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Broward County, Florida, School District Issues Mask Mandate Despite Governor Ron DeSantis' Threat of Not Paying Superintendent Salaries; Former Anti-Vaxxer Now Promoting Getting Coronavirus Vaccine after Being Infected with COVID-19; My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell Hosts Event Purporting to Prove 2020 Election Stolen from Donald Trump; Rand Paul Reveals Wife Bought Stock in Remdesivir in February 2020; Breathtaking Speed: Taliban Seize 10th City in Matter of Days. Aired 8-8:30 ET.

Aired August 12, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: She can't walk off the set because she will clink, so she's going to wait for just a moment.

It is Thursday, August 12th, and we've following some very serious news today. Unvaccinated Americans are filling up ICUs this morning. They are actually leaving hospitals on the brink in some parts of the country. Mississippi, there is a dire warning that hospitals are potentially days away from failure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ALAN JONES, COVID-19 CLINICAL RESPONSE LEADER, UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI MEDICAL CENTER: The number of new positives that we're seeing, the rate of the testing positives, and the rate of hospitalizations based on what we are seeing, if we continue that trajectory, within the next five to seven to 10 days, I think we're going to see failure of the hospital system in Mississippi. Hospitals are full from Memphis to Gulfport, Natchez to Meridian. Everything is full.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Everything is full. The ICU crisis is getting more critical by the hour. Some states are at, or they are near capacity. Only a few hundred beds are left in some of the largest states in the south, or in the case of Mississippi you see there on your screen zero. Mississippi is now requesting help from the federal government as they are dealing with this crush of coronavirus patients and a critical staffing shortage. There's a field hospital that's now being set up in a parking lot that could be used to take care of older teenagers with coronavirus.

BERMAN: Some schools in Mississippi, Indiana, and Georgia have already gone back to virtual learning because of growing case numbers. Many are now rethinking mask policies. West Virginia Republican Governor Jim Justice warns that if cases continue to climb, as they clearly are, masks may be required in schools there. More children are now hospitalized in Texas than ever before, yet Republican Governor Greg Abbott filed a petition yesterday to keep school officials in Dallas from exercising their freedom to institute new mask requirements.

And in Florida, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has given the school system in Broward County until tomorrow to show how it is complying with his order not to institute mask requirements. DeSantis is threatening to stop paying school administrators who defy that.

And joining me now is interim superintendent for Broward County public schools Vickie Cartwright. This is her first TV interview since the threat from Governor DeSantis. Superintendent, thank you for being with us this morning. First of all, explain to us again what exactly the Broward County public schools have decided to do.

VICKIE CARTWRIGHT, INTERIM SUPERINTENDENT, BROWARD COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Absolutely. So, the school board of the Broward County public schools made a critical decision this past Tuesday in that we are requiring facemasks or face coverings for all students as well as all visitors and adults coming to our school campuses. So this is going to be inside of our school campuses or any of the facilities. And we are also ensuring that we take into consideration any type of medical accommodation, or if there are accommodations that individualized education and team come up with, or Section 504 team comes up with. So for exceptions to that rule, that's what we're looking to.

BERMAN: So this decision could cost you some or all of your paycheck. How do you feel about that?

CARTWRIGHT: My core value is students first. No amount of personal financial loss will cause me to go against this value. No amount of money can compare to a person's life or the impact that this virus may have on a person or their family. And our board, they made a decision based on what they believe is right for our local community. They are elected to represent and make these types of decisions for our local school district. Local decisions such as this allow for responsiveness and for the immediate needs that are occurring for our local and very real situations.

It wasn't an easy decision for them to make, but I know at the heart of every one of our board members that they are making a decision that they feel is right to keep the health and safety of our students and our community.

BERMAN: The Florida Governor Ron DeSantis doesn't think the local school board should have the freedom to make that decision. Why is that decision better made with you at the local level than in Tallahassee?

CARTWRIGHT: Florida is a large state, and we have a lot of geographical areas that are happening right now. And here within Broward County we have some very troubling statistics that are coming in. And these -- this is the type of information that our local school board members have access to and were referring to when they were making their informed decision on Tuesday during the board meeting.

BERMAN: I was interested in Duval County, which has taken a little bit of a different approach. Only six percent -- maybe four percent, I think it's four percent if I'm reading the statistic right, of parents have opted out of the mask requirements that they have. So an overwhelming majority of parents and families want students to be wearing masks in the schools. Do you have a sense of what your parents and families and students want?

