good evening. from blue origin's launch site in the west texas desert. in a moment, my conversation with jeff and mark bezos after their flight into space, which began on that launch pad behind me about three miles from here. they followed the path that allen shepherd took 60 years ago this may and they along with two other history-making companions flew a spacecraft bearing his name. >> t minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, commander start. >> two, one. >> liftoff. and the clock has started.

>> it was a picture-perfect liftoff for blue origin's "new shepard". on board, jeff bezos. his brother mark. and two others making history of their own in different ways. 82-year-old wally funk, who was turned away by nasa in the 1960s because they had no room at the time for the notion that a woman could be a stellar pilot, which is exactly what she became. today she added oldest person in space to her remarkable aviation resume, eclipsing john glenn. and 18-year-old oliver daemen, who is now the youngest. for 2 1/2 minutes they felt the pressure of three gs on their

bodies. and then there was this. >> there is miko, main engine cutoff. a beautiful shot. down the "new shepard" rocket. look at that view. unreal. >> a few seconds layer, after booster separation, the four unbuckled their harnesses and felt what every cloud ever has but few people ever will. >> we're doing it, guys. >> okay. >> oh, wow. >> oh, wow. >> that's incredible. [ cheers ] >> space. >> oh! >> is it everything you thought it would be? >> fantastic. >> look. oliver. >> that's great. >> can you move your head a little, wally? >> oh, yeah. hi, mom! i love it.

>> look at the blackness of space. >> as they played their ride into space, the "new shepard" booster returned home to earth. >> there we see engine relight. sonic boom. and booster touchdown. welcome back, "new shepard." >> that was a major technological achievement for them. and that sonic boom may not have sounded very loud on television, but i can tell you even from three miles away here it was very loud indeed. three minutes later, the astronauts came home. three chutes lowering them to a rocket cushion touchdown not so far from where their flight began but all the same a world

began. a short time after they landed i spoke with jeff and mark bezos inside a training capsule virtually identical to the one that carried them into space. >> you've been dreaming of space your whole life. you spent summers on your granddad's ranch in south texas. i imagine looking up at the sky and the stars. >> absolutely. >> what do you think your grandfather would think about you and mark today? >> we called him pop. he was a gigantic figure in our lives. we spent a lot of time with him. i think if he were here, he would have been the most proud, most excited of all the people present. so he had this curiosity about him and this wonder. when we knew him, he was a rancher. but before that he had done -- he worked for darpa at one point among other things. he had all this exploration in him. >> he might have been in the vehicle with you. >> he would have. it was a long line of people trying to stow away in the vehicle this morning, including our dad. >> we had to check.

>> you've called this the most -- you've called "blue origin" the most important thing you will do in your entire career. i mean, you built amazon. that's pretty huge. you employ half a million people. how could blue origin be bigger or more important? >> yeah. one of the things about this is, you know, we need to build a road to space. i mean, build infrastructure, reusable space vehicles and so on so that the next generations can build the future. >> you talked about the infrastructure you already had in place when you started doing amazon. you had the postal service. >> exactly. when i started amazon, i was a young guy, 27, almost 30 years ago. and i didn't have to build a package delivery system. it existed. it was called the postal service and ups and royal mail and deutsche post and so on. that would have been hundreds of billions of dollars in capital expense to build.

>> so if some smart kid in a dorm room right now has a dream for space they can't do it? >> they can't do it. that's exactly right. but if we can lay that infrastructure, then do that hard work then there will be able to be a bunch of entrepreneurs. maybe the young guy, oliver, who flew with us today will be one of them. >> what does that look like? what does this road look like? you've talked about a human presence on the moon. >> yeah. >> obviously, you know, elon musk is talking about mars. what does it look like? >> there are a couple things. one of the things is it's really about moving heavy industry. i know this sounds fantastical, and it is fantastical. remember, if you went back to the kitty hawk era and showed them a 787 they would think that's fantastical. but we really have to move heavy industry and polluting industry off earth. earth is too small and -- >> coal plants? >> we'll beam energy down to earth. when we make chips and microchips and everything else,

