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Vaccine Bigotry is Bogus; GOP Governor Debate in California; GOP Changes to Elections; U.S. Intervenes to Protect in Saudi Spy; Woman's Fight for Clean Air; Witness Speaks About Frontier's Passenger Incident. Aired 8:30-9a ET
Aired August 05, 2021 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[08:31:06]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: As the delta variant continues to rage around the world, Republican lawmakers are rushing to protect the rights of the unvaccinated.
John Avlon has a "Reality Check."
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: There's a lot of talk about vaccine bigotry these days. And it's way off base. Because people have refused to get vaccines for political purposes are not victims. They're the prime drivers of this delta variant. And as often the case with fear-fueled folks, they're actually creating the conditions that they say they want to avoid, new mask mandates and possible lockdowns.
So it's no wonder that some mayors, governors and CEOs are getting fed up and getting tough, requiring vaccinations for employees, health care workers and others. If you want to get back to the gym, an indoor restaurant, a concert, airplane or the office, it's not unreasonable to prove that you're not likely to get anyone else sick.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy spoke for a lot of the frustration when he erupted at anti-vax protesters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PHIL MURPHY (D-NJ): You've lost your minds. You are the ultimate knuckle heads. And because of what you are saying and standing for, people are losing their life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AVLON: He's right. We spent a lot of time detailing the inanity of some anti-vax feelings of victimhood from the right, especially the sickening Nazi Holocaust and apartheid comparisons. Now we're seeing some Republican lawmakers conspiracy bootstrapping, pushing bills that would ban discrimination against the unvaccinated.
But behind these conservatives' sudden concern for the rights of minorities is a basic problem of logic because protections are usually for immutable characteristics, like race and sexual orientation. Refusing to get a vaccine is a choice that affects all of us in a pandemic. And as constitutional conservatives, they should know that vaccine mandates were declared constitutional by the Supreme Court way back in 1905, a case called Jacobson vs. Massachusetts.
Which is why comments by the acting mayor of Boston, Democrat Kim Janey, opposing vaccine passports raised more than a few eyebrows.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR KIM JANEY (D), BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: There's a long history in this country of people needing to show their papers.
During slavery. Post slavery.
We heard Trump with the birth certificate nonsense. Here, we want to make sure that we are not doing anything that would further create a barrier for residents.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AVLON: All right, that's the sound of an argument jumping the shark. Just as the Holocaust is the Holocaust, slavery is slavery. It's not like anything else. Showing proof of vaccination in a pandemic to engage in public events is not remotely the same as showing freedom papers during slavery.
And I can't even begin to explain what she meant by trying to connect Trump's racist birther conspiracy theory with vaccination mandate. It's like a mad libs grievance grab bag.
But Mayor Janey later tried to clarify in a statement to CNN that she wants to see every Boston resident get vaccinated and that she's concerned that requiring vaccines in public venues will have a disproportionate impact on low income families and in communities of color. OK. But that seems like something the mayor should be able to help facilitate with focused outreach, bringing vaccines to those communities. Backing off common sense standards doesn't help anybody, especially in communities with low vaccine rates.
Now, pandemics don't care about politics, people, left or right. And the bottom line is, there's no right to infect other people. Look, it's one thing to decide with your doctor that vaccines might compromise already fragile health, but you're going to be more isolated as a result. And that's apparently what happened in the case of Offspring drummer Pete Parada, who has a history of Guillain-Barre Syndrome. But he says he bears no ill will towards his band mates who will be going on tour without him this time, in this case as one of their best knowns songs states --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OFFSPRING (singing): You got to keep them separated.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AVLON: And that's your "Reality Check."
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: With punctuation there.
KEILAR: I love the Offspring. I was kind of -- I was kind of rocking out there for a second, I'm not going to lie, off camera.
AVLON: I know you do. That was my gift to you.
KEILAR: Thank you so much, John.
[08:35:01]
Appreciate it.