[08:05:09]

CARTWRIGHT: Well, we do know this, that though we had speakers, the speakers that we had at our board meeting were divided, and we had a great majority of them actually coming in to support the board in making that recommendation and going with the decision in order to wear facemasks. In addition to that, we have an overwhelming number of emails that our board members also received, again, with a vast majority of the emails saying, please, have our students and our staff and adults wear the face mask inside of the building. We recognize that this is one way and for us to help control the spread of COVID- 19, and more particularly, the Delta variant that's out there right now.

BERMAN: And does any threat from the governor going to get you to change your mind?

CARTWRIGHT: At this point in time, our board is staying with their decision, again, because they are making decisions that they believe is in the best interest of our local community. They are elected to represent our local population in making these decisions for the school district, and that is their position as a board right now.

BERMAN: Interim Superintendent for Broward County Public Schools Vickie Cartwright, thank you for being with us this morning.

KEILAR: And now to a California man who was not only skeptical about the vaccine, he didn't believe that the coronavirus was even a real thing. That was until he got sick with it in early July. He recovered at home, and he went back to work until things took a turn for the worst. He's 42 years old and he developed a rare neurological condition that put him in the hospital for nearly two weeks and that could have left him paralyzed. And he is with us now, Saul Torres along with Dr. Yesenia Ramos who treated him at U.C. Davis Health. Saul, to you first. How are you feeling now compared to how you were feeling?

SAUL TORRES, FORMER ANTI-VAXXER WHO IS RECOVERING FROM COVID, NOW ADVOCATING FOR VACCINE: Right now, I'm better.

KEILAR: OK, right now you're feeling better. And, Dr. Ramos, you treated Saul. What happened? Tell us about what his symptoms were like and what his prognosis is.

DR. YESENIA RAMOS, TREATED SAUL TORRES FOR COVID-19: Yes, so, he came in after having already been diagnosed with COVID, and he told us how slowly he started to have numbness on his feet and then weakness. And with the syndrome, people have weakness on their feet, and then it can do all the way up and affect their breathing. So for him, he was a 42- year-old healthy man in construction, and then all of a sudden he couldn't walk any more.

PAUL: Saul, why did you say no to the vaccine before you got sick?

TORRES: Because I don't have too much information. I talked to my family and said I want to wait. I don't think so. COVID is not real. I won't get COVID. So I don't make the decision to take the vaccine.

KEILAR: Dr. Ramos, he thought it wasn't real, so why, then, would you get a vaccine? Are you hearing that from a lot of patients that you talk to?

RAMOS: Yes. So, I have been hearing it a lot from people, including sometimes even some of my family members, some cousins. And right now, my goal is just to educate them. A lot of them have misinformation and are getting from the wrong sources. So right now it's trying to educate them and tell them that it's safe, and efficacy of the vaccine is great.

KEILAR: Saul, what is your message now to people about the vaccine?

TORRES: Go to take it. I got another chance for my life. And I would say it's important to go. I'm still here. I got another chance. And what is said, don't wait. You need to go to take it, the vaccine, because I have family, and my family is happy right now because I'm still here with my family. So don't wait. You need to go to take it. You need to find more information if you need it. But take it.

KEILAR: It's such good advice. If you need more information, talk to your doctor. Saul, we are so happy to be speaking to you. We are so happy that you got a second chance for yourself and your family as well. Saul Torres and Dr. Yesenia Ramos, thanks to both of you.

RAMOS: Thank you.

[08:10:05]

KEILAR: Up next, the My Pillow guy luring followers to South Dakota promising proof that the election was stolen from Trump. We'll ask people there how it's going.

BERMAN: Plus Senator Rand Paul finally does something he should have done months ago under the law. Will it lead to trouble?

And a new warning about the Taliban's rapid gains in Afghanistan. Could Kabul be among the next to fall?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: A federal judge will allow three major defamation lawsuits to go forward against some of former President Trump's most loyal supporters. Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell are all being sued for billions of dollars in damages by Dominion Voting Systems, which is the company that they falsely accused of election fraud.

Lindell is continuing to push election lies, holding what he calls a cyber symposium this week in South Dakota where he promised to prove the election was stolen. CNN's Donie O'Sullivan is joining us now from Sioux Falls. Donie, did he prove those election lies? And I say that facetiously.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: He did not, Brianna. Mike Lindell, the pillow guy, has become really one of the loudest proponents of the big lie. And for months he has been making very specific, but very serious claims that China hacked America's voting systems and flipped the election, stole it from Trump.

[08:15:08]

And he, for weeks, has been inviting the media, cyber experts here to South Dakota where he said he would show data that would prove these false claims, but we haven't seen any such proof, any such data.

