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Voters Ousting Councilman Who Attended Deadly White Nationalist Rally; Sid Miller, TX Agricultural Commissioner, Discusses Bird Flu Detected At America's Largest Producer Of Fresh Eggs; Growing Threat For Severe Storms In Eclipse Path. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired April 03, 2024 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:32:38]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: One city in Oklahoma is sending a big message. The voters of Enid ousting their city commissioner, Judd Blevins, for taking part in the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, back in 2017.

CNN is projecting that Blevins will lose the special recall election to Republican Cheryl Patterson, who is a former teacher.

Blevins denies being a white supremacist. But when videos and photos surfaced shortly after he took office last year, activists uncovered his past and worked to recall him from office.

CNN's Ed Lavandera reports on their decisive victory.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Activists who forced the special recall election of city commissioner, Judd Blevins, are celebrating today in Enid, Oklahoma.

Blevins was elected last year to the city council. He won just by 36 votes, despite a controversial pathway, which includes ties to white nationalist organizations, as well as having participated in the Unite the Right rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

This group of activists sounded the alarm about Blevins' controversial past. Now, despite all of that, Blevins did manage to get about 40 percent of the vote here in Enid. But those activists say a win is a win and they are relieved the election turned out the way it has.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN EZZELL, ENID SOCIAL JUSTICE COMMITTEE: Part of the mission of those really virulent ultra right-wing conservative movements is to normalize these horrible beliefs.

We can't normalize these fringe beliefs. We can't allow it to be tacitly accepted in the community because that's a starting point that we can't let them take root.

(END VIDEO CLIP) LAVANDERA: Voters here in Enid elected Cheryl Patterson, who is also a conservative candidate, to replace Judd Blevins. The election won't be officially certified until later this week. And that's -- after that is when Patterson will take office.

Blevins has said in the weeks leading up to this selection that he will honor the results of what voters decide.

Back to you.

KEILAR: All right. Ed Lavandera, thank you for that report.

[13:34:39]

And coming up, concerns growing after a bird flu outbreak hits America's largest producer of fresh eggs. How this could impact the food supply.

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KEILAR: A bird flu outbreak in America's largest producer of fresh eggs has shut down the facility near Amarillo, Texas, of Cal-Maine Foods. It says it had to destroy roughly two million birds in response.

Late last week, a Texas dairy worker became the second person ever in the U.S. to test positive for avian flu. Health officials say he'd been in direct contact with cows that were infected.

We're joined now by Texas agricultural commissioner, Sid Miller, to talk a little bit more about this.

Commissioner, thank you for taking the time with us today.

You've said that this is devastating, not just for Cal-Maine, but for the entire Texas Panhandle region. First, can you just talk about what this is going to mean for food production and farms there?

SID MILLER, TEXAS AGRICULTURAL COMMISSIONER: Sure. We had a mysterious disease going through our dairy herd for three weeks. We couldn't figure out what it was. We've tested for every cattle disease there was.

[13:40:07]

And we noticed some dead birds at the dairy, so we've tested for bird flu. So first time ever we have bird flu in our -- in our cattle herds, our dairy herds, lactating cow.

So one of the workers there contracted it. We don't know if he got it from the cows or maybe he was in the area where the waterfowl was. This is carried by waterfowl. It's migration season so the ducks and geese and other waterfowl are coming through, landing on ponds.

So the good news is we've dumped all the milk. It did not get into the food system. Even if it did, we pasteurize milk, so it would kill the pathogens.

The worker there was sick there. You know, if you work in a dairy, you're pretty healthy. So he only had one symptom. He kind of had pink eye. So he was over it in three or four days.

So I don't know if it would be worse on an elderly infirm person. Might not bounce back quite that quick.

And then yesterday, I announced that we've had a full-blown case of avian influenza or bird flu in one of our laying farms.

KEILAR: Yes.

MILLER: The big one. And we're going to have the place -- it's a hundred thousand birds and 377,000 pullets.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Let me -- I want to ask -- I want to ask about that specifically because of -- I mean, let's talk about risk to people and whether there is one.