all that dirty polluting stuff, we'll make it in space and do those activities in space. it'll be much better. this planet is so precious. you can see it. what we saw today, we got up and looked out. we see it on the ground and we think the atmosphere is big. but really the atmosphere is tiny. it's this tiny little fragile, thin layer. we all depend upon it for our lives. and we've got to stop polluting it. so that is something -- but that can't be done today. if you try to move heavy industry off earth today, that's crazy. >> what is the time line? >> decades. it won't be done in my lifetime, but what i can do and what we the whole blue origin team can do is lay the foundation for that work. that's what we mean when we say build a road to space. because then there will be other people driving on that road and they'll do much greater things than we will do. >> why do you want to have people on the moon? >> the moon is a great place for resources. it's close, which is a big advantage. so one of the great things about

the moon is it has a very low gravity, 1/6 gravity. it takes 27 times less energy to to lift a pound of material off the moon than it does to lift a pound of material off the earth. so if you want to build big structures in space, you want to go get materials from the moon. >> obviously you've stepped down as ceo of amazon. you'll have a little more time on your hands. are you going to focus more on blue origin and how much more? i know you've been liquidating like a billion dollars' worth of amazon stock every year to fund it. are you going to do more? >> we'll have to wait and see. i'm also using amazon stock for the bezos earth fund. the two big initiatives i know of right now i'm going to focus on are blue origin and the bezos earth fund, which is all about sustainability, climate change, you know, protecting the natural world. those things that -- we have to work on the here and now of that too. blue origin is working on the future, but we have to work on the here and now as well. >> elon musk told "the

washington post," your newspaper, that if blue origin is to be successful, you should run it full time and he hopes you do that. any chance? >> bob smith is the c.o.o. of blue origin. he's running it amazingly well. he's been here only a few years and doing a great job. i'm not taking bob's job. but i am going to spend more time on it. i'm going to have the time to spend on it. so i'm going to be right in there, you know, rolling up my sleeves deep in it. >> did you know what to expect? intellectually you can know about space flight, but to actually go up and experience it. >> we went through about 2 1/2 days of training. we were prepared for, you know, basically what a nominal mission experience should be like, but watching a powerpoint and watching some videos and experiencing it are very different things. i was not prepared for what the actual g forces felt like on lift-off and while we were accelerating when the crew capsule separated from the

booster. you know, that -- we knew what sound to expect. but that sort of jump as the springs released -- and then, you know, just the experiencing zero g, you know, it was remarkable. >> when you were all sitting there together before you entered the capsule, what did you talk about? i mean, you know, there's danger. there's a million things must be going around in your mind. >> wally kept asking what's taking so long. that's how you get to be wally, you're impatient. in a very healthy, great way. she's like there's a six-minute delay, why? what's going on? we're supposed to be out there. so that was part of it. you know, we told each other we love each other. i mean, it's emotional too. this morning when we left the house, we left at the crack of down -- well, way before the crack of down. and our -- all of our family was there. we gave each other big hugs. it was a very emotional morning. >> it was also -- there was a moment while we were all sitting on the launch pad before we took

off and jeff spoke to the crew. he's like, guys, before we go, if i could just ask you a favor. and he said, what we're about to do is going to be extremely fun and extremely exciting. he goes, but i would also encourage you, if you will, while you're up there, while you're taking in these views, to understand how important what we're about to do is. and he was able to say, look, you know, i know what something big looks like when it was small. and he has the credibility when he started amazon nearly 30 years ago. e-commerce was nothing back then. >> you have the same idea about blue origin? >> he was saying this is how it starts, this is how something big starts, i know what it feels like and this feels exactly the same. >> it's a beginning and you can feel. >> take it in. >> that was really moving for all of us. >> but to get to the point you're talking about, you need a ton more companies coming up with new ideas, new ways to build rockets, everything. >> anderson, that's exactly right. great industries and great

change is not ever made by a single company. it's made by a whole ecosystem of companies and organizations and government organizations, everything all working as part of an ecosystem. that's what's going to -- that's what has to happen. but those first steps, sometimes you can just feel, you know, big things start small, they always do. and this -- you can just tell, this is -- what we did today, people can say oh, it's a tourism mission, it's suborbital, but it's an operational commercial vehicle that we can use to practice over and over and over, take people up over and over, and get really good at doing space travel. and it is like the barnstorming days. that's where we we are right now, and that eventually leads to the 787. >> there are a couple progressive democrats who tweeted out today saying this is basically a boondoggle, it's a waste of money, there's more important things. to that, what do you say?

