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New Day

Schumer Works to Pass $1 Trillion Infrastructure Bill; DC Mayor Photographed without Mask; Debate over Vaccine Mandates; Havana Syndrome Stokes Frustration and Fear Among Diplomats. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired August 02, 2021 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Getting that money to people who are in need. Only just a fraction of it has actually gone out.

Brianna.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So I'll take it, Lauren.

There's other developments overnight, including on infrastructure, that bipartisan agreement. They finally wrote it down, right? There's actually a text to this now.

What does that mean and where does it go from here?

FOX: Well, it took all weekend, John, and a lot of work from staff and floor staff up here at the U.S. Senate over the weekend. But, yes, there is final legislative text. There's $550 billion in new spending on roads and bridges, on trains and airports. It's crucial for the American infrastructure, Democrats and Republicans are arguing, but they do have a long amendment process ahead of them. And that could take several days, potentially even into next weekend. The goal is to finish it up by Thursday night. But given the fact that it took them three days to finish this legislative text they thought would be out on Friday morning, who knows if they're actually going to be able to accomplish that goal.

Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Lauren Fox, live from the Capitol. Thank you.

Simone Biles announcing that she will make one last appearance at the Olympic games. We are live in Tokyo.

BERMAN: Plus, the mayor of Washington, D.C., under scrutiny after reporters snapped this photo of her over the weekend. We'll explain, next.

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[06:35:40]

KEILAR: Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser is under fire this morning after she was photographed by a "Washington Examiner" reporter without a mask on at an indoor wedding over the weekend. And here's why, because this happened on the same day that Bowser's new executive order went into effect requiring face masks inside in many of venues.

Kristen Holmes with us now this morning to walk us through this.

Kristen, tell us, you know, what she did, what the rules are and, I mean, either way the optics here are terrible.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Brianna. I mean that's the number one point, the optics are horrible.

So just to give you a brief timeline. On Thursday, Mayor Bowser announces that there's going to be this mask mandate in place on Saturday. Then we see these images of the mayor with Dave Chappelle, the comedian, maskless from Friday night. Yes, the mask mandate is not in place. However, starting to get some push back there from critics who are saying how seriously are you actually taking this.

Mask mandate goes into place on Saturday at 5:00 a.m. and then this photo emerges. You can see Bowser in this photo. She is sitting among a group of guests. She does not have a mask on. And it looks like quite a few people here.

So we have heard from a source who was at the wedding, as well as from her office, that she officiating this wedding and that part of the ceremony was outside.

But, of course, this photo was not taken outside. We can tell clearly from it. So this is what her office says about the photos. They say, the mayor wore a mask indoors in compliance with the mask mandate. And the organizers and venue staff worked to create a safe environment for the staff and guests. If Mayor Bowser was photographed without a mask, it was during the indoor dinner when she was eating or drinking.

So, to be clear, I did talk to a guest who was at the wedding who said that they saw Mayor Bowser several times wearing a mask inside and that this photo was taken during the toast, so likely a time when people were raising their glass to drink.

But, again, the optics here are really bad. This is a leader who instituted this mask mandate, which, by the way, I don't know if you know anyone, but I don't know a single soul who actually enjoys wearing a mask.

KEILAR: No, I don't enjoy it.

HOLMES: No, exactly. We do it to keep each other and ourselves safe. And it appears that this leader cannot follow her own rules. And that makes it harder for any of us to actually follow the rules and particularly hard for those who are trying to enforce it.

KEILAR: Yes, the spirit as well of what she's trying to do, I mean how -- do you know how many people were at this wedding by chance?

HOLMES: Well, so there were reports that it was quite a few, actually in the hundreds, and that is inaccurate. From the guests who attended, they told me it was a smaller wedding. So not that large, large number but still a larger group of people.

KEILAR: Still a --

HOLMES: We can see just from that photo, you know, it wasn't just ten people. So, quite a few people. Again, indoors, maskless in this photo.

