Return to Transcripts main page

The Situation Room

DOJ Investigates Louisville Police Department; North Carolina Police Shooting Investigation; Sources: Biden To Announce New CDC Guidance On Masks Outdoors Tomorrow; House GOP Leader Dodges Question About Phone Call With Trump During Riot, Claims He Walks Tightrope As He Embraces Trump; India Breaks Record For Single Day Of COVID Cases Five Days In A Row. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired April 26, 2021 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:01]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: He's right next door in "THE SITUATION ROOM."

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM.

Tonight, a North Carolina community is under a state of emergency, as the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man is now prompting even more outrage.

Lawyers for Andrew Brown Jr.'s family say they were shown only a 20- second snippet of police bodycam video of the shooting. They're demanding to see more of the footage, including what happened before and after, arguing that Brown, in their words, was executed.

This as the Justice Department here in Washington is now investigating police practices in another U.S. city, Louisville, Kentucky, the attorney general of the United States announcing the probe over a year after Breonna Taylor was shot to death during a police raid at her Louisville home.

Also tonight, sources tell CNN that President Biden is set to announce new CDC guidance tomorrow on outdoor mask-wearing for people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Lots of news going on today.

First, let's go to CNN's Brian Todd. He's covering and Andrew Brown Jr.'s death in Elizabeth City, North Carolina for us.

Brian, Brown's family did not get the transparency they certainly had hoped for. So, what's the latest? What's happening there tonight?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, some protesters gathering behind us, they just started chanting at some officers who were just watching them from the roof.

So, tensions here are escalating a little bit tonight because, basically, the Brown family and its representatives feel like they have been railroaded by this process. They feel that the county attorney who oversaw them viewing this footage didn't allow them to see enough of it, only allowed them to see 20 seconds of police, of deputy bodycam footage and -- quote -- "disrespected" them throughout this process.

They are demanding answers, Wolf, that they are still not getting.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BENJAMIN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR FAMILY OF ANDREW BROWN JR.: We do not feel that we got transparency. We only saw a snippet of the video.

TODD (voice-over): After five days, the family of Andrew Brown was shown a redacted 20-second bodycam clip of his death during an arrest attempt.

CRUMP: Why is it that they get to choose what's the pertinent parts of the video to show the family?

TODD: Family attorneys say they can't tell what preceded the clip, but they believe shots were already being fired.

CHANTEL CHERRY-LASSITER, ATTORNEY FOR FAMILY OF ANDREW BROWN JR.: He was in his driveway with his hands on the steering wheel, and they were shooting at him while he was just sitting there. And then, as he tried to leave and go back, was trying not to hit them, they were still shooting at him.

TODD: They say officers were saying "Let me see your hands" and shooting at the same time, more shots than they could count. Brown died of a penetrating gunshot wound of the head and died within minutes, according to the death certificate obtained by CNN.

CRUMP: We in black America don't understand why, when a black person is going away from you, you think it's allowable to shoot them in the back and kill them.

TODD: In the car Brown was driving, it is the back windshield that was shot out. And dispatch audio also indicates he was shot in the back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be advised, EMS has one got male, 42 years of age, gunshot to the back.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have a 40-year-old male with gunshot wounds to the back.

TODD: A search warrant newly obtained by CNN says an informant for a drug task force claimed Andrew Brown sold cocaine, crack, heroin and meth and twice caught him on video selling drugs.

KHALIL FEREBEE, SON OF ANDREW BROWN JR.: He got executed. It ain't right. It ain't right at all.

TODD: Lawyers for the family also said they and the family felt disrespected by how little of the bodycam video was shown to them and by attempts to limit which of them watched. BAKARI SELLERS, ATTORNEY FOR FAMILY OF ANDREW BROWN JR.: I have never

been talked to like I was talked to in there. Mr. Cox told me, a grown black man, that he was not (EXPLETIVE DELETED) going to be bullied.

PROTESTER: What do you want?

PROTESTERS: Freedom!

