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U.S. Government Potentially Distributing NIOSH Approved Face Coverings to Fight Omicron; Ukrainian Hack Under Investigation; Manchin and Sinema Cited as Holding Up Voting Rights Legislation. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired January 14, 2022 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.: Next week we'll announce how we are making high quality masks available to the American people for free.

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CONTRIBUTOR (voice-over): If you buy your own, the average cost of an N95 is just under $2, that's according to Project N95, a nonprofit dedicated to educating people about high filtration masks. But how to pick the right one can be bewildering. There are more than 6,000 different models of NIOSH approved respirators. NIOSH, being the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a federal agency that evaluates safety equipment like masks.

KELLY CAROTHERS, DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, PROJECT N95: It's an incredibly difficult market for consumers to navigate. And unfortunately in this circumstance that information could cost someone their life.

GUPTA: Kelly Carothers is the Director of Government Affairs at Project 95. The problem, she says, is that counterfeits have infiltrated the market. You can find a list of NIOSH approved products on the CDC's website, but here's some of the things to look for.

Remember those head straps? NIOSH approved N95s are always going to have head straps instead of ear loops. And the mask itself will say NIOSH, along with the manufacture name and an identifying number starting with TC.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: If you can tolerate an N95, do it. If you want to get a KN95, fine. Wearing any mask is better than no mask at all, but there is a gradation of capability of preventing you from getting infected, and from you transmitting it to someone else. So we should be wearing the best possible mask that we can get.

GUPTA: The KN95s Dr. Fauci just mentioned, they're another type of high filtration mask, but finding the right one of these can be even trickier. That's because KN95 is a Chinese standard, meaning none of these are currently approved in the United States. Even worse, the CDC says about 60 percent of these masks are fakes. Yes, even the ones you buy online.

CAROTHERS: There's no way to tell if a manufacturer has met those qualifications or not. It is very difficult for someone to discern whether or not it's a safe mask.

GUPTA: Now, that doesn't mean all KN95s are bad, but it does mean you're going to have to do more homework. Such as checking to see if the manufacturer has a valid lab report.

COLLINS: We'd recommend better high filtration masks, and we need a mask standard - a general, public mask standard so that we can cover all of the range of masks that people want to use. We could go back to pretty much normal life, if we all had really good respirators.

GUPTA: Something so simple that could help us slow the pandemic.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now. Sanjay, a point of personal privilege here. And full disclosure, I have about two masks that I wear (ph) at any one time, but I use them for like, maybe a week, two weeks straight. Is that a good idea, bad idea?

GUPTA (on camera): It's not a bad idea. I mean, originally these masks - especially in healthcare settings were designed as single use. But what they find is that unless it becomes visibly soiled, or there's some sort of damage to it, or it becomes wet you can wear these for several days.

And many people that I spoke to, John, do exactly as you do. They sort of rotate between a few different masks - even you know, one for Monday, one for Tuesday, et cetera. So you can wear them several days at least, maybe even a couple of weeks. And the thing about the N95s is that you've got to just make sure that you're continuously inspecting them.

BERMAN: All right, that's good news. I thought I was going to get in trouble. I appreciate it, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you very much for that.

GUPTA: You got it.

BERMAN: Happening now, a huge cyber attack crashing government websites in Ukraine. A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry says it's too early to draw conclusions about who may be behind it, but he does point out there's a long history of Russian cyber attacks against Ukraine. And it comes within 24 hours of the U.S. warning that attacks of some kind from Russia could materialize.

CNN's Sam Kiley is in Kiev in Ukraine. Sam, give us the latest there.

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So as of this morning there was an announcement that a number of government websites - but not all of them, had been crashed in what looks like a DDoS, a denial of service event. Pretty low level, but irritating and I think very important

symbolically, coming as you rightly say, at the end of a week of frantic diplomacy involving NATO, the OSCE, bilateral talks between Russia and the United States - all aimed at trying to deescalate the tensions around Ukraine with a buildup of 120,000 Russian troops on Ukraine's border in an ongoing insurgency inside Ukraine backed by Russia.

So in that context, this is a big of a niggle as far as the Ukrainians are concerned. They took some of these websites offline in order to prevent further attacks, and are now getting them back up again. But it is symbolic, really, of the sort of pressure that is relentlessly put on Ukraine.

[07:35:00]

Of course, in the past were it the case that the Russians would like to do some much more significant cyber event. We've had warnings in the past from GCHQ in the United Kingdom and the national - the NSA in the United States both saying that rooters (ph) - the national - critical national infrastructure could be attacked by Russia. So it's not outside of the Russian capability to do something much, much worse. Perhaps something of a warning being given to the Ukrainians.