KEILAR: And the question is, does the mayor want all of her constituents, Washingtonians, gathered indoors, hey, even if it is just for the toast, even if it is just for the eating portion, not wearing a mask? The virus doesn't discriminate between whether you're eating or drinking or you're sitting there watching a toast or you're just talking to people. So, is that what she wants for everyone?

HOLMES: Right. Exactly. Or if the staff and venue were keeping people safe. As we know, there have been a lot of rules in place and people are still getting sick from the delta variant. The mask mandate is meant to protect from that.

KEILAR: That's right.

Kristen, thank you so much for that report.

BERMAN: Here's the thing, right, she wasn't actually, as far as we know, violating the new rules, correct?

KEILAR: I think that that is fair to say, but I think it -- it might also be about, is she violating the spirit of it. I don't know, what do you think?

BERMAN: I get it. Well, I -- you know, I -- it's hard for me to remember what we're all supposed to be angry about because it wasn't that longer ago where we were criticizing politicians for wearing masks still where the science was telling them, oh, they didn't need to be. You know, we kept on asking the White House, why is Joe Biden still wearing the mask when the mask guidance, you know, has changed. And now, of course, we're saying, she should be wearing a mask even though she was still following the guidance.

Look, I get it. If you're a politician, you don't want a picture that raises questions. That's bad politics. The question is, you know, whether or not she did anything functionally policy wise wrong. And I don't know. I mean, I -- I guess it really depends on if she was eating or drinking at the time she was photographed not wearing a mask.

KEILAR: Yes, I mean, I look at the photo and I see -- it seems like it could be during the toast, right? Everyone's heads are pointed in a certain direction. It seems like maybe they are listening to someone is what it appears to me.

[06:40:04]

I do wonder, for a politician like Mayor Bowser, if it's just better to, you know, error on the side of being conservative when it comes to mask use, you know, considering her constituency here in D.C. and that, you know, D.C., actually, is qualifying as a bit of a hot spot right now, has a bit of an accelerated case load.

BERMAN: I get it. I get it. And if people were, if politicians were erring on the side of being conservative, they were criticized for tat, though. So there's a little bit of a no-end situation for some of the people involved her. Bottom line is, let's get people healthy.

KEILAR: Yes, Definitely.

So, are vaccine mandates the answer to that, to fighting the coronavirus pandemic, or could these types of requirements backfire? We'll debate that.

BERMAN: Plus, frustration growing among some U.S. diplomats over the State Department's handling of the mysterious Havana syndrome. CNN's brand new reporting on this, next.

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[06:45:12]

KEILAR: As stricter COVID rules and mandates return, frustration is building, especially among those who did their part and got vaccinated. But would a national vaccine mandate help or would it actually hurt efforts to combat vaccine hesitancy?

Let's talk about this now with Nicholas Tampio. He is a professor of political science at Fordham University who says that vaccine mandates will backfire. And Dr. Lena Wen is with us as well. She is a CNN medical analyst and former Baltimore City health commission who says that vaccine mandates can't come soon enough. Her new book is "Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health." That is out now.

OK, Nicholas, to you first. You say, no, this is a bad idea. Tell us why.

NICHOLAS TAMPIO, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY: Well, I think that vaccine mandates can work in the sense that they get people to get vaccinated immediately. So, in France, the president said there were going to be tighter restrictions on those who weren't vaccinated and 1 million people registered for vaccines in one day. And yet there were huge protests across France, 200,000 people marched in Paris. And one of the interesting things about what you saw in Paris is that a lot of the people who were marching were vaccinated and they were all across the political spectrum. So part of the reason that Taylor Dotson and I wrote the op-ed in "The Washington Post" was to say, listen, you might score -- you might get this victory right now, but there's going to be this incredible backlash that will make it much harder to generate support for future public health measures or other political endeavors. KEILAR: Dr. Wen, what do you think?

