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New Day

Voters Hit Polls in Five States, Including Georgia and Alabama; Biden Returning to U.S. After Consequential Asia Trip; CDC Says, Monkeypox Not Sexually Transmitted, But Can Spread Via Close Contact. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired May 24, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Brianna Keilar on this New Day.

[07:00:01]

A proxy war to determine the path of the Republican Party, as primary voters head to the polls, and President Biden heading home after a consequential trip through Asia, his off-the-cuff comments sparking outrage from China.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And there's new data on monkeypox, what scientists are now saying about how it spreads.

And Supermodel Kate Moss about to take the stand in defense of Johnny Depp.

BERMAN: Welcome too our viewers in the United States and all around the world. It is Tuesday, May 24th.

Spotlight on Georgia, one of five states where voters will head to the polls today. The Republican race for governor is turning into something of a proxy war, pitting former President Donald Trump against his vice president, Mike Pence. And there are parts of it that are getting pretty tense there. Pence stumped for incumbent Governor Brian Kemp in an election eve rally. Trump is supporting his primary opponent, David Perdue. Kemp has been a top Trump target for his role in helping certify the 2020 election.

KEILAR: And Trump unloading on Pence in a statement saying this, quote, Mike Pence was set to lose a governor's race in 2016 before he was plucked up in his political career was salvaged. Now desperate to chase his lost relevance, Pence is parachuting into races hoping someone is paying attention.

In the meantime, Trump's candidate, David Perdue, took a racially charged swipe at Stacey Abrams, the presumptive Democratic gubernatorial nominee, after she said Georgia was the worst state in the country to live, citing the state's incarceration rate and poor rankings in maternal mortality, among other issues.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FMR. SEN. DAVID PERDUE (R-GA): Hey, she ain't from here. Let her go back where she came from. She doesn't like it here. The only thing she wants is to be president of the United States. She doesn't care about the people of Georgia. That's clear. When she told black farmers you don't need to be on the farm, and she told black workers in hospitality and all this, you don't need to be -- she is demeaning her own race when it comes to that. I'm really over this. She should never be considered for governor of any state, much less our state where she hates to live.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. Joining us now for a preview of the big races, CNN Senior Data Reporter Harry Enten.

Harry, let's start with Georgia, the governor's race there, and what you're looking for.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: I mean, look, I think the question here, though, you mentioned at the top of the ticket, right, Donald Trump backs Perdue, Brian Kemp is backed by Mike Pence. The question is going to be 50 percent plus 1. That is the leader needs to, coming out of tonight, to avoid a runoff, needs to get at least 50 percent plus 1.

And that's going to be thing. It's not enough just to lead, you have to get the majority of the vote. That's the general rule in deep southern primaries. It is the case here. And so that's going to be the ultimate question as whether someone can get a majority of that vote.

BERMAN: What other governors' races are you watching?

ENTEN: So, look, we've got all of this stuff about Georgia and basically this Trump/Pence proxy war. This, to me, is a very interesting race in Arkansas. Not a lot of discussion over it, Sarah Huckabee Sanders is looking to be that state's next governor. And, look, she's got the backing of Donald Trump and she's, of course, also the daughter of former Governor Mike Huckabee. I believe the only other father/daughter pairing, if I'm not mistaken, was Kathleen Sebelius and her father, well, they govern in different states. In this particular case, what you have is someone and Sarah Hucakbee Sanders who's looking to govern the exact same state.

So, if Georgia ends up not going great for Donald Trump, obviously, we'll have to wait and see. Arkansas could be a bright spot for him.

BERMAN: It's a good double jeopardy question there.

In Georgia, there is also a Senate races, which could have consequences not just for today but going forward to November.

ENTEN: That's exactly right. So, look, the main candidate here is Herschel Walker. He is backed by Donald Trump. But I think, ultimately, what we're looking at here, since I don't think most people know these names, is what does this mean for the general election, right? I think Democrats are hopeful in the state. Raphael Warnock is the likely Democratic nominee. Depending on who gets this exact nomination, if, let's say, it is Herschel Walker, can the Democrats attack him in the fall? Obviously, he has a record, he has said some things, there are some things in that record. So, if Walker ends up being victorious tonight, I think it will be very interesting to see tomorrow morning, what do Democrats say about Herschel Walker.