you gave an answer and you gave $200 million away today, but what is the importance of this? >> what i would say is first and foremost, we have to do both. so we have to -- for example, we have lots of problems on earth. we have poverty, we have hunger, we have all kinds of problems. we have climate disasters. we have pollution. we have to work on the here and now. and we have to look to the future. and we as a society, as a civilization, as humanity, we have always done that. we've never just focused on the present or just focused on the future -- >> what happens if we don't do this exploration in space? >> if you don't focus on the future, then you don't have explorers, you don't have progress. what if you said to wilbur and orville wright, hey, why don't you work on something a little more practical? you're smart guys, certainly you could do something more practical. but that's what exploration is. it's a kind of wandering, and all research and development and

all small things have that characteristic that they're not obvious how they're going to work out. but that's what exploration is. >> do you have "mom" written on your hand? >> yes, we do. he's got hi written on his. it's almost washed off now, but when we were up in zero g, yeah -- it will say wow like this. but that's because i flipped upside down. when we were in zero g. and i put my hand -- there. it was like this. and we got that photo. >> we rehearsed it a few times. >> rehearsing that on earth is challenge. >> it's nice to know you're still mama's boys. >> for sure. >> congratulations. >> thank you very much. >> jeff bezos and his brother, mark, talking about their mom. who was here along with their dad to witness what they did today. with me here, cnn space and defense correspondent

kristin fisher, who's the child of two astronauts, by the way. also joining us, legendary astronaut chris hadfield. he's made history himself as the first canadian commander of the international space station. he's also the author of several books, including "an astronaut's guide to life on earth" and the new thriller "the apollo murders," which is out in october. it is fascinating to hear jeff bezos. whatever you think about how he's spending money and billionaires in space, his vision for what space could potentially be and building the infrastructure for that is a fascinating concept. >> it's a fascinating concept and what really stands out to me is the timing of all of these private space companies launching humans into space all within about a year and a half of one another after nearly a decade of no humans -- no americans launching into space from u.s. soil. first you had spacex with those astronauts going up to the international space station. then richard branson's virgin galactic, and now blue origin's

"new shepard" reusable rocket system. so take it all together. the timing of it happening within a year and a half of itself. it really represents the end of the government's monopoly on human space travel. >> even though a lot of the contracts that spacex, bezos, and others are going for are government contracts. colonel hadfield, bezos was framing this as building a road to space, building an infrastructure that a few generations from now kids in a dorm room who have some, you know, idea like they would have about the internet today can actually build on that infrastructure and make their idea possible. with reusable space vehicles, that's obviously critical to any kind of road into space. i wonder what your reaction is to that idea overall. >> well, space up to this point has been fairly sacrosanct just because it's so hard to get to. as you said, it takes an entire nation in order to pay for and

organize and do the science. so july the 20th is a day of small steps and giant leaps. 52 years ago when those guys walked on the moon, that was incredible. but to be able to now build on that technology and to decrease the cost of the access to space -- and sure, this was a small step. suborbital taking four people up. but technology that's behind it is scalable. and being able to cheaply access not just earth orbit, but the incredible resources that exist on the moon and beyond, you know, that's where we're getting into right now. it's easy to get focused on the short term or immediate events of today. but i also see the big picture, and i think that's the real historic achievement that this was part of in the launch that jeff and his brother and the other two were on today. >> i think that's such an important point that you're saying. kristin, the idea that, you know, why did they choose to have a booster rocket that comes