Governors of the country's two largest blue states both under fire. New York's Andrew Cuomo facing impeachment and now possible criminal charges.
BERMAN: While in California, Republicans attack Gavin Newsom in a recall debate. What the candidates hoping to replace him said with the election just weeks away.
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BERMAN: The numbers suggest impeachment might be inevitable unless embattled New York Governor Andrew Cuomo resign. So far 80 of the 150 members of the state assembly tell CNN they would vote to impeach Cuomo. Just 76 votes are need. Still, Cuomo remains defiant, rejecting calls to step down while his political support crumbles following the report that found he sexually harassed 11 women.
There's also the legal fallout. At least four local prosecutors around New York have asked for evidence gathered by the state attorney general for that report to consider possible criminal charges against Governor Cuomo.
KEILAR: With California Governor Gavin Newsom facing a recall election in just weeks, Republican candidates headed into their first televised debate Wednesday each making a case for why they should get Newsom's job.
[08:40:07]
Debate organizers say that Newsom was invited to participate but did not respond to the invitation. And one big name that was notably missing from the debate, Republican contender Caitlyn Jenner.
Kyung Lah is live for us in Los Angeles.
Kyung, what were the key issues here that candidates focused on in the debate?
KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this debate did talk about a number of substitute issues facing the state, homelessness, the cost of housing, industry leaving the state and other issues like the water crisis, the fire crisis facing California. Now, these candidates, all Republicans, largely did not attack one another, aiming at Governor Newsome, who is obviously here the subject of the recall. Now, they really broke with him on his COVID response. And they specifically said that they do not support the mask mandate, especially in schools.
Now, even though Republicans do outnumber Democrats here -- I'm sorry, Democrats outnumber Republicans here 2-1 when it comes to voter registration, these Republicans say what they are looking at, the wind that they are -- have at their backs is that they have energy.
Listen to candidate Kevin Faulconer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN FAULCONER (R), CANDIDATE FOR CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR: Well, I think Governor Newsom's worried. And he ought to be. I think Californians are angry and frustrated. I think small business owners that were open and shut so many different times, I think moms and dads and, you know, parents all across this state, the fact that our kids weren't in public schools because Gavin Newsom didn't open them. There is a real frustration and people are looking for somebody who's actually going to stand up and do the right thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAH: Now, the Newsom campaign would certainly disagree when it comes to that issue of frustration, looking at the vaccination rates, at businesses coming back and specifically the economy here in California rebounding.
What the Newsom camp has tried do is to paint the Republicans and this entire recall as a Trump ally led event. And that's an effort, Brianna and John, in order to try to wake up Democrats to get them to mail these ballots back in, ballots which start to go out in just nine days.
John. Brianna.
KEILAR: All right, Kyung Lah, live for us from LA. Thank you.
BERMAN: So, as they continue to push Donald Trump's big lie about the 2020 election, several Republican-led states have now passed or tried to pass more restrictive voting laws including bills which bolster an official's authority to override the decision of local election officials.
I want to bring in Richard Hasen, he's a law professor of the University of California Irvine, one of the country's foremost election law experts.
Professor, thank you much -- thank you so much, I should say, for being with us this morning.
In "The New Yorker," you used a colorful term to describe how scared you are about upcoming elections. Now, I want to warn the kids to put ear muffs on and I want to tell you this is cable so you can say it. How scared are you about elections going forward? RICHARD HASEN, LAW PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE: Well, I
never expect today say I'd be scared shitless on CNN, but that's how I feel. I think that we dodged a bullet in 2020, but the way things are lining up, I'm very concerned about our elections going forward, especially 2024 and the possibility that we're not going to have an election where the results, the official results, reflect what voters actually want.
BERMAN: And, specifically, that is a specific concern that I'd like you to talk a little bit more about. Why is it you're so concerned that people might just throw out legitimate results or have the power to?