BERMAN: The Republican Senate primary in Alabama has some interesting quirks, Harry.

ENTEN: I think that this one, no one really was paying attention to it, and I brought it up last week. And wait a minute, what's going on here?

So, look, Mo Brooks, Donald Trump initially endorsed Mo Brooks but then withdrew that endorsement in March. He didn't necessarily like some of the numbers that were going on.

[07:05:00]

So, it's going to be interesting to see if Brooks can make a runoff, because, again, those deep southern primaries, the leader needs 50 percent plus 1, otherwise there's a top-two runoff on June 21. So, even if one of these top-tier candidates ends up being the leader, if they don't hit 50 percent plus 1, there will, in fact, be a runoff.

So, again, in these deep southern primaries, it's not just looking at who the leader is, it's whether or not they get a majority.

BERMAN: Also, what is the impact of an unendorsement?

ENTEN: Yes, I think that's a key question. Because if Mo Brooks is able to reach that runoff, right, that's quite embarrassing for Donald Trump.

BERMAN: Well, let's talk about Democrats for a second here in Texas. There's an interesting runoff in Texas.

ENTEN: There is an interesting runoff. So, again, in a deep southern state, perhaps, depending on your definition of deep south, but certainly a southern state, you go back to March, what you had was Henry Cueller, who is the incumbent there, he got more votes than Jessica Cisneros, 49 percent to 47 percent. But, again, didn't reach that 50 percent plus 1, so we have a runoff.

And Cuellar is one of the most conservatives Democrats in Congress. Cisneros has been running to his left. She's a real, true progressive. And this is a proxy war within the Democratic Party, again, of that more moderate conservative wing versus that more progressive wing. This is definitely a race I'll be watching tonight.

BERMAN: So, there's also a race that has to do with sort of history and legacy in Texas.

ENTEN: There is. So, the attorney general GOP primary runoff here, Ken Paxton, who is the incumbent, who has that Donald Trump endorsement, going up against George P. Bush. Paxton got more votes in that first round. It is going to be very interesting to see happens there tonight.

BERMAN: Jeb Bush's son, George W. Bush's nephew.

ENTEN: Look, I kind of thought the Bush name gave it away but, especially that George Bush part. But, yes, Jeb Bush's son, yes.

BERMAN: All right. Harry Enten, great to see you. Thank you very much, sir.

ENTEN: Nice to see you.

BERMAN: So, there was a surge in early voting in Georgia ahead of today's primary contest and what is the first big state of the state's new election law. A record number of ballots have been cast.

CNN's Amara Walker with the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've never been so excited to stand in line. And this has me feeling really good and very optimistic that the numbers are in, people do care and we're putting our votes where it counts.

AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Georgia primary voters are turning out early in record numbers.

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: Georgia voters, you know, now they know that the nation looks at them as like a state to pay attention to.

WALKER: During the three-week early voting period that ended last Friday, more than 850,000 people cast a ballot in-person or in by mail in the Georgia primaries, a 168 percent increase compared to the same time period of the 2018 primary. That's according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who is seeking re-election this year.

SECRETARY OF STATE BRAD RAFFENSPERGER (R-GA): As you recall, when we passed the Election Integrity Act of 2021, everyone said it's going to make it hard for people to vote.

Well, the numbers prove them wrong, doesn't it?

WALKER: The numbers defying predictions from many Democrats and voting rights activists that Georgia's new voting law could lead to a drop-off in voting. President Biden and Stacey Abrams, who is running unopposed in Georgia's Democratic gubernatorial primary both liken the bill to Jim Crow last year.

GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE STACEY ABRAMS (D-GA): We have to remember that voter expression isn't about stopping every voter. It's about blocking and impeding those voters who are considered inconvenient.

WALKER: The controversial law signed by Governor Kemp in March 2021 imposed new voter I.D. requirements for absentee ballots, limits the use of ballot drop boxes and the hours they're available, restricts how voters can be provided food and water near a polling location, and it added an additional Saturday of early voting while making it optional for counties to have two Sundays for early voting.

GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): This actually expands access.

WALKER: The Republican-controlled Georgia legislature approved the voting law after Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win in Georgia in nearly three decades.