back and lands vertically, they could have done other ways that probably would have been easier. but as bezos said earlier in the day, this is scaleable, that when you have bigger rockets, when you have huge payloads, when you're trying to scale this up to build that infrastructure, you need practice, and that's why they're starting this way. >> how much sense would it make if every time you flew in an airplane you just got rid of it right after a single flight? i mean, that's why what jeff bezos and blue origin did with these reusable rockets is so critical because they make space flight more accessible, more affordable. and not just jeff bezos now, you have elon musk doing this with actual orbital rockets. many i think the thing that really stands out watching, we got to see this booster land, just how slowly it came down at one to two miles per hour. >> it was incredible to watch that. >> wild. >> and the capsule itself, while

it's going almost 5 1/2 gs on the way down, it's landing around one or two miles an hour as well. you know, commander, most people cannot afford space tourism flights, but with all that's going to be happening in the next couple years, do you see it becoming more and more affordable, potentially reality for more people? when aviation first started after the wright brothers, the idea that people could fly across the world and have that as an economic possibility, that seemed impossible to imagine. >> yeah. up until december of 1903, powered flight was impossible. and then it was crazy dangerous for a long time. but because of the way world politics happened, world war i was suddenly a recognition that aviation could be a big part of that. so there was huge government investment.

and suddenly 100 years ago in the early '20s there was this new technology and people were trying to figure out what can we do with this? can we make tourism? can we have an airline that can fly people around? charles lindbergh 24 years after the wright brothers managed to win the ortig prize and go across the atlantic. it kind of shifted everybody's perception of what was coming now, what was the future going to look like. and now we look around at sort of the absolutely for-granted safety and freedom that global air travel gives us. none of that came easy. and it originally took a tremendous amount of investment. most of the early companies went broke trying to do it, but it took those folks with guts and vision and willingness to invest a lot to get us to where we are today. and that's where i see us with this sort of summer happening in early suborbital space flight. we're just at that same sort of stage, but instead of just two dimensions, it's all the way up in three.

>> chris hadfield, it was a real pleasure and an honor to have you with us earlier today during the launch, to have your expertise, walking us all through it. kristin fisher, yours as well. thank you so much. coming up next, there's a lot of focus on the four people who flew today and how that he had life-changing experience today. we're about to introduce you to other people who had most likely a life-changing experience as well today. we're talking about van jones and chef jose andres who made helping the community a central part of their lives, communities all around the world. they got a remarkable surprise that we learned about today from jeff bezos. both men awarded $100 million each to further their work. they're here with me. we'll talk to them. later, a different kind of surprise. breaking news. as one of the former president's one-time friends is arrested on federal felony charges. ♪ when technology is easier to use...

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quick trip to space, jeff bezos had two other big surprises in store for people today. he made charitable donations in the amount of $100 million each to two people, two friends of this program. that are -- the money is to be used as they see fit. cnn political commentator and former obama adviser van jones. . and chef jose andres, founder behind world central kitchen, which has served millions of meals for disaster survivors around the globe. on this program we've interviewed him from houston and san juan and i can't remember how many other places. but both of you have done extraordinary work. we talked to you earlier in the day. you got the call, was it saturday? >> yeah, just walking on a path and the phone rang. and it's jeff bezos saying that he felt that we needed to do something to support people who were trying to bring people together across racial lines, political lines, and he wanted to be supportive. and then lauren, his partner, said we want to give you $100 million to do it and i literally lost the ability to speak.

