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New Day

DOJ Asks Judge to Force Testimony in January 6th Probe; Effectiveness of Covid Boosters; Northwest Preparing for Rain and Snow; Florida Struggles after Hurricane. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired October 26, 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]

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: You are not being struck directly by Russian missiles You are beginning to go cold. And I think that the warning to people not to return, Ukrainians, is a very telling one because basically what it says is, we are not going to be able to restore ordinary life in Ukraine for some period of time, certainly through this winter.

So, it looks like Putin's got a two-part strategy. One is freeze Ukraine, and then the question is, how much does he squeeze the rest of Europe as it turns cold in an effort to try to split the alliance.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, it's going to be a very difficult winter, as you point out, not just for Ukraine but Europe potentially as well.

David Sanger, thank you, as always.

SANGER: Thank you.

MARQUARDT: Always a pleasure.

Now the Justice Department is asking a federal judge to force two Trump White House lawyers to testify in their January 6th probe. We'll have a CNN exclusive coming up next.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And we'll take you live to Ft. Myers Beach, Florida, where people are struggling to recover four weeks after Hurricane Ian.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDY JONES, HOME DESTROYED IN IAN: Just Starting over with everything in your life. Ninety-five percent of my stuff is gone. You have nowhere to turn as far as a guide to what you're supposed to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:35:26]

KEILAR: Now to a CNN exclusive. Sources telling CNN the Justice Department is asking a federal judge

to force the top two lawyers from Trump's White House counsel's office, Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin, to testify about their conversations with the former president as part of its January 6th investigation.

Katelyn Polantz joins us now.

OK, what are the implications here for the January 6th investigation, and how would they get around privilege?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Right. Well, in a lot of ways, this is the ballgame for the January 6th criminal prosecutions and the grand jury investigation around Donald Trump and after the election.

What's going on here, what they're trying to get at is direct conversations with Donald Trump. We know that Cipollone and Philbin have talked about a lot of their experiences after the election and then leading up to and on January 6th. The one thing they're not answering, either to the House Select Committee or to the grand jury is exactly what they were -- advice that they were giving Trump himself, direct conversations that they had with Trump.

So, what's happening here is Donald Trump is trying to block those final answers from them, from going to the grand jury in this criminal investigation claiming attorney/client privilege, executive privilege. And whatever the courts decide here, we were waiting for some sort of court fight to materialize where Justice would try and force them back into the grand jury to answer. However this ends up with this court fight, it has implications for lots of different people, other people in the White House, very high ranking, very close to Trump, who have also been subpoenaed.

KEILAR: It's also worth noting, two top vice president advisers were compelled to testify here over the past few weeks, right?

POLANTZ: Right. Well, Brianna, that was the precursor court fight to this. A very similar court fight where Donald Trump was trying to block these final answers from being given by two people in the vice president's office, Greg Jacob and Marc Short. Greg Jacob was the chief council to Pence. Marc Short was the chief of staff.

In that court fight, what we learned is the Justice Department won. Donald Trump lost. And both of those men had to return to the grand jury to give final answers that they were -- that Trump had blocked from them giving before. And they both did that at the beginning of October.

Obviously, not a great sign when the judge has already ruled in favor of the Justice Department heading into this next round with Cipollone and Philbin, but all of this is really crucial in determining what exactly the Justice Department and the grand jury can get to.

KEILAR: Katelyn, you're following every step. Thank you so much for sharing it with us. There's some new data this morning on those updated Covid-19 boosters

and the protection they provide against the omicron variant.

MARQUARDT: And Justice Samuel Alito opening up about the leak of his draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUSTICE SAMUEL ALITO, SUPREME COURT: It was a grave betrayal of trust.

It certainly changed the atmosphere at the court.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:42:18]

MARQUARDT: A new study this morning suggests that the newly updated Covid-19 boosters may not necessarily offer broader protection against subvariants of omicron.

CNN's senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us with more on this.

Elizabeth, I'm about to get my next booster, so I'm definitely listening closely. What more did this study find?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: All right, Alex, I'm going to cut to the chase then. I am so glad you're going to be getting that booster. All of us should get that booster, even with this news that I'm about to tell you.

So, we know there's this new bivalent booster. It's supposed to cover the original Covid as well as the new omicron version of Covid. And so what the folks at Harvard and Columbia labs both did is they said, well, does this new one work any better than the variants that are - against the variants that are out there. Is this new one any better than the old Covid booster that people have been getting for years at this point?

So, they put it to the test. Let's take a look at the results from the Harvard lab.

What they found is that the original booster, the one that people have been getting for ages now - well, not ages but certainly years, it boosted antibodies 15 times. The new omicron booster boosted antibodies 17 times. They said that's not much of a difference. It's not statistically statistic. So basically what they found was it didn't really matter which one you got.

Now, I will note that this Harvard lab, they were instrumental in developing the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is a competitor to the mRNA vaccines that are out there. But, even having said that, the Columbia lab found something very, very similar. Bottom line, though all of this, is these boosters help. Go out and

get it. You have to get the new omicron one. It's your only choice. It will protect you from getting very sick from Covid with Covid-19. It will go a long way to keeping you out of the hospital and keeping you out of the morgues.

Alex.

MARQUARDT: So, Elizabeth, what do you think that means from the future of these mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna?

COHEN: Right. So, these vaccines, Alex, they have really -- they were a miracle when they came out. They saved so many lives. They really worked so beautifully. But what we found over the past two years or so is, you know what, they don't last all that long. We keep having to get these boosters.

