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New Day

Race To Vaccinate; New York Lawmakers Seek Gov. Cuomo's Resignation; Democracy Danger. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired August 05, 2021 - 06:00   ET

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


[06:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Booster shots until more nations are vaccinate.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And more new evidence shows Donald Trump and his allies blatantly attempted a coup. Now, new calls for him to be charged and alone without defenders

New details on Andrew Cuomo is plan to stay in power despite facing a potential criminal investigation.

BERMAN: Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is Thursday, August 5th. We've let our children down. That is the message from one FDA vaccine advisor as millions of families prepare to send their children back to school, including many who were too young to be vaccinated. Millions in places where the Delta variant is running rampant.

Look at Arkansas between April and July cases involving children younger than 18 spiked 517 percent hospitalizations up 270 percent, ICU admissions up 275 percent. Arkansas Republican governor who banned mask mandates has seen the data and now changes mind.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON (R), ARKANSAS: Our cases read low point everything is changed now. And yes, in hindsight, I wish that had not become law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now Republican governors in Florida and Texas are stubbornly sticking to their anti-mask mandate rhetoric. Even though in the past week, their states reported the most new cases in the country. Louisiana also reporting more new cases than at any other point during the pandemic and a record number of hospitalizations and then an Arkansas health official tells CNN that only 25 ICU beds are available in the state, in the state. In Mississippi that number is six.

Nadia Romero is joining us now from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There are not many options for people who need that ICU help, Nadia.

NADIA ROMERO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely not, especially not here outside of Our Lady of Lake Hospital here in Baton Rouge. They're at 100 percent capacity. 175 people admitted with COVID-19 in the hospital. Right now they simply can't accept anyone else.

As COVID-19 continues its stronghold over all of these southern states, here in Louisiana the governor's mask mandate reinstated just yesterday. But he says he will not push for state employees to get the vaccine. He won't mandate that. He also will not support a vaccine passport until the vaccines get FDA approval.

Just next door in Arkansas, as John mentioned, the governor there is trying to roll back his anti-mask mandate ban, but he only could have listened to health experts in his state who pleaded with him not to move forward with that legislation in the first place.

And then you have Mississippi and you have Arkansas, Louisiana, all of these southern states that are seeing critically low numbers of ICU beds.

But along with those rising cases and hospitalizations, we're also seeing dramatic, triple digit percent increases and people in the states getting vaccinated. Listen to why one Baton Rouge mother of two says she just had to make sure that her children got their first doses and why a vaccine holdout says she just couldn't hold off any longer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERONE BURCHELL, BATON ROUGE MOTHER: I don't know as a parent, how I can live with myself. If my son -- if I didn't get him vaccinated, he got it and then something happened to him. I don't know how I could live with myself.

JAYLAN MERRITT, LIVES IN BATON ROUGE: Just hearing that you can get the shot and then still get it and still spread it on this kind of thinking, well, what's the point, but then when the Delta variant came out it kind of made urged me to, you know, want to get it more.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMERO: Another Children's Hospital closer to New Orleans says that they're seeing a concerning and significant increase in COVID cases and children who are 19 years and younger. Brianna.

KEILAR: Nadia, thank you so much for that live for us from Baton Rouge.

BERMAN: Also developing overnights, CNN has learned that the Biden administration is developing a plan to require almost all foreign visitors to be vaccinated before entering the United States. And Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to announce mandatory vaccinations for all active duty troops as soon as this week.

KEILAR: And the World Health Organization is calling for a halt on booster shots until at least the end of September to address a shortfall in vaccine supplies in poorer countries. Let's talk about this now with the president of ACCESS Health International also the author of COVID related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, what it is and what to do about it. William Haseltine who is with us now. Sir, thank you so much for being here. What do you think about the WHO saying this, a halt to booster shots especially as you're hearing, for instance, the White House press secretary see that this is a false choice.

[06:05:05]

WILLIAM HASELTINE, PRESIDENT, ACCESS HEALTH INTERNATIONAL: I agree with the idea that it's a false choice. A government, our government has its first responsibility to protect us, our people. It's possible that people who are older, like me vulnerable, like people with immunosuppressive disorders and cancer survivors will need a third booster shot.