>> sort of burying the lede. when did you find out, chef? >> around the same time. a few days ago. the thing was this, what can we do to try to start investing in how to change the world one plate of food at a time? and he told me, jose, i want to support you with this money to start finding ways to say that hunger finally once and for all is going to be a problem of the past. we need to be bold and the moment to be bold is now. >> i was thinking about you today, both of of you. but i remember you in houston on like an early scouting mission to sort of see what your role could be in disasters. and you'd already been doing it for years at that point. i mean, you got involved in haiti and a lot of places. to see what you have created thus far and to think about what $100 million can do for you or others, do you have a sense of

what you want to do with it yet? >> well, on relief and emergencies, i can still not claim i'm an expert. i still keep going with the teams at world central kitchen to keep learning, how can we do it better. what this $100 million can do is help -- how can we make every dollar to multiply, planting the seed and coming with simple better ways with boots on the ground in emergencies to be next to the people when they need it the most, which is after the hurricane, the fire, the tornado hits. being next to the people now. and beyond that, how we're going to be doing reconstruction to make sure that the money we put forward is not thrown into the problem but invested into the problem but invested into the solutions. again, we can do better. we must do better. and food is a great pathway to build a better future. >> van, anybody who has seen you on cnn, even if they don't know what you do outside of cnn, has heard you talk about grassroots organizations over and over again.

i feel like every time you're on, you're naming groups i never heard of who are doing work in small communities and big communities. do you know what you're going to do with this money? >> well, what i do know -- i don't know. i mean, we really -- we just found out. >> you're going to have a few people giving you some ideas. >> yeah, i have a few ideas. but what i do want to say is i've been a part of bringing people together across political lines to get people out of prison. >> you've gotten criticized for that. >> but not by the people who got out of prison. 22 bipartisan criminal justice bills in the past three years in states like georgia and mississippi, tough places where we've been able to get red, blue, black, white, and brown together to get stuff done. i think jeff bezos saw that and said listen, if you can actually get people together maybe these problems can debt solved. the key is to believe that ordinary people are a lot smarter than the people who get paid to yell at each other on tv or washington, d.c. and empower them with the ability to solve their own problems.

>> the word he's named is courage and civility. it's an interesting combination because a lot of folks pretend they have courage on cable news who are yelling and shoving their opinions down people's throats and telling people what to do, who to vote for, how to think, and then there's a lot of people who are just listening to other people's ideas and seeing what works and trying to bring people together. that's something both of you have always done. >> i always say that we need to build longer tables, not higher walls. we saw through this pandemic that the men and women at world central kitchen with many chefs across the country and volunteers, we put together almost 3,000 restaurants to tackle the issues that we were facing, hospitals that had no food, shelters, elderly. we got almost a bill through congress called the feed act. we were able to bring back then senator kamala harris and senator tim scott. we were able to bring people out of the house from both parties together to support the bill that was pragmatic, that was smart, that was bringing people together and was solving a

problem. this is the type of things that america wants to see. food brings america and the world together. more than 87% of americans believe that every american should be entitled to a plate of food. you see food is a way we can be building a better america and building a better tomorrow. >> there's a lot of people who were watching today. some of them were amazed, encouraged, excited about the future of space. some were thinking this man could spend his money in other ways for people who are suffering right now. you talked about that in your talk today when you were named as a recipient of this. can you just talk about what you say to those who say, look, is space exploration something we really need? listen, the last time we had the space race, we got something called solar panels, which may actually wind up saving the earth itself. i'm pro innovation, i'm pro entrepreneurship. i just want everybody to get a chance to play. but i will say this. when this guy has lifted the ceiling off a bunch of people's dreams, somebody's reaching for

the heavens, there's a lot more heaven to reach for. we should be inspired by that. by the way, it's not either or. you see he's also investing in stuff on the ground. listen, bipartisan cross-racial work got 20,000 people home out of federal prisons in the past two years. 70,000 out of state and federal. people don't even know that. people don't know that people are working together and actually freeing people and bringing people home. more people will know that if you do hard work, and if you are kind, you just might get help. you know you get help if you scream and yell and act like an idiot because you're going to trend and get the ratings and eyeballs. but you can get real help from people who've got the means and resources if you do it the right way like this brother's doing. >> van jones, chef jose andres, thank you very much. appreciate it. congratulations. incredible. do you see this as life-changing or work-changing? >> yeah. i think it's just the beginning. in my case, i'm not going to be

ending hunger tomorrow with $100 million, but this is a way to start making bold decisions. the recipes of the past to feed humanity are proven not technically working. we must change the recipe. we must find better ways where governments, citizens, ngos, private business, together we can finally once and for all find solutions. we can end many of the problems that humanity faces. we need to stop giving long speeches and putting people with boots on the ground next to the people that need it. this is the way we're going to improve the world. >> you're both forces of nature. i have confidence you're going to do great things. van jones and chef jose andres. just ahead, news about the efficacy of the johnson & johnson vaccine against several variants including the delta variant fueling the surge of new cases in the country. also fireworks on capitol hill today like always when senator rand paul and dr. anthony fauci meet. >> senator paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly. and i want to say that officially. you do not know what you are talking about.

