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Airports Log Busiest Weekend of Pandemic; Vegas Fully Reopens; Moderna Seeks FDA Approval; Harris' Team Works to Distance her From Border; Osaka Withdraws from French Open. Aired 9:30-10a ET.

Aired June 1, 2021 - 09:30   ET

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


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[09:31:08]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Well, new this morning, the TSA says this holiday weekend was the busiest airports have been since the beginning of the pandemic. No surprise there.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. I was flying myself. I saw it in action.

CNN's Pete Muntean joins us from Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, just outside D.C., with more.

So, Pete, break down the numbers for us. I mean it looked busy.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was busy, Jim. You know, this airport was a ghost town only a year ago. And now the TSA says it's screened 1.9 million people at airports across the country just yesterday. Compare that to the same day back in 2020 when the TSA screened only 350,000 people nationwide.

The record of the pandemic set back on Friday when 1.96 million people flew. All of this means that air travel just recorded the busiest five-day stretch of the pandemic, 8.97 million people. This is something airlines have been waiting for, a bit of a rebound of the summer travel season. Delta says it will operate flights at 90 percent capacity this summer, something unimaginable only a year ago.

But, you know, the story not just about air travel. AAA anticipated 37 million people would travel over the holiday weekend 50 miles or more, 34 million of them by car. Those numbers really not all that far off from where we were in 2019. And people tell us they're just ready and excited to get back to some sort of return to normal. But, remember, the big thing that is not normal, masks still required on all public forms of transportation by the federal government. Planes, trains, buses, boats and also here in terminals, Jim and Poppy.

SCIUTTO: It's something to watch closely. And the health impacts, if there are any. Pete Muntean, thanks very much.

Well, another sign we are returning to normal, today, Las Vegas, Vegas, is fully reopening. Casinos, hotels, restaurants, all allowed to operate at full capacity.

HARLOW: Our Lucy Kafanov is in Las Vegas.

Lucy, somehow you got the Vegas assignment all through this pandemic. You saw the casinos, the blackjack tables with the, you know, partitions, now all back to normal?

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's a hardship assignment. We're powering through it.

But, yes, we arrived yesterday at the tail end of the, you know, Memorial Day weekend, and it was this surreal feeling. I mean you almost feel like you're walking around naked because masks are officially no longer required if you're vaccinated.

Now, remember, casinos have been allowed to operate at 100 percent capacity with no masks at 80 -- since May -- since May if 80 percent of their staff had been vaccinated. But as of midnight, as of 12:01 a.m. this morning, the city is officially back to normal.

Now, we were down in the historic old Vegas, Fremont Street, which celebrated the return of live music in over a year. There were crowds. People were dancing. People were enjoying the entertainment. And we asked folks what it felt like to be out and about.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's what I was most surprised about was the no masks. It's kind of a little -- a little weird.

It feels good, though, to be back free. Hopefully everybody goes and gets vaccinated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Being like vaccinated is kind of cool because I don't have to have the mask, but it's just been super strange going from not being allowed to be in public anywhere and then all of a sudden it's like, boom, everybody's outside.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAFANOV: Now, when you talk to locals, you have to understand the city absolutely needs this full reopening in order for things to go back to normal economically. This town was turned into a ghost town over a year ago when the pandemic was -- forced casinos to shut their doors. The Strip was completely dead. It turned dark. In April, nearly 34 percent unemployment rate. So Vegas needs to get back to normal.

But, of course, some folks are concerned because the federal guidelines effectively rely on the honor system and there's no way to check if everyone who's not wearing a mask has actually been vaccinated.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KAFANOV: Guys.

[09:35:02]

SCIUTTO: That's right. You're only as safe as the person next to you, how honest they're being, right?

Lucy Kafanov, thanks very much.

This morning, Moderna says it is seeking now full FDA approval for its COVID-19 vaccine. To this point, it's been Emergency Use Authorization. It's still safe based on the data, right? I think people need to understand that. But this would expand. And it's an important step.

Dr. Carlos del Rio, executive associate dean for Emory University School of Medicine is with us.

Good morning.

DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE DEAN, EMORY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT GRADY: Good morning.

HARLOW: This comes as you've got the Biden administration's goal of 70 percent vaccination in this country by the Fourth of July. You've got a little over 50 percent of the U.S. population now at least partially vaccinated.

Where are we and what does this Moderna news mean?

DEL RIO: Well, I think we're doing it well, as your reporters show. I mean it's pretty dramatic what has happened, right? I mean we went from essentially complete shutdown to being open. It almost seems like the pandemic is over because, you know, thanks to vaccines, cases are plummeting in our country.

But we have to remind people that the -- that the pandemic is not over. There's still significant pandemic happening overseas. We still are at risk of variants in this country. And I think what we need to continue doing is vaccinating. We need to continue vaccinating aggressively so we can get more and more protection. The more people are vaccinated, the more protected we are.