TODD: Elizabeth City today declaring a state of emergency, as the city braces in case protests turn violent in case protests turn violent if the video is publicly released.

BETTIE J. PARKER, MAYOR OF ELIZABETH CITY, NORTH CAROLINA: The longer that there is no transparency or accountability, the public gets anxious.

TODD: Authorities say they can only release it under a court order under North Carolina law and only if it won't hurt the investigation.

TOMMY WOOTEN, PASQUOTANK COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA, SHERIFF: We're following a process that protects the investigation to ensure fairness for all. We ask for your patience.

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: They could have gone to a judge, the sheriffs, the law enforcement in North Carolina, last week. Under the North Carolina law, law enforcement has the quickest path to go to a judge, say, hey, we need to release this video.

By fighting and changing their story and dragging their feet, they're really not helping anybody.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TODD: And, again, we can show you the scene here outside the sheriff's office, the presence of some officers up there.

[18:05:03]

You can see one officer peering her head over the roof there. There were several officers looking down at the crowd. That got them slightly irritated. But this protest, like all the others before it, has been very, very peaceful, very orderly and well-organized.

Wolf, the majority of the criticism from the Brown family and its representatives comes down squarely on the shoulders of the Pasquotank County attorney Michael Cox. They say he ran this process today of them seeing only 20 seconds of the body camera footage, that he disrespected them, did not give them the transparency and the answers that they wanted.

We have tried to contact his office multiple times for a response to that. They have not gotten back to us -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Brian, Brian Todd on the scene for us in North Carolina.

Brian, thank you very much.

Let's discuss with the attorney Ben Crump. He represents Andrew Brown's family and the families of other high-profile police shooting victims, including Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.

Ben, thank you so much for joining us.

Walk us through what the family saw in those 20 seconds of video and why they believe this was, in their words, an execution.

CRUMP: You know, Wolf, again, we see an unarmed black man executed by the police in the most inexplicable manner.

The police told him to put his hands where they could see them. He had his hands on the steering wheel. We were told that the family would get to see the video of what happened, the bodycam video. There were seven to eight officers on the scene. We only saw one bodycam video. The video started -- and it was only for 20 seconds.

The video started, and they were already firing. So we never saw what led up to the video. We did see that Andrew Brown used evasive actions to try to get away from the police. And they all had Glocks and assault weapons shooting at him. And you could hear them swearing at him on the video as he's trying to get away.

And they shoot him from the back, execution-style. Even when he hits the tree, when the car crashes into a tree, they continue to shoot.

And the only thing I could say, Wolf Blitzer, is the fact that they only showed 20 seconds of that video that it is damning for the police. That's the only reason we can conclude why they won't show the video of how they killed Andrew Brown Jr. in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

BLITZER: At least according to what the family saw in the video, was Mr. Brown posing any threat to the police at all?

CRUMP: Wolf, in that 20 seconds, Mr. Brown posed no threat at all.

He tried to do what we saw countless of other black men do in America. When the police come, they try to get away from them, whether that's Jacob Blake Jr. in Kenosha, Wisconsin, whether that's Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I mean, Laquan McDonald in Chicago, Walter Scott South Carolina, Christian Hall in Pennsylvania, an Asian American trying to get away from the police, but yet they're all shot in the back.

And it makes no sense to us, Wolf, because we have young white men who are confirmed mass murderers, like in Parkland or the young man who killed the Asian -- the people at the Asian spa in Atlanta, or Dylann Roof, who killed the people in the church in South Carolina. They somehow managed to take all those young white men alive.

But you have black people who don't kill anybody. They're just running, but they use deadly force. We can't continue to have this epidemic of them killing unarmed black people. Can we go just one week in America without them killing a black person unjustly?

BLITZER: You and I have had this conversation over the years way too many times.

Do you believe, then, that there is some kind of specific direct cover-up going on right now where you are in North Carolina, that there's something in the full, unredacted video that they don't want the American people to see?

CRUMP: Well, Andrew Brown Jr.'s family certainly think it's a cover- up.