And I want to show you, just to give you an example of the sort of carry-on that's going on here. Take a look at this clip from yesterday of one of the speakers on the main stage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm not a computer guy. I don't know what most of this stuff means, but I've been researching this election since November 3rd. But the CNNs of the world, you guys need to stop reporting this and start fact checking it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'SULLIVAN: Yeah. So, always a red flag if at a cyber symposium, one of the main speakers is saying, I'm not a computer guy, but.

There are some cyber experts here, and there are cyber experts we have been speaking to who came to try and check out this data, to see to either validate or to disprove Lindell's claims and they are very, very frustrated.

They're telling us that they weren't even presented any meaningful data at all to really get their claws into. And even people who came here with an open mind, even people who really sort of wanted to see the proof, to believe in the big lie that the election was stolen, even they are getting frustrated.

Have a listen to this one gentleman we spoke to who is an attendee and is disappointed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DENNIS, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I think the guy makes a wonderful pillow, but I wish some of this information would have been organized a little better. (END VIDEO CLIP)

O'SULLIVAN: Yeah, so, that's basically what we're hearing from folks here. Even the biggest proponents, some people who really want to believe in Lindell's claims have not seen the evidence here.

And, of course, this is a spectacle. It's easy in some ways to laugh at it, but this is very serious stuff. I mean, the guy does have a big platform. A lot of people we speak to around the country listen to him and he's making these claims that are seriously undermining American democracy.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A lie is a lie. Turns out the lies are lies and always have been.

You're right, it's easy to laugh at some of the stuff. I think both Brianna and I were laughing at the guy on the stage. Don't bring facts into this. We don't want the facts here.

KEILAR: And also to say we are reporting it and fact checking it, both.

BERMAN: Yeah. It's clear the facts are a problem for them. And not just on the big lie with the election, too, Donie. You've been talking to people about vaccinations.

O'SULLIVAN: That's right, we met multiple people here over the past few days, asked them if they're vaccinated, what their thoughts on the vaccination are. And pretty much everybody was telling us that they have not got vaccinated. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O'SULLIVAN: Have you been vaccinated?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

O'SULLIVAN: Why not?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not going to.

O'SULLIVAN: Any particular reason?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: God gave us natural immunity to everything. Why would you want to interfere?

O'SULLIVAN: You're an older man than I am. You're probably -- what's the government going to say is the risk category?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, who come up with that?

O'SULLIVAN: The scientists and the doctors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who told them to say that?

O'SULLIVAN: Even though it's the Trump vaccine, the doctors, the scientists --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It ain't a Trump vaccine. He did it to please everybody that put the pressure on him.

O'SULLIVAN: He got the shot himself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who says he got the shot? He got fixed up.

O'SULLIVAN: He got the shot. He got it in January, I think, before he left --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think he got the shot. I think he got some stuff to make him better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'SULLIVAN: And I think you can see there why Trump has been reluctant to really push this vaccine even though he could take a lot of credit for it because he knows it could alienate a lot of his base. But, look, I think the main take away from all this, whether it's on the election and these lies undermining American democracy, and these lies and conspiracy theories about the vaccine which is damaging people's -- these lies which are damaging people's health, we have a very serious situation here where people are infected by misinformation.

BERMAN: Donie O'Sullivan, I know you look forward to a series of coronavirus tests which you'll no doubt be having to take very, very soon. We appreciate you being with us this morning. As always, really revealing reporting.

O'SULLIVAN: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: So, just ahead, why a new revelation from Senator Rand Paul is raising plenty of eyebrows.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And the Taliban is overrunning one quarter of Afghanistan's provincial capitals in just the course of less than a week. We have reaction from an American veteran who fought there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:23:50]

BERMAN: Overnight, Republican Senator Rand Paul revealed that his wife bought up to $15,000 worth of stock in the company that makes the COVID drug remdesivir just as the pandemic was taking hold in the U.S. Now, by law that should have been disclosed within 30 to 45 days. Senator Paul reported it 16 months late.

Joining us now is Walter Shaub, senior ethics fellow for the Project on Government Oversight. He lead the office of government and ethics under President Obama.

How concerning is this, Walter? WALTER SHAUB, FORMER DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF GOVERNMENT ETHICS: Well,

this is very troubling. On the one hand, it's not a very large purchase relative to Rand Paul's wealth, but this is a purchase of stocks that are potentially affected by the pandemic.

