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New Day
Depp Cross-Examined in Suit; War Through the Eyes of a Teenager in Ukraine; Southwest Under Fire Threat; Eric Hille is Interviewed about Firefighting in Ukraine; Grizzlies Rally to Stun Timberwolves; Immunity Varies after Covid. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired April 22, 2022 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:30:00]
JOHNNY DEPP, ACTOR: Everywhere.
JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The defense showing writings from Depp in paint and blood from his severed finger and an email when Depp alludes to cutting the finger himself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have chopped off my left middle finger as a reminder that I should never cut my finger off again.
DEPP: It was a pathetic attempt at humor. My apologies.
CASAREZ: Depp sometimes clashed with the defense attorney, who tried to seize control from the actor who off veered off topic.
DEPP: A fellow called Charlie Dunnett (ph), who worked with Elton for years and years and --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Depp, I appreciate that. My only question was just to confirm that you had sent that message to Elton John, nothing else. I just -- I want to be respectful of the court's time and the jury's time and I trust that you do too. So, if you --
DEPP: Well, I don't feel like I'm wasting anyone's time, sir.
CASAREZ: Depp's $50 million defamation suit against his ex-wife is in response to Heard's 2018 op-ed in "The Washington Post" about surviving domestic abuse. While she never mentioned Depp, he asserts it got him booted from the starring role in Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" series. The defense implied there was abuse by Depp in the marriage, playing this audio after an alleged fight.
DEPP: I headbutted you in the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) forehead.
AMBER HEARD, ACTRESS: (INAUDIBLE).
DEPP: That doesn't break a nose.
DEPP: I was using the words that Ms. Heard was using.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. DEPP: But there was not an intentional headbutt.
CASAREZ: Depp denied he ever struck any woman.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CASAREZ: And the cross-examination will continue on Monday of Johnny Depp. He is still on the stand. But then his attorney should be able to have the chance to rehabilitate him in redirect examination.
This is a six-week trial, attorneys said to the jury in court. It's finishing of the second week right now. A lot more evidence to come in. But, ultimately, Brianna, this will go the a jury.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Yes, just the beginning even, if you can imagine.
Jean Casarez, thank you so much for that great report. We do appreciate it.
CASAREZ: Thank you.
KEILAR: President Biden dismissing calls from Republicans to get more involved in Ukraine, claiming the far right has hijacked the GOP.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): The only discussion I would have with him is that I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Kevin McCarthy denies ever thinking about asking then President Trump to resign after the Capitol riot, even though, clearly as you heard there, he said it.
And, in Ukraine, teenagers burying their loved ones. CNN goes behind what it's like through their eyes as the war rages on.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:37:02]
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: As war rages all around them, children and teenagers in Ukraine are facing a harsh reality and real suffering. Things like burying their family and friends. What is it like for them living through these horrors of war, trying to survive any way they can?
CNN's Ed Lavandera found out one story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Hidden behind a row of homes in the town of Borodianka, Ukrainian police exhumed the bodies of nine civilians killed by Russian soldiers. They're documenting evidence of war crimes.
This mother stands over her son's body left in a makeshift grave. On the other side of the graves, we notice Ivan Onufrienko staring quietly at the grave of another victim.
LAVANDERA (on camera): One of your friends is buried here?
LAVANDERA (voice over): Ivan says his friend was killed by Russian shrapnel as she tried to escape the city. The cross bearing Katia's (ph) name was made by his grandfather, who dug this shallow grave because they couldn't store the bodies at the hospital.
IVAN ONUFRIENKO, 16-YEAR-OLD BORODIANKA RESIDENT (through translator): I can't take this well when I see this. I cry, but I'm not showing this. I feel weak -- weak because I cannot do anything.
LAVANDERA: Ivan is 16 years old. In two months of war, he's witnessed the innocence of childhood die before his eyes.
Watching Ivan makes you wonder how a teenage mind copes with the horror in front of him. His family says to understand we must see what they experienced.