They think that the reason they aren't showing that video to the public is because they're trying to conspire to conceal this unjustifiable killing. But the truth is going to come out. They have got to release the video. They might as well go ahead and do it now.

Why continue to have emotions rise, when all we are demanding is transparency? All we want to do is see what happened. If Andrew did something wrong, I guarantee you, Wolf Blitzer, they would have released that video. They wouldn't need a court order or anything. It's only when the police use excessive force and kill us, then they make it such a tenuous process to be able to release the video.

[18:10:04]

But the people are not going to have it, Wolf. They are demanding that this execution in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, be made public.

BLITZER: The family is expected, Ben, as you know, to release the results of an independent autopsy report tomorrow morning. What can we expect from that report?

CRUMP: Well, we know that he was shot from the back.

And we think it's going to show that he was shot multiple times. But those findings will come to us in the morning. We're going to release them at 11:00 a.m. And I believe they're going to confirm exactly the family saw in the video, that all the shots were from the back, and it was an unnecessary execution of this man who was trying to get away from them.

BLITZER: We will check back with you tomorrow.

Ben, thank you very much, the attorney Ben Crump joining us.

Right now, I want to bring in the former federal prosecutor and CNN senior legal analyst Laura Coates and former Philadelphia Police Commissioner, as well as D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey. He's a CNN law enforcement.

Laura, does it make any sense to you at all that the family was only shown 20 seconds of the body camera video?

LAURA COATES, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: No. If you're going to allow them the opportunity and congregate in that fashion with the expectations to actually see it, then why not show them the whole thing?

I understand this idea of blurring faces and redacting certain portions that might compromise an investigation. But we're talking about a real closed universe of facts here, Wolf. You're not talking about a very wide-reaching investigation, where you may have different vantage points that are not already captured in the seven to eight body camera videos.

And so, at this point, it does look to be lip service and the lack of transparency combining to add to the frustration of an already grieving family. And, remember, you can have a court order to release it, but the idea of saying, we have an investigation pending, remember, the question is whether the officers are actually entitled to use this deadly force to this extent over this period of time in reaction to what they have perceived Mr. Brown is doing.

If the family hasn't even been able to see what transpired and prompted this particular conduct, then you add the suspicion and you widen the trust gap already.

BLITZER: Chief Ramsey, the 20-second video from a single deputy's body camera, even though there were at least seven on the scene, each presumably -- seven police officers -- each presumably equipped with a body camera, is there any valid reason, based on your long -- longtime experience as a police officer, from an investigatory standpoint to not show more footage to the family at least?

CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: No, I mean, there's no reason for it.

The only thing they succeeded in doing is making the situation worse. They would have been better off, in my opinion, not showing the video at all than showing just 20 seconds from one angle.

So, I don't know what they're doing down there. But, certainly, they're not helping themselves at all. I don't know what's on the video. And I'll reserve judgment on whether or not the use of force was reasonable or not until I get a chance to see it.

But if that's the best they could show in 20 seconds, then it doesn't bode very well for the remainder of it. But we do need to see the video in its entirety, no question about it.

As far as compromising an investigation or having an impact on the investigation, part of the problem is, people don't trust the investigative process to begin with. This is a case that probably would be best served if it was turned over to the state A.G. or some other prosecutorial authority to take a look at it and do an independent investigation, as opposed to the county and the district attorney.

I think whatever credibility they had, they have pretty much lost it.

BLITZER: Yes.

And, Laura, we're showing our viewers live pictures of some folks beginning to gather outside the sheriff's office there in North Carolina.

Still, obviously, a lot of questions that have to be answered about exactly what happened. What is the key? What are some of the key questions among them, Laura, from your standpoint?

COATES: Well, use of force has to actually be justified. You can't just have a carte blanche and say that, because I'm an officer and have a badge and wear a uniform, I'm entitled to use whatever force I deem necessary, regardless of the threat that is actually being posed against me.

