate and they need ten. So they're still a long ways away.

AVLON: Melanie, thank you so much for joining us. Good to see you.

ZANONA: Thank you.

AVLON: Happy Monday.

All right, we've got two more Texas State House Democrats traveling to Washington, D.C., last week, and they have tested positive for bringing COVID -- bringing the total number of infected lawmakers to five. The Democrats were part of a delegation who fled to Texas to prevent the state's GOP-led House from passing a restrictive new voting law. They're in D.C. to urge senators to pass a federal voting rights bill that would undue those state restrictions.

Dianne Gallagher joins us now.

Dianne, the group says they're planning to stay in D.C. until August. So how will this affect their plans?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, at this point, it's simply going to move a lot of their plans virtual. But in speaking to some of the members and speaking to the organizers, right now the plan is to still keep this quorum breakup by staying out of the state of Texas. Remember, the house did authorize arrest warrants to essentially compel them to come back to the house and finish state business. It's not really something that can be enforced outside of the state of Texas.

So the goal remains to stay out of the lone star state until this special session ends. But these COVID cases are complicating things, specifically their ability to try and do this sort of influence campaign on Capitol Hill.

Now, those five members who have tested positive, I am told that all of them were vaccinated. According to the house Democratic caucus, they said all of the HDC members who tested positive are feeling good with no symptoms or only mild symptoms. Now one of those members, San Antonio Representative Trey Martinez Fisher, who was one of the organizers of this trip, he confirmed on Sunday that he was one of the five who tested positive for COVID-19. He said he only has mild symptoms and noted that he's fully vaccinated, of course, and had tested negative on Friday and Saturday.

Now, he said he's going to quarantine until he receives a negative test. But, look, they have a whole slate of things that they were expected to do this week, including speaking with civil and voting rights advocates like Dolores Huerta and others this week. And that's being moved virtual.

As far as the rest of their stay potentially in Washington, D.C., they have raised quite a bit of money to put themselves up for the duration of this.

[06:40:03]

But whether or not they're going to be able to continue this campaign, of course, is still in question now due to COVID-19.

KEILAR: All right, Dianne, thank you so much for that. Really appreciate it.

Several U.S. officials in Vienna have reported having mysterious symptoms, similar to Havana syndrome. New CNN reporting, next.

AVLON: Plus, billionaire Jeff Bezos will attempt to fly into space tomorrow. And CNN talks with him just ahead of his trip.

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AVLON: Pakistan is denying accusations that the daughter of the Afghan ambassador was kidnapped, calling it an international conspiracy. Now, Afghanistan is withdrawing its diplomats from Pakistan over this incident.

[06:45:01]

CNN's Anna Coren live in Hong Kong with more.

Anna.

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, there are so many questions that remain unanswered in relation to this case. What we know is that on Saturday the ambassador, Najib Alikhil, his daughter, Silsila, was abducted while in a taxi. She was taken to an area. She was beaten. And then she was released several hours later.

As a result, the Afghan government, as you say, has recalled all diplomatic staff back to Kabul. They're due to land in the next few hours.

Pakistan has described this as unfortunate and regrettable. But the interior minister of Pakistan has said that this is an international conspiracy, that India is behind this. We know that there is no love lost between India and Pakistan. And then you've got Afghanistan smack bang in the middle.

It is one of those situations which just goes to show that the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is not just going to destabilize Afghanistan, it is going to potentially destabilize the region.

Obviously, China is concerned about what is taking place in Afghanistan. Pakistan, itself, is concerned about what this could mean as far as the Pakistani Taliban is concerned. We know that the Afghan president has accused Pakistan of harboring, providing a safe haven for Afghan Taliban, but then there's all the other terrorist groups that could potentially gravitate to this part of the world if they're not there already.

So the kidnapping, the assault of the ambassador's daughter, we don't know who was behind it, we don't know what the message was, what the warning was, but all we know, John, is that the Afghan government reacted very quickly and that they said that diplomatic staff will not be returning to Islamabad until the security threat is addressed, John.

AVLON: An horrific story with implications for the entire region.

Anna Coren, thank you very much.

KEILAR: We have breaking news.

A U.S. Olympic gymnast testing positive for coronavirus in Tokyo as organizers struggle to contain the virus while the world's biggest sports event plays out.

AVLON: Plus, hundreds of people in western Europe have lost their lives in devastating floods following days of historic rainfall. CNN is live in one of the worst ravaged towns.

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[06:51:45]

KEILAR: U.S. diplomats, intelligence officials and government personnel in Vienna, Austria, are experiencing mysterious health issues similar to the Havana syndrome. There are about two dozen cases in this case.

And Kylie Atwood is here in Washington with the latest developments.

Tell us what you've learned about this.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is pretty stunning news because what it demonstrates is that these mysterious attacks that we have heard about, that started initially in 2016 on U.S. diplomats who were living in Cuba, are actually continuing. And not only just continuing around the world, but there is this new cluster of cases that we're learning about.

So, as you said, about two dozen U.S. diplomats, U.S. intelligence officials and other U.S. government officials in Vienna have reported that they are experiencing symptoms similar to this Havana incident. And what those symptoms are is dizziness, nausea, sudden vertigo and sometimes this piercing noise that they're hearing in their ears.

And so the State Department says that they are looking into this. And I want to read you what they actually said to us about this incident, saying, quote, in coordination with our partners across the U.S. government, we're vigorously investigating reports of possible unexplained health incidents among U.S. embassy Vienna community or wherever they are reported.

Now, there's still questions, though, right? The State Department says they're looking into this. We know that the CIA has a task force that's also looking into this. But what I'm curious about is, what more can the State Department be doing for the diplomats and for their families who are serving abroad. So that's one thing I'm trying to learn a little more about.