You know, I remember flying with those days when I flew on planes, they would always tell you put on your mask first, and then help others, your children, for example. We need to help ourselves first so we can help others. I'm not necessarily saying we should have booster shots for everybody, but certainly for the most vulnerable, if that's what is required.

So, you have to remember this is the same WHO that said we shouldn't vaccinate our younger people until the rest of the world was vaccinated. It's the same WHO that said we shouldn't vaccinate more than 20 percent of our population until the rest of the world was 20 percent vaccinated.

So, I have to say that the responsibility in my view of our government is to protect our people first, so we can help others.

BERMAN: Yes, like I feel if we have the doses, and the booster shots would be helpful, why not. I just sometimes feel as if so much focus is going on to booster shots, third shots for people we're here in the United States. What will get us through this is getting much more people many more their first and second shots. So sometimes I think the discussion overwhelms where the focus really needs to be.

Professor, how concerned are you? There's been so much discussion now about the possibility for still new variants. What's the real danger when we talk about these new variants and their ability to maybe evade vaccines?

HASELTINE: Well, that's a real possibility. The group called SAGE, which is the group that advises the British government, a group of independent scientists came up with a recent report. And it's a pretty disturbing report, they see no end to the possibility that says virus can, number one, evade vaccines, number two become more lethal. And number three, become more transmissible.

They view the possibility that people were hoping for that it would become less dangerous over time as possible, but in the very distant future.

I keep my eye, as you may know, on variants. I've written a book on the topic. And I can see at least two variants that currently exist. One is South America, and another one that's circulating here in the United States today that have the possibility of being even more dangerous in delta. We are not out of the woods. We don't continue.

You know, what I've proposed, and I think it's really important is a multi-modal COVID control strategy, vaccines, new drugs, behavior, modification masks, and being very, very careful, and then helping the rest of the world. I agree with WHO we should help the rest of the world, but help ourselves first.

KEILAR: You talk about a culture of care, right, that this is sort of an adjustment that people are going to have to make going forward. I do want to ask you about something that is getting a lot of attention that I think there are many Americans who can connect with and that is that Jennifer Aniston recently said she has cut people out of her weekly routine, who are either not vaccinated or who would not disclose whether they were vaccinated. I think a lot of people are struggling with this as I said. What do you think about that?

HASELTINE: You know, I think everybody has the right to protect themselves and their family. And if it requires, as it may, as the infection continues to roll on, and remember that yesterday there were over 100,000 Americans infected. We are going to right back up that very steep slope. I think people have the right to ask those questions to protect themselves and their family.

BERMAN: In New York Times yesterday, I think was ties to the story on how do you ask people if they've been vaccinated? I have a good way of doing it. Hey, have you been vaccinated? You know, right. And if the answer's no, you know, I don't really want to spend time with you.

Professor --

HASELTINE: Well another question too.

BERMAN: Go ahead.

HASELTINE: Another question you should ask when people come into your house or a workmen come in. Are you vaccinated? And will you wear your mask, please? I think that's another really important question for personal safety. Please wear your mask and hopefully it's an N95 masks, because delta has a propensity to go through some of the surgical mask for example, it's not as good protection as it used to be. You're spewing out thousand times more virus than you did before. And so you need a tougher mask.

KEILAR: Especially with this practice of just having it over the mouth and not the nose, which I still see many offenders of. William Haseltine, thank you so much for being with us this morning.

HASELTINE: You're welcome. Thank you.

[06:10:00]

BERMAN: You know, you're talking to Haseltine -- about the professor -- about Jennifer Aniston, I always paid him more as a Phoebe guy.

KEILAR: Right.

BERMAN: You know, but it was nice of him to play along.

KEILAR: I don't know we could ask him what he is. And there is some disturbing new evidence that is making it clear that Donald Trump tried pulling off a coup so will he be charged.

BERMAN: Plus, why Andrew Cuomo is facing potential criminal charges as we learn what he's now doing behind closed doors. And the war of words intensifies between President Biden and Ron DeSantis as the Florida governor's state suffers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: New York state lawmakers tell CNN they have the votes to impeach Governor Andrew Cuomo in the State Assembly if he refuses to resign. Cuomo has flatly rejected calls from across the political spectrum to step down in the wake of a report that found he sexually harassed 11 women.