KERON BLAIR, CHIEF ORGANIZING AND FIELD OFFICER, NEW GEORGIA PROJECT: We are clear that was voter suppression and intended to intimidate voters.

They are like, whatever they try to do, it's not going to work. We are going to show up and show out.

WALKER: Keron Blair with the New Georgia Project, a voter registration group founded by Abrams, says the new law may be mobilizing voters but it's still creating obstacles.

BLAIR: When we're at the polls tomorrow, how do we hand out ponchos and not get arrested?

WALKER: While it's hard to measure the impact of Georgia's voting law, it's clear enthusiasm for the Georgia primary remains high.

MITCHELL: Yes, there was a lot of hyperbole about SB-202, the question is will those tweaks impact voters in ways that could influence the outcome of a close race?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALKER (on camera): Now, election officials tell me overall they do expect to see a record turnout in a primary. The last time a record was set was during the 2018 Georgia primary, where roughly 1.3 million people came out to cast their ballots.

Now, voting activists tell me that they're working much harder this time around to get out the new vote because of their concerns over the new voting law. In fact, the New Georgia Project says that they're hoping to get 50,000 new voters registered by fall. John and Brianna?

[07:10:06]

KEILAR: Prepare for a surge at the border, despite a court blocking President Biden's efforts to end a Trump-era COVID border restriction. We're learning that's not going to stop a record number of migrants coming to the border.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is here with this new reporting. What are they expecting, Priscilla?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN REPORTER: Well, we have to look at the border crossing in the broader context of the western hemisphere and the coronavirus pandemic deteriorated conditions in Latin America. And we're not just talking about El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, we're talking about across Latin America. There's been political instability. There's been violence and jobs have tried up. And that means that people are moving. We know about millions of Venezuelans who have left the country, Nicaraguans who are coming up to the U.S.- Mexico border, and Haitians who moved to South America years ago.

And so advocates on the ground in Northern Mexico are telling me that migrants remain desperate and largely undeterred when it comes to wanting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, and the numbers just this past weekend show that. In the Rio Grande Valley sector, that's the southern part of Texas, there were more than 500 arrests. And in Yuma, Arizona, there was over 1,500 arrests within a 24-hour period. All of this after that court ruling that said Title 42 remains will in place for now, and that means that they're still turning them away.

Now, the Department of Homeland Security has said they're continuing to prep for an increase of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border working with partners in the region and trying to bolster enforcement with Mexico. But officials tell me there is no assumption right now that numbers are going to drop anytime soon just given the broader situation of the western hemisphere.

KEILAR: How long do you think we're going to see a surge?

ALVAREZ: Well, officials tell me it could be months of seeing what they're seeing right now, which is 1,700 people a day, just roughly around there. And so they're working on managing that and trying to stem the flow.

KEILAR: All right. Priscilla, thank you so much for that. I appreciate it.

BERMAN: For the first time in nearly two decades, the Justice Department is changing its policy on use of force. According to The Washington Post, the new policy says federal agents have a duty to intervene if they see abuse by another law enforcement official.

Early Start Anchor and Attorney at Law Laura Jarrett joins me now with this, and the timing also very interesting.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, the timing is interesting. This is really a sea change within DOJ. And the attorney general basically bottom line saying, if you see something, do something. That's really the gist of this. They call it a duty to intervene in its sort of legalese language. But that's all it's really saying here.

And the timing here, this memo has not been updated since 2004. When you think about all of the police involved, shootings and killings that we've seen over the time, over the Democratic administrations, plenty in the Obama administration, and yet this is the first time it's been updated.

And the tone is notable here. I want to read just a piece of the memo that, as you said, the Post obtained. It says this. It is the policy of the Department of Justice to value and preserve human life. Officers may use only the force that is objectively reasonable, this is more legal language, to effectively gain control of an incident, while protecting the safety of the officer and others. Also interesting, the memo says that you have a duty to render medical aid. You think back, of course, the case of George Floyd, other officers on the scene there watching him, wreathing in pain, calling out for help. This memo now says if you have been trained, you have a duty not only to intervene but to render, to call for medical aid in a situation like that.

But it's important to also recognize this is super limited in scope because this is only about federal officers. This is only about the FBI, ATF. The vast majority of policing in this country happens at the state and local level. Merrick Garland has no jurisdiction over that but it does send a message.