That use of force continuum has to actually be identified and actually reassessed over the course the interaction. And so the idea of being able to use deadly force, there are instances where a cop can do that, but they actually have to justify if the person is using deadly force against them.

What we're learning right now is this person, as far as the details have come out so far, there was no deadly force that was posed against them. And, remember, the Supreme Court has already said, Wolf, just because a suspect is fleeing does not automatically authorize the use of deadly force, unless there is something about that person's fleeing or what they have on their possession that would be a threat to themselves or other people in a deadly way.

[18:15:13]

And so I'm looking to find information about why the use of force was even necessary, why deadly force was used. Did he pose a deadly threat, or was he just fleeing?

Because, remember, you cannot use deadly force as a substitute to chasing and cardio, unless there's a deadly threat posed to the community. If that's not there, they're in a world of trouble.

BLITZER: And, Chief Ramsey, if, in fact, Brown did, in fact, have his hands on the steering wheel when he was shot in the back of the head, is this anything other, potentially, an execution, as the family is describing it?

RAMSEY: Well, I mean, again, it wouldn't be a justified use force.

But we don't know all the circumstances around this case, which is why they need to get information out as quickly as possible. I mean, I have executed hundreds, literally hundreds of search warrants in my career. I spent a lot of time working narcotics in the Chicago Police Department.

And I realized that executing a warrant is something that's high-risk, can be very dangerous. But I also know that, if you had enough information to get a search warrant, that means you already know who that individual is. You know a lot about him. So even if he did get away, I mean, you just get him another day. I mean, that's just the way it goes sometimes. But until we see the video, until we actually can maybe see a witness statement or something like that, it's going to be hard to make a judgment. But it certainly doesn't look good now, just based on what I'm hearing so far.

BLITZER: Yes. Yes, you're absolutely right.

Chief Ramsey, thank you. Laura Coates, thanks to you as well.

Just ahead: The U.S. Justice Department here in Washington is launching an official probe of Louisville, Kentucky's, police practices just over a year after Breonna Taylor's death.

Plus, there's new CDC guidance emerging right now on wearing masks outdoors. Sources tell CNN President Biden is expected to announce it tomorrow.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:20:55]

BLITZER: The attorney general of the United States, Merrick Garland, says the U.S. Justice Department will investigate whether the Louisville Police Department engages in a pattern or practice of using unreasonable force.

The announcement today comes just over a year after 26-year-old Breonna Taylor was shot and killed in her own home by police there serving a no-knock warrant.

Let's get some analysis from our CNN senior legal analyst the former U.S. attorney Preet Bharara.

Preet, what do you make of the fact that now, more than a year after Breonna Taylor's death, this investigation has now been officially opened?

PREET BHARARA, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I think it's very significant for a lot of reasons.

Number one, after seeing a period of four years in which these kinds of investigations of police departments broadly has really not been done, you have an attorney general who has been in office just a short period of time, and, in the course of one week, he's opened two of these things.

So, putting aside the particulars of Breonna Taylor for a moment, you have to realize, even in the case where you have a successful prosecution based on the overuse of force, like you had in Minneapolis last week with a conviction of Derek Chauvin on all three counts, that doesn't necessarily fix the problem of the police department.

If another officer does that in six months or a year, you really realize that prosecution has some deterrent effect, but not enough. And so Merrick Garland has announced a pattern and practice investigations of the Minneapolis Police Department, now the Louisville Police Department.

And I think it signals a sea change and how the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department is going to deal with these issues, not just one by one, incident by incident, but department by department.

And that can make an enormous difference. We saw, in the case of Ferguson, a few years ago, the Department of Justice opened up this kind of investigation, did a lengthy inquiry, and ended up publishing a 100-plus-page report, documenting all sorts of terrible things that were being done by the department and then imposed fixes and a monitor.

So this is going to be a long process, but I think it's a welcome one.

BLITZER: Walk us through -- you were the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet.

Walk us through how an invest -- a federal investigation like this typically works. What specifically will the investigators be looking for?

