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New Day

CNN Reports, U.S. Provided Intel That Helped Ukraine Target Russian Warship; Officials Warn of Potential Violence in D.C., Nationwide Over Roe; Dow Plunges 1,000-Plus Points in Wall Street's Worst Day of the Year. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired May 06, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: When it would be the first horse since 1883 to win the Kentucky Derby in only its third race.

[07:00:05]

So, if you're looking to pick a horse, maybe go with Taiba, because, hey, that's due to fall at some point, right?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN ANCHOR: You have got to love those names, so clever.

All right, Andy Scholes, have a great time, my friend.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Love that jacket there.

All right, new this morning -- New Day begins right now. We have four astronauts --

MARQUARDT: All right. Well, good morning to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. It is Friday, May 6th. I'm Alex Marquardt here today on this Friday morning with Brianna Keilar. John Berman is off today.

And this morning, we continue to see what's going on in Ukraine. There are questions about the role the United States might have played in a major blow to the Russian military. Sources are now telling CNN that the United States provided intelligence that helped Ukraine sink Russia's flagship, the Black Sea flagship known as the Moskva. It was sunk last month in the Black Sea.

The Pentagon is also pushing back now on that story. Overnight, defense officials denied giving Ukraine any specific targeting information about the Moskva and said they were not involved with the Ukrainians' decision to carry out the strike on the ship.

So, big question, how will Russia respond to all of this? We'll be asking the Pentagon press secretary, John Kirby, when he joins us live in a bit.

KEILAR: In Mariupol this morning, Russian shelling of the Azovstal plant is not stopping. It is believed that about 200 people, 200 Ukrainians are still sheltering there, women, children and wounded soldiers among them. Right now, the next stage of evacuations is reportedly underway. A medic inside the plant says people are dying in agony bullet wounds, hunger and lack of medicine.

Joining us now is the adviser to Mariupol's mayor, Petro Andriushchenko. Petro, thank you so much for being with us, and we're so sorry to hear about the conditions that are happening right now in that plant, especially for the civilians.

Can you tell us about the evacuations that are or are not taking place?

PETRO ANDRIUSHCHENKO, ADVISER TO MARIUPOL MAYOR: Good day. So, yes, our operation is in action, so, as we know, our evacuation for now, it's very hard to process because a lot of about negotiation with the United Nation, chief of the United Nation and Russian government. So, we haven't for this time any information about evacuation from Azovstal but we hope. All we need is just hope is that the operation might be successful.

But we can see Russians stopped shelling for some time, for a short time and we think it's a very good sign for this mission.

KEILAR: You think it's a very good sign. Have any of the civilians died inside of the plant here in the last day?

ANDRIUSHCHENKO: Last days, we know at about two deaths of women. And it's very sad story because a woman died just after those buses with the evacuation convoy with the United Nation went out of Azovstal and the Russian troops started shelling again and our women died.

KEILAR: There's been a rising number of Russian officials visiting Mariupol. What do you think is going on there, Petro?

ANDRIUSHCHENKO: We know they want to show for Mariupol that the world, Mariupol is a part of Russia. They prepare (INAUDIBLE).

KEILAR: All right. I think we may have lost petro there. Okay. We may have -- do we have Petro back there? All right, I think we have reestablished our connection there with Petro.

Petro what were you saying about Russian officials visiting?

ANDRIUSHCHENKO: It's a show. It's a real show for the world and for the Mariupol people and first of all for the Russian people, because the Russians said that Mariupol will be part of Russia in the nearest time, in the future. So, our children are (INAUDIBLE) on a book, on a school notes that Mariupol is a Rostov district.

And we show that a Russian official, person in Mariupol, they prepare to army parade for the Victory Day.

[07:05:04]

So, we see just about that. It's one target of their reasons.

KEILAR: Petro, thank you so much for being with us. We're going to continue checking in with you. Petro Andriushchenko from the Mariupol area, we appreciate it.

MARQUARDT: Well, here in Washington and all across the country, law enforcement is bracing for potential violence following the release of the Supreme Court draft opinion that was published earlier this week on Roe versus Wade.