[06:15:07]

CNN Shimon Prokupecz is joining us now. He is defiant, no signs that he is going to move right along here Shimon.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right. So far, absolutely no signs that the governor intends to resign. In fact, there's been so much pressure on him the state head, the head of the Democratic Party here in New York State Jay Jacobs had a conversation with him, told him that he was going to be issuing a statement, order him to say we need you to resign. So far, no word from the governor.

He has also lost almost all support here in Albany, as the institution here does not support them any longer. They're saying that they are going to move forward with an impeachment. They're going to start the process perhaps as early as next week in order to remove the governor. They want him to resign. And so far, he has not indicated that he intends to do any of that.

The thing also that's going on so far is that according to The Washington Post, is that the governor has been gathered with his aides. They've been saying that he intends to fight this that he wants to fight this. We'll see. We have several days to go before the Judiciary Committee comes here on Monday and meets and then decides the next steps.

We don't know what the next steps are going to be at this point. So for now, we wait to hear to see what the governor will do.

KEILAR: Yes, it's a simple majority in the assembly to move this to impeachment. It takes two-thirds of the Senate to convict. We had a senator on from the state yesterday who said she thinks they have it so we'll see if that's the case and if the governor makes a calculation there. Shimon, thank you so much live for us from Albany.

BERMAN: So this morning, at least for New York district attorneys have requested materials from the state's sexual harassment investigation into Governor Cuomo. The Manhattan DA office says it's asking for the evidence in order to quote, properly investigate these potential sex crimes.

Joining me now is Elie Honig, CNN Senior Legal Analyst and former State and Federal Prosecutor. So Elie, you know, what crimes could they be looking into here?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, John. So first of all, these are the four district attorneys who we know have opened criminal investigations based on the AG's report. Why these four because this is where the alleged incidents occurred. Albany, of course, is the state capitol, the executive offices. Manhattan is where the governor also had other offices, Westchester County the governor had a private residence in Mount Kisco. And then Nassau County, there was one incident that allegedly happened at an event.

Now, let's look at New York State law. The law that seems most applicable here is called forcible touching. And the law says that it's a crime under New York State law to forcibly touch the sexual or other intimate parts of another person for the purpose of degrading or abusing such person, or for the purpose of gratifying the actor's sexual desire.

A couple important things to know about this law. First of all, it's a misdemeanor. People with no prior convictions typically do not go to prison. For a misdemeanor, the maximum sentence is one year. Also, the statute of limitations here is two years, which brings us back to August of 2019. Most or all of the conduct set forth in the report has happened within those two years.

And finally, this is so important to keep in mind. If we're talking about a criminal charge, the prosecutor has to show proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Not just it's likely, not just it's very likely beyond a reasonable doubt.

BERMAN: You know, it's interesting, a lot of this is intuitive. You can't touch people where they shouldn't be touched. I mean bottom line, what incidents in this report then fall under these potential crimes?

HONIG: Yes, so there are 11 complainants in the report, but really three of them go to the potential crimes. First of all, a woman identified as executive assistant. On, she told the investigators that the governor gave her unwanted hugs, unwanted kisses. One incident had her in the personal office in Albany, close the door, reached up under her shirt, under her blouse, and according to the report copped her breast and another incident according to the report, he quote, grabbed her butt.

Second of all, trooper one, a state trooper who has moved on to the governor's protective detail. She testified that she was also subjected to unwanted kisses by the governor. One incident, she allegedly ran his finger down her neck and spine. In another incident, he allegedly put his hand on her stomach and sort of moved it across to her hip which this trooper said made her felt violated.

And finally, a woman identified as state employee, one who said at an incident -- at an event, she posed for a photo with the governor at which he allegedly reached down and fondled grabbed her butt according to the report, so that's the conduct that prosecutors are going to be focused on.

BERMAN: So talk about the evidence in the report and how strong it would need to be to convict.

HONIG: Yes, again, remember beyond a reasonable doubt. Now we do have some indication because the independent investigators who worked for the Attorney General here, one of them Joon Kim, a former colleague of mine at the Federal Prosecutor's Office in Manhattan. The investigators concluded that the complainants, the women were quote, credible both in demeanor and the substance of their allegations.

[06:20:05]

Also importantly, the investigators found the allegations were corroborated, meaning backed up by others who witnessed certain events. And by contemporaneous documents, they have texts, e-mails, other things at the time these events happen that they say backup the complainants also really important.