BERMAN: It's putting down a marker.

JARRETT: Yes.

BERMAN: It's putting down a marker and he knows people will see this, this sort of a statement.

JARRETT: That's right.

BERMAN: All right. Laura Jarrett, great to have you, thank you so much.

KEILAR: Right now, President Biden is heading home from a consequential Trip to Asia, his comments that the U.S. is willing to defend Taiwan militarily if China attacks, sending diplomatic shockwaves around the globe. This morning, Biden insisted America's longstanding strategic ambiguity towards Taiwan has not changed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Mr. President, is the policy of strategic ambiguity towards Taiwan dead?

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: No.

REPORTER: Could you explain?

BIDEN: No.

REPORTER: Mr. President, would you send troops to Taiwan if China invaded?

BIDEN: The policy has not changed at all. I said that when I made --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Joining me now is CNN Political and National Security Analyst David Sanger, who we need to help us sort this out, because he's saying the policy hasn't shifted, but, repeatedly, he makes it clear that it seems to have.

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: You know, he sat on this three times. In August, right after the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan, the question came would you go and defend Taiwan militarily.

[07:15:03]

He suggested, yes, again in October, in a CNN town hall, and now this time. What does that tell you? This isn't an accident. Joe Biden is not new to the rules of the game in talking about China versus Taiwan. This is all guided by the Taiwan Relations Act. He's probably one of the last politicians still operating in Washington who voted for the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979. He was a young senator in Delaware. He's been to Taiwan many times.

So, what's happening is, he wants to maintain this concept of strategic ambiguity, which is what diplomats use to discuss policy that basically is supposed to leave the Chinese guessing. But he's trying to bias it towards some strategic clarity, which is to say, don't expect that you're going to go into Taiwan unopposed.

KEILAR: Does it need to change, maybe? Does this strategy need to change?

SANGER: My own view is, it probably does. Strategic ambiguity was put together at a time when China was not a major military power. When it did not really show terribly aggressive tendencies either by sending flights into Taiwan's air defense zone, or down through the South China Sea, where the Chinese have built bases.

So, it's very possible that it just no longer fits the moment and he senses this. The president senses this. But it hasn't been able to move the policy process to actually change it. And they know that if they did change it in some formal sense, it could well spark something with the Chinese.

KEILAR: So, what are the behind-the-scenes dynamics in this administration when you have the president so clearly saying, yes, the U.S. will intervene militarily if China will attack? You look at the State Department website, they've gotten rid of language that said that they don't support Taiwan independence, that had acknowledged the Beijing policy that Taiwan is part of China, while yet still insisting that nothing has changed but things are changing. What internally is going on? What is that tug-of-war?

SANGER: Well, it's always been a tug-of-war over Taiwan issues across administrations. You saw it happen in the Obama administration. You saw it happen to some degree in the Trump administration, when it moved depending on whether President Trump thought he could get a trade deal out of China or not and then it got harder line after coronavirus which, of course, President Trump called China virus, right?

But in this administration, it's pretty interesting because they feel like they need to stake out much tougher ground. And they think that the Ukraine experience, remember, we're three months out today, right, they think the Ukraine experience has made the Chinese leadership stop and take stock, and say, gee, maybe our military isn't quite as vaunted as we thought it was, as Vladimir Putin discovered. Hey, maybe the United States can organize the world to respond both with weaponry and with sanctions.

KEILAR: Yes. It's perhaps this reorganization of dynamics that we're seeing of these global powers. And I know it's just words, but you have to wonder if you look back at some point in time in the coming years and point to this as a key moment in time. So, it's certainly worth exploring here. David Sanger, thank you so much.

SANGER: Thank you.

KEILAR: We have some new information from the CDC about how monkeypox is spreading.

Plus, new COVID cases among kids in America up 72 percent from two weeks ago. What's behind that surge? Dr. Sanjay Gupta will be here to break it all down.

BERMAN: And fewer than a thousand votes stand between Mehmet Oz and David McCormick in Pennsylvania's Senate primary. The legal fight now on over which ballots should be counted.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

KEILAR: New developments on the outbreak of monkeypox. The CDC says it is not a sexually transmitted infection but it can be spread through sexual and intimate contact. So far, there is one confirmed case of monkeypox in the United States and at least four others suspected.

Joining us now, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, what about how the CDC is framing about the spread and how it can be spread?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is based on very small and early data. So, you know, at this time, I think we're still collecting, trying to figure out exactly how this could be spreading but they know that it's still rare. Historically, this has been hard to transmit, unlike what we talk about with COVID, which is airborne. People typically needed prolonged contact with somebody before they would actually, potentially contract this.

I think what's driving some of this framing is that what they've seen around the world is that it's primarily been -- these cases have primarily been in men age 20 to 50. It's -- and more so, a larger fraction of the gay and bisexual community, which is why you're seeing some targeted messaging there.

But, overall, in terms what we've seen before, and there have been outbreaks in this country before, it sort of fits a similar pattern. People typically need prolonged contact with somebody. They typically have had travel to Western or Central Africa in order to contract this and they have sort of similar symptoms ones you that see there on the screen, swollen lymph nodes and the sort of characteristics lesions that people associate with pox. But, again, this is pretty rare. What is unusual a little bit about this outbreak is that, so far, there have been at least a few cases where people did not seem to have known travel to an area where monkeypox is endemic and they didn't seem to have contact with someone who is infected.

[07:25:09]

So, I think that's what they're still trying to figure out.

By the way, it's interesting, the oldest people who have been contracted this in the outbreak are in their around 50 or early 50s, which is around the same time that we stopped vaccinating against smallpox, which is an important point because the smallpox vaccines of which we have stores could be beneficial for this as well, if need be.

KEILAR: Yes. You point out it's rare. It's not new, though, right? I know you've covered this virus -- you've covered it years ago back in 2008, you actually spent time with monkeypox patients in Congo. What can we learn?

GUPTA: Yes. I mean, I'll tell you, first of all, this job is amazing sometimes because you see things that very few people get to see. We were in Congo back in 2008, and I spent time with patients who had monkeypox. This one woman, Coya (ph), I remember, I had never seen this before. Most people in the world have not seen monkeypox. We learned a lot.

First of all, it's a little bit of a misnomer even to call it monkeypox. It was found in laboratory monkeys. But, in fact, we're not entirely sure what the reservoir of animals are for monkeypox. It's probably rodents of some sort. Typically, the way someone contacts this, they come in contact with those animals. That's called the zoonotic transfer. It transfers the virus, transfers from animal to human. It can transfer from human to human as well after humans become infected, or even from bed sheets and things like that that have been infected or contaminated, I should say, by the virus, but, again, hard usually to transmit.

I mean, you could see, I was standing pretty close to that woman, Coya (ph), and I wasn't worried about transmission because it doesn't transmit the same way that we think about respiratory viruses.

BERMAN: That was 15 years ago, Sanjay, and you look like it was yesterday. You haven't aged a minute since that.

GUPTA: The last couple of years, I think, have aged me quite a bit.

BERMAN: I want to ask quickly about COVID, if I can, because that's what we're talking the last two years, we've all been through this. And now we're seeing a rise again in cases among children. What's going on?

GUPTA: Yes. I mean, so there's a few things going on. If you just look at the numbers over the past few weeks, you do see that the numbers have gone up among children. You can look at the numbers there, compared to a couple weeks ago versus now. But when you actually distill those numbers down a little bit, you see that the inertia, the trajectory with which those numbers are increasing, is starting to slow. So, still going up but not going up as rapidly.

But, overall, as a percentage, and this is a significant percentage of overall cases, so if you look at all of the cases, adults and children in the United States, getting closer to 20 percent of those being made of children now.

You know, it could be because kids are more likely to get tested in schools and things stuff like that, it's always hard to parse out these numbers, as we've talked about for two years, because we still don't do enough testing, we still don't know what the denominator when I show you numbers like this, 100,000 out of what in this case.

So, the numbers are going up, they're still going up, but not as quickly as before. And at the same time, we're having discussions about the possibility of a vaccine, you know, for younger kids as well. That may happen over the next couple weeks.

BERMAN: Let's hope so. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, great to see you, thank you so much.

GUPTA: You too.

BERMAN: We have a CNN exclusive, new evidence that Russian ships may be stealing food from Ukraine.

KEILAR: And a former supermodel preparing to take the stand in the Amber Heard/Johnny Depp trial.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:30:00]