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: By that logic we wouldn't have laws for anything. That's controversial. I mean we have laws against drunk driving, as an example, because we say you have the right to drink if you want to, but if you want to get behind the wheel of a car and endanger other people, we, as a society, cannot allow that. And we should see vaccination against this deadly disease to be the same.

And, actually, we should also put COVID immunizations in the same way that we talk about other vaccinations as well. I mean we already mandate childhood vaccinations. If we did not do that, then we might still have polio, smallpox and other illnesses now.

The other thing, too, is we know that vaccine requirements, they work when they are announced, for example, in hospitals, when they are now being implemented in colleges. There were a lot of people in that middle category. They're not dug in. They're not actually anti- vaxxers. They're people who just may not think about the urgency of getting the vaccine, who, when a requirement is in place, they're going to be nudged over into the direction of actually getting the vaccine. And so I think they work and it's really important for us to have vaccine requirements to protect health and safety.

KEILAR: Nicholas, what do you say about that, because the Kaiser Family Foundation has been surveying people on how they feel about vaccines and they found that, you know, consistently they've seen about 20 percent of Americans who are resistant to getting a vaccine but about a third of them did say, hey, if it were required, I would go ahead and get it.

So why not go for a mandate that would deliver, you know, several percentage points of people getting vaccinated? That would be millions of people.

TAMPIO: Yes, well, I find it really fascinating to look at the Kaiser Family Foundation data because I do think that Dr. Wen is correct that mandates would nudge some people over -- over the line, right, that that would be the -- sort of the push they needed to get to do it. And yet, when you look at the data, there -- there are a sizable percentage of basically every demographic that is just, no, do not tell me to do it. And when you look at things like parents, I believe about 50 percent of parents are not in the category of mandate vaccines for kids -- or this vaccine in school.

I think one interesting thing is you see about 50 percent of people are OK with employers mandating vaccine, but that number drops for their own employer. And I think people realize up close that there would be, you know, severe consequences if all of a sudden all your friends start getting either fired or getting a medical procedure that they didn't want.

So, I mean, I'm conceding to Dr. Wen's point that a mandate would get more people to get the vaccine. I'm encouraging people, think ahead. What's going to happen to our country when you're forcing lots of people, 90 million Americans who are eligible for a vaccine have not received the vaccine. Some of them are going to be easy to push over the line. Some of them are going to be really hard. And that battle is going to be ugly.

KEILAR: So then what is -- so what is it then, Nicholas, persuasion?

TAMPIO: I mean, you got to trust the process. We -- we have a -- we have a Constitution. We have a federal system where the president can do certain things. Governors can do certain things.

[06:50:01]

Communities can do certain things. I mean I think when -- when Biden uses encouragement or publicity or pays for vaccines, I think that's within his realm of power. I think if he says what some people have been saying, you need to show a vaccine proof to get on a plane or to get on an Amtrak train or to enter a federal building, for me that crosses a line. You've got to -- democracies require democratic means. If you're basically saying citizens can't enter government buildings unless they get this medical procedure, for me that goes against a lot of our traditions. It may be legal, but it goes against a lot of our valuable traditions.

KEILAR: What do you say to that, Dr. Wen?

WEN: I say that I have two young unvaccinated children, as do you and many other people. I see it also as our duty as a society to protect those who need our protection. Individuals who are immuno compromised, individuals who cannot get the vaccine for some reason, as a society, we have to step up and say, what are our values? Are we valuing the individual choice of some to not get vaccinated or are we saying they could potentially carry a dangerous disease that's highly transmissible? Are we OK with our children and those who are immuno compromised just getting infected because we don't -- we're not valuing them?