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the real world, and it has not been peer reviewed nor published in a scientific journal, both of which are very important steps. still it suggests that recipient of the one-shot vaccine may need a second dose possibly from one of the other two vaccines and we'll have more on that in a moment because first there was an egs claigs today in the fight between dr. anthony fauci and senator rand pall during senate testimony the two engaged in a shouting match including back and forth accusations of lying. all of it about national institutes of health funding for a controversial coronavirus research lab in wuhan, china that obviously you've heard about. for the next few minutes we're going to present their exchange this morning with a discussion afterwards. here now are senator rand paul and dr. anthony fauci. >> dr. fauci, knowing that it is a crime to lie to congress, do you wish to retract your statement of may 11th where you claimed that the nih never funded gain of function research in wuhan? >> senator, paul, i have never lied before the congress -- >> microphone. >> your microphone. >> senator paul, i have never

lied before the congress. and i do not retract that statement. this paper that you are referring to was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain of function. >> so you -- >> let me finish. >> you take an animal virus and increase its transmissibility to humans, you're saying that's not gain of function? >> that is correct. and senator paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly. and i want to say that officially. you do not know what you are talking about. okay? you get one person -- can i answer the question? >> this is your definition that you guys wrote. it says that scientific research that increases the transmissibility among animals is gain of function. they took animal viruses that only occur in animals and increased their transmissibility to humans. how you can say that is not

gain of function -- >> it is not. >> it's a dance and you're dancing around this because you're trying to obscure responsibility for four million people dying around the world from a pandemic. >> let's let dr. fauci -- >> i have to -- well, now you're getting into something. if the point that you are making is that the grant that was funded as a subaward from ecohealth to wuhan created sars-cov-2, that's what you are getting -- let me finish. >> we don't know. we don't know if it came from a lab, but all the evidence says it came from the lab and there will be responsibility for those who funded the lab sclug yourself -- >> i totally resent -- >> this committee will allow the witness to respond. >> i totally res ept the lie that you are now propagating, senator, because if you look at the viruses that were used in the experiments that were given in the annual reports, that were published in the literature, it is molecularly impossible --

>> no one's saying those viruses -- >> it is molecularly -- >> no one's sawing those viruses caused the pandemic. what we're alleging is game of function research was going on in that lab and nih funded it. you can't get away from it. it meets your definition. and you are obfuscating the truth. >> i'm not obfuscating the truth. you are the one -- >> your time has expired. but i will allow the witness to finish. >> let me just finish. i want everyone to understand that if you look at those viruses, and that's judged by qualified virologists and evolutionary biologists. those viruses are molecularly impossible -- >> no one's saying they are. >> -- to -- sars-cov-2. >> senator paul. >> we're saying they're gain of function viruses that are animal viruses that became more transmissible in humans and you funded it. >> and you implying -- >> senator paul, your time is expired. and i will allow witnesses who come before this committee to respond. dr. fauci. >> and you are implying that what we did was responsible for the deaths of individual.

i totally resent that -- >> and it could have been -- >> and if anybody's lying here, senator, it is you. >> i'm joined now by dr. leana wen, former health commissioner for baltimore and a cnn medical amount. also the auth ort of the soon to be released "lifelines: a doctor's journey in the fight for public health" which is now available for preorder. dr. wen, can you just kind of decipher the argument in layman's terms that senator paul is making? >> i first want to just distinguish between gain of function and what is actually being discussed here. gain of function actually is a type of research that commonly occurs because we're talking about, for example, if you have bacterium that you're trying to make to digest plastics better. that's also gaining a new property, gaining a new function. in this case what we're referring to covid-19, the allegation here is senator paul is saying that somehow the nih provided funding to this lab in wuhan, which is true that the funding was provided.