BERMAN: Yeah, the timing suspicious and concerning.

Sam Kiley, thank you very much.

The Biden White House hits a brick wall on voting rights. What now for the president and his party?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And scientists and doctors calling out Joe Rogan for spreading misinformation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:40:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: We all (ph) ask questions about complicated subjects like, can you get this done? I hope we can get this done. The honest to god answer is, I don't know that we can get this done. I hope we can get this done, but I'm not sure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: An exasperated President Biden there, perhaps now forced to find a way forward after fellow Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema torpedoed his plan to change Senate filibuster rules to clear the way for voting rights legislation.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says the Senate will take up both on Tuesday, both are expected to fail.

Joining us now is former Ohio States Senator Nina Turner. She was Co- Chair of Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign. We're also joined by Jonathan Cott, he's a former Senior Advisor to Senator Joe Manchin.

Nina, to you first, just your reaction to look, what really appears to be voting rights legislation dead.

NINA TURNER, (D-OH) FORMER STATE SENATOR: I mean, this is a sad day. We're in the 21st Century, Brianna, we're not in the 20th Century, the 19th Century, the 18th Century. And this is really a sad day, a sad time for democracy. And although the African-American community certainly shoulders an enormous burden when it comes to voting rights because of the historic import (ph) of how we had to fight, and people had to die to get those rights.

This is an attack, make no mistake, on every single person in this country - particularly the poor, the working poor, and the barely middleclass. An absolute sad day that you have Senators that would (ph) rather hold on to the filibuster than to hold strong for democracy in the United States of America. Sad indeed.

KEILAR: Jonathan, what do you say?

JONATHAN KOTT, FORMER SENIOR ADVISOR TO SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): I say yes (ph), we need to pass voting rights act. Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema's positions on the filibuster hasn't changed, they don't think it's good for the Senate and the country overall, and they're worried about what might happen when Republicans take back control of the Senate. Which, by the way, isn't that far off.

This was - it was only two years ago they had complete control. So they are looking to preserve how the Senate works, and how - and force them to work in a bipartisan way. But Senator Manchin completely agrees that we need to reform our voting rights in this country, and he's working on it, and he's working on a bill, and he's hoping that he can get nine more Republicans. But these things aren't easy, and they take time.

KEILAR: Nina, what do you make -

TURNER: Yeah (ph).

KEILAR: - of that sort of preservation -

TURNER: I got the -

KEILAR: - yes?

TURNER: - preservation, my behind, Brianna. Look, we need to preserve democracy. Now so I've got to disagree with my colleague here. They better not utter the - not one quote from the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. not one, or any of his colleagues and contemporaries as we come up on his birthday on Saturday and the national celebration on Monday.

This is - these people are cowards - they are soulless cowards to hold up a daggone rule. Filibuster is a rule, it's not written in the Constitution, it's not a right, it is a rule. And they're standing in the way of it. So this is nonsense, they worried about what the Republicans going to do. Let's take of 2022, let's do what Democrats can do right now. They have the power.

And my message to President Biden, now he done wasted a whole bunch of time with these folks being diplomatic, inviting them out to the White House and to - timeout for it (ph).

He needs to hold a press - let them know, either you're going to be by my side saying you're going to be with me in getting rid of the filibuster, or I'm gassing up the jet on your behind and I will be in Arizona and West Virginia directly, and let the American people know whose standing in the way of my entire agenda - not just voting rights. So President Biden, gas up the jet and cancel student debt, those two things.

KEILAR: Jonathan?

KOTT: That's not how Congress works. The - President Biden is a long - has a long history of working with Senators. He knows the best way to do it is work with them, have constructive conversations. That's why he had the two of them over to the White House last night.

They're going to keep working together, he's had a great first year - he's had a historic first year and Democrats should be celebrating that and running on that in 2022. Gassing up the jet and heading to West Virginia and Arizona is not actually going to get it done. There are ways that people can get things done in D.C. - Senator Manchin, Senator Sinema proved that with a historic infrastructure bill that they just passed. That's how you get things done.

Slogans and just yelling isn't the way it works. So if you want to actually get something done, you sit down with them and keep talking. And that's what Senator Manchin is going to keep doing -

TURNER: Give me a break. They've been sitting down and talking, Brianna, and that infrastructure bill - while we do need to repair infrastructure in the United States of America, that is not giving people something they can feel.

People can't afford - the poor people are suffering in this country, and you got Senators who are set for the rest of their natural lives, playing games. The president's already sat down with them, Brianna. That tactic, that strategy is not working.