Ivan's family never left this backyard shed for more than 30 days while Russian troops occupied this city. Ivan's grandfather and father showed us how they survived on nothing but homemade bread.
LAVANDERA (on camera): So basically they would take the grain, the raw grain, and grind it down into flour, or a version of flour, and then they would make their own bread in this oven. And that's what they lived on for more than a month.
LAVANDERA (voice over): Five adults and four children hid in this underground bunker. This is where Ivan heard weeks of artillery blasts and cries for help. The sounds of war that will haunt survivors forever.
ONUFRIENKO: I slept here. My sister and my mom slept here. And another family slept here too. We tried to curl up and sleep here together. Sometimes, when things got really scary, our dads would come down and stay with us.
LAVANDERA: Ivan's grandfather, Sergey (ph), says Russian soldiers told him the family would be killed if they tried to escape. Police say more than 50 people were killed here, many of them shot as they tried to run away. The death toll is expected to climb.
LAVANDERA (on camera): How frightening was this experience for you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I can't express it. UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It's a war.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It is war. It is scary. We never felt anything like that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): They were hitting everything, smashing it.
[06:40:06]
LAVANDERA (voice over): Sergey (ph) is stoic as we talk about surviving the Russian siege. But there's one question that pierces his heart.
LAVANDERA (on camera): Do you worry about your grandchildren witnessing this war?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I don't have words for that -- do you understand?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The little ones can forget, but the older ones will remember always.
LAVANDERA (voice over): Grandfather and father know their children will never be the same.
LAVANDERA (on camera): Why do you feel it was important to be here at this moment?
ONUFRIENKO: So people can see for themselves. The whole world should see how the Russian world comes and kills civilians for nothing.
LAVANDERA: When you get older, what do you think you'll remember about this moment and this day?
ONUFRIENKO: I'll remember everything. I'll remember every day and I will tell my children and my grandchildren. I will remember this all my life.
LAVANDERA (voice over): He's a teenager who refuses to look away from the raw reality of this war.
Ed Lavandera, CNN, Borodianka, Ukraine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SCIUTTO: Brianna, you know what struck me about that piece. A couple things. One, the baby face of that teenager. So he has to see all this through that baby face.
And the other is just the -- of all the supreme pieces of hell of this war, the idea you have to bury your friends and family in your backyard and then unbury them later, right, as they account for this and try to give them a proper burial. I mean what could be -- what could be worse than that? KEILAR: There's really no words for it, you know? And I think we talked a lot about what this means for the kids, what they're going to carry, and this is a generation of children in Ukraine who are going to carry this, that are going to be the witnesses of this in generations to come. It was an incredible story by Ed.
SCIUTTO: There's a lot of studies about that, right, is how long the stress, trauma. This lasts for years after nations torn by war.
Well, the fighting goes on. Ukraine's air force is expanding now thanks to spare parts from the west. Twenty new warplanes are going to get up there again. The Ukrainian fighter pilot known as "Juice" joins me live on his fight against the invading Russian military.
Plus, back in the U.S., see what happened when Democratic rivals faced off in their first debate of a Senate race there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:47:00]
KEILAR: Today, dangerous fire conditions posing an extremely critical threat to the southwest. In the meantime, that same system expected to trigger severe storms and possibly tornados in the plains.
So let's go now to CNN meteorologist Chad Myers.
What are you tracking there, Chad?
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Brianna, probably the most volatile day of the year so far. Extreme fire conditions all the way from Denver to Albuquerque. Winds will be blowing at 70 miles per hour. All of the ground is dry. The grasses haven't greened up yet. Extreme conditions. We get two or three of these a year, and this is the worst that I've seen this year.
To the east of there, as you said, tornados and large hail coming down. To the north, a blizzard into parts of the Dakotas.