The FDA says there's no evidence anyone has been affected with the avian flu by eating properly cooked eggs or poultry, which, according to the FDA, is 160 degrees for eggs, 165 for poultry in their book.

Some people like their eggs sunny side up or over easy. Is that going to be a problem? What do you need to tell people?

MILLER: I don't -- I don't like to be a problem. When we discovered this, of course, we've -- not only do we destroy all the poultry, but we also destroy all the eggs.

Cooking destroys the pathogen. Pasteurizing milk destroys the pathogen. So I think we're totally safe.

And keep in mind, this is one person out of 341 million people that contracted it. So first, we've only had two. We had another instance in 2022 in Colorado. So the likelihood of catching it -- I mean, this person was actually in the dairy that had sick cows.

So were recommending to the dairies that their workers take precautions, you know, protective equipment, respiratory equipment, goggles, and gloves, things like that.

But you know, how sanitary -- disinfecting vehicles coming in and off the dairy, try not to allow visitors, keep cattle off of waterborne and waterfowl, you know, et cetera. Just some good common-sense practices.

KEILAR: Yes, some of those practices obviously are going to require those precautions. Will be a little bit costly. But obviously, culling this many birds, this many chickens as well is going to be an issue when it comes to expense. What is this going to do to egg prices?

MILLER: Well, this is our largest egg producer. You know 100,600,000 birds, so it's a lot of eggs. But it's only -- it's less than 4 percent of their production.

So it sounds like a lot, but it's not going to drive up the cost of eggs or poultry meat or milk. It should all be stable. And it'll be safe. The consumers need to know that, that it's safe, and prices will remain where they are.

KEILAR: All right, that's good news.

So as you mentioned, this is coming from wild birds migrating. Is there anything producers can do when it comes to protecting the animals?

I know you mentioned some of the things they can do to disinfect vehicles coming in now and out of, say, dairies. But is there anything they can do to keep animals away from these birds?

MILLER: Well, the good news is they're not going to have to do much. Like I said, it's migration season. That'll be over in a week, two weeks tops. The birds will be out of here. And we'll be out of the danger area. So until the next migration.

So until that happens, implement biosecurity measures on the farm. I just talked about most of those. We want to make sure that, you know, you take -- take good -- good measure, disinfect, you know, keep visitors off the farm, make sure that you disinfect water troughs and all equipment, not just the vehicles.

Just make sure that cattle or penned away from where waterfowl might have been, feed bunks or water sources.

KEILAR: Commissioner Sid Miller, thank you so much. Very informative. And we appreciate it.

MILLER: Anytime, my friend. Thank you.

KEILAR: Thank you.

Boris?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Now to some of the other headlines were watching this hour.

A number of major U.S. bridges appear to have some of the same vulnerabilities as the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, which, of course, collapsed last week after a cargo ship slammed into it.

Experts say that several bridges they reviewed, including the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, lack significant impact offenses potentially putting them at risk.

[13:45:05]

Of course, we should point out the consensus is mixed on whether a bridge could realistically withstand a direct hit from a ship, like the one that destroyed the Key Bridge. Also, the man suspected in that deadly Easter shooting brunch in Nashville -- or rather the deadly Easter brunch shooting in Nashville is now in custody.

Police say 46-year-old Anton Rucker surrendered after they tracked him down to a home in Kentucky. He's accused of killing one man, injuring at least five others after an argument escalated inside a restaurant.

And the FDA has given the green light to the first digital treatment for depression. it's called Rejoyn. It's a smartphone app used alongside antidepressants for people 22 and older.

The app, which would require a prescription to download, is set to be available later this year. We're actually going to discuss this app with Meg Tirrell later in the show. So stay tuned for that.

Also still to come, millions of Americans hoping to catch a glimpse of the solar eclipse, but could Mother Nature block your view? Why weather could impact the spectacle in the sky.

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[13:50:52]

SANCHEZ: The future is quite bright because, in just five days, there's going to be a solar eclipse. Tens of millions of people live in the path of totality and many more are expected to travel to see the eclipse in all its glory.