HASEN: Well, you know, if you look at the kinds of arguments that Donald Trump was making, they were not just the false claims of voter fraud, the big lie that's gotten so much attention. He has asked for state legislatures to override the will of the people. You remember he wanted to have legislatures in Georgia and Michigan, in Wisconsin, in Arizona change the election results, and he had, you may remember, I think it was 167 members of Congress who voted along with him when they were counting the Electoral College votes.
Now things are lining up. Those who had the courage to stand up to Trump, people like Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state of Georgia, those people have been pushed out or pushed to the side or censured by Republicans and they're being replaced by people and being replaced with laws that are going to make it easier to subvert the will of the people if that's what the political pressure puts on them to make them do.
BERMAN: You know, I think people look at that and say, in the words of Sinclair Lewis, you know, it can't happen here. But it can. I mean I don't think people understand how out of date our federal election laws are, or frankly the Constitution is, in terms of presidential elections, at least. But these states, they can get away with it, right?
HASEN: Well, you know, the Constitution itself says that states can -- state legislatures can literally take away the power of voters to choose the president and they can choose the president themselves.
[08:45:00]
So you can have a state pass a law that says, we're not going to have an election for president. That's right there in Article Two.
Now, I think that would be politically unpopular, but this is kind of getting the same way in the back door where there's been, at least in Arizona, a proposal that if the state legislature doesn't agree that the election was run fairly, it could throw out the election results and it could decide for itself which candidate is going to get the state's electors. It hasn't happened yet. But the fact that this is even on the table shows you the kind of really anti-small d democratic move that we're seeing in many parts of the country.
BERMAN: And this should scare everyone a lot. I'll use the word a lot. I don't have the same potty mouth that some professors apparently do.
But, Richard Hasen, thank you so much for being with us this morning. I really appreciate it.
HASEN: Thank you.
BERMAN: Coming up, the Justice Department making a rare move to protect America's secrets.
KEILAR: I won't tell anyone about your potty mouth, Berman. I won't.
OK, we're going to speak as well to a witness to what was a wild scene -- you've probably seen it -- aboard a Frontier Airlines flight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey! (INAUDIBLE). Hey!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: N!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Chill! Chill!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Chill out, man.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: The Justice Department in a rare move is intervening in a court case involving the Saudi crown prince to protect U.S. intelligence secrets.
CNN's Alex Marquardt is joining us now on this story.
What's happening here?
ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, this is a rare and really remarkable move by the Department of Justice to protect highly classified information, essentially state secrets. And it all comes back to a vendetta that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, has against a top former counterterrorism official named Saad Aljabri.
Aljabri is very well-known by the U.S. national security community. He has helped save hundreds if not thousands of American lives. But he fled Saudi Arabia in 2017. And now there is a group of Saudi state companies, ultimately under the control of the crown prince, that are accusing Aljabri of embezzlement. That's something that he denies.
The Department of Justice says that this group of companies have -- was created in order to help with counterterrorism activities. And what DOJ is now saying is that in order to defend himself in federal court, Aljabri will essentially have to reveal this classified information, and that is what the DOJ is trying to stop.
I want to read you part of what their motion, which was filed on Tuesday, says. It says that they're intervening because the risk that further proceedings will involve the disclosure of information that could reasonably be expected to damage the national security of the United States.
There's one more element here to illustrate this campaign against Aljabri. Two of his young children that are in their early 20s are being -- have been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia by the state. And a group of bipartisan senators wrote to President Joe Biden last week calling on him to help free these children and driving home the fact that this persecution of Aljabri and his family has now endangered national security.
[08:50:11]
So, once again, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, MBS, putting the U.S. in a very tight spot, seeming to prioritize his vendetta against Aljabri over the importance of this alliance, this partnership between the U.S. and Saudi.
KEILAR: Yes, we have seen that before, haven't we?
MARQUARDT: Yes.
KEILAR: Alex, thank you so much for that report.