BHARARA: Well, if you look at the wording of the scope of the investigation, it's very broad.

And people have mentioned a particular incident with respect to that department. They're not going to be looking at just that. They're going to be looking at basically everything that that department does with respect to how it polices.

The language of the document itself says they will be looking at patterns and practices of use of force, overuse of force, unconstitutional stops, unconstitutional searches and seizures, even the police department's compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act.

So, they're going to be looking at everything. And then, with respect to how they will go about doing that, they of course, will be looking at the documents within the police department. They will be able to get access to disciplinary records to see if discipline was done properly or not.

But they're also going to be in -- and this was a point, I think, that Merrick Garland emphasized -- they're going to be talking to the community and interviewing people, talking to them about the ways in which the police had been treating them.

So, they're going to have a top-down review. They're going to be talking to the community. They're going to be doing their own independent investigation. And it will take some time, but it will be very, very thorough. That's how these things are undertaken.

BLITZER: I was impressed today because, in this case, city leaders in Louisville actually welcomed federal oversight.

How much more productive are these investigations when everyone on the local level buys in?

BHARARA: Infinity. It's much, much better than if you're having to pull teeth.

Now, the Justice Department knows how to go about doing an investigation -- and we have done them -- when there is some resistance with respect to a police department or any other kind of investigation.

But it's really helpful when the local community, at least to begin with, and the elected officials are supportive. It can cause the local folks to be more supportive. It can cause the police department to be more supportive.

And we will see if that lasts. We saw in Ferguson a few years ago, I already mentioned, that, at some point, when they were trying to enter into a consent decree, there was some opposition by the City Council. And there was a switch in the membership of the City Council that allowed the ultimate consent decree to be adopted by that city.

[18:25:01]

So, we will see what happens going forward. But it's a very, very good sign right now. It's always better when there's cooperation.

BLITZER: Certainly right.

Our senior legal analyst, Preet Bharara, thank you very, very much.

BHARARA: Thanks.

BLITZER: Coming up: Can fully vaccinated Americans go maskless outdoors? New guidance is coming very soon.

And the U.S. response to India's desperate pleas, as that country faces a deadly COVID-19 explosion.

Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Sources are now telling CNN that, tomorrow, President Biden will announce new CDC guidance on wearing masks outdoors.

[18:30:03]

That's one of several new pandemic actions the Biden administration is taking as the president closes in on his 100th day in office. That's on Thursday.

Our Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins is joining us right now. Kaitlan, the Biden team is looking to expand the fight against COVID also worldwide, what's the latest?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf, we often hear so much from the White House, them talking about the vaccination rates here in the United States, but in reality, we are seeing other nations across the globe see a spike in cases, as they are struggling to ramp up vaccinations in their countries.

And President Biden has been facing pressure from several world leaders to step in and do a little bit more. And now the Biden administration, for the first time, is preparing to share vaccines in a major way.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS (voice over): Under pressure to help vaccinate the globe, President Biden is now planning to share millions of doses worldwide.

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Given AstraZeneca is not authorized for use in the United States, we do not need to use AstraZeneca in our fight against COVID.

COLLINS: The U.S. announcing today it intends to provide other nations with tens of millions of AstraZeneca doses once they clear FDA review. That decision coming amid pressure from world leaders and law makers.

REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI (D-IL): We have tens of millions of doses of unused AstraZeneca vaccines sitting in warehouses. We're not going to be using them.

COLLINS: That pressure has only increased as the devastating surge of COVID-19 cases have swept across India.

PSAKI: We are continuing to look for a range of ways to help India.

COLLINS: But it remains unclear which countries will gets AstraZeneca doses or when.

PSAKI: Right now, we have zero doses of AstraZeneca. So this is not immediate.

COLLINS: Biden is also preparing to announce new CDC guidance on outdoor mask wearing for people who are fully vaccinated tomorrow.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: In the next few days very likely, the CDC will be coming out with updating their guidelines of what people, who are vaccinated, can do.