I would also say that, you know, again, we have to look at this vaccine the way that we look at other vaccines. We are -- we do have a tradition of requiring vaccines for other illnesses. I mean, I'll tell you, when I was the health commissioner in Baltimore, every year, at the beginning of the year, we had thousands of families who had not vaccinated their children. They were not dug in. They're not anti- vaxxers. But just for whatever reason they hadn't gotten around to it, there were access issues, they didn't know that it was so important. The -- having the mandate in place was really important to get them to be vaccinated. And we should be talking about the COVID vaccine the same way that we do all other childhood immunizations.

KEILAR: This is the debate that is going on right now, especially as we have learned the new things that we know about the delta variant. And it's so important that we have this discussion.

Professor, Doctor, thank you to both of you.

TAMPIO: Thank you.

KEILAR: Ahead, Kevin McCarthy joked that he'd like to hit Nancy Pelosi with the speaker's gavel once Republicans take back power in the House.

BERMAN: Plus, an Olympic sprinter in limbo, refusing to go back to her country fearing that she'll be put in jail. Hear why.

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[06:56:37]

KEILAR: New CNN reporting this morning about growing frustration among rank and file staffers and diplomats within the State Department over what multiple officials say has been a tepid response to mysterious cases of Havana syndrome.

Kylie Atwood is with us now on this story.

OK, look, Kylie, this is fascinating because it's really hard to understand even what's going on here. But what we know is that some staffers are actually accusing Secretary of State Tony Blinken of taking a hands-off approach.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, as we've reported on these increased number of diplomats and number of intelligence officials who have been sickened by this Havana syndrome, you find folks at the State Department kind of frustrated, saying what the heck. We're learning about this through the news but we're not learning about this through our own department leadership.

What they want to know is the location and the numbers of people that are coming down with this Havana syndrome. And that is a pronounced frustration amongst those who have children, right, because they are thinking about serving in some of these locations. They don't want to put themselves in harm's way. They really don't want to put their children in harm's way. And I spoke with two diplomats who decided not to actually apply for jobs in Vienna and Berlin because they had heard that there had been some of these incidents there.

The other thing that's happening right now is this whisper campaign at the department to try and figure out if a spot is open because there is someone who had to leave that post for an emergency medical reason. And what this boils down to is leadership at the department. So, as you said, there's frustration with the secretary of state who said that he was going to prioritize this. The department says he is prioritizing this, but he hasn't met with any of those who have been impacted by this syndrome since he became secretary of state earlier this year. And that stands in stark contrast to what we have seen by the CIA director, Bill Burns. He's met with those who have been impacted. He's visited Walter Reed where they are getting their medical attention.

So there's just kind of a lot of frustration. And I think the important thing to note is that the department, at one point, was actually sharing some of this basic information. There's certain medical information they can't share. Their hands are a bit tied. But they were sharing information about what -- the number of people that were impacted in Cuba and China. And so the department folks really want a return to that basic sharing of information. KEILAR: And why do these parents who are also diplomats, why are they

concerned? We've heard this report, right, that families have been affected, specifically a child who was in a car with someone.

ATWOOD: Exactly. Exactly.

KEILAR: So this is a real concern. They have reason to worry.

ATWOOD: Right.

KEILAR: Separately I want to ask you about a program for refugees that the State Department has just introduced. Of course this is for Afghan interpreters. Tens of thousands of them and family members who are trying to escape Taliban threat.

ATWOOD: Yes. Yes. So what the State Department is doing is recognizing that there are more Afghans who want to apply to be refugees in the U.S. And they acknowledge that that's happening because there's this increased violence by the Taliban in the country. So what they're doing with this new program that they announced today is expanding the number of folks that can apply. So if they worked for U.S. non- government organizations, if they worked for U.S.-based media companies, if they worked at the embassy but they didn't meet the eligibility requirement for another visa program that's already in place.

This is an expansion of the refugee application process for these Afghans. It's going to be incredibly welcome news, I can tell you, by those on the ground who are scared for their lives, frankly.

[07:00:02]

They know that the Taliban is targeting them. I talked to some of them last week. and some of them were worried that they wouldn't be accepted to.