SCIUTTO: The trouble is, though, the rate of vaccination. It's slowing down dramatically. I've been watching that figure on the lower corner of our screen there, now 40.7 percent of the country fully vaccinated. It's been moving up, you know, in tiny little increments over the last couple of weeks because we're now reaching these holes in the country, holes in the population of folks that just don't want to get it, right? And I wonder, what is the health impact of that over time, including as variants proliferate?

DEL RIO: Well, I think you have two things. I think, number one, with the full approval of the vaccines, once the FDA gives full approval of the vaccines, I think what you're going to see is many businesses, many institutions begin to require the vaccine.

And, for example, at my hospital, I am sure that many health care institutions are going to start requiring the vaccine for all the health care professionals as soon as the vaccines receive full approval. So you're going to see a significant uptick of vaccination nationwide as a result of this requirement when the vaccines get full approval.

But you're absolutely right, I think getting to the populations that are reluctant, that are hesitant, that are still waiting for more information, again, once a vaccine gets full approval, we're going to be able to reach another percentage of them.

HARLOW: You're in Georgia, a state where only 30 -- a little over 31 percent of the population is fully vaccinated.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: And you told "The Wall Street Journal" recently, you think there's going to be a bit of a surge in COVID in your state over the summer. Why?

DEL RIO: Well, I think as it, you know, as it gets hot and nationwide, but, you know, here in Georgia, as it gets hot, people are going to go indoors. And as you go indoors, you're going to start mixing vaccinated and unvaccinated people more frequently. And that's exactly when transmission occurs. It's going to be indoors and where people are not going to be wearing their masks.

So that's my concern is that we're going to have too many unvaccinated people indoors over the summer because of the heat and people are going to want to be inside. And that's why I say, vaccinate yourself. The most important thing you can do is get a vaccine so you can actually be protected.

HARLOW: Thank you, Doctor. Good to have you.

DEL RIO: Nice to be with you.

HARLOW: Ahead for us, new CNN reporting. Aides for Vice President Kamala Harris, our reporting is, looking to distance her from some of the issues at the southern border, up next.

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[09:42:57]

HARLOW: You'll remember a few months ago when President Biden tasked Vice President Harris with leading diplomatic efforts with central American countries to stem the flow of migrants to the United States.

SCIUTTO: But in recent weeks, CNN has learned that the vice president's staff has been working to make clear that her role is focused solely on the root issues of migration, not managing the surge at the southern border. That's a stickier issue.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand is in Washington. She's been covering this.

And, Natasha, it's interesting because that has been the impression that this is part of her portfolio as vice president, right? The broader issue at the southern border doesn't appear she or her team is genuinely interested in that.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN REPORTER: Yes, Jim, so when the president announced back in March that the vice president was going to be taking on this new portfolio, there was a lot of confusion about what her role would actually be, what the parameters of her role would be. Was it going to be, you know, focusing narrowly on the border and trying to stem crossings of the border and border conditions, or was it going to be focused more on the root causes of migration, of why people were actually being driven to the border.

What we know now is that it is the latter. And that is something that the vice president and her staff have wanted to make extremely clear because following that announcement by President Biden, there was some confusion that Republicans in particular seized upon to make Kamala Harris kind of the scapegoat for everything that was going on at the border at the time. If you'll remember, there was a record number of crossings at the border that was creating kind of a political problem for the Biden administration. There was that whole debate over whether to call it a crisis, if you'll remember.

So the president -- the vice president did not -- the vice president's team, I should say, did not want her to get saddled with all of this politically fraught information -- this politically fraught situation and so they've sought to make it very clear, both internally and publicly, that she is focused on diplomacy and efforts in the northern triangle to really address the root causes here of migration.

SCIUTTO: Understood. We'll see how the efforts go there more broadly by the administration.

[09:45:02]

Natasha Bertrand, thanks very much.

A move that is rocking the sports world. Tennis star Naomi Osaka has withdrawn from The French Open citing her mental health. That is shining a spotlight on depression, mental health struggles among athletes. Rare for them to come out so publicly here. We're going to discuss it more.

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HARLOW: A stunning move by one of tennis' biggest stars ever. Four- time grand slam winner Naomi Osaka announced that she is withdrawing from The French Open.

[09:50:00]

This comes just one day after being fined for skipping a post-match news conference.

SCIUTTO: Yes, it was a very public, very bitter battle really between Osaka and tournament officials. It came to head on Monday after Osaka announced before the tournament started that she would not do press conferences, citing her mental health. Osaka also says she plans to take some time away from the court more generally.

Joining us now, Christine Brennan, sports columnist for "USA Today."