COLLINS: The president will address the pandemic on day 98 of his first 100 days in office, shortly before his first address to Congress.

PSAKI: This is an opportunity, one of the highest profile opportunities even the president has each year to speak directly to the American people.

COLLINS: A new poll from NBC News shows 53 percent of respondents approve of the jobs that Biden's done so far while 39 percent disapprove. On Wednesday, Biden will pitch his $2 trillion infrastructure plan, which the NBC News poll found 59 percent think is a good idea while 21 percent don't. The president will argue his case in front of both parties as tensions remain between the two.

PSAKI: He is focused on bringing people together, bringing Democrats and Republicans together. He's not talking about solving bipartisanship in this zip code here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS (on camera): And speaking of zip codes, Wolf, we have now gotten the results of the 2020 census. And what it reveals is that over the last decade, the U.S. population grew at one of the slowest rates since the 1930s. Of course, Wolf, it's this data that determines congressional representation.

And what we're seeing is really a broad population growth in the south and the west, and now we've got Texas gaining two congressional seats, Florida gaining one, while California lost one, Wolf, for the first time in U.S. history.

BLITZER: Very interesting indeed, very significant, thanks very much for that.

Joining us now Dr. Richard Besser, the former Acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Besser, thanks so much for joining us.

Would relaxed restrictions for vaccinated people like being told you don't need to wear a mask outside or you could travel to Europe, for example, this summer, would that incentivize people to go out there and finally get vaccinated?

DR. RICHARD BESSER, FORMER ACTING DIRECTOR, CDC: You know, Wolf, I hope so. You know, if the message is everyone needs to get vaccinated but your life isn't going to change at all that's not a great incentive. And we're learning more and more that these are highly effective vaccines. We know that being outdoors is so much safer than being indoors. Giving people the freedom to go outdoors without their mask if they're vaccinated, I think that would encourage more people to truly step up and roll up their sleeves.

BLITZER: The CDC says that about 8 percent of the American public have actually missed their second dose of the Pfizer and the Moderna coronavirus vaccines. They're supposed to get that second dose three or four weeks after their first. How troubling is that statistic?

BESSER: Well, I do find that worrisome because that number has been going up. Early vaccine recipients had a much higher completion rate for their second dose. And the reason it's concerning is that we know with the first dose, you get a pretty good level of those protective factors, the antibodies. But with that second dose, the level goes up. And the belief is that with the second dose, you're going to get a much longer lasting protection.

[18:35:04]

So getting that first dose is great but coming back for that second dose is really important, especially as we have variants that are traveling around, you want to make sure that you're getting your protective factors up as high as possible.

BLITZER: They certainly do. As you heard, India, and you know this better than I do, just reported the world's highest daily coronavirus case load for the fifth straight day. How important is a strong global response right now in order to get this pandemic in some sort of control over there?

BESSER: Yes. I think it's extremely important. It's also a cautionary tale. Two months ago, there were articles being written about India and how they'd avoided the COVID crisis the way the rest of the world because of age distribution and difference in population. What we're seeing now is that that's just not the case. They're getting hit very, very hard.

If you look at the population level, they're not being hit as hard as we were at our peak, but given the number of people in India, it's extremely important that the world rallies around, gives support to get this under control.

BLITZER: Yes. I'm also worried about what's going on in Japan. Less than 1 percent of the population of Japan has actually been vaccinated. Less than 1 percent in a country like Japan and they've got the Olympic games supposedly coming up in less than 100 days over there. So we'll see what happens. Hopefully, they can get their act together with vaccinations.

Here in the United States, Dr. Besser, more than 230 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been given to adults. But it's important to remember kids are still several months away from getting vaccinated. How should that fact influence our behavior?

BESSER: Yes. You know, I worry when I see states already declaring that the pandemic is over, that we have victory over the pandemic given that there are no vaccines for anyone younger than 16. Yes, as a pediatrician and parent, I'm very thankful that children aren't being hospitalized and dying at the rates of adults, but hundreds of children have lost their lives and thousands of children have developed a very unusual inflammatory syndrome.