CNN has learned that the U.S. Capitol police are bracing for large demonstrations that are being organized by far-right groups to protest abortion rights.

CNN's Whitney Wild is live this morning outside the Supreme Court with the latest. Whitney, what are authorities fearing could happen?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: The major risk here based on the conversations I have had with several members of law enforcement throughout the week is that there is a very real concern here that people who are committed to committing acts of violent extremism could use the Roe v. Wade opinion as justification for that. And that could include the possibility that someone would commit an act of violence against abortion providers, against the clinics, against members of the judiciary, members of the federal government, and that also includes members of the Supreme Court. They are also very closely monitoring threats that have erupted really on social media.

I should caution, though, there are no specific credible threats. However, social media chatter is being taken much more seriously in the wake of January 6th. And here in Washington, you're seeing one of the -- really, the new reactions that law enforcement has in the wake of January 6th, and it's these non-scalable fences that law enforcement puts up.

Just take a look behind me here at the Supreme Court. This is this eight-foot non-scalable fence that went up late Wednesday night. Next to that are these concrete barriers, which is really shutting down the road here. And it is truly the physical representation that law enforcement is concerned.

Yesterday, officials had a call with 150 participants across country warning state and local law enforcement that the possibility for violence is very real and they must be on high alert. Here in D.C., riot cops are on standby through at least Sunday, Alex.

MARQUARDT: Sadly, this city has seen far too much of that fencing around the Capitol, around Black Lives Matter Plaza, and now we fear that there could be violence over this potential ruling at the Supreme Court. Whitney Wild at the Supreme Court this morning, thanks very much.

Now, markets are down and economic anxiety, as a result, is way up. U.S. markets plunged yesterday with the Dow alone falling more than a thousand points marking Wall Street's worst day of 2022. Now, it came after a day of big gains thanks to the Federal Reserve announcing that it had planned to raise interest rates in an attempt to tackle inflation Joining us now is are CNN Anchor and Correspondent and Business Editor at Large Richard Quest and former Wall Street Executive Alexis Glick. Thank you so much to you both for joining us this morning.

Richard, let me start with you. Can you explain the massive swing, really high after the announcement on Wednesday, and then it just plummeted, it crashed yesterday?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It shows that the market is in deep dysfunction, therapy. I mean, the market -- look, the rise was an aberration. It was caused by some weirdness about what Chairman Powell said or didn't say, might have said, thought they said. The reality is what happened yesterday. Because what the market did yesterday was take back the gains and continue the fall that it already been started.

So, I wouldn't worry about what you saw with the gains. I would be far more concerned about the fall and the continuing unease this dysfunction and volatility that the market has.

KEILAR: What did you think watching this, Alexis? And are you worried that we could see a long-term trend here?

ALEXIS GLICK, FORMER WALL STREET EXECUTIVE: Well, what we saw yesterday, frankly, is a reality check. There are so many headwinds in the marketplace. It's not just what that the Federal Reserve has to do to tamp down inflation, we have an exceptionally tight labor market. We have 11.5 million open jobs right now. You talk to any CEO, I was on the phone with six of them last night, it is an exceptionally difficult marketplace to find talent. And right now, if you have cash on your balance sheet, you can recruit people over from one place to another.

So, you have a combination of rising prices, a tight labor market, you have the situation with energy prices because of what's happening with Russia and Ukraine. And now you have real concern over scares around COVID and China. All of these things are adding up and what they are suggesting is we're going to have turbulent waters moving forward.

[07:10:05]

QUEST: And what the market is doing is exactly what policymakers wanted to do. I mean, they won't admit it in words one syllable, but they want to see a lower market, they want to see slightly higher unemployment or at least looser employment because that gives them a slowdown that they are seeking without hopefully a recession.

GLICK: Well, and also the big thing that we are in the middle of right now is earnings season. And what we saw yesterday were more of the tea leaves around earnings. The issue is, as inflation and prices are rising, can you pass on those prices to the consumer?

Now, most folks are trying to do that if they can. The issue is right now is how quickly and how aggressively. And the uncertainty of the supply chain and the labor shortage is adding a lot of uncertainty in the business room.