And the problem is, what more can they really do to defend against something because we don't know what is causing these incidents and we also don't know who is the perpetrator. And there are a lot of current and former officials who say that Russia is behind this, but that is not something that the U.S. government has definitively said yet.

KEILAR: Yes, I will say, one of the things that is just remarkable about this story is that there is so little that is known about where this is coming from. Where do you go from there? How do you stop it with that?

ATWOOD: And it's an unseen attack, right?

KEILAR: Yes.

ATWOOD: It's not something that you can see with your eyes, which makes it scarier.

KEILAR: Certainly. Kylie, thank you for that.

AVLON: All right, the death toll in western Europe from severe flooding has risen to 200. At least 163 people died in Germany following torrential rainfall that swept through the country. And authorities say hundreds are still missing. In the southern Netherlands, thousands of people remain evacuated after a river there rose to levels not seen in over a century.

Sam Kiley is live in Euskirchen, Germany.

Sam, what do these recovery efforts look like amid this unbelievable devastation?

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you say, the devastation really is quite hard to take in. If you get a small sense of it, this is the Erft (ph) River. You can see it's pretty low now. Fairly normal levels for summer. Look at the height of the river when it was draining away, the results of this flash flood, snapping over these older trees as if they were sticks of broccoli. It was at least twice the height above me, maybe three or four times.

And that was water that was drained into the river basin from much further up river and much further into the countryside. This was the result of eight -- six inches of rain, depending on where you are in the space of 24 hours, flashfloods.

[06:55:06]

And this is the key part here, that the European flood warning system knew that these floods were coming. They did warn the governments of Belgium, of Germany. There's now a great deal of controversy, particularly here in Germany, over why more wasn't done to get these early warning systems translated from a government level down to street level, at least in some of the views Professor Hanna Cloak (ph) of Redding University, who's part of that system, who helped set it up, said it's just simply unforgivable.

And the other aspect of this, which is absolutely clear to these scientific specialists is that whatever other people may say, this is a consequence of climate change. And the issue now is how do you cope of future floods of this nature rather than the aftermath of them.

AVLON: More damage related possibly to climate change.

Sam Kiley, thank you very much for joining us from Germany.

NEW DAY continues right now.

KEILAR: Hello, I'm Brianna Keilar, alongside John Avlon on this NEW DAY.

We do have some breaking news.

An American athlete testing positive for coronavirus in Japan, just days before the start of the Olympic games.

AVLON: And FaceBook hits back hard after Joe Biden accuses social media companies of spreading deadly disinformation.

KEILAR: And breaking now, the Biden administration pointing the finger at China for a massive ransomware attack.

AVLON: And, get ready to blast off. What Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is saying this morning to CNN ahead of his trip into space.

KEILAR: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. It is Monday, July 19th. Wonder to be together with you, John Avlon.

AVLON: Great to see you.

KEILAR: And we are beginning with breaking news.

A member of the U.S. women's gymnastics team has just tested positive for coronavirus. And a reminder here that opening ceremonies, they're still four days away. But that is not very far off.

AVLON: This is a cascading problem. This is a real -- something to watch right now.

KEILAR: Yes, I think we're waiting to see where this goes because already there are at least 58 coronavirus cases linked to the event. Three athletes who were living in the Olympic village, of course where all of the athletes are, have also tested positive. Two from South Africa, one from the Czech Republic, and so has U.S. tennis star Coco Gauff. She is out of the Olympic games.

AVLON: And cases are spiking across Japan. Tokyo reported more than 1,000 new cases for the fifth day in a row on Sunday. The city's currently under a coronavirus state of emergency for the next month as it prepares to move forward with the Olympic games.

But joining us now from Tokyo, CNN sports analyst Christine Brennan. She's also a "USA Today" sports columnist.

Christine, it's good to see you.

What more do we know about the U.S. gymnast who's tested positive? And what implications does this have for the entire team?

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: John and Brianna, this is a bombshell. This is huge news and it's coming, as you mentioned, the week of the opening ceremony. It's kind of what everyone feared. And here it has happened.

As you -- as the prefecture reported, a U.S. gymnast, a teenager, has tested positive for COVID. Now, we do not know the name, but we do know this, my colleagues Nancy Armour and Tom Schad of "USA Today" are busy reporting this, as am I, and we know that all six of the regular members of the USA Gymnastics team, including Simone Biles, have been on their social media showing themselves in the Olympic village. This is after the news of the positive test.

So we don't know it for sure, John, but we do believe that that would at least indicate that they're still all in the village and that if one of them had tested positive the thought would be that they would no longer be in the village. Again, we do not know who it s but that's what our reporting is right now with "USA Today." And, obviously, we are on top of this story here in Tokyo.

KEILAR: Of course, you are. And as we're looking at this develop, Christine, you know how closely, when it comes to training, when it comes to living that these athletes would be. So, as John called it, a cascading problem, if one of these gymnasts has coronavirus, what will the protocol be for the teammates, presumably all of them, or at least some of them, who have been in contact with this gymnast?

BRENNAN: If it's an alternate, that alternate has not been with the -- with the regular members of the team, Brianna, the way those teammates have been together. And we don't know that yet. But, again, because all the others have shown themselves in the village today, we wonder then, could it be one of the alternates.

But immediately they are isolated. They are quarantined. We talked with the -- one of the head experts, the health experts, with the International Olympic Committee on COVID and he was talking about getting them out as quickly as possible, getting them away, continued testing, and, obviously, there's contact tracing.

[07:00:08]