We know these investigators spent time interviewing Governor Cuomo himself. Here's what they concluded about him. The governor's denials lacked persuasiveness, were devoid of detail, and were inconsistent with many witnesses' observations they found him to be not credible. Now these DAs are going to have to make their own determinations. Do they believe they have proof beyond reasonable doubt to support criminal charges?

BERMAN: I guarantee you what they're watching for right now is what Governor Cuomo does and what the New York State legislature does. In the meantime, they'll move along, but I think they want to see what happens there first, Elie, thank you very much.

HONIG: OK.

BERMAN: So a new letter shows just how far former President Trump went in trying to change the results of the 2020 election. We'll discuss all the evidence about the attempted coup, next.

KEILAR: Plus Jeopardy, reportedly in advanced negotiations for a replacement for Alex Trebek. And it's not John Berman, we think. We hope.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:25:34]

KEILAR: The evidence is piling up. Former President Trump tried to enlist the Justice Department in his crusade to overturn the 2020 election. Let's take a look at some of these recent revelations.

CNN has learned a top DOJ official drafted a resignation letter over what he said were Trump's direct instructions to use the department to support his false election fraud claims. This is happening is we're learning that a Trump loyalist at the DOJ circulated a draft letter in late December to top Georgia officials urging them to evaluate supposed election irregularities. That's according to ABC News.

BERMAN: Also in late December, Trump told the acting Attorney General just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican Congressmen. We just learned all this in the past week.

CNN has also reported Mark Meadows, the former president's White House Chief of Staff sent five e-mails in late December and early January to the acting Attorney General asking him to look into fraud claims in Georgia and New Mexico.

And Meadows also asked the acting Attorney General to investigate an unfounded conspiracy theory known as Italygate which claims people in Italy had used military technology and satellites to remotely switch votes for Trump to buy. Yes, it is as crazy as it sounds.

KEILAR: Downright nuts and joining us now is senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, also columnist for The Washington Post, Max Boot, who wrote about this in his latest Washington Post op ed that caught our eye he said yes, Trump tried to stage a coup by denying it. The right is laying the groundwork for another one.

Max, how big of a concern is this to you and others?

MAX BOOT, SENIOR FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: It's a big concern because we saw that Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election was only foiled this last time around, because a lot of Republican officeholders would not do what he wanted from the Secretary of State in Georgia to the acting Attorney General in Washington, they upheld the law and refused to overturn the election results.

Well, what's been happening since the election, the Republican Party has been purging anybody who doesn't uphold the big lie and doesn't defend the big steel. Liz Cheney is a high profile example. So basically, the Republican Party is coalescing around supporting Trump in his assault on American democracy.

And right now, Republicans are waging a campaign by passing laws to limit voting. And by gerrymandering, they're trying to take back control of the House next year, as well as the Senate. If they do that and if you have another close election in 2024, can you imagine Republican members of Congress certifying Biden victories in swing states, I think a lot of them would refuse to do that. They would go along with the big steel.

So we're in big trouble right now. Because it's pretty clear that Republicans are not just rewriting the history of what happened on January 6. The reason they're doing that is because they're laying the groundwork for repeat in 2024.

BERMAN: I have to say this Jeffrey Clark, who was running the Civil Rights Division inside the Justice Department at the time in late December and early January. This letter that ABC News published, it takes my breath away. It just takes my breath away. He wrote it down, the do wrote it down, Max, he writes, the Department of Justice is investigating various irregularities in the 2020 election for the president of the United States. The department will update you as we're able on investigatory progress, but at this time, we've identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states, including the state of Georgia.

This is a letter he wanted sent under DOJ letterhead under the signature of the acting Attorney General at the time, people refused. But this was going on. This was a government official doing this. The President clearly wanted this to have it be done at the time. It's there. It's written down. So what needs to happen? What actions need to take place? Does Jeffrey Clark need to be investigated? Does there need to be some kind of legal investigation into the president?

BOOT: Well, I think the first thing that needs to happen is we need to realize, John, how close we came to a more successful coup. This last time around the fact that there were people like Jeff Clark, who were willing to carry out Trump's dirty deeds and were willing to assault the Constitution in order to try to deliver the election results for Trump.

I mean, imagine that this guy had actually been the acting Attorney General and the Justice Department had done this.