But let me just say one thing, the of us were talking about this before. I was traveling through Europe and through the U.S. just last week. Airports are jam packed. The consumer has been doing very, very well and consumer spending has been very strong. The question will be we have CPI, the consumer price index, next week. We have employment later this morning. How does the consumer adjust in the next six months to a year? And that will be the big question mark.

MARQUARDT: I think there's very little way for our viewers to see those numbers, see those graphs and hear what you're saying and not ask themselves, how does this affect me.

So, Richard, this interest rate hike, this volatility, how is it going to affect average Americans?

QUEST: Let's go through it. Your mortgage, your car loan, your credit card, they will all be going up in some shape, form or description. Then you have the inflation that was already before Ukraine, and now on 8.5, 9 percent inflation, and, of course, real inflation in many industries is much higher. So, you have got less money, you're spending more on your loans. You're spending more on the weekly shopping list. You're spending more in every aspect of your life and your wages may be going up marginally because we are getting some improvement on that one.

So, the short and long of it is you're going to feel poorer. They call it the wealth effect. You're going to feel poorer. And this morning, there are many people, ourselves included around this table, who are looking at 401(k) and thinking, I'm not going to do that extension or that conversion or I'm in the going to go on that particular holiday.

GLICK: At the end of the day, with rising inflation, right, your buying power diminishes, right? And the idea here, everyone should think -- the best way to think about this is we put so much money into the marketplace. The Federal Reserve has $9 trillion on their balance sheet. What does that mean? We have had access to easy money for years. That is going away. That's the reality check. So, for the consumer, your buying power has diminished.

Most consumers have already seen that whether going to the supermarket or to pump your gas. And that will continue to get worse unless wage inflation maintains at the same level. But that's the issue right now for the Fed, is a very tight labor market and rising prices. So, if you're a consumer right now, be very judicious, be very careful because it's going to get worse over the next six months.

QUEST: The rock and the hard place.

GLICK: That's exactly right.

KEILAR: That's what we're calling you guys from now on. Thanks, guys, I guess. Richard, Alexis, always great to have you breaking it down. Thank you so much.

So, new this morning, four astronauts who spent the past six months aboard the International Space Station, the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule brought them home overnight. They splashed down, here you see it, really amazing video in the Gulf of Mexico, and CNN's Kristin Fisher is with us now to tell us what we're seeing, what happened and what's ahead. Kristin?

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, what really stands out here is just how frequently and rapidly that SpaceX and NASA are sending astronauts to and from the International Space Station. I mean, remember, don't forget just two years ago, NASA was totally reliant on Russia and its Soyuz spacecraft to get its own astronauts up and back from the International Space Station. So, this is exactly what NASA's commercial crew program was designed to do.

And just look at what SpaceX has been able accomplish over the last month or so starting with that first private mission to the International Space Station. Then they launched Crew 4. And then you can see right here, that's Crew 3, the change of command ceremony, where this NASA astronaut handed over the ceremonial key to a Russian astronaut. It happens all the time up there, but obviously takes on some added significance given the current geopolitical tensions happening over the war in Ukraine.

[07:15:04]

And then, Brianna, about an hour ago, SpaceX also launched a new batch of Starlink satellites, about 54 of them. So, we have all of these launches, both crewed and uncrewed, to and from the International Space Station. This is exactly what NASA was hoping would come from this program. And we are finally seeing it come to fruition.

But just imagine if we didn't have SpaceX. We would still be reliant on the Russians to get our astronauts up there.

KEILAR: Yes. That tempo, it really is unbelievable, as you point that out. Kristin, thank you so much for that. I love that video. It's really something to see.

FISHER: It never gets old.

KEILAR: It never does. Kristin Fisher, thank you so much.

Ahead, some startling revelations from Donald Trump's former defense secretary about bombing Mexico or attempting to, proposing to, and a terrorist's head, what one aide wanted to do with it.

Plus, the FDA limits who can get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine because of possible health risks.