but he's specifically alleging that the funding was to create a virus that is going to be more transmissible and more lethal. and actually led to covid-19. that somehow also leaked from the lab, whether intentionally or not, that then led to a global pandemic that's killed millions of people. so the implication actually by senator paul is something really nefarious and incredibly insulting to dr. fauci because it's saying that first dr. fauci is lying and that the actions that dr. fauci took directly led to millions of people around the world dying from covid-19. obviously, that's false. it's misleading. it's preposterous. and i can imagine why dr. fauci became so upset in that exchange. >> okay. so i mentioned that researchers at nyu found evidence that the delta and lambda variants may evade the single dose j&j vaccine, johnson & johnson. those who received the johnson & johnson vaccine might benefit from a booster dose to better protect them from the new variants. you were part of the johnson &

johnson two-dose trial. you received a placebo. how concerning is this news for you? how concerned should others be? >> i mean, i do think that it is concerning because there is contradictory evidence here. we had data coming out from johnson & johnson themselves saying that the vaccine, the one-dose vaccine is protective against the delta variant. now we have another study, not your peer reviewed but from a reputable group of researchers saying it may not be very effective. and so i think we're really operating in this gray zone here. we just don't have evidence saying that somebody who got the one-dose johnson & johnson vaccine should get a booster dose. we don't know really what happens, although scientific common sense tells us that the booster dose probably gives you better immunity. we just don't have the data to tell us. so i would say that we as clinicians are used to operating in that gray zone. so i would advise, for example, my patients who are elderly, who have chronic medical conditions or who have very high likelihood of exposure to covid-19, for example, if they live at home with an unvaccinated family

member who's not taking precautions i would recommend for those people if they got the one-dose johnson & johnson to get a booster with an mrna. one dose of either the pfizer or moderna now. however, for otherwise healthy individuals who don't have other risks they may want to weigh their own risks and benefit and see the unknown risk of getting the booster as perhaps not worth the benefit at this time. so i myself, for example, am not getting the booster even though i got the one-dose johnson & johnson. >> how can people get a second dose, a booster? can anybody just go to where they're giving vaccinations and ask for a booster? >> i think it depends on the state that you're in and the regulations of that state. i mean, right now all over the country we have far more vaccine than we have demand. so it's something that can be done and certainly for other individuals including people who got the two-dose, pfizer or moderna but are severely

immunocompromised. some of those individuals are also being recommended by their clinicians to get a third booster dose. again, i think we are operating in this gray zone where there aren't clear answers but patients should talk to their doctors about their specific clinical medical circumstance. >> all right. dr. wen, i appreciate your time. thank you. up next, we have more breaking news tonight. the federal government bringing a seven-count indictment against tom barrack, a one-time adviser of the former president. you may recognize him. he spoke at the convention, the first convention. he's on television a lot defending the former president. what the indictment alleges when we return.

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well, we have more breaking news tonight. tom barrack once an advisor to the former president is facing several charges tonight. federal crimes. he was chairman of the former president's inaugural committee and while some of the accusations he's facing concern the presidential transition the seven count indictment doesn't appear related to that role. cnn's paula reid joins us now. what more do we know about the allegations and charges? >> he's just the latest person in trump's inner circle it be

facing federal criminal charges. prosecutors allege he used his close ties to the trump campaign and then the trump white house to advance the interests of the uae. now lobbying on behalf of a foreign government in and of itself is not a crime. but prosecutors allege that he did not properly disclose that he was working on behalf of a foreign government, and then on top of that when the fbi asked him about it, he lied. and that is of course a felony. >> and is there any sense of how close barrack and the former president still are. he spoke in 2016. he was on tv early on he was on earlier in the administration explaining the president to reporters and to the public. i mean, you know, whether this indictment -- does it come as a huge surprise to those in the trump orbit, do we know? >> so for the past two years there have been reports that barrack was under investigation.