BERMAN: So, former President Obama named her a champion of change for her quest to clean the air in West Oakland, California, eight years ago. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has more in this week's "Human Factor."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Margaret Gordon's mission started 30 years ago while working in a West Oakland school. She noticed a shoe box full of inhalers that were prescribed to dozens of students. The mother of three wasn't surprised. She, her son, and two grandchildren had asthma, too. So Gordon began researching the health impacts of pollution.
MARGARET GORDON, CO-DIRECTOR, WEST OAKLAND ENVIRONMENTAL INDICATORS PROJECT: Every workshop, conference, symposium I attended.
GUPTA: She regularly found black soot inside her West Oakland home.
GORDON: It's in my mucus lining in my throat.
GUPTA: And she began to connect the dots.
GORDON: We have so much pollution. We have three freeways that surround a black community. We have the ships, the trains and the trucks 24/7.
GUPTA: She co-founded the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, teaming up with scientists who set up truck traffic studies and air monitoring stations for block by block information.
GORDON: So who is being impacted? We could see on a graph that we never had before.
GUPTA: Gordon was appointed to the port's (ph) commission where she pushed for new truck routes, less truck idling and electric power for port equipment.
GORDON: Since 2008 to now, we have had significant pollution reduction.
GUPTA: She now wants air filtration systems placed in West Oakland homes and a shift away from fossil fuels.
GORDON: You've got to be relentless.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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[08:56:37]
KEILAR: Now, you probably saw this wild video yesterday of an incident aboard a Frontier Airlines flight to Miami. If not, this is it here. A belligerent passenger assaulted and groped two flight attendants. And then when a third flight attendant tried to calm him, he swung at that flight attendant's face. And the crew then restrained him with duct tape.
The passenger wo recorded the incident, Alfredo Rivera, is joining us now to talk about this.
Alfredo, I feel like everyone in the country probably saw this video. Walk us through what happened.
ALFREDO RIVERA, WITNESSED FRONTIER AIRLINES PASSENGER DUCT TAPE INCIDENT: Well, this is what happened.
We were sitting at the very back of -- end of the plane. The first half of the flight was a -- just a normal. And then I -- I noticed that the flight attendant, a female flight attendant, was talking to -- to a passenger two rows in front of us. And at first I didn't think too much about it. But after the way he started raising his voice and cursing, so I -- then I realized he was drunk.
And then I took my -- that's when I took my phone and I start recording. Started recording. And then the flight attendant was very calm and tried to get the situation, you know, as calm as possible. But then after the way he kept getting more (INAUDIBLE). And then a male flight attendant took over. And the same thing, he -- they were trying just to keep this situation under control.
But then the situation escalated. Everybody was tense in the plane because we saw what was coming. And then -- he was sitting by the -- by the -- by the window and then he moved to the -- to the seat by the hallway. And the flight attendant asked him to move back. And that's when he -- that's when he attacked the flight attendant.
KEILAR: And that's when -- and, Alfredo, I'm running out of time and I want to ask you this question. As you -- as you do turn off your phone there, no big deal. But when this happened -- this altercation happened, and then you had the flight attendants with I think the assistance of the passengers sort of subdue him and he was then duck taped to the chair, there's also an alternate view that came from a TMC video that says -- where he's saying something about, I'm white, I'm sorry, I can't change that. Do you know what that was about?
RIVERA: Yes, he was rambling. I didn't understand what he was saying, but he was obviously not -- in -- you know, under the influence.
KEILAR: So he was under the influence. When -- some people have looked at the duct taping of the mouth. I know the union backed up the flight attendants. What did you think about that, when you saw the subduing of the passenger?
RIVERA: I think the crew do what they had to do because they had to secure him so -- before he was doing damage to other passengers or to himself. So I think they act appropriately in my opinion. After he was secure, everybody was calm in the plane, you know. So the situation (INAUDIBLE) relaxed for everybody.
KEILAR: Yes, look, I mean, I can't imagine witnessing that and being so alarmed by it.
[09:00:02]
It's really incredible. But we thank you, Alfredo, for joining us to talk about what you recorded there.
RIVERA: You're welcome.
KEILAR: Alfredo.