But even the best-laid plans may not pan out because there could be an obstacle in the way. I assure you, I can see nothing --

KEILAR: I can't see anything.

SANCHEZ: -- right now.

KEILAR: We're actually cheating and reading down at our scripts here. So I shouldn't have revealed that.

SANCHEZ: We're dealing with magic.

KEILAR: I can hardly -- I can -- it's like these are perfect. They're going to be great for the eclipse.

But right now, as people want to see it, it's actually a little too early to know exactly where, but there is this potential for cloud cover along parts of the path.

There's also the potential for severe weather along the Texas-Oklahoma border and southwestern Arkansas.

And we're here now with Kristin Fisher.

You have glasses, but you're not wearing them.

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE & DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: OK, Fine. I'll put them on.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Here's my question. And I think people will be very interested in this. How worried is your dad about this?

FISHER: He's nervous.

KEILAR: Yes.

FISHER: He's really nervous. But I just spoke to him on the phone and he said, you know what, it is eclipse or bust for me. He's going to San Antonio, Carville, Texas, no matter what, no matter what the cloud cover is.

KEILAR: Try number three.

FISHER: I know. He's missed it, missed two because of bad cloud cover. And now, I mean, it's not just -- it is across the country. This is not the forecast that people were hoping to see for this eclipse.

I should point out it's still very early. Things could change. But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, has just put out a new forecast that just really digs into the cloud cover.

And it's -- cloud covers everything. it's notoriously difficult to predict, but there it is. And you can just see the clouds really go right along the line of path of totality. Texas, Arkansas looking really bad.

The one bright spot is like southern Missouri, central Indiana, and then farther up north in New England and Upstate New York.

But that huge patch in the southern portion of the United States, not looking great.

And it is just the difference between heavy cloud cover and none is huge. Just like the difference between total, totality and a partial eclipse. I mean, the difference between those two things is massive, which is why so many people are traveling to try to see it.

SANCHEZ: Yes. I'm going to pull back the curtain, as you did, revealing our trade secrets here.

KEILAR: Sorry.

SANCHEZ: I'm a little bit worried because we have this eclipse special that you should all tune into Monday --

KEILAR: It's our best shot of it?

SANCHEZ: The issue is, as were prepping for this really fun thing we were going to do --

KEILAR: Yes.

SANCHEZ: -- we may not see another eclipse for a while.

KEILAR: Yes.

FISHER: It's going to be 20 years before there's another total solar eclipse like this one in the United States.

And this one is supposed to be super cool. And here's why. It is -- the moment of totality is supposed to last a full four minutes, if not longer in some places.

That is a huge amount of time compared to what it was back during the last eclipse in 2017, almost double the amount of time of when it's going to be so dark that you can even see the stars in the middle of the day. That's what we're talking about here.

And also the sun is much more active right now. So all the coronal flares and those little wispy things that you see coming off the surface of the sun during those moments of totality, it's supposed to be much more active and, quite frankly, cool looking.

So this is an eclipse where we do not want cloud cover. And the weather so far does not seem to be cooperating.

KEILAR: The key might be these eclipse flights that are above the cloud color.

FISHER: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

KEILAR: That's the ticket people.

FISHER: And if you just have really cool eclipse glasses, I mean, then how could -- how could clouds get in the way of these, right? I mean --

KEILAR: They will bump into -- they will bump into walls.

FISHER: Thank you for my glasses, Brianna.

SANCHEZ: Don't wear these -- don't wear these when you watch on Monday.

KEILAR: No, don't.

All right. So Kristin Fisher, thank you so much as always. We do appreciate it.

FISHER: And thank you for these.

KEILAR: Oh, you're so welcome.

And rain or shine, CNN is going to have all angles of the eclipse covered. We're going to see it. We know it. We feel it. CNN's special live coverage, beginning Monday at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. You can catch it streaming live on Max. [13:55:04]

And ahead, Special Counsel Jack Smith lashing out and questioning the judge in the Trump classified documents case. Why he's arguing that her jury instruction request is based on a, quote, "fundamentally flawed legal premise." Pointed words there. We have that ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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