it doesn't appear they are close as they once were. while it should have setoff some red flags that he was lobbying so aggressively on behalf of the uae, in the context of trump world, during the trump campaign we have to remember there were a lot of top officials who were eventually investigated some pleaded guilty to working on behalf of foreign governments. manafort, mike flynn, rudy giuliani also investigated for possibly wokking on behalf of foreign countries. while you think this would setoff some alarms in the context of that world it appears it really did not. the prosecutors say it was actually the former president is the one who's truly betrayed here by barrack. >> and what is his lawyer saying? >> his spokesman released a statement saying he's been making himself voluntarily available to investigators from the beginning. they say he'll plead not guilty.

he has been ordered to remain behind bars until monday where they'll have another bail hearing. again, another person in the trump world in the federal criminal justice system. >> so they think he's a flight risk? >> there are concerns he is a flight risk. this is a guy who has extensive contacts, enormous network particularly in the middle east, all this work he's done. and he has almost unlimited financial resources. so there's absolutely a concern that he's a flight risk. i mean, the nature of these charges don't necessarily make you a threat to society or someone who should remain bars, but there is a concern he's a flight risk. and there's already at least one person in this case who's been accused of fleeing when they realized they were under scrutiny. >> paola reid, fascinating. now from ely honing, also the author of "hatchet man how bill barr broke the prosecutors code and corrupted the justice department." obstruction of justice, make false statements to authorities, illegal foreign lobbying -- i mean it's not surprising i guess

given what we've seen in trump world and the people around the former president, but tom barrack always set himself up as a legitimate person, kind of a go-between between the public and the president and sort of smoothing out some of the president's rough edges early on in his presidency. >> anderson, barrack is now facing a really serious array of charges that urpeers to be according to the indictment exceptionally supported by the evidence. he's charged with lobbying the u.s. government specifically the president directly on behalf of a foreign country, the uae without disclosing. making him a secret foreign agent. the reason that's a crime is because we've decided it's dangerous to have people lobbying our government on behalf of foreign countries when we don't know about it. on top of that he's charged with obstruction of justice. barrack is looking at really two different layers of legal problems.

>> and do we know how much -- i mean, what was he getting out of it? >> he was getting money presumably from the uae in order to represent them. and by not disclosing that he was working for this foreign country that's where he breaks the law. and the evidence here, anderson, is really strong. it includes, and the indictment lays out dozens of texts and e-mails sent by barrack and his codefendants to one another, and that can be really powerful evidence to prosecutors to prove their case. so barrack's in a tight spot now. >> given the charges allegedly relate to his status as a senior outside advisor would that have impacted the way the prosecutors went about putting this case together? i mean they surely knew it was going to get a lot of attention. and again we should say tom barrack's lawyers say he's not guilty. >> in theory it should make no difference. prosecutors should look at every case the same.

in reality prosecutors know who he is. they know he's a wealthy person, a powerful person who's charged here not just with dealing with the government but directly with president trump. so if i'm prosecuting this case i'm not ruling out these charges until i'm absolutely certain i have the evidence locked in, and the indictment does seem to support that. >> if you were someone involved in the trump inauguration how concerned would you be tom barack might one day give damaging information in exchange for some kind of leniency? >> i'd absolutely be worried iffiest in that position. tom barrack is 74 years old, the feds almost always get convictions. if you look at this indictment it's based on his own words, oftentimes e-mails and texts he sent. the only way, the best way he's going to be able to protect himself is by cooperating with the fed. and the way that works in the federal system is you have to

give up everybody you know, everything they've done wrong, and you have to be willing to testify about it. so other people around barrack have reason to be worried here. >> it is amazing the track record around the former president. a second hour of 360 just ahead. we'll talk more about that study on the johnson & johnson vaccine and what it means for those who received it with dr. sanjay gupta and an advisor on covid with president biden that joined the transition. the time is now. to stop talking.

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