So it's very important that we keep the measures in place that public health says is essential to help reduce transmission to help protect children until there are vaccines for kids as well.

BLITZER: Dr. Besser, thanks so much for joining us.

BESSER: Thanks so much Wolf.

BLITZER: Just ahead, the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, says he's walking what he calls a tight rope with former President Trump.

Plus, we're on the latest in the deepening COVID crisis in India, much more coming up, where some over on hospital are actually pleading for oxygen.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:40:00]

BLITZER: The House GOP leader, Kevin McCarthy, is dodging questions about his phone call with former President Trump during the Capitol siege here in Washington on January 6th. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): When I talked to President Trump about -- I was the first person to contact him when the riots was going on. He didn't see it. But he ended the call with saying, telling me he'll put something out to make sure to stop this. And that's what he did. He put a video out later.

CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS HOST: Quite a lot later, and it was a pretty weak video. But I'm asking you specifically, did he say to you, I guess some people are more concerned about the election than you are?

MCCARTHY: No. Listen, my conversations with the president are my conversations with the president. I engaged in the idea of making sure we could stop what was going on inside the Capitol at that moment in time. The president said he would help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: McCarthy told the New York Times, and I'm quoting now, this is the tightest tight rope anyone has to walk.

Now, let's discuss with our Chief Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju and our Senior Political Correspondent, Abby Phillip.

Abby, this tight rope the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, is talking about, he says he's walking this tight rope. Isn't that an obstacle though of his own making?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, absolutely. I mean, the only reason that Kevin McCarthy is walking tight rope is because he insists on trying to, you know, pay fealty to former President Trump while at the same time wanting to have some credibility in terms of his condemnation of what happened on January 6th.

He undid a lot of his own words in that interview with Fox News over the weekend in which he basically lied about what happened, lied what about President Trump did and when he did it when it came to the riots that we're happening at the Capitol. That's not a tight rope that he's walking. He's choosing a side pretty clearly about how much he's willing to placate former President Trump on this issue.

BLITZER: And, Manu, McCarthy has clearly tried to create this false narrative that he wasn't a leading Republican who worked to overturn President Biden's victory. This is a man who wants to become the House majority leader. He wants to be the speaker. How much of this is about his own political future?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A bigger -- a large amount. Look, a majority of the House Republican conference voted to overturn the electoral results of Pennsylvania and Arizona just hours after the mob came into the Capitol, and so left death and destruction in its wake.

And McCarthy joined those House Republicans. He also joined the effort by the Texas, the Republican -- that the Texas attorney general to overturn electoral results through the courts and several battleground states. He signed on to a brief with along with the majority of House Republican to do that.

But he has also been very sensitive in the questions about him trying to overturn the electoral results.

[18:45:01]

Just a few weeks ago, I had an extended exchange with him at a press conference and asked him about that. He contended he was not trying to overturn the elections. He said just because we voted to overturn Arizona and Pennsylvania, well, it didn't mean we were going to change the outcome of the election.

But, Wolf, the reality is that House conservatives wanted to overturn six states, but they were only able to get votes on two of them because senators joined them in those efforts. They need a senator to actually force a vote. So, there presumably have been six votes in the House and the Senate to overturn the election. It could potentially have changed the outcome if they succeeded.

So, he is trying to rewrite history a bit, saying he did not try to overturn the elections here, but also be on Trump's side through all of this.

BLITZER: Yeah. You know, Abby, when we look back on McCarthy's comments about the January 6th insurrection here in Washington, it seems the further we get from that date, the more he seems to spin the narrative that then-President Trump did everything right that day. But that's certainly not what McCarthy said he thought at the time.

PHILLIP: No, not at all. In fact, he said that president Trump had some responsibility for what happened on January 6th. That is a far cry from what he said over the weekend.