And as a senator, he was receiving briefings on the magnitude of the pandemic at a time when the public was in the dark about it. A law was passed in 2012 called the stock act that required these disclosures within 30 to 45 days of a transaction, precisely for the reason of enabling the public to monitor for insider trading. The fact that he didn't disclose it and the investigations of other senators for possible insider trading related to COVID didn't trigger him to disclose.

[08:25:06]

It's very troubling.

KEILAR: If we can put up the statement from a spokesman for Rand Paul, he makes the point that Rand Paul's wife lost money on this investment. And also tries to explain, it seems like a mistake on the part of the senator, his staff in getting this filed.

Does it matter, Walter, that she didn't make money on this?

SHAUB: No, it doesn't matter at all because he couldn't know at the time that she made the purchase that it wouldn't make money. And as for the error, that's clearly on him because they have an electronic filing system. If he signed the thing, it would have been submitted, but he must not have signed it.

BERMAN: Again, the statement they claim that he completed the form, but didn't transmit it.

SHAUB: Right.

BERMAN: Check's in the mail.

SHAUB: Right. This really isn't just a Rand Paul story. This is much larger. Members of Congress are buying and selling stocks.

The Stock Act of 2012 was intended to discourage this. Frankly, the disclosure was intended to be burdensome enough that people wouldn't want to trade stocks. We have had other members of Congress come into question.

Just about a month ago, Nancy Pelosi's husband made some news buying some tech stocks before the Congress took up some issues related to that.

So the real bottom line is that members of Congress shouldn't be buying and trading stocks. And this is a problem of their own making.

KEILAR: Look, he was a member of the committee that originated that act. He certainly knows what is at the heart of that act.

Walter, really appreciate your perspective on this. Walter Shaub, thank you.

SHAUB: Thanks.

BERMAN: Overnight another provincial capital fell to the Taliban, the 10th in just the past week.

The senior administration official familiar with one U.S. intelligence assessment now says that the capital Kabul could fall in the next 30 to 60 days.

Joining us now is Jack Murphy. He is the author of "Murphy's Law: My Journey From Army Ranger, Green Beret to Investigative Journalist".

Jack, thanks so much for being with us right now.

JACK MURPHY, FORMER ARMY RANGER AND GREEN BERET: Thank you.

BERMAN: It seems the administration is surprised by how quickly things have turned south, really bad in Afghanistan. But should they have been so surprised once they announced the full departure by the end of August?

MURPHY: No, not at all. I mean, this is something that they have been grappling with for years in Afghanistan. It's to the point where I think if you asked any marine corps or army private who served in Afghanistan, they could have told you that this would have happened. So for this to come as a strategic surprise to the administration, I personally have a difficult time wrapping my mind around how that's even possible.

KEILAR: Jack, I wonder -- I wonder what it's like. I wonder what it's like for you and all the servicemen and women who have served in Afghanistan to watch what is going on, to see provincial capital after provincial capital fall. And I know it is on the mind of so many people is the names of people who died in those areas.

MURPHY: Yes, my sense from the veterans who fought so hard over there in Afghanistan is that they're just heartbroken by this. You know, the thing with Afghanistan is that it was a conflict that in the past they confronted as a unit, as a team, with their teammates in the service, in the military. But right now, they're out of the military and they are having to answer the question of Afghanistan individually for themselves, ask themselves that question.

What did it all mean? And I don't think we're anywhere even close to being able to answer that question yet.

BERMAN: Is there any way to change an outcome that at this point seems inevitable?

MURPHY: Well, you'd have to reverse course completely and essentially re-invade Afghanistan, go back to what we were doing to maintain the status quo in Afghanistan.

Clearly, the administration was not comfortable with that. They decided to pull the plug. I think the American public at large was frustrated with Afghanistan. And the decision was made, so now, it's a question of watching the country fall apart from afar. I hate to sound jaded, I'm sorry.

KEILAR: Look, it makes sense why you are. You know, when we look at this map, and we see how much of the country has fallen now under Taliban control, I think what a lot of people maybe don't realize is that those interpreters that are trying to get out, they're trying to get from those red areas into Kabul so that they can get out.

And a lot of them won't, right? And it is a dangerous path. What do you think right now about the efforts of the U.S. government to rescue those folks?

MURPHY: I think we need to speed it up. I think we have an obligation to protect the people who protected us while we were over there quite frankly. And let's be honest with ourselves. I mean, this is going to turn into an unmitigated human rights disaster, the likes of which we haven't seen in Afghanistan since prior to 2001.

I mean, we all remember the images of the Taliban executing women in soccer stadiums.