I mean, listen, it's sad to see this play out in public, right, because this is a very private matter. It speaks to her mental health and she's opening up about this, right, in a very public forum and kind of taking heat, right, you know, from some. You say her withdraw was, in your words, avoidable. Why? What went wrong here, the handling of this?

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: Well, we know so much more now.

Jim and Poppy, great to be with you.

We know so much more now than we knew when her first statement. And we realize that it probably was difficult to even make that first statement last week, to say she wasn't doing press.

But with -- armed with that information, there was confusion in some camps. And basically it comes down to this. Of course now this is a distant conversation, but since we're talking about it, that were there no Billie Jean King doing interviews back in the '60s and '70s and Chris Evert and even Venus Williams and Serena Williams, then it would be hard to see tennis being what it is, women's tennis being what it is today. So you can understand those people saying you do the interviews, you promote the sport.

What we know now from that poignant and wonderful and important and sad and it had everything in it statement yesterday on Instagram and Twitter from Naomi Osaka, only 23 years old, we know what she's going through now.

And she told (INAUDIBLE). It's a shame that it got to that point. But it was very public. It was very confusing. And now, of course, I think the world is reacting, as everyone should, and saying, thank you for telling us this and we hope she gets well quickly and is able to handle all the things she needs to handle.

But, yes, avoidable in the sense that had maybe she gone to someone earlier, it would have been helpful. But we know so much more Monday than even on Sunday. And that, of course, has changed everything.

HARLOW: And you make such a good point, just 23 years old. I mean so young to have to be going through all of this in public.

Here's what Serena Williams said overnight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SERENA WILLIAMS, 23 GRAND SLAM SINGLES TITLES: I feel for Naomi. I feel like I wish I could give her a hug because I know what it's like. Like I said, I've been in those positions. We have different personalities. And people are different. Not everyone is the same. I'm thick, you know? Other people are thin. So everyone is different and everyone handles things differently. So, you know, you just have to let her handle it the way she wants to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: After, you know, her own personal handling of it, however she chooses to do it, Christine, what do you think this can mean for the sport on a national and an international stage and for sports in general in terms of the mental health issues?

BRENNAN: Absolutely, Poppy. Never before have we seen an athlete of this stature talk about this while they're still at the top of their game. Michael Phelps, the great Olympian, is talking about it now as a 35-year-old. He's retired from swimming.

Naomi Osaka just made over the last year more money than any other female athlete. Not just tennis, but any woman playing sports, $55 million. She has a forum. She has following. She has millions of people who love her. And what she can do, again, once she gets herself to a place where she feels comfortable doing this, of course, this issue of mental health is so huge. especially in the pandemic, with kids, high school kids, obviously older people, everyone. And, of course, it's been with us for a lot longer than the pandemic.

And if Naomi Osaka can be -- become someone who speaks to that, the platform she has is enormous. And we've never seen an athlete have that ability to do that.

We also, of course, now realize, you know, you think you know people, right? Even I, covering sports, I know like maybe 5 percent of what these athletes are like. And so I hope that this is another reminder that they're people. She's young. And it's so difficult for her to go through some of the things she's going through. The simple things like answering questions, that's hard for her, but I think now everyone understands that.

SCIUTTO: You're so right. People can surprise you. I'm thinking of someone like Terry Bradshaw, right? I mean a star in the 70s and 80s, came out, but like Phelps, right, after his career to begin not only to address it but speak publicly about it.

You mentioned youth sports here and I -- and I wonder because that stress, you know, is like a pyramid, right? We only see the very tip of the pyramid, the ones who have enormous, public success. But below that, you have many thousands of athletes facing pressure at a very young age. It's hard to deal with, right, for so many.

So what can these public voices, what difference can they make for those younger ones?

BRENNAN: I hope this can talk, Jim, to these kids and say it's OK. It's OK to be afraid. Olympic sports especially, so many are individual sports. [09:55:03]

And tennis, figure skating, gymnastics, we put kids on the discard pile before they get their driver's license. And what a (INAUDIBLE) to these kids. I've written about this for years in the Olympic world.

And so let's hope that someone like Naomi, we've never seen anyone with this stature. And, again, she's got to get right first. And all of our good thoughts are with her. But if she can, when she's ready, start to address this, think of the thousands of kids, young people she can help because they look to her as this incredible champion. Four time grand slam champion, 23 years old. I mean she's got it all and yet we see what she's dealing with. Well, that can help kids. That can help everyone if (INAUDIBLE) if she's willing to speak out about that.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: She's really brave.

Christine Brennan, thank you.

BRENNAN: She is. Thank you very much.

HARLOW: So also this before we go to break. If you or anyone you know, or your loved ones need help when it comes to their mental health, here are some resources available on your screen. You've got a lot of phone numbers right there that they can call.

We'll be right back.

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