[07:45:00]

And the rest of the Senators on the Democratic side need to hold their colleagues accountable because allegedly Sinema and Manchin are the only two holding out, which we know that's not true. If in fact it is true though, let me lay that out there - if in fact it is true, then they need to hold their colleagues accountable. This - you know what?

Brianna, there is a woman in Chicago, her name is Martice Schism (ph), she sent me a text last night saying how sad she is. You know why? Because she is of that child generation that grew up and watched her foreparents, her great-grandmother was murdered - you hear me? Murdered in January 11, 1966. And you know why she was murdered? Because she was standing up for voting rights, ran off the road by white supremacists, and decapitated.

So there are people who are still alive today who were either children during that time, or elders during that time fighting like hell and heaven to get voting rights. And here we are in 2022, kissing the behinds of two senators who could care less about the people in this country.

So Jonathan, spare me that's not how you're going to get things done. Yeah, I am outraged with a whole bunch of other folks who need to be outraged about what those two and others who are hiding behind them are doing. So President Biden, gas up the jet on these people.

KEILAR: Nina and Jonathan, look, I hear your frustration, Nina. I know a lot of people share that frustration, and I think this is such an important conversation to have, spirited is the word I would use as it is, because this is I think the division within your party right now talking about these issues. And this is going to be so essential to discuss more in the year ahead.

Nina, Jonathan, thank you so much to both of you.

Breaking overnight, Australia revoking Novak Djokovic's visa just days before the Australian open.

BERMAN: Kevin McCarthy tries to rewrite history, fortunately there's video.

And a sneak peek at the new CNN original series, "Reframed: Marilyn Monroe." It premiers Sunday at 9 on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Marilyn Monroe knew that she was more than just a pretty face.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She wanted control of her own destiny.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's frustrating that people can't think about her in terms of her intellect.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Marilyn challenges what it means to have agency as a woman.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To see a woman that is so in charge of her sexuality is extremely empowering.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This woman is so comfortable in her skin.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was rolling the dice with her career in very real terms.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Marilyn would have been the biggest influencer of all time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Creating her own production company, getting films made. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Marilyn Monroe is a mirror for people's ideas

about women's sexuality and women's power.

MARILYN MONROE: It's hard to know where to start, if you don't start with the truth.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "Reframed: Marilyn Monroe," Sunday at 9 on CNN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:50:00]

BERMAN: Words out loud from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. He said words out loud, one year to the day from what he told the American public that Donald Trump was responsible for the Capitol insurrection. This time they were words out loud, which is about the most generous thing you can say about them.

John Avlon with Reality Check.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Kevin McCarthy must thing you're stupid. Because the man who desperately wants to be Speaker of the House has gone all-in on the big lie. And that, of course, requires lying all the time. But even by the degraded standards of today, his desperate attempts to deflect and rewrite history at a press conference yesterday were shameless.

Let's set the scene. It was his first presser since McCarthy refused to testify in front of the January 6 Commission, presumably for fear of implicating Donald Trump or himself. But because god's got a sense of humor, it happened to be one year to the day exactly since he took to the floor of the House and said this -

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.

And make no mistake, those who are responsible for Wednesday's chaos, will be brought to justice.

AVLON: Yes, that day he called for a fact finding commission, and he's been trying to kill it ever since.

So when asked by a reporter why he abruptly changed his position after a visit to Mar-a-Lago just three weeks after the attack, here's what McCarthy said.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What changed -

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What changed from what you said on the floor criticizing him, saying that he was -

MCCARTHY: My criticism went to everyone on that day. Why was the Capitol so ill prepared that day?

AVLON: It's sad to see a grown man so scared of an ex president, because his criticism was directed at Donald Trump that day, it wasn't some free floating condemnation of everyone. And notice how fast he wanted to pivot to his preferred talking point about Capitol Hill police preparation, which he repeated three times.

That's because that's the new lie (ph), an insinuation that Speaker Nancy Pelosi might somehow be responsible for the Capitol being overrun by a violent mob of Trump supporters. He's trying out the Trump playbook of project and deflect.

Now, one major reason why the Committee wants to talk with McCarthy is because he spoke with Donald Trump that day. And one of his Republican colleagues said it was a screaming match. The jolted (ph) president didn't want to call off the rioters, which is incredibly relevant to the question of Trump's state of mind.

But after telling CNN he would testify, McCarthy's done a 180. Now he doesn't want to offer any details about the Trump call, and he's really upset that phone records have been requested. As (ph) the Republican Co-Chair of the Committee Liz Cheney said, he's "clearly trying to cover up what happened."

Now, the number one rule of project and deflect is to accuse your opponents about what you're been credibly (ph) accused of. And so, McCarthy has denounced the Jan. 6 Commission as an abuse of power.