Now, the East Coast looks very nice. Completely tranquil. These south winds will blow up very warm air across the south and the southeast. Not quite to New York City but certainly to D.C. this weekend.
Brianna.
KEILAR: All right. Target audience there in D.C., you know.
Chad, thank you so much for that. I do appreciate it.
Ukrainian firefighters working tirelessly since the war began, rescuing people, putting out fires. Seeing these images was too much for one American firefighter. Eric Hille started an effort to get equipment and people from the U.S. into Ukraine. And now he is there working toward that goal.
He's with us now. He's a firefighter from San Miguel, California. Eric, thank you so much for being with us.
Can you tell us -- tell us about where you've been working and the kind of work that you've been doing.
ERIC HILLE, American FIREFIGHTER VOLUNTEERING IN UKRAINE: We're in the Kyiv region. We've been predominantly working in Kosmel (ph) and Bucha, Bucharia (ph) and eastern Ukraine and eastern Kyiv region that was under Russian occupation the time that we've been here.
KEILAR: And so you've been working in -- I mean, ideally the goal is to work in rescue. But I know you've been doing a lot of recovery as well of bodies but also possessions. Can you tell us what you've been doing?
HILLE: Yes. Predominantly, at this point, our effort is all recovery, to bring closure to families and finding ones that have been deceased. Also, in the rescue efforts, we've been pulling out family photographs and valuable items that the families want to keep.
And, on Easter Sunday, when we were recovering a body, we actually found and recovered all the family photographs.
KEILAR: That may be all they are able to keep, what you've gotten for them.
And, Eric, can you tell us, I know you've had some experience with boobytrapping. What are you seeing?
HILLE: So what we -- in one of the areas we've been working, in Kosmel, the fire station there was actually taken over by Russian forces and used as a command post. When they took the station back, they actually booby-trapped and set IEDs all around and inside the fire station. Everything from trip wires, to hand grenades, to anti- personnel mines, buried everywhere that we've seen.
[06:50:00]
One of the places we were working on Easter Sunday, we actually found a landmine right in the immediate vicinity close to where we were working.
KEILAR: The challenging conditions. I can't even imagine what you're dealing with.
Can you tell us why you decided you needed to do this, Eric?
HILLE: It all started, you know, being back home in the United States. We were sitting at our fire station watching the news. And we saw the firefighters there on TV. You know, while the war is still going on, they're still out there providing aid and trying to fight fires and rescue people. And you watch on the media, they were sending aid teams in with doctors, nurses, medical supplies, even aid to the military with weapons but nothing was coming for the firefighters.
They have been working tirelessly, non-stop since this war started. And I decided, you know, we're going to find a way to provide aid to them and get them the resources they need directly.
This morning we had our cargo arrive of brand-new technical rescue equipment, extrication equipment, medical supplies that we'll be distributing today to 10 fire stations in the region.
KEILAR: IT's amazing work, Eric, that you were doing and we thank you so much for talking to us about what you're doing and what you're seeing. Thank you.
HILLE: Thank you.
KEILAR: Scientists say coronavirus antibodies come from both infection and vaccination, but that doesn't mean equal protection. We'll have Dr. Sanjay Gupta joining us on that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEILAR: The Grizzlies rallied from a 26-point deficit to stun the Timberwolves in an epic game three.
Andy Scholes has more in this morning's "Bleacher Report."
That is something, Andy.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: I mean, Brianna, it's going to be hard to find a more wild NBA playoff game than this one we had last night.
[06:55:03]
The Grizzlies rallied from being down 26 in the first quarter and then 25 in the third quarter to end up easily beating the Timberwolves in game three.
You know, Minnesota, they came out on fire and they scored the first 12 points of the game. The crowd was all pumped up. They go up by as many as 26. The Grizzlies, though, they went on a run. They cut into a seven-point deficit at halftime. But then the Timberwolves came out red-hot again in the second half, opened up a 25-point lead in the third quarter. But the Grizzlies just showed incredible resolve. Desmond Bane led them on a 21-0 run. (INAUDIBLE) outscored Minnesota 37-12 in the fourth quarter. And, incredibly, they won game three easily, 104-95 to take a 2-1 lead in that series.