Look, I mean, even if you took it at face value that the idea that the president of the United States would find out from a phone call from Kevin McCarthy hours into an attempt to overthrow the United States' Capitol, that there was an insurrection happening at the Capitol, that is an outrageous statement on its face, but it also happens to not be true in terms of what Trump did after he found out that was happening.

He put out a video saying we love you, go home in peace, so on and so forth. This is what happens when you try to overturn, you know, when you steal an election.

Those are the things that Trump actually said on January 6th. Kevin McCarthy knows that, but of course this as all about his own political future and also just wanting to make sure that the money keeps flowing to the Republican Party. You know, Trump is the person who holds the spigot in his hand for all of that small dollar fund raising.

BLITZER: That's so, so important.

All right. Guys, thank you very much.

Coming up, India once again reeling from a deadly surge of COVID-19 cases, leaving hospitals desperately short of ICU beds and even oxygen.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:51:53]

BLITZER: A truly devastating surge of coronavirus cases is now pushing India's health care system to the brink. The country has set a record for new infections for five days in a row, recorded almost 3,000 deaths today alone.

Our senior international correspondent Ivan Watson is working the story for us.

Ivan, this is so awful, hospitals are running out of ICU beds and even oxygen. How dire is this situation in India?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, it is so dire that people are having to fend for themselves and are making appeals trying to find what hospitals may have a better available for their sick loved ones and oxygen which is an extreme shortage right now.

Take a listen to what one New Delhi man had to say after the passing of his father.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOHAN SHARMA, GRANDFATHER DIED FROM CORONAVIRUS (through translator): The doctors warned that us if we take my father to the hospital without oxygen support, there is not guarantee he will be okay. But we just couldn't find an ambulance.

In desperation, we had to take an auto rickshaw. He was gasping for air and just moved his facemask. He was crying saying, "save me, please, save me," but I could do nothing. I just watched him die.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATSON: And, Wolf, it's not just the patients that are desperate. It's the hospitals themselves. We see a lot of messages and like the one I am going to show you right now. One chain of hospitals issued an appeal calling out an SOS for oxygen, saying they needed for 144 patients, saying they're going to be running out of oxygen within a matter of hours.

Fortunately, this hospital did receive a delivery but we have seen messages like this daily for days now. And I think part of what is striking about this is weeks ago, you had officials declaring victory in India over the pandemic and the prime minister himself less than two weeks ago holding huge campaign rallies with thousands of people in attendance and now, he's calling this a storm hitting his country.

BLITZER: So, what else is the response that you are hearing from the Indian government?

WATSON: Well, they have announced they have plans to build more than 500 plants to make oxygen, because that, of course, is an extreme shortage right now. People are buying oxygen for their sick loved ones on the black market right now. They are also scrambling the military, which is called up, medical personnel that have retired within the last two years to report to duty basically and also scrambling their own oxygen.

Don't forget, you also have aid -- offers aid pouring in. President Biden spoke to Prime Minister Modi today promising to send in supplies, also promises coming from the France, Ireland, the U.K. Even India's rival to the west, Pakistan.

[18:55:00]

BLITZER: Only a few months ago, India's numbers were very good and look at how that has changed so, so quickly.

Ivan Watson, thanks very much.

An awful situation in India.

We'll have more news right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Finally, tonight, as we try to do every night here in the situation room, we share more stories of the victims of the coronavirus pandemic.

Alberto and Fernando Reyes of California were father and son, and they died just two days apart. Alberto was 84 and born in the Philippines. He came to the United States when he joined the U.S. Navy, serving for 20 years.

His son, Fernando, was 60. He sometimes worked as many as three jobs, he was set to retire next year, and he was looking forward to seeing his son graduate from UC Berkeley.

May they rest in peace and may their memories be a blessing.

Thanks very much for watching. I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM. You can always follow me on Twitter and Instagram @WolfBlitzer. You can tweet the show @CNNSitRoom.

Please be sure to join us at our new time, 6:00 p.m. Eastern, Monday through Friday. See you tomorrow.

"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts right now.