And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMBER HEARD, ACTRESS: I don't want to see him anymore. I don't want to see him anymore. It wasn't (INAUDIBLE). I have never been so scared in my life.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MARQUARDT: More disturbing testimony from Actress Amber Heard about her tumultuous marriage to Johnny Depp. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

MARQUARDT: The FDA has announced new strict limits on the usage of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. The updated guidelines come over the risk of a rare and dangerous clotting condition called TTS after receiving this vaccine.

The vaccine is now being limited to people 18 years or older and people who don't have access to other mRNA COVID vaccines.

Joining us now to discuss is CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner. Dr. Reiner, I'm to glad to have you on this morning to talk about this.

What is TTS and should people who have already gotten the J&J vaccine be worried about it?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: So, I'll answer your second question first, which is no. No one who has received this vaccine should worry about this complication at this point. So, TTS stands for thrombosis with thrombocytopenia, which it translates to clotting with low blood platelets. And it's a syndrome that can occur sort of naturally sometimes in the setting of infection, sometimes as an unusual reaction to certain administered blood thinners.

But what we noticed about a year ago was that a relatively small number of people were developing unusual clots or clots in unusual places, like the brain, often a week to two weeks after getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. It will identify after administration of the other adenovirus vaccine, the AstraZeneca vaccine. So, it seems to be a complication associated with that particular type of vaccine, not seen with the mRNA vaccines.

And last April, the FDA paused administration of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to identify the risk. At that time, they concluded that the risks were low but the damage was done. Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been used very, very sparingly in the United States over the last year. Only about 18 million doses of that vaccine have been administered compared to 5 million doses in the United States of the mRNA vaccine.

So, it's been used very sparingly. Almost no one has gotten it in the last several months. And the risk of this particular, sometimes severe or even fatal complication, usually occurs within one to two weeks.

And the incidents, I will stress, is very, very low. We currently estimate the risk of this at about three per million doses. So, it's a very unlikely.

MARQUARDT: So, Dr. Reiner, to be clear, people who have gotten Johnson & Johnson should feel comfortable with their original vaccine? REINER: Completely comfortable. And the other thing we've noticed from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, particularly when boosted, is that the new response from that vaccine appears to be quite durable. So, that vaccine has done what it was designed to do. This is a very rare, unusual complication, but those people who have been vaccinated sometime over the past year have nothing to worry about.

KEILAR: What does it say about the FDA process more broadly beyond the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, just their approval process of vaccines in general, and how people should have confidence or not in them?

REINER: Well, I think it shows that people should have confidence in the FDA process. So, there's only a certain amount of information that can be garnered from a clinical trial. I mean, if we're looking at a complication that occurs in let's say three out of a million people, the initial trials that administer vaccines to investigational subjects, enrolled thousands or tens of thousands of people, they don't enroll millions of people. So, you sometimes can identify an adverse -- a rare adverse event like this until you do surveillance of large numbers of people. And that's what the FDA and CDC do following the introduction of a new vaccine.

So, I think this should cheer people that the FDA and CDC are continuing to evaluate the safety of these vaccines, which have borne to be very, very safe.

KEILAR: Dr. Reiner, always great to see you. Thank you so much for being with us this morning.

REINER: My pleasure.

KEILAR: Some stunning revelations from Donald Trump's former defense secretary, and that includes one White House adviser who wanted to parade a terrorist head dipped in pig's blood around.

[07:25:05]

MARQUARDT: And there are new explosive allegations made by the actress, Amber Heard, against her ex-husband, Johnny Depp. What she said on the stand in that trial, that's coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARQUARDT: It was yet another day of emotional and graphic testimony from Actress Amber Heard in that $50 million defamation suit leveled against her by her ex-husband, Johnny Depp. The actress detailing alleged physical abuse, she says, that came at the hands of Depp. She says it eventually escalated to the point that the couple was mistreating each other.

CNN's Chloe Melas is live with the latest. Chloe?

CHLOE MELAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: Good morning. Amber Heard taking the stand for hours in her second day of emotional testimony.

[07:30:02] In just a few hours, she's expected to take the stand once again, but let's take a look back at what she had to say yesterday.