The Warriors, meanwhile, continue to just put on a show in Denver. Steph Curry coming off the bench again. He poured in 27 points, as did the Warriors new star Jordan Poole. Klay Thompson chipped in with six threes. He had 26 points.
Then, with the game on the line in the final minute, Draymond Green coming up with a huge steal from likely MVP Nikola Jokic. The Warriors would win 118-113. Golden State can sweep that series Sunday in Denver.
And, you know, Brianna, they say it's not over until it's over. That Warriors/Nuggets series is over. NBA teams with a 3-0 lead are 143-0 all-time in the playoffs.
KEILAR: Unbelievable.
Andy, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
SCHOLES: All right.
KEILAR: The recent dropping of mask mandates has many people wondering just how well protected we are against the coronavirus. Our best defense is our immunity from infection or from vaccination. But as CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains, not all protection is the same.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In this lab at Emory University, scientists like Mehul Suthar are working to answer one of the most common questions of the pandemic, how much protection does a previous Covid infection provide?
MEHUL SUTHAR, VIRAL IMMUNOLOGIST, EMORY UNIVERSITY: Whereas a vaccine response, you may have all individuals that got a vaccine have high antibodies that sort of wane over time. With infections you'll have lots of individuals that have very low and individuals that have very high antibody responses.
GUPTA: Take a look at this graph of people who have immunity from a prior infection. See how varied the blue dots and lines are? They represent the antibody response. It's all over the place. It is proof, Suthar says, that not all infections are the same. But with vaccines, a much more predictable, consistent antibody response.
But how do you use this data to make decisions in the real world, especially now that states have loosened measures like masks and vaccine mandates?
GUPTA (on camera): If I were to get my antibodies checked, could I then get some sort of measure of just how protected I am?
SUTHAR: There aren't good corelites (ph) of protection. Something that says that this is the measurement that one needs to know how well they are protected. And now with these variants, we're seeing how these anti-body responses sot of take a hit.
GUPTA: Let's say you're in a situation where someone essentially doesn't have antibodies anymore. You're going to measure their antibodies that you don't see them. Does that mean they no longer have protection?
SUTHAR: Not necessarily. So there's several aspects to one's immune system that can drive protection.
GUPTA (voice over): Like b cells, which can make more antibodies if the virus comes back. And t cells, which help activate the immune system and get rid of infected cells.
Antibodies in your blood naturally wane over time. Think of it like security lights at your home. When there's an intruder nearby, they should turn on. But when there's no more threat, you want them to turn back off.
GUPTA (on camera): Why do we focus so much on antibodies?
SUTHAR: One aspect is that antibodies are probably one of the easiest to measure in the laboratory.
DR. DORRY SEGEV, PROFESSOR OF SURGERY, NYU LANGONE HEALTH: The immunity you get from prior Covid infection has become way more politicized than anything I've ever seen in medicine. But it's still a very important medical question.
GUPTA (voice over): Dr. Dorry Segev is a transplant surgeon who says antibody tests should be used in some cases to understand how protected people are. In February, he published research on hundreds of unvaccinated Americans who had Covid.
SEGEV: Almost every single one of them had detectable antibodies.
GUPTA: And the science says, if those people then later got vaccinated, they will have even more robust immunity than infection alone. It's something Segev thinks we do need to take into consideration
SEGEV: Covid is a high-risk, high-consequence way of getting immunity. But if you had Covid and you went through that and you have immunity, that is something we need to respect and we need to incorporate in the ways we draw this -- sort of the new social contract of Covid.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: So, Brianna, there's no question that if you've been previously infected, that can provide immunity.
[07:00:05]
But the real issue has been how consistent is, how predictable is it? Somebody who's older.