Here's the part of why he says it's illegitimate.

MCCARTHY: Nancy Pelosi waited four months. In that time period as we came here and discussed many times - you were here, you would ask me questions. My fear began to erode (ph) that she's played politics with this. Never did I think a speaker would play such politics and then appoint a chairman who starts the committee by saying the only person out of bounds is the speaker.

AVLON: Playing politics. Now, because he's trying to memory hole (ph) the entire thing under layers of mock outrage, here's what really happened.

[07:55:00]

McCarthy wrote a letter to Speaker Pelosi in late February demanding three conditions. An equal split in appointee from both parties. Co- equal subpoena power. And no predetermined conclusions.

Pelosi agreed.

But then in May, McCarthy was trying to whip votes against the Commission that he requested. Thirty-five House Republicans defected. And when Pelosi unilaterally created the special commission, McCarthy tried to appoint Republicans who believe the big lie, folks like Jim Jordan who've been trying to overturn the election with Trump and Jim Banks.

Now, Pelosi rejected these two poison pill participants. Then McCarthy pulled all his picks. So spare us the crocodile tears, Congressman. Likewise, McCarthy has claimed that committees can only investigate for legislative purpose, ignores multiple precedents like oh I don't know, Benghazi. But it also ignores possible Congressional changes to strengthen our democracy like reforming the Electoral Count Act.

Now, despite McCarthy's cries to the contrary, of course the real outrage isn't the January 6 Commission, it's the attack on our Capitol that was inspired by a president's attempts to overturn the election.

But the fact that GOP leaders like McCarthy have decided to fall in line with the big lie after the fact, and try to rewrite recent history is straight out of Orwell. Folks might as well be campaigning under a banner that says ignorance is strength. It shows that they're willing to sacrifice almost anything on the alter of their ambition. And that's just more evidence of why the threat to our democracy is far from over, and that's your Reality Check.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: John Avlon, thank you very much.

KEILAR: The world knows Marilyn Monroe the movie star, the blond bombshell, and the cultural icon. But now after a reckoning in Hollywood, the new CNN original series "Reframed: Marilyn Monroe," says it's time to see Marilyn through a more modern feminist lens.

Here's a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She loves to be in front of a camera. It's all coming from up here, she's staging it. And the photographer is clicking it. I can't imagine him saying, oh hang onto that tree, put your legs up. It's just like, follow the yellow brick road - follow Marilyn and you'll get the shot.

ANGELICA JADE BASTIEN, FILM CRITIC: She seemed to really have an intimate understanding of what the camera needed from her.

ALICIA MALONE, HOST, TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES: She used whatever she could to try to get herself in the best position possible to be hired by the studios.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Joining us now is Alicia Malone, who you will recognize from that documentary. She is a host at Turner Classic Movies, and she appears in this new series. An amazing series, I cannot wait to see it Alicia. Tell us a little bit about this, the reframing of Marilyn Monroe - not just looking at her as a blond bombshell, but as something more.

MALONE: Yeah, you know, I think we've been doing so much reframing of women in the public eye over the last couple of years. And so Marilyn is perfect for this topic, because people see her as being simply a sex object, but she was so much more than that. She was very ambitious, and very driven. The whole blond bombshell Marilyn Monroe persona was of her own making, because she knew that it would sell to audiences.

And she wasn't an overnight success, she worked very hard for many years and was in many small roles before she became a star. So many of the Hollywood executives didn't see her potential, so it was really her drive that got her to the position that she's still in today where we're still talking about her.

KEILAR: Yeah, she saw her potential. And I wonder, if she had not passed away, what do you think her role would have been in politics, pop culture - what do you think?

MALONE: Well, I think she definitely would have had many stories to share during the Me Too movement, because even back in 1953 she wrote an article for Motion Picture Magazine called "Wolves I Have Known," where she talked about the predatory men that she had encountered not only in Hollywood, but in her days as a model before she became a star. So I think she definitely would have had many of those stories to share.

And she also has a lot to say about sexuality and how we treat female sexuality as something to be laughed at, or something to be scared of. She had a lot of jokes made about her, but actually she was very smart in the way that she used her body. She was also - she liked her body, she liked the way she looked.

KEILAR: Body positivity, very of the moment for sure. Alicia, thank you so much. We're really looking forward to this, it looks amazing.

Alicia Malone, thanks.

MALONE: Thank you so much.

KEILAR: You can be sure to tune in, the all new CNN original series "Reframed: Marilyn Monroe," will premier with back-to-back episodes on Sunday at 9 pm Eastern, only on CNN.

And "New Day," continues right now.

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