So, I was kind of shocked to hear Dr. Peter Marks, he's in charge of the vaccine program at FDA, he told the news outlet Stat (ph) that he thinks we ought to be looking at other kinds of vaccines. He was actually quite blunt about it, which is very unusual for the FDA.

What he said is, we need to look at other types of vaccines. And there are those out there that might provide more durable immunity.

I know that sounds kind of dull, but that's actually pretty shocking coming from the FDA saying, hey, we need to look at something else. He said we owe it to the American people to see if other types of vaccines might be better and longer lasting.

[06:45:06]

Alex.

MARQUARDT: All right, Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much for that report. Appreciate it.

Now billionaire no more. Kanye West anti-Semitic reportedly knocking a couple of zeros off of his net worth.

KEILAR: Thirty-one hours, 200 feet underground. How a group of tourists got trapped in the Grand Canyon caverns.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In total, the last person out, it was 31 hours.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was no way in the world that we were going to be able to make it out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:50:30]

KEILAR: Well, this morning the, drought-plagued northwest is looking forward to more rain and snow across the region.

So, let's get to CNN meteorologist Chad Myers with the forecast.

Is it all good news here for the northwest?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Pretty much. I mean you really can't go wrong here. There's going to be some heavier times where there could be some flooding, a little bit, but really a lot of this is going to be snow, and that takes a long time to melt and so therefore you don't get the flooding but you get to use that snow in the spring when it melts again.

This is what the pacific north looks like and the drought monitor. Areas of extreme drought all the way to the top of the chart.

This weather brought to you by Safelite, your vehicle glass and recalibration experts.

So, how much rain? Well, in some spots, four to six inches over the next five days. But this is what we're looking at, this snow, even into parts of Colorado. That's the snow that will melt and some of this here will get into the Colorado River and eventually hopefully into Lake Mead.

Now, something, if I -- if you take one thing away from this weather show today, there are leaves on the ground and many of them are wet. That is a slippery surface for your car today. Slow down. Don't crash just because, like my dad said, just because you know how.

Here's the forecast here for visibility. Twenty million people with a quarter mile visibility or less this morning.

Slow down this morning. It's going to be a tough one for some people.

Brianna.

KEILAR: Like my dad said with Chad Myers.

Thank you so much.

Ahead, we're going to take you live to Ft. Myers Beach, Florida, where devastated communities are still working to rebuild after Hurricane Ian.

MARQUARDT: And we're live in Ukraine as Vladimir Putin urges his government to, quote, speed up decision making in their war on Ukraine.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:56:42]

MARQUARDT: It has now been four weeks since Hurricane Ian decimated parts of Florida. Many communities are still struggling to recover. And in some, conditions are actually getting worse.

CNN's Carlos Suarez reports from Ft. Myers Beach.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It's been four weeks since Hurricane Ian hit Florida. And the pile of garbage and debris around Kimberly Biano's (ph) neighborhood and outside her north Ft. Myers house grows by the day. Most of what she owned is ruined and most of the home she lived in for 17 years is gone.

We first met her last month just day safter the storm.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is my home.

SUAREZ: These days she's living in a rented RV that's parked in her front yard.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All these areas that hug up to the river, you go back in there and there's - nothing's been cleaned up.

SUAREZ: Across town, Kiana Tobler (ph) and her two kids are among the 512 people living at this shelter. It's their second shelter after Ian left them without a place to call home. She says she turned down FEMA money to pay for a hotel over fears the financial help will not be there forever. Instead, she's hoping the Red Cross can find her a permanent place to stay.

SUAREZ (on camera): What happens if home isn't here in Ft. Myers?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm willing to relocate. I don't have to be here. Wherever I can go for me and my kids to be in a stable, safe situation and environment of our own, I'm all for that.

SUAREZ (voice over): A month into the recovery efforts and parts of Lee County, including Ft. Myers Beach, still don't have power and running water. Access across the Sanibel Causeway remains limited and not all schools have reopened. According to FEMA, more than $1.2 billion in federal grants, disaster loans and flood insurance payments have been made to the state of Florida and households. Now, whether the aid is enough or is being distributed fairly depends on who you ask.

MARK WEEKLY, HOME DESTROYED IN IAN: We've gotten some assistance from FEMA. I don't know what that assistance was, but they sent us a check for about $40,000, which included two months of lodging.

JUDY JONES, HOME DESTROYED IN IAN: This is home. Do you want to start over when you're 63-years-old?

SUAREZ: Judy Jones said she dropped her homeowner's insurance eight years ago when she could no longer afford it, but kept her flood policy.

JONES: But yet the people next door, who don't have insurance, FEMA came and cut them a large check already in three days. So it's like, if you don't have insurance, you seem to get more than if you do have insurance. SUAREZ: She's relying on volunteers to help clear up the house she moved into 30 years ago.

JONES: Because you're starting over with everything in your life. Ninety-five percent of my stuff is gone. You have nowhere to turn as far as a guide to what you're supposed to do.

SUAREZ (on camera): So when folks say it's been too slow, what's your answer to that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Things take time. I feel confident that our carriers are going to do what they came here to do, and that's ensure and make people whole again and, you know, make it as less painful as possible.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SUAREZ: All right, so Lee County officials say it is going to be several more weeks before residents out here start to notice some of this debris being picked up out of their neighborhoods.

Alex and Brianna, right now, residents on Ft. Myers Beach, they're only being allowed onto the barrier island five days a week, from 9:00 in the morning until 5:00 at night.

[07:00:00]

Then they have to get out. The other two days of the week, well, those have been set aside for